Matt laughed as he stubbed the joint out on the side of a pot. Then he rolled the cigarette butt back and forth between his fingers until it fell apart. Lora looked at her watch. “Damn! We’re late again.”
Lora went one way and Matt went the other. It was important to arrive separately, or their classmates would claim they were a couple—not because they really believed that was the case but to give them grief. And Lora had plenty of that already.
All the schools were located on Level 14. And even though Lora ran from the elevator to the circular walkway, and from there to the high school’s front door, she was still three minutes late. Headmaster Wilkes, or the Head, as the students referred to him, was six-two and mostly bald. He stood in her way. “Late again, Miss Larsy. What is this? The third time in the last month? Perhaps you should get up earlier.”
Lora lowered her eyes. “Sorry, Mr. Wilkes.”
Wilkes smiled. “No excuses. I like that. Run along now… and get here on time tomorrow.”
Lora was thrilled to get off with nothing more than a lecture and scurried down the hall to her first class. The subject was math, the one she hated most. But there was no escape.
The door swished open, she stepped into the brightly lit classroom, and everyone turned to look, including Mrs. Norman. She was a little thing with close-set eyes, a pixie cut, and the precise movements of a bird. “Better late than never,” she observed tartly, “or am I wrong?”
That got a laugh out of the class, and Lora felt her face turn bright red as she made her way to a seat in the back of the room. Kristy and Becky were there, of course, and even though Lora couldn’t see them, she could feel the stares.
A boy named Cory had the seat next to Lora, and he was so far down the social food chain that he looked up to her. “Your hair looks nice today,” he said, apparently oblivious to what had taken place.
“Shut up and mind your own business,” Lora replied, then felt a terrible sense of shame when she saw the crestfallen look on his moonlike face. Had he been waiting to say that? Had he rehearsed it? Yes, she sensed he had. Lora wanted to say she was sorry, but Mrs. Norman was writing an incomprehensible formula on the whiteboard by then, and it was too late.
Algebra had been easy at first. Letters could represent variables or constants. Lora got that. But then, within a week or so, she began to fall behind. Suddenly Mrs. Norman was speaking what sounded like a foreign language that everyone but Lora understood.
Lora tried to disappear. The trick was to sit perfectly still, because even the slightest movement could attract Mrs. Norman’s steely gaze, and when that happened the math teacher would rap out a question. Sometimes Cory would come to the rescue with a whispered answer, but more often than not, Lora came up empty.
That was always good for some titters from Becky and Kristy, who sat in the front row and would turn to look at her. It didn’t make sense. They were stupid and they understood algebra.
Fortunately, on that particular day, Mrs. Norman was presenting new gobbledygook, so Lora wasn’t required to go up to the whiteboard and prove how inadequate she was. The hour hand crawled around the clock and eventually came to rest on the twelve. A buzzer sounded, students stampeded out of the room, and Lora followed.
Kristy and Becky were waiting outside. Kristy was blond, with high cheekbones and a pouty mouth. Becky was a brunette with a heart-shaped face and an upturned nose. Both wore identical ponytails, skirts that hit just above the knee, and custom-made shoes that looked like slippers, violations of the dress code that the Head never seemed to notice. “So, leaver,” Kristy began. “What were you and the giraffe doing on Level Eight this morning?”
“I’ll bet she kissed him,” Becky put in. “Zits and all.”
Suddenly weeks of pent-up anger boiled up inside Lora and she reacted. Her balled fist made contact with Becky’s upturned nose, something gave, and blood spilled down the front of her white blouse. Kristy screamed as Becky sampled the red stuff with a finger, looked at it, and began to cry. Then both girls took off for the lavatory. Cory had witnessed the entire thing and watched them go. “That was awesome.”
Lora shook her head. “No, it wasn’t. It was stupid.” She turned to look at him. “And Cory…”
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry about what I said earlier. I didn’t mean it.” With that she walked away.
There was no point in going to her next class only to be removed from it—with all the embarrassment that would entail. So Lora walked down a long hallway, entered the office, and sat on one of the three chairs generally reserved for troublemakers. The secretary turned to look at her. Mrs. Olson was nice, the way Lora imagined her mother might have been if she had survived childbirth. “In trouble again?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Who sent you?”
“I sent myself.”
Mrs. Olson laughed. “I like your style. Mr. Wilkes will be back soon.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
A full five minutes passed before the Head came through the door, started to say something, and stopped when he saw Lora. “She came in on her own,” Olson said pointedly.
Wilkes looked Lora in the eye. His expression was serious. “You broke her nose and her parents will be furious. Striking another student is completely unacceptable. I will talk to your father. Then we’ll see what sort of punishment to impose.”
Lora looked down. “Yes, sir.”
Wilkes glanced at his watch. “Okay, it’s too late to make your second class, so go to lunch. And, Lora…”
Lora’s head came back up. “Sir?”
“Please stay out of trouble for the rest of the day.”
“Yes, sir.”
So Lora was the first student to enter the cafeteria and the first person to take her place at the so-called loser’s table, where all the outcasts gathered. Matt arrived shortly thereafter and sat across from her. “I hear you fed Becky a knuckle sandwich. Well done.”
“Mr. Wilkes is going to tell my father,” Lora said bleakly. “And he’ll be mad at me.”
“You’ll survive,” Matt predicted. “Just say you’re sorry and look pitiful.”
As it happened, that was exactly what Lora planned to do. She changed the subject. “Somebody spotted us on Level Eight. Kristy knew about it.”
Matt frowned. “What did she say?”
“She thought we were making out.”
“Works for me.”
“Well, it doesn’t work for me,” Lora said primly.
Matt never got to reply because a girl named Anne joined them and the conversation turned back to the fight. As the room began to fill, Lora could feel the stares and knew people were talking about her. That made her uncomfortable, plus there was the possibility that Kristy and Becky would arrive at any moment, so she hurried to finish her meal. Then, having returned her tray, she was out the door and off to her favorite class. Agro 105 was all about the technical side of growing food indoors—and the students were learning by doing. That meant rebuilding the irrigation system for Plot 3 on Level 7.
Lora made her way to the girls’ locker room, where she took a quick look around. Fortunately Becky and Kristy were nowhere to be seen, so she changed into a blue T-shirt and khaki shorts prior to heading down to Section 4 of Level 7.
That part of Level 7 was dedicated to the Sanctuary’s central purpose, which, as Lora’s father liked to point out, wasn’t to keep a couple of thousand people fed while the rest of humanity starved. No, the seed bank’s true mission was to provide a backup should a war or natural catastrophe result in the destruction of one or more species of plants. Had that taken place? There was no way to know without sending a team of scientists out to assess the situation. And the keepers wouldn’t permit that. They pointed out that once the barbarians knew where the Sanctuary was, they would attack it. And George Larsy hadn’t been able to counter that argument. Not to Lora’s satisfaction anyway.