Mungus: Book 1 by Chad Leito Page A

asked.  He opened his thick arms wide in question.
                  “He’s not going fast enough,” Hank said.  He was smiling.  “Pick it up, little guy, or you’re going to get it again.”
                  I gritted my teeth, stood up, and began to pick faster.  My fingers hurt and began to trickle out drops of blood after some time, but I kept going.  A dull ache sat in my back and my neck was burning under the hot sun.  My mind seemed to go numb as I picked.  I kept a steady breathing pace, bent down, and pulled the cotton balls as fast as I could.  Sweat ran down my face and despite my effort, I was going much slower than Bradley.  It was going to be a long seven years if they kept the contract.  If they didn’t, it was going to be a long, hard life.  I imagined myself old and cracked with fingers calloused over like leather.  I imagined Saul in his later years still picking cotton.  I didn’t want that for either of us.
    My mouth was dry and I was delirious when Hank called us in for lunch.  We gathered as a group around Hank and he counted the sweaty red faces before we could go in.  “Twenty-two,” he said to himself.  “Who are we missing?”
    The workers were panting in the hot sun.  I looked around at them and knew almost immediately.  “You’re missing Verne.”
    “Who?”
    “The old man.”
    Hank found Verne laying face down in between two rows of cotton.  He told us that he could take care of him and our group left Hank and Verne and returned to the cabins for lunchtime.  When Bradley and I made it back to the cabins we waited behind a long line of servants to be dished out jugs of water and sandwiches by the same yellow-toothed Salyer who had served breakfast.
    “Do you think that he’s going to be okay?” I asked Bradley.
    “As I have said, the very old and the very young don’t last long out here.”
    I reflected on what Bradley said and waited for the line to shorten enough for us to be handed our food.  I was given a sandwich and an old glass jar that was full of murky water.  Bradley and I walked over to our cabins and we saw that Saul was already seated.  I was glum, my hands hurt, and the skin on the back of my neck was pealing.  Saul, on the contrary, looked ecstatic.  A big smile spread over his face as he said through a mouthful of sandwich, “ Hiya, Walt!”
    “Hey, Saul.  How’s picking?”
    Saul swallowed.  “Wonderful.  Just wonderful.  It sure is hot out here, but I liked the work.  I’m good at picking cotton, Walt.  How was your day?”
    I laughed.  “I don’t think that it was as good as yours.”
    Saul saw something at one of the cabins and stood up with his sandwich.  He pointed and said, “I’m going to go eat over there,” and he stomped off along the dirt road, taking bites and swigs of water as he walked.
    “That was odd.  What do you… ” I began, but then Bradley pointed at Saul and interrupted me.
    “That’s why he’s so happy,” Bradley said with a smile.  Saul sat down at a cabin across from ours , about ten spaces down next to a Beardsley girl.  She looked up at Saul and he sat down beside her and said something to make her laugh.  She had a pretty smile and thick eyebrows.  “He’s found himself a girlfriend.”
    “Good for Saul.”
    Bradley moved his lunch over in front of my cabin and we sat together and ate lunch.  I was pleased to hear that lunch lasted a full hour.  Bradley stretched out his short legs before him.  Even though he stood taller than me, my skinny legs stretched further than his did.  “How long have you been here?” I asked.
    Bradley took a drink of water.  “My whole life.  Or at least my whole life that I can remember.  I came here when I was three and I guess…” he looked up as he did the math in his head, “this is my twentieth year here.”
    “Wow,” I said.
    “So what’s your life been like?  Did you just got off of a ship?”
    I told him