Dinner that night is...tense.
Any other year, there'd be laughter and talking and so much noise, too many people having different conversations at once making it difficult to jump into any of them. Tonight, though, the only sounds really come from the way that forks and knives scrape on plates and how David's nephews have too many stories to tell.
Agent Samuel's visit hangs over David's family like a thunder cloud.
Nethanel keeps trying to catch David's eye—David knows Nethanel had been listening in, because his brother had peeked around the corner in to the kitchen after Agent Samuel left— but David doesn't look at him or at any one else. He just wants to eat and leave. Go find somewhere quiet, which is nearly impossible when his entire family is home, to go and play his guitar without having to worry about interruptions. Abishai and Joab will want to play with him or something, though, maybe even Asahel, and David thanks his lucky stars that Asahel really isn't old enough yet to.
The problem is that David doesn't want to play with them. He doesn't want anything to do with people.
He's twelve, and a member of the Presidential Guard came to his house and—
"So," Nethanel says, and David jumps. He looks up in time to see Jesse shoot Nethanel a glare, and their mother looks like she's about to cry.
"No," Jesse says. "We're not talking about it."
David looks back down at his plate. They don't talk about it.
-
David can't get to sleep that night.
His thoughts whirl and refuse to settle and his stomach is turning circles and regardless of how he adjusts himself on the bed he can't get comfortable. Ozem is fast asleep in the bed on the other side of the room, rest coming to him as effortlessly as it usually does. Ozem's light snores fill the air, as loud to David as a trumpet blown in his ear. David doesn't get jealous easily, but right now he just might be.
Most of the lights in the house are out—most, but not all. He crawls out of his bed to investigate the faint light creeping into their bedroom through the open door, trying to be as quiet as he can possibly be. He's not eager to be discovered, the creak of a floorboard would be enough to do it, but David knows these floors well. His older brothers may treat him distantly sometimes, but they certainly taught him all of the tricks.
Hushed voices creep up the staircase from the kitchen—his father and his four oldest brothers. David leans against the wall near the top of the stairs and relaxes, hoping that the voices will be enough to soothe him to sleep. By the time he realizes that it's him they're talking about, they've moved to the bottom of the staircase, and David hunkers closer into the shadow against the wall, afraid to even breathe.
"...can't possibly expect us to believe that this is legitimate," Eliab is saying. "It's a scam, obviously. Somebody's out to get us. They know how great of a shepherd he is, and they want him. Either that, or they're looking to cripple us."
Something funny twists in David's chest when he hears Eliab—Eliab!—call him a great shepherd, but he pushes it down.
"Eliab." Jesse sounds tired.
"They talk about us, you know. Our competition. They know that something's up. They know that we've hit hard times. They know, and if you think that they won't twist that to their advantage you're naive."
Silence. Jesse doesn't retort, calm and collected in the face of his oldest son's cynicism. He's leaving the door open for other opinions, other contributions, and the opportunity is taken once David's other brother's are sure that it is there.
"If we lost David," Abinadab says slowly, treading carefully, "we would certainly be in a bit of trouble. We have Abel, yes, but he's too old to be out there all day, every day. Without David, we would need to find a new shepherd, and there isn't much room in finances to put a new one on the payroll. That's why we picked him in the first place, isn't it?"
"We could sell some of the sheep," Jesse muses, but Eliab is quick to shut him down.
"They're halfway through lamb. If we sell them right now, we lose more than we gain. We will have to wait months. Until the little ones are weaned, at least."
Jesse nods. "The Agent said that it wouldn't be immediately. They are attempting to wait the President out. We could, in fact, be waiting for years. David isn't even a legal adult yet. Agent Samuel may have been vague, but I don't think he was implying that a twelve year old is to take over the country."
"If not now, then when?" Shammah asks.
"I don't know."
Ethan's shoulders heave as he coughs suddenly; it is a few minutes before he can regain control of his lungs. Shammah rubs Ethan's back and Abinadab goes to get tissues while Eliab and their father exchange a look. Ethan's condition is another complication, and David knows that without anybody having to say anything. Ethan has seen the best doctors their family can afford, they've even had Eliab's specialist take a look, but the outlook...isn't that great. Their options are growing thin. The older ones have been trying to keep it quiet around the younger ones, especially David and Ozem, but they can't stop the whispers.
The chances of Ethan dying in the next five years are better than his chances of living.
Even though Ethan eventually settles, taking deep slow breaths as Shammah talks him through it, David feels sick. He's not prepared for anything that this conversation is about, really. He's not ready to leave the farm. He's not ready to be president. He's not ready for his brother to die.
He's not ready.
"Dad," Ethan says, voice hoarse, throat working as he keeps the coughing down. "Dad, it's really not the end of the world right now, is it? Like." He clears his throat. "David's not leaving right now, not for a few years, at least. We keep him as shepherd for as long as we possibly can, until things change, and then we deal with it. If all else fails, we stick Nethanel in the fields as a substitute until we can find somebody more permanent—a shot to his ego would do him some good."
Shammah's laughter is sudden and loud despite himself, shocking even himself at the volume. The others quickly try to hush him up but they're cracking up too, so it's not too effective. Even Jesse is smiling.
David takes the distraction as the window it is and escapes, reaching reaches his bedroom just as Ethan starts coughing again. The noise has roused Ozem, who asks groggily, "What's going on?" and David is quick to hush him. Nothing. Nothing at all is going on.
Not right now.
-
Things get—weird, after that day.
None of David's older brothers, even Ozem, seek him out unless it is absolutely necessary. Their father becomes withdrawn. Their mother worries over every little thing about him. David's been forbidden to mention any of this to anybody outside the family, so he can't talk to anybody about this entire thing whenever they stop by, which isn't happening as much as it once did. His only solace is his time in the fields, where he's less aware of the fact that people are avoiding him. In the fields, it's all about God and the sheep and his guitar.
He survives a week that way, which is pretty much a miracle. In that time span two lions threaten, and he is so relieved at the break in monotony that he takes them out really fast. Other than the report that he gives about it at the supper table, that night, however, nothing about that day is different.
One week and one day after Agent Samuel's visit, David pulls his father aside after breakfast, before he goes out to the sheep. "Dad," he says, "I don't want to."
Jesse's eyebrows pinch together in confusion and worry that doesn't show up anywhere else on his face. "You don't want to what?"
"I don't want to be the President."
"David—"
"Dad," David says, desperate, because it's extremely important that Jesse understands.
"Everybody's acting weird and nobody's talking to me and asking how I feel about this, you're treating me like...like I'm two again, or something, like a little child—"
"David, you are a child—"
"I'm scared."
And Jesse doesn't say anything to that, just crushes David to his chest in a hug that is probably more reassuring to Jesse than it is to David. "It's alright," Jesse mumbles, "it's all going to be okay," and David is still scared, still unsure, but he feels more okay in that moment than he has in the past week and a day.
-
At some point before he turns thirteen, David forgets what it's like to have friends outside of his immediate family. The kids that he had kinda hung out with before (before he became a shepherd before Agent Samuel came before he found out he was going to be President before before before) have just kind of...stopped coming. They still go to school, he knows; they're in the same circles on social networking sites.
He sees what they do. They like his songs when he posts them, sometimes.
Apparently the farm is too far out of their way to go, now. David's not quite sure what this makes him, but he doesn't mind.
He has grown closer to his family, though, after they revert back to...kind of normal. Nethanel and Raddai have both just started completing online degrees, Nethanel in video game design and Raddai in animal husbandry. Their mother graduated the two of them this past year;; Nethanel may be a year older but he refused to study ahead of Raddai. Everybody in the family, though, insists that Nethanel failed kindergarten, and the day when Nethanel doesn't get flustered defending himself hasn't come. It's brought up at most family occasions, or whenever
Nethanel makes a crack about being smart, mostly for the humour of seeing Nethanel go red in the face.
Ozem goes to the local high school because some of the courses that he wants to take and stuff that he wants to learn he can't really learn at home. Stuff like chemistry and exercise science; those classes that are a little bit more than the standard reading, writing, and math requirements. Their mom does and has done a lot for them education wise, is proficient at the basics and the arts and social sciences—David really likes the way that she teaches history—but things like chemistry and exercise science require a bit more than their mom can give.
David reads a lot, and his mom makes sure that he stays on top of writing and math whenever he's not out with the sheep. Math comes easy to him, but it's the writing that remains somewhat elusive.
"Honey," his mom says on one of the rare days when he's not in the field, "you write songs so easily. This isn't that much different. It's got tenses and a beginning, middle, and end, and—"
"Sentences," David says as he stares down at the blank piece of paper he's supposed to be writing his paragraph on.
"They aren't that much different than what you're used to," his mother insists.
"They have periods," David says, the little dot at the end of each sentence offending him. His mother sighs, calls, "Ethan!"
Because it's Ethan that he's been getting closest to lately, closer to him than he is to Ozem these days. Ethan is the only other person in his family who can empathize with him, who's on the same wavelength as him, if only because their situations are similar. Both of them are caught in a whirlwind of circumstances they had no say in and can't control. Ethan is sick, the life-ending sort of sick. David is going to be President.
David's not going to pretend that it makes him smile, because out of the hurricanes David and Ethan are caught in David's the only one that makes it through alive.
But their family would have to be blind to notice that David's taking to Ethan the easiest these days—and he is. No longer does he retreat to his own room after coming back from the field; he goes to Ethan's room and spends time with his older brother, who's spending more and more time up there these days. Ethan is the one that David talks to when he needs advice, when he's had a bad day, when he's had a good day, when he just wants to talk.
Ethan is the one that they call whenever David is having trouble, even if that trouble is as simple as sentences and paragraphs.
Ethan sits in the chair their mother had occupied when he gets downstairs, still dressed in his pyjamas. Their mother takes one of the chairs on the other side, reluctant to leave.
"No," David says before Ethan can even talk, but his voice wavers.
Ethan smiles. "You've been writing sentences this whole time, silly."
"Periods, though."
"Only end a thought. How do you end a thought in one of your songs?"
"Um." David's brow furrows. He's never really thought about it. "Start a new line, I guess."
"And what do you do when you want to start a different idea?" "...start a new verse?"
"And that is how you write a paragraph."
"No," David says, "that's how you write a song, E. I still don't know how to write a paragraph."
"Yes, you do," Ethan replies, and his smile makes him look like an idiot. A well meaning idiot, though. "Write a paragraph like you write a song, except where you'd start a new line just put a period in instead, and where you'd start a new verse just start a new paragraph. It's really that simple."
"It really isn't," David says, but he picks up the pencil and touches it lightly to the paper.
"Write a paragraph about me," Ethan says.
"Why?"
Ethan doesn't say, so you can see how right I am. Ethan says, "So you can practice." Their mom is smiling, but doesn't say anything. David doesn't look closely enough to notice the tears in her eyes—he's too busy writing. The first bit is a little tricky but David keeps his brother's advice in mind and, hey, it gets a little easier after that. His older brother might be onto something here.
-
On David's thirteenth birthday, his entire family chips in to get him a bike. If it was supposed to be a secret it wasn't a very well kept one; there is no anticipation about what David might or might not be getting this year. Ethan asks him all the big questions in the weeks leading up to his birthday, like mountain bike or city bike and what colour he'd like and how many speeds he wants and David doesn't bother to pretend to not be excited. For the very first time he will be able to go to town when he's not in the field and not depend on anybody to get him there and back.
He gets it in the morning; he's gotten used to getting up before everybody else does and his parents, knowing this, have left it at the bottom of the stairs with a bow on the handlebars. It's a mountain bike, early morning sun reflecting off the red and yellow paint, and it's brand new and all his.
A hand lands on David's shoulder. He's growing taller, but the old farm hand Abel still has a good foot and a half on him. "I got the sheep today," Abel says, voice rough. "You just go out and have some fun, alright? Not trouble, just fun."
David nods, already wheeling the bike towards the door.
"Happy birthday, David," Abel says just before he gets outside, and David turns to give him perhaps the most honest smile he's ever given another person.
"Thanks, Abel."
-
His birthday is on a Thursday, a school day, but he only realizes it when he's biking around town and sees no kids his own age in the streets. There are women and men with young children and older couples and professional looking people that always look like they're on a mission but people David's own age? They're at school on Thursdays, more often than not.
When he gets to the school, the kids are out for recess. He recognizes a few of the faces that look up at him as he bikes by, but none of them call out to him and that's okay.
That's okay.
He goes to the ice cream parlour that Jesse used to take them to, the number of children dwindling as they grew up and moved out of the house. In the earliest memory that David has of visiting the parlour, one of his earliest memories period, Eliab and Zeruiah are absent. Eliab was at school by that time, and Zeruiah was busy planning her wedding and being in love. David had been three at the time.
Apart from the fact that Jesse is too old to take frequent trips to town and Ethan is sick, if David's father were to gather all of the kids still living at home to go out for ice cream even one more time then half of his children wouldn't be present.
David's only thirteen, but three feels like it was a long time ago.
The older man behind the counter looks up when David walks in. He recognizes this man, vaguely, because even though the smile is missing a few teeth it still hasn't changed. David, however, doubts that the man recognizes him. A lot of people pass through this place; it's been around for years, woven into the fabric of their small town like few other things are. When David walks through the door, though, there's only a few people inside, so he doesn't have to wait in line.
He's only relishing in the fact that he doesn't have to wait in line a little bit. David has never been happier that he's homeschooled.
"Hello there, young man," the man behind the counter says, still smiling, but the smile doesn't completely cover up the suspicion in his voice. David gets it. He's obviously a kid, unaccompanied by any adults, and all of the other kids his age are at school. It's not often, David would bet, that a thirteen year old kid walks into this ice cream shop all by himself in the middle of a school day.
"Hi," David says as he hops into one of the chairs at the counter. Then, because his parents raised him with some proper manners, he asks, "How are you today?"
"Oh, alright," the man says. David has a front row seat to the internal battle the man has with himself, trying to decide which route would be the best one to take. "You—do you not have school today?"
"I'm homeschooled," David says.
"I...wasn't aware that anybody around these parts still homeschooled."
And the man is definitely right. David's mother is the only one that still teaches her children at home, though David's currently the only one actually "enrolled", or whatever, because Ozem decided to go to high school.
David has no desire to follow his brothers. He's perfectly fine at home, learning by his mother's hand (with Ethan's help) and spending time with the sheep, and with God. And if he did want to go to the high school then they'd have to get a new shepherd, and while David knows that he wouldn't be stopped he doesn't want to put his family through that.
David says, "I'm one of Jesse's kids," because it's a small town and everybody knows of his father. Sure enough, the man's face brightens.
"It's been awhile since I've had one of those in here," the man says. "Which are you? My memory gets a little fuzzy after Ethan, I'm afraid, but I do know that there's eight and two. Right?"
David nods. "I'm eight. Or—well, ten, I guess. David. There's three in between me and Ethan. Me and my brother Ozem are the only ones still in school, but he goes to the high school. I stay at home."
"Any particular reason why?"
"I look after the sheep. But I have today off because it's my birthday."
The man frowns, just a little bit, and David says, "It's not that bad, just that we can't afford a shepherd so it became my chore. But when I'm not in the field my mom really keeps on top of what I'm learning; I read a lot, and I'm doing ninth grade math already. I'm not too good at writing, because sentences suck, but Ethan's been helping me out."
"Ethan's still at home?"
"He's still sick."
The man nods. "He always did look a little pale whenever your family would come in. I'm sorry to hear that. But enough with the chit chat—what kind of ice cream can I get for you?" David takes a long look at the ice cream menu, something that he hasn't allowed himself since he walked in. There's no point in getting familiar with the ice cream if the cashier is just gonna kick you out, but now that David's gotten the okay he looks his fill. There's a lot of ice cream available—David doesn't know they've expanded if the menu since he was last in here or what—but he disregards all of the quirky stuff immediately.
This is the first time he's had ice cream in awhile. He wants to enjoy it, not experiment and take a risk.
The man notices his struggle. "Need help?" "I—I like chocolate."
"Okay."
"But I like vanilla too."
The man smiles. "Do you like strawberry?"
"I don't know if I've ever had it. I mean." David thinks. "Pretty sure Dad said our choices were between those two."
"Do you want to try strawberry?"
He doesn't have that much change in his pocket, and panic squeezes his throat. What if he doesn't have enough money? David's eyes fly back to the menu board and his heart sinks a little bit, but the man says, "Hey, look at me."
David looks.
"You said it was your birthday?"
David nods.
"Then it's on me. Don't worry about the prices."
"But—"
"Seriously. Don't worry about it this time. Birthdays only come once a year, from what I hear. So, do you want to try strawberry too?"
In the face of the man's generosity, David nods. He does, he really does, but he didn't have enough for chocolate and vanilla and strawberry. Now that the price is out of his hands, however, David feels free to admit it, if awkwardly so. He likes strawberries, and if he likes strawberries then he can't imagine why he wouldn't like strawberry ice cream.
"You ever heard of Neapolitan ice cream?" the man asks, his back to David as he scoops some ice cream into a bowl, and David shakes his head before he remembers that the man's back is to him.
"No."
"It's chocolate and vanilla and strawberry in one bowl. Wanna try?"
David's hesitation evaporates. "Yes."
The man laughs and then there's a small bowl in front of David containing two scoops of white and brown and pink ice cream with a single cherry on top. "I couldn't help myself with the cherry," the man admits, and David grins.
"It's okay," he says, eating the cherry first. "I like cherries, too."
And while he might like cherries, the bowl of ice cream surpasses the cherry by far.
David can't stop saying thank you as he leaves because such kindness and such deliciousness deserve something more than a paltry thank you, right? But paltry thank yous are really all that David has, so he gives them without restraint.
The man behind the counter is laughing at him. "Yeah, yeah," he says, "you're welcome. And you come back now, y'hear? You gotta tell me about your sheep sometime."
David nods, can't wipe the ridiculous smile off of his own face. He knows that he can't promise when he'll be back, that getting a day off is a big enough stretch as it is, but he wants to come back. He wants to try Neapolitan ice cream again.
He wants to experience life off his farm.
-
David knows that he's growing up. He knows that he's getting taller and skinnier and harrier but the absolute worst part has got to be the voice thing. Even though he knows it's happening he doesn't really take notes, or whatever—it's several things that his body is doing, the end—but there is really no way for his voice cracking when he's playing one of his new songs for his family to go well.
He's proud of the song, too; it was one of the harder ones to write, one that he had to slave for days over instead of sitting down and getting it more or less done in an afternoon. None of that matters, though, when his voice decides to jump an octave and a half in the middle of the song. He's prepared to go on and pretend like it never happened, and his parents and Ethan are on board with that plan, but then Nethanel laughs. David stops. "What?"
Nethanel waves him down, still laughing as he wipes his eyes. "Nothing, buddy, just keep going."
"No, seriously. What?"
"David, don't worry about it—"
"Why'd you laugh?"
"You wouldn't understand, kiddo—"
"I'm not a kid—"
"David," Ethan says.
David wants to keep talking, he really does, because why on earth does Nethanel find this funny when he knows what it's like, but then David looks at Ethan. Ethan, who's smiling at him. "Can you finish the song?"
David closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, but he does.
-
He visits Ethan that night before he goes to bed, taking an inventory of the posters and pictures on the wall that he's seen so many times before as he sits on Shammah's bed. "Why does he do that? Make fun of me, I mean. Him and Raddai both."
"It's a brother thing," Ethan says. David frowns.
"That's a horrible excuse."
"Let me rephrase," Ethan says. "Shammah had a good hand in making sure their lives weren't easy, kinda like they're doing for you. Abinadab'd join when whenever he was around."
"What about Eliab?"
"Who d'ya think bugged Shammah and Abinadab?"
"What about you?"
Ethan raises an eyebrow. "What about me?"
"Who did you bug? Or who bugged you, or whatever."
Ethan doesn't reply for a long time. When David looks at him, Ethan almost looks...sad. Kinda lost in his own little world. And a little pale, but Ethan's always pale these days. "E?" David asks.
Ethan shakes his head, comes back to his bedroom from the far off place in his head that he'd been. "Sorry. How were the sheep today?"
The same that they've always been, but David gives an embellishing and slightly over exaggerated answer anyways. Ethan doesn't answer David's question, and, well, it's kinda easy to guess at the answer. Nobody ever bugged Ethan, because Ethan's always been sick.