CHAPTER ONE
There is one mirror in my house. It is behind a
sliding panel in the hallway upstairs. Our faction allows to stand in front of
it on second day of every third month, the day my mother cut my hair. I sit on
the stool and my mother stand behind me with the scissors, trimming. The
strands fall on floor in a dull, blood ring.
When she finished, she pulls my hair away from my face
and twists it into a knot. I note how calm she looks and how focused she is.
She is well-practiced in the art of losing herself. I can’t say the same of
myself. I sneak a look at my reflection when she isn’t paying attention-not for
the sake of vanity, but our curiosity. A lot can happen to a person’s
appearance in three months.
In my reflection, I see a narrow face, wide, round
eyes, and a long, thin nose--I still look like a little girl, though sometime
in the last few months I turned sixteen. The other factions celebrate birthday,
but we don’t. it would be self-indulgent.
“There” she says went she pins the knot in place. Her
eyes catch mine in the mirror. It is too late to look away, but instead of
scolding me, she smiles at our reflection. I frown a little. Why doesn’t she
reprimand me for staring at myself?
“So today is the day” she says.
“Yes” I reply.
“Are you nervous?”
I stare in my own eyes for a moment. Today is the day
of aptitude test that will show me which of the five factions I belong in. and
tomorrow, at the Choosing Ceremony, I will decide on faction; I will decide the
rest of my life, I will decide to stay with my family or abandon them.
“No” I say. “The test don’t have to change our
choices.”
“Right” she smiles. “Let’s go eat breakfast.”
“Thank you. For cutting my hair.”
She kissed my cheek and slide the panel over the
mirror. I think my mother could be beautiful, in a different world. Her body is
thin beneath the grey robe. She has a high cheekbones and long eyelashes, and
when she lets her hair down at night, it hangs in waves over her shoulders. But
she must hide that beauty in Abnegation.
We walk together to the kitchen. On these morning when
my brother makes breakfast, and my father’s hand skims my hair as he read the
newspaper, and my mother hums as she clears the table-it is on these morning
that I feel guiltiest for waiting to leave them.
The bus stinks of exhaust, every
time it hits a parch of uneven pavement, it jostles me from side to side, even
though I’m gripping the seat to keep myself still.
My older brother, Caleb, stands in
the aisle, holding a railing above his head to keep himself steady. We don’t
look alike. He has my father’s dark hair and hooked nose and my mother’s green
eyes and dimpled cheeks. When he was younger, the collection of features looked
strange, but now it’s suit him. If he wasn’t Abnegation, I’m sure the girl at
school would stare at him.
He also inherited my mother’s talent
for selflessness. He gave his sit to a surly Candor man on the bus without a
second though.
The Cardor man wears a black suit
with a white tie-Candor standard uniform. Their faction values honesty and sees
the truth as black and white, so that is what they wear.
The gabs between building narrow and
the roads are smoother as we near the heart of city. The building that was once
called the Sears Tower-we call it the Hub-emerges from the frog, a black pillar
in the skyline. The bus passes under the elevated tracks. I have never been on
a train, though they never stop running and there are tracks everywhere. Only
the Dauntless ride them.
Five years ago, volunteer construction
worked from Abnegation repaved some of the road. They are started in the middle
of the city and worked their way outward until they run out of materials. The
roads where I live are still cracked and patchy, and it’s not save to drive on
them. We don’t have a car anyway.
Caleb’s expression is placid as the
bus sways and jolts on the road. The grey robe falls from his arm as he
clutches a pole for balance. I v=can tell by the constant shift of his eyes
that he is watching the people around us-striving to see only them and to
forger himself. Candor values honesty, but our faction, Abnegation, values
selflessness.
The bus stops in front of the school and I get up,
scooting past the Condor man. I grab Caleb’s arm as I stumble over the man’s
shoes. My slacks are too long, and I’ve never been that graceful.
The Upper Levels building is the oldest of the three
schools in the city: Lower levels, Mid-levels, and Upper Levels. Like all the
other buildings around it, it is made of glass and steel. In front of it is a
large metal sculpture that the Dauntless climb after school, daring each other
to go higher and higher. Last year I watched all of them fall and break her
leg. I was the one who ran to get the nurse.
“Aptitude test today.” I say. Caleb is not quite a year
older than I am, so we are in the same year at school.
He nods has we pass through the front doors. My
muscles tighten the second we walk in. the atmosphere feels hungry, like every
sixteen-year-old is trying to devour as much as he can get of this last day. It
is likely that we will not walk these halls again after the Choosing
Ceremony-once we choose, our new factions will be responsible for finishing our
education.
Our classes cut in half today, so we will attend all
of them before the aptitude tests, which take place after lunch. My heart rate
is already elevated.
“You aren’t at all worried about what they will tell
you?” I ask Caleb.
We pause at the split in the hallway where we will go
one way, toward Advanced Math, and I will go to other, toward Faction History.
He raises an eyebrow at me. “Are you?”.
I could tell him I’ve been worried for weeks about
what the aptitude test will tell me-Abnegation, Candor, Erudite, Amity, or
Dauntless.
Instead I smile and say, “Not really.”
I walk toward Faction History, chewing on my lower
lip. He never answered my question.
The hallways are cramped, though the light coming
through the windows creates the illusion of space; they are one of the only
spaces where the factions mix, at our age. Today the crowd has a new kind of
energy, a last day mania.
A girl with long curly hair shout “Hey!” next to my
ear, waving at a distant friend. A jacket sleeve smacks me on the cheek.
Then an Erudite boy in a blue sweater shoves me. I
lose my balance and fall hard on the ground.
“Out of my way, Stiff,” he snaps, and continues down
the hallway.
My cheek warm. I get up and dust myself off. A few
people stopped when I fell, but none of them offered to help me. Their eyes
follow me to the edge of the hallway. This sort of thing has been happening to
others in my faction for mouth now-the Erudite have been releasing antagonistic
report about Abnegation, and it has begun to affect the way we relate at
school. The gray clothes, the plain hairstyle, and the unassuming demeanor of
my faction are supposed to make it easier for me to forget myself, and easier
for everyone else to forget me too. But now they make me target.
I pause by a window in the E Wing and wait for the
Dauntless to arrive. I do this every morning. At exactly 7:25, the Dauntless
prove their bravely by jumping from a moving train.
My father calls the Dauntless “hellions.” They are
pierced, tattooed, and black-clothed. Their primary purpose is to guard the
fence that surround our city. From what, I don’t know.
They should perplex me. I should wonder what
courage-which is the virtual they most value-has to do with a metal ring
through your nostril. Instead my eyes cling to them wherever they go.
The train whistle blares, the sound resonating in my
chest. The light fixed to the front of the train clicks on and off as the train
hurtles past school, squealing on iron rails. And as the last few cars pass, a
mass exodus of young men and women in dark clothing hurl themselves from the
moving cars, some dropping and rolling, others srumbling a few steps before
regaining their balance. One of the boys wraps his arm around a girl’s
shoulder, laughing.
Watching them is a foolish practice. I turn away from
the window press through the crowd to the Faction History classroom.