Academy Island

Sort

North's grumble reverberated in my own stomach as he stomped to the doctor's hut with me still slung over his shoulder. Pepper stung at my nose when he ducked in with me through the already open door. We both sneezed. Baskets were overturned everywhere inside. He tapped one aside with his toe, revealing small three-toed tracks in the dust underneath. Through my burning eyes I noticed a broken jar in the corner, dozens of tiny round balls scattered everywhere.

Uh oh.

North swung me so quickly that my head spun, and we were outside again in the fresh air. It was all I could do to hang on to the lug, both sides of his dark tank top tight in my fists so I could tether myself to his waist. He began speaking to the men and I cringed, knowing that the only part of me that was facing them was my butt.

"They got in the doc's hut. Everyone keep an eye out for escapees."

I heard Punky's sharp intake of breath and twisted enough to see that he had risen to one foot, the other kept high and tight against his knee as he cast panicked glances in every direction around himself. The others reactions weren't so high on the drama meter, but they all still looked uncomfortably wary. I wasn't feeling much better. Even hanging with my head upside down I could still catch that a long, vein bloated lizard had scampered out of the doctor's open door to go hide under an upturned box's shadow, it's snaky tongue flicking out as if mocking us all.

****

The rest of the day was spent cleaning up, both the camp and my feet that I'd abused again. It was strange to receive a scolding for hurting myself as if my feet weren't my own, stranger still to feel so light about it afterwards. Usually when I was scolded by my mother I had been more inwardly resentful or mollifying. Neither seemed to make an appearance in my attitude when the doctor was the one doing the reprimanding.

I wondered if it had to do anything with the smile he'd given me afterward. He'd looked genuinely happy. Perhaps it was just his usual outlook, and had nothing to do with me. I didn't know.

I shook off the thought as I sorted through the pile of scattered nuts and tiny round roots I'd been put in charge of before all the men had suddenly disappeared, having being sat gently down by Luke and Punky to the side of a clay sun dried chimney that only whispered an occasional trail out it's tall stack to let me know it was presently lit. Hints of hot charcoal popped inside, marking the end of the fire's life and making me wonder if I was supposed to be rekindling it somehow since I was placed near it to work. I leaned forward on my knees and crept up further so I could look in it's mouth, hot fumes meeting my face. Painful. I backed up a little and cast my eyes around for the location of the wood pile I'd need to grab fuel from.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing?"

Footsteps marched up and an armful of wood was thrown down just before the mouth of the chimney. I sat back up on my knees and stared up at the tall booted dark one, North. He bent down and gave me a furtive glance just as he was reaching for a portion of his discarded pile and began shoving it in the chimney opening hurriedly, his brow crinkled unhappily.

"You shouldn't be going too close to this, you'll get burned."

Shouldn't walk. Shouldn't attend the fire. I huffed and returned to my sorting. Just because I wasn't overly familiar with fire didn't mean I would let myself get carelessly singed.

We each worked on our tasks silently, our actions both annoyed, peevish. He sat back up on his heels, skewed his mouth to one side as he watched my hands move back and forth between my pile and the two bins I was separating into.

"What has Gabe got you working on, sorting? Here, let me help."

I glared at him as he reached for a handful, but it had no effect on his actions. He began flicking light and dark into their respective bins with the back of his thumb. His eyes glared dark at the lessening pile, getting more furrowed the longer he stayed there with me. He didn't have to stay if he didn't want to. I was perfectly capable of sorting the entire pile on my own. He sighed after a while, his own discomfiture with the silence showing itself.

"I'm sorry."

My hands paused over the top of my work, then hurried, wishing I knew more about how to talk to people. I didn't even know what he was apologizing for, so all I managed to murmur was "It's fine.", hoping I didn't look as out of it and stupid as I felt. He looked down at the pile, watching my hands and making me self conscious.

"You're not fine at all."

I threw another nut into it's pile a little too hard for the nonchalance I was aiming for, trying to distract myself from his close attention. It was making my hands shake. "What makes you think that?"

"Because ever since I got here you haven't been paying attention to what you're doing."

I took a dreaded glance towards my bins and my cheeks heated in a way that had nothing to do with the rising glow from the chimney. My nice, uniform piles had a dumping of the wrong color and texture on top of them both. He grasped at the top of one, tipping it so he could look in better. A rain of mistakes shifted, mixing the lot together even more. I grabbed the one he wasn't inspecting and began scooping handfuls back out on top of the unsorted pile, tears beginning to rim. I'd have to redo all of this. His hand shot out, covering the top of my fistful.

"Wait. Pick out the ones that are wrong and just put them in this bin. I'll do the same with this one. It'll go quicker that way."

He situated himself and the bins so we were facing each other and began throwing the misplaced into the right bin. He worked quickly, methodically. He knew what he was doing, had had many months to settle into the day to day grind of surviving. If I was going to learn anything from him, from any of them, then I would have to learn to act somewhat normally and try to get along.

I had to find some way to break the tension. So I threw a nut at his head.

The satisfaction from seeing him lift his hand up to his forehead in confusion made my mouth twitch, fighting a rogue grin.

"That's for dumping me out of bed."

His brow furrowed, scary, a warning in the set of his eyes. I threw another, skitting it right off his nose.

"And that's for chasing me with a rifle full of salt shot."

He slowly gathered another small handful from his own pile, his eyes still on me, waiting. I'd already started pushing buttons and was finding it much too fun to stop though, so I threw another.

"And that's for..."

A tiny root bounced off of my own forehead, making me rub at the tiny welt. He smirked at me, another set to fly off his thumb.

"That's for not listening and making the whole camp have to haul ass after yours."

I didn't have but half a second before he had bounced another one off the tip of my nose. His eyes had sparked mischievous, friendly and baiting.

"And that's for waiting until I was nearly sitting on top of you before you spoke up."

My mouth popped open. He had been so noisy, how could he just sit there, claiming that had been my fault? I grabbed at two handfuls, intending to pelt him with as much as I could throw. Two dark hands closed over my wrists and a laugh, low dry and rumbling, took over all my thoughts.

"Hey. That's cheating."

I was too shocked by the laughter to resist. His brow had unfurrowed, a light smile playing over his lips now that I had fallen for the ruse. He wasn't so scary looking when he wasn't busy being angry or annoyed. Or aiming. I let my handful go and pulled my hand from his grasp, looking away and going back to the job in front of me. He sat back on his heels, grunting happily when he saw I wasn't going to pelt him anymore, joining back in with his eye half on me and half on the work.

"We were worried, you know. Don't run off again, okay?"

I huffed and began sorting again, keeping my eyes away from his face. I wasn't going to promise anything I didn't mean. Besides, he hardly knew me. My presence in an already working system didn't matter.

Didn't it?