Per Square Mile

What's Wrong

I could recognize him anywhere with his ambitious face and greasy hair. When his eyes dart up tired and annoyed by the amount of people he had to watch. When I first walk in I stopped in my tracks, confused at why he was here, usually he doesen't judge because he has more important things to do.

"Alright girly, who are you?" He asked tierdly.

"Hello" I said trying my best to impress him, instead screaming for help like I was in the inside. "My name is Danelle, and I'm number..."

"No need, what is your occupation."

"Meteorologist." I said not sure if I should feel insulted or pleased he didn't want to know my number. As soon as I said this he seemed wide awake.

"Okay, you are the only one" he said, looking through the papers. I didn't process it, but my body did, and I started to shake slightly. My mom, was she gone? No, she couldn't be. Maybe she just switched jobs, yes that was it. She had always talked about being a doctor. I tried to be still, but Joesph West noticed how much I was shaking.

"Whats wrong?" he asked, his cold voice giving me shivers, but only to be responded by a false smile.

"Nothing" I waited for him to take out a picture from the cabinets of files behind him, but instead he opened thick curtains that I didn't notice. I tried to hide all signs of sadness and put the current task first.

"What can you tell when you look outside?"

"Well, currently the temperature is 32 degrees. The cloud cover is 25%, and the relative humidity is 10%."

"Tell me whats wrong with it." This question seemed simple and my need to impress him suddenly seemed pointless. It seemed wrong to not tell him all the faults.

"Well, you can see thick puffy dark clouds, but its a Continental Polar air mass, which is dry, so it shouldn't be raining, its pretty obvious actually. It doesn't really take a meteorologist to figure that out." I was not afraid to tell him what was wrong.

"According to other judges you are spectacular Dani, and I will take their word. Now Danelle, a meterologist is a very important job, and currently I need one. So we are offering you number 50." I hardly recognized the words that kept flying out of his mouth, but when I did, it hit me less hard. All my emotions got rattled and were battling each other in my mind. I smiled and acted happy, because I should be, but this man allowed my mom to be killed. I knew I should have been sad, but I felt like I would be able to hear the birds better on square mile one. I didn't know what feeling I should welcome, so I forced myself to say thank you and walked out.

Each step I took on my way back to the house made me feel more and more like I was in a different city. There was a fire of joy inside me, but the sadness of my loss, kept it well under control. Vanille was waiting for me back in the small dorm room, filled with people who were worried to see how they did.

"Hey Dani, how'd you do?" She asked with a sweet innocence in her voice that made me wish she was chosen to be number 50. I sat down on the firm floor with a smile. "Well, how'd you do? Did you see it was Number One who was judging us. I was so terrified, but I didn't stumble, I actually think I did well!"

"That's amazing Vanille, Well, I didn't really get to impress him, but you won't believe what Joesph told me" She starred with such wide excited eyes, but my imagination covered her expressions like a blanket. All I could see was her face pretanding to be happy, but jealousy was a fire lighting up inside her. It wasn't something I could just leave out though. "Well, he told me I was the only climate change analyst."

All the exitment drained from her eyes into sorrow, which I wasn't sure what to think of. "I'm so sorry Dani," Vanille whispered which made it hard to pick up through all the people screaming and shouting, because they were done and matters were out of thier hands.

"But, thats not all." I wait. " He told me that my job was important and there were flaws in the sky. Which I must say is surprising to hear from him." I didn't know the right words to say. "Than... he said they needed help to fix them, and he invited me to square mile one."

At first her face was confused, but a smile started growing at a rapid pace. "One? That's amazing!" I smiled back, glad she was happy for me." You could come visit me from there, they let people from that square mile do that. In fact they can do almost anything. You have to come visit me."

"I will, I will!" Than I gave her a big hug and tears of joy start to fall.