“So you knew they were going to say that?” Jordan asked. “You’re just letting them give the credit to someone else?”

  “I don’t want credit,” Danielle said. “I want to have a healthy camp that doesn’t stink just because nobody has the tools to clean their bedding after a bad fever.”

  “Don’t you think a little credit might help with things like that girl going around telling people you’re bad?” Jordan asked.

  “No, I think it would make her and her fellow jealous types more jealous, and further embarrass the people who want to kill me because they find my survival embarrassing, and stir up the religious fury of the people who want me to be their religion if I’m going to have good Skills their religion approves of,” Danielle said. “My religion says it’s good to do our good deeds in secret, and allow God to reward us in secret.”

  Gideon sighed. “It does say that, doesn’t it.”

  “Yeah, when Jesus is talking about not being like the guys that did all their religious stuff loudly and in public so everyone would know how religious they were,” Danielle said. “There was a time when I was still learning to live around Vanessa, and the pastor of the church I attend during school preached on that, and I realized, that’s part of how God is enough when the world leaves you alone. So what if I don’t get recognition for being a good scholar? God knows I’m a good scholar, and I studied like I was doing it for God, so I’m prepared – as prepared as I can be, for whatever God has in my future. So what if I don’t have dozens of popular friends like Vanessa? I don’t need dozens of friends to prove I’m a worthwhile person, because God determines a person’s worth. So what if I have to do anything that might count as a good deed in secret, or I’ll literally get punished for it? That’s just training to live the way Jesus told us to live anyway.”

  Gideon was giving her an appalled look, a little bit sad and a little bit horrified. “Danielle that – that’s all true, I guess, but that still sounds like an awful way to live.”

  “More awful than the first Christians, when the local leaders were having them arrested and beaten up for following Jesus?” Danielle asked him. “More awful than the early church in the Roman empire, when they were getting killed for refusing to worship the emperor as a god? More awful than the underground church in the pre-mana communist nations that would arrest them and try to torture them into confessing to crimes they didn’t commit?”

  “Well, no, but I’m not sure those are fair comparisons,” Gideon said.

  Danielle sighed. “Look, it stinks, but no good ever came out of making excuses to have a bad attitude.”

  “Well, no, but – ”

  “But God is enough, and will reward us for following him during hard times, and let’s not forget that He blessed me with three friends that even Vanessa couldn’t drive away, so I wasn’t really alone in the end,” Danielle said. “He blessed me with Mana Improvement and Skill Sharer and a situation where the Rangers shower me with mana tokens. Yes, that also meant I got to be extra super sick this week, but even that meant I got more pox-pop Skills. He caused you and Ezra to come make friends with us, and rescued Jordan from the influence of the Wolf Pack, and it doesn’t count as living a miserable life just because Vanessa doesn’t like me, Gideon. I’m especially not going to pick now to start hating my life, just when Vanessa suddenly doesn’t have social power over everyone around me!”

  Danielle drank in a big mouthful of soup. Gideon and Jordan shared a complicated look.

  “Do you think she’ll come talk to me, too?” Jordan asked.

  “No idea,” Danielle said. “It depends on if she thinks you’re someone with her kind of social status, I guess. Or connections or whatever.”

  “Keyword apparently being, ‘her kind,’ seeing as how I have tons of status and connections and she can’t even be bothered to remember my name,” Zephyr said derisively.

  “Yeah, she’s like that,” Heather said. “We probably could’ve hung out with Systemists at school, but they didn’t like us either.”

  “They were mostly dismissive, rather than hostile,” Danielle said. “The ones we knew were Systemists, anyway. Apparently Melanie was – is – a Systemist and we just never knew. The ones that either took Systemism seriously or made their temple of the elements youth group their social circle though? They just blew us off as crazy deniers, Vanessa included probably, and didn’t give it a second thought.”

  “They knew you were Christian, at least,” Gideon said. “They picked up on that ghost nickname, and called you ‘the holy ghost.’ Drove all of us CYC members up a wall.”

  “OK, that’s horrifying,” Danielle said. “I hope they’re not still calling me that. That’s just blasphemous.”

  “No idea,” Gideon said.

  Zephyr laughed. “I think right now, they’re calling you ‘that seductress that’s trying to pull McPherson away,’ but that’s just jealousy talking.”

  “Oh ugh.” Danielle hid her burning face in her hands. “Please don’t encourage that one.”

  “Like I get a say in it?” Zephyr scoffed. “I’m the one they’re actually trying to humiliate. Um, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry. You were right about it causing trouble when you let me into the hunting party. I haven’t been out and around much, but what contact I have had this week has been pretty bad.”

  Danielle sighed, and worked on her soup some more. “I saw it coming, and I still voted yes in the end,” she said between bites. “Knew that Brooke girl would be jealous. She was pretty obvious.”

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  “She’s not jealous,” Zephyr said. “I mean, not girlfriend jealous. She just thinks she should be, um. Trying to make family alliances, and stuff.”

  “So she just wants to be your friend?” Heather asked skeptically.

  Zephyr started slowly turning red. “Well, I mean, her parents might be pushing her to maybe try and be my girlfriend. Except not for school-years fun, I mean like – you know.” He looked around, obviously hoping he’d said enough, but it was obvious to Danielle that most of the hunting party was not finding it to be enough.

  “Family alliances, as in, get married someday?” she guessed.

  “I mean, that’s like, yeah? But being good friends would be OK in the long run, the idea is just that our families should be close allies,” Zephyr said. “But eventually getting engaged would be better, because Lithios and I are like, we’re the highest status people in our year, for Systemist girls. Guys! We’re the highest status guys! For girls to date, or whatever,” he clarified, getting redder with every line.

  “I am so glad I’m not Systemist,” Jordan said.

  “Me too,” Sadie opined. “I still say kids our age shouldn’t be dating.”

  “Me too!” Zephyr exclaimed. “I told everyone I wasn’t going to date until I was sixteen, because people started talking about marriage and how many kids I wanted when I was thirteen, and holy – uh, thing none of you believes in – I mean, that’s just too soon, and sixteen felt like a long way away. You know, until my parents started bugging me about my ‘Social Awakening’ party and I realized I should’ve put my deadline way further out because it’s only a year away now!”

  “Oh, did you just have your fifteenth birthday?” Danielle asked.

  “It’s in July, but we usually celebrate a little early, during break,” Zephyr said. “I guess I’m lucky they Send at the end of school, rather than the end of the break, or my last days inside would’ve been this horrible social ordeal I had to try to pretend to not-hate for the sake of my ‘turn over a new leaf’ plan, and then I would’ve ended up out here anyway with all that effort wasted.”

  Danielle laughed. “Now there’s a guy who gets how I feel about parties! Man. My mom was probably planning something for my fifteenth, too – my birthday’s August 4th, but she was asking fake-casual questions about quinceanera stuff. It might’ve been fun, in my case, but it also might’ve been a disaster – hard to say without knowing what she was thinking. I guess as things stand, I’m safe either way, though.”

  “Listen to you two. Aren’t you at all sad that you don’t get to celebrate your birthdays?” Gideon asked.

  “Who says I don’t?” Danielle asked. “Maybe I’ll have a berry party and eat myself sick on blueberries for my birthday!”

  “I have to admit, that sounds like fun,” Akari said. “Maybe we can get the stuff to make blueberry pancakes from the catalog? I doubt cake cake will be possible, but I think it said pancakes were.”

  “There we go! I shall stack blueberry pancakes until they look like a cake, and ice them with honey,” Danielle said grandly. “I better get a frying pan, so I can make big ones.”

  “And an extra bottle of honey,” Heather said.

  Akari laughed. “A pancake party sounds like a way better quinceanera than the super-formal party I got with all my grandparents and bratty cousins and extended family that don’t get along with each other. They made me serve tea the ceremonial way, except the various grandparents don’t agree on how the ceremony is supposed go, so I had to memorize it three different ways and my reward for getting it right was everyone talking about who they were going to match-make me with. Which, by talking, I mean arguing with each other. It was awful. I would say “at least I got good presents,” but they’re all packed up somewhere Inside, now.”

  “See? That’s the kind of thing I’m happy to avoid,” Zephyr said. “Do you think the blueberries will be ripe in time for me to do the pancake thing?”

  “Beats me, but we could always look for more salmonberries, or serviceberries, or whatever is in season,” Akari said. “The trick is to have enough pancake ingredients.”

  “I’ve got enough mana to get pancake ingredients for the birthdays between now and Fall Fair,” Danielle said. “I think that’s the kind of thing I can reasonably spend extra mana on without feeling like I’m going off the deep end. How many people is it? Zephyr, me, Sadie’s in September, who else?”

  “Mine’s in late August,” Gideon said. “Ezra’s in January.”

  “I just turned fourteen this April,” Tom said.

  “Me too,” Heather admitted. “April 2nd. I got sooo lucky – my mom went into labor on the first, but I took long enough to come out that my birthday didn’t land on April Fool’s Day.”

  Tom laughed. “Yeah, that’d be annoying. Mine’s three weeks after yours, but I still get April Fool jokes from my older brother every year.”

  “My birthday’s in February, a week after Saint Valentine’s day,” Cassy said. “That can get annoying too. My parents would’ve tried to keep my quinceanera from being as bad as Akari’s was, but older family members threatening you with matchmaking seems to be a tradition that transcends cultures. Well, since the Spread, anyway. I don’t think quinceaneras were that big a deal in the years before mana – not right before mana anyway. My parents taught me that after the population dropped, a lot of coming of age ceremonies that had been dying off as cultures changed suddenly took on new meaning and got more popular, and even spread to cultures that hadn’t really had them before.”

  “Yeah, my ancestors’ various historical cultures definitely didn’t call whatever they did a quinceanera, for one thing,” Akari said. “It comes from the wrong language for that.”

  “My family background comes from the right part of the world for that, but Mom told me the modern north-western quinceanera doesn’t have much resemblance to the historical thing it’s named after, except for the expensive formal clothes,” Heather said.

  Danielle grinned and finished the soup in the can. “I think I’m too full to eat leftovers right now, but if I can get them in the can here, I’ll plan to eat them with my pills tonight instead of eating plain jerky.”

  “We can do that,” Tom said. He was sitting at the counter on one of the stools. “Pass it up here, and I’ll put the rest of your share in it.”

  Danielle glanced at her watch, and stood up, handing him the can. “I need to get going, along with whoever’s coming with me for safety in numbers; Heather, can I ask you to take the soup home for me whenever you go?”

  “Sure, but don’t forget you have to get home in time to cut tomatoes!” Heather said.

  Danielle nodded. “Don’t worry, I’ll cut them and dry them. I have to stay up to midnight for Fever-Ace anyway. You guys pack your bags for a hike to the fishing spot tomorrow, OK? Think about what you want to do for group training, too – we’ve missed a whole week now, between the political stuff and being sick. We need to get a little exercise, figure out where our Skill goals are at, all that good stuff.”

  “Not to mention getting everyone’s protein supplies going again, and checking on the blueberry patch,” Akari said. “And don’t think I didn’t hear you say you were going to bring a tent to nap in – we’re all recovering, so we all need to take it easy as we get back into stuff. We should plan time for everyone to rest, if not nap.”

  “Agreed. Anyway, people who are staying here, please think about that stuff. People who are coming with me, though, let’s get going,” Danielle said. “Have I got all the empty water bottles?”

  “I’ve got those,” Sadie said. “You don’t need to carry them around building seven.”

  “Thanks. OK, then, I’m set,” Danielle said, and headed for the door.

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