Chapter Seventeen. Magic Box

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Year E2996

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Year E2996

Beck

"Okay, now finish the last question, and we will spend the rest of class at the tracks," Mr. Yellow said while walking between the desks.

He leaned over mine, looking at my notebook. "Beck, did you finish the questions?"

"Yes." I covered my drawing of Kat with my chicken scratch notes. I wrote a list, Men Of Suits, chips, and Dr. Coachman. I left my other notebook on the ship, so this one only had one drawing in it. Now that I had drawn on paper, I didn't want to return to my tablet. Despite my mom thinking I'm baffling.

Mr. Yellow straightened his back, walking to the front of the room. "Beck, please explain your answer to the last question?"

Rolling my eyes, I stood up with my school tablet of questions. "What does the E in our calendar stand for?" I scanned the class, seeing nobody cared. "E means expired. Which stands for when the sun died on Earth, and our new home became Nus."

"Good, and the bonus question?" Mr. Yellow added, pulling off his glasses and tucking his hands under his armpits.

"Um, bonus question?" I asked back, swiping the page of my tablet. "Oh, yeah, of course, the bonus question." I read it out loud. "What unique, valid fact do you have about our home?"

I swallowed hard in a panic, knowing Mr. Yellow hoped to pull a fast one on me. His foot tapped on the ground like a teenager with zero patience. The class turned to look at me.

"Well, my sister Ray told me the engineers that made the Nus pulled a fast one on their boss. They wrote sun backward on the paperwork for the ship, and nobody changed it, so that is where Nus came from."

"Ah, yes, Nus spelled backward is sun." Mr. Yellow pointed at the door. "Okay, everyone, to the tracks for the rest of the time." He grabbed his computer. "But don't forget to turn in the assignment on your way out."

I typed my answer to the bonus question and stuffed my notebook in my backpack. The girl next to me, Leanna, kept peeking over, and when I made eye contact with her, she looked away, tucking her dark curly hair behind her ears.

With my backpack on, I turned the daily assignment in, leaving to the tracks. While in the hallway, Leanna ran up to me, tapping my shoulder.

"Hey Beck, where have you been?" she asked.

We kept walking. "Oh, I got sick," I lied but didn't, knowing Safforia was a well-kept secret from everyone on the Nus.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she replied, pulling on her backpack straps. "I'm surprised they had allowed you with us already." She hopped a little. "The last time I was sick, they quarantined me for a month."

I eyed her, biting my bottom lip. "What did you have?"

"Oh, they told me it was—" she said, but my mind went elsewhere as a girl down the corridor caught my attention.

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