ASUNDER (I) : tmr newt

07: I'm Determined

7 Michelle

"So, the gathering can be officially called to an opening."

For the first time, I sit before a circle of boys, all with smug looks and straight backs. They think they are all high and mighty, and the toughest around. Especially that tomato-faced boy, who won't make eye-contact with me as I stare him down.

When he looks over, I watch his hand flinch up to the deep purple flesh on his eye. I can't help but smirk. Didn't think my elbow would hit him so hard when he tackled me, but it's still bruised a day later.

Good.

"So normally," the one who acts like the toughest of them all begins, "we let the Greenie go around everywhere and then we pick where they go, but that doesn't seem like an option with these many Greenies in these circumstances. Any objections?"

"These circumstances?" Dawn mutters through her teeth, before the leader glares at her.

"Slim it."

The only sound is the creaking of boys in their seats, and their eyes shifting away from us. They put us all at one end of the circle, with the funny talker on the left, the brunette next to me, me in the middle, and the pipsqueak on the very edge.

"Alright, that's settled then." He sighs, looking back down the aisle at us. "We'll let them pick their placements, if that's alright."

"No," the tomato-face says. "I object to that."

"Of course you do."

"Slim it Minho. You shouldn't even be here. You aren't going to get saddled with any of them."

"I'm a Keeper just like you Gally."

"Saddled?" I lean forward in my chair. "I am not a horse."

"Slim it." Their leader repeats. I know his name, I've heard it before, but I don't particularly care to remember it. "Gally, if you end up with one of the girls, which I highly doubt anyway, you'll only have to keep them for a week trial."

"I don't want to get one either." Another boy pipes in. "No sissy girl is going to be able to handle the job of a Bagger."

"Then you'll be happy when no one chooses to work for you, right?" The leader asks. "Listen, I bet none of you here actually want one of these shanks in your group, right? Which is fair, and fine, and what not, but somebody has got to do it. Things have suddenly changed around here. ."

"We could make them their own group." Someone suggests. "Put them in charge of it."

"What would we have them do?" The funny-talking boy asks. "And who would be there keeper? We're a team."

"I don't get all this yappin'." The one who yelled at the Tomato-face sighs. "Sure, you don't want a girl in your midst, big whoop. There's already a girl in the Glade, four of them. Shanks better get used to it sooner or later, or we will be in a lot deeper klunk then we already are."

"Good that." Someone else seconds. "I wouldn't mind another hand in the kitchen. Aren't y'all always complainin' about too much work without enough help?"

"I can handle myself." The tomato-face shrugs.

"And your eye proves it," I sneer.

"Enough," the leader stands up, and all the whispering stops.

He really does own the area. Everyone seems to respect him, even if some don't seem like they want to. He doesn't seem older than any of them, and as far as I can tell he isn't in charge of anything except all of them, and I wonder how he proved himself their leader.