by Patty Jansen
Now her expression cleared. 'Oh. I not know.'
This discussion was getting sillier by the minute. 'What do you mean you do not know? How can you not know if you're a boy or a girl?'
'Is not boy, not girl. Is Theariki. Not until choosing.'
'Choosing?'
'I decide to be . . . boy or . . . girl.'
He stared at her too-large overalls. What if she didn't have boy bits or girl bits? He snorted. Eeeew. 'Well, I think you're a girl.'
'Is not girl.'
'Then what do I call you?'
'Is Theariki.'
This conversation was going around in circles. 'Look, we really have to go or we'll be late for school.'
She held up her hands like a policeman stopping traffic. 'No, don't go school.'
'Huh, is it dangerous, other than homework and boredom?'
She gave him a blank look.
'Well, I have to go.' Cory walked a few paces into the corridor, now convinced that if he was late, he'd be caned. Theariki stared after him, like a doggy left outside a supermarket: wide-eyed, expectant, frightened.
'You're sure you're not coming?'
She didn't move. When he turned the corner, her voice drifted down the corridor. 'You read?'
Read what? Oh—the scrap of fabric she had thrown at him. A sock, with characters scrawled in laundry marker, in Coldi. He didn't recognise any of the words.
Chapter 7
The school room was at the very end of the B-section corridor, amongst entrances to stores and equipment rooms. Clearly someone had wished to tuck noisy children as far away as they could.
The door was closed.
Cory knocked, looking over his shoulder if Theariki followed, but the corridor behind him, with all the doors looking like they were about to slide towards him, was empty. Then he wondered why she didn't go to school, and meanwhile the door opened with a creak. A woman peered out. With her dark blue dress and grey shirt covering her arms down to her wrists, she looked quite old, but her cheeks were full, with freckles. Wisps of blond hair had escaped her bun.
'You're Cory?'
'Yes Miss.' Was she angry?
The door opened wider. 'Come in, Cory.'
In the classroom children sat hunched over their desks, busily typing. A girl in the front row glanced up before returning to her work. Wow, these kids were really serious.
'You're a bit late. Don't you know school starts at nine?'
Heat rushed to Cory's cheeks. 'I . . . got lost, Miss.'
'I will accept that excuse for today. Come in, Cory. Shut the door.'
Cory inched into the classroom. The door rumbled shut after him. No one said a word.
Three rows of interactive desks, each seating two students, filled the room, but the desks at the back of the room were empty. The students in the remaining seats were of all different ages. Closest to the door sat a boy who had to be the tiniest school kid Cory had ever seen. His skin was dark as chocolate and black glossy hair stood on his head like a brush, from under which the whites of his eyes looked strangely bright. In the row furthest from the door sat a boy who was all arms and legs, his skinniness made more noticeable because of his ridiculously large jumper. Blond hair was a mere stubble on his head and grey eyes had a sullen expression. He would be about eleven or twelve. The other kids, about fifteen boys and girls, were between these two in age. A young woman with masses of curly hair occupied a table at the back, her face hidden behind her reader. An assistant teacher he guessed.
His first thought: this was the entire school? His second thought: there were no ethie children.
The teacher grabbed a bell from the corner of her desk. At its clear ring, all children looked up. 'Children—recite the school motto please.'
As one, voices rang through the room. 'We believe in education, we believe in our school, we believe in the future of a great humanity.'
The teacher cast a sharp glance at the young woman in the back of the classroom, who was still reading. 'Good, children, now introduce yourselves to Cory.'
The skinny boy rose, clutching folds in his far-too-large jumper. 'Joseph Sullivan, grade six. Nice to meet you.' He looked at the teacher rather than at Cory.
The teacher nodded; Joseph sat down. Something moved under his jumper. Cory thought he saw an animal's nails, like those of a kitten, poking through the holes.
The boy behind him rose. His hair, too, was very short, but his chubby cheeks and meaty arms could not have been more different. Hazel eyes met Cory's. 'Leon Carruthers. Grade four. Nice to meet you.' He spoke in the strongest spacefarer's accent Cory had heard.
The boy next to him pulled him down. With his hazel eyes and chubby face, he was an exact copy of the previous boy. He snorted. 'He's kidding. I'm Leon and he's Marnix and we're so pleased to meet you, I can't tell you how much—'
'Leon, stop your clowning or I will have to give you extra work.' A tiny smile played around the teacher's mouth; it made her look much more friendly.
The girl behind the twins rose next, her chin in the air. She wore her carrot-coloured hair in a ponytail. 'I'm Pia. I'm in grade four.' She also looked at the teacher instead of Cory.
One by one, the other children introduced themselves. There was an older boy called Rory, and a girl with silky brown hair called Bianca. All rose from their seats, snapped their arms to their sides and said their names and grades like soldiers.
Cory still stood near the door, his hands in his pockets. This was totally weird, a bit like when he first joined scouts back in New Zealand, but there the ceremonies like flag-raising had been fun.
When the last child sat down, the teacher rose. 'My name is Miss Rosier. When you speak to me, I want you to look me in the eye. Also, Cory, when you come back tomorrow, I want your hair cut and I want you to wear something other than sports attire. Dark, long trousers and proper shoes.'
Cory glanced down. What was wrong with his rugby shorts?
Joseph wore dark trousers and black shoes, so did the twins. Even the tiny Indian boy wore a pair of very dark jeans, and black sneakers. They all had very short hair. He wondered if they had nits in space.
'What if I don't have long pants?'
'Then what do you wear on Sundays?'
Cory frowned. Sundays? On Sundays he played rugby.
She shook her head. 'You poor boy. That's only to be expected. Don't worry. If you tell me your size, I will make you a pair of trousers.'
'Uhm . . . thank you, Miss Rosier.' That's only to be expected. What did she mean by that?
'No, don't thank me. In return for my work, I want you to carry yourself with pride. No more slouched shoulders and hands in pockets.'
Cory slipped his hands out of his pockets. The sock he still had in there made a weird bulge.
'At Midway, we are on the frontier of humanity. We have to show our best behaviour. How old are you?'
'Ten, Miss Rosier.'
'That puts you in grade four, with the twins, Leon and Marnix, and Pia. Why don't you join them?'
As Cory crossed the classroom, the twin furthest away from him elbowed his brother in the side, then turned around to the red-haired girl, Pia, who had a table by herself, and stuck out his tongue. Pia shifted as far to the edge of the desk as she could. Cory hesitated, hand on the back of the empty seat next to hers.
'Sit down, Cory, so we can continue our lesson.'
Cory plonked himself on the seat, trying to ignore Pia's sniff.
'I'm sure you have read some of the books in the Earth Adventurers series. The children are reading book two, An Eventful Life. Turn on your desk screen. You'll find it in the class menu. We are reading chapter five.'
Cory set his reader on top of the dark desk screen. One of the twins gaped at it, elbowed his brother in the side, who then also stared. Cory turned the reader on and searched for the classroom link.
He found the story easily—Nations of Earth had spent a lot of time to make sure children moving across Earth settlements like Taurus
or Moon Base wouldn't be confused at school.
The story was about a boy travelling to Africa with his family and finding wildlife. Cory felt lost until he read about a steam boat and figured it took place a long time ago. Oh—strange. Somehow he had expected a school in space to teach about the future. The InterSearch information about the Midway school had not said that the school specialised in history, nor had it said anything about hair or clothes.
At the end of the chapter were a few questions for fourth graders which took Cory all of five minutes to complete.
The other children still bent over their screens, Pia with her tongue protruding from her mouth. Cory flicked through the next chapter. Elephants, lions, tents, boats. Bah, boring. He propped his chin on his hands. The teacher sat next to a little girl, Bianca he thought, pointing at the screen, and making weird lip movements, soundlessly pronouncing the words as Bianca read them out.
He wondered . . . He yanked the sock from his pocket and unfurled it on his lap. A few selections on his reader later, he had brought up a copy of the one hundred and sixteen characters of the Coldi alphabet. Now, let's see if he could work out what message was important enough to be scrawled on a sock, an unwashed one at that.
That wasn't easy. A curl like a mirrored capital C could be any of five syllables. The difference between them was so small that even in print, Cory used to drive his tutor mad with his mistakes. How would he know if it said zhi, zoi, zha, zu, or zai when written in laundry marker on the course weave of a sock?
He thought the next character, a scribble that looked like a small letter n, said chi.
Boy, he had hated those sessions with a private tutor, and by the looks of it, they hadn't done him much good, because if he put chi after any of the possible meanings of the first character, he still couldn't come up with anything that made sense.
'What are you doing?'
Cory started. Miss Rosier stood behind him, gaping at the screen. 'Where did you get that reader?'
'It's mine.' He tried to stuff the sock back in his pocket, but that wasn't easy because he was sitting down and his pocket was all scrunched-up.
'No, Cory, you won't need a reader. I don't encourage children to bring their own equipment to school. We have everything you need right here.'
Cory glanced at the back of the classroom, where the young woman with the curly hair sat using her reader. What about her? Then another thought occurred to him. 'If I'm not allowed to take my reader, how am I going to do my homework, Miss?'
'Miss Rosier, Cory.' She gave him a stern look. 'If you want to ask a question in class, please raise your hand and wait until I give you permission to speak. As for your question: you won't need to take work home. We believe that school should teach you reading and writing. We do not waste time with idle pass-times, such as doodling with paint and playing games. When you're here, you are quiet and you work, and I mean your school work.'
'But I finished, so I thought . . .'
'You thought. You are not here to do the thinking. You are here to learn. Being the director's son doesn't give you a special position at school. I treat all children equally. If you don't behave, you will bear the consequences, just like everyone else. Turn that off and put it away, Cory. Leon, Marnix, back to work, you two.'
Cory slid the reader into his bag, meeting Miss Rosier's glance squarely. What sort of stupid school was this?
Chapter 8
Anger still burned in Cory's veins by the time lessons finished. He slouched behind the other children to the entertainment room, where, as the teacher informed him, he had to wait until the day shift finished and parents would be home. Never mind that Erith was at the apartment, he was not allowed to leave.
Cory sank down on the first chair he saw, feeling like poking out his tongue at the camera in the corner, which Miss Rosier said she used to keep an eye on them.
Leon and Marnix sat in front of a computer, their gazes fixed on the screen, and their hands in game gloves. Cory recognised the game clip on the screen. Doomland.
Pia had settled herself with a group of younger kids at another computer, playing some kind of adventure game. Their shrill voices filled the room. Sunil, the Indian grade one boy screamed loudest of all.
Cory swung his legs back and forth, back and forth, until they hit the bottom of the plastic seat with a 'thud, thud, thud.' It hurt his heels, but he couldn't stop doing it.
'You know that is extremely annoying?'
It was the young woman with the curly hair. Green eyes glared at him through her glasses. A few angry pimples marked her forehead. Propped up sideways on the last chair in the row, she leant against the wall in the corner of the room, her knees pulled up against her chest. Although seated, she was half a head taller than him, and her enormous mop of curly hair made her look even bigger.
'Sorry,' he mumbled.
Her mouth twitched; she arranged her skirt around her ankles and went back to reading.
He wondered who she was and what she was doing here. She looked too young to be a teacher.
Cory fished the sock back out of his pocket and slid his reader onto his lap. A few touches on the screen again brought up the Coldi alphabet, but no amount of peering at the scrawled characters made them give up their meaning. If Theariki had wanted to give him a message, why hadn't she said something?
'So it's true, huh?' A shadow fell over his reader.
Cory started. Joseph loomed over him, clutching whatever animal he kept in his jumper, his grey eyes narrowed at the screen.
'What?'
'Is it true that your mother is an ethie?'
'She's not my mother.' His voice echoed in the room.
Everyone stopped what they were doing.
In the silence, one of the twins pushed himself off his seat, his hazel eyes on Cory. 'I watched you entry on the inchannel and you looked pretty cosy with her.'
Cory needed a moment to translate this. He had found a list of spacefarers talk on InterSearch. Entry, used as a verb, meant arrive. The inchannel was the internal channel.
'I am not friendly with her.'
The boy gestured at his reader, still displaying the Coldi alphabet. 'What about that, then? Aren't you writing her some secret message, saying how stupid we all are? 'S what they all do isn't it? Laugh at us.'
'Is not.' Although there was some truth in what he said. Erith was certainly complaining about Earth technology a lot.
'Is so, my father says so.'
A knot of anger formed in Cory's chest. 'Anyway, what would you do if your father married someone you didn't like? Fight all the time?'
'Hmph. My father would never marry ethie scum. Do you know that they abandon their own children? And they eat raw meat, with the blood still dripping from it?'
'That's not true!'
'Is too.'
'It's not. My . . .' Cory swallowed; he had almost said stepmother, but he didn't want to call Erith anything that had the word mother in it. ' . . . Erith is vegetarian. What do you know about it anyway?'
'Not much, and I don't want to. My father says if we let the ethies do what they want, they will rule Earth and we'll all starve in the desert of Taurus.'
Cory met his gaze wordlessly. A couple of older kids, including the boy's meaty brother, Joseph and the grade five boy called Rory, formed a half-circle behind him.
Cory shrugged. 'I'm going home.'
'You're not allowed.'
'I don't care. My father is the director. He'd let me come home if I wanted to.'
He turned to the door, but the twin's brother held him back. 'You're a coward.'
'I'm not. I just think it's stupid to fight over this.' He was a coward, but against six kids, some older than him, what could he do? Besides, he didn't like Erith either and she wasn't worth him getting beaten up.
The boy snorted. 'You're just like the ethie scum: they always think they're better than us.'
'I don't think I'm better than you. I just can't see why you want to fight over this.
At my old school, there were ethie children. Yeah, some were daft, but others were OK. They're all different. And I don't know where you got the idea that they want to take over Earth. They've got better places to go. Erith's from Damarq. They've got such a good climate they grow vegetables on the roofs of their houses.'
Irritation grew that he should even have to defend Erith.
From behind the twins, the little boy Sunil said, 'Wow. Have you ever been there?' His eyes burned with eagerness.
'Yeah, what's it like?' Bianca came up to his other side.
Cory gave them a wry smile. 'I don't know. I haven't been there either. It's not so simple.' You needed all sorts of permits that were impossible to get. 'But I have some pictures. Do you want to see them?'
The curly-haired young woman in the corner lowered her reader; for once she looked interested. Even Joseph inched closer.
As Cory flicked through the menus on his reader, a twinge of guilt stirred in him. Erith had put the pictures on to help Cory understand her world; he hadn't even looked at them.
The screen displayed an image of a city under a cover of low cloud. Domed roofs glistened with recent rain, and flowering plants cascaded from planter boxes in the gutters. A lazy river snaked between walled banks. A bridge linked the two parts of the city, its white and elaborately curved pillars catching a ray of sunlight.
Sunil whispered, 'Wow, where's that?'
'That is the city of Damarq.'
Erith's home. Wouldn't she miss it? He understood that by marrying his father, she had forsaken her right to travel back whenever she wanted, or—a chill went through him—whenever one of her family was sick. Did she have parents? Did she have brothers and sisters? He had no idea.
Feeling uncomfortable, he flicked to the next picture.
A woman emerged from under an arched entryway. Sunlight made her hair glisten like silver. She wore a long robe of sky blue, hemmed with embroidery in gold. Her face creased in a smile.
