Matched by Ally Condie Page A

I know it, and Grandfather knows it. The Officials never would have allowed the adoption if Ky himself had been a threat.
    Grandfather looks at the plate where it clattered from the tray onto the floor. I move to pick it up, but he stops me. “No,” he says, his voice sharp, and then he bends creakily. As if he were made of old wood, an old tree, stiff wooden joints. He pushes the last pieces of food back onto the plate and then he looks at me with his clear eyes. Nothing stiff about them ; they are alive, full of movement. “I don’t like it,” he says. “Why would someone change your microcard?”
    “Grandfather,” I say. “Please, sit down. It’s a prank, and they’ll find out who did it and take care of everything. An Official from the Matching Department said so herself.” I wish I hadn’t told him. Why did I think there would be comfort in the telling?
    But now there is. “That poor boy,” Grandfather says, his voice sad. “He’s been marked through no fault of his own. Do you know him well?”
    “We’re friendly, but we’re not close. I see him sometimes during free-rec hours on Saturdays,” I explain. “He received his permanent work position a year ago and so I don’t see him much anymore.”
    “And what is his work position?”
    I hesitate to tell Grandfather because it is such a dismal one. We were all surprised when Ky received such a lowly assignment, since Patrick and Aida are well respected. “He works at the nutrition disposal center.”
    Grandfather makes a grimace. “That’s hard, unfulfilling work.”
    “I know,” I say. I’ve noticed that, in spite of the gloves the workers wear, Ky’s hands are permanently red from the heat of the water, the machines. But he does not complain.
    “And the Official let you tell me this?” Grandfather asks.
    “Yes,” I say. “I asked her if I could tell one person. You.”
    Grandfather’s eyes gleam mischievously. “Because the dead can’t talk?”
    “No,” I say. I love Grandfather’s jokes, but I can’t joke back, not about this. It’s coming too quickly. I will miss him too much. “I wanted to tell you because I knew you would understand.”
    “Ah,” Grandfather says, raising his eyebrows in a wry expression. “And did I?”
    Now I am laughing, a little. “Not as well as I’d hoped. You acted like my parents would have, if I’d told them.”
    “Of course I did,” he says. “I want to protect you.”
    Not always, I think, raising my eyebrows back at him. Grandfather is the one who finally made me stop sitting at the edge of the pool.
    He joined us there one summer day and asked, “What is she doing?”
    “That’s what she always does,” Xander said.
    “Can’t she swim?” Grandfather asked, and I glared at him because I could speak for myself. He knew that.
    “She can,” Xander said. “She just doesn’t like to do it.”
    “I don’t like the jumping-in part,” I informed Grandfather.
    “I see,” he said. “What about the diving board?”
    “Especially not that.”
    “All right,” he told me. He sat next to me on the edge. Even back then, when he was younger and stronger, I remember thinking how old he looked compared to my friends’ grandparents. My grandparents were one of the last couples who chose to be Matched later in life. They were thirty-five when they Matched. My father, their one child, wasn’t born until four years later. Now, no one is allowed to have a child after they turn thirty-one.
    The sun shone right through his silver hair and made me see each strand even when I wasn’t looking for such detail. It made me sad, even though he made me angry. “ This is exciting,” he said, kicking his feet in the water. “I can see how you’d never want to do anything but sit.” I heard the teasing in his voice and turned away.
    Then he stood up and walked toward the diving board. “Sir,” said the waterguard in charge of the pool. “Sir?”
    “I have a recreational pass,” Grandfather