Jane Crow

The Books

James gave us all books. The first book I had a was on different types of music. I had no idea there were so many types of music! The only one I knew of was called classical apparently. The most interesting one was metal. The only metal I knew of was the kind they put in my legs to make me exactly 5 feet 7 inches tall, like everyone else. James put some music on for us, I didn't like the way metal sounded. It sounded angry, and hard. I like classical, calm and pretty. But punk was interesting. It was like a cross between metal and something called pop. I liked it. The words had meaning. James played a few bands.

"Okay this is a band called All Time Low" he said as he put a CD in. I liked them. But I like Pierce the Veil a little more. But both bands seemed deeply troubled. I didn't understand. Shane enjoyed the pop more and Max liked it all. The next book I read was on mental disorders. Where we're going some people had problems with their brains. I don't understand why their government couldn't just fix it like our could. People with something called depression were always sad, some even murdered themselves. Other just hurt themselves.

"James?" I said.

"Mhm?"

"Why doesn't the government just fix these people? Make them happy?" I asked.

Max scoffed. "Because they're free." He said bitterly.

"Max" James warned. "Because the government where we're going isn't as advanced in that field of technology. They also have laws to protect them from government control. Unlike us."

"Oh..."

After I finished my book on mental illness and medications I realized that what my mother took in the morning for her IQ was almost the same as what people take to make them focus. Except they called it ADHD attention deficit hyper disorder. All the government could do to help people was give them more and more pills, it didn't seem right.

"James where are we going?" Shane asked.

"Canada. I already told you this."

"No, like where in Canada?"

"Alberta. Calgary to be exact."

"Will people know where we're from? 'Cause in this book about the world I can't find anything about where we're from..."

"No. Nobody knows about our place. It's a very long story, all you need to know for when people ask you is we are from Seattle, Washington. That's a place in the United States. When we get closer to the border I will give you guys fake birth certificates and passports. Now keep reading. You guys need to know as much as possible about this new society."

We went back to reading. This society seemed... unorganized. It seemed like it would be hard to live in a world like that; where everyone is different. Some are tall and skinny, other short and fat. Strong, weak, pretty, ugly. Some were smarter at math, others at sciences.

"Why don't you guys get to know each other?" James said after about six hours on the road.

Max went first. "I'm Max Daily. I'm 18,

I'm 5 foot 7."

"Everyone 5"7 you idiot." Shane said.

James just shook his head. "I meant like your likes and dislikes."

This time I spoke up. "I'm Jane. I like to bake. And I really like the punk type of music."

"It's called a genre." Shane rolled his eyes. "Didn't you read?"

Boy he was mean. I think I understand why our government put the controls in place. This new society is gonna be hard to get used to if everyone is like this.

"Be nice man come on." Max said. "Not all of us have been plotting against the government for our whole lives."

"Okay. I'm just gonna tell you guys to read if you can't get along."