imperfect (3 page)

The main character in the
novel was a girl named Raven who had black hair, blue eyes and a
snappish attitude.
So Jennifer
is
jealous of Maya. Poor
Maya; she’ll be receiving Jenn’s wrath.
Jennifer was ruthless when other students threatened her
popularity at school. Feeling some pity for Maya, Troop did his
best to mitigate Jennifer’s envy towards her.

Jenn, how many times have I told you I’m not
looking for a girlfriend? Maya’s not an exemption.

Jennifer shot back an answer:

Well, maybe
you’re
not interested in
Maya, but she’s definitely interested in you.

chapter three

[ Kristi ]

Kristi couldn’t shake off
the feeling she was being followed.
Probably just Glenn and his friends trying to harass
me,
she thought.
Wait—that can’t be right since I just saw them leave with the
Speaker to look at colleges. Maybe they’re back early.

Kristi passed over the short cut that ran
through the center of town, trying to throw off whoever was
following her. She ducked into an alley in the poorer part of
district, thinking if it really were Glenn, he would stop following
her. He would never associate himself with the lower class.

The normally well-maintained sidewalk
progressively grew more neglected and chipped the further Kristi
strode on. Footsteps mirroring her own echoed loudly in the
backstreet. She paused and whirled around.

No one.

She resumed walking, heart thumping loudly
in her chest. The footsteps behind her picked up again. Kristi
unexpectedly stopped once more, hoping to surprise her pursuer and
get a glimpse of him or her. A low-lying rose bush to her left
shuddered. She whipped her head around.

A pair of luminous gold eyes blinked back
then disappeared.

Louder, faster footfalls sounded. Someone
was definitely chasing her. Racing blindly, Kristi turned into
another twisted alley. Warped shadows of the tall brick buildings
leaned over her. Kristi glanced at a street sign. She had no idea
where she was.

But what she did know was that she had just
entered a dead end. In front of her, two silhouettes materialized.
Gasping, Kristi turned around and saw the original pursuer behind
her. The three men were wearing loose, nondescript clothes and bore
a buzz cut.

All of her escape routes
were blocked.
I need a weapon,
Kristi thought. She frantically ran her hands
over the grimy brick walls in search for something hard and
wieldable, like a loose brick. Perhaps she could knock out one of
the three men if her aim was accurate. Nothing. Her fingernails
scraped up a lot of dirt and gunk, but found nothing
useful.

Kristi glanced around. The
gang was closing in on her; they were no more than fifty feet away.
She slapped the brick wall with frustration and fear. A hole opened
up in the wall and she fell forward and through. Tumbling through
the darkness, Kristi hit the dirt floor with a
thud
.

Then she groaned when she realized any
second the gang was going to find her. She curled up into a small
ball in the corner of the room.

Thirty seconds passed.

Then a minute.

After five minutes, Kristi worked up the
courage to uncurl herself and switch her electro-slate onto
flashlight mode. She was in a small, barely furnished room. The gap
she had fallen through had completely closed up. Cautiously, Kristi
made her way to the wall and heard people conversing on the other
side.

“
We lost her, boss,” a
deep voice said.

“
What do you mean ‘we lost
her’?” a female voice snapped back.

“
She just disappeared on
us.”

“
Yeah, she was standing by
the wall, then
poof!
She vanished,” said another guy.

The female voice lashed out, “You guys are
useless. Can’t even do a simple task. Did you search the area?”

“
Of course. She’s not
around anymore.”

The woman snorted. “Well, the girl’s
obviously far away now. No point in going after her. You guys are
terrible at snatching electro-slates for the black market. Let’s
leave.”

Their footsteps faded away
and Kristi let out a sigh of relief. For the first time, Kristi
noticed the TV standing in the corner of the barely lit room; her
electro-slate was the only source of light.
That’s strange,
she thought.
Nobody watches TVs anymore
.

Fictional movies and TV shows were banned
since the actors were sinning every time they performed a script.
Actors were no more than paid liars. The only shows approved by the
government were learning channels and the official news station,
which were broadcast on the electro-slates and public
news-screens.

Kristi’s stomach growled, reminding her it
needed food. She placed a hand on the bricks that outlined the
entrance to the room. Silently, the bricks revolved away creating
an exit back to the alley. She stepped outside, blinking in the
sunlight.

When Kristi looked behind her, the brick
wall was solid once more. Shrugging, she sped-walked home as fast
as she could. She no longer felt as if she was being followed.

Kristi grabbed a quick lunch of waffles
(leftovers from breakfast) then flicked the kickstand of her
hydro-bike away with her heels. All level eleven students were
required to fulfill a minimum of five service hours per week, and
Kristi still needed two more hours.

She guided her bike around a lamppost and
then between a wishing fountain and a bronze statue of a winged
lion guarding the steps leading up to the learning center. The pair
of lions that guarded the center’s entrance looked well-aged; in
truth they were less than five years old. A special ageing acid
wash had been applied to the statues to give them a weathered
look.

Kristi rolled her bike to the rack and
double-checked to make sure she had properly locked her padlock;
many people would be more than happy to steal the bike of the only
freak in town.

After scanning her ID card at the front
desk, Kristi ambled into the library of the learning center. The
library wasn’t very big. Five floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined
three of the walls. Only two of the shelves contained paper books;
the other three shelves held government approved DVDs. Smart-glass
desks and one smart-screen occupied the rest of the room.

Jaiden stood at the front of the room,
beside the smart-screen. The group of level-six students he was
tutoring leaned forward in their seats, not wanting to miss a word
of his lecture. Jaiden’s sessions were always full; not only did he
teach, he taught classes in a fun and engaging style.

Since Kristi had twenty minutes before it
was her time to tutor, she decided to wait in the library. She
looked on the tutoring session with as much attentiveness as the
students; perhaps she could pick up a few tips from Jaiden to make
her own class more interesting.

“
Who can tell me the four
regions of the United Regions?” Jaiden asked.

Fifteen hands shot up into the air.

Jaiden pretended to look shocked and said,
“What? No one knows the answer?”

Grinning, he closed his eyes and randomly
pointed at a girl wildly waving her hand. He called on her.

“
They are the North
Region, South Region, East Region and West Region,” said the
girl.

“
Very good. And can you
tell me which region we live in? You better know this or else…”
Jaiden wagged a finger at her.

“
North Region.”

“
Correct. Who can name the
countries of the world?” Jaiden asked. He chose a boy with sandy
hair to answer.

“
United Regions, South
Union, Asian Republic, and the Unified Provinces of
Europe.”

“
That’s right. Okay,
here’s a harder question. Whoever answers this question right gets
brownie points. Who are the leaders for each of the named
nations?”

After a moment of hesitation, the boy with
the sandy hair raised his arm up again. Jaiden called on him
without missing a beat.

“
President Ducix runs the
United Regions. Chief Imperate is in charge of South Union, Empress
Regina rules the Asian Republic and, uh…” the boy trailed off,
flushing with embarrassment for forgetting the name of the Prime
Minister who ruled the Unified Provinces of Europe.

In the meantime, several other students had
raised their hands, ready to be called on by Jaiden. Jaiden let the
boy have another fifteen seconds to come up with an answer before
picking on a girl with a French braid running down her back.

The girl blinked her unnaturally blue eyes
and said, “Prime Minister Rector commands the Unified Provinces of
Europe.”

Jaiden nodded his approval. Using his index
finger, he powered off the smart-screen and wrapped up his class.
“I hope you’ve all learned a lot. If you remember at least eighty
percent of the materials we just went over, you should be well
prepared for tomorrow’s test.” He paused to confirm the time on his
watch. “Class has been concluded.”

The kids packed up their belongings, thanked
Jaiden and left. Kristi took a look at her own watch; ten minutes
left before she had to leave. Her tutoring class would be taught in
one of the spare classrooms.

Jaiden finished gathering his belongings and
noticed Kristi hovering by the door.

“
Did you get your
hydro-bike fixed?” he asked.

“
Yeah.”

“
I didn’t tell Maria and
Don about it. I assume you want to keep it this way?”

“
Yeah,” Kristi said,
nodding a little and grateful that Jaiden understood she didn’t
want Don and Maria to be concerned with her wellbeing. “Do you know
if anyone still uses a TV set in town?” Kristi asked, a picture of
the TV she had found earlier flashing into her mind.

“
I don’t think so, but I
might be wrong.”

Kristi mentally rolled her eyes; Jaiden was
never wrong.

“
I have to go now.
Professor Smetana is probably wondering why I haven’t shown up at
the lab. I promised her I would return to the lab as soon as I
completed my service hours.”

With that, Jaiden left the library, giving
Kristi a slight pat on the shoulders as he walked away.

Well. That was Jaiden: wanted by everyone
because he was good at everything. Kristi left the library then
stepped down the hallway and into the empty classroom.

The smart-screen in the room was an older
model, and it took four attempts before Kristi got the machine to
spark to life. Even after coaxing the ancient screen to turn on, it
was several minutes before Kristi was able to connect her
electro-slate to it. She irritably tapped her foot, waiting for the
lesson to finish downloading.

The kids she was tutoring were level two;
most of the children were six to seven years old. Kristi counted
the number of kids seated at the desks. Five in total. Not a bad
number. She told herself she preferred her classes to be small.

I get to do more
one-on-one teaching this way,
she thought,
refusing to acknowledge the reason why her classes were generally
smaller than the other tutoring groups was because not many parents
felt comfortable with the idea of having their Perfect youngsters
being taught by an Accident.

The lesson finally completed its download.
Kristi turned to her group and said, “Hope everyone’s interested in
learning about polynomials today because that’s what we’re
doing.”

Kristi plopped down onto
a
soft, cushioned chair, exhausted from
teaching. Dealing with kids she knew who were going to one day turn
out smarter than her took a heavier toll than expected. Although
her students were generally well behaved, they
were
still only six year olds, and
had the tendency to wander off topic.

She trudged to the
bathroom and turned on the steam-powered jets. The pounding water
massaged away her tiredness. Citrus scented bath foam rejuvenated
the spirit and once she’d toweled dry her dark, wet hair, Kristi
began to ponder what to do with the rest of her day.
I suppose I could go revisit the hidden room in
the wall. After all, it isn’t everyday something interesting like
this happens. I would be dumb not to make the most of
it.

She exited the bathroom and dug her bag out
from underneath her bed. Then she hunted around the house, packing
anything she felt that she should include on her mini
excursion.

“
Water, granola bar and
electro-slate,” Kristi said, counting each item on her fingers.
“That should be all I need.” She pulled her drawstring bag closed
then headed out the door.

There was an air of stillness on the streets
during this time of the day. The adults were at work, the younger
kids had their extra curricular lessons and the older kids were
usually off doing whatever they did with their free time. Many
teens liked to visit the indoor surfing complex, although Kristi
never discovered why being chased by a wall of water while
crouching on a Plexiglas board was considered fun.

She traced her path back down the alley,
making sure to be wary of the electro-slate bandits. Kristi skipped
around a puddle, not wanting to get her new sneakers muddy. Her
peripheral vision caught something reflecting off the puddle.
Looking down at the tranquil water, she spotted something that
shouldn’t be there. Beside her stood a furry creature.