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

smart, and she loved you more than words can tell you. And now, she is under the brain controlling drugs. It’ll be okay, somehow, but it may not be easy.”

“That’s okay, Duffy. I’m finally learning that courage isn’t doing the easy thing; it’s just trying to do the right thing. And the right thing is to help you guys, and help and meet my mom, of course.”

Duffy got a funny look on her face. “You sounded like her right now, when you just said that, about courage not doing the easy thing.” Duffy then departed, leaving Davis with a warm feeling, as if healing was physically moving throughout her body. Davis lay down as soon as Duffy left. Finally feeling a little reassured and settled, she didn’t even bother to get under the covers, just lay on top of the bed and, instead of drifting off to sleep, plummeted heavily.

Her sleep became restless after the first few hours. She tossed and turned and would occasionally grab the letter and clutch it to her chest in the still darkness of her room. It was almost as if she had to convince herself it was real and not a dream. Not only that the letter existed, but that it was in her hands. She didn’t know if everything might be accurate. Davis assumed Ringo and his crew were also capable of lying to further their agenda. But, she realized, in a deep place in her heart, that this letter was from her mother. Davis couldn’t explain it to herself better than that; she just knew she had a deep need to find and meet her mother.

September 18, 2056 – Palace Expectations

The next few days flew by for Davis. It all felt like a whirlwind. She had many conversations with Quinn, Ringo, Namaguchi, and Brookshire about how everything would go down. They had decided they would stick to the original story they would have used if Davis simply went back. That she was kidnapped, but finding she was not very useful to the rebels’ cause, they let her go. A new twist was that they decided Brookshire would go with her and “find” her after they dropped her off so that he could back up her story and support her. Brookshire would say that he found her wandering around outside the city center and bring her in. She would smuggle the bee venom in a secret compartment sewed into her knapsack. It was a given she’d be put in quarantine for fourteen days—more as a show than for any real reason, according to Ringo. As Duffy would be her doctor, Davis would be monitored by her. Fake reports for the Marigold Injection and a clean bill of health would be no problem.

Namaguchi started telling Davis about the harems at the Palace. He explained that President Everett had forty-six wives, from all different races and age groups. All the harems’ rooms had a large living space with a living room, which included a large selection of lavish floor cushions, fine Persian rugs on expensive Italian marble floors. There were plenty of plush couches and chairs as well as a full book and movie libraries. Puzzles, games, cards, and a computer stereo with a complete “jukebox” program that had almost every song you could imagine on a karaoke system. The rooms had dining areas for the wives to eat together, and on a rotating basis, with their husband. They had unlimited access to filtered cold water and occasionally—very occasionally—some fruit. As the wives were expected to keep their weight under 145 pounds and weighed weekly to confirm they were, it was rare to get any food besides the nutrition biscuits. A combined sleeping chamber had between eight and ten beds, depending on the number of wives in that room. President Everett would choose a certain wife to sleep with him on occasion as he most certainly would do on Davis’s wedding night. When that happened, President Everett escorted that wife to his private chamber.

Namaguchi also told her that Everett would give her a new name when she becomes engaged to him. It was unlikely Davis would have any influence over what that name would be. However, being called “Everett” was pointless because of the number of wives President Everett had, so the wives got first names to differentiate themselves. He then mentioned her mom Ruby had kept her name since, in the beginning, the threat of Davis ever finding out who she was, was negligible.

Here Ringo broke in and told Davis that it might not be as easy to meet her mother as she thought. He explained it was so because Everett kept the individual harems separate, beyond his reason wanting to keep Ruby and Davis separate. For instance, Caucasian women had a different room than Hispanic and South American women. The Asian women—be they Japanese, Chinese, Korean, or Thai, or anything in between—were all kept together, as were Black wives. Everyone was New American, so Everett based it on visible heritage, even if that heritage went back several generations. The only time the races were combined was when the wives reached over the age of fifty-five, which would be where Davis’s mother was. Those wives, regardless of ancestry, made up the senior wife harem. He started to tell her about the zoo at the Palace and that President Everett assigned a different animal to each group of wives. President Everett thought it would give the women a sense of purpose and solidarity among themselves. The White women were in charge of the capuchin monkeys, and the primates would often have a free run in the harem room since they were relatively tame. The South American wives were in charge of the macaws, so they often had them in their room with them too. Asian wives handled dolphins, so obviously, they had an aquarium in part of the zoo. The Black wives took care of the koala bears, who had a eucalyptus patch made especially