Chronicles of the Silica

The Nine

"Why'd you take this job?" he said. "You know everyone's quit and due to our lovely legal system, I've had to pay for neuro-therapy for the last one. That's not going to be the case with you right?"

"No, sir," Toby replied, "I'm very well educated with a few years of experience-"

"It doesn't matter how much education you've had," the official said, "if you don't have the social and mental skills to handle them, you can't handle them!"

"Now, you know they're all psychopathic right?" he continued, "Well, except for Katy, she has an empathetic defect."

"I'm sorry, empathetic defect?" Toby said.

"Yes, it's very unfortunate, poor girl..." he said.

Professor Toby Young was fresh out of the Elemental Fleet Academy. He taught children in the colonies for a few years, but he later decided to further his education and seek more exciting work teaching the Children of the Fleet. Desperate to pay off his resource debt, he found a high settlement paying job in a classroom on the Silica that struggled to keep a permanent member of staff. The interviewer was very vague about the children in the classroom he was taking on, but the position was too good to pass up.

"Well, here it is, hell on Silica, Room 416, S. Education Advanced. Good luck!" the official said.

He walked off as Toby hesitated with opening the door.

'Not even an introduction?' he thought.

He straightened up his tie, chuckled it off, and entered the classroom.

The nine children were all sitting perfectly still in their desk chairs, hands clasped, and now staring at him.

"Uh, Good Morning," he said, "I'm your new teacher, Professor Toby."

"Replacement," one of them said as they continued to stay perfectly still.

"Well, somewhat," Toby said placing his bag down.

"You know they said you all would be a handful, but you seem like a pretty peaceful bunch."

The children collectively stared at each other and smiled except for the eldest, an 11-year-old in the back named Mikey, who kept a stern face.

The menagerie of nine children ranged from ages 5 to 11.

"So, let's start with introductions," Toby said nervously, "Um...left to right"

"Are you afraid of me?" said the boy at the end of the right front row. He was a freckled kid with extra curly hair who already carried a serious jaw line.

"Um, no...Jacob," he said reading the seating chart on his desk screen.

"Then why didn't you start with me?" Jacob said, "And you could've just asked me my name. Are you prejudice?"

"Against..." Toby said, "what, what would I be prejudice against?"

"I don't know," Jacob replied, "You tell me." He re-clasped his hands and frowned.

"Right, I'm not going to entertain this," Toby said, "Let's just get started on the lesson for today."

One of the girls raised her hand.

"Yes?" Toby said.

"Sorry sir, but did you father ever ignore you?" she said.

"Excuse me?" he said.

Some of the kids burst into laughter.

She continued, "Did you ask him if he wanted to join you while playing with toys only to have him say, 'Sorry son, don't have time for that'? It's just, you seem to not have an issue with moving on fairly quickly.'