Future Traded Yestoday

1

I was one of the first to be accepted into the school. Some of the teachers say I was a known factor on registration before they had been called back that they got the job.

That fact has never been confirmed, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was true.

How I got in was just like everyone else. I auditioned. An odd thing for a school, but I did it regardless.

It started off as my Mom's idea. She had been behind most of my childhood adventures, so I didn't question much when she suggested I try to get into the new school.

There were at least a hundred of us for that first audition. I was thirteen and running off of nerves and adrenaline I didn't know I had.

Yes, I had prepared for months in advance just like most of the others there that I had heard talking to each other, but when you're surrounded by so many other people it's hard not to get lost in your nerves. Especially when so many were so much older and so much more defined than thirteen year old me.

And yet I made it through the first round where half of us were cut. That's when I learned there were international auditions taking place and videos being sent in from kids who couldn't make it to the audition sites.

Out of everyone I made the first cut when I didn't expect to make it five minutes.

I kept getting called back after that. So many auditions and prep for the auditions. All for a school set to start in December. An odd month for any school to start.

My Mom had actually pulled me out of my previous school so I would have enough time to prep for the auditions. It didn't take much for her enthusiasm to wear off on me, but it was still so strange.

The last call I got was an acceptance speech with a list of forms my parents would have to fill out. I remember my Mom had them filled out before I fully accepted that I had been accepted.

I either took a long time to accept it or my Mom was pretty quick. I don't remember that detail.

Another detail of the school that took me off guard was that we had to live there. I was thirteen and had to move away from my family to go to a school I had never had a set chance of getting into.

At this point my Mom started getting skeptical too, but I had done so much and heard so many things about the building itself that I wanted to go. It didn't take much to convince her I was going to be fine.

The day I moved in there was a blizzard. It was honestly a miracle we could even find the entrance door. I think I remember a few guys dressed in black suits helping us inside and grabbing my other bag from the car.

I was only allowed a certain amount of my own things, and there was a set list of what I could bring. I think I remember my bags being searched as soon as they were brought in, but that's fuzzy too. I was too in awe of the building, too focused on warming my hands, and a little stressed out about having to sign my name so many times before my Mom was whisked out of the building.

And I was left alone.

Well, not truly alone. There was still those men in the black suits and the secretary that was trying to hand me my school ID badge. I don't even remember how they got a picture of me.

The auditions? My Mom sent it in? Maybe they took it while I was staring at the fancy lights on the side of the wall that weren't even really that fancy.

The next I knew there was a badge around my neck and a guy in a suit was leading me down the hall and into an elevator just as another boy with his dad came into the lobby. I was then led to my room I would share with someone else who wasn't there yet, and I sat on my new bed in shock.

That first month we started with fifty students. Some came in late from the international auditions, and new students joined all the time. Not nearly at the rate kids were leaving, though.

By the new year there were eight of us who had been forced into classes with each other where no one else joined or left. There was a rumor one of the older guys in the class had been there before the school had been thought of. The rumor didn't make sense, but no one had the evidence to disprove it.

Eight of us who were sheltered from the rest from almost the beginning. We weren't even sure who was leaving or coming at that point.

All we knew was that they had a plan for us.