Disorder

by Martha Adele

  “Credits?” Mavis asks. “What credits?”

  Janice pulls a pair of teal gloves out of her back pocket and fits her hands into them. “During the free time you have on your schedules, you can choose to sign up for different jobs here and earn credits that you can spend on whatever you want, like clothes.” She wiggles her fingers into one of the gloves and points over to Henry. “Usually, we only get a few kids smart enough to invest in a decent pair of gloves even though we come here every week.” She fits on her other glove and chuckles. “And then we have other kids, like Rea and Jackson, that have their parents buy their gloves.”

  I wiggle my hands into my gloves. “How do you sign up for the jobs?”

  “It really depends on what you want to do. One of the easiest jobs that you can do without much training is join the cleaning crew. You don’t make much, but you still make enough to treat yourself to a few desires. Such as …” Janice raises her hands to eye level and shakes them. “Gloves!”

  Mavis cracks a smile, still sliding on her gloves. They look about a size or two too big for her, but she doesn’t seem to mind.

  “All right, class!” Janice shouts out, getting everyone’s attention except for the few obnoxious kids. “Hey, listen up!” The kids grow quiet. Janice nods and scoots away. She raises her arm and points to the framed layout of the room. “Okay, today, we will be doing pod A3. Harvesting bugels and planting rollburries. Everybody, go ahead and start harvesting. Once we get all of the bugels harvested, let me know, and I will pass out the seeds.”

  I watch the class’s reaction as all of their faces change into different expressions. Some seem excited to garden, while others seem like they absolutely hate it. Henry is one of the kids in the middle. He looks as if he would rather be doing something else, but he doesn’t abhor it.

  Janice turns back to us, and her eyes meet mine. She flicks her gaze over to Mavis and Logan to get their attention, then points to the mapped-out orange room. “These boxes right here are the tool bins. This little silver line on the wall is where we are by the map of the room, and this box back here that is labeled A3 is where the kids are over there.”

  She backs away from us and pulls out a few buckets. As she hands one to each of us, Janice explains that the lights they use in the orange room that make it orange are light bulbs that emit the same sort of energy that the sun does without the harmful UV rays.

  The lights they use in the orange room are also the same sort of lights they use in the rest of Bergland, only much stronger.

  Janice explains, “We use these bulbs throughout Bergland so that everyone gets some sun exposure. That way, when we leave Bergland, we won’t be completely blindsided by the sun. We also use them to prepare our skin so that we won’t burn too easily.”

  She points over to the kids covered in dirt. “They aren’t replanting bugels in the same place from where they were just harvested because it is better for the soil if you rotate the produce you plant in it. It has a lot to do with the chemical compounds and the minerals in the soil. I can explain it all if you want.”

  “No. No, it’s okay,” I answer. “Thank you, though.”

  Janice chuckles and passes out small hand shovels to each of us. “No problem.” She looks to us all and lifts her bucket and shovel. “Ready?”

  Mavis and Logan nod, but I am distracted by a sudden movement. I shake my head to Janice and set my bucket down.

  “May I use the restroom?” I plead, pulling off my gloves and setting them in the bucket. Janice sighs at me as if she is disappointed that my kidneys are doing their job. “Please?”

  She chuckles, “Yes. Go ahead. It is right down the hallway to the left.”

  I nod and skid past them. As I open the door, I notice that its metal handle is cold to the touch compared with the rest of the room. The fact that its temperature is the polar opposite of the room strikes me as odd, but as soon as I make my way out into the hall, I realize why the handle was so cold in comparison.

  The temperature shift from the orange room to the hallway sends a shiver down my spine the moment I step out. The cold temperature falls on me so quickly and so fully that I immediately want to go back into the orange room. The walls in this rounded hallway look just like most of the other walls in this country. They look just like the inside of a mountain.

  My hand meets the rocky surface of the wall directly beside me as I adjust to the temperature. I begin walking down the hallway, running my hand across the cold and bumpy brown surface as I go. The air ducts are always in the same place in all of their hallways—in the top corner of the ceiling between the rounded edges of the ceiling and the wall.

  The light fixtures are also pretty much in the same position and have the same design in every hallway in Bergland. They are always one long and large beam of light, attached to the center of the ceiling by its metal fixture. If I hadn’t spent my free time with Mavis and Logan exploring Bergland the last few days, I would be totally and completely lost.

  “Yeah right.”

  “You literally could not be more wrong.”

  Deep voices from around the bend of the hallway bounce off the walls right over to me. Their chattering and laughter grow louder much quicker than I expect as we both round the bend and meet. The boys look to be around my age, just much taller and more muscular. Four of the five boys are shoving one another and participating in horseplay while one thin boy stays a few feet behind them, shaking his head and smirking as he watches his friends be Neanderthals.

  The boys quickly approach, and one shoves the other right in front of me without even realizing it. The largest boy that stumbles toward me catches himself and belly-laughs at the one who shoves him. “You’re an idiot.”

  “You’re the idiot!” The smaller boy laughs, pointing back at me, only a few inches behind the larger boy who had stumbled upon me.

  The large boy turns around and looks over my head, then slowly adjusts his gaze down at me and meets my eyes. The top of my head comes to his chin, which doesn’t help me feel any better about this situation.

  I clear my throat and stammer out the words, “Excuse me.”

  The large boy in front of me scoffs. “Well, yeah. Excuse you.” He turns around to the others, and I notice the zigzag markings shaved into the side of his head. All of the boys around him, except for one, all hoot and holler in agreement with his statement and shout something sarcastic at me. The large boy with the zigzag hair leans down to get in my face, backing me into the wall. “Are you stupid or something?”

  “No. No.” I stutter, “I-I’m just going to the restroom.” The boys look at me, unconvinced and amused.

  “Then why are you on the orange room level?” the zigzag-haired boy demands.

  “I’m coming from the orange room. My … my class is in there.” The boys look from one to another. I try to explain again. “I’m with that class.”

  “Really?” the boy with the zigzag hair asks, still looking down at me as I’m pressed up against the wall. “Are you an idiot or something? You’re like seventeen. Why are you in that class? Don’t the junior highers have the orange room today and tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, they do.” A guy struts up from behind Zigzag and slaps him in the back. “This guy has got to be stupid if he was held back that many years.”

  “Obviously!”

  “Why else would he have been held back? Because the teacher likes him so much, she couldn’t let him leave her class?”

  “Those are some of the easiest years to pass.”

  I shake my head at the sound of all of their voices piling up together. The slight twitching underneath my right eye returns lightly every few seconds—so lightly that it is barely noticeable to others, but not light enough that I can ignore it. The medicine I took my first day here has held me over, and I haven’t had many symptoms since. I had my first vial in the doctor’s office and my second
administered by Caine and Grayson. But these voices and these criticisms are piling up, and I can feel the relief I have felt in my days here slipping away.

  “No! No!” I shout to them, trying to get them to stop and listen. “I’m new here. New to Bergland. I …” I clench my fist and come off the wall to speak to Zigzag and the others like an adult. “I’m from Bestellen. You may have heard about us. I came with two others. They are in the orange …” I turn to point back to the room and get shoved back into the rocky wall by Zigzag. My head hits first, and my shoulders follow.

  “Oh! So you’re one of them!” Zigzag growls at me, smirking. With one of his arms pinning me against the wall, he turns back to his friends and chuckles. “Hey, guys, did you hear that? This guy is from Bestellen! Can you believe it?”

  I nod and try to get out from behind his forearm, but he jerks his head back to me and shoves me back against the wall harder than the time before.

  “Hey? Where are you going? Trying to escape again?” Zigzag’s face drops into a sarcastic expression meant to mimic pity. “Oh, wait. You didn’t escape the first time, did you?” He pauses, waiting for me to answer. Not knowing what to say, I don’t say anything at all.

  My lack of response seems to further irritate him.

  “No.” Zigzag forces his arm against me once again. “No, you didn’t. You didn’t escape Bestellen. You were kicked out.”

  I shake my body, trying to force him off me, but my attempt to escape seems to make Zigzag stronger.

  “Oh, I’m right, right?” he chuckles. “There was a reason they kicked you out, wasn’t there? What was the reason, retty?”

  All of his friends behind him join in and jeer.

  “Yeah, retty?”

  “What’s wrong, rett?”

  “What? Retty can’t speak?”

  Zigzag laughs, pulls his arm off me, and shoves me into the crowd of other guys. “Get a load. This guy is so much of a rett that he can’t even explain himself.”

  One boy takes the back of my shirt and throws me forward. Zigzag catches me by my arm with a grip so tight that his fingers dig into my skin. They toss me back into the ring of boys, and all jeer at me, repeating the term “retty” in one way or another. I try to force myself through the circle and make my way back to the orange room or even to the restroom but fail. The boys have me trapped in a constant state of shoving and taunting. As I feel the anger rise in me like a large sum of compressed air, forcing my face and torso to get hot, I notice the one thin boy standing behind all the others shaking his head.

  “Hey.” The thinner kid approaches the others and shoves them off. Zigzag grabs hold of my arm and throws me once again into the wall. The cold and rocky surface does little to cool the rage that burns my skin like fire.

  Zigzag pins me down with his forearm against my chest as I thrash, trying to get away. I let out a sort of grunt-scream that makes all of the boys laugh as I try to kick and hit my way out. My legs flail upward, and my fists swing forward as Zigzag slides his arm up into my throat.

  The skinny one shoves past all of Zigzag’s laughing accomplices and grabs his shoulder. “Come on, man. This kid is obviously defenseless.”

  “Yeah,” Zigzag answers, pressing his arm into my throat so forcefully that I stop breathing for a moment. All I can feel are his arm hairs and his warm skin against mine. His forearm is so thick that it covers the whole surface area of the bottom of my chin, my neck, and part of my chest. Zigzag chuckles, “That’s what makes it fun.”

  The thin kid growls, trying to avoid eye contact with me. “Picking on someone smaller than you proves nothing.” Zigzag stays in his same spot, choking me until I start to see dark spots. I begin to feel a hard pounding in my head, matching the beat of my heart but amplified through the numbness my head starts to feel. The thin kid grabs Zigzag’s shoulder and yanks him off me, leaving me limp and falling to the floor. I can hear a slight shuffling beside me as I gasp and try to catch my breath.

  “Come on, man! What’s your problem?”

  “Me? What’s your problem? All I was doing was giving the new kid a proper welcome!”

  Their voices overlap as I rise to my feet with the pounding in my head even louder and more overwhelming. Not only is there a strong force, like a hammer beating in the back of my head, but the sound has almost tuned out all other noises around me. Their voices are muffled as if they are speaking into a pillow, but the volume is still at full capacity.

  Before I know what I am doing or have any time to come up with a plan, I find myself launching forward and taking down Zigzag from behind. His body, almost twice my size, tumbles down, squishing me. In seconds, he has me pinned to the floor with his knees on my shoulders. I shout out in pain as his two-hundred-pound body bears down on my shoulders and crushes my bones against the floor. Zigzag raises one fist to punch me, causing me to flinch.

  “Ha!” Zigzag lowers his fist without hitting me, surprising myself and all of his accomplices. I thrash underneath him but am unable to actually do any real damage or get him off me. The tingling I felt when I first awoke in the woods a few days ago slowly returns through my fingertips. The sandy feeling moves from my fingers at a leisurely pace to my elbows, making it much harder to make a fist and bend my arm at all. The boys around us laugh and point, jeering at me and calling me a retty. The imminent defeat begins to sink in, fueling my rage further, and the pounding in the back of my head has become almost unbearable. The pounding has gotten so severe that Zigzag sitting on me doesn’t even hurt in comparison.

  “Hey! Look!”

  I glance over to one of the bullies as they walk out of my view behind Zigzag, who is blocking almost everything in front of me.

  “Oh yeah!” Zigzag exclaims, reaching back to his friend. “Perks of being a rett.” He slides off me and swings the vial in his hand down into my thigh. The medicine injects and drains out of the glass in seconds, sending me from a serious sense of rage and urgency to a mixture of irritation and relaxation.

  “Ha! Look at that!” one of the boys shouts out as they all stand over me. “Look at how tired he got. This must have been a pretty strong dose.”

  “Yeah,” another kid cackles. “He must be a pretty strong retty.”

  Zigzag crosses his arm and snorts, “Or a really weak one.”

  “He is pretty tiny.”

  “Yeah, maybe the medicine just has a stronger effect on weaker people.”

  “Obviously.”

  “Either way, he was too easy.”

  “Man, what a freak.”

  The boys walk off, leaving me on the floor, taking deep breaths by myself, trying to work up the energy to get to my feet. The sense of calm I feel is even more overwhelming than the pounding I had felt earlier.

  I mean, I’m not even really angry anymore.

  It’s more of an irritation and annoyance with the boys rather than anger. I am too busy enjoying the feeling of sinking into the floor and at the same time floating above it.

  “Hey.”

  I open my eyes to see the skinny boy of the group standing over me. Unable to move or unwilling to move, I just stare. Our eyes meet for no more than a second before the boy squats down and helps my limp body to a standing position. He holds my right arm over his shoulders and slips one of his hands around my waist.

  “Hey, are you okay?” he asks me as if he actually cares.

  I look back to him as he stares at me, waiting for an answer. I nod to him. “Better than …” I take a breath and brush off my desire to make a sarcastic comment. Speaking after taking medicine is one of the most difficult things I have ever had to do. All I want to do is just sit and enjoy the calm.

  Just sit … and enjoy …

  “Hey, it’s fine. You don’t have to talk. I’m sorry about them.”

  I take another deep breath as I dangle from the skinny dude’s side.


  “Do you want to go back to your class?”

  I take another breath and shake my head with what energy I do have. “No.” Deep breath. “I have to pee.”

  The skinny dude looks surprised by my answer at first, but after a moment, he nods and helps me get to the restroom. He helps me get into the stall, and I handle my business.

  After it’s all said and done, I sit down on the toilet seat. The sound of the seat meeting the bowl clinks and echoes through the room.

  “Hey, um … are you okay?” Skinny Dude asks through the stall door.

  I nod. After a moment, I remember that he can’t see me and answer, “Yeah, fine.”

  “Okay, um . . . so—”

  “You can go now,” I say, interrupting him.

  “Yeah, I don’t know.” Skinny Dude sighs, “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Fine. You can leave now.”

  “Okay.” Skinny Dude makes his way to the door and pauses for a moment. I can almost feel him contemplating asking me if I am okay again. Which I am. I don’t need someone to help me only after his friends are gone but wouldn’t help me when his friends were here.

  Skinny Dude leaves the bathroom as the door squeaks closed. I lay my head back against the stall wall and close my eyes for a moment. I think back to Zigzag as I leaped from my spot and took him out. I bet I am one of the only people here who have actually knocked him off his feet. Except for maybe … well, I don’t know.

  I loved that feeling. The feeling of knocking him down. I didn’t mean to get that feeling. I never meant to attack him. I didn’t even try. I wasn’t in control of my actions or my emotions. I just watched myself attack. Just like those other guys watched me attack. Just like those other guys watched my emergency vial fall out of my pocket and hit the ground. They didn’t have any control over it. They just watched.