Mily the Millennial

CLOCKWISE

~ FIRST DRAFT ~ THIS TEXT IS UNDER REVISION!

"Is it true that your dad didn't even get a degree?" Hilarity asked after their first day of school.

"Oh here we go," E piped up before Mily had a chance to open her mouth. She bit her tongue instead, but oh, she would have liked to bite off Hilarity's head right about then.

"What? I'm not allowed to ask?"

"There's no reason to ask if you already know," Will said. Hilarity jumped—she hadn't seen Will standing in the alcove shadow; the lamp above it had gone out. She thought about the lamp in the classroom, more orange than the sort she was used to seeing. It reminded her of the brass eagle-claw lamps at Nanny Bird's, the way it burned. A lot of lights went out since Mily had been paying attention.

Hilarity lit up just like they had during Independent Study. "It's just." She looked right at Mily, and it was clear her new classmate was being sincere. "Your father's a Bower."

Like the towers? Mily felt dumb. She didn't understand what Hilarity was talking about but didn't want to admit it, so she just shrugged with a face that said, 'Well when you put it like that.'

That's what I was trying to say. Uncle Dog's got power!

What does that have to do with the towers?

"My dad's had a lot of responsibility his whole life," Will said, taking his sister's shrug and bemused expression as a queue to defend their father's honor for the two of them. "He's a Bower now, but he and my uncle always say all Yoders are Jacks at heart."

"Imagine that..." Hilarity stuck Mily with her sincerity again, "Jack Mily Junegrass!"

"Don't call me that!" she piped back. Who was she to just start throwing around her middle name?

Esa stood with her feet planted too far apart and her arms crossed, just like her dad always did. "If any of us is going to be a Jack someday, it'll be Mily."

"Well I'll probably need a degree to do it because I'm not Dad," Mily said, strengthened by her cousin's kindness. She didn't have any dreams of becoming a Queen. Nanny Bird was a Queen, and Mily knew that her mother would be a Queen soon because everybody they knew said that she would.

"That's exactly what I'm saying!" Hilarity exclaimed. "It's impressive!"

Mily crossed her arms like Esa. She still didn't know what being a Bower meant, but it was clear to her then that Hilarity, Just like everybody else, thought that all spades were stupid. "Our dad grew half the grass in Diana! Lots of people tried but all their grass died! He's the best in the business!"

"Yess," Hilarity said slowly, sounding putoff. "It's lucky we have someone like your dad for a Bower. That's what my mom says, because of Imerica's environment."

"The environment would be fine if the Diamonds hadn't dug everything up in the first place," Lespedeza Reed-Wright with his hands in the front pocket of his hoodie, stepping into the hallway. Lespedeza—Deeza, Mily remembered—said his whole family was Clubs.

"Everyone wanted what was down there, though," E said seriously. "Mom said that without fossil fuels, they never would have gone anywhere. She said practically everybody used to have a car—you couldn't even get to work, to church! without your own car. They knew it was bad for the environment, but they didn't know like how bad it was. It's called 'inherented' I think."

A crinkle-eyed exchange glimpse between Hilarity and Deeza when E had let on that his parents didn't own a car wasn't missed on Mily. Uncle Earnst and Aunt Elae had moved north with their family when Dog got a job as a Jack up in Duneland. Even though Dog was younger, he tended to end up as Earnst's boss. But Earnst had been Captain of every crew he'd been on since he became a Ten—which was a lot longer than her father had been a Jack. They made good partners. Mily wondered what Hilarity's and Deeza's cars looked like.