Chapter Fourteen: Dogs are not illogical!
Chapter Fourteen!
At dinner I sit with Tris, Will, and All at a table in the corner. We are uncomfortably close to Peter, Drew, and Molly, who are at the next table over. When conversation at our table reaches a lull, I hear every word they say. They are speculating about the ranks. What a surprise.
“You weren’t allowed to have pets?” I demands, smacking the table with my palm. “Why not?”
“Because they’re illogical,” Will says matter-of-factly. “What is the point in providing food and shelter for an animal that just soils your furniture, makes your home smell bad, and ultimately dies?”
“The point is…” I say, but my voice trails off, and I tilt my head. “Well, they’re fun to have. I had a bull dog named Chunker. One time we left a whole roasted chicken on the counter to cool, and while my mother went to the bathroom, he pulled it down off the counter and ate it, bones and skin and all. We laughed so hard.”
“Yes, that certainly change s my mind. Of course I want to live with an animal that eats all my food and destroys my kitchen.” Will shakes his head. “Why don’t you just get a dog after initiation if you’re feeling that nostalgic?”
“Because.” my smile falls, and she pokes at her potato with her fork. “Dogs are sort of ruined for me. After…you know, after the aptitude test.” We exchange looks. We all know that we aren’t supposed to talk about the test, not even now that we have chosen, but for them that rule must not be as serious as it is for me.
“You mean…killing the dog, right?” asks Will.
“Yeah,” I say. “I mean, you guys all had to do that too, right?” I look first at Al, and then at Tris. I narrow my eyes. She's fidgeting, did she not kilol the dog, she obviously hiding something. “You didn’t.” I say to TrIs.
“Hmm?” Tris says.
“You’re hiding something,” I say.
“You’re fidgeting Candor,” says Al, nudging her with his shoulder. “We learn to read body language so we know when someone is lying or keeping something from us.”
“Oh.” Tris scratches the back of her neck. “Well…”
“See, there it is again!” I say, noting at her hand.
“No, I didn’t kill the dog.” Tris says.
“How did you get Dauntless without using the knife?” says Will, narrowing his eyes at Tris. She look him in the eye and say evenly,
“I didn’t. I got Abnegation.”
Tris shrugs and stabs a piece of meat with her fork.
“But you chose Dauntless anyway?” I say. “Why?”
“I told you,” Tris says, smirking. “It was the food.” i laugh.
“Did you guys know that Tris had never seen a hamburger before she came here?” I launch into the story of our first day.
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After dinner we go back to the dormitory, and it’s hard for me not to sprint, knowing that the rankings will be up when I get there. I want to get it over with. At the door to the dormitory, Drew shoves me into the wall to get past me.
My shoulder scrapes on the stone, but I keep walking. Four stands in the dormitory, the blackboard is on the ground, leaning against Four’s legs, facing away from us. He stands with a piece of chalk in one hand.
“For those of you who just came in, I’m explaining how the ranks are determined,” he says. “After the first round of fights, we ranked you according to your skill level. The number of points you earn depends on your skill level and the skill level of the person you beat. You earn more points for improving and more points for beating someone of a high skill level. I don’t reward preying on the weak. That is cowardice.” I think his eyes linger on Peter at that last line, but they move on quickly enough that I’m not sure. “If you have a high rank, you lose points for losing to a low-ranked opponent.”
Molly lets out an unpleasant noise, like a snort or a grumble.“Stage two of training is weighted more heavily than stage one, because it is more closely tied to overcoming cowardice,” he says. “That said, it is extremely difficult to rank high a the end of initiation if you rank low in stage one.” I shift from one foot to the other, trying to get a good look at him.
“We will announce the cuts tomorrow,” Four says. “The fact that you are transfers and the Dauntless-born initiates are not will not be taken into consideration. Four of you could be factionless and none of them. Or four of them could be factionless and none of you. Or any combination thereof. That said, here are your ranks.”
He hangs the board on the hook and steps back so we can see the rankings:
1. Edward
2. Peter
3. Will
4. Christina
5. Molly
6. Tris
7. Drew
8. All
9. Myra All isn’t dead last, but unless the Dauntless-born initiates completely failed their version of stage one of initiation, he is factionless.
I can't believe that I got fouth, that is amazing, I was sure that because I lost to Will, and I lost to Molly in the begining that I would have for sur not be fourth or higher than Molly in the rankings.
I tilt my head and frown at the board. The quiet in the room is uneasy, like it is rocking back and forth on a ledge. Then it falls.
“What?” demands Molly. She points at me. “I beat her! I beat her in minutes, and she’s ranked above me?”
“Yeah,” I say, crossing my arms. I smile smugly. “And?”
“If you intend to secure yourself a high rank, I suggest you don’t make a habit of losing to low-ranked opponents,” says Four, his voice cutting through the mutters and grumbles of the other initiates. He pockets the chalk and walks past me without glancing in my direction.
“You,” Molly says, focusing her narrowed eyes on Tris. “You are going to pay for this.” Then she just turns on her heel and stalks out of the dormitory, and that is worse. If she had exploded, her anger would have been spent quickly, after a punch or two. Leaving means she wants to plan something.
Peter didn’t say anything when the rankings went up, which, given his tendency to complain about anything that doesn’t go his way, is surprising. He just walks to his bunk and sits down, untying his shoelaces. That makes me feel even more uneasy. He can’t possibly be satisfied with second place. Not Peter.
Will and I slap hands, and then Will claps Tris on the back.
“Look at you. Number six,” he says, grinning.
“Still might not have been good enough,” Tris says to him.
“It will be, don’t worry,” he says. “We should celebrate.”
“Well, let’s go, then,” I say grabbing Tris's arm with one hand and Al’s arm with the other. “Come on, Al. You don’t know how t he Dauntless-borns did. You don’t know anything for sure.”
“I’m just going to go to bed,” he mumbles, pulling his arm free. In the hallway.
That night I have trouble falling asleep. The dormitory used to seem loud to me, with all the breathing, but now it is too quiet. When it’s quiet, I think about m y family. Thank God the Dauntless compound is usually loud.
I hear shuffling and the squeak of a shoe. A heavy thud. And then a wail that curdles my blood and makes my hair stand on end. I throw the blankets back and stand on the stone floor with bare feet. I still can’t see well enough to find the source of the scream, but I see a dark lump on the floor a few bunks down. Another scream pierces my ears.
“Turn on the lights!” someone shouts. I walk toward the sound, slowly so I don’t trip over anything.
I feel like I’m in a trance. I don’t want to see where the screaming is coming from. A scream like that can only mean blood and bone and pain; that scream that comes from the pit of the stomach and extends to every inch of the body. The lights come on.
Edward lies on the floor next to his bed, clutching at his face. Surrounding his head is a halo of blood, and jutting between his clawing fingers is a silver knife handle. My heart thumping in my ears, I recognize it as a butter knife from the dining hall. The blade is stuck in Edward’s eye. Myra, who stands at Edward’s feet, screams. Someone else screams too, and someone yells for help, and Edward is still on the floor, writhing and wailing. Tris crouches by his head,.
“Lie still,” She says. Edward thrashes again and I say it louder, sterner. “I said, lie still. Breathe.”
“My eye!” he screams. I smell something foul. Someone vomited. “Take it out!” he yells. “Get it out, get it out of me, get it out!”
"No,” She says. “You have to let the doctor take it out. Hear me? Let the doctor take it out. And breathe.”
“It hurts,” he sobs.
“I know it does.”
A soon as I hear the word nurse. I'm out the door running, to get a nurse. As I get the nurse, I begin to think who did it, Edward didn't just randomly walk into a knife, and that's when i rwalize, of course, there was no way that Peter would be satisfyed with second. I knew that there was someone missing.
After they take Edward away, I come with Tris and stands by the door, but she doesn’t say anything, and I’m glad. There isn’t much to say.
“You know who did that, right?” I say.
“Yeah.”
“Should we tell someone?”
“You really think the Dauntless will do anything?” Tris says.
“After they hung you over the chasm? After they made us beat each other unconscious?” I don't say anything. For a half an hour after that I help Tris clean up the mess, she scrubs the floor, and I throw the dirty papper towels away. Myra is gone she must have followed Edward to the hospital.
No one sleeps much that night.
The next day, I spend with Al it's mos likely he will go, and I want to be there for him.
Edward’s bunk is stripped clean and his drawers are open, empty. Across the room, Myra’s bunk looks the same way. Will wals in with Tris, and I feel a pinch of jealousy in my stopmach, but it quickly fades.
"What happened to Edaward abd Myra?" Tris asks.
“They quit.” I say.
“Even Myra?”
“She said she didn’t want to be here without him. She was going to get cut anyway.” She shrugs, like she can’t think of anything else to do. If that’s true, I know how she feels. “At least they didn’t cut Al.”
“Who else got cut?”Tris asks. I shrug.
“Two of the Dauntless-born. I don’t remember their names.” on the blackboard Someone drew a line through Edward and Myra’s names, and changed the numbers next to everyone else’s names. Now Peter is first. Will is second.
I am Third. We started stage one with nine initiates. Now we have seven.