AboveGround

The Whole Story

Lukas was 14, blonde, and average height for an eighth grader. He walked daily around the underground, Astral City. His father was a mechanical engineer. Lukas would often "fiddle with grommets and gears" that his father had left laying around his workshop from projects he had worked on.

Lukas was heading home after his daily walk, when he saw ambulances in front of his house. This was unusual since Lukas lived underground in Astral City, and most diseases were aboveground, in huge cities like Tokyo or New York. Sprinting the last part of the way home, he notices several doctors and nurses pulling his father out on a stretcher.

"Wait!" he yells, "What's wrong with my dad?"

One doctor turns his way, "Your father has a disease that must be treated aboveground. We do not have the necessary medicines down here to heal him."

What, my dad is sick? Lukas thinks to himself. "What will happen to me?" he yells back.

The doctor replied "Why, you'll go with him of course."

No! Lukas thinks to himself that mean....

As if he were reading Lukas's mind, the doctor said, "Your father will be unable to continue homeschooling you, so you will start school aboveground, since the school year is beginning, wherever he is taken."

Wondering where they'll take his dad, Lukas thinks about his mom. She is currently working on the moon. Perhaps New York City, they might take us there. Lukas hurried to his room to make sure he packed what he'd need for life aboveground.

At least I'll be living in the motor home he thinks aloud. The motor home serves as a temporary home on vacation, and as his father's workshop. Thinking of the motor home, he quickly goes in search of the keys. After searching, he finally located the keys on his desk. Next to the keys lay a mysterious note he had not seen before. Although he didn't recognize the handwriting opened the note. It said, "You will be blamed. You have been warned. See you above, Caveman." Wondering what it could mean but not having time to investigate, he shoved the note in with his box of things to pack.

As the truck pulls the motor home up, Lukas wonders about how he should act aboveground. With 300 kids in his new school, it would be hard to be a cool kid and besides, popularity is overrated. At home, I only have a few friends, so, only a few above-ground would be fine. My friends underground I can contact them through my glasses. The glasses weren't only prescription glasses, but doubled as a computer. He could mentally write down notes and not have to carry around notebooks. He also had textbooks downloaded onto them, so he didn't have to carry them. Firewalls he put on not only prevented others from using them, but also stopped him from using them on a test.

When Lukas first saw the Washington High, he was shocked. The school was 200 feet high and made of limestone bricks with numerous titanic windows. A huge blue neon sign on the front of the school flashed "Washington High." After looking around, Lukas joined the crowd of kids surging into the school.

Lukas's first day at Washington High did not go as planned. He got the wrong schedule, and had to get one from the office. Then, unknown to him, someone found out he was from underground. Her name was Annie. She spent the rest of the week getting people to call him "caveman."

On the second Monday, the situation with Annie got worse. When Lukas entered the building, Annie saw him. She shouted, "Hey, caveman, shouldn't you be underground or something?" Some people laughed at this. She yelled, "Or are people down there too stupid to know what medicine is, and you came up with your daddy?" This got the rest of the crowd to roar with laughter.

Suddenly someone yelled across the hallway, "Hey Ann, shouldn't you be planning your birthday with the rest of the weirdoes who were born on Friday the 13th?" This got everyone roaring, even the teacher who was trying to see what all the commotion was.