Sapience (2 page)

He turned and started walking out the door. "Oh and I almost forgot." A mischievous grin spread across his face as he pulled out a pair of car keys and tossed them to me. "Turn left at the light and drive for a few miles. Newberry High School will be on your right."

I nodded and when I went to get up Lillie walked in and stopped me.

"You’re not ready yet. You represent our family and it is of the utmost importance you look your best." She dipped her fingers into a small round container in her hand and pulled out a small pile of white gunk. "This is pomade. It’s like gel only for your hair. It's better."

I didn’t stop her when she rubbed the gunk through my hair spiking it up. Actually I kind of liked the outcome, it made me look more formal.

When I walked out to the driveway I was surprised to find all the broken windows in the mansion had been replaced with new ones. How did Adrian and Lillie do all this I wondered? Still in shock from the fresh look of the new windows I clicked the unlock button on my car keys. The sight that followed froze me solid.

Chapter 2

              The lights of a dark black Aston Martin flashed as its doors unlocked.

"Are you just going to stand there? You’re going to be late for school." Adrian leaned against the front door of the house watching my reaction.

I could only nod to him as I opened the door and turned the key. Luxury was an understatement. The new car smell washed over me as I fastened the seat belt. Its black leather seats only made the car seem that much more out of my league. They must have spent a fortune on this thing.

The gears jammed and Adrian cringed as I tried for the first time to drive a stick shift. It was tough but on the second try I got it and was moving sluggishly down the driveway.

Adrian’s plans for finding the school were simple and in no time it was in sight. It looked surprisingly low key. One big structure made of brown bricks. The lawn around the many walls was barren. No shrubbery or trees, just grass. Where were the Kingdom's worship statues? I wondered. Where was the shrubbery meant to represent the Kingdom's beauty to the children?

I parked in the back of a large parking lot filled with kids doing the same except no one parked as far away as I did. Holding my breath I shut off the engine and stepped out of the car. I could feel stares as I passed people on my way into the school.

Why does it have to be a big deal? I wondered. It’s not like an alien spaceship just landed. But still I caught kids watching me the whole way to the school.

Inside the hallways were spacious. Green lockers lined the walls and students walked in all directions as they prepared for the start of the day. I followed a set of small white arrows painted on the walls at every intersection until I reached the office.

It was a secure feeling knowing the halls weren’t too crowded yet. I find people tend not to make a big deal about things when there was a chance they could be singled out.

The office was large and empty. Chairs lined the walls, a clock ticked wildly toward the first bell of the day and a dead plant sat in the corner. It was plain and boring, as if school wouldn’t be boring enough as it is. A large counter covered with stacks of paper and a phone separated the two halves of the room. There was only one chair behind the desk and it was manned by a dark haired lady with glasses. She was wearing a dress shirt that covered any skin bellow the neck.

She glanced up. "You must be William Fay."

She had my first name right but where did she get that last name? I decided Adrian and Lillie must have signed me up under that name.

"That would be me." I told her. Technically my real name was William, one, zero, seven but I doubted numbers substituted for last names outside of the government buildings.

"I assume you have come to me for your schedule?" she said. She reached to a spot on the desk I couldn’t see and pulled out a stack of papers. "Here we are."

She held out a piece of paper with my classes printed on it and explained where each one was. She kept a bored look on her face as she wished me good luck and sent me on my way.

If she only knew why I was here. She wanted me to learn, my plan was to blend in. She wanted me to praise the Kingdom; my whole purpose in life was to defy it.

When I was walking to my first class I glanced out a window and saw a group of kids huddled around my car. My first instinct was to run out there and shoo them away but then I figured I would be doing the same thing if I was them. I gave them one last glance then continued on my way.

I kept staring straight ahead as I walked through the crowd of teenagers. To my horror I could see people staring at me out of the corner of my eye. It made me wish I had a weapon, something I could use to defend myself if an enemy were hiding in their ranks. Nobody said anything to me so I kept walking.

I got to the hallway where my first-hour was Room "303", easy to spot. I felt my heart race as I approached the old wooden door. I took a deep breath to steady my nerves then twisted the knob.

The classroom was larger than the ones in the government buildings. All the chairs were filled with people talking back and forth. Thankfully they were all too busy talking to each other and no one had noticed me enter. The teacher, a short fat and balding man with an over grown moustache sat eating an apple at his desk. When he saw me he immediately perked up.

"Attention class." He called out.

So much for nobody paying attention.

"We have a new student with us today." He gestured in my direction. “Mr. William Fay.”

Crap, and just like that all eyes were on me. The classroom was silent. I’m sure you could hear a pin drop. That is if one of the students would move enough to knock one over. No one did.

I gave a small nod and wave then made my way over to the teacher. He marked my schedule then directed me to a seat in the back of the class. I could feel the burning stares of the other students as I sat down. Not wanting to look up I decided it was best to start working on the paper the teacher had handed me. It was advanced math meant to take all hour. Something in my head clicked and I started writing down answers. Not like I would before when I was in the government building but yet more than anyone was supposed to. Quickly I decided my job was not to succeed but to blend in so I scribbled a few wrong answers and gave myself a time limit before I could start the next math problem.

When the bell rang, a loud ding, a shaggy brown haired boy with pimples walked up to my desk.

"So how’s your first day?" He seemed dorky but all-in-all a good kid.

"It just started." I said. Two blond haired girls stared at me from behind him. I did my best not to show them I had noticed.

"Well yea but how is it so far?" by the expression on his face I could tell he was a bigger nerd than I thought. Soon it wasn’t just the two blonds staring, it was the entire class.

"Good..." Part of me just wanted to cut the kid off mid-sentence and make a b-line for the door. Better to not make enemies, I figured.

"Hey do you mind showing me to my next class?" I pulled out my schedule and handed it to him.

"Yea sure, my next class is right next door to yours." I followed him to his desk so he could gather his stuff. "I'm Neal." He added. I just nodded.

The halls were surprisingly less crowded than I had expected as we made our way to second hour. My guess is that the school was meant to hold many more than the measly five hundred it held right now. Some classrooms were completely barren I noticed as we walked past. Not a single desk behind the locked doors.

"So where did you go before you were here?" He asked.

"A school in one of the Kingdom's royal cities."

"Were there a lot of kids in your school?"

"A lot more" I lied, there had been less than one hundred in our wing of the building.

He looked expectant "I bet you had so many girls to choose from."

"We were too busy training to notice." That was the truth.

"Training?" He looked at me curiously. My jaw went tight.

"Like homework and what not."

I would have to watch what I was saying to these people. If one wrong thing I said got reported, the Kingdom might come crashing down on us.

He just shrugged it off, believing what I said.

We walked back by the front office to a set of classrooms on the other half of the building. Neal followed me to the door.

"Good luck." He said as I walked through.

The rest of the morning passed about the same. Both my English and Science teachers made me stand up in front of the class. By the second time I was no longer embarrassed but still made my way thankfully to my seat.

After a couple of classes I was getting waves from people I had met earlier in the day. In every class at least one person would start asking about my past and I would have to lie. I tried to keep it simple so I wouldn’t get the lies mixed up in the future.

Neal caught me before lunch and walked with me to the cafeteria. I listened as he explained who and where everyone was in the social ladder of the school. From what I grasped, the football players ruled the land.

We ate at a table with six of his friends. He introduced all of them but their names were quickly forgotten. Damn this new brain.

I was the center of discussion for a while until they started running out of things to ask. I kept my answers as plain as possible, a necessary strategy to keep my history on the down low. As the main group started to break apart into a bunch of smaller conversations I heard a couple names I recognized.

"I heard Spencer and Brianna Frost just stood there and watched," a boy with black hair said.

"I would of too. It’s not very often you get to see two kids fighting on campus," another boy with bright red hair and freckles said.

"Yea but they didn’t even try to get a teacher."

Spencer and Brianna were the names of the two younger escapees I was looking for. They were eighteen, exactly the same age as me.

I listened intently through the rest of lunch but the names never came up again. Eventually the bell rang announcing the end of lunch. Neal waited for me to get up then showed me where my history class would be.

When I walked in I was forced once again to introduce myself before I could sit down. The class started quickly and I was soon hearing stories of the great Kingdom's rise to power. It was all worship and false stories of how the Kingdom saved its people. I knew the truth. The Kingdom hadn’t saved anyone, it hurt them.

One story was about an evil man who had been put to death after blowing up a famous building. The government had swooped in with a great display of power and captured the man in his sleep, proving to the people that no one could hide from them. I happened to have read a document once that laid out the plans of this “Attack”. The man was an innocent nobody, barely a thorn in the Kingdom’s side. He ran a small town news paper that was just a little bit too patriotic for the Kingdom's liking. So the government set off the bombs and framed the man. That last part was what they didn’t teach us.

Before I knew it the bell rang and I was off to gym.

The Gym was off on its own in a field house. It took me a while to figure out where to go and when I finally did I was running late.

I burst through the two black double doors and stumbled into the yellow floor of the gym. The ceiling was higher than in any building I had ever seen. I guess that’s not saying much considering the government building and the school's ceilings weren’t very high and those were the only buildings I had ever been in. To my right there was a towering set of wooden bleachers that almost stretched all the way up to the ceiling.

A group of students in gym shorts and tee shirts gathered on a similar set of bleachers on the other side. A large man in a red sweat suit holding a clip board was calling names as I walked up.

"Brianna Frost." I froze as he said the name.

She raised her hand as she saw me.

She had dark brown hair that was almost black, deep dimples on her cheeks and big blue eyes that glowed the same as mine. Her body was small and petite, yet lean and fit from the years she had spent training for the Kingdom.

The Kingdom separated the boys and girls as we grew up. There was only a short time in every day we were able to interact. Though I had never really ever talked to Brianna I remembered her from the government building. I didn’t remember her being so… attractive. That was what made me freeze. I wasn’t ready to see her in that kind of a light.

Pure terror crossed her face as she watched me staring at her.

"You must be the new guy." The large man in the sweat suit glanced back to his clipboard. "William Fay?"

Snapping out of my trance, I nodded then made my way up to where she was sitting. She was rigid, every muscle in her body tensed as I sat down next to her.

"I’ll kill myself before I ever let you take us!" She said in a tense whisper without looking in my direction.

I didn’t know what to say. Her anger was overwhelming. I couldn’t believe it, what was the matter with this girl?