Below Average

Chapter 7-Moyra

Lus was mad and Aer was leaving. What else could go wrong? I ran for almost a mile, the long way, back to my house and collapsed at my front door step. Lus had kept up and was a couple yards behind me.

Even though I had said everything was going to be okay, it wasn't. Lus and I, we needed her, and she needed us.

I couldn't hold it back any more. I let myself cry. Stop I'm not the one leaving, stop! I commanded myself.

I wiped my face with my sleeve. I didn't want any of us to be separated, but was that really the way it had to be.  I was looking at the ground, the light colored pavement was covered my a dark shadow that hovered above me.  I looked up, it was Lus, if this was hard for me to handle, he must have been feeling even worse.  His face was bright red and the look of someone who had been beaten up physically.

I stood up expecting Lus to back up, but he didn't.  I looked up slightly to look at his eyes, as he was a couple of inches taller than me.  I backed up onto the step that I was previously sitting on.  Lus looked down at the ground and then whimpered.   

"Lus?" I didn't know what to do.  I rarely had to deal with any of us having troubles.  We were are kind of unsocial, and since we had our tight little group nobody really ever reached out to us, hence nobody could hurt us.  That was why we were such great friends.  I loved Aer and Lus, and to see one of them leaving hurt me severely.

"Lus?  Lus come on!"  I felt myself tearing up again.  "Lus, talk to me."  If Aer had to leave, I needed at least someone else who could talk to me.  Our parents were never around, and rarely ever talked me about my life.  "Lus, snap out of-" he cut me off.  He reached up and quickly gave me a hug.  I hugged back.

We broke away.  I looked over to see Lus's dad opening to door.  I looked left and he turned slowly towards us, he spot us and his face dropped.  He knew, he knew that we were mad because Aer didn't pass her test, and the thing he hurt the most was that he knew already.

"Mr. Katsouros you knew!" I didn't mean to get mad, but I did.  He started to walk towards us, Lus stepped away and looked at his dad.  "Lus tell her, I'm going to make sure Aeron is okay." I looked at Lus, I squinted my eyes a little and gave him the 'death stare'.   Lus leaned over and whispered to his dad quickly before he started into a jog in the direction of the park where we were previously. 

"Lus what the-" he cut me off, again.  He grabbed my wrist and dragged me three houses down to his own.  I opened the door and let myself in, Lus quickly looked around and then closed the door behind himself. 

Lus dragged he up to the art studio, I put my thick red auburn hair into a bun and sat where Aer normally would. 

"Okay, so last night at the party, my dad pulled me over and said that the parents get to know the results before hand.  He already knew Moyra, but he didn't want to say anything to scare you. He-" wait, that wasn't what I just heard, I cut him off."

"Wait, scare me, scare me!?" my voice started to get louder.

"Yes Moyra, Aer isn't scared, she is just a little worried and is still sorting out her emotions.  You need to just breathe and calm down."  Lus quickly started to breathe heavily.  This wasn't helping. 

"Lus calm down or you are going to pass out!" I was scared now, I really was. "Come on Lus, you're scaring me!" my voice dropped in volume, I sounded like a little child. I put my knee on the top bar of the stool and rested my forehead on it.  I heard Lus shuffling back in forth in the studio.  I couldn't stay here anymore.  I looked up and saw Lus crouched on the corner, his face bright red, I just don't know what to do.  I let myself out, ran to my house and slept their, Aer would be leaving tomorrow morning, I couldn't miss it.  Setting my alarm to 9am I jumped onto my bed, still fully dressed and instantly fell asleep.

The next morning

I could barely remember getting ready that morning and walking down to city hall.  I stood up, but was swaying back and forth unable to keep my balance.  All of the seventeen kids stood there either crying or slowly hyperventilating.  Except for Aer, she stood there she didn't look scared, or even worried.  Lus's face was completely white and I felt like I was going to be sick.  Other families stood behind us, but they weren't even sad, they looked almost happy, what was wrong with these people!?

Mrs. Rupp came out, she scanned the row and came to the end were she saw Aer, her face broke.  She really cared for us.  She called the names and each person stumbled up and through the big marble doors.  I wasn't listening my thoughts were flying through my head.  I remembered a lot about gardening from primary school.

It was really expensive.  It was really really expensive!  None of the fruits and veggies were old when they got here, they were only one day old, and how was that possible if the farms were supposed to be three days away by our fastest mode of transportation? Aer's name was called and all of the families had walked away, including Aer's and my own.  Just me and Lus stood there in front of city hall as the door slowly closed behind Aer.

We had extremely advanced technology, we didn't use people for any jobs anymore, except teachers.  Maybe they didn't use people for this either!?

"Maybe they don't use people, maybe they get rid of them, maybe they use drones!?"