“Oh, is that all? You should have said something.” Miss Ellis came over to his desk, pushed a few keys, and accessed the assignment for him. It made sense, he realized, that she would be able to do that.
The homework that Andrew had done came up on the screen. Feeling relieved, Tony puzzled out the solution to the second problem, which fortunately Andrew had done correctly. Tony treasured the “Very good” that Miss Ellis said in his direction, even if it was followed by “Andrew.”
The class continued throughout the morning, with Miss Ellis going from subject to subject. A little math, some English, a bit of art. Tony especially enjoyed the art, as being in a virtual classroom enabled him to create beautiful pictures almost by just thinking of them. He could paint pictures in three dimensions, and he even created a collage using video images that moved and sound effects that came from a classroom library of such things. It almost got him discovered, because apparently Andrew was not too keen on this subject, and Miss Ellis became suspicious of “Andrew’s” new-found enthusiasm for light sculpting. But it turned out all right; Miss Ellis was actually more pleased than suspicious to see Andrew taking an interest.
A little after eleven o’clock the buzz sounded, announcing the lunch period. Miss Ellis and the students jacked out one by one. Tony envied the other students; he imagined them in comfortable homes, sitting at tables with steaming hot plates piled up with food.
Tony himself didn’t jack out. He spent the entire forty minutes in the virtual classroom, relishing every minute he was there. He played with his desk computer, using it to create more works of art and to read history textbooks that changed the words they used when Tony punched in that he didn’t understand something. He didn’t mind the stomach rumbles he felt near the end of the period; he was used to them.
“Now, class, we’re going to learn a little geography. Who can tell me what this is?” Miss Ellis pushed a button at the top of the blackboard, and a holographic map appeared, floating halfway between her desk and the class. Tony recognized it and raised his hand. So did most of the class.
Ms. Ellis called on Tony. “Yes, Andrew?”
“It’s the United States.” Tony thought it was the most beautiful map he had ever seen. It shimmered in the air, floating in and out of insubstantiality. The features—states, cities, mountains, and rivers, just to name a few—were displayed in many different intense colors. There was a vibrancy to this map which made it more real than any flat map Tony had seen in his own classroom.
“Very good, Andrew. Well, class, today I want to introduce you to the various parts of our country, and I think the best way of doing that is to have you do it for us. Who wants to be first to tell us where they’re from?” The girl sitting to Tony’s right raised her hand. “Janice?”
“I live in Florida, Miss Ellis, in Neptune Beach, near Jacksonville. But I just moved there from San Francisco.”
“Can you point out both places on the map?”
Janice punched a few keys on her desk computer, and a small spot in northeastern Florida lit up in green. A second later, so did a spot in northern California.
“Very good! Someone else?”
One of the Asian girls raised her hand. “Sandra?”
Sandra hit a few keys and a spot near Washington, D.C. turned green. “I live in Silver Spring, Maryland.”
Miss Ellis continued going through the class, and the students became very enthusiastic about it. “I’m in East Lansing, Michigan!” shouted a kid named Brian, who had just moved from Los Alamos, New Mexico. “I live near Boston!” shouted another. Each student’s hometown was lit up, either by Miss Ellis or by the student.
Tony felt scared. He lived in Harlem, in New York City, and desperately wanted to volunteer that information, but he couldn’t. He was supposed to be Andrew, and he didn’t know exactly where Andrew lived. He knew it was out on Long Island, because the car with the spex had displayed Long Island license plates. But where on Long Island?
And how did the other students use the computer to light up the map?
The next one to go was Sheryl, who had been the first student to pop in after Tony. She used her computer to light up Suffolk County, on Long Island. “I live in Port Jefferson,” she said, “right near Andrew.”
“Andrew, would you like to locate your hometown as well?” asked Miss Ellis. “You could come up to the map since it’s already lit up.”
Feeling trapped, Tony ran up to the map, stabbed at Suffolk County with his—Andrew’s—finger, and sprinted back to his seat.
Miss Ellis went through the rest of the class. All over the map, the hometowns were lit up in green. “Who would like to talk about their hometown first?”
Tony felt Miss Ellis’s eyes staring right at him, and worried that she might call on him. Her eyes passed over him, though, and she called on Brian. Tony exhaled a breath that he didn’t realize he had been holding.
Since he knew Los Alamos better than East Lansing, Brian chose to talk about his original hometown instead of where he was now. Tony barely paid attention as Brian talked about the joys of small town life and then displayed some pictures from a family photo album that he was able to pull up using his computer. Miss Ellis then discussed the arid mountainous area where the town was located, and how there had been a scientific laboratory there until the year 2010.
Janice went next, and again Tony was too scared to pay attention. Janice described San Francisco, and, possibly still thinking about lunch, mentioned the delicious seafood and sourdough bread. Miss Ellis talked about other things, such as the earthquakes that San Francisco had experienced, and the Golden Gate Bridge, which she said had been one of the longest suspension bridges in the country until the earthquake just last year that destroyed it. She showed three dimensional video images of the earthquake, and even made the classroom shake up a bit, so the students could experience a bit of what an earthquake was like.
Janice continued, “But now I live in Florida, and it’s really nice, except it gets awful hot in the summer. But let me show you!” With that, Janice hit a few keys, and on the screenboard appeared a picture of a large white house. “See! There’s my front yard!”
“Oh, yeah?” said Brian. Using his computer, he erased the picture of Janice’s house. A few seconds later, a picture of Brian appeared, wearing spex and sitting in some sort of large black chair with arms that closed in front. Tony felt uneasy, looking at that picture.
Brian waved his hand in class, and so did the Brian in the picture. “See!” he said. “That’s me in real time!”
“Oh yeah?” said Janice. “Well, watch—”
“Janice! Brian!” Miss Ellis interrupted. Oh no, thought Tony, now they’re going to get it. He braced himself for the shouting. Instead, the two students each mumbled an apology.
“It’s OK,” Miss Ellis said. “I understand why you’re excited, I just didn’t want you to get out of hand. You see, class, one of the nice things about being here is that we all jack in from different places. Each of you can learn from one another about the great diversity we have in this country. Here you are, telling each other about your hometowns, even though you may live thousands of miles away from your classmates. I figure it will also give you a chance to find out more about each other, since it is so early in the school year.”
Sheryl raised her hand, which worried Tony. “Couldn’t people do that before?”
“Well, yes,” Miss Ellis replied, “but it wasn’t so immediate. In fact, you’re experiencing something now that in the past only college students could usually experience. And they had to travel physically to one common location to share their backgrounds, which was much more expensive and time consuming. You don’t need to do that at all.”