RUN

A Helping Hand

I awoke to the sound of a loud bell ringing. The first beams of light shined through the dusty windows of our little home. Adam jumped up and ran into the wall. He fell backwards and groaned in pain.

"What is the matter with you?" I asked, laughing.

"Back at camp they used to ring the wake up bell. If you were late you missed breakfast." He said.

    I could clearly remember that awful bell. It seemed like so long since the terrible sound pulled me from the safety of my sleep. I helped Adam up. Ethann stubbornly crawled out of bed. On the dresser, was a bucket of water, and some new clothes. We washed and changed quickly. I realized I hadn't checked my schedule yet. I found the piece of paper crumpled under my bed. It read;

This schedule is not activated until tomorrow morning. Your housing is yours. You must pay rent by your service to the town. Meals are served in the old Cafés. Wake up is 7:30am and curfew is 11:00pm. No straying farther from the city than two blocks. Thank-you.

On the next page was my work schedule.
7:30am-10:00am: Wake up, breakfast, and get ready for the day.
10:00am-11:00am: Cleaning in the houses. Tools are provided. 12:00pm-1:00pm: Lunch.
1:00pm-3:00pm: Farming.
3:00pm-4:00pm: Free time.
4:00pm-5:00pm: Get ready for supper.
5:00pm-6:00pm: Supper
6:00pm-8:00pm: Night watch tower.
8:00pm-9:00pm: Get ready for bed.
9:00pm-10:00pm- Be in bed.
11:00pm: Curfew.

I hadn't had a schedule like this since camp. Except the labour was harder and food was less. This place was so organized it gave me strange feeling. There was a small map of the town on the back. We then headed to the Café just across the cobblestone street from us. The streets were narrow and busy. Many carts of food supplies rolled pass. There was no space left inside the cafe so we sat on the curb. For breakfast, it was water, eggs, bread and butter, ham and potatoes. It was the most delicious thing I'd had in years. After days of eating dried, flavourless food, this was a feast. Ethann and Adam enjoyed it just as much. After breakfast, We were all headed to different places. Ethann was fixing boats and Adam was making lunch.

I followed the map to the cleaning building. It was just on the next street over. The building was an old antique store. There was about ten other boys already there. Some from fourteen to eighteen. A few more joined us before Pierre came.

"We have a few new arrivals so i'm just gonna do a quick intro. I'm Pierre, I run the cleaning sector. You guys are group one. Everyday, you will tidy up the houses and sometimes deliver a few things. It isn't hard. Any questions i'll be around." He said, gesturing towards the shelf of tools.

He then quickly walked off down the street. I grabbed a basket of tools and a bucket of water like the others. Inside, was a duster, a rag, and a sponge. I wasn't really looking forward to this.

I walked into the first house. It was an apartment so the interior was much nicer than our house. A boy was just setting out the laundry. He nodded to me and scurried out. Luckily, I only had to clean one room. The other rooms were being used for something else. I picked up pretty quickly. If the door was closed you didn't go in. If something needed to be cleaned you lay it in the middle of the room. I clean the floors and dusted the furniture. I made the beds and washed the windows. Pierre was right. It wasn't so hard.

I did about a dozen more houses before lunch. By then, I was exhausted and starving. I met Ethann and Adam at the same Café. Adam enjoyed baking cause he got to keep the burnt loaves of bread. Ethann didn't mind fixing the boats. They were only small ones that could float down la Seine. After a filling lunch of potatoes and some sort of meat, I headed off to farm.