At times, I am not sure it is worth the effort to search out the food scraps. Usually I hunt or fish, but there is my injury, and it is so cold. I know the law requires that I travel alone, and yet I mourn. I don’t believe any of my clutch mates are still alive.
The bone-deep ache in my left rear foot nags at me as I approach the food cache. I worry about what I might find there besides food. I stoop down once I am behind the Chief Family’s house, afraid some Real People might see me. Even when I was still a child, I was never welcome here. Now that I am a Nobody, it is worth my life to be seen.
I hear ragged breathing and look around for the source. Then I realize; it’s me. I try to stifle the sound.
I circle the yard slowly, trying to pinpoint the food cache. The smell hits me and I home in on an open bag, not far from the back gate, well away from the stables that house the Chief Family’s farm animals.
Food! What does it matter if some of it is stale and dry? I do not care about the quality; I care only that the food exists, and that I can eat.
I rotate my ears to listen as I chew, and hear my second stomach complain that it has not had anything in too long. Too many sun cycles passed, it tells me. I snatch at the items on the top of the pile, watching, one eye turret turned to the yard, another pointed toward the food cache. I have to take what I need before other Nobodies show up to claim a share. I fret, because I know I am weak. I clasp what I can in my hands, glad I at least have all three fingers on each, Having only three of my four feet working right is problem enough.
I crawl into the shade of a nearby bush, hoping that I am still invisible. The mottled skin pattern from my birth clan is an asset I appreciate. As I chew on another bite, I keep watch for any who might challenge me for what I have taken.
Food. Glorious food. I feel blessed to have found a store of food that is not rotting. I take in the aroma, and I have to fight to keep from gorging. I settle down on my haunches, forelegs tucked under me, as the ache gnawing at my second stomach eases. I find that I have a bit left over, which I wrap and tuck into a small carry sack, one I made at the beginning of my Test from the hides of some rockhoppers.
To my left, I hear the scratch of claw on stone and turn a wary eye to watch. When I see the source of the noise, I tense. I have suffered too much at the hands of the Nobody who is approaching, even when we were both still children and Real People. The other’s long nose is twitching as it approaches the food cache, and I see its muscles rippling. The other, who always bullied the rest of us, was born into the Chief Family and may return to its birth family if it survives. The bully moves without pausing to where the food pile is. I can tell from the way it moves so confidently, the way it sniffs about, that it already knows the food would be there. The bully does not travel as one who is looking, or one who feels a Nobody’s need to hide.
I tense as I realize the bully knows the food is waiting. Then my spirit hurts, as I become aware that the Chief Family has secretly left out food for- this former child, hoping to violate the laws of the Test. How can we become true adults if we don’t have to strive for adulthood? Is the law there to be ignored?
Such favoritism is a violation of everything I ever learned, where all Nobodies are to share any food left out, and all food that is left out is to be in public areas. I am not surprised that some families would want to secretly help their Nobody young. Every family wishes to continue. I am shocked to find the Chief Family doing this; they are supposed to be moral arbiters of Green Hollow.
I stuff everything I haven’t yet eaten into my carry sack. I hope it is enough to see me through until I can find something else. I hold the sack close to my bare hide, and make my escape.
Not soon enough. I limp to the edge of the village, not pausing for anything, not even when the bully trots after me, shrieking in public.
“Thief! Cripple! That was my food!”
Wrong. Wrong. The food is for all Nobodies, and we are to remain unseen, but I do not say that aloud. Besides, I have left more than enough food behind to see the bully through a famine. How selfish can one be and still hope to become a Real Person?
The thaw has come and I still limp a little, but I have managed to make it this far. The woods around me are bursting with growth and the sun is warm on my back. I can still feel my bones rattle against each other, but at least there are fleshy buds and shoots I can chew. I also know a small pool at the base of a short cascade where there are plenty of silverscale fingerlings who do not know how to avoid a net made of reeds.
There is still some snow on the ground in the shady places, but I know how to avoid them as I climb into hidden hollows. I have no idea what I will find there except shelter, or maybe a sleeping rockhopper. Then, when I settle down into the lee of one overhanging rock face, I find that there is a patch of odd fungus growing there. There is no gain without risk, I tell myself, so I pry several off their rocks and carry them away.
As I sit, leaning against the rock wall, I stretch out my legs. I see my adult hair is growing, in odd patches. I relax; my Test will soon be over. I will succeed or fail, and if I fail, I can only live wild or die. That, I know after my hungry winter, is a good reason to study any potential food source. The Real People of Green Hollow have little enough to eat as is.
I reach out a hand and touch a patch of hair on my leg. I need to know that it is real. I touch it again, and feel a tingle of anticipation thrill through my body. So soft, much softer than I remember my mother’s being. Could this be the new adult hair, and it only grows coarse with age?
I see that I have inherited my father’s pale amber color. My hair gleams in the afternoon sun. What is interesting is the silver patch that grows on my left rear leg, above my old injury.
I take out some of the fungus I found. I lift it to my nose and smell. My eyes sting and I swivel them away. I blink; the smell is pungent. I wonder what will happen if I cook them?
I crawl farther back into the lee of the rock, where I start a fire with some dried brush and the leavings of a deserted windwalker nest. I spear a fungus onto a stick and hold it over my small flame, and wait as I let the heat work its magic. Soon the scent of the fungus changes, and I feel my stomachs demanding I eat it now. The scent is, what is the word—savory— and it is all I can do to keep from eating it whole. Instead, I take a small bite and roll it around my tongue so I can enjoy the flavor before I swallow it.
I sit and wait, afraid that what I have eaten will turn on me, ripping my first stomach to shreds, making me bleed out my fife here in the rocks. Instead, my first stomach ceases its complaints, so I take another bite, then another, and before I know what is happening, I am snapping at the end of the stick on which I roasted the fungus. I want more, so I take another few pieces out of my pouch and roast them, and eat them until I can eat no more. I look around my rock shelter for more, but I see only a few very small growths in a hidden nook.
I decide to leave them to grow, but I also plan to look for more of this fungus in other rocky places over the next few moons. I want to keep myself well fed on them until I can get back down to the pool where I have my fingerling nets. And maybe, later, I can gather spores to take back with me.
I relax as I settle down by the pool, and I bask in the warmth of high summer. The sunlight is as dappled as my formerly bare hide once it threads its way through the leaves to the ground. Around me, in the brush, I hear the sounds of the small creatures that indicate the forest has grown used to my presence.