My hair was so edgy. I loved the way it felt so light, and how it picked up in the breeze, and I could feel a cool wind on my back. I still had my long bangs, now swooped to one side of my face. The back of my hair was short, ending in the middle of my neck. It was layered, and asymmetrical, the left side of my hair was about four inches shorter than the right side, which almost touched my shoulder. My bangs were swooped to the longer side of my hair, and both sides ended in wisps. I adored the way it framed my face. And the great thing was that I didn’t need to style it. When I had long hair, all I did was wash and brush it. It was the same now, and I felt like I now suited the Ninja look. Madden seemed to like it, too. He led me through a beautifully wooded path, and all the while he ran his fingers through my hair.
It was a good time to get to know each other. “So this is what I know about you so far; your real name was Zain, and you like to sleep with a teddy bear. You are sarcastic, and you like do things to me without my permission.” He looked at me, confused. “You remember! Kidnapping me, recruiting me as a Ninja, and then making me learn Italian. Oh yeah, and you cut my hair.” I listed this all in one breath, and when I stopped, I inhaled. I was still getting used to the entirety of the stimulus bombarding my nose, eyes, and ears. When it was quiet, I could close my eyes and practically feel Madden’s Heart beat.
“I asked you to be a Ninja. And you waned to. You just couldn’t resist my charm.” I gave a fake laugh. And he nudged me off the narrow path. I pushed back, and he almost flew into a tree. “Oof!” I heard the air whoosh out of him, and I immediately felt sorry. “Wow, I wasn’t expecting that…” He was rubbing his chest.
“Madden, I, I didn’t meant to- I mean, I wasn’t planning on-”
“No, no. Now I know how strong you are. Probably as strong as me. Maybe a bit uncontrolled, but that’s what I’m here for.” He smiled, and his hand stilled on his chest. I was blushing, and I gave him a hug at a feeble attempt to apologize. “Mmm. Your hair smells great.”
“In a weird way, that was cool. Apart from the whole hurting you thing, I felt like so powerful.” My arms and legs tingled. I flipped my hair, and Madden took my hand and we walked on. We came to a clearing, the soft grass turned to hard packed clay. I watched my feet as I marched through the orange dirt. Small clouds of rusty red colored dust rose with every step, and settled on my white sneakers, the ones that were given to me from the test.
“This is a test site. Your friend Rachel will be tested here, and we will observe.” I looked ahead of us, and saw a small metal building. It was stainless steel, the corners welded, and the walls lined with thick bolts. “C’mon, we need to get started. They need us to spray the plaster.” I followed him into the building. I stopped in the doorway. The familiar smell reminded me of our fight. I dirt of the black room was still left untouched from my test. I could see the imprints of my sneakers on the ground. I saw the claw like scrapes in the floor where I had dragged myself. The room was about twenty-five feet by twenty-five feet. In the dirt, one could easily see the struggle that had gone on. With my new sense of smell, I could sort out the dried blood, my blood, from the rich soil.
Shuddering as I passed the disturbed earth, I followed Madden. We walked through an opening, a crudely cut out door in the wall opposite of the door we entered from. It had been the hole that I’d broken through. Other people were working the room, and the dusty smell of plaster was in the air. Madden let me enter first, and a boy, maybe my age, handed me a trowel, and a small bucket of plaster.
“Thanks, uh…” I looked at his face. He had a squared jaw, his eyes looked sleepy, and he had short, shaggy black hair that accented his dark chestnut skin tone nicely.
“Juan, but everyone around here calls me Army. It’s like a nickname for a nick name.” He lazily smiled, his lips curled round the edges of his tired grin.
“So, Army…what does that stand for?” I inquired politely, trying to make a little conversation while Madden was talking to a tall, slender girl in a red pant-suit outfit, a lacy black camisole underneath the red blazer. She looked only a couple years older than me, maybe eighteen at most. Her hair was dark and glossy. There was a constant pattern of even waves going through it, like a wave pool in an ocean of black coffee. I couldn’t help but feel a pang of jealousy as she put her hand on his arm.
“Armadillo. It’s the Ninja name thing. I couldn’t decide on one, and my specialty is armor, so I just went with it.” He shrugged his shoulders, and a thick glob of unsolidified plaster dropped off of his trowel. He disregarded it. “I suggest you start, we only have a couple hours left before they kick us out.” He said in his Spanish accent. I dropped to my knees, looking to Army, wondering what exactly it was that we were supposed to do. He saw my expression and answered it. “We are turning the white room into an egg room. You take these,” He handed me a light wire frame, it was a small ramp, and guided me through placing them into the creases of the room, the parts where the wall intersected the floor. It rounded it out, and adding the white plaster had made it look as if we stood inside the bottom of a bowl. The ramps were run through with steel and wood, then another layer of wire, this time longer, almost to the center of the twelve by twelve foot room, was laid atop of the support. Army and I had gotten lost in the job, layering on the final coats of plaster, and chatting the hour away. I looked at the digital watch on his wrist; it read 2:00 p.m. We had been at the plastering thing for about an hour and a half. I smoothed out the last of the plaster, and the room truly looked like the empty inside of a pristine, white egg. A couple of men came in to observe the job we were doing, and approved gruffly. They had replaced the cut out door with a frame and heavy iron door. It was left open for us, but we were told to lock it when we left, which was to be promptly at 2:15. I took a good look at the door. Smack dab in the center was a big, round doorknob, and all around it were keyholes of various sizes and shapes. I quickly counted them. Twenty five key holes on each side of the silver knob. I looked for a key, but the brawny men who had delivered the door for us hadn’t given one to us.
“Army, where’s the key?” I pointed to the door.
“Up there. The next person who takes the test is gonna have to run around these walls until they get high enough to get the keys.” He gestured to the ceiling, and sure enough, about nine feet in the air, were the keys. They were suspended on a hook, three keys tied to a red ribbon. Rachel’s patience was going to be tested with trying to find the right key to match the right hole. Her endurance was going to be tested, too. She would need to run fast enough to elevate herself a couple more feet so she could reach the keys. She was going to hate it. I figured that my test had assessed my physical endurance, with the breaking of the wall and fighting with Madden, and my mental endurance. I had to keep it together to think of a way out. At least Ray didn’t have to fight.
Army and I walked out of the room when we were done, and closed the door. He took me back to Madden’s quarter.
“When did you join?” He didn’t seem that much older than me.
“Last year. Both my parents work for the CIA, stationed in Brazil, and knew about it. And since the Village knew that a government family had a son of the right age, they wanted me. So one day, some dude wearing black hauled me away, and I’ve been training for about eight months now.” He walked with his hands shoved deep inside his pockets. With his arms flexed, the training showed. His muscles had that definition, the type that I had seen many villagers with. Army’s forearms seemed extremely durable. They looked toughened with use. After looking at him good and hard, I had come to a conclusion that he was pretty attractive. This Village is crawling with striking boys…weird.
“Cool.” I thought about what training would do to me.
“How long have you been here?” He tilted his head in my direction.
“Well, let’s see…”I pondered for a moment. “About three weeks ago, I met Madden at my school. He had come to observe me. And then a couple of days later, he was in Ninja mode and had attacked me. After that, he brought me to the Village and showed me around. That’s when he asked me. And then we hung out for a week, and then I was brought here.”
“I remember when I was attacked. I freaked out and grabbed a knife from the kitchen table; I stabbed my trainer in the arm. He was pretty proud of me, said that it was unexpected and a good angle.”
“Hey! I was attacked in the kitchen, too!” what a strange coincidence.
“That’s too bizarre.”
“Yeah.” We walked in silence for a bit, reminiscing.
“Hey, I live a block down from here. Seven two oh, Sliver Alley. Madden told me to let you know, just in case you wanted some help with training or something. And he told me to give you this.” He took a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket. In sharp letters, madden had scrawled his and Canis’ addresses on the paper. It said:
Sanura, you might need to get here without someone to guide you, so here is my address.
645 Sleek Path.
If I am not here, you can go to Canis’ place, it’s: 539 Sliver Way. Near Armadillo’s pad. I’ll see you later.
Love,
Mad


“Thanks, Army! I’ll see you later. I need some food and sleep. You’re a cool dude. We’ll hang out sometime. Bye!” I waved as he walked out of the door way.