Area Z-Z-8

one.

I shake three tiny blue pills into the palm of my hand. As the medication slides down my throat, everything slips from my brain. Slowly, information pops into my empty mind: My mom. My dad. My baby brother. My house. My street. My school. The rules. Math facts. Words. Books. Friends. Feelings. And lastly, our number one rule: never go past the chain-link fence.

In the kitchen, my mom and dad each take five pills, then my mom drops one pill into Wesley, my baby brother's, bottle. It dissolves immediately in the warm milk. She hands the bottle to Wesley, who drinks happily.

After breakfast, my mom puts my metal lunchbox into my black backpack that says my name on it: Faye. My canteen hangs off of it on a silver carabiner. I walk out my front door with my backpack just as an old yellow school bus pulls around the corner. Once on the school bus, I find a seat next to a window near the back of the bus and wait for Ginger, my best friend. The bus rumbles, then continues to bounce along the bumpy gravel road. We drive next to the chain-link fence, past which no one is allowed to go. Beyond the fence, the Rocky Mountains stretch across the horizon and white clouds float in front of the bright blue sky. The bright sun shines down, creating a dry, unbearable heat.

With each stop, the bus becomes more and more full. By the time we get to our school, the bus is bursting. We wait outside of the old school for the bell to ring. The bus creates a cloud of dust as it rolls away. Finally, the bell rings, and we all rush inside, eager for another day of learning.

Math, English, and Science come before recess. When the midday bell rings, we reluctantly head outside into the dry heat. Flies buzz around our heads as Ginger and I play hop-scotch. A boy my age misses the goal he was aiming for, and his ball soars through the air and over the chain-link fence. Ginger and I stop hopping from square to square and run to join the others staring at the ball through the fence. After a couple of seconds of staring at the ball, our attention is ripped from our lost toy to a plane flying out from behind a mountain. The plane rises higher into the sky, it's red wings gleaming in the bright sun. It floats for a few moments, then its propellor stops spinning, and the tiny plane plummets to the ground. Halfway through its rapid descent, it explodes. Fiery pieces of airplane debris fly from the orange explosion. Our teacher hurries us inside as the remains of the cockpit fall to the ground. Three pills are on each of our desks when we get back to class. Ms. Simm, our teacher, swallows her five pills as she watches us swallow our three. Instantly, the events of today vanish and are replaced by the information needed to continue the school day. The memory of the plane does not return.

                                                                                       **********

Ms. Simm smoothes back her jet-black hair and says, "Who's ready for history?"

Her sweet voice makes me feel like nothing could ever go wrong, and nothing ever has. I smile, and as I look around at my fellow classmates, I realize that they're smiling too.

"Who knows what our area is called?" Ms. Simm asks. Every hand shoots into the air. She points at Landon. "Yes?"

"Area X-Y-5," he says.

"Correct!" Ms. Simms exclaims. "Does anyone know how our area, Area X-Y-5, came about?"

I raise my hand, but the teacher doesn't call on me. She calls on Rose, a shy girl that I don't know too well. The only connection I have with Rose is that in second grade, both of us were teased by Eddie Mans. He pushed me and called me a dumb monkey and called Rose a know-it-all mouse while tugging ar her light blonde braids. Sure I was loud, crazy, and not too bright when I was eight, and Rose was quiet and quite smart, but that was nothing to make fun of. I walked right up to Eddie and punched him. When I turned around, my teacher was watching. The next day, there was a red paper on Eddie's desk, and the day after that Eddie didn't come to school. We never saw his red hair again. The day after he left, his desk was missing from the classroom. The next day, we got a new student: Ginger. Mrs. Parker, the principal, said that Ginger's family had moved from Area W-V-7, the closest area to us, because her dad got a new job in the cattle care factory. Ginger and I have been best friends ever since.

"A long time ago, we all lived in one big community," Rose's soft voice floats around the room. "We had seventy-four leaders. One day, the leaders had an argument so large that they each took an equal amount of land. Each area had its own food systems, factories, leaders, and citizens. The leaders of the different areas don't interact. People can move between any area they want, except for the area next to us, Area Z-Z-8. No one knows what they do. There's a theory that no one lives over there anymore, that the area never developed. Possibly because of the terrain. It would be difficult to grow anything with all of those mountains."

"Thank you, Rose," says Ms. Simm.