Temporal Exploring 101 - First Transit

I.35 The music of hope and dreams

"Look at it this way, Nat: You just have to survive a few more years at St. Albert's, and then you are free to live your life as you please." Nancy took another drag from her cigarette. "Whereas I am going to be stuck in a life I hate, as Lady Kerrington of Kerrington Manor."

During recess, the three of us were standing under one of the huge trees in the park that surrounded the main building of our school, smoking. I might as well admit at that point that I had started to smoke, here at St. Albert's. Though I was very much aware of the health risks, I had decided that smoking a cigarette or two a day for a year was not going to kill me.

Though smoking was strictly forbidden on school premises, virtually every girl I knew at St. Albert's smoked. Not smoking was considered uncool.

"Do you seriously believe that such outdated institutions as British royalty and nobility will still exist, a few years from now?" Natty countered.

"Fuck, no. You are right about that," Nancy conceded.

It was what they believed in. Most of my classmates did. Like in that song, the one Natty liked so much: 'The times they are a-changing.' They believed that the world was about to change in a major way. They believed in the revolution. The revolution for peace and justice and equal rights, against racism and oppression of any kind. They had hope.

I envied them and I pitied them, both at the same time. I knew that just a few years from now, most of the people they set their hopes on would be either imprisoned or dead.

Killed. Murdered. Assassinated. Gone.

Still, I envied them their hope and their optimism and their dreams, which were reflected in the raw energy and power of their music. A music I had come to love. The music of the 1960s. A music of hope and dreams.

"What do you guys plan to do after you graduate from St. Albert's?" I asked.

"Oh, I would like to travel," Nancy replied. "Visit India, perhaps. Get some first-hand experience of those ancient cultures."

"I will go and study theoretical physics, at Oxford or at Cambridge," Natalie announced. "I already have some truly brilliant ideas which I am going to work out and publish as soon as I get the chance."

'No you won't,' I thought, sadly. 'We have no idea why, but that is not what is going to happen.'

"What about you, Cathy?" Nancy asked.

I was just about to fabricate an answer when the prefect girl appeared on the scene.

Fortunately, Natty caught a glimpse of her as she approached us, which gave us just enough time to drop our cigs and step on them to put them out.

"Now, what do we have here?" The tall, blonde girl sniffed the air and wrinkled her nose. "You girls have been smoking, haven't you?"

"No, we didn't," Nancy told her.

"What's that, then?" The girl indicated the three cigarette stubs at our feet.

"It wasn't us who put them there, Cabot," Natty declared. "Somebody else must have left them here."

"Who was it, then?" the prefect demanded.

Natty shrugged. "Why do you ask me? Your guess is as good as mine."

The prefect's face turned red with anger. "Don't you dare get fresh with me, Fogg." She fixed my roommate with a glare. "One more word from you and I will make sure you won't sit comfortably for the remainder of today. Are we clear on that?"