Capping Day

Today my friend Jack got capped. It is quite an eccentric practice! I can't believe I should get capped next summer! It is not permitted to talk about what happens when you get capped, and I'm not so sure I want to know. Nevertheless, I'm curious. Unlike the rest of the boys who will get capped along with me next summer, I am questioning the Tripods' morals. Tripods are the strange machines running our lives. We don't know much about them, but we know what they look like. They have three long, metal legs, and they are very shiny. We don't know who is controlling them, or anything, we just kind of acknowledge them...

Anyway, when a child turns fourteen, the Tripods "cap" them. All I really know about the Capping is that Jack went in as a pondorous, imaginative friend, and came out as a boring, old, robot. The caps are perminant, so nothing can be done to bring back my best friend. Don't get me wrong, everybody over fourteen in my village is just like Jack. I've just been thinking, wearing a cap doesn't seem like fun at all.