Future Traded Yestoday

6

Apparently, I was the only one in our group who hadn't figured out what we were doing there. They teased me when I asked how long they had known, saying I'd been too focused on learning the formulas to know what they do.

Which made sense because I had been very focused. Between having to learn topics way above my school level and helping the kid younger than me out, I hadn't had much time to think for myself.

What made it worse was that the new kid had been told what he was getting into when he was accepted, and my mom had been called and told months ago. I'm taking that as a sign that I need to call my parents more.

So now everyone knows what we're doing here, but I haven't quite figured out if that's what I wanted for myself in life. I mean, I don't hate what we're doing in dance practice, I just never thought performing on stage was something I'd do.

A week after the new kid joined was when vocal coaches started coming in and cutting even more into our actual class time.

We all started off working with the vocal coaches, but then after a week of that, rap coaches were brought in. I didn't think there was too much difference between them when we started warming up and doing the same vocal exercises that had been going on for a week. I quickly learned there was a very big difference between vocal and rap lessons.

Not all of us went to the rap lessons. Just four of us; including me. There was the Canadian, the kid younger than me, and the older kid that had taken charge of us all. We were put in a separate practice room we hadn't been to before and we practiced for what seemed like forever.

The problem with rap lessons is everyone knows how to sing, it's just whether or not you can do it real well. Rapping took longer to learn and get the techniques down.

When our dance lessons started back up to the amount we were dancing before the vocal coaches came, our school lesson time was cut way back. We started off the morning with a workout, did school work from nine to noon, and then the vocal lessons started, followed by dance lessons.

All of the energy we were expelling gave us such big appetites, but we never ate our fill because we knew we'd spill it back up if we did later. That happened one day to the Japanese kid when his favorite food showed up in the cafeteria buffet line and he thought he'd risk it.

He barely eats anything out of pure fear now.

We all got a lot skinnier than we already were, but we didn't even gain much muscle. I know we'd be ripped if we had time to rest and were able to eat what we needed to.

Which is why the weekends were even greater than they used to be.

We got to sleep in until nine, we barely had any school work to do because we were barely doing school lessons, and our vocal and dance lessons were cut in half. Our free time on Saturday is usually spent sleeping or just lying on our beds, but Sunday we manage to gain a bit of energy. That's when we play games together.

The nine of us end up gathering in the room shared by the older half of us, and we all sit around and have some fun. This whole experience has brought us very close together.

The guy from Chicago and the kid younger than me will sneak out to the kitchen and grab us snacks. The kid younger than me only goes because his cute face would get them out of trouble, but it's a two person mission with all the snacks they have to bring back for us.

So I'd say we're managing just fine, even though most days we have to drag each other out of bed. It's gone so far that we actually draw names out of a hat each night before we sleep to see who has to wake us up.

Which generally works out great, unless the kid the same age as me- the new one- is in charge of making sure we're awake. He can't even get himself up, let alone the rest of us.

What would make this all better, though, is if the other students would stop staring at the nine of us in the halls.