Numbered

Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

The seconds ticked by. Slowly, mercilessly.

Each tick got louder and longer, like the clock was stuck in a sort of time quicksand. I watched the long black arrow jerk forward from number to number; the never ending beat to a never ending song. A bead of sweat unearthed itself from between two strands of hair and slid down my jawline, warm and sticky and heavy. It clung suspended on the tip of my chin for a second, a clear perfect orb, then rotated and fell onto the paper in front of me, forming a lumpy circle on the blank sheet. Mr. Daniel lectured on about his numbers and fractions in a low lulling voice, until the number dragged together into one long, endless equation that danced and sung a lullaby. The imaginary numbers swirled around the wet circle in the middle of my notebook, singing softly. My eyelids shut. It didn't matter if I fell asleep. I knew everything anyways...

Darkness.

The bell startled me awake. I striated up at my desk, dazed, and greeted by  the rumble of students grabbing their books. Skin scraped over plastic as sticky legs parted with the warm smoothness of chairs, and I grabbed my own books and joined the queue to leave the classroom.

"Finish page 86 for tomorrow!" Mr. Daniel shouted after the parting students, gathering his own textbooks at the front of the classroom. "And Kaytlin, hold on a second please."

I stopped at the mention of my name. The herd of students split around me and left, like water parting for a rock in a stream. Tami caught my eye and winked, flashed her wide smile, then kept going. Andrew bumped my shoulder roughly, his weird way of either recognizing my existence or offering support. I'm not quite sure which. Then his tall blonde figure ducked out of the classroom as well.

After everyone had left, I stood waiting for the teacher, holding my books against my chest. The door shut behind me and the classroom was silent.

Mr. Daniel gathered the last few of his papers into a pile and picked them up. He wiped the sweat off his forehead and looked at me from across his desk. He cleared his throat.

"Ms. Tamer, I know Math is easy for you, but please show a little respect and stay awake in my class," he said in his signature egomaniacal tone.

"I'm sorry sir," I answered. Then I held my books closer and added: "But not very many people get a five." Part of me already began to regret what I had said, but the braver heart wanted to say more. I held my breath and stared hard at the Mathematician. Sweat rolled down the side of his face.

"More people get a five then you might think." Mr. Daniel stared down at me from over his large nose, but I wasn't looking at his face. My attention was on the sleeve of his shirt. He pulled it up ever so slightly, exposing pale wrist and a black band. The number 15 gazed accusingly up at me. Then the sleeve fell and the moment was over. Mr. Daniel swept around me and out the door.

I was alone; with only my sweat as company.

*

I opened the classroom door and entered the hallway. A brunette and her two friends sniggered at me as passed; sharing a private joke I wasn't in on. I glared at them; the subject matter of the joke was only too obvious. Me.

The pristine hallway floor was checkered the school's colors, white and beige. The walls where white and barren, with white lockers and white doors. Small rectangular windows were built into the center of every door, and the spied in upon orderly white classrooms. The whole school was like this, boring and clean and sterile, without a single speak of dirt or hint at the two hundred students and thirty teachers that attended the classrooms for eight hours a day. It was small and young and clean, like a miniature version that mimicked of all of Mytopia.

I walked down the hall, still questioning the unusual conversation with Mr. Daniel. Only a few students were still in the hallways, changing textbooks at their lockers or scurrying away as not to be late to the next class.

I stopped at my locker, white and identical to all the others, aside from the black 59 plated into the metal. I quickly exchanged books and checked my reflection in the small mirror in the inside door. Orange bangs hung limply into my eyes, as if protesting the extreme heat by refusing to behave. I ran my hand through them. Fine. If they wanted to look like stringy wet dog hair, it was their problem, not mine. Another one of my frustrated hands ruffled them vainly. Angry at the heat and my tardiness, I grabbed my Science notebook, slammed my locker shut, and scuttled down the beige stairs to the Science room.

*

What I liked about the Science room was not the models of cells and atoms or the books that crowded the shelves like a crooked smile. It was not the friendly hexagonal tables or the long whiteboard that stood sentinel and regarded the kids who learned. I liked all of that, for sure. Especially when color was so hard to come by in this school. But what made the room feel like home wasn't any of those things.

It was the smell.

The Science room smelt of plants, textbooks, paper, and pencils. It smelt of eagerness and excitement and curiosity. The pungent sent of the solar system filled the room. Wafts of elements and compounds drifted though the walls. Cells, mitosis, genetics. The Science room smelt of learning.

When I entered the room, everyone else was already seated and talking amongst themselves, waiting for the bell. I made my way to Tami and Andrew, seated at the table in the middle. I slid in between them.

"What did Mr. Daniel say?" Tami asked, flicking her long black hair over her shoulder.

I creased my eyebrows. "He told me not to sleep it class, and for that I could care less, but then he showed me his Citizen Number," I informed, putting my book under the stool I was sitting on. "Which is a 15 by the way."

"That's strange. Hm..." Tami tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Maybe that was his way of confessing he was an alien. It would explain a lot."

"Likely." I answered sarcastically.

"Or maybe he's acting up from the heat. That would be more logical. I mean," Tami pulled at the collar of her polo, as if the shirt was suffocating her. "Its soo hot. I wish these uniforms were a bit kinder to us."

She had a point. All the girls were required to wear a pleated beige skirt, a white, buttoned up, tucked in polo, and long white socks. My legs itched and a band of sweat had formed at the top of my skirt. I was feeling probably the same way as all the other girls in the class. I looked over at Andrew. He was wearing a set stiff beige pants and an identical tucked in polo. No socks or skirt for him. The lucky bastard.

The bell rang before I had a chance to agree with Tami or call off Andrew. The talking slowly died out, just as Mr. Hensworth bobbed into the classroom. His bald head gleamed with perspiration and his rectangle glasses were foggy. As he was in the process of putting down his books, his elbow knocked the frog model and it tittered and fell to the floor. Students laughed as his red face disappeared behind the desk and he picked up the pieces.

"Now. Oh- no need to get out your notebooks, were doing just an oral lesson today. There. Please, if you may, this lesson will be just about your Citizen Numbers."