Ben slaps the light out. Jonah grabs his wet shirt and shoves his arm down the reluctant damp sleeve. Ben follows suit.
“Ben? Are you out here?” his mother calls into the dark. Ben huddles low next to the wash basin. Jonah looks up while buttoning his damp shirt, just to see the light of the electronic book glowing against the sturdy beams and cobwebs. Silent communication constituted of jabs, pointed fingers and a grimaced face makes Ben turn to cover the book with his hand.
The motion alerts his mother. “Alright, come out now mister. And I’m not waiting for tomorrow.”
Ben gives the book to Jonah, and pushes against him to make him stay. “I’m here mom,” he says as he walks slowly toward her and the door. He grabs his coat, and tries to cover his damp shirt quickly, but not too quickly. He grabs his backpack of books too. It seems so heavy compared to what he just held in his hand.
“Oh, trying to cover up something are you?” She yanks off a glove, and tugs at his coat collar. She touches the shirt, rubs her fingers together, and asks “Is it clean?”
“Yes.”
“What did you do?”
Ben tries to think of something to say, but comes up with nothing. His mind is on other things. “I just bumped into something dusty at school.”
“School’s been out for hours. One of your teachers would have sent for me.”
“They didn’t see me. It was just after getting out of last class. I bumped an old exit door.” It was a shade of the truth, but just the least truth.
She scowls at the boy. “Put out the fire and come inside.”
Ben returns to the stove, and throttles the dampers. He whispers to Jonah, “See you tonight at your house,” then runs for the open doorway.
Jonah takes his shirt off again, and reopens the dampers. He folds his shirt into the center of a towel and drops the pair on top the stove. He reverses the procedures Ben just took to shut down the power and lights. He stuffs the books into his backpack, and dries off his back and arms with the now hot towel. The shirt goes on last, still damp but steaming hot. He leaves the barn tracing carefully in Ben’s latest footprints. He walks under the eaves where snow-hollows have been carved away by the wind. The remaining stretch from the house to the road he finishes in four long hops.
Later that night, Wallace throws a snowball at the frame of Jonah’s windows. A small shadow of a head in the dark window and the later creaking of the rear doorway confirms the meeting time and place. Jonah comes out, and simply says “Mill.”
Jonah’s father’s mill isn’t similar to Ben’s barn in much of any way. The first floor is stone, but that’s about all. Two doors wide enough for hand or sheep-drawn carts adorn the front and back. A normal doorway is fitted inside each of these. Inside there is nothing but a huge pile of stacked wood and a hay-bail by a stove in a stone chimney, and a narrow stairway up the opposite stonework. Two unequal sized trap doors are framed in the wooden ceiling.
Jonah starts the straw fire with a coal he just brought from the house in a pail. The wood will light quickly too. He asks his question again, but this time to Wallace. “Do you think Earth really existed?”
“Yeah. It had to. The electronic library is mostly about Earth. And those books, well, they sure weren’t made here.”
“Right. We don’t have that kind of technology.” Jonah remembers the mandatory school field-trip to the silicon wafer refinery. They can refine the silicon to 99.9% purity, and can make diodes and transistors from it, but that was about all. Chipsets with 50 transistors was their limit. He puts it out of his mind for now. “Have you listened to them?” Jonah motions to ascend the stairs.
“I’ve only been told what’s on some of them. They don’t let me read any.”
“Ever wonder why?”
“No.”
“Honestly, Wallace, doesn’t anything ever make you itch?”
“Sure. But I’m not stupid enough to act on it.”
“So you’ve thought about what’s on the books?”
“A little. Especially the one Ben found.” At the top of the dark stairs, Jonah fingers a switch turning on a small light. Outside, the large windmill blades for grinding grain are feathered for winter, but groan against their old rope tie-downs in the howling wind. The vertical axis windmill spins madly far above.
“Well, you’re a rebel now. Here’s your catch-up reading.” Jonah removes the electronic book from his pockets, plugs it into power, and gives the command, “Read out loud.” Wallace is dumb-founded for a minute, but listens intently. Jonah has a feeling of power, and pride. He hears the soft accent, and notices the whistling S’s of the narrator. These remind him of a snake racing though tall dry grass.
Jonah stands at the window listening to the book talk, and waits for Ben to arrive.
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