┍━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━┑ two: what lurks beyond ┕━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━┙
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━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━
THE NEW GREENIE'S name turned out to be Zart. Much to their amusement, various boys had taken to calling him Zart the Fart. He'd seemed to gravitate toward those working with the crops and plants, and considering Valerie didn't want to be around a group of boys breaking out into laugher at random intervals of the day — after whispering "Zart the Fart," of course — she'd stuck to her usual post with Gally and his crew of builders. Getting to spend time with Marty outweighed their boss' dreadful personality, especially on the days Nick and Alby officially put him in charge.
It was one of those workdays — Gally bossing everyone around, boys practically smashing their pinkies in, Valerie and Marty once again regretting their stupid choice to work there — when the former noticed something strange coming from the northwest corner of the Glade.
Construction on the Homestead was nowhere near completion, so the supply of planks that they'd been provided with rested against the stone wall in that corner. Considering part of their job was to carry planks from that corner of the Deadheads to Gally, there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for a ruckus coming from that section of the Glade.
"I know, Alby, I'll keep everyone away from whatever little meeting you higher-ups are havin' over there," Valerie heard Gally say, with particular distaste, as she approached him to declare that she'd finished her latest task. Alby was sprinting away from them, and the boys that had been working on the back corner of the Homestead retreated to the front, carrying all their supplies with them, and were given new tasks by Gally. Strange...
"You gonna say something, girl, or do I need to give you an easier task?" Gally asked quite rudely, a few of his cronies reacting to it as if it were the funniest thing they'd heard all week.
Valerie allowed her attention to leave Alby's back just before she could see which direction he was headed towards. "Uh, yes. I'm finished with your latest task." But before Gally could respond with her next boring assignment, she ventured, "And — what's got Alby so worked up? Everything okay?"
