Reunion at Walnut Cherryville (The Eternal Feud Book 1) Read online

  * * *

  Within two hours, I had picked up everyone’s dirty laundry in the glass building, so I returned with dread to the laundry room.

  “Johnny, you’re back,” Mama said. “Took you a little long. Let’s try to pick up the pace next time because you still got a lot of work to do today.” She looked around the room. “Jack, I’m going to need you to help Johnny sort dirty birdies today so we don’t run behind.”

  Only thirty minutes until lunchtime. Come on, Johnny, you can do this!

  Chapter 6: Vincent

  Everyone who lived on Hillsdale Court had a mysterious, but secret, life that only I could see. Before I decided to end my life at sixteen, I was the unofficial neighborhood watchman, recording every interaction between neighbors in my journal. The entire street was rigged with Nightvision Outdoor Wi-Fi IP cameras hidden in trees and connected to street lights. The wireless cameras fed back to my computer in my room where I watched everything on a divided screen. As I observed the neighbors meet up for parties, make shady exchanges, leave, and come home from work, I made a timeline of events for each character. The only problem was that there were gaps in all the characters’ timelines, because I couldn’t see everything that went on inside their homes. I quickly found out that only having cameras on the outside wasn’t good enough; I needed to put them inside, too.

  When my parents campaigned around the neighborhood, they each made me walk with them separately as they went door to door, passing out flyers, and persuading the neighbors to vote. This was a tedious, repetitive process that they had made me do right before every election, but it had its advantages. For assisting my parents with their campaigns and being such a good sport, they gave me a credit card with no limit.

  Before I got the credit card, I used to watch the neighbors through my window with binoculars, but I couldn’t see very much. After doing some research on spy cameras, I decided to buy ten Nightvision Outdoor Wi-Fi IP cameras for $239 a pop. When my parents saw the credit card bill that month, they asked me why I spent so much money on cameras. I told them I wanted to do something with my reward that mattered, instead of blowing it on something that would eventually collect dust. I lied and said I bought the cameras to donate to the neighborhood watch, so Hillsdale Court could be safer for children. My parents were very proud of me because they didn’t know I was using the cameras for my personal use.

  Usually, I found that when Mom or Dad made the rounds of the neighborhood, the neighbors were really friendly. After a neighbor answered the door, Mom or Dad would give a speech and a flyer, and the neighbor would invite us in to talk over coffee.

  One year, determined to fill the gaps in my characters’ stories, I brought a backpack full of nanny cameras to plant in each neighbor’s house. While they were distracted by my mom or dad’s conversation, I snuck around the house, planting the cameras, and surprisingly, I never got caught. When the next bill came, I told my parents that I was donating nanny cameras to the neighborhood watch because parents were becoming increasingly concerned about what the nannies were doing when left alone in the house. Again, my parents were very proud of my community service.

  After several weeks of watching each neighbor through both types of cameras, I realized most of the straight husbands were cheating on their wives with the same two women. One of them was fifty-year-old Elda, a dentist who prostituted in her spare time. Hillsdale Court was her territory before Laura, a kinky teenager, started stealing her customers. According to their customers, many of them switched to Laura because she cost less, had no wrinkles, and had no limitations. The conflict between these two characters quickly became one of my favorite stories to follow. The men would come home at random times during the day, and I’d watch as each of them was seduced by Laura or Elda.

  As Elda lost customers, she became increasingly angry, so she began threatening Laura by vandalizing her house in the middle of the night. One night Elda threw a bucket of blood on Laura’s white front door, another night she broke her parents’ car windows, and on a different night she egged Laura’s house. I was curious as to how Elda collected that much blood. Was it human blood? I always imagined it was blood collected from her dental work patients, but I never knew for sure. Laura’s parents had no idea who was doing this or why, but Laura was not concerned. As far as I knew, Laura’s parents didn’t even know Laura was a prostitute.

  It didn’t take long for Laura’s family to expose Elda. Her parents were so afraid that they bought a top-notch security system that caught Elda in her next act and had her sent to jail. Right before the police took Elda away, she told Laura’s parents that Laura was prostituting, but they didn’t believe her.

  Laura owned Hillsdale Court for two years before she was caught in the act with Tom Burks, the husband of Linda Burks. When Linda told Laura’s parents about Laura’s little business, they believed it. Laura was sent away, and I never saw her again until one day at lunchtime in Sonoran Correctional High School.

  * * *

  As I was zoning out by the key scanner, a heavy black man with a bald head approached our group. “Vincent,” he called out. I followed him out of the glass building and into the village, where he led me to the packaging station.

  The packaging station, which was a series of open-air tents, was located by the fence that separated Walnut Cherryville Village from the rest of the desert. As we approached I saw trucks parked behind the tents, being loaded with boxes. From afar, the boxes looked the same as the ones I found in the truck when my friends and I were abducted.

  “This is the packaging station,” the supervisor said. “This is where we receive, pack, and ship out all our Walnut Cherryville products. Walnut Cherryville is the largest local producer of mangos, berries, nuts, and many other assorted fruits.”

  We walked into a tent decorated with picnic tables, stacks of plastic containers, cardboard boxes, and tabletop produce scales.

  “Now, I’m going to take you through the fruit immigration process, so pay attention. This is where all the fruit enters the packing station,” he said as he tapped the picnic table. “You will be working here as a progress tracker. Workers from the greenhouse, forest, and fields will be bringing you baskets of produce, and it is your job to collect it from them. When—”

  “Excuse me, did you say forest and fields? How is that possible in a desert?” I interrupted.

  “That’s beside the point. All you need to know is that it’s possible.”

  “But how?”

  “Do you mind? I’m trying to give you a tour here!”

  “I’m sorry for interrupting; please continue.”

  “Anyway, when the workers bring the produce they collected, it is your responsibility to weigh it and record on your clipboard how much weight each worker brought in every day. At the end of the day, you will return your clipboard to me, and I will give it to the governor. That is all you really have to do for now. From here, the fruit gets inspected for quality, placed in plastic packaging, and then packed into boxes that are loaded onto the trucks. Now, do you have any questions only related to what you have to do at work?”

  “No, I got it. The concept is pretty simple.”

  “Good, now get to work. You have a line waiting for your attention!”

  I sat down at the picnic table and began to weigh the workers’ fruit while I kept a close eye on the trucks. I wanted to know where they were going or if they’d show me the way out. Once the trucks were full, the workers closed and locked the sliding doors. A driver got into each truck; it seemed like every truck only had one driver. The trucks started their engines and pulled out one at a time before they waited in line. One by one, they made a right turn and followed the perimeter of the fence for a long time. I almost began to lose track of them. The trucks were so far away, they looked like tiny ants crawling to their destination. Suddenly, I saw the ant-sized trucks make a left turn. Was this the way out of the village? It must be, because somehow these trucks found us in Phoenix. So I found a wa
y out, but there must be some other complications that would make escaping more difficult than it seemed. From what I heard, this village took abandonment pretty seriously, so they must have been watching us somehow.

  After I took care of the last worker in line, I got up to walk around and search for cameras.

  “Where are you going?” my supervisor asked.

  “I got up to stretch my legs and walk around,” I said. “I took care of the line.”

  “Stay in this area. Don’t wander around.”

  “OK.”

  This area was the only area I needed to examine. I walked along where the trucks were parked and looked for evidence of cameras. Who watched this place at night once everyone returned to the glass house? A new truck arrived and honked at me to get out of the way. I moved aside, and it drove past me. Once the truck was parked, the driver got out and opened the trunk. The truck was empty, so I walked just close enough to get a good view of the inside without looking suspicious. As far as I could tell, I didn’t see any cameras inside the truck, but there were dome surveillance cameras on the overhang of the tents, watching the workers load the trucks.

  I walked back to my table and continued to weigh fruit as I thought about the situation. I would imagine whoever was watching the feed from these cameras was probably watching pretty closely. Smashing the cameras would attract too much attention. Depending on the amount of light there was at night, it would be best to be invisible and sneak around in the shadows.

  What happened to the trucks at night? Were they locked? If so, who held the key? Were they full of boxes for us to hide in, or were they empty? Did the trucks sit here overnight, or did they arrive in the morning? How would everyone make sure their supervisors didn’t notice they were gone? I might have found a way out, but a way with lots of risks and unknowns. Should I tell the others about it? Collins seemed pretty desperate to get out of here before he even knew what this place was about. I was intrigued by this place, and I wanted to learn more. There was so much to uncover.

  I could only imagine what would happen if I told the others about this too soon. Collins would overreact and put a lot of pressure on everyone to plan the escape quickly. Johnny would plan an escape that he thought was logical, but it would be sloppy and full of holes and risks. Laura wouldn’t do anything to help, and if we got caught, she’d seduce the punisher in exchange for her own freedom. That would be a disaster. The best escape plans were the ones that were well thought out and examined every possible obstacle. To make a feasible plan, everyone had to continue to act like normal citizens, so we could gather more information without attracting any unwanted attention. For the safety of my friends, I was not going to tell them about this until the time was right. We might only have one shot at escaping, and I didn’t want them to mess it up.

  Spending the entire day weighing fruit was fairly boring, so I tried to find ways to make it more interesting. During my downtime, I drummed on the table with my pencil and doodled on the back of the papers and then erased it. Toward the end of the day, a strange young Asian woman came up to me with fifty pounds of mangos. Up until now, no one had brought in this much fruit. The woman was petite and thin and looked as if she herself only weighed one hundred pounds. Her uniform and hands were bloody, but I didn’t spot any wounds.

  “Are you OK?” I asked.

  She first looked at me as if she didn’t know why I’d be asking her that.

  “Oh, yes, I’m fine. Just a few cuts, that’s all.”

  The amount of blood on her hands and the spots on her uniform looked like more than a few cuts.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Amy Chang.”

  I searched the list for her name and recorded that she brought in fifty pounds of mangos.

  “OK, you’re all set,” I said. “You should wash those cuts before they get infected.”

  “I will. Thank you. Have a good day,” she responded before she walked away with her basket.

  I glanced at the rest of the list and noticed Laura was on it. At five minutes to five, she still hadn’t brought in any fruit, while everyone else brought in at least one basket. I wondered what could have happened to her. Hopefully she hadn’t already gotten herself into trouble.

  “What happens when a worker doesn’t bring in any fruit?” I asked my supervisor.

  “You record that they didn’t bring in any weight.”

  “What happens to the worker who doesn’t bring in any weight?”

  “Well, it depends on how many times they’re slacking,” he explained. “In all divisions, every time a worker in all divisions doesn’t perform their job up to standards, they don’t receive shower coins at the end of the day. You get one coin per day. If the worker slacks on their work more than three times, the supervisor must evaluate why the worker isn’t doing well and write a report to the government. The government will decide the worker’s fate based on their supervisor’s report. Some workers try really hard and physically can’t do the task chosen for them, so the government places them at a new job. Others who refuse to work or purposely do their work poorly face further punishment decided by the court.”

  “There is a legal system here?”

  “Vincent, think about Walnut Cherryville the same way you think about anywhere else you’ve ever been. Everywhere you go, there is a government that makes laws you must follow and citizens working to support their economy. Citizens don’t work to support themselves here; they work to support their economy, which is why the government doesn’t like when a worker isn’t pulling their weight. Any money Walnut Cherryville makes is used to buy supplies, pay bills, and upgrade our living conditions. So the more weight in fruit the workers bring in, the more money the village gets, which could turn into an extra pillow for every citizen or something like that.”

  “That’s very interesting.”

  “Well, it’s five o’clock, time for everyone to start closing up,” he said, before he walked away.

  I gave him my clipboard, but unfortunately Laura never showed up. At least all she’d miss was a shower for now. I stayed at my post to watch the workers during closing time. They finished packing their last box, taped it up, and loaded it onto the truck. It looked like some trucks had more boxes in them than others, so that could be a problem if the truck we hid in didn’t have enough boxes for us to hide behind. After the trucks were locked up, the workers returned the keys to my supervisor. All the trucks looked the same, as did all the keys, so if I were to steal one, I wouldn’t be able to tell which truck I was getting, or how many boxes were in that truck until we found out which truck that key opened. The fact that we’d have to go from truck to truck, trying to figure out which truck that key opened would add extra risk of us being seen by the cameras. How did the workers know which key belonged to which truck? There must have been a label I wasn’t seeing from here. Everyone started to clear the area and walk back to the glass house, so I tagged along with them. I could do more investigating tomorrow.

  Chapter 7: Laura

  Ever since I was a little girl living on Hillsdale Court, my father always told me that nothing in life was free. His favorite example was the story of my grandparents, his mother and father, who immigrated to America from Norway with only twenty dollars in their pockets. They both worked in the restaurant industry for years, starting as dishwashers and eventually becoming chefs at a New York City Italian restaurant. Neither of them ever went to college, and they learned all the tricks of the trade by working at that restaurant. After years and years of hard work, they earned enough money to move out west and open up their own restaurant, called Little Italy. Little Italy, now owned by my father, was the most popular Italian restaurant in Phoenix.

  My grandparents started a tradition of strong work ethics that pulsed through my family. Being a Hansen meant that we never accepted any handouts and that we had always worked for what we had. When my father was twelve years old, his parents put him to work as a dishwasher at Little Italy and paid h
im a dollar an hour. To follow the tradition, my parents put me to work when I was twelve years old, washing dishes for three dollars an hour. Once I became a working girl, my parents paid only for the food I ate and the roof over my head. They expected that I’d pay for everything else I wanted or needed with my three-dollar-an-hour salary. They must have forgotten about inflation.

  Since I was so busy with school and activities, I didn’t have much time to work during the week, so I mostly worked on the weekends. I never understood why I needed to work at such a young age when my family made tons of money off the restaurant. Dad was always extremely cheap when it came to buying things the family needed, such as appliances that functioned properly.

  One time he bought a used washer from a garage sale that ripped up my new Jorie tank from Abercrombie & Fitch. I had just bought that tank with my own money and I only got to wear it once. There was fifty dollars of my weekly salary torn to shreds by a secondhand washer. When I told Dad about what his washer did to my tank top, he said, “Shit happens,” and “Go get yourself a new one.” Disappointed by his lack of compassion, I complained to Mom. If there was anyone who understood how annoying Dad’s cheapness was better than me, it was Mom. Mom was a high-maintenance woman, a master of seduction and persuasion and a woman who knew how to get what she wanted. She was so good, she somehow persuaded Dad to buy a $500,000 house on Hillsdale Court. Once I complained to Mom, the secondhand washer was replaced with a brand-spanking-new one the next day.

  I always knew Mom married Dad for his money, so who knows if they actually loved each other. Mom never worked a day in her life, and I didn’t know how that was possible until she gave me “the talk.” Usually teenagers dread the talk, but the talk I got had very little to do with my period. Instead, she taught me how to be a woman that gets what she wants. She showed me how to dress in a tempting way without being too revealing. She taught me how to play hard-to-get and when to walk away from useless relationships. She gave me lessons on how to keep all my potential suitors interested until I found one worth marrying. She explained that a man worth marrying is one who keeps in shape, has a high-paying job, and is willing to do anything for me.