I have cleaned the main bedroom, guest bedroom, kitchen, and living room, practically the whole house. And now, just as I am about to finish, she wants me to leave what I am currently working on, the dining room, and clean her pool house. The old lady doesn’t even use the pool house.

Ms. Betty has always been an odd one when it came to cleaning her house. I have worked for the seventy-four-year-old woman for about six months, and she still likes throwing curveballs at me.

She writes on the schedule every week what she wants me to clean, and I plan on cleaning it, but when I start to do it, she stops me and tells me she needs me somewhere else. The old lady is lovely and all, but she is definitely not organized, and she should not be making the schedule.

One would think that since the old lady makes such a mess of the schedule, she would have a messy house, but that is untrue. Ms. Betty is one of the cleanest people in town. Every time I go over to clean her house, there are almost no specks of dirt or dust. It is so spotless that I think she does a little cleaning or something before I come over, which defeats the whole purpose of my house cleaning job.

I rush to clean the pool house while still being as thorough as possible. The pool house is beach-themed, so everything is either white or light blue, which makes seeing dirt and dust easier. I start with the vacuum, then mop the floors. After that, I work on cleaning the bathroom, and then I go to work on the small decorative table set she has just for the pool house. Yes, she has a particular table set for her pool house and a more extensive and fancier table set for her main house since one is just not enough apparently.

Once I am finished with the whole pool house, it is almost three o’clock. My work here is done for the day, so I run out of Ms. Betty’s house before she can catch me. Ms.Betty is known for her talking. I usually don’t have a problem listening to her crazy rants and stories, but today is different. Today I promised my brother Devin I wouldn’t be home late.

I quickly walk down the smooth paved road of the town until it turns to dirt. My family’s house sits hidden deep in the trees. My great-grandfather built it many years ago and said it was the best work he had ever done.

The house is made of wood and stone. The wooden front door has unique carvings of lines that are so fluent and intricate that it looks like it should be in a museum. The inside of the house contains many rooms, each one with its own handcrafted wooden archway. The house is impressive, and I know I will be disappointed when I move out of it one day.

My great-grandfather helped build and design many of the houses in our town when it was first built fifty years after the war ended. The government of the New World wanted some good to emerge from the bad and decided to construct beautiful towns over the ruins of the old battlefields where many people died. In the end, eighteen towns were built over the most memorable spots.

In the beginning, not much of a battle went on where our town Treegrass is. According to my old history teacher, the event that occurred in this area was primarily a stalemate.

For ten years, men hid behind their walls and trenches, only sometimes shooting at each other until one day, the people of the New World decided to stop hiding and start fighting. All the men agreed to attack at the same time. This took the enemy by surprise and we won, but not without losing many good men.

At the war’s end, the government took down the walls that the troops on both sides used to defend themselves and leveled the area to a blank slate. From there, they brought in people to design and make a place for people to live peacefully, my great-grandfather being one of them. Not only did he build our house and some others, but he was also asked to help build the town center, which was a big honor.

After all the buildings were made, trees and plants started to grow fast, so the government decided to name our town Treegrass, creative I know. It’s known as a place for people to grow and thrive, or at least that is what’s on the news each day when they talk about what’s going on in all the towns.

My brother Devin and I love watching the news most days to see what it’s like in other towns since visiting another town is not likely for us. The people always look so happy. I have always wanted to visit another town just to see if it really looks as great as it does on the TV.

The people on the TV are always smiling, laughing, and having a good time. It sometimes makes me wonder if people in other towns see Treegrass the same way we see them. We are pretty happy here in Treegrass so I imagine that our faces reflect the ones we see on the news. The only time they show anything else on the news is if they are discussing the war, or if there is another storm coming.

Since there are a few towns located along the coast, things like hurricanes are a common topic. There is an average of at least one hurricane hitting Treegrass a year, but we have become accustomed to this reality. I have grown to like the way the sky would darken, and the rain would pound on the roof. If the storms weren’t so destructive, then I would wish for a hurricane more often.

Since the towns are not built close to one another, it is too dangerous for just anyone to travel to another town. The only time they allow this is if you have connections in other towns or if you are very smart and the government decides you can be of use in another town. If that happens, then you would be transported in a car to get wherever you are going. Cars are a rare sight around here, so this never goes unnoticed.

Over time, Devin and I made up a game where we both try to predict what the news is going to be about before the news anchor tells us. It is only early spring, so we both know there wont be a hurricane for a while, but other storms aren’t out of the question.

Yesterday, the town to the far north of us got snow, and the news showed people outside standing around the news anchor waiting for her to talk. Each person has specks of snow on their clothes and bright red cheeks. Devin guessed they were having snowball fights, while I guessed they were sledding.

Devin was right this time, as the reporter then told the story of how the kids got let out of school early so they could play and have snowball fights. They showed videos of the kids hiding behind snow forts and running from their friends who held the snowballs.

Games like these keep the two of us occupied most of the time, but today is different. Today is the day that they’re bringing in the carnival. Devin and I first saw the advertisement for it two weeks ago, and we couldn’t stop thinking about it since. It showed people of all ages playing so many different kinds of games and eating food that we have never seen before.

Devin and I have always had a love of playing games. We like to have friendly competitions so naturally the thought of a place that contains so many games excited us, especially since we have never seen most of the games they showed in the advertisement.

We both ran to our parents to tell them about it. Our Dad promised to take us, which was not surprising since he always encouraged us to create our own games so we could challenge ourselves. Our Dad has always been very adventurous and understanding.

Our Mom, on the other hand, is more introverted and cautious about new things. It is amazing how two completely different people fell for one another. When asked if she wanted to go to the carnival, she unsurprisingly said no.

Our Mom will probably stay home and make the colorful blankets that she likes to sell on the weekends. A lot of townspeople love walking by her little stand and looking at the detailed blankets. Some buy them just so they can hang them up in their homes.

I walk through the front door of our house and I am immediately greeted by my dog Mud.

“Hey boy, where’s Dad?” I ask Mud.

“In here,” I hear from the kitchen. I make my way over to see him already making our early dinner for today. Devin wanted us to eat early before going to the carnival tonight. He has been so excited to go and thinks he will miss it if we aren’t out the door by four o’clock.

“Excited? I know Devin is. I just know he will be talking about this carnival for months after it has left,” my Dad says. I can’t help but agree.

“Months? I think we are still going to hear about it years from now. This carnival is the first source of real entertainment this town has ever seen,” I tell my Dad.

It’s true, aside from very small school gatherings, there has been nothing else to do around here besides work or school. This has made people so bored that whenever something new comes to town, everybody knows about it and tries to get as involved with it as possible until that too gets boring.

Dad laughs and continues cooking. Mom walks in from working at the flower shop down the street. Her hair lays loose in a bun on top of her hair, and her glasses rest on her bright pink shirt. She comes into the kitchen, having seemed to have forgotten what today was. Then she looks up as if realizing.

“The carnival is here already. I thought that wasn’t for another week?”

“No, Mom, it is today. It is not too late to change your mind and join us you know,” I tell her, but I know she wouldn’t. My Mother just mumbles a response, and my Dad states that dinner is ready. Within seconds I hear my younger brother come running down the stairs and into the kitchen. He takes his seat at the table with a giant smile on his face.

“Hey Sam, are you ready for the carnival tonight?” He says with the biggest smile on his face. I nod knowing he is much more excited about going than I am. He has probably been thinking about this all day in school while I worked.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited to go and play games, but Devin has more energy than me since he’s only sixteen. I think that I have lost some of my energy since I graduated from school and started cleaning houses.

I nod happily in response and begin eating. Devin starts talking about what he thinks the carnival will be like, and my parents and I can’t help but smile and laugh at his enthusiasm.

Devin has always been the more free-spirited and outspoken one, while I usually like to keep more to myself. I think that Devin is treating this carnival as one of the last times to have fun before he has to find a job when he turns eighteen like I did.

My father did construction when he turned eighteen because his father ran the business. He worked there up until he retired two years ago. Unlike my Dad, my Mother changed her job multiple times before deciding that she liked the flower shop the best. She can work there on the weekdays and still have time to make her blankets to sell on the weekends for some extra cash.

When four o’clock comes around, Devin is rushing us out the door, and my Mom sits outside on the deck working on one of her latest blankets. The blanket she is working on now looks to be a design I have seen a few times before. It is a series of blues, each shade of blue fades into another shade of blue that is either lighter or darker, but all the blues are formatted in a way that creates different shapes. She waves us goodbye with Mud sitting by her side.

The carnival was put up on the far south side of our town, and since we live not too far from there, we decide to walk instead of taking our bikes. They have been working to put the carnival up for two days now, and Devin and I haven’t gotten a chance to sneak a peek at what the carnival will look like. All we know is what the advertisement said.

As we approached the colorful lights and giant walls of curtains, we begin to hear music. Bikes that people rode on to get here line the outside of the carnival. There is a line of people waiting to get in, but it moves fast.

There is a man at the entrance who is dressed in a gray and black uniform and has two other people in uniform at his side. These men are standing straighter, reminding me of a more serious version of the school security guards.

When it becomes Devin’s turn, the man at the entrance inserts a card into a machine and then asks for his name and age. After that, he does some typing on the machine, and then the card pops back out a second later. He hands Devin the card.

“What’s that for?” My Dad asks, and I wonder the same thing.

The man replies, “You will need this card for any game that you wish to play. I have printed your name and age on it so it does not get mixed up with someone else’s.”

We all nod in understanding, and then it is my turn. “Samantha Ivory, age eighteen,” I tell the man. He writes this down and moves on to my Dad. Once we all have our cards, we are finally able to walk into the carnival and take it all in.

Chapter 1

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