by B D Grant
Students appear scattered around us. Two get up from lying on theirs stomachs just six feet from us, covered in dirt and leaves. It’s kind of unnerving. We are basically surrounded and I didn’t see any of them. Evan quickly introduces me to everyone by pointing and saying their names. There are four all together, two are girls. I forget the names of the boys as soon as he says them.
“This is Leigha,” he says pointing at the girl his age, “She goes by her last name, Doyle.” The other girl looks out of place next to Leigha so when he introduces me to Jessica I pay attention.
“How old are you?” I ask her.
She crosses her arms, “Sixteen and a half.” Before I can ask her why she’s not with other stage threes she barks at Evan, “We don’t have time to chit chat so let’s get to it.”
He looks at me acting like her attitude is normal. She walks over to where the two boys where hiding and inspecting the area.
“What’s wrong with her?” I ask him quietly so she doesn’t snap at me too.
He scratches his upper lip and says, “I’ll tell you later.” so none of them see his mouth move.
“We have a simple objective today. We are practicing blending in to the environment. Next Competition Day, groups will take turns trying to locate and capture other groups that are camouflaged out here,” Evan says to everyone but mainly it’s for me.
“Will we have anything for defense?” The dirtiest boy asks.
“Will it be over when one person is found or the whole group?” The other boy asks Evan.
“No one was given any details,” he tells them both.
One of them looks deflated, “That’s stupid. How do we know what to get ready for?”
Evan replies with, “How about we do what they did tell us, and practice blending in.”
Jessica gets closer with her arms still crossed in front of her, “Today we work on camouflage. Next time we’ll practice defensive strategies while camouflaged.”
“This isn’t your mission, Jessica,” Evan warns her, losing the cheerful tone.
Jessica steps back from the group but not because she’s defeated. She looks around with an expression of disbelief. With exaggerated arm motions Jessica says, “Well it looks like Doyle’s the only one that’s using this time to practice.”
We all look around, but the other girl, Doyle is no where to be found.
“She’s good,” one of the boys says.
Jessica looks unimpressed, “She should be teaching the rest of us her secret like a good team member would!” She says to the air.
Something comes flying through the air from behind Jessica and hits her in the head. When it hits her she lets out a loud, “Ouff!”
She picks up the pinecone that hit her head and throws it in the direction it came from. She stomps off going deeper in the woods breaking every low limb she can reach.
I ask Evan, “So I get to lay around for an entire class?”
He smiles, “That’s a great way of looking at it. Just become as invisible as you can.” With that he and the other two walk off. One goes right back to the area he popped up from. After a minute or two I can no longer distinguish where the ground ends and he begins.
I walk around for a while trying to find a hole or low spot that I could fit in.
I find Doyle when I walk through some dense bushes to see if I can sit in the middle of them. I step back when I see her hunkered down by the thickest bush, “Sorry, I didn’t see the occupancy sign.”
“Someone your size should look for spots that have something that could distract people from seeing you when they get close,” she says softly, not moving.
“Thanks.”
I don’t find such a spot so I just sit against the widest tree I can find.
Some time later Doyle emerges quietly from around the tree, “We’ll have to work on your camouflaging technique. Get up and help me help me find the others.”
I stay walking as quietly as I can beside her but she keeps stopping randomly.
“What are you doing?” I ask when she lowers to a kneeling position for the second time.
“Changing my perspective.” She points at the tree ahead of us, “Can you reach that branch?” She asks me.
The tree is average height with limbs that start a good ways up. “I think so.”
“Good, you climb it and tell me if you see any of them,” She instructs.
“It would be easier if I help you up it.”
She looks at me like she’s suppressing looking annoyed, “My job is to locate today. You were the first one I found without trying. So you,” she says pointing at me then the tree, “climb that tree.”
The girls at this place are on a whole other level. A girl her age would never have said something like that to me back home. They would walk by stealing glances out of the corner of their eyes hoping I would make eye contact with them or, if they were really brave, they would send a friend over to me to ask if I was single.
“If you’re in charge of finding us then why did you sneak off when everyone was talking?”
“To show them how good I am at the objective. I was also tired of listening to Jessica boss us around.”
She is not as intimidating as Jessica, but I follow her command. To reach the lowest limb, I have to take a running start, jump at the last minute, and using a foot on the largest knot on the trunk I propel myself upward getting a good grasp on the limb. I pull myself up and swing a leg up on the limb to finish pulling myself up.
I straddle the limb awkwardly surveying the ground, bushes, and trees. I point at one of the boys that is behind a fallen log. Evan is in a tree. He has torn off leafy branches and has them between his legs and back against the tree. He’s managed to cover his body except for his face which he has smeared with mud. He sees my point at him, tosses his cover to the ground, and jumps down. I get down too, not seeing anyone else.
Doyle stumbles across the other boy. He was the one I saw blend in to the ground earlier. Jessica is last to be found. We spread out and walk through the woods searching for her. I hear a loud screech come from a black bird to my left. Doyle looks up while I watch the bird fly off. A ball of mud goes flying at the back of Doyle’s head.
“Watch out!” I warn.
She turns to look at me just as it smashes into the side of her face.
“Pay back sucks, doesn’t it?” Jessica calls triumphantly, walking out from the opposite direction of the bird.
“I won’t forget this,” Doyle tells her, wiping her face angrily.
Jessica looks amused, “Good, remember that I will one-up you every time, Miss Doyle.”
Doyle does a good job maintaining her composure and begins telling us how we did today. I’m last. “Kelly, I know you’re new but you have to get a lot better, quick. It wouldn’t hurt to come out here during your breaks and on Saturdays.” “We should try some tactical hiding next time,” Jessica says.
Doyle continues, “We’ll clean up and follow our objective next class,” she says looking at everyone except Jessica. The group splits up walking out of the woods in different directions. I begin to follow Evan and the boys when Jessica stops me.
“You’re coming with me, Kelly. Stage three dressing rooms are connected to the field.”
I longingly, watch my other group members turn the opposite direction.
“Use those long legs and catch up.” She says, not slowing down.
We get to the field and Jessica directs me to the boys’ locker room.
“When you are done we have study hour in the library,” she says leaving me at the door to the locker room.
In the locker room, there are guys already taking off their mud-covered uniforms. I haven’t seen any of them before but they show me to my locker where there is a fresh uniform waiting for me.
After a shower, and change of clothes I go to the library. Mick is there with his books laid out in front of him.
“Have a seat,” he says looking from me to nod at the empty chair a
cross from him.
“Where are your books?” He asks.
Everything has been waiting for me everywhere I go. I didn’t even think about asking about books for regular class.
I shrug my shoulders, “Good question.”
He pushes a very worn copy of Seraphim history to me, “Here, you can read this.”
I look around at all the tables of students writing, reading, and quizzing one another with flash cards.
“Do I have too?”
He looks over his selection of books, “Would you rather early century literature?”
“This is crap,” I say looking at the other books in front of Mick. I’ve never seen any of them. “What kind of school teaches this in high school?”
Mick gives up reading his book. He sits back in his chair, with his hands behind his head relaxing, “Ahh, the woes of higher learning. They give us advanced courses because we don’t graduate until we’re nineteen.”
Jessica walks in the library wearing a uniform that consists of pants like the other girls, but her shirt is sleeveless. It’s a little chilly for no sleeves.
“What can you tell me about Jessica? She’s the only stage three in my ability advancement group.”
Mick reluctantly and almost painfully follows my gaze to Jessica sitting at a table, “They do that sometimes. They hold students back if they aren’t advancing like everyone else, but not Jessica. They won’t move her up because she won’t follow orders.”
“That sounds like her.”
“She’ll move up eventually just like you will.” He goes back to studying.
I sit, bored flipping through the book in front of me until the chime goes off ending it.
“When will I get to see Lia Heincliff again?” I ask Mick when we get back to our room.
“No telling. She’s rarely here.”
“She’s here. She brought me and Anne. Who else could I ask for information about family back home?”
“You have family?” He asks surprised.
“Yeah, my grandmother is in the hospital. Lia told me she would keep me up to date on her condition.” I wait for him to ask me what’s wrong with her but he doesn’t.
“You could ask one of the teachers in the morning.”
The next day Boston is waiting in the hall for us when the chime goes off for class.
“What class do you have this morning?” Mick asks me.
“I don’t know. I thought ya’ll knew.”
“He’s with us, for Physics,” Boston tells us.
“How do you know his schedule and he doesn’t?” Mick asks Boston, suspiciously.
“Because they gave me his schedule when I brought him from the welcome center.”
“Did they give you his schedule or did they give it to you for you to give it to him?”
Boston takes a folded paper out of his pocket and hands it to me, “If you wanted it that bad you can have it.”
I take it from him, “I wasn’t the one saying anything.”
“I knew you wouldn’t be too happy when you saw it,” he says, more to Mick then me.
I look at the paper. It looks fine to me. Mick takes it from me, “More stage two classes? Who did you piss off?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your biology and english classes are stage two courses,” he hands it back to me.
“The only person I’ve pissed off since getting here is Mase. Did he make my schedule?”
Boston doesn’t smile at my joke, “It was the entrance exam you took that did it, no one did it to you.” So not only do I get to be the new guy, I also have to deal with being the upperclassman everyone stares at in their class. I’ll be the only one with facial hair too probably.
We go to a classroom on the first floor. Boston sits down and Mick takes the desk two seats over from him. Boston motions for me to take the middle seat.
“Are you two my bodyguards?” I whisper to Mick as more students walk in.
“We are showing everyone you have good taste in the company you keep,” he says looking past me at Boston who smiles in agreement.
The room slowly fills up with guys and girls. A couple of girls acknowledge Boston with a smile. He looks at me after a cute girl winks at him, “No bull about that.”
A couple of guys sit on the other side of, and behind Mick are asking him about the Nikki ordeal at lunch.
A teacher walks in, putting his things on his desk.
“Good afternoon students. Today we have a new student,” he says looking at me, “Kelly, I’m Dr. Baudin. Will you stand up, please?” It is not like everyone in the room didn’t just see me when they came in but I stand up anyways. “This is Kelly Edwards. As you can tell he’s a Dynamar and I expect everyone to be courteous and respectful as he makes this transition.”
Students in the back start whispering. Dr. Baudin loudly clears his throat; the whispering stops. “You all know how hard this can be and the entire faculty expects you all to make him feel welcome.” No one makes a sound in protest. “You may have a seat,” he tells me.
He walks up to the board and picks up where he left off from the previous class. He illustrates electrical currents on the board. I’m pretty sure some of the words he just said he made up. I’m so lost I eventually stop listening.
I draw a picture I’ll show Mick later. It is a donkey with Boston’s hair and clothes. My attention is pulled back to Dr. Baudin as he says how fun today’s class will be. He and I have two very different beliefs of what fun is. He then gets to the hands-on activity for the day by drawing what he explains is a circuit board.
So what is my first class at a new school you may ask? It happens to be everyone’s favorite… physics. Everything he’s saying still sounds Greek to me. He goes to some cabinets in the corner. He calls a student to help him. They take out actual circuit boards. I only know this because he had drawn one already. Everyone other person gets one. He instructs us to pair off with the person next to us. This makes Mick and I partners. It is a thin, rectangular wooden box with switches and lights on top of it. With three rows of three switches that correspond with a light, we are to figure out how the circuit flows. Each board has a number on it and he tells us none of them have the same layout.
“You may begin,” He says sitting down at his desk, and taking out a book to read.
“Dude, have you done this before?” Mick asks me.
“No, and I stopped following along after he introduced me to the class.”
Mick looks deflated, “I’m lost too.” He fiddles with the switches and one light comes on. Looking around, we aren’t the only ones lost. A big guy is leaned back in his chair trying to get comfortable enough to fall asleep while his partner’s already sleeping with his head on his desk. Some students, including Boston and his partner already have a couple lights turned on.
Dr. Baudin looks up from his book, “Ladies and gentlemen, I did forget to mention that which ever pair accurately gets their board figured out first will be exempt from the next test.”
This energizes the class. Dr. Baudin takes a big gulp of water from the bottle on his desk then goes back to reading his book. The big guy that was getting ready to nap is poking his equally big partner in the ribs trying to wake him up.
I start flipping switches with Mick. A second light turns on and then I flip something that turns it off. Mick swats away my hand, “I’ll work the switches, you map out the circuits.” He gives me a blank sheet of paper.
I look at the paper and at Mick, “How do I map this out?”
He looks frustrated when he sees a third light turn on at Boston’s desk. “Draw the board and I’ll tell you to connect the ones we know work.”
I do as I’m told. “Top left to middle left,” Mick begins, “middle left to middle center.”
A male and female think they got it. She slings her hand in the air. Dr. Baudin doesn’t look up from his book. She waves it back and forth to no avail.
“Dr. Baudin I think we have it,
” she says anxiously.
The class grumbles as Dr. Baudin makes his way to their table, “Don’t stop working on your boards until I’ve confirmed they are correct.” He unfolds the answer sheet. The girl and guy begin calling out their circuit directions. Mick and some others frantically try to decipher their boards. He flips one switch and two lights turn on. I scribble it down.
The big guy that had woken up his friend gets frustrated and flicks a light bulb that won’t turn on for him. The tiny bulb shatters with a small pop. He looks at Dr. Baudin, who is still focused on the kids in front of him. He looks to his partner who has a devious smile on his face. They then take turns popping the remaining bulbs.
“Bad news, that light should be on,” Dr. Baudin tells them. He looks at the class, “The game is still on.”
The boy pushes the board at the girl in frustration, “I told you that bulb wasn’t broken.”
Dr. Baudin begins walking around the room checking everyone’s progress. He makes it to the big guys. “Really?” He asks them when he sees them trying to cover their board up.
Mick hits the desk, “This is impossible.” I look at our board. He has all of the lights on except one light with two switches. He flips one, nothing happens. He flips it off and flips the other one with the same result. “We got the faulty board,” he says disgruntled.
I hand him the paper, “You can fill out the steps I missed while you cry about it.” I repeat what he just did and the last little bulb stays dark.
Mick is filling in the last circuit connections he made on the paper. “Did you not just see me do that?” He asks but I ignore him. I flip one on and keep it on while I flip the next one on. The bulb lights up. Mick looks at me with big eyes, “I can’t believe it!” His hand shoots up, “Done!”
When Dr. Baudin dismisses the class I wait to talk to him alone, “Doctor, I need to talk to Lia Heincliff about some family stuff. Could you tell me where her office is?”
“Here, hold this,” he says handing me the board with all the broken bulbs. I get a wiff of alcohol when I get close enough to grab the board. He puts the boards back up in the cabinet. I look at the bottle of water on his desk. I begin to doubt that it’s water. “Thanks,” he says taking the board I was holding and setting it on his desk. “Only teachers have office hours where students can see them. It is going to be hard to meet with her because she’s rarely here.”
