Avra's brown eyes crinkle as she frowns. "I feel fine, Mentor Maxine. Elira can help me if I have any problems."
I nod in agreement. "Yeah, I'll help her. She'll be fine here with me."
Mentor Maxine sighs as she writes something on her clipboard. "Okay, I'm only going along with this because I trust you to help your friend, Elira."
"You know me. I'm as trustworthy as they come. What does ‘Dang' mean, by the way?"
"Oh, it's just a word I say when I'm frustrated. There are more vulgar words some mentors use when they are frustrated, but I choose not to."
I look through the window at the outside as Mentor Maxine tends to Avra. The last window I remember having was in the green dorm. That was six years ago. I almost forgot how beautiful the sky is. The light blue above contrasts with the white snow on the ground and the thick barrier of deep green pine trees that surround the complex. The branches sway back and forth in a beautiful rhythm. "Is there a big fan out there, blowing the tree branches, so they wiggle and dance, Mentor Maxine?"
Maxine stands up and joins me at the window. "No Elira, there is wind out there, blowing things around. Don't you remember reading about wind in science class?"
I feel like an idiot. "Oh, yeah. I remember now. I wish I could feel it for myself."
Maxine looks down at her feet.
I notice a guard outside walking toward the window. It spurs another question. "Can the complex guards feel the wind through those thick white suits at all?"
"No, they can't. The suits and helmets are too thick to feel anything from the environment."
I nod. "It has to be that way to keep them safe from the toxins out there, doesn't it?"
"Mmmhmmm. I need to check on the other fragile reds. I will see you two at victual time."
As Mentor Maxine leaves, Avra asks me, "Why do you like Mentor Maxine so much?"
"She and Mentor Roberta are the only mentors who have followed us up each year."
Avra raises her eyebrows, "So?"
"The mentors who stay with the same dorm room never try to get to know me, so I don't try to get to know them. Mentor Roberta is horrible, and Mentor Maxine is nice. I can't help but like her."
"She's nice, but she is doing her job. Sometimes I think you waste your friendship on her instead of using it on the other girls."
I roll my eyes. "We've lived together long enough for me to know that most of the girls our age are fluff-heads."
Avra laughs as she puts her clothes in her drawers.
I don't tell Avra, but I like to think that my mother was like Mentor Maxine. When I was six years old, Mentor Maxine started working at the complex. We were in the purple dorm that year; my best friend had been Heidi at that time. She had a large head and was getting sicker and sicker every day. We were playing with dolls on the floor beside our beds one day, when Heidi groaned and fell over sideways, stiff as a board. Tears streamed down my face as I screamed for help. This wasn't the first time a friend of mine had died. The mentors usually just took them away without much explanation. I always wanted more. What did I want exactly? Maybe comfort? Compassion? Empathy? A hug? Those things were hard to come by in the complex, that is, until Mentor Maxine started working there. After Heidi's body was removed, Mentor Maxine picked me up off the floor and hugged me for a while. She told me, "It is okay to be sad and cry, Elira. It's a terrible thing to lose your best friend." She stroked my hair and wiped the tears off my cheeks. She introduced me to Avra that day and we have been best friends ever since.
Avra wakes me up out of my daydream. "Let's go to the school room! I can't wait to see a boy!"
I really can't blame her. I want to see them too. "Yes! Let's go see these mysterious boys."
Chapter 3
The school room is huge. Sixty white desks are lined up in the middle of the room. White boards line the front, experiment stations line the sides. It's hard to focus on those things though, with the top half of the back wall acting as a giant window into an equally huge school room full of boys!
My mouth drops open as I stand there in awe. At least 40 boys of different colors, shapes, and sizes are looking through the glass at us. Some of them are pressing their foreheads and noses against the window, some of them are standing back a couple of feet, but all of them are looking at us as wide-eyed as we are at them.
I shake my head in amazement. "I can't believe all of these boys have lived on the other side of the complex our whole lives."
Avra starts to wobble on her feet. I grab her and set her in one of the white desks. She turns around so she can keep staring at the boys. "Elira, some of them are better looking than the boy in the science book." I nod, still shocked at what these boys are making me feel inside.
The telephone is being used by a pretty, brunette girl with only one foot and an orange button. The boy on the other side is tall and blonde with most of his chin missing and a yellow button. They are laughing and smiling at each other. The line for the telephone is as long as the classroom. I hear a beeping sound as the next girl in line says, "Time's up, my turn." The pretty brunette girl presses her hand to the glass, and the boy on the other side presses his hand on the glass on his side. They seem to be struggling to leave each other. Even after they hand the phones off, they walk, or in her case hop, with their hands pressed to the glass, sliding to the other end of the glass wall, bumping into people as they go.
I feel something weird stirring inside of me as I watch them. I remember having a brief lesson about this natural desire for females and males to be together in science class. I never really understood it until now. The pull we're all feeling toward these new and exotic boys is strong enough that I bet if I offered any of the girls my dessert for a month if they left the school room right now, none of them would take me up on it.
Some of the boys are surprisingly pleasant to look at. My eyes keep wandering back to the same few. I wonder what their voices sound like. Some of the boys are not attractive at all. One of the unattractive ones is puckering his lips at Mara as she flicks her white-blonde hair and laughs. Ew, that sight makes my stomach turn. Some of the boys are hyperactive and seem to annoy the other boys. One in particular, with short, blonde, curly hair, green eyes, and a red button keeps tipping people's desks over when they aren't looking. Curly, you're irritating me, and I don't even live on that side of the glass.
One of the taller, nicer looking boys with black spikey hair, light brown skin, and lumpy scars all over his neck is writing something on a piece of paper at a desk. He walks up to the glass and presses the paper to it. I jump out of my seat before I realize what I'm doing, to get close enough to read it.
I'm Scott 194. I want to know the girl's name who is sitting at a desk with brown skin, black hair, and a red button.
My eyes fill with excitement as I race back to Avra to tell her what the boy's message says. She looks like she might collapse onto the floor. I find a discarded piece of paper at an experiment station and a marker on the floor and watch Avra write a message back telling Scott her name. I can't help but feel jealous as she walks up to the glass wall and presses the paper to it. She is wobbly enough that I join her at the glass just in case. Scott smiles at her and presses his hand to the glass. Avra is much shorter than Scott. She has to reach high to place her hand on his. Just then, Mentor Roberta's short, round figure marches into the room.
"Okay, that's enough flirting. The victuals are on the tables; everybody go eat." When no one moves, she pulls a small box out of her purple jumpsuit pocket and pushes a button. A loud shrill noise blasts into my ears. "I won't warn you again. Go eat your victuals." The loud noise fills the air yet again. Cruel woman. Girls hustle out of the room in droves now. Anything is better than hearing that again. Avra waves at Scott and starts walking away. She slips a little bit. Mentor Roberta runs to her and helps her stand up straight. "Are you okay, Av
ra?"
"Yes, I'm fine. My heart is just a little fluttery today."
Mentor Roberta sneers and writes something on her clipboard. "I'm sure it is. That's why we don't let you see the boys until now; your hearts can't handle it." Then almost as an afterthought she mutters, "Neither can your work ethic."
I try to figure out what Mentor Roberta means as we shuffle down the hall to the common room.
The tables are full except for two spots at a sickly red table. Avra and I sit down with the red button girls and peel back the aluminum foil from our trays. The victuals look delicious. I love how new dorms mean new food too! My tray has a mound of vanilla pudding in one corner, a golden-brown chicken breast, buttery potato cubes, a brown roll, and what looks like little green trees. I stab one with my fork and sniff it. It doesn't have a very strong scent. I place it in my mouth and bite down on the little branches. It is buttery, and plant flavored. I kind of like it.
A sickly girl across the table who's laying on one arm says, "It's called broccoli. We get it every other day in the glass dorm."
Julie, the mean girl I met today, leans her chair back so she can speak into my ear, "You like to sit with the best of the best, don't you?"
I push her chair back down to the ground and away from me. "Turn around and shut up, Julie."
"I can tell you are going to be a delight to share a dorm with," she hisses back.
I turn my chair so I can ignore her better. I look across the table at the sickly girl who explained broccoli to me and smile at her. "I've never heard of broccoli before. I like new food. I'm Elira. What's your name?"
The girl sits up straighter, her eyes keep rolling back in her head, "I-I-I'm Gr-Gr-Gretta. I want to be a gardener someday. I like to study plants."
"Huh, that's neat. Uh, you don't look very good. Do you feel okay?"
"I-I don't know why it keeps going dark..." The girl barely finishes her sentence before falling face first into her tray. She stops moving. I jump up and pull her out of her food. Her eyes are closed, and vanilla pudding is sliding down her cheek onto her chest. She doesn't seem to be breathing.
I scream as I shake Gretta, "Mentor Roberta! Come quick!"
Avra, Julie, and the other girls around me are frozen in their seats as they watch Mentor Roberta rush over to us and check Gretta for breathing and a pulse. She doesn't find one. She pulls the little communication box out of her pocket and turns a dial. She speaks into the box, "I have a defunct one in the female glass common room, 151 red."
I want to scream at Mentor Roberta. I pound the table with my fist and then start smacking Gretta's cheeks with my hand. Maybe I can slap her back to life. I stop as the soft flesh of her face turns hard. Why isn't Mentor Roberta trying to save her? Why is she talking about this nice person like she's just a number on her clipboard?
Mentor Roberta shakes her head at me and forces me back to my seat. She stands straighter and clears her throat. "I hope you all feel grateful right now. You are incredibly lucky to be inside the complex away from the deadly toxins that kill people outside. This poor red had more internal deformities than our complex could save her from. The outside world is nothing but everyday death. Be grateful you live in the complex with only occasional death." Julie nods her head then digs into her food. I slump in my seat and look at the broccoli on my tray, wishing Gretta could tell me more about it. I wish she could tell me anything at all. I feel tears leaking from my eyes as I lay my head on the table. I can't look at her still form a minute longer.
Three mentors burst through the door. They take Gretta away. They don't say anything more to us. It is like Gretta never existed.
Chapter 4
Most of the girls rush back into the school room after 12:00 victuals. I keep my head on the table until Mentor Roberta forces my head up with both of her hands. I'm sure a big rosy red cheek stares back at her.
"You don't need any more splotches than you already have, Elira. Sit up."
I sit up, but my frown isn't going anywhere.
"Crying won't bring her back. You need to move so we can disinfect the table. Go to the school room with everyone else or go to bed."
Avra tugs on my sleeve and whispers, "Come on, Elira. Come to the school room with me."
I drag myself out of my seat and follow Avra to the school room. The rest of the girls have forgotten Gretta already and the flirtations have moved up a level. Mara has both hands on the glass with the ugly boy from before putting his hands on hers from the other side. They look like they're trying to figure out a way to kiss with four inches of glass between them. Gag.
My eyes are drawn to the same few boys as before but then a new face captures my attention. He is tall with a broad shoulder, not shoulders because one of his shoulders is missing as far as I can tell. The arm on that side lies shriveled and limp. The other side of him looks like it has taken up the slack, that arm is the most muscular arm in the entire room. The boy's face is oval shaped with a strong jaw. His hair is a dark red, kind of auburn color. His eyes are green just like mine. While the other boys are at the glass gawking at us, he is slinking around the room testing the strength of the items in the classroom. The scrawny male mentor on their side is plenty busy watching the boys at the glass. ‘Bicep' as I'm already calling him, takes the mentor's desk drawers out, one at a time, pulls on them to see if they will break apart, then puts them back in.
He takes apart the door's hinges and then puts them back together before anyone notices. Then he gets gutsy and takes apart the sink at an experiment station. I'm afraid he's going to get caught as the tall, skinny male mentor stands up out of a student desk and stretches. A boy with pale skin and black hair and an incredibly good-looking boy with dirty-blonde hair walk over to the boy in trouble and help him put the faucet back together as quickly as they can. I look across the room at the mentor to see if he's noticed, but he is talking to, wait, the good-looking boy with dirty-blonde hair? How did he get over there so fast? I look back at the sink, but Bicep and the black-haired guy are the only ones there. They slurp water out of the sink that is in fine working order again. Wait, do I see someone laying on their back inside the sink cabinet? I look back at the mentor; the good-looking guy is still there talking to him. That guy did some crazy fast moving. I wonder how I missed it.
Boom, boom, boom. My eyes are forced to a line of boys pounding on the glass wall in a steady rhythm with their eyes bulging and their jaws hanging open. What are they looking at? I look at a group of girls to the left of me just in time to see Jade, the boy-crazy girl my age, pull the zipper on her jumpsuit down to just above her belly button. Her fingers grasp each side of the opening when Mentor Roberta pushes past me with her finger on the shriek button. We all cover our ears as Jade pulls her zipper back up. She is a few seconds too late. Mentor Roberta grabs both of Jade's shoulders and escorts her from the room at a steady march.
We girls all stare at each other wide-eyed and shocked at what just happened. What was Jade thinking? Mentor Roberta appears again somewhat out of breath.
"And that is how you lose your free time. There will be no evening free time in the school room after evening victuals for three months. If any of you try to pull a stunt like that again, there will be no evening free time for the rest of the year." Whines and moans permeate the air.
"That's not fair, Mentor Roberta. We never had a girl dumb enough to expose herself last year. We older girls shouldn't be punished for the stupidity of these brand-new younger girls," Julie insists.
Mentor Roberta tries to put a loose strand of gray hair back into her bun. "If you think that's not fair, just imagine the punishment you all would have received if I'd shown up one minute later. This punishment is nonnegotiable. If you see a fellow dormmate doing something stupid, stop her before you all pay the consequences."
We all unenthusiastically mutter, "Yes, Mentor Roberta."
"Jade will be detained for a few days, so don't expect to see her any time soon."
Vanessa, the overly concerned red-head from my room, raises her hand and asks, "Is she being charged as a dissident?"
Mentor Roberta laughs humorlessly. "No, if that's what you think dissidents do, then you have very little chance of becoming one yourself. Your evening victuals are ready. Go eat, but do not come back to this room after. If you do, you will find yourself in the same place as Jade."
As we all slink silently into the common room, Avra points to a table with several other familiar faces our age. We watch Mentor Roberta unlock the door to the hall and slip out. As soon as the door clicks shut, the room erupts into chatter.
"What on earth did Jade think she was doing?" Avra asks Kimberly, a girl we've grown up with who has an enormous mane of golden ringlets and a missing chunk of cheek and nose.
Kimberly fluffs her golden mane. "Three boys asked her to do it. What would you have done?" The other girls at our table shrug their shoulders.
A sardonic laugh escapes my lips. "Of course I wouldn't do it, Kimberly."
Kimberly doesn't look like she believes me. "We've never had rules about things like that. If I'd been Jade, I would have been confused too."
A girl from the next table over leans her chair back and says, "She didn't look confused to me." Avra nods her head in agreement.
I look right at Kimberly. "We don't need to have rules about something to use our brains."
She glares at me, picks up her tray, and moves to another table. The other girls at our table follow her. Avra scowls at me. "How are we ever going to strengthen friendships if you insult everyone?"
"I can't pretend that these fluff heads aren't idiots. Please don't tell me you would do the same thing if Scott asked you."
Avra pauses for a second. My jaw drops. Please don't tell me my best friend thinks she should do what a stranger asks without question. Thankfully, she shakes her head. "I wouldn't expose myself. I won't even change my clothes in front of other girls."
The Complex Life (The Complex Trilogy Book 1) Page 2
