Chapters 4-5

In chapter 4, Jonas spends some volunteer hours at the bathing room. When he gets to the bathing room, two of his friends were there, Fiona and Asher. Fiona and Asher are already bathing an old, which is what you do in the bathing room, and so Jonas goes over to the other Olds waiting for a turn and starts the water in the tub so he can bath one of them. While Jonas is bathing the lady, she tells about a man that was just released that morning. She explains how it is a wonderful ceremony and how Jonas would love to be there.

In chapter 5, Jonas and his family talks about each of their dreams, if they have one. Jonas usually doesn't have a dream, but this morning he did have one.

"I did dream last night," Jonas told them. He shifted in his chair, frowning.
"The details aren't clear, really," Jonas explained, trying to recreate the odd dream in his mind. "I think I was in the bathing room at the House of Old."
"That's where you were yesterday," Father pointed out.
Jonas nodded. "But it wasn't really the same. There was a tub, in the dream. But only one. And the real bathing room has rows and rows of them. But the room in the dream was warm and damp. And I had taken off my tunic, but hadn't put on the smock, so my chest was bare. I was perspiring, because it was so warm. And Fiona was there, the was she was yesterday."
Asher Too?" Mother asked.
Jonas shook his head. "No. It was only me and Fiona, alone in the room, standing beside the tub. She was laughing. But I wasn't. I was almost a little angry at her, in the dream, because she wasn't taking me seriously."
"Seriously about what?" Lily asked.
Jonas looked at his plate. For some reason that he didn't understand, he felt slightly embarrassed. "I think I was trying to convince her that she should get into the tub of water.
"I wanted her to take off her clothes and get into the tub," he explained quickly. "I wanted to bathe her. I had the sponge in my hand. But she wouldn't. She kept laughing and saying no."


This was the dream that Jonas shared to his family at the morning ritual of dream-telling. Lily went to school and Jonas stayed with his parents and talked about the dreams in more detail. His mother told him that this dream was his first Stirrings. Jonas said that he had heard this being stated on an announcement. His mother also said that a lot of people get the Stirrings at about his age, 12. In the community everyone that had a Stirring will take pills every single day. Jonas had started the same day of his dream-telling with his parents.