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manage.
    Circ and I haven’t talked much. I think he feels embarrassed that he got a beating from Hawk, and I don’t really have anything more to say about it all. I thanked him for helping me with the blaze, and for standing up for me, and that was that. I believe our friendship could survive anything.
    Life goes on in the village. Late summer gets closer and closer to winter, skipping autumn altogether this year.
    There are a lot of lasts this year. The last winter before I’m child-big, my last year of Learning, the last time my father’ll be able to call me a Youngling. One good thing about next spring’s Call: it’ll mean I can move out of my father’s hut. I just wish I knew who I’d be living with.
    Teacher Mas is going on and on about the history of the human race. Don’t get me wrong, some of it’s interesting stuff, like how people used to live in these big cities, with tall metal structures where everybody went to work, kind of like the Glassies, I guess, ’cept it was all people, not just one group. I’m not in the mood for it today.
    I find myself scanning the room, seeing who else is bore d. Everyone seems interested, ’cept for Hawk and his mates, who are passing something under their legs—I can’t see what. Finally, my eyes settle on Circ. As though he feels my eyes on him, he turns at that moment and smiles. I can’t help but smile back. If I didn’t have him as a friend, I don’t know what I’d do.
    I always get scared for him ’fore a Hunt. The last Hunt of the season is in three days’ time, and already I feel a little jittery, like I’ve got fire ants in my dress or something. In three quarters of a full moon’s time the tug hurds’ll migrate elsewhere, beyond our reach, off to mate and find food for their new calves. Even Younglings are eligible to participate in the Hunt, if they pass the test, that is. Of course, good-at-everything Circ had to go and pass the skills test the moment he turned twelve, and he’s been going with the Hunters ever since. So far he’s been lucky, coming back with nothing worse’n a bruised foot from being trod on or a gash from a tug horn. But I’ve seen men—skilled, capable men—return home with half their head caved in, or missing a limb, or worse.
    It would be dangerous enough if the Hunters had only the tugs to contend with . The problem with tugs though, is that they’re so full of hunger-satisfying meat that they draw all kinds of attention from predators that are much nastier’n the Hunters.
    So, as usual, I’m nervous for Circ, and for myself, too, I guess.
    Circ looks back at Teacher, but I keep looking at him, and for just a second, I allow myself a brief daydream, a much needed respite from the real world I live in. What if, in a different world, in a different time, he was my Call? He’s the only one under the watchful eye of the sun goddess who really knows me. Would all my problems go away? Would I be just Siena, not Youngling or Scrawny or Tent-Pole? As I gaze at the face of the only person who seems to know exactly what I need and when I need it, I can almost picture what it’d be like. I mean, forget about all the stuff about going to bed with him—he’s my friend and I’m no shilt, so I’d rather not think about that—but the rest’d be amazing, right? Waking up and making breakfast with him; playing games with our children; spending the day together, at least when he doesn’t hafta go off for another Hunt. A beautiful dream, but then, of course, there’d be another Call, another wife, Call-Children. I know, I know, that’s just the way it is, but it’d still suck having to share him.
    Like my mother’s always had to do with my father. Although nowadays I don’t think she has any problem sharing, considering how hard he’s become, I hated watching before, when she used to laugh, laugh, laugh at things he’d say. And then he’d go off to bed with one of his other Calls and I could see the hurt in my