Terranovus

Chapter XI - A Message

Thirty miserable minutes later the school bell rang and everyone stood up from their desks.

"Remember," spoke Mr Eldridge, "please prepare a one page essay on the influence of William Shakespeare for next Monday, any questions, please message me. The assignment outlines can be found on your tablet's Cloud." I grabbed my tablet and checked. The homework was there alongside homework for my five other subjects. Terrific.

"What are you doing here?" hissed the torn dress girl beside me. I groaned and wished I could disappear. I glanced at her name on her tablet's screen and saw it was Ava Waverton.

"My family was picked by the lottery, just like everybody else here," I explained annoyed. I scooped up my backpack and glanced at my timetable, apparently Biology was next, wherever class 05.03.2 was.

"Ah, Miss Waverton, Miss McKinley won't know the school layout yet, can you please show her to her next class?" asked Mr Eldridge. Ava smiled sweetly.

"Of course Sir," she replied. I followed her out of the classroom and as we turned left she spun around and faced me.

"Listen here dirt, that dress cost me a fortune. This is my country and I'm going to do everything to make sure your life here is nothing but hell," she threatened.

I couldn't help but laugh.

"'Listen here dirt'? Are you for real? Let's get your facts straight. First of all, that dress didn't cost you a fortune, it cost your parents a fortune. Secondly, I'm already living in hell so lets do each other a favour and stay out of each other's way, sounds good?" I spat at her. She stared back at me shocked, I imagined no one in her life had ever dared to speak to her like that before. Glaring at her, I spun round and walked away.

"You're walking the wrong way!" she yelled.

In response I flicked my finger up at her. The other kids who'd been silently watching our confrontation sniggered and stepped back as I walked through them. I glanced at my Ingo, urgh, four and a half hours to go.

With the help of the school janitor, I eventually found my Biology class just in time. I introduced myself to the teacher, Mr Nguyen, who welcomed me and kindly explained we were currently studying plants and were on chapter two of An Introduction to Botany. I sat down at an empty desk and was thankful to find Ava wasn't in this class. The class was small, with perhaps only 20 students. A few glanced at me curiously whilst others navigated their tablets to chapter 2. I pulled my own tablet out of my bag and opened the Library app to find the textbook. Once I found it, I read the title of the chapter.

"Photosynthesis," I whispered to myself. What on earth was that?

"Now class, who can tell me what photosynthesis is?" asked Mr Nguyen. Everyone looked as clueless as me.

An hour and a half later I stared at my tablet fascinated. Photosynthesis was incredible. The bell had just rung and I watched the other students make their way out of the room and towards the lunch hall.

I swung my backpack over my shoulder and walked up to Mr Nguyen who was closing the photosynthesis simulation program we had all been using on the whiteboard.

"Sir," I began, "why aren't we taught photosynthesis back at the Sectors?" Mr Nguyen smiled and adjusted his black rimmed glasses.

"Tell me why you think that may be," he said. My mind wandered to the artificial air purifiers.

"Because it's not necessary, we have the air purifiers," I suggested. Mr Nguyen softly laughed.

"Partially correct. The Sectors do have air purifiers but photosynthesis is very necessary to human survival, it helps maintain the levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the air. Did you feel the air hit your lung as you walked off the plane yesterday?"