The Dystopian Gardener's Guide to the Perfect Garden.

Introduction

Thank you for purchasing this copy of "The Dystopian Gardener's Guide to a Perfect Garden." This book is a step-by-step guide compiled by the United League to help novice settlement gardeners start the perfect garden filled with nutritious and delicious United League sanctioned fruits, vegetables, and herbs.

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"What does it say to do first, sweetie?" Mama asks, startling me as I read the beginning of "The Dystopian Gardener's Guide to a Perfect Garden."

"I don't know yet, mommy. I'm still reading the IN-TRO-DUC-TION," I say to her, sounding out the big word at the top of the page like Mrs. Fitz, our settlement teacher, taught us. Mama and I were in our settlement's glass greenhouse preparing the soil for the planting party Mama and the ladies had later this afternoon.

"You know It'll be the first gathering of the ladies since the last ridiculous round of food sanctions over a year ago," Mama says as she turns around to grab a scoop of dirt. I shrugged my shoulders and continued reading the book because I don't remember Mama ever meeting with the "Ladies." For as long as I can remember, it's always been me, Mama, and Daddy. The way Mama would say "Ladies" always made me think of the wicked witches in the fairy stories Mrs. Fritz would tell us before nap time.

"Don't worry about that part, baby, just skip to page 12, where it says "Soil Shifting" I can never remember if it's 5 cups of wood ash or six that you have to mix with the washed soil," Mama says as she kneels on the ground in front of a large bag of wood ash.

Daddy had collected the ash from the furnaces of our village over the winter and stored it in these big ole brown canvas bags that were so heavy; he was the only one that could pick them up. I asked him once why he made them so, lifting me in the air just like he did his sacks; he says, "Because I'm the only person your Mama will allow to carry the things she holds most precious" before tickling my cheek with his bushy beard. Giggling, I push his face away, thinking Daddy was silly because Mama hated the ash. She said it made her nose itch.

"What does it say, baby?" Mama asks as she holds the measuring cup full of charcoal in the air.

"Oh, I'm sorry, mama, I was daydreaming." Scrolling down, I quickly found the information she needed. "It says 6 cups at a 2 to 1 ratio, mama," I tell her as she nods and turns back to her task of mixing and shifting the soil.

"Mama?" I say, plucking a jar of preserved cherries from our lunch basket, quickly cracking the seal on the lid, anxious to taste that sweet-tart cherry that Mama said I had to wait until today to eat.

"Huh, baby?" Mama answers as I watch her curvy body shake from side to side as she shifts the charcoal and soil mixture from one pan into another.

"What's a brick house?" I innocently ask as I watch a large bug fly right into the glass of the greenhouse as if it was trying to fly to its death. "I know this is a glass greenhouse, and we live in a Plexihouse, but what's a brick house?"

"Girl! What? Where? Why?" Mama asks, laughing and shaking her head at my question, still focused on her task.

"Because that's what daddy called you yesterday," I say, lifting the shiny cherry in the air. I mimick the movements of the now-dead fly and popped the cherry into my mouth, knowing Mama couldn't see me.

"Oh, did he?" Mama says, still giggling to herself, touching the heart-shaped locket that used to belong to her Mama. "Well, your Daddy and I will talk about that later, but all you need to know, little one, is that it's a home built out of manufactured rock. My grandmother lived in one. I remember it used to be naturally cool in the summer, and I learned how to garden in her backyard. That's when we were able to live in the free air." Mama sadly says as she starts another batch of soil.

Shrugging my shoulders, I say, "Oh, ok," popping another cherry into my mouth, content with Mama's explanation of what a brick house was. Mama said that in the 15 years since the end of the Great Purge War, all new construction had to be entirely airtight complete with air filtration systems, thus eliminating the need to wear gas masks while in your own home. So most of the homes in our settlement were all made out of tinted Plexiglass. I've never seen brick, so I wondered if our house was a home. "Mama, is our house a home?"

"Yes, it is, my love, very much so. Now read me the next step," Mama says, smiling as she focuses my attention back onto the book.

Settling back into my little folding chair daddy made for me, I read the next step, "Then dry the soil mixer by EIT-HER "cooking" it over a fire until it is COM-PLE-TE-LY dry or by farming..."

"Farming?" Mama says, correcting me.

"Oops, my bad," I say, giggling using one of Mama's favorite phrases, "FORMING a brick and drying the brick in a KI-LN."

"So that's what a brick is, cooked soil but what's a KI-LN?" I think to myself, "Mama, what's a KI-LN?" I ask Mama because she knows everything.

"It's a big oven that cooks bricks and pottery," Mama says as she wipes her hands on her apron, then using the cloth to wipe the sweat from her brow. Mama said the greenhouse was temperature-controlled. That's why during non sanctioned times, we can grow food all year round, but it was summer, and the sun was still coming through bright and strong.

Seeing Mama's hat lying on the ground behind her, I lean over to hand it to her. "Here you go, Mama, here's your hat." I already had mine on, so I felt nice and cool.

"Thank you, baby," Mama says, turning around to take her hat and plop it on her head. "Ok, are we ready to eat our lunch?" Mama abruptly asks me, standing up shaking off her ash-covered apron.

"Yes, Mama," I say, putting the lid back on the cherries and covering the basket with the checkered cloth Mama used as a tablecloth and to clean up after our lunches. Standing up, I fold up my chair as Mama picks up the basket so that we can walk over to Daddy's repair shop for lunch.

"Did you leave any cherries for your daddy?" Mama asks with a knowing smile on her face as she takes my hand in hers.

I squeak out a "Yes" as I shake my head because, as Daddy says, Mama could smell a gnat fart from a mile away. Daddy said that's what made her such a great gardener. She could sense when the soil was too dry, wet, had a fungus or when the crops were ripe. Daddy always called Mama his "little African Elephant," but Mama was nowhere near the size of those Elephants me and Daddy saw while on special release at the new animatronic zoo last summer.

As Mama and I walk through the causeway that connected the greenhouse, through a series of covered walkways, to the rest of the settlement, I wave at all our neighbors in their yard pods, hanging clothes or tending to their flower gardens. Thinking about my Mama's granny's brick house, I ask my Mama, "Mama, what was it like to live in the free air?"

"Different." is all Mama says as her eyes glaze over with water. Mama never really liked talking about her life before the war. Before the war, she lived with her Mama, Daddy, brother, two aunts, and grandmother, but in 2050 the Morg killed her parents and grandmother. Her brother went to fight for the resistance, and she went to live with her aunts on one of the newly established settlements. Now it's just me, Mama, and Daddy since the aunts died when I was a baby.

All I know is our settlement. I've never lived in the free air. Mama said our settlement was smaller than most because it was so remote and in the mountains. That's why we didn't have a big market to buy food as other settlements did, but she said that didn't matter because "God gave us all we needed to live a happy, healthy life." So every spring and summer, Mama spent hours sowing and growing enough veggies and herbs for all 24 families within our little haven to eat for the whole year.

Many called Mama's skills unique because, you see, Mama had what some may say was a problem, but Mama called it a blessing. Shortly after her parents and grandmother died, Mama got sick. Mama never quite explained what had made her so ill, but Mama was one of only 100 out of the almost 200 million people in North America to contract the "sickness" to recover from it. Mama said she spent months in a coma, and when she woke up, she was blind and had short-term memory loss. That's when Mama and the aunt's moved to their first settlement. There the aunts helped her learn how to live with no eyes and little memory. It took Mama a few years to master the art of moving around without her sight, but she still needed help remembering little things, which is why I always asked her questions.

Daddy said it would help Mama remember, so I did it all the time.

"Mama?" I say, waving at Mrs. Fritz, who was in her yard pod doing Yoga.

"Yes, baby," Mama says, with that far-off look still on her face.

"Why did you, Daddy, and the aunts leave your first settlement?"

Stopping in her tracks, Mama looks down at me, and she was as white as a ghost. "How did you know that?" She says harshly, stopping me from walking forward.

"Ow, Mama," I say, scared because I've never seen Mama react this way, but I've also never asked her this question before.

"Answer me!" She says, shaking my arm.

I look around at the surrounding yard pods to see if anyone is looking, but everyone seems to be busy doing other things, "You told me, when I asked about the war times," I say with a shaking voice and tears in my eyes. My mother must have heard the fear in my voice because she immediately drops down to my height and crushes me to her chest.

"I'm sorry, baby, I didn't mean to scare you, but no one can know that your daddy and I come from a different settlement, do you hear me!" Mama says, moving me away from her body, somehow looking me right in my eyes.

"Yes, Mama," I say, looking down at my new canvas shoes Mama had ordered from the catalog.

"Come on, let's go find your Daddy. I'll let him explain it to you." Mama says, standing up, retaking my hand, and we slowly walk towards my Daddy's shop.

A few minutes later, we were walking through the door of Daddy's shop, where he was wielding some metal together. Hearing the door slam, Daddy lifts his face shield to see who had come through. "Ah, it's my beauties. Have you come to feed this hungry beast" Daddy says with a smile as he puts down his tools and walks over to us, swooping me up in the air as he gives Mama a big kiss on the cheek.

"Yes," I say, giggling as Daddy takes the basket from Mama's hands.

"Well, Dax, my love, it seems that someone wants to know why we left our last settlement. Would you care to explain?" Mama irritatingly says as she follows Daddy and me to the work table. It seems that Daddy has the same reaction as Mama because when he sits me down on the table, I see nothing but dread on his face.

Turning his back on me, he takes Mama's hand and says, "We'll have to erase her again because she must never know the truth. They will come and kill us all if they ever found out what we did."

Feeling puzzled because I don't understand what "erase her" means and who will come to kill who, I tug on my Daddy's jacket but instead of him turning, I suddenly feel a sharp pain in my neck, and then everything went dark.