“Sort of.”
“Can you read it?” I tried to be quiet, but being deaf in one ear made it hard for me to know what volume I was speaking.
“Not really.”
“How did you fill out the forms in Atlanta?”
“Artemis did it for me. I told her my handwriting was bad.” She hid her face behind her hair, embarrassed, but I understood. I hadn’t wanted to tell the Assholes about my asthma and being hard of hearing. She probably didn’t want them to know she couldn’t read.
“How did you get throughTwilight?” I asked.
“I asked Artemis to read the first two out loud and you read the third.”
That explained why she’d asked me to read the articles from that magazine aloud to her too, which reminded me… “I really hope we can find the fourth book here. Bella and Edward are supposed to get married.”
“Gizmo said they have a baby too.” She chewed on the end of her thumb and stared at the paper warily.
“I can help you with this,” I said and she shoved her clipboard into my hands. “You can always ask me if there’s something you need. You don’t have to be shy or embarrassed.”
“Thanks, Kitten.”
We went through our surveys together, brainstorming our answers aloud. It helped me narrow down my options. It was hard to know what I wanted to be when I only knew a small fraction of what was out there. Some things, like an astronaut or pop star, seemed out of the realm of possibility, but being a chef (because I liked to eat) or a veterinarian (because I loved animals) seemed practical.
“What are your three best skills?” I asked her.
“Cooking,” she said automatically, “and… what else?”
“Sewing?”
“You taught me how to sew.”
“You’re still good at it, better than me now.” We’d spent several afternoons in Rabid Country stitching up sleeping bags and tarps and clothing. By the end, her stitches were neater and more evenly spaced than mine.
“Okay, one more,” she said, chewing on the end of her thumb again.
“Braiding?” I said. “Probably weaving too, since they’re kind of the same. You could weave baskets or hats or fishing nets. Everyone needs woven things.”
“Okay, put that down. Now what about you?”
I added gardening and canning to my list, since I’d done a lot of that at home, with pet care as my third one. “What did you put down as your best skills?” I asked Cipher.
He showed me his paper and I read them out loud, “Tracking, scavenging, and killing Rabids.”
“I didn’t think hand-rolling cigarettes would help me out here,” he said.
The six of us compared answers and did some revising, then passed our clipboards to Juniper who delivered them to the committee members to review.
“Can you hear what they’re saying?” I asked Cipher. We were crowded around the window, watching them deliberate. Out of all of us, his hearing was the best.
“No, sweetness, I’m not that good.”
“What did you answer for the first question, what you wanted to be when you grew up?”
“I wanted to design video games or be a live-streamer.”
“What’s a live-streamer?” I asked.
“It’s a person who plays video games online while other people watch and pay to subscribe. There are also ways to monetize your channel through sponsorships and ads.”
