Take a Chance

Chapter 2

All of the sudden someone grabbed my shoulder I gasped and quickly turned around. I was seriously frozen in fear, I am not the type of person to get scared but I guess all this news had me all tense. I was extremely relieved when I recognized the person behind me; it was just my friend Harris who was always fond of sneaking up on people.

            “Wow seems like someone’s all stressed, come on loosen up.”

            “Have you heard the news? I don’t know if I can relax.” I said scooting over on the bench to make room for him.

“Eh, I think we are fine I mean come on they didn’t even fracture the force field we are going to be perfectly safe”

            “Whatever you want to think”, I said.

“So sorry I am late,” said my friend Stella out of breath and with her thick British accent. She was an orphan in Europe that was adopted by a couple that lived in the P.F.S. Here we don’t have a large amount of citizens who are from other countries. It is actually very difficult to get pass into the P.F.S ever since we secluded ourselves from the Power States. A majority of the world found that to be unfair and cruel to have a country so divided. Yet, we do have one big ally which is Britain, they have helped us thrive and there are large amounts of trade between us.

            “No problem just got here myself”, Harris exclaimed making room for Stella.

“God, I could barely persuade my mother that it is fine to go outside, the Power States aren’t standing outside our doors!” Stella exclaimed with a tone of annoyance.

“Yeah, I mean we get these types of attacks all the time, I mean they did attack one of our biggest states but this will just blow over,” Harris said with a shrug, trying to comfort Stella.

            “Well we better get going schools going to start soon and I really want to ask my math teacher a question on the test,” I said hopping up off of the bench.

We all walked across the Green and down a street of apartments, the nice thing was the school was a block away from the Green. Well we were walking I could’ve sworn that I saw a few more police men walking around, well more than usual. We normally only need a few police men in the towns, crime is usually never a problem since the punishment it so high. Anyone who breaks a law is quickly sent away to a prison somewhere in the middle of the Power States, a place where nobody ever comes back from.

            I guess you could say school systems haven’t changed that much at all in the last 150 years. We still have your typical classes, lockers, lunch, and schools look pretty much the same. The one main difference is our head pieces. To save more paper and making learning much quicker and easy we wear these head pieces that wrap around our head. The teacher then comes around and programs a lesson they want us to learn into our headpiece and a few minutes later we know it. I mean it is not that easy there are some glitches and we still have to learn to remember all these concepts, but it is much easier then listening to a boring lecture or reading a passage. Also, this gives all students a fair advantage to learning everything, yet we still need to figure out how to put to use what we have learned.

            There  we all entered into the school gates, the town’s high school looked like your typical high school building that was two stories tall with the big main entrance. There was a courtyard in the entrance and the floors of the school were made of titles you could see your reflection in. I walked to my locker that was near a large window that faced a small town square. After putting my books in my locker I sat down at a seat near the window and looked over at all the homes and shops. Maybe it was just that I was slightly sleep deprived, but I could’ve sworn I could see soldiers marching along the roads. Before I could get a second look I heard my name being called across the hall. Turning around I see a head of golden curls come running towards me. It was Sylvia, the preppy cheerleader, who was always trying to get me to participate in some fundraiser

            “Hey Marilyn, what’s up?” She said pulling me aside.

            “Oh, um nothing just a little spooked by the attack,” I said trying to inch away.

            “Oh yeah I know right it was so scary. I was wondering if you wanted to help me do a fundraiser” There it was” to help all the people that were affected by the attack.

            “Yeah you know that nobody was actually hurt in the attack….. Right?”  I said trying to move away. “They just bombed the force field, there was some building damage from the aftershocks but nothing really bad happened”

            “Oh then why are they making such a big deal about it,” Sylvia asked with a confused look on her face.”

            “It’s because we didn’t realize that the Power States weaponry was that powerful. But it’s nothing to worry about it still isn’t strong to break any of our force fields.”

            “Oh ok well thanks for the info, didn’t want to do a fundraiser for nothing!” She said skipping away.

            Rolling my eyes I turn back to the large window and look out. I was probably just seeing things before because everything looked normal expect for a few large black trucks that were driving around the town. I studied them more closely they were just black pickup trucks, nothing out of the ordinary except that there were five of them all driving next to each other. Maybe it’s a visit from our governor, but why would she be in town? I sighed first class was going to start soon, so I slowly made my way down to my English class. On my way over I saw Maddy, a senior, walking briskly towards me.

            “What is it now?” I asked sternly, my sister normally only talks to me in school just to comment on what on what I’m wearing or just to nag me.

            “Just giving you your lunch, you forgot it at home,” She said with an indifferent look on her face. “Oh and we have to stop at the Junior High school to pick up Matilda on the way home”

            “Ok thank you and do we have to pick up Melissa too?” I asked.

            “No I think the neighbors are getting her or something but just meet me outside the school after 5th period” Matilda said starting to walk off.

            “Wait what about 6th and 7th period? I can’t skip anymore school, Maddy.”

            “You weren’t paying attention were you? School is letting out early today; the Governors are making a speech addressing the attack, so everybody is being let out early so we can watch the speech on the TV.”

            “Ok well see you then,” I replied stepping into my English class.