Out There (24 page)

I sat and waited for him until I heard that deep voice, which was much more striking after being around women all day, sound from above me, “Hey there.”

My head snapped up and there he was, covered in dirt and standing on the branch of a tall tree, grinning. I had the strangest feeling in the pit of my stomach again, but I pushed it aside. “How did you get up there?” I asked in amazement.

“I climbed it.” He swung around the trunk and jumped down from branch to branch until he landed on the ground. “Would you like to try?”

“Try climbing? Oh no, I think I'll stick to the ground.”

“Come on,” he said as he walked over to me, “it's amazing.”

I sighed, “Fine, teach me to climb, forest boy.”

He grinned from ear to ear. “Here, this way.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me over to a tree. “I'll lift you, then you grab that branch, see that one there,” he said and pointed to one.

“Yeah.”

“Well, grab that, then use it to pull yourself up and put your feet on that branch,” he said, pointing at a lower one. “Then stand there and I'll come and get you, OK?”

“OK,” I replied. I could feel my hands shaking slightly.

“Don't be nervous, I'll catch you if you fall,” he said reassuringly and placed his hands on my waist to hoist me up.

“Fall?”

He lifted me into the air and I was so caught off guard that I almost missed the branch I had to catch. Thankfully, my reflexes kicked in and my hand gripped at the rough bark. With as much force as I could muster, I pulled myself up until my feet reached the lower branch and I stood there waiting. “Derron I did it!” I exclaimed excitedly and looked down, but he was gone. “Derron?”

“Right here.” He appeared right beside me and I almost fell off.

“Hold on there. Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you,” he said and steadied me on the little branch.

“Don't you know that it's rude to sneak up on people like that?” I teased.

He laughed. “Come on.”

Derron guided me up the rest of the tree, making sure I put my foot in the right place and my hands on the right branch. He also caught me all of the three times I almost fell off. Eventually we reached the top and every stumble was suddenly worth it.

“This is amazing!” I exclaimed.

“Isn't it just?”

The view was even better than on top of the hill because we were above the treetops and could see everything. The colours just danced across the landscape – I had never seen anything more alive before. There were spires poking out here and there, most likely ruins, and I could see a thin bubble in the middle of the forest. It was hard to make out, because it was camouflaged as more forest from the outside, but I could still see my little city and it was much closer than I had thought. I cried out in delight because I knew no one could hear me, and I just let the wind rush right through me.

I would have stayed forever if Derron had not suggested that we go back to the Village. So we climbed back down and made our way there.

“Hey, Ava's back!” one of them yelled and suddenly I was surrounded by them.

“Hi, Ava.”

“We missed you.”

“Want to help us clean up the fires?”

“Move out of the way, I want to talk to her.”

“No, I'm talking to her.”

“Welcome back, Ava.” I looked up to see Cain emerge from the group. “Give her some space, boys.”

“How come you always call the shots, Cain?” said one of them.

He raised his eyebrows and they all darted off.

“So, Derron, how about we take Ava hunting with us today?”

“If she wants – do you?” he asked me.

“What do you hunt for?”

“Food, but we don't have to take you animal hunting, the others can do that.”

I thought for a moment before answering, “Sure.”

“Great,” said Cain and turned to the others. “Boys, we're going hunting.”

They whooped and all ran over to the wooden box to get things out.

“Here, this way,” said Derron. He led me over to the box and grabbed a sack and a net.

The seven of us headed into the thick forest, the boys were all yelling and cheering and jumping from tree to tree. Soon they all stopped and split up. Some went over and began to chop down trees for wood, others went out to get animals, and Derron led me over to a bush.

“This is where we get the berries. These ones are good,” he said, pointing at one bush. “These are bad,” he said and pointed at another.

“How can you tell the difference?”

“We have been out here for almost seventeen years now,” he said as he reached over and began collecting.

“That's impressive though,” I replied and plucked some of the berries too.

“What can I say? It's a gift,” he said, winking at me.

We gathered all the berries together and filled almost the entire sack with them. It occurred to me that they had to fight for their food, competing with animals too, whereas mine was handed to me, most times in the form of cake. The Council had made it so city robots would go outside the Bubble and farm for us, then bring crops back and prepare them to be sold. I once thought it seemed like the only way to do it, but I soon figured that some people didn't even have the option.

“Let's move down to the river,” Cain announced and everyone gathered their things and followed him further into the trees.

“River?” I turned to Derron.

“You'll see,” he said and led me where the others went until we were all standing above a giant pool of water.

“This is… it's… it's…” I said in amazement

“I'm guessing you've never seen a river before.”

“No.”

It was a flowing ribbon of water, the most beautiful colour blue, and it wound through the grass, splashing as it hit against the rocks.

“This is where we fish,” Derron explained.

“Fish?”

“You know, the little animal that lives in the water, you can eat it.”

“You eat the animals?”

“Otherwise we'd die.”

“Oh… can you show me?”

“My pleasure,” he said and turned to one of the boys to borrow his spear. “First you need to roll up your trousers so they don't get wet.” He reached over and rolled up the right leg of my trousers, tickling my skin as he did so. I giggled and he looked up at me and smiled with those gorgeous eyes. I bit my lip and tried not to get lost in them forever. Then, as he went to lift my left leg, he purposely tickled just above my ankle and I laughed and tried to brush him off. “Stop it! That tickles!”

Eventually he stopped, stood, and handed me the spear off the ground. “Now we wade in the water and try and spear the fish as they come by.”

“Piece of cake.”

We began to walk into the river and I was shocked that it only came up to my ankles. The cool water tickled my toes as we waited for the fish to swim by.

“There they are.”

I looked down and saw the strangest creatures drifting in the water. They were all slimy and scaly with no arms or legs. I jumped and asked, “Will they hurt me?”

“No, they're safe, now spear them.”

I threw my spear in the water, but it landed in the dirt and the fish all drifted away.

“You do know that the best way to catch them is with the sharp side pointing at them, right?” said Derron and pointed at the end of my spear. It was backwards.

I flipped it round. “I was just practising.”

“Of course you were.”

After another couple of misses, it became apparent that practice time was over. Derron was laughing at my failed attempts.

“This is no laughing matter.”

“How about we move to a different spot?”

The two of us waded back to the edge and walked along the river to a spot above deeper water and held the net in the waves to trap the fish.

“Here, you try,” said Derron and handed me the net.

I reached over to throw the net in, but lost my footing and felt the ground give way beneath me. I tumbled into the river and entered with a splash. The water swallowed me down and it was a surprisingly refreshing feeling. Except it was so cold that my body froze for a second, paralysed by it.

I could hear the boys laughing from above me, but soon they stopped.

“Where'd she go?”

“Why hasn't she come back up?”

My head was screaming at my body to move but I couldn't feel anything. I struggled to move my numb body until I finally forced my hands free and managed to get my legs to kick as I propelled myself up out of the water and emerged, taking in a huge breath. The boys cheered and I smiled at them, shivering as I gave a little wave. But of course I forgot that I didn't know how to swim. I was having trouble staying above water, and kept dipping under, then back up, then under again. I thrashed my arms about and tried to use my legs to push me upwards, but I kept sinking back down.

Then there was a splash next to me and I felt two arms grab my shoulders and pull me back towards the edge. They flung me on to the side and I suddenly felt terribly cold, shaking all over as the air pricked me like tiny needles. I saw Derron's face above me, rubbing my arms to keep me warm. “Hang in there, Ava,” he said and lifted me up and wrapped his arms around my frozen body. He breathed warm air on my neck as his body slowly thawed mine.

There was still the sound of cheering around me, but I felt so tired I couldn't move.

“Well done, Ava!”

“Nice swimming there.”

Many more faces appeared around me looking down.

“And congratulations on your first fish catch,” Owen said.

“What fish catch?” I winced.

He extracted a slimy little thing from my trouser leg and held it in the air. Everyone laughed including me, even though I was surprised where my energy to laugh came from.

“Here, let's get you back to the Village before you freeze,” Derron said as he lifted me up and carried me all the way back.

When we reached the Village, someone gave me a piece of cloth to wear while my clothes dried, and Derron and I went and sat on the hill.

“Where did you get all this cloth?”

“Kevin is really good at weaving it. He gathers it from some plant or other.”

“Well, thank you.”

“Don't thank me, thank Kevin.”

“No, I meant for the river, I forgot to mention that I've never swum before.”

“Yeah, well, there's not much you can do about that!”

“I've never really known more than I've been taught. That applies for other things than swimming.”

“I know what you mean. Sometimes I wonder what there is out there that no one ever told me.”

“That's partly why I came out here in the first place, to see if there was something more.”

“Maybe I should do the same thing.”

“Maybe.”

“I like seeing you, Ava, you're different.”

“That's what Katelyn always said. And I like seeing you too,” I said and looked up into his caring eyes.

“Hopefully we'll see more of each other then.”

I thought about my upcoming surgery and sitting in the Centre for nine months straight. “Yeah… I hope so.”

Chapter Twelve

Ava, A Few Weeks Later

After that, I saw Derron almost every day after school. Well, not almost, I was pretty sure I saw him every single afternoon following our meeting. He showed me his home and asked to see mine. It broke my heart that I couldn't ever take him to my house or to my favourite places to hang out. So I pushed all of that aside and tried to enjoy the times we spent outside of my world.

I liked spending time with him for many reasons, mainly because he was fun and caring and eager to share his thoughts with me. But over time I realised more and more that he just reminded me so vividly of Katelyn that it was like she was still there. Sometimes I would catch him laughing and it was like I was listening to her, except her voice wasn't as deep. Or he would say something and I would gasp because it was such a Katelyn thing to say. But more than that, he listened like she did to every single word I was saying with such intense understanding. And the best part of it all was that it didn't make me miss her too much or mourn her more, it only made her come back to life.

Of course Derron was most certainly not Katelyn. We connected on levels that Katelyn and I never did. We always found the same things funny, like Owen slipping face first into the mud or how only one certain plant would make me sneeze uncontrollably. The two of us would always reach the same conclusion at the same time. Like when Cain would ask what we felt like doing that afternoon, we would both instantly agree on one thing or the other. Sometimes he would do something that I would find absurd and he would just laugh when I told him he looked ridiculous. And not like an
I was insane
kind of laugh; like a
we were from such different worlds yet we still seemed to fit like a hand in a glove
laugh. And he made me feel special. Like whatever I said made perfect sense, and I could do no wrong.

“You know you're beautiful, right?” he once asked me on the hill.

I turned to him in surprise. “I'm what?”

“The most beautiful person I know,” he said and reached over and tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear. “Because there's not a moment that goes by when you don't fail to amaze me.”

“And that makes me beautiful – how?”

“Beautiful inside and out… get more beautiful and Owen might get jealous.”

I laughed and asked, “Derron, why didn't I meet you sooner?”

I also spent some time with the rest of the boys and it shocked me that they were nothing at all like what I had been taught. I wondered if it was because they were younger than the ones that destroyed the planet, or because they had grown up away from bad influences, or because there were fewer of them. I so badly wanted to ask Mother, but that would have been the end of my late afternoon forest gatherings for sure.