Free 1/2986 by Annelie Wendeberg Page A

damp clothes must smell like Alfons Lampit’s goat cheese. I pull off one shoe and hold my socked foot close to my nose. Yuck!
    Sitting on the turbine housing, I hug my knees. My back is turned to Runner and my front faces the sunset. About twenty minutes later, he walks up to me, his hair still dripping. ‘Your turn. Wash your clothes. They reek. I have a dry set you can use.’
    I wonder how he does his command thing without ever raising his voice. He rummages in his backpack, extracts a pair of brown cotton pants and a white shirt, all too big for me.
    No underwear, though.
    Now, I’m glad my body hasn’t changed yet and there’s nothing that makes me look very female. Well, nothing prominent at least. Feeling awkward washing with a stranger not ten metres away, I keep my eyes on his back. Should he move a fraction, I’ll dive. I’m a good swimmer and there’s no way he can drag me to shore. I’ll drown myself before he can even put a finger on me.
    But nothing happens. The man sits as still as a statue, his slender silhouette black against an orange backdrop.
    While my clothes soak on a bank, I take my time rolling around in the chilly water and swimming to the middle of the reservoir. The exertion helps to clear my mind. I watch the small bump in the distance — Runner still sitting motionless on the turbine housing. I wonder about his motives, because, for an adult, a fifteen-year-old as the only company must be nothing but irritating.
    The sun is almost gone when I spread my washed and wrung-out clothes next to the turbine. ‘How old were you when you started your apprenticeship?’ I ask.
    ‘Fifteen. One of the most basic skills every Sequencer has to learn is survival,’ he says. ‘You have to be able to travel between settlements in harsh weather. In the next three days, I’ll show you how to hunt and fish, how to make a fire without burning down the forest, how to scale trees and put the tent up, and how to find water if you don’t know where the nearest river or lake is, et cetera. I want you to practice these skills when I’m gone. You’ll soon need your own sleeping bag, rifle, and hunting knife.’
    That’ll be expensive. My parents won’t be happy. ‘I know how to shoot rabbits,’ I offer. The same goes for fishing and making a fire without burning down the forest. That’s stuff seven-year olds learn. Besides, I seriously doubt he can teach me anything about climbing trees. But I keep my mouth shut. I’m still embarrassed by the recent non-demonstration of my survival skills.
    ‘Show me.’ He stands and pulls a black rifle from a sheath. It looks much sleeker than the one Father has in his bedroom.
    ‘An air rifle,’ he explains. ‘Very quiet — a great advantage when hunting in the woods.’
    I know air rifles. The ones that need bullets are only for the hunting parties and the council. The propellant is hard to come by. If anyone wants to shoot small game, pellets and air rifles are used.
    He breaks the barrel down and takes a small silvery pellet from his pocket. ‘Push the pellet all the way into the breech — like this — then close the barrel. If you need more than two shots to kill your food, you shouldn’t be hunting.’
    The barrel latches. He aims at the ground and pulls the trigger. There’s only a soft click. ‘This is an old weapon, but a very robust one. It has excellent aim, no recoil, and it needs little maintenance. But you can’t kill anything bigger than rabbits and fowl. If you need to defend yourself against something large, you can use it as a club, but not much else.’
    He holds out the rifle to me. ‘Give it a try.’
      Finally, something I know well. I take the weapon from his hand. He fumbles in his pockets, extracts two pellets, and hands them to me.
    The rifle is surprisingly light. I load it the way he’s shown me — it’s different from my father’s, which has a lever to compress air. I aim at a tree about seventy or eighty metres away,