The Pole Shift

Jimmy and his Step Dad

Each day was spent researching the phenomenon. The kids were tasked with homework based around all aspects of what a Pole Shift was. There was steadily less and less students, and less teachers. After two weeks their numbers were down to sixty, but ironically, some students were slipping back into school unbeknownst to their parents. The group had got to the stage where they understood very well what was likely to happen, and were in fact asking questions of the authorities themselves. They were proposing survival tactics on forums, and debating the benefits of survival gear and food.

                Jimmy was a natural leader, but he was getting irritated that the teachers didn't want to put into practice what they obviously had to do. 

                "Do it at home, not here." The head would always say. "Remember, you could get into a lot of trouble."

                "We are already in a lot of trouble." Jimmy had said once, his eyes sneaking peaks at Mrs Wright's crossed legs. She would let him look before locking eyes, something Jimmy had no key for.

                 The head was Mr Knowles. He was in his sixties and often struggled to hold his tongue when Jimmy spoke.  Jimmy thought that perhaps Mr Knowles was wrestling with something.  He was a fair man, and whilst he was wary of Jimmy's forthrightness, Jimmy sensed he wanted to hear him out. The proof came when the old teacher took him aside and asked what he would actually do, hypothetically, if he was given access to the school recourses, including the remaining forty students and half dozen teachers.

                "A couple of things. First, dig. Dig deep and have water and air and food available for a long time. Then a capsule, a bathysphere that could hold all those that wanted to try. Fifty of us. Plus tools and more food and more water. I think there will be a lot of dirty dangerous water above us once it happens. I don't think we are looking to be rescued either, I think we will be just looking for others to start again."

                Mr Knowles had been nodding, thoughtful. "How deep, how wide? We don't have the resources to build something to house fifty students and we don't have excavation machinery. As soon as we do make a fuss we are going to be investigated and even if they let us prepare for the end they won't let us store food."

                Jimmy had no answer to that, he shrugged and pushed for the preparation. "Divide the students up, assign them projects. I want to dig the floor out of the school hall. We need to hire an excavator."

                "And the bathysphere? How do you propose to build that? It would be a highly technical undertaking and the excavation  is just a mass grave otherwise." Jimmy frowned, Mr Knowles had voiced his own suspicions, he walked off saying:

                "An upturned bath can be a bathysphere."

                The next day the students were separated into eights groups of seven. Each group had a teacher, and a spread of students of varying abilities. Balance, Mr. Knowles said, we will need balance. All the students understood what was happening and wanted to be there, and when a couple of returnees appeared mid week there was resentment, the groups had closed off. Mr Knowles spoke to them:

                "Watch what we are doing, but if you wish to join you must make a group of seven, plus a teacher, or a capable adult." That proved difficult and many of the stragglers gave up, but there was a group of three, two girls and a boy who remained on the sidelines like camp dogs. They watched, but did not get involved. They watched the excavator punch a hole in the end of the hall, then enter over pristine floors boards and start to dig. Hisses and bursts of water erupted as pipes were hit. The power had been disconnected. They watched as the hole got bigger, was shored up by the teams. When the hole was ten  meters deep they watch a new floor laid, layer after layer of Mountain Ash, bolted to steel girders. The electricity was restored, and in under ten days the school hall had a deep cellar, ready to be closed off.