Capping Day

Today all boys and girls who are now the age of fourteen are going to be capped. When my family and I went to church this morning, for today is a holiday, we listened to the typical preaching of the rights and duties of manhood. This time Sir Geoffrey didn't preach about womanhood because no girls were going to be capped. In fact Jack is the only person to be capped in the whole village today.

After church we went to stand with the rest of the village in the streets to wait for the arrival of the tripods. People capped and uncapped watch. Also the Vagrants watch. The Vagrants are people who the capping does not work on. It seems that the Vagrants just wallow in their own thoughts all the rest of their lives.

As the tripod came, a huge dome of metal with three legs, a loud stomping sound was heard. Sir Geoffrey bowed down to the great monster. One of the tentacles then swooped Jack up and he went inside the large silver dome.

As we went to the Capping Feast, Jack was returned. He looked the same except for his shaved head and metal cap on his head. We all celebrated his becoming of a man and gorged ourselves on the Great Feast.

The next day I took some time alone and thought about the capping. It was mostly an aspect of life. Everyone got capped, but I didn't understand why the tripods had the right to take us away and cap us, let alone why they did it. What difference would it make if we had caps on our head or not?