It was so quiet. The loft had a huge window looking out onto the water. There were giant trees on each side of the cabin blocking any view to the sides. In the absolute silence of an early morning, Manda just stared out the window at the water. Some birds were flying around and the harbor seals were out. She loved the harbor seals. They were so cute.
After a while, Manda needed some noise. She grabbed her iPod, one of her most prized possessions. Thank goodness it still worked, she thought. She could keep the battery charged because they still had electricity. She couldn’t go onto the internet and get new songs because her dad said the police were looking for him and he didn’t want to be tracked. Luckily, she had her huge library of songs and videos on there. With all the changes in her life in the past few weeks, at least she had her songs and videos. Listening to them made her feel like things were normal.
She had her iPod on shuffle so songs came up at random. The first one was “Young” by Hollywood Undead. The first lines were:
It was like that song was talking directly to her. She was born in this world as it all falls apart. She was sixteen. This was supposed to be a magic time in her life. It wasn’t.
Manda remembered when she was in the third grade. Her best friend, Emmy, had a big sister in high school, Ashley. Emmy and Manda worshipped Ashley. They wanted to be a high schooler, like her. Ashley told Emmy and Manda how cool it was to be in high school. You got to drive your own car to school. You could pretty much pick the classes you wanted. You could pick out what you wanted to eat for lunch. There were football games on Friday nights. Best of all, was the prom where you got to dress up in a beautiful dress, get your hair and nails done, and go have a nice dinner with a cute boy. Then, after high school, you got to go to college where you got to live on your own, there were tons of cute boys, and the football games were on TV and everything. Manda and Emmy couldn’t wait to be high schoolers and then go to college.
Well, fast forward eight years. Manda was in high school now, but it was closed. It was too dangerous to go there. The teachers stopped coming to school weeks ago when the school district ran out of money to pay them. Now, according to someone who had heard it on the news, Olympia High School had become a Freedom Corps training facility or something.
There were no more proms. There never would be. Not now, while people were too worried about having enough to eat and everyone carried guns because of all the criminals. Manda and Emmy had always talked about how they wanted their prom dresses to be. They would draw pictures of them. Manda still had some of those drawings at her Olympia house, which had been destroyed by the government people who hated her dad.
Trying not to wake anyone, she looked around the loft for a piece of paper and a pen. She wanted to draw a picture of her prom dress, just like when she was in third grade.
She couldn’t find any paper. Of course not. Nothing ever worked out, like having paper around. Then she started to cry, quietly so she wouldn’t wake up her brother and grandparents. She realized that she would never have a prom dress. Her dreams would never come true. Her teen years had been taken. This stupid Collapse had taken everything away from her. All she had wanted was a prom. Was that asking so much? Why couldn’t she have things that everyone else got before the Collapse? Why did this have to happen when she was in high school? Why couldn’t it wait until she got to be a normal teenager, at least for a little bit? Why couldn’t people just get along and quit fighting each other? Why couldn’t things get back to normal? And why didn’t anyone care about her prom? All they ever talked about was food and guards and medicine. No one cared about proms.
“Play the cards you’re dealt,” her dad always said. She stood up straight. She would deal with this. She wouldn’t let a prom get her down. She thought about all she had out here. Her family was together. There were a few days when she didn’t think that would happen. She remembered when her dad left and her mom said he was gone forever. Manda thought her dad was dead, or would be dead soon. She knew he would fight the government people and that they had more guns than he had. She even made up a funeral for him in her imagination. That was her way of saying goodbye to him. She imagined who would come to it and what they would say about him. She realized what a good life he had led and how he was just trying to protect them.
She remembered when Pow came to the door of their suburban home and said they should come with the armed men and go out to the cabin, where her dad was alive. In an instant, she was so happy. It was like she had a second chance to have a great dad. She realized how lucky she was.
She also knew that most of her friends were trapped back in Olympia. Almost all of their parents were government workers, so they probably wanted to be in Olympia. Manda hoped they were OK and that Emmy and Ashley were doing fine. At least Ashley got to go a prom and college. She was lucky.
Manda heard someone stirring downstairs. It was probably her dad; he always got up early. She was awake and hadn’t gotten to talk to him lately because he’d been so busy, so she quietly went downstairs without waking her brother or grandparents.
Her dad was in the kitchen, starting to make pancakes. She realized that some things never change, when, for a moment, she thought she was back before the Collapse, when they first got the cabin and she would come out with her dad. Back then, she would sleep in the loft and come downstairs and see her dad making pancakes. Just like the good old days, she thought. There was comfort in that.
“Hey, Dad, how’s it goin’?” she asked.
Grant smiled when he saw her. He had been missing her and Cole so much.
“Mornin’, dear,” He said. “How’s my best daughter?”
“Great,” she said. “How’s my best dad?” The “best daughter” and “best dad” lines they used were an inside joke. Grant would say that when Manda was little, and then one day, when Manda was in the second grade, she said, “Wait. ‘Your best daughter?’ I’m your only daughter.” Then she turned it on Grant by calling him her “best dad,” to which he would reply, “Wait. I’m your only dad.” Even that exchange of lines from an inside joke felt so comforting. So normal, during such an abnormal time.
“Oh, I’m fine,” Grant said. “Would my daughter like some delicious pancakes?”
“Of course,” she said and then paused. “Hey, Dad, do you remember Ashley?”
“Yeah, sure. Why?” Grant asked. He hoped Ashley hadn’t been killed.
“Remember how me and Emmy wanted to go to a prom like she did?” Manda asked.
Grant could instantly tell what was bothering Manda. He felt terrible that his little girl couldn’t have a prom. She deserved it. She’d been talking about it for years. She had even drawn elaborate pictures of how she wanted her dress to look.
“Yeah, I remember. Why?” he asked, as if he didn’t know the answer.
“Well, I wish…” she trailed off., “Do you think we could have a prom out here?”
That was what he was hoping she wouldn’t ask. It would be impossible to have a prom out there for quite some time.
“Of course we can have a prom,” he said, realizing that his daughter needed the hope of a prom to help her get through this. He was going to do all he could to get his girl a prom. He had no idea how this would be possible, but he was going to do it.