Julie's+Future+Earth

An Excerpt

It was November 28th when the four of us were waiting at the bus stop when an Orderly was slowly driving around in his silver convertible. He was staring at us, especially the very nervous Amy. “I’m scared,” her little voice mumbled as the Orderly cruised by the stop.

“Don’t let him see you’re afraid, kiddo,” Penelope said. “I would have a burn on my leg if I didn’t.”

Amy knew the story of Penelope too well. She said, “Am I gonna be taken away?”

“He’s just trying to scare you,” I said. “They like doing that to us.”

“Yeah, but sometimes they get taken away,” she squeaked.

I took her soft hand and whispered, “You won’t go anywhere but school today.”

“Are you sure, Annie?”

“I guarantee it,” I lied. The Orderly was most definitely scaring us, but one or all of us had a chance of disappearing, which would frighten everyone a million times more.

The Orderly drove away and the bus came. We went to school, relieved that none of us were taken away. But the bus was a hell of a lot quieter than it was the day before. A lot of people had disappeared since the day before. When we got to school, teachers were shouting, “Into the auditorium!” very gruffly. The four of us were lost in a sea of other students just as creeped out as we were.

“What’s going on?” Amy murmured.

“Into the auditorium!” a man in an Orderly uniform shouted to us. We all joined hands and ran to the auditorium. Penelope winked at me when we noticed Jamie was the one who took one of my hands.

There was a lot of nervous chatter going on in the auditorium and it kept going until the Orderly who yelled at us shouted from the stage in a microphone, “Silence!”

Everyone, including us and especially little Amy, were silent. Penelope kept her head up, which made her the least scared of all of us, but I knew she was horrified. Everyone was staring at the frightening orderly. “Stand up for the principal,” he said a little softer because it was quite silent.

“I move for no man,” Penelope, trying to stay brave, murmured as everyone but her uneasily rose. The Orderly seemed to be looking straight at Penelope. I grabbed her waist and pulled her up. She was up, but she slouched, which meant she wasn’t very happy with it and hoped it would be over before she lost it. I knew her very well.

A man with graying brown hair, certainly accompanied with a toupee, came on the stage. He went to the center of the stage as the Orderly left and said to all of us, “You may sit.”

“Finally,” Penelope groaned as everyone sat.

“For starters, I am G.H. Pierce. I am a trusted Orderly for President Britton, and you will call me sir.” Order cramped Penelope’s style. “You do realize Imma find out what his first name is and shout it out the rooftops?” she whispered to the three of us.

I patted her hand and whispered, “Shut up, Penelope.”

Sir continued, “The whereabouts of your old principal are classified and you are not permitted to look for him because, well, not only is he gone but you’ll be wasting time you could be spending appreciating our great leader, President Britton.”

“Dad’s right,” I murmured. “He is like a king.”

“The old principal has left the school a mess. It is my job, as an important Orderly and a man with any sense at all, to clean you up. Tomorrow, all females cannot wear jewelry or denim, and males must come with a simple necktie and white button-up shirt.”

Jamie and Penelope’s mouths dropped. Jamie didn’t own one white article of clothing, not even socks, and Penelope was wrapped in a pair of torn jeans after she took baths when she was a baby so denim was her thaaang. I was wearing my favorite pair of jeans that day and had a necklace with wire in circles with blue beads to make it look like a robin’s nest and matching earrings. Amy could handle the new dress code but she wasn’t happy.

Sir kept going, “There are some new teachers and you may not tell them how the old teachers did things because those things are old business and it must be put behind us. If we all let it be, it will be much easier for all of us.”

“Bull crap,” Jamie grunted.

“You may all now exit by rows in an orderly fashion.” Sir left the stage and two Orderlies hastily told the front row to go to their homeroom classes.

We lost Amy in the surprisingly orderly crowd so it was just me, Penelope and Jamie, walking to our homeroom class. Penelope wasn’t her spicy self, flaunting how super cool she always was in the halls, but sulking on the inside and out.

“Penelope, you okay?” Jamie asked.

“Does it look like I’m okay?” Penelope lashed out as some people, luckily not Orderlies, looked.

“Relax, girl, what’s up?” I replied calmly.

Penelope sniffled. She never cried in school and didn’t want to make it a first. “I…I don’t know if I can deal with this. I can’t be myself in here anymore. I miss Mr. Swain. He was a good buddy and a perfect principal. Not a square but not a dick. This guy is squarer than Leroy Newell’s ass.”

“Um…ever get the feeling that you’re being watched?” Jamie said. Both of us tilted our heads to the left, where Jamie was looking. An Orderly was there, looking at us.

“No more talking in the halls!” shouted the Orderly.

“I’m sorry,” Penelope mumbled, covering her eyes with her burnt hand.

Mr. Ramsey, our homeroom teacher who also taught math classes we weren’t in that year, was about 43. His wife, who he talked about a lot when we were in his math class, disappeared the May before that. He didn’t let the devastation interfere with his teaching and niceness. Everyone liked him a lot and he expressed a hatred for President Britton, too. When we got to the class, we saw a man with side-parted gelled dirty blonde hair with some gray mixed in, wearing an Orderly uniform sitting at what used to be Mr. Ramsey’s desk with tons of pictures of his family and friends, knick-knacks and the book he was currently reading. Then, the desk was cleared. We sat together in our usual seats in the middle of the room and because everyone was there, the man stood up and said, “Good morning, students.” After pacing around the room for a bit, he continued, “My name is Brian Massey. Mr. Massey. The President feels every child should be in one class, so that’s how it will be. I will teach you everything you used to learn. And more. But first, I am required and want to talk to you individually. I know all of your names and I will call you by alphabetical order by last name. In the meantime, you are not to talk or pass notes. Sitting quietly is what I want you to do and if you know what is good for you, you will obey.” He picked up a clipboard from the desk and called someone’s name.

After a little while, he called, “Jamie Calloway.” Trembling, Jamie walked to him and they talked.

“Hope he’s okay,” I murmured.

It didn’t seem that bad. Massey’s facial expression was consistently stern but I figured that’s the way he was. All Orderlies had stern faces and never smiled, even if they were humiliating someone, so he was your average Orderly. Jamie came back and I asked as quietly as possible, “How’d it go?”

“Naturally, I was nervous. He won’t hurt you, but he’s a little scary,” Jamie replied.

Later, he called, “Anne Kennedy.”

“Good luck,” Penelope said as I got up and walked to him. He said to me, “So, Anne, who are your parents?

“Um, Sam and Vicki Kennedy.”

“Do both of them live with you?”

“Yeah,” I replied.

“I’ll let this slide, but I do not like the word yeah. Try again.”

“Yes, Mr. Massey,” I replied, trying not to sound frustrated.

“There you go,” he said. “Do you have any siblings?”

“Not exactly,” I said.

“Either you do or you don’t,” he said firmly.

“Um, Penelope is my adoptive sister.”

“Penelope Kennedy?”

“Yes, she changed her last name to ours because she didn’t exactly come with one.”

“I’ll talk to her about that,” he said. “Do your parents have jobs?”

“My dad works at Mullur Electric,” I said.

“Like Jamie Calloway’s father?”

“Yes, we’re neighbors,” I replied.

“Are you in a relationship with someone?”

I wasn’t so sure if he was coming on to me, but I had to tell the truth. “No.”

“Do you have any piercings or tattoos?”

“Just my ears,” I said.

“Better take them off tomorrow,” he said.

I knew questioning would lead to trouble, so I just said, “Yes, sir.”

“Okay, have any questions?”

“Um…no.”

“You may return to your seat,” he said. I turned and walked back to my seat and Mr. Massey called for Penelope. As she got up and before I sat back down, I whispered to her, “Be strong and call him sir.”

“I can probably do everything but the last part, Penelope murmured, slowly standing up.

“You can do it, buddy,” I said.

“His fault for saying his first name,” Penelope said.

“Just do it, Penster,” I said, calling her by her nickname her uncles gave her when she lived with them. She left and I whispered to Jamie, “I swear, if she disappears, I’m going to disappear, too.”

“That’s not happening to either of you,” Jamie said, patting my back.

I stared at Penelope across the room, crossing my fingers. Mr. Massey’s face seemed to be angrier and angrier as Penelope answered the questions. I trembled and Jamie took my hand. After a while, Mr. Massey called, “Anne Kennedy, come here, please.”

“Keep your cool,” Jamie whispered as I nervously got up.

When I reached Mr. Massey, Penelope went back to her seat and he said, “Anne, I ask you, for the safety of the entire school, to help Penelope follow the new rules. If she breaks rules, I could have her go away and she does not want that.”

“Okay,” I said. I left and said to Penelope, “Girlio, I’m not gonna let you be taken away, so you need to stand by your BFF.”

“There’s no freedom anymore,” she murmured.

“It’s gonna be okay, Penelope-yo,” I told her.

“If you say so, Annie-yo,” she sighed.

“I do.”

Once Mr. Massey finished talking to all the students, he said, “I would like your attention, please,” he said firmly. Everyone but Penelope looked at him. I had to turn her face towards him.

“For the rest of the day, I will be teaching you about our great leader, President Britton. But first, I would like to hear from all of you what you know about him.

“Don’t talk shit about him,” I whispered to Penelope. A kid in the front raised his hand and Mr. Massey said, “Gabriel Flax?”

“It’s Gabe,” he said.

“Not to me,” Mr. Massey said.

“Um…President Britton was born in Memphis, Tennessee,” Gabe said.

“That is correct.” He wrote it on the chalkboard and I noticed Jamie tried not to tremble at the screeching sound. They must have gotten rid of the whiteboard covering the old chalkboard. When he was done, Massey said, “Now, can anyone tell me where he went to college?”

“Yale,” someone called out.

“I’m sorry, who said that?” Mr. Massey said, a hint of anger in his tone.A kid named Harry nervously raised his hand. Massey hissed, “I need you to raise your hand before you speak or there will be consequences.”

If I knew the answer to a question and no one else was talking, I’d call out and that was cool with the teachers. Bad luck for me. But I didn’t know much about President Britton so I knew I wouldn’t get into too much trouble. But I wasn’t so sure if what Massey was saying was true or if he was bragging for the President. He said Britton came from a poor family but got a merit scholarship to Yale even though his parents needed him on their farm. I really felt like they were giving us a sob story so we’d vote for him on the next term, but Dad claimed President Britton wanted to be a dictator.

When Penelope and I walked hand-in-hand from the bus home, I saw an Orderly car and a woman with white blonde hair and beautiful brown eyes being pushed into the car by an Orderly. It was my mom. She gave me a look that said she loved me but she might not come back. The Orderly shoved her into the car and slammed the door. As he drove away, I saw Dad covered in sweat on his bike. He tried to go towards the car but it sped away. “Vicki,” he murmured, his face becoming sadder than I had ever seen.

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