The last bell

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The hallways were silent and gloomy like always, though on the last day before the Break always seemed to be quieter and darker than normal. The gray clothes seemed to give every other of the pale colors in the School an eerie feeling. Though of course bright colors were against the law according to the school board, and the school board is in charge of everything.

I got to my class room, and sat down in the same seat I had sat in for the past 4 years. I have had the same class and teacher for 13 years now. Back in elementary school, when everyone was still friends, we used to joke that we weren't sure Teacher was human. I thought of that now, as I listened to her one tone voice, drone about the morning announcements, telling us what we already knew, that today was our last day of training. So while she talked I thought about all the other times we had heard her give us important announcements, like our first day of 6th grade. We had been in our middle school class room then for the first time and every one had been whispering excitedly. It had been the last time I had heard such a noisy class. She told us that day, that now that we were in middle school, we were no longer aloud to have friends. She told us that they were bad influences, pressuring us into doing stuff we didn't want to do and distracting us from what was important.

They were right of course, in my books, I read about friends. In the books I read, friends forced each other to do stuff that was bad, like ditching school and something called smiling. I had read about this thing called smiling, a showing of some emotion called happiness, but when I asked Teacher about it she got very angry. She told me it was an inappropriate action done with one's lips that could be taken very many ways. She told me smiling was terrible and the law forbid such a thing.

But I wasn't in elementary school any more, asking silly questions, I wasn't in middle school not taking school as serious as I should, I am in high school now and am a senior. I had studied hard all through 9th, 10th, 11th and this year, of course Drew's help had made a huge difference, and now here we were on the last day, and all I had to do was survive.

I heard teacher start to call attendance so I started to listen again.

"Harley Argyris" she said, and I silently raised my hand. I wouldn't shout out like I had read about in books, because that would disrupt the rest of the class, no one else would either.

She called out more names, but I along with all the other students knew the list by heart. My child hood best friend, Alice Kommer, was 13th on the list, and Drew's younger brother, Lucas, who was my age was 28 th. There were 30 students in each class, and it was sorted by where you lived. Generally, it was polite to walk home with your class, and small talk with everyone was important to make sure no one felt left off. Off course, this was done quietly so not to disturb the people's homes who you walked by. Alice, Lucas and I lived the farthest from school, and so we always ended up together. We often played at each other's homes during elementary school and Alice and I always loved going to Lucas's because his older brother, Drew was cute. Of course in middle school, this stopped because the school board wouldn't let us have friends anymore, and it was not appropriate to find someone cute or to like them romantically, because that could make them uncomfortable and you feel uncomfortable too. The three of us still, often walked home together, but never went over to each other's houses and the talk was always polite and realistic unlike our childhood non-sense, jibber jabber that we had spoken of together as children.

Teacher got through the attendance. Everyone was here like always. If anyone missed a day, they were in big trouble with the school board. No one was supposed to ditch. I read that they once had sick days, but School had gotten rid of all sicknesses, because you can't miss school, it's just unheard of.