Jonas's Father brings home Gabriel, who Lily says has funny eyes just like Jonas. Jonas doesn’t like it when people mention his eyes, they are different than the rest of the community they all have dark colored eyes except for a very few, like Jonas and Gabe. Jonas knows that it's rude to point out when people are different, but lily is still young and doesn’t understand. She wonders aloud if maybe Gabe and Jonas had the same birth mother. Jonas ponders that light eyes give a person depth. Lily thinks Gabe is just so adorable she could eat him up; she says she wishes she could be a Birthmother. Her mother had reacted badly to that statement. The rules say that someone can be a Birthmother for the duration of three pregnancies, but the rest of their life is hard labor.
Jonas sits at his desk and does homework. He thinks about the loudspeakers, which always make general announcements aimed at individuals. For example, Lily's hair ribbons are untied, so there will likely be an announcement that says, "This is a reminder that hair ribbons should remain tied." He remembers being chastised this way when he was younger. That incident had to do with his taking an apple home from school, so the announcement was about not hoarding snacks. Jonas remembers why he took the apple home in the first place. He and Asher were playing catch with the apple when the apple changed and looked different. It stayed the same shape, the same nondescript shade as his shirt, the same size, but somehow, and he can't describe it exactly, it changed. Four times it changed, only momentarily each time. Asher didn't notice anything unusual, though. Which is why Jonas took it home to experiment with it, but it was no use as the change didn’t happen.