Unknown Land, Lucas Gordon [notion reading list .txt] 📗

Dark clouds are everywhere. Swirling and churning in the sky. The air is ice cold. I am shivering. People are running away from Home. I see Mother, waving for me to follow her. She looks worried. Saami is beside her clutching his seed bag, shaking it near his ear. With his eyes shut, he's holding Mother's hand very hard, as their hands are red. They could be red from the wind, too. For the wind is blowing everything everywhere, flipping huts and taking away trees and crops with ease.

I hear crying and screaming coming from all directions. Mostly coming from my people, but some shouting comes from the Men. The Men are huge men. They are strong and rough. They grip the children by the arm or throw them over their backs. They push back the adults, trying to snatch back their children.

I'm making my way over to Mother, breathing very heavily. I lose sight of her many times, due to the chaos. I break into a run when I see one of the Men take Saami. Mother takes her eyes off mine and runs toward him. I feel water in my eyes, which I hate. I become lost because my eyes are too blurry. I wipe the water away to find I have just turned around. I spin back around to find Mother gone from where she was. I begin to panic. I feel like screaming and telling everyone to stop. So I do. Everyone keeps running.

Before I could begin running to where I think Mother went, I am grabbed. I turn sideways and start shaking. As I look up, I see one of the Men. He is my carrier. I soon realize I have been stolen, just like Saami. I kick, squirm, and yell, trying to get away. Poor mother, both of her children stolen. Why does all of the Men want the children? If I have to be taken, I hope I end up with Saami at... wherever they take us. I see Gianda running, Buirl jumping toward his mother, and some of my other learning mates. They all are scared.

It begins to rain. I suddenly feel relieved, because I know the angels realize. We're saved. The beautiful rain has come. Soon, this will all stop and we will be sleeping again. I then begin to think. Why have they waited this long? Why would they want us to endure this? Are they going to come and actually take us out of the Men's hands? I hope so. What a feeling that would be. I would prove so many people wrong. Please come.

Where am I? I have been thinking too much, Mother would say. I am so lost in thought, I don't even know where this man is taking me. I start praying, because thinking of Mother makes me want to anger her. Praying does that. To my amazement, I feel my body realease from the man's arms. I am flying, high above the ground, above Home. This is my favorite dream. The sun peeks out above the Tamilyas. I become happy.

I open my eyes. Looking up, I see I left my TV on all night. I turn it off and stare at the blackness for a while. I don't want to leave the softness of my bed, but I know Mom will have breakfast ready downstairs. I stand up in the morning cold and head to the shower. The warm water sure does the thing. Walking out of the shower, I see Jenny in her room. I just know she's gonna complain about something this morning. She's turned into such a brat lately.

I walk downstairs to find Mom in her suit, hastily getting plates and syrup out.
"Eat fast. You're gonna be late." She says to me. How come these are my mom's first words to me when other moms greet their kids by saying "Good morning!" or "Did you sleep well?"? It's also sad that this is a daily morning thought.

Jenny now comes in, passing Mom on her way out. They about run into each other; they're both looking at their phones. Jenny turns her head to look at Mom, and walks toward the table. Mom slams the front door shut.
"You could've said bye to Mom, ya know." I said.
"Don't tell me what to do. I bet you didn't do it either, Jacob. Eat. You're taking me to school."
"I take you every morning. I don't need reminding." If she's a brat to me, I'm a brat back.
After she glares at me, we eat in silence. I'm not even tasting the pancakes but when I actually think about how they taste, I realize that mine is undercooked. I can just see Mom throwing together random amounts of ingredients and cooking them for like a minute. Typical. Looking over at Jenny's plate, her's is not much better. Actually it's significantly worse; I can see the batter inside the pancake. Hopefully she didn't eat too much of it like I did.

After we finish cutting our breakfast into chunks with our forks and throwing it away, we grab out stuff and head out the door. I glance at the picture beside the door, which is becoming a normal thing for me. I don't want it to be. It's starting to get cold. I think about going to get a jacket, but Jenny would whine so I just get in my car.

A lot of people wonder why I have a 2012 BMW Convertible for my first car, and I tell them it's none of their business. It's not my fault my Mom is Vice President of a bank and my dad was a doctor. I didn't even pick the car, but I probably would have if I had gone car shopping. Mom just bought a nice car because of the little things she knows about me, she knows I like the nicest, coolest things. I guess she doesn't care how fast I'm driving by getting my a sportscar. Actually, I've gotten up in the 80's before. So that was one time I said thank you to her. Wow.

The whole drive to Oaksdale Middle School, Jenny was on her phone. I have no idea who she texted on that thing, but she was texting ALL the time. Maybe it was a boyfriend or just a friend, but they sure had a lot to talk about. I never say anything about that to her, cause she would surely kill me. We drive up and she gets out with her bookbag. She meets up with these preppy girls as soon as she steps onto the campus. I knew she was popular at school. She has sleepovers at home all the time with eighth grade girls who wear skirts made for third graders. If you look in Jenny's closet, there's not much of a difference. Kind of ridiculous, but it only gets worse at the school I'm heading to now: East Gateford High School. I can only imagine what's going to happen to her when she transfers.

There's only a 3 minute drive from Oaksdale to East Gateford, so I don't have much time to think about my sister. I pull into my parking spot in the junior section of the parking lot. Getting out and locking my car, I stare at the school. Very bland and ordinary. I think it's like twenty years old. Lately, I've just been getting this feeling that something big can happen here. That some students, or even me, can make a huge change.

Wow, I'm such a dork. What am I gonna do at a public high school? I make my way to 1st period.

I wake up very steadily, still dreaming. I desperately want to soar right over the Tamilyas to explore and see what lies beyond them. In fact, I probably would be if I wasn't being shooken. I finally open my eyes and sit up to see who it is that is disturbing me from my slumber, and I'm not at all suprised to see who it is. Saami is shaking my legs wildly with a gigantic smile across his face. I can't help but laugh and run my fingers through his hair.
"Good morning Saami. How was your sleep?" I said to him.
"Mine was good. Yours?" He asked me this with a curious look.
"Fine." I automatically said, thinking back to the sunset over the Tamilyas. But, as I gazed at Saami for a bit longer, I remember the first part of my dream. The Men.

Thinking about this gets me to my feet. I stand up on my straw mat and scan my family tent. Good, my notes still in the corner and my stone, as always, was still perched on the wooden table by the hut opening. I check these things every morning now due to how Mother took my notes and read half of them one morning. She's not supposed to read them. There's only one person who can. And that person is who I'm going to see now.

I'm the last one to leave the hut, as Saami and Mother are already gone. I snatch up my notes, stuff the stone into my pocket, and head out to the Learning Hut. The Learning Hut is only about thirty steps from my hut, but still I am stopped. Buirl's mother, Traisa brings me to a halt.
"Halli, the other