The Giver Chapter 3
Lois Lowry
"Oh, look!" Lily squealed in delight. "Isn't he cute? Look how tiny he
is! And he has funny eyes like yours, Jonas!" Jonas glared at her.
He didn't like it that she had mentioned his eyes. He waited for his
father to chastise Lily. But Father was busy unstrapping the
carrying basket from the back of his bicycle. Jonas walked over to
look.
It was the first thing Jonas noticed as he looked at the newchild
peering up curiously from the basket. The pale eyes.
Almost every citizen in the community had dark eyes. His parents did, and Lily did, and so did all of his group members and friends.
But there were a few exceptions: Jonas himself, and a female Five
who he had noticed had the different, lighter eyes. No one
mentioned such things; it was not a rule, but was considered rude
to call attention to things that were unsettling or different about
individuals. Lily, he decided, would have to learn that soon, or she
would be called in for chastisement because of her insensitive
chatter.
Father put his bike into its port. Then he picked up the basket and
carried it into the house. Lily followed behind, but she glanced back
over her shoulder at Jonas and teased, "Maybe he had the same Birthmother as you." Jonas shrugged. He followed them inside. But he had been startled by the newchild's eyes. Mirrors were rare in the community; they weren't forbidden, but there was no real need of them, and Jonas had simply never bothered to look at himself very often even when he found himself in a location where a mirror existed. Now, seeing the newchild and its expression, he was reminded that the light eyes were not only a rarity but gave the one who had them a certain look--what was it? Depth, he decided; as if one were looking into the clear water of the river, down to the bottom, where things might lurk which hadn't been discovered yet. He felt self-conscious, realizing that he, too, had that look.
He went to his desk, pretending not to be interested in the
newchild. On the other side of the room, Mother and Lily were
bending over to watch as Father unwrapped its blanket.
"What's his comfort object called?" Lily asked, picking up the
stuffed creature which had been placed beside the newchild in his
basket.
Father glanced at it. "Hippo," he said.
Lily giggled at the strange word. "Hippo," she repeated, and put the
comfort object down again. She peered at the unwrapped newchild,
who waved his arms.
"I think newchildren are so cute," Lily sighed. "I hope I get assigned
to be a Birthmother."
"Lily!" Mother spoke very sharply. "Don't say that. There's very little
honor in that Assignment."
"But I was talking to Natasha. You know the Ten who
lives around the corner? She does some of her volunteer hours at
the Birthing Center. And she told me that the Birthmothers get
wonderful food, and they have very gentle exercise periods, and
most of the time they just play games and amuse themselves while
they're waiting. 1 think I'd like that," Lily said petulantly.
"Three years," Mother told her firmly. "Three births and that's all.
After that they are Laborers for the rest of their adult lives, until the
day that they enter the House of the Old. Is that what you want,
Lily? Three lazy years, and then hard physical labor until you are
old?"
"Well, no, I guess not," Lily acknowledged reluctantly Father turned
the newchild onto his tummy in the basket. He sat beside it and
rubbed its small back with a rhythmic motion. "Anyway, Lily-billy,"
he said affectionately, "the Birthmothers never even get to see
newchildren. If you enjoy the little ones so much, you should hope
for an Assignment as Nurturer."
"When you're an Eight and start your volunteer hour, you can try
some at the Nurturing Center," Mother suggested.
"Yes, I think I will," Lily said. She knelt beside the basket. "What did
you say his name is? Gabriel? Hello, Gabriel," she said in a
singsong voice. Then she giggled "Ooops," she whispered. "I think
he's alseep. I guess I'd better be quiet."
Jonas turned to the school assignments on his desk Some chance
of that, he thought. Lily was never quiet Probably she should hope
for an Assignment as Speaker so that she could sit in the office with
the microphone a1l day, making announcements. He laughed
silently to himself, picturing his sister droning on in the self-
important voice that all the Speakers seemed to develop, saying things like,
ATTENTION. THIS IS A REMINDER TO FEMALES UNDER NINE
THAT HAIR RIBBONS ARE TO BE NEATLY TIED AT ALL TIMES.
He turned toward Lily and noticed to his satisfaction that her
ribbons were, as usual, undone and dangling. There would be an
announcement like that quite soon, he felt certain, and it would be
directed mainly at Lily, though her name, of course, would not be
mentioned. Everyone would know.
Everyone had known, he remembered with humiliation, that the
announcement ATTENTION. THIS IS A REMINDER TO MALE
ELEVENS THAT OBJECTS ARE NOT TO BE REMOVED FROM
THE RECREATION AREA AND THAT SNACKS ARE TO BE
EATEN, NOT HOARDED had been specifically directed at him, the
day last month that he had taken an apple home. No one had
mentioned it, not even his parents, because the public
announcement had been sufficient to produce the appropriate
remorse. He had, of course, disposed of the apple and made his
apology to the Recreation Director the next morning, before school.
Jonas thought again about that incident. He was still bewildered by
it. Not by the announcement or the necessary apology; those were
standard procedures, and he had deserved them--but by the
incident itself. He probably should have brought up his feeling of
bewilderment that very evening when the family unit had shared
their feelings of the day. But he had not been able to sort out and
put words to the source of his confusion, so he had let it pass.
It had happened during the recreation period, when he had been
playing with Asher. Jonas had casually picked up an apple from the basket
where the snacks were kept, and had
thrown it to his friend. Asher had thrown it back, and they had
begun a simple game of catch.
There had been nothing special about it; it was an activity that he
had performed countless times: throw, catch; throw, catch. It was
effortless for Jonas, and even boring, though Asher enjoyed it, and
playing catch was a required activity for Asher because it would
improve his hand-eye coordination, which was not up to standards.
But suddenly Jonas had noticed, following the path of the apple
through the air with his eyes, that the piece of fruit had--well, this
was the part that he couldn't adequately understand--the apple had
changed. Just for an instant. It had changed in mid-air, he
remembered. Then it was in his hand, and he looked at it carefully,
but it was the same apple. Unchanged. The same size and shape:
a perfect sphere. The same nondescript shade, about the same
shade as his own tunic.
There was absolutely nothing remarkable about that apple. He had
tossed it back and forth between his hands a few times, then
thrown it again to Asher. And again--in the air, for an instant only--it
had changed.
It had happened four times. Jonas had blinked, looked around, and
then tested his eyesight, squinting at the small print on the
identification badge attached to his tunic. He read his name quite
clearly. He could also clearly see Asher at the other end of the
throwing area. And he had had no problem catching the apple.
Jonas had been completely mystified.
"Ash?" he had called. "Does anything seem strange to you? About
the apple?"
"Yes," Asher called back, laughing. "It jumps out of my hand onto the ground!"
Asher had just dropped it once again.
So Jonas laughed too, and with his laughter tried to ignore his
uneasy conviction that something had happened. But he had taken
the apple home, against the recreation area rules. That evening,
before his parents and Lily arrived at the dwelling, he had held it in
his hands and looked at it carefully. It was slightly bruised now,
because Asher had dropped it several times. But there was nothing
at all unusual about the apple.
He had held a magnifying glass to it. He had tossed it several times
across the room, watching, and then rolled it around and around on
his desktop, waiting for the thing to happen again.
But it hadn't. The only thing that happened was the announcement
later that evening over the speaker, the announcement that had
singled him out without using his name, that had caused both of his
parents to glance meaningfully at his desk where the apple still lay.
Now, sitting at his desk, staring at his schoolwork as his family
hovered over the newchild in its basket, he shook his head, trying
to forget the odd incident. He forced himself to arrange his papers
and try to study a little before the evening meal. The newchild,
Gabriel, stirred and whimpered, and Father spoke softly to Lily,
explaining the feeding procedure as he opened the container that
held the formula and equipment. The evening proceeded as all evenings
did in the family unit, in the
dwelling, in the community: quiet, reflective, a time for renewal and
preparation for the day to come. It was different only in the addition
to it of the newchild with his pale, solemn, knowing eyes.
Write the lyrics for a misc song made in 2013, titled "The Giver Chapter 3", by artist "Lois Lowry".