The Return (15 page)

Tomorrow is a whole new day …
Read on for a preview of
Tomorrow Girls #1: Behind the Gates
.

On the first day of school we scramble to find the classes on the schedules we've been given. My first class is English. The teacher, Sasha, doesn't even greet us. “Copy this into your notebooks, ladies” is all she says. Then she turns to the old-style blackboard and picks up a white stick of something I don't recognize. With rapid movements she covers the blackboard in notes, all written in an artful, curved script. My grandmother wrote like this, I recall. Otherwise almost everyone prints these days.

Glancing around the room, I notice that everyone is having a hard time taking notes without their laptops or notepads. I actually get hand cramps from writing with the pencil provided on my desk. And forget using an eraser! They don't even work!

My notebook winds up full of scratch-outs and scribbles. It's a complete mess and I hope no one will check it.

The rest of our morning is spent on other familiar subjects — social studies, algebra, and science.

“Don't you think it's weird that all the English and social studies books are from before 1980?” Evelyn points out as we walk to our next class.

“The school is old, and it's probably hard to get supplies,” Maddie suggests. “You know how hard it is to get anything since the War started.”

“She's right,” I say. Mom and Dad told me that back in the day, there were huge stores that sold tons and tons of cheap stuff. Everything was affordable because it was all made in countries where people didn't have any rights and no one made enough money.

But honestly, I might not have even noticed the old textbooks if Evelyn hadn't pointed them out. I like my classes — a lot. The teachers seem pretty nice, so far. They're all young women with various accents and nationalities — except for Mrs. Brewster, who doesn't have any kind of accent and doesn't teach any courses. She's just in charge.

We're supposed to call all the teachers by their first names, like Devi and Emmanuelle and Sasha. It's hard to get used to, especially since things are pretty formal here otherwise. But the only last name we use is Mrs. Brewster's — and no one knows her first name. Evelyn calls her “Bunny” as a joke sometimes.

In the afternoon we have speech and debate. After that we have Emmanuelle for outdoor survival skills. I know afternoons will be my favorite. I'm not sure which of these two classes I love the most.

In every class we're told that we are part of the New Society. It doesn't take me long to figure out that in the New Society we will be the privileged elite who will be expected to lead the masses when the War is over. Our teachers keep referring to us as the
future of the country
.

“That's kind of obnoxious, don't you think?” Maddie says to me at dinner. “Why should we be the future of the country just because we can afford to go to this school? If you think about it, it's offensive.”

I shrug — I kind of like the idea. It gives me a feeling of having a serious purpose. I'd never felt like that in school before. Mostly all of it had seemed unimportant. All I could think was,
Why do we even have to know this stuff?
At CMS, I don't feel that way.

“Of course it's offensive,” Maddie insists, replying to my shrug. “If your parents hadn't paid for me to be here, my parents couldn't have afforded it.”

My eyes dart around quickly, making sure no one is listening. “Shh,” I warn.

Maddie lowers her voice. “Now I'm a ‘future leader' because I'm here. If I couldn't afford to be here, who would I be? A big nobody?”

“But you
are
here,” I remind her.

“That's not the point.”

I know it's not the point, but this is a touchy subject and I want to get off it. “Well, I'm just happy we're here,” I say. “And you should be, too.”

Evelyn sits down at our table. “I have to ask you guys something about science,” she says. “Don't you think it's odd that we'll be learning an awful lot about starting fires, building explosives, and making poisonous gases?”

“I had fun building that fire today,” I say.

“Sure, it was fun,” Evelyn admits, “but don't you think it's a little weird that tomorrow we're going to learn how to blow stuff up?”

I only shrug, again, because I think that's going to be really interesting, too. For the first time in my life I enjoy science class. Maybe it is a little strange, but then, what's normal anymore?

DAYNA LORENTZ
is a graduate of the MFA Creative Writing program at Bennington College. A former lawyer, Dayna is now a full-time writer and lives with her husband, daughter, dogs, and cat in Vermont. Dogs of the Drowned City is her first series.

Visit her online at
www.daynalorentz.com
.