Lauren Nicolle Taylor - The Woodlands Series Boxed Set

BY: LAUREN NICOLLE TAYLOR

CLEAN TEEN PUBLISHING, INC.

THIS book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the authors' imagination or are used factiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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The Woodlands Boxed Set

Copyright 2017 Lauren Nicolle Taylor

All rights reserved.

Cover Design by: Marya Heidel

Typography by: Courtney Knight

Editing by: Cynthia Shepp

W hen I was eight years old, I got the distinct and unsettling impression I was unsuited to life in Pau Brazil. That my life would go off like the single firework on Signing Day. A brilliant burst of shimmering color and noise that exploded in the sky momentarily, then disappeared into the black night air.

A slip of yellow paper shot under the door in the evening, spinning across the floor like a flat top and colliding with my fathers foot. It was an official notice informing everyone that Superior Grant was visiting in three days time. He had a special announcement to make.

Citizens scrambled to make their lawns more perfect than they were before. Uniforms were pressed and cleaned. All the children were expected to line up around the edges of the center Ring and await the great man himself.

I was excited, but my excitement had an edge of terror to itthis was a Superior. My father warned me to not get my hopes up.

Hes just a man, like the rest of us, my father said as he knelt down to adjust my oversized uniform and tighten my ribbon.

My mother tsked and fussed around in the kitchen. Pelo, dont say things like that to her. I dont want you filling her head with your ridiculous ideas.

His eyes darted to her for a second but then he locked on me. Ideas are never ridiculous. Ideas are just that, ideas. Putting them into practice now thats when things get ridiculous, he smirked.

I drew my eyebrows together, confused. He patted my head and took my hand. Cmon, lets get this farcical procession over with.

Pelo! My mothers angry foot stomp clacked on the tiles.

He put his hands up in the air in surrender. All right, all right. Ill behave, he said, and then he winked at me. I beamed up at him. He was a shiny hurricane and I was happy to be swept away.

They were going to choose a child to come forward and ask Grant a question. Our nervous teachers had given each student a card with an innocuous question on it. I looked down at the printed piece of yellow cardboard. Mine said, Superior Grant, how does it feel to be the descendant of the brilliant founder of the Woodlands? I frowned. I knew that Grant was descended from President Grant of the United States of Something or Other. We learned that at school. We were also taught that Grant was the initiator of the treaty; he orchestrated the signing in the last days of the Race War and negotiated peace. But this question was boring and I was sure no one would care about the answer. I would much rather have asked him what kind of food Superiors got to eat. Were they stuck with the hundred-year-old canned foods we were? The globs of vegetable that came out in one solid, gelatinous lump, identifiable only by their difference in color, as most of the labels had peeled off years ago. Green could be, but was not reserved exclusively, for peas. Orange for carrots, or maybe pumpkin. It goes onan exciting Woodlands guessing game for ages four and up.

In my mind the Superiors must have been super-people. Beautiful, tall, and powerful.

I could barely contain my disappointment when Superior Grant stepped out of the helicopter. He was regular sized and a little overweight. He was handsome, but not like my father. It was the kind of handsomeness that required maintenance. Grey, slicked-back hair, manicured beard. He had the black military uniform on. Gold tassels swung festively in the wind created by the slowing chopper blades.

Despite this, I still wanted him to pick me. I leaned into the circle, standing on my tiptoes. My parents were a few rows behind me, heads bowed solemnly.

I kept my eyes down when Grant came close, trying my hardest not to bounce up and down like some of the other kids who were reeling with nervous energy. When the boots stopped in front of me, I stopped breathing, still staring at my feet.

A policeman tapped me on the shoulder sharply with a baton and said, You. Ask your question. I couldnt believe it. And very suddenly didnt want to.

I rubbed my shoulder and looked up into Superior Grants face, taking in his tight forehead and even tighter jaw. I tipped my head to the side, wondering what made him so special. When I realized I shouldnt be staring, I cast my eyes towards my shaking cardboard question, barely able to see the typed words that seemed to want to jump off the page. I opened my mouth to speak but the way he was eyeing me made me freeze, the question sitting on my lips like an un-blown bubble. It was like I had suddenly grown extra limbs or had spots all over my face because his nose scrunched up and his eyes watered like he thought I was diseased.

He took a step closer and peered into my face. I leaned away, the musty, vinegary smell of his breath overpowering. Whats wrong with her eyes? he said in a strange drawn out twang, like whaats wrawng with her eyeees?

I felt anger rising inside me like an over-boiling pot. I glared at him. My father had taught me that my eyes were nothing to be ashamed of. It was uncommon but it didnt mean there was anything wrong with me. I had one blue eye and one brown. So did my father. Grant raised an eyebrow, unperturbed by my narrowed eyes and reddening face. He placed his hand on my eyelid and lifted it, straining my eye socket. Then he moved to the other eye and did the same. I shook my head free of him and before I knew what I was doing, I smacked his hand away.

I heard a couple of people in the crowd laugh but the rest seemed to have simultaneously stopped breathing. Behind me someone was moving through. Grant smiled down at me cruelly.

Poor decision, child, he said smoothly. Then he turned and walked away.

I barely had time to process my mistake when a policeman grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and pulled me upwards to face the crowd. He rattled me around like a bag of apples and I could feel my inside bruising.

See here. Here is lesson for all of you of how NOT to behave in the presence of Superior Grant.

I saw my fathers wobbling figure moving towards me like a mirage.

As my brain started to whip into a milkshake in my skull, it occurred to me that I shouldnt have done what Id just done. It also occurred to me in a dangerous revelation, that I wasnt sorry at all.