Chapter Seven: A Day In The Life Of

Chapter Seven

The next morning I woke up early although how I woke up is debatable because in order to wake up, one most normally be asleep and I wouldn’t consider what I’d done the previous seven and a half hours sleep; it was too sporadic. I’d had a restless night and my neck was killing me for attempting sleep on a slice of misshapen packing foam.

I crept to the bathroom, careful not to disturb my snoring cousin. It was then I felt a certain annoyance at the absence of a door between the bathroom and the bedroom. It wasn’t like I actually had to use the restroom; if I did, I probably would’ve taken a few extra steps to the hallway restroom. I was worried about waking Jade and her discovering something about my personality few friends knew of. I didn’t want any of my friends to worry needlessly about my personal method of stress relief. It didn’t bother me that I did what I did but if a friend unearthed the fact, they would loose sleep, try to help me, and in doing both of these. They would pester me to no end. Having Jade recognize the things engraved on my arm would be especially unfortunate because Jade could inform people who could send me to professional help.

Such professional help would be more of a professional pain. The psychiatrist would lecture me about why I shouldn’t self-injure and persuade me through happy pills that I didn’t need to do such things. I would have to explain my every action to an overpaid witchdoctor who would analyze my every action I’ve ever done only to have my explanations regarded as meaningless chatter from a mental wreck. Over all, such treatment would send me to a rubber room.

I didn’t turn on the bathroom light because again, I didn’t want to wake Jade. Instead I removed the focusing crystal off the laser knife and used the LED as a flashlight.

The familiar scars on my arm were all about one and a half inch circles with intricate patterns inside them. All of the lines were drawn using circles of parts of a circle. I never used straight lines when carving me flesh; I didn’t like looking at hand-drawn straight lines, mostly because they were never perfect. The same could be said about any curved line, but curves hid their blemishes beneath varying degrees of arc length. That was why I always drew in circles, even if I couldn’t draw perfect circles. For me, circles made sense.

I loosened the tourniquet I’d fasted out of a sock causing a sort of draining sensation. The cuts seemed to be okay. The blood had clotted and died without problems and my arm was coated in dry flaky blood. The sock too was crusted with my blood but I didn’t care; it would come out with bleach. I leaned over the sink and splashed a little water on my face before proceeding to wash my arm to prevent infection.

Having just moved in, the bathroom wasn’t equipped with proper first aid necessities so I had to go digging through my bag; I’d thrown a few medical things in it. In my rummaging, I must’ve woken Jade because she mumbled beneath a poorly suppressed yawn “What are you doing?”

I spun to face the drowsy Jade. In my panic, I nearly threw my duffel on her. “ i-uh-I’m looking for something.”

“Do you want food?” She rubbed her eyes. “I packed a box of toaster pastries in my bag if you want one.”

“Oh, uh, thanks.” I replied doing my best to refrain from looking at my arm for fear that any glance I’d take would alert Jade to the injury. “It’s a little drafty in here, don’t you think?!” That was my best effort to divert her attention and conceal my arm beneath my trench coat which had been hung on the door knob the night before.

She yawned again. “Sruun, are you feeling okay? You aren’t even dressed and you’re already putting your overcoat on.”

“What?” My arm was safely hidden inside my coat. “Oh, I’m fine, just, you know, cold.” I nodded as convincingly as I could.

“Then put some clothes on. Shorts and a tank top aren’t exactly frost-proof.” She stood up on her mattress and walked to the hall bathroom.

Relieved, I rushed back into our bedroom’s bathroom. Before going, I grabbed enough clean clothes to change into after a shower. I hung my overcoat across the door frame and turned the shower on. I wasn’t tall enough for my coat to hide the whole door but it was long enough that I could do my business in relative privacy. All Jade would be able to see would be my knees or lower. This gave me a chance to sterilize my incisions without the fear of an unwanted intrusion. Finished cleaning my wound, I stepped into the lukewarm downpour of chlorinated water.

In the safety of the shower, I took a moment to examine what I had carved into my arm. All of the symbols were distinguishable from one another; they all had a different pattern or shape inside. The most recent one reminded me of a rose; it had many complex parts to it and resembled a rose opening to the coming of spring. This rather surprised me because never before had I engraved a floral pattern in my flesh, much less one as detailed and exact as this one was.

Unlike when I lived with Hubert, my showers were short and used hardly any hot water. I hated burdening my grandparents any more than I had to. I got dressed and pulled the trench coat above it all. When I stepped into the bedroom I shared, Jade was pulling a black tee-shirt over her head. There were days when she dressed all in black and even the same gothic attire I normally found myself in. this was one of those days.

Along with the black shirt, Jade had matching cargo pants that were about two inches too long for her and were probably mine. Though I recognized my pilfered pants on her, I didn’t care much, but curiosity forced me to ask. “Are those mine?”

“You don’t mind, do you? I don’t have any pants of my own clean that are suitable for enrolling in school.”

“No, I don’t mind.” I answered. “They look good on you.”

“Thanks, they’re a little long on me; I don’t know how they fit you.” Jade answered looking at the black cloth covering her legs.”

“They’re big on me too.” I admitted. “What did you mean ‘enroll in school’?”

“Grandma asked me to tell you that she wants us to enroll ourselves in school this morning. She’d like to come but can’t.”

“That’s fine.” I replied as Jade brushed her hair.

“Hmm, what do you think? Trench coat or hoodie?” She held up a hooded sweatshirt in one hand and a trench coat similar to my own in the other. Her trench coat was similar but not identical; it was shorter and a different style.

“Hoodie, we don’t want to impose too bad of a first impression with both of us in trench coats.” I suggested.

“True, they’ll be intimidated enough by our appearance.” Jade agreed. She tucked a thin gold necklace into her shirt before pulling the sweatshirt over top the rest of her clothing.

I started out the bedroom door and doubled back. “Have you any idea how to find the school?”

“No, but I think I might know how to find it.” She offered. “Follow me.”

Jade walked out the door of the apartment, leaving me to shut and lock the door. Jade seemed to be wandering the halls of the building without any specific direction or goal. I couldn’t count how many times she turned down an insignificant hallway. I saw no purpose on going down any of the community’s halls but apparently Jade had at least the slightest idea of why each hallway was important. I was about to question Jade’s sense of direction because my own had died out several turns ago but without warning, Jade stopped in front of a computer terminal causing me to bump into her.

“This is a public access computer, all of the skyscraper cities have them. They’re used as guides for people who are lost. They have limited access to the internet but can inform anyone of every minor aspect of the city.” Jade explained. “I discovered them when I was living with the Fodes, one of the families I’ve stayed with.” She scrolled through the database before coming to a conclusion. “The school is this way.” She started off, taking long strides and leaving me to wonder if she would lead us to a school or another maze of endless confusion.

The school turned out to be a building of its own. It was connected to the other buildings through a series of bridges and enclosed walkways. I didn’t even realize I’d transitioned from building to building until I came across a wall of windows that showed the bridge I’d just crossed.

Although the school was large, the entire skyscraper wasn’t the whole school. The first eight floors were off-limits to students and were a series of offices and corporate prisons where the workers were confined to their five-foot square cubicles. The next six levels housed the public school. The public school may have seemed large but it wasn’t like a normal school that only educated people in certain grade levels. The public school had children who were barely older than infants to rising adults itching for graduation to arrive. Every floor had two grade levels on it with students attending school from every building in a three mile radius. That may not have appeared to be much but with children arriving from twenty-two square miles of skyscrapers, each stretching up immeasurably far, there were a few more students than otherwise anticipated. That many children, after some pondering was done, seemed to be greater than the school could handle, but the figures didn’t take into account the length or width of the skyscraper the school was sitting in.

On level fourteen, was a place of rest. There, students could have a haven for relaxation or working on their studies. This floor was reserved strictly to accommodate the needs and desires of a teenage culture and provided, along with a safe welcoming shelter, a library, a series of restaurants (both fast food and slightly more expensive varieties) and a shopping mall. Jade and I had to pass through this floor to get to the school, as did nearly everyone else; most of the pathways connecting this particular building to the others were on the fourteenth floor, though in other buildings, there were mandatory bridges on floors that were multiples of three.

I didn’t know how many floors above the fourteenth were consumed by it, but above the resting grounds, was another school. This one wasn’t part of the one Jade and I were to attend; it was privatized. I assumed that a private school in such close proximity to the public school was probably some snob’s attempt to flaunt his wealth with the commoner. Incorrectly, I assumed the two schools would leave each other alone and their students would seldom interact. It would only take time for me to realize how wrong I had been.

Jade and I walked into the main office of the public school. I wasn’t sure what to expect out of the school. Being a big city school, it would obviously have a diverse student body, but my thoughts trailed to the educational opportunities.

“We’re here to enroll.” Jade announced.

The lady at the desk looked us over with her untrusting dull eyes while I did the same. She wore a blue jumper with as odd as it may have sounded, green and pink speckled elephants printed on it. Her hair was intensely curly although I saw a few signs she’d tried to straighten it without much luck. Her desk had a laptop in one corner and every other part of it was hidden by mounds of clutter and homeless paper. I could only wonder what her house looked like with her desk so atrocious.

“You’ll have to go to guidance for that. It’s the first door on the left.” She pointed in a direction behind her; if her desk was in shambles, it was nothing compared to the disturbing squeal of her voice.

Jade and I walked into the room indicated. It was strangely over decorated with trinkets that were probably intended to create a welcome and friendly environment for the distressed pupil. Hanging on the wall was a sign that said one’s guidance counselor was one’s best friend. It was sad how stupid people were if they believed the decorations were enough to persuade a student to open up here where statistics and data grew faster than in a calculator. Personally, I found the room to be so over done, the claims of the guidance office being a home away from home deceitful at best.

Jade and I signed a paper whose invitation for an autograph appeared friendly enough yet whose scrawled signatures said otherwise.

We didn’t have to sit long in the abused lounge chairs because our would-be guidance counselor wasn’t doing anything worthwhile and invited us into her cozy office.

“Good morning, I’m Mrs. Reynold.” She offered a hand for Jade to shake. Jade warmly accepted the greeting but I sat down before the guidance counselor could consider bestowing a genial handshake upon me. I knew it was rude but I had no proof that this guidance counselor was any more noteworthy than any I’d had before. A single adjective could be plucked from the recesses of my mind to generalize all guidance counselors. Incompetent. “I understand you two young ladies wish to enroll in school?” Jade nodded while I stabbed my eyes into the woman’s subconscious. She did her best to remain cheerful and professional but beneath her guise,,,, I noticed a twinge of fear. This lady was very good at hiding her emotions; many would crack under the stare I gave. This guidance counselor probably wouldn’t have been bad at a poker table. “Then let’s get started, shall we?”

Jade shrugged yet I sat more motionless than a carved chunk of marble. “Do you have transcripts from your previous school?” Jade handed over our two manila envelopes. The guidance counselor took a moment to thumb through the paperwork. “I see all the classes you’ve taken are available here. Would you like to continue those courses or look into some of the ones we offer here? We have quite a selection.” She asked Jade.

“May I see the classes you have available?” Jade asked.

The guidance counselor gave Jade a packet of information and turned to me. “You on the other hand I have little to go upon. All I know about you are the classes you were taking from January fifth to the end of last week. I don’t know how many credits you may or may not have. “She paused in the hope that my still lips might have an explanation. “From the information I’ve been given, I can’t even say for certain that you were born.” She laughed an all too fake laugh.

I gave her a few more seconds of silence before allowing her the privilege of hearing me speak. “I am neither a lab experiment, or an undeserving tenth grader. If you’d like proof of such facts, I have a belly button in the center of my abdomen and good old Uncle Sam watching over my every piece of printed history.” She gave me a puzzled look. “Call up the president if you don’t believe me. Upon mentioning my name, you will discover your home has been bugged.”

“I see,” She wrote a note on a memo pad. Jade rescued me from further questioning bu handing the packet of stapled papers to the guidance counselor.

“I’ve decided to take Biology, History, whatever level of Math I’m in, English 10, Japanese, Chorus, and French.” Jade declared.

“Are you sure you would like taking Japanese? It hasn’t been used much since the unification. It’s mostly used in the under-developed portions of Japan.” The unification was an event in history that was all of the former nations of the world uniting under a common government and language to become the United States of Planet Earth. Many of the old languages became obsolete while English became the language spoken across Earth, in the space stations, and on the moon and Mars.

“Yes, I’d like to take it. There’s a lot of culture to be learned in taking that course.”

“And you’re comfortable taking two languages? It’s a difficult route tot ravel.” The guidance counselor explained.

“Yes, I can manage the challenge, it won’t be difficult.” Jade answered.

“And what about you? Do you want the same classes you had?” She asked me.

“I wish to be in the same classes as my cousin.” I stated.

She cast me a suspicious glare. “You’re sure you don’t want some originality in your life? Are you content with being a mere follower?”

I didn’t let the counselor’s harsh words sink their teeth into my thoughts. “Everyone is always taught to be a leader rather than a follower. This being said, everyone is a leader who is following the example of another leader, making them a follower, while the followers are doing something other than the mundane cliché, making them a leader.”

“You two aren’t going to be a problem, are you?” She didn’t intend to include Jad e in her question; she was only insinuating her lack of trust in me. Fortunately for her, Jade took offense at the statement and answered before my response could plunge into a battle of sharpened tongues.

“Why would we be a problem?! We’re good kids who share the same interests and wish to have the opportunity to commune from an educational standpoint!” Jade had used a lot of lengthy words but hadn’t really said that much. My only guess for the reason the guidance counselor gave us identical schedules was that she favored Jade.

Our first day of class began at seven thirty-five the next morning. Jade and I both overslept and as a result had to shower at the same time. It was a battle for the hot water with me lathering up in the bedroom shower and Jade in our grandparents’ bathroom. I felt a pang of guilt when my shower grew to be comfortably warm but all such thoughts were relinquished when the temperature plummeted and I was left to rinse off in water that numbed the skin and caused goosebumps to erupt over every portion of my body, including areas I thought were impervious to such things.

My grandmother was making coffee when Jade and I flew out the door. Jade was out the door before me and so my grandmother stuffed some change in my hand for the two of us to eat lunch. I didn’t tell her but I had no intention of keeping the money; I planned on smuggling it back into her purse as soon as I returned home. Jade and I were going to eat with Hubert’s life savings.

The first class was math. Jade and I barely found the room when the tardy bell rang. Being the new kids, she and I didn’t have the luxury of choosing our seats. Sadly, all the seats in the back section had been taken and only two seats were available. The teacher, Mr. Divisi, told Jade to take the seat at the grouped in the center of the class. I, on the other hand, was ordered to take the empty chair farther back.

The class was divided into nine groups of four. The tables were pushed together to form a square. My sitting at the desk I’d been instructed to, filled all the available seats in the class. I had to admit, I’d never been in a class this large.

The three other people at the group I sat at didn’t seem happy to have another acquaintance.

The boy sitting to my left was an athlete. That was the only thing I could find to say that was polite. The other things my first impression suggested were that he was muscular in a disturbing way, had an IQ of thirty-two and a half, and was only in school for the football. The girl sitting across from me wasn’t much better. If I had any one thing to say about her, it was that she probably made a fortune on street corners. Her raiment told countless stories of lost innocence and repetitive first dates. She was trying to tell me, or at least what my eyes heard, that she was available. The last boy in the group puzzled me

He wore the same black attire I’d grown accustomed to seeing on few others except myself. Just because he dressed in a similar fashion however, didn’t immunize him to my disapproval. His scruffy hair had been tampered with too many times; I found the evidence of the multiple colorings tacky. It seemed the only way he managed to make his hair a single color was to bleach it blond; such over-the-counter vanity was revolting.

The teacher passed out a worksheet on the Pythagorean Theorem. I took a single glance at it and recognized the procedure for finding the various sides of right triangles. This class would be as simple as the alphabet to a dictionary.

The teacher walked up to a podium at the front of the class. “Class, today’s lesson is about a guy named Pythagoras. He and I share something in common. We both had this radical theory about life-” Where this was going, I had no idea but someone else had seen this coming speech replayed for the umpteenth time.

The boy with the bleach blond hair mumbled “What good does a lecture about a teacher’s sex life do when teaching geometry? Perhaps it suggests the only curves this teacher sees are made by compasses.” He laid his head on the desk, not facing the teacher, and started working on the assignment.

I wondered why this male had such impatience for a teacher’s confession of little luck in bed. Could it have been that he himself had a poor relationship with a girl and had never gotten any of what he’d wanted? Had he never had a girl to claim as his own, to love and to cherish? OR was it that he was so perverted in nature that he couldn’t help but reject anything or anyone that didn’t rise to his low standards and morals? If that were the case, he surely didn’t deserve a night with any girl ignorant enough to cast away her dignity without a band of gold to show for it.

The next class of the day was chorus. I walked into the room with Jade ranting behind me at the stupidity of her peers in math and how she’d had to personally teach them the Pythagorean theorem. I didn’t bother pointing out to her that two months prior, it was she in need in need of my teaching. I saw no use in ruining her pride.

In the center of the class, an electric grand piano sat gathering dust and tattered sheets of music. The teacher was a young college student named Mr. Boiardi. It seemed he was very proud of his name because he had Jade and I each pronounce his name before he allowed us to find a seat. It was spelled B-O-I-A-R-D-I, and pronounced like the canned goods provider, but the teacher didn’t understand we could say it correctly.

Mr. Boiardi handed Jade and I both music and told us to sing alto. Jade seemed more enthusiastic about singing then I but that didn’t much surprise me; I’d only taken chorus because Jade signed up for it and the other available music classes couldn’t offer what I’d wanted. Music theory would’ve been a fun class to take but I felt I wouldn’t have been exposed to a variety of music and would spend my time mulling over dots of ink climbing two-dimensional ladders. Band or Orchestra might’ve been interesting but there wouldn’t have been any freedom to express my creativity. Chorus might also have had the same restraints but I found it more likely that a singer would be able to add beauty in the interpretation of a piece. Of course, that depended solely on the ability of said person to sing.

The song the choir was singing was a modern take on a rather classical song and involved a harmonic accompaniment by the piano. I could tell from the complexity of the notes on the piano’s staff and the simplified sound being produced by the piano, that the teacher wasn’t a refined pianist.

Upon completing the various songs, the choir teacher took a moment to let us rest our voices, or at least it was his excuse. He actually seemed to be abandoning the position behind the pseudo-ivory keys. He appeared to be giving up on his musically challenged students.

Sensing the newfound freedom, I positioned myself on the piano bench. I was drawn to a piano in the same way a mosquito found warm flesh or a moth flying into light. I didn’t know what to play and wasn’t going to recite a song of my own creation in front of so many people who were then strangers and would soon become my peers. The music in front of me seemed like a good choice yer not just any selection would do. The song that the choir first sad suited me. I turned the worn and tattered cover to reveal the first page and twelve measures. I examined the chords and key strokes and placed my fingers accordingly. I had to admit that it was difficult to play; there were dozens of thirty-second notes in conjunction with hundreds of rising and falling sixteenth notes and long, drawn-out whole notes. It was a pretty song but with only the sad singing provided by the unwilling choir and the minimal piano playing given by the instructor, it was difficult to interpret as divine.

Remarkably, my playing prompted the inept self-centered teacher to look away from his uneducational business. He seemed stunned a mere girl who was somewhere around half his age could play a composition as difficult as this one was. He hurried over and interrupted my playing to pose a question. “You’re playing marvelously! Do you think that maybe you could play this one?” He sat a piece in front of me and opened the cover. The man’s questioning of whether or not I could play it was an insult to my skills, one that also further debased his own mediocrity.

“The mere fact you feel I couldn’t denotes incompetence in your ability to recognize euphonious harmony.” I stated without caring that I was insulting the teacher.

Mr. Boiardi gave me a puzzled glance before saying. “I agree.” He clearly didn’t realize what I’d said. Such was incompetence. “Play this now so I can hear how well you can do it.”

I couldn’t help but gawk at this teacher. In my blatant stare, I heard the bell that was indicative of the class change. “Sir, I have to leave now and go to my next class. I’m new here after all.” Jade was standing next to the piano waiting for me. “What’s your next class?” He questioned.

“French but-” He cut me off causing a scowl to imprint itself on my face.

“It’s in room 129, now you know where it is so you can stay a little longer.” He noticed Jade and I were the only ones left in the classroom. “Hey! Get out of here before I give you detention!” He yelled at Jade with a frantic motion of his right arm. Jade pushed a lock of hair behind her ear with an unusual finger to do so with; I didn’t blame her for favoring the longest digit. Fortunately for her, Mr. Boiardi didn’t see the gesture as Jade left the room.

To appease the school teacher enough to let me leave, I played the first few measures of the song. Every time I tried to stop playing, he told me to keep playing. Amazingly enough, the teacher forced me to play until the tardy bell rang. When I left, he didn’t utter any words of appreciation or even issue a hall pass.

I rushed to class and had to wait for the French teacher to allow me in. What a great first impression. The French teacher was a thin blond-haired lady who was probably in her early forties. Her hair was cut short and she had these glasses that magnified her brown eyes several times.

“Bonjour Madame,” I greeted her warmly with the most perfect French I could muster; I’d picked it up living with my father, who liked taking me to Canada, and had insisted upon lessons for me as a girl. “Je regretted je suis en retard.” I apologized for being late. “Mon professeur de choeur demands-moi que je joue le piano.”

“Pourqoui est-ce que tu prends le classe de francais pour les amateurs quand tu parles francais tres bien?” She asked me why I was taking the French class for amateurs.

“Parce-que je n’ai pas de unite de valeur pour francais. Je pense les gens dans le bureau sont imbecile.”

She laughed at my saying the people in the office were idiotic. “Je sais. Je m’appele Madame Bouvier. Comment t’appelle-tu?”

Je m’appele Sruun Borealis.” I told her my name in response to the teacher telling me hers.

“D’accord, tu peux asseoir dans le pupitre la-bas.”

I moved to the desk the teacher recommended. Upon passing Jade, she gave me an expression that could only mean “What the heck?!”

The next class Jade and I had was Japanese. Jade seemed to catch on in Japanese class very quickly where as I struggled with the long dead language. Jade absolutely fell in love with the class and not even halfway through it, she was trying to have a conversation with her peers in the language, or perhaps she was singing a funny song from the class. Being more fluent in English and French, I couldn’t really understand the words, but I think when translated, they meant children are tasty.

The next fifty minutes for Jade and I were reserved for a lunch break. Jade and I walked back up to the fourteenth floor to get something to eat. Jade walked off to find something on her own while I headed for my selection.

I stepped in line at one of the Asian restaurants situated on the fourteenth floor. I wasn’t planning to eat much, probably just a small serving of steamed vegetables. I wasn’t to famished although after waiting in line for nearly ten minutes and having my place stolen not just once but by four people, I was somewhat perturbed.

Four students from the private school had cut in line in front of me. They each had on a tightly pressed uniform. The two girls in the group had on a blue heavily starched knee length skirt and a short sleeved blouse. Over their white blouse, they had a cream colored sweater. The males were dressed similarly; in place of the navy skirts, they had khakis. Everyone in the group had perfectly combed hair. There was a foreboding feeling of arrogance and wealth cascading from them.

Even though they had the pride of English nobility, I wasn’t about to let them step in front of me. “Excuse me; I was in line ahead of you.” I asserted.

“And now you and your flea market apparel can be in line behind us.” One girl sneered.

“Thank you!” I exclaimed. “I certainly wouldn’t want to see your face before eating! I’d lose my appetite!”

“What?” The girl turned around again.

“Oh God, no!” I cried cringing in exaggerated fear. Put it away, there are people eating!”

“What?” How thick was she to not catch on?

“Just between you and me, are you wearing expensive clothes to conceal your blemishes? Just so you know, it’s not working. Your face is still indistinguishable from your, well, you can use your imagination there, can’t you?”

She stared at me with a flagrant expression of limitless confusion. “You’re just jealous that my socks cost about three hundred dollars more than your outfit.” What a crippling comeback.

“You’re just jealous that my IQ is about three hundred points higher than yours.”

“That’s right.” She snapped before marching up to the counter to buy her food.

The one thing I noticed while sitting with Jade was that the students from the private school and from the public school avoided each other like the way grazing animals avoid predators on the African savannah. The private school’s students all seemed to be stuck-up rich kids while the children in the public school tried their best to rise to the echelon the rich kids lived in. Every time one of the private school kids passed within earshot of their poorer neighbors, the public school children would put on a guise of wealth. I was amused by the rapid fluctuation of the conversations. The people could’ve been talking about the test they’d just failed but when one of the uniformed students walked by, the conversations would change to the imaginary credit score their parents had “achieved” or the new house that had been bought with a check, or the mom and pop business that had monopolized and gone public.

Jade and I had English in the block following our lunch break. I didn’t find much to interest me. It was a pretty uneventful class; Biology was the same.

The last class of the day was history and truthfully, I wasn’t expecting much out of the class. It seemed Jade’s expectations were low as well because as soon as she found a desk, she fell asleep. Fortunately for us, we weren’t really doing all that much work; we just had to sit through the presentations of the student’s projects.

They all had a current evens presentation. They had to write a paper about several newspaper articles and then summarize what they were about to the class. You could almost do your whole project just after hearing a few presentations. Nearly every presentation was identical to the one before it. All but a few were about some new bill being passed or a space station that had declared itself an independent nation. One of the exceptions was a project by the non-athletic boy who’d sat with my group in math.

“Hello, I think you all probably know why I am here behind the podium.” He spoke to the class as if they were close companions even though the presentation was supposed to be formal. “You may think I’m here to discuss a boring governmental debate but I have found a topic far more interesting.” He paused. “In the past few months, there has been a surprising increase in the number of missing people n relation to the claim of alien abduction. Statistically, such figures have always been low, only now, the numbers are rising and the people are missing…”