Future Traded Yestoday

5

We knew the new kid was joining us before we were told he was joining us. Rumors are good at dispelling any element of surprise.

The new kid was the same age as I was and was apparently enrolled into the school almost as soon as he auditioned. We hadn't even known that the school was still hosting auditions. Especially since it's been around five months since anyone has joined our group of eight.

None of us were very happy when we learned we'd have to accommodate a new student. We immediately had assumed it would be like the second week we were here when the five joined the original three; more language classes and restarting on so many lessons to get the new kid on the same level.

It was mainly our dance lessons that we didn't want to restart. We could live with learning the same math over again, but we didn't want to go back to all of the late night practices we had to deal with to get where we are now. We've gotten good- not nearly as good as they want us- but good enough to let us practice at reasonable times of the day.

In other words, we were surprised when we didn't have to restart anything for the new kid. It made us stay on our toes for the next few days after his arrival, looking out for any other new kids to join us and send us backwards.

But no one else came. Just the new kid that was the same age as me.

We were over the moon ecstatic that we didn't have to restart; until we learned it made it harder on the new kid. He had very little clue as to what was going on most of the time, but we watched him try his best to get to where we were. Which I know is well above what I would be learning in a regular school.

So our time we had just recently gained from not having to practice all the time was now spent helping him out. The older kids were the most help to him, but I know they got somewhat annoyed at how easily he would recognize he had had enough and quit.

Not that he wasn't working, he just knew and respected his limit more than the rest of us. And for some reason, that was strange.

His favorite target so far has been the Canadian. He seemed to have instantly recognized that he needed a break and made it his personal mission to make sure he doesn't work himself to a point where he drowns. It's the most entertaining thing around to watch the two of them interact.

For the most part, the new kid's lucky he catches on to things quickly. A few of us would have strangled him by now if he didn't and kept goofing off.

At first, I questioned why he had been added to our group; until I heard him singing in the shower.

Almost everyone on the floor heard him singing because of the way ventilation runs, so they all knew it was the new kid because he didn't know we could all hear him. I don't think he would have cared regardless.

It wasn't until I heard him sing and later heard the comments from the teachers, who acted more like guards sometimes, that I figured out why he was with our group. Which was actually how I figured out why our group was separate from the rest in the first place.

The teachers kept mentioning the name of someone I hadn't heard of-- maybe a new teacher coming in by the sounds of it. They kept saying they couldn't wait to hear what he would sound like when the person got a hold of him. I would have presumed it as a threat, but their tone didn't seem malicious. I've heard malicious and it was when comments were made about how much some of the students would eat.

Their comments, along with all the rumors I had internalized, and remembering the looks we got when we started dance lessons, suddenly started to click together in my mind. And I knew I had to mention it to someone.

So I took aside the kid younger than me, assuming I could trust him based off how much time we had spent together.

"I don't think we're getting a high school diploma from this school." I whispered into his ear.

We were all standing in the hallway listening to the new kid's singing even though we could have just stayed in our rooms and heard it. It was an excuse to be out of our rooms, and the whole floor of students were taking advantage of it.

The kid younger than me gave me a strange look that I couldn't quite read. "I thought we all knew what we signed up for."