History Test, Julie Steimle [best e reader for academics txt] 📗

He stepped out with the crowd into the middlecity cavern, and he walked along the road with the other commuters to the middlecity school. When he looked up he was surprised to see his friend Dzhon standing in front of the school steps with his father, a plump man that was balding in a patch in the back of his head but still had a thick set of hair everywhere else.

Just as Jafarr was about to walk up to his friend and say ‘hi’, a rickety old flight car flew up to the school. Jafarr stepped back from the street, barely recognizing the vehicle. The door opened, and Alzdar stepped out. He looked in at the driver, said something Jafarr could not hear, and closed the door.

“Al!” Jafarr called out, waving to his friend.

Alzdar looked over to where the voice came from. His eyes stopped on Jafarr. He did not smile. He seemed hesitant, thinking about what to do.

Dzhon also looked up when Jafarr called. He paled and turned from his father and the street. Dzhon ran into the doors of the school. Jafarr’s face fell.

“Dzhon?” Jafarr barely called, watching his friend go.

Dzhon’s father summed up the situation immediately and approached Jafarr. “You stay away from my son!”

Jafarr stepped back, and for a moment, between the short distance he could see the real feelings of Dzhon’s father. The father gave Jafarr a small sympathetic look just before he loudly stormed off to his flight scooter. He watched as the undercity man flew off, roaring down the narrow middlecity street. Jafarr then looked at Alzdar, who was still hesitating on the school’s steps. The door of the flight car opened on the driver’s side. Alzdar’s father stepped out and called to his son.

“Go inside, Alzdar,” he ordered.

“Mr. Demmon,” Jafarr started to say to Alzdar’s father, but the man cut him off.

“Just go, Alzdar.”

Standing back, Jafarr watched his friend glance at his father despondently and turn to enter the school. He tried to follow, but Mr. Demmon ran up to him and grabbed his arm, pulling him back.

“Haven’t you caused enough trouble,” the man said.

Jafarr looked up into the man’s eyes but saw no look of understanding or of sympathy. He seemed truly angered by what had happened to his son the day before. Jafarr clenched his teeth and jerked his arm out of Mr. Demmon’s grasp.

“I have to go to school, sir,” Jafarr said painfully.

The man called angrily after Jafarr, “Don’t you mess with my son, Jafarr! I forbid it!”

Jafarr walked through the doors and into the green halls, leaving behind the raging of an angry father. The echoes of students’ voices replaced the outside din, each murmuring about the confrontation outside, Jafarr’s black eye, his bruised lip; and it increasingly mixed with remarks from eye witnesses about the P.M.s picking him and his friends up at the Surface Gate. Jafarr lifted up his chin and briskly walked to his first period classroom. When he stepped inside, whispers traveled throughout the room, all eyes peering at Jafarr. He immediately sat down at his desk and glanced over at Alzdar. His friend glanced back at him for a moment and shiftily looked back at his vis-screen. Jafarr frowned as he peered over the students at Dzhon’s desk. Dzhon sat with his head lying on his monitor with closed eyes.

Jafarr knew now that the P.M.s did something to them that terrified their parents. Both boys seemed fine. They had no bruises as far as Jafarr could tell. They were both miserable and uneasy. Both of his friends seemed racked with fear and rebellious tension, so much that Jafarr could not tell what was going on in their heads. He sat back in his chair to look over at the teacher. The woman had been watching them all, folding her arms and frowning. She pursed his lips as she gave Jafarr an apologetic look. He looked down, avoiding her eyes.

“Let’s begin class,” the teacher at last said, with a hint of resignation.

All of the students filed into their seats and sat upright, awaiting the teacher’s instructions. Jafarr could feel a cold chill of emptiness run down his back. Life went on, and he had to continue.

 

When the first shift class ended, Jafarr waited in his seat as he watched his friends leave the room. He did not want to believe it. Would his friends abandon him after all that time together? He refused to believe it. Dzhon would never do that. Alzdar would never do that; he hated the P.M.s and would not blame him for the incident. Jafarr closed his eyes and sighed.

“Class is over, young Zeldar,” his teacher at last said, leaning over. “You need to go to the food dispenser before it closes.”

Jafarr nodded then stood up. He scuffed to the door where he glanced back at his instructor. The woman gave him an it-will-be-all-right look, and Jafarr stepped out of the room. As he exited through the door someone next to him stuffed a small data-card in his hands then slipped off into the crowd. Jafarr looked up, catching a glimpse of Alzdar walking away, always taller than the crowd.

Quickly stuffing it into his jacket pocket, Jafarr glanced around then strode over to the food dispenser where he got in line.

“What happened to your face, Jafarr?” a snotty voice to his side asked as he waited in queue.

Jafarr looked up to see Mesela Brench, an undercity Guard Class boy from his own district hall. Coolly smiling, Jafarr pointed to his black eye. “The P.M.s beat me up, if you want to know.”

Mesela looked impressed. “What did you do to get them after you?”

With a laugh, Jafarr replied, “They thought I was a spy for the rebellion.”

The other students around him hushed in awe. Other voices spoke up at once.

“Did you go to ISIC?” one kid asked.

Jafarr nodded, playing it up.

“Is it really as bad as they say it is?” another person asked.

Jafarr looked down and pulled his audience together. “Worse.”

Everyone gasped.

Jafarr continued. “They dragged Dzhon, Alzdar, and me all the way over there. When you’re there, they look you over like you are a piece of living scrap, and then they kick you and beat you until you’re willing to confess anything.”

All the students gasped until one pointed at Dzhon, who was leaning dejectedly against a wall. “Is that what happened to him? He won’t talk.”

Jafarr looked over at his friend. For the first time in the conversation he answered sincerely. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? He’s your friend,” Mesela yapped in disbelief.

Dzhon could tell they were talking about him, and he walked back to class.

Scowling at his classmate, Jafarr said, “They took them away—took them somewhere else in ISIC.” Then with wonder he murmured, “I haven’t seen him at all until this morning.”

Mesela rolled his eyes. “A likely story. I bet this is all lies.”

Some of his classmates agreed with Mesela, chiming in.

“You always have some bruise that your own cavern’s groupies give to you,” Mesela continued. All eyes watched Jafarr as Mesela said this.

It was at last Jafarr’s turn at the food distributor machine. Without a word, Jafarr stuffed something other than his identi-card into the machine then he punched in a code. Within seconds he received three times his regular allotment of food, mulch cakes, that he quickly stuffed into his jacket pocket.

“Believe what you like,” Jafarr said. And he walked back to the classroom, munching on one of the cakes on the way.

His classmates watched, and one murmured as Jafarr left, “The P.M.s nabbed him.”

The others nodded.

The Data Card

 

The entire day moved agonizingly slow for Jafarr. His only consolation was the data-card he fingered in his pocket. Something was up. Alzdar could not be seen talking to him, he figured, but he was not the type of friend to desert him after a little trouble. After taking Mathematics, Science, Geology, and Arrassian language class, Jafarr sat in his History class flipping the card in his fingers anxiously. He hated waiting. There was no other time to read the card outside the class. There would be nowhere except home, but he did not want to wait that long. Besides, he rationalized, he knew the History text by heart. 

He carefully pulled out the card and silently slipped it into the data slot. The message on the screen flashed that the card was audio, giving Jafarr five seconds to put on a headphone. He quickly dug through his desk and yanked out his language lesson head set. He stuffed one of the headphones into his ear and listened, trying to look like he was paying attention to the lecture at the same time. He missed the first part.

 

<…sorry. I couldn’t talk to you personally, but they are watching. They told us you were being punished for shipping some stolen goods you had taken from you father’s shop. But as they talked, they asked us if you told us anything about a rebel operation you or your father might be working on. Both Dzhon and I swore up and down that you didn’t do anything or say anything like that. They claimed the groupies have been paying you to do all sorts of errands for them. They tried to denounce you in any way possible. It was funny. At around dinnertime they contacted our parents. My dad flipped out when he found out I was in ISIC. I didn’t know if it was an act or real. The P.M.s bought it. Dzhon’s dad wasn’t so good at acting. They could tell he liked you but that he was worried about Dzhon. The P.M.s threatened them—threatened us that if we didn’t stop hanging out with such a ‘bad seed’ as you (get that ‘bad seed’) they said we’d have to go to the adolescent center with all the groupies to be reformed.>

 

Jafarr sighed at the stupidity of the idea.

 

<Dad took me home without saying a word, then, when we got home, Dad took me through the passage—you know that door I told you about that I’m not supposed to tell anyone about—anyway he took me there and he immediately contacted your dad. He told your dad everything that the P.M.s told him, and then he had me tell your dad what happened. My dad didn’t say much until after your dad and I stopped talking.>

 (A pause)

<Jafarr, my dad is not mad at you, no matter what it may look like. If you get out of ISIC my dad is thinking of getting you full time into the rebellion. He’s been working on your dad for some time now. He’s been hoping your dad would wear down…but you know how he is. Scrapes, your dad is overprotective. Anyway, be cool, you tunneler. I get to play the rebellious son. And by the end of the week, or even the day after you get out (Alzdar laughs) I will be hanging with you and Dzhon like always. Like I said, the P.M.s are watching so this all has to look good.>

 

The message ended. Jafarr thought for a moment as he looked over at Alzdar. His friend had been watching him, and he smiled. Alzdar let a slow grin spread across his face.

Alzdar mouthed across