Marigold by Heather Manheim (best books for 8th graders .TXT) 📕

hundred and fifty million who succumbed to the virus.” He paused after saying this while staff pulled a red cloth off a tall shiny black granite obelisk. Several rows of golden slashes etched into the granite gleamed. President Everett continued. “Each golden mark indicates fifty thousand souls lost. The Lombardi Plague sadly took the lives of those fellow citizens, our family members, and friends. So many lost, no corner was safe, no person left untouched. Even those who survived thanks to the Marigold Injection had parents, siblings, and friends perish. With great courage and strength, this country picked itself up and fought back the scourge to make the world safe again. We understood we were a united people in one fight, so we erased state borders and became the United State of America, and we remain united as one. When we rebuilt ourselves into the United State, we also managed to erase crimes. Erase homelessness and disease. And advance humankind into the next level of education, health care, and humanity. And now it is my extreme pleasure to be elected for a fourth term, another eight years as not just your president, but your friend, and to again hold the office I hold so dearly and treasure. Thank you for your trust, and I look forward to continuing as the leader of this great country.”

May 18, 2051 – Quinn

Quinn watched President Everett speak through the big screen posted in the town square as it was not possible to attend it in person. She didn’t mind; she didn’t even remember when the epidemic took place. Quinn was not even born yet when the United States and the rest of the world underwent the worst plague known in history. The photos she had seen were burned into her mind, though. Gaunt faces looking out with terrified, vacant eyes. Tired and worn-out nurses and doctors with hazmat suits on. There was one picture that she could never forget, one that haunted her specifically: a little boy who had died from the virus; he was maybe all of ten years old. She felt most badly about it when she thought about his small feet sticking up on the edge of his coffin. The crematorium he was taken to had run out of longer coffins. They only had a small one, for babies or tiny kids. So, they placed this little guy in his too-small coffin and just propped his feet up on the bottom edge of it.

Quinn supposed she shouldn’t be too judgmental about it; the crematorium only used the coffins for funeral purposes anyhow. The Lombardi Plague victims were placed in their coffins behind a thick, triple-layer glass wall for the remaining family to file by and say their goodbyes. Mortuaries did not take any chances. Cadavers, along with their coffins, were incinerated directly following the funeral. Remotely vacuumed ashes became trapped inside double-thick steel urns. In this way, no toxins or particles from the diseased victims could escape into the air. They took every precaution to contain the pestilence.

Quinn learned all this at school. They had a mandatory class in second grade about it all. Back then, she reminded herself that she loved President Everett. She had thought of him as a hip fatherly type, kind, and of service to the people. Quinn now watched President Everett with cautious admiration, almost because he seemed too good, too perfect. It was like staring at something you didn’t want to see. It reminded her of a movie she had seen in one of her school classes. The film showed hungry citizens lined up against cold looking brick walls, waiting for food handouts from the government. Some were falling against the walls, barely able to stand up. It made her sick to look at it, but she also couldn’t help but look at it. She had some kind of fascination with it, even though she hated to admit that. She couldn’t help but wonder if staring long enough would reveal the demons in President Everett’s eyes. Everybody must have one or two, she thought. There was no way she could say it in public, but she didn’t always like President Everett anymore, even though there was quite a bit that seemed likable. He looked friendly and sounded intelligent and warm. Previously, when listening to his speeches, it gave her a good, safe feeling in the pit of her stomach. Now, that feeling had begun to grow into a twisted knot of fear and anxiety every time she heard him speak. While at one time she had been proud to call herself a loyal resident of the United State, she now had questions. One of the main reasons for her new-found questioning was the compulsory event she had to attend tonight.

When a girl turned fifteen, they were considered a young lady, and they also came of age for purposes of work and as a marriage prospect. Quinn had just turned fifteen, and while not an unattractive girl, she was a bit scrawny, with a tiny body: breasts, hips, waist, and even neck and wrists; she was just a wisp of a girl. She had her mousy brown hair in the standard short bob-length hair everyone else had, but her round face wasn’t flattered by it as she wished. Her best feature was her beautiful brown eyes. But eligible men did not care about the eyes. They cared about women who had hips wide enough that it looked like they could repopulate the world on their own. That had been the number one mandate President Everett had given the citizens—to procreate until the United State had millions of citizens again. Admittedly, they were getting there.

A girl couldn’t marry until she was sixteen, but at fifteen, girls needed to attend mandatory events hosted by the government to be seen by eligible husbands. Well, “eligible” was decided by the government. These were all men who were higher in the government or business establishments. If Quinn had the bad luck,