Avilien

Back of the class

Luke peered into his classroom through the window in the door. All the other kids were seated and Mr. Tucker stood at the front of the class. Lowering his head as he opened the door, he walked in showing off his goofy cartoon-style socks that prompted a few students to laugh.

"Nice socks, Poor Boy," shouted Mike Lining, a tall pasty-looking boy at the front of the class, who sat next to a freckled girl who started to laugh. Most of the time, students laughed at Luke for wearing the Rifts that were too big for his head and showed nothing but low-resolution augments.

Mr. Tucker stood behind a podium in his crisp black suit and said nothing to Mike about his outburst. Few teachers enjoyed Luke's presence, and the ones who did could be counted on one hand. Besides being poor and a laughingstock, Luke was also the lowest grade scorer in the entire school. Even the year below him had better grade scores. The Rifts could be at fault for how fuzzy some of the questions were, but Luke wasn't all that paper smart to begin with. When it came to technology and computer programming, there was no one better in his mind, and that was his strong suit in school as one of the only classes he aced besides P.E.

"Take a seat, Wakefield. You're late," said Mr. Tucker as his words quieted down the class.

Thanks to Brit, Luke had to take the long route to his classroom and because of that, he missed the school alarm. An alarm that rang around the building to signal the start and end of lessons.

"Sorry sir, I ran into a little trouble," explained Luke as he made his way over to the far back of the classroom near the windows.

The desks in front of and to the side of Luke were all vacant, as no one wanted to sit near him or with him. They had all condemned themselves to believing he had some kind of virus.

"I heard you destroyed Mrs. Adams's car over the weekend," said Mr. Tucker, with folded arms.

"No, I didn't. How am I meant to have crushed an entire vehicle?" asked Luke as he pulled out his chair and sat down.

"My mum said you did it, so you did it. Wait till lunchtime, Poor Boy." Jayce thumped his desk making Bart—who sat next to him—jump. Luke gulped at Jayce, who sat on the other side of the classroom next to all the hologram posters on the wall.

Other students oohed and aahed as Mr. Tucker took a deep breath.

"There will be no fighting on school grounds or in school uniform. Do you understand that, Adams?" Mr. Tucker looked towards Jayce as he drummed his fingers on his sides.

"Whatever, teach." Jayce always had this "whatever" attitude in school and was one of the reasons he was popular. Grades and fighting prowess had made him one of the kids to look up to and teachers took a liking to that in Islington, thanks to the school's MMA team.

Nothing in school appealed to Luke. He sat next to a window in every classroom he went to and stared out of the windows, looking into the distance and wishing he were anywhere but there. In the old days, students had to travel from classroom to classroom and for the odd few classes, they still did. The majority of classes were now taught in the same room and rather than move students around, teachers moved rooms instead. Thanks to AR, everything in the world had changed. Cooking, technology, and physical sports were always done in different rooms, and so were some literacy classes. Luke's schedule for the entire week was grim. Numeracy, literacy, and science were on all week with the odd day of physical education. Monday would be numeracy and literacy all day, and so would Tuesday. Wednesday was an entire day given to physical education, and then Thursday and Friday would be a mix between science and more math. Next week's schedule was a lot better art, designing, cooking, and technology. Not that there would be another week, if Luke believed in what he had heard.