Read Starbird Murphy and the World Outside for Free Online

and Fern.”
    Gamma stood up and walked around her desk to put an arm over my shoulder. Since she was barely five feet tall, it was an awkward comfort. “I’m sorry, Star, but we’re full in the house. With Eve pregnant, three of us sharing EARTH’s rooms, and Lyra living in the attic, we’re bursting at the seams. Maybe you could join the group that’s moving into the Sanctuary?”
    â€œMaybe.” I felt my scalp getting hot. Indus and Caelum were moving into the Sanctuary along with Badger. The thought of setting up my bed feet away from Indus Stone, with his tan skin that always smelled like the back lot, made my heart chase its own tail. I couldn’t allow Indus Stone to hear me sleep or see me get up at night to go to the outhouse or know how I look in the morning.
    â€œMaybe I could move into the attic with Lyra?” I offered reluctantly, acknowledging my own desperation to get out of the yurt.
    â€œWith Adeona up there, too, there just isn’t room for another bed. I’m really sorry,” Gamma added. “We’re . . . stretched thin in a lot of ways right now. Speaking of which, can you handle the math class for Adeona tomorrow? She’s not feeling well.”
    Great. Teaching math class. Again. That’s almost as exciting as feeding chickens
. Still, I nodded dutifully. It was up to all of us to keep the Family going until EARTH got back, and I planned to work as hard as anyone, no matter how insignificant the work. I wanted EARTH to know who he could count on. “Here’s the check from Venus.” I handed her the slip of paper.
    â€œOh.” Gamma studied my hand before taking the check. “I’m sorry you had to handle that.”
    â€œNo big deal.” I shrugged.
    Gamma walked back around the desk and sat down. “Do me a favor and close that door on your way out. I need to make a phone call.”

 5 
    I spent the rest of the day depressed in the chicken coop with Ursa, while a thin rain drizzled on the tin roof. Ursa couldn’t officially be called my apprentice since she was only eleven, but with EARTH away on his Mission, all kinds of Family rules were being bent until they were in danger of breaking.
    In the early days, Farm kids started their apprenticeships at age ten, but then the Family got hassled by Outsiders in the 1980s, when Washington State police raided us on charges of child labor. They interrogated the children, asking if they went to school and how many hours a day they had to work. Adam and Eve were two of the kids who were questioned, and they told us about it one Story Night. Police threatened to put adults in jail and children in foster homes. If terrifying children was the Outsiders’ way of getting us to be more like them, it was a pretty stupid plan. EARTH and Mars Wolf spent months in court fighting for the Family’s right to have apprenticeships and eventually won, but they had to agree to start them at thirteen and continue homeschooling through grade twelve. Outsiders will use any excuse to try to demoralize us. Their greed-driven, capitalist system is threatened by our commitment to shared property.
    But after EARTH left for his Mission, when non- Believers started abandoning the Farm, we were so short- handed that apprenticeships had to start younger, and school days became inconsistent. Lately, classes happened only when someone was available to teach, and mostly in the winter when there was less work to do on the Farm.
    Like most Farm kids, I had had dreams about receiving my apprenticeship, especially after seeing Doug Fir get his. But I didn’t get to stand in front of the congregation and get assigned a mentor. EARTH had already left for his Mission before my thirteenth solstice. Instead, Pluto Storm came to my yurt one morning and told Fern that she needed my help. Lucky me.
    I begged Fern, Gamma, Iron, anyone who would listen, to give me some assignment other