The Perfect World (The Perfect World Series Book 1) (11 page)

Out of respect for his caretaker, he didn’t speak of the conversation with Ms. Linda to anyone. It was on his mind every other time she had visited over the next few days, but they never spoke of it. Cyrus had a feeling that he shouldn’t bring it up. Soon enough, the weekend was over, and he was back in school.

No mention was made of his absence by Ms. Neva. He may as well have never been gone. The day passed as normally and dully as most of the others had at the school. The only difference in the schedule was that today was a physical education day. They had the class three days a week on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Before the class started, the class made its way into the storage room where PE uniforms were kept. The uniforms were gray short-sleeved shirts with blue shorts with an elastic band. Everyone had the exact same combination and colors of clothes, though some of the clothes smelled better than others. 

They were escorted to the bathroom to change and then exited the school in their familiar line. Once outside, they were escorted around to the back of the building. Behind the building was a small circular track made of black spongy material that got little pebbles into Cyrus’s shoes after he used it. There were white lines dissecting the track into six different lanes. To the left side of the small track was a field where they sometimes played dull sports activities. The entire area was surrounded by a gray wired fence and was guarded on the four corners by armored guards. 

Mr. Alvy, who was their Science teacher, opened the gate and waited until they had all passed through it before he promptly shut it behind them. Mr. Alvy waited until they were approached by their teacher Mr. Warden before he returned to school. Mr. Warden was a tall man, well built, with muscles apparent on his arms even from a distance. His dark, greasy hair and dark brown eyes contrasted nicely with his pale skin. He had large lips and a long neck, giving one the impression of a giraffe if they had ever seen one.

“Hello class,” he said without enthusiasm. His voice was thick and slow as if he were constantly pondering his words. “We’ll be using the track for today’s lesson. I don’t suppose that any of you know what sprinting is, do you?”

While most of the kids looked between each other in confusion, trying to figure out what to say, Scott opened his mouth to answer, but was immediately overtaken by their new teacher.

“Of course you don’t. No one ever does,” he said with a tone of inevitability.

“Sprinting is running a short distance as fast as a person can. It is also understood that every person can run at the same speed as every other person in any given country.”

Cyrus scrunched up his face at that, trying to make sense out of what he’d just been told. He was about to voice his confusion when a bright voice spoke up from the front of the line.

“I don’t understand.” Cyrus stood on his tiptoes and saw that it was Melody speaking. “How can we all run at the same speed? Our legs are all different.”

“No one’s legs are different,” Mr. Warden answered in his plodding voice. “Your legs are the same, as are your running capabilities.” Melody seemed like she was going to say more, but Mr. Warden continued to talk. “As usual, every student can expect to get the same amount of exercise as everyone else. There are no exceptions to that rule.”

He ended his speech with what seemed to be a long sigh. He seemed like he’d been there far too long. Cyrus, though he didn’t really like Mr. Warden, decided that he preferred honest apathy over  the typical insincerity he had received from his other instructors.

“Do you understand?” he asked them at last.

“Yes, Mr. Warden.”

“Good. This way.” He gestured for the class to follow him, and their line quietly shuffled after him. They walked the short distance to the track where they stopped when Mr. Warden turned around to speak with them again.

“Today will be very simple. I want each of you to run a lap around that track. I will time each of you with this stop watch,” he held it up for them to see, “and press stop when you cross the line. Don’t worry about these times as every person’s time in this class is sure to be the same. All of your abilities are the same after all.”

Cyrus noticed that the more words he spoke, the more tired he sounded. He thought he heard a note of disappointment hidden in there as well, but he couldn’t be sure.

“Right. First in line, you’re up,” he said without enthusiasm as he pointed to the outermost lane on the track. “When I say the word go, you run down the track. Ready, set, go.”

The first boy took off like a light down the track. He was a blond boy with bright blue eyes and a very skinny frame. His legs were long and thin, seeming to eat up the track as he ran. In no time, he had made the first lap around the track and didn’t even look tired when he reached Mr. Warden. Spontaneous clapping burst out from the line of kids, but their teacher gestured at them to stop.

“Applauding like that will only make whoever is next in line feel pressured and uncomfortable. That is a very bad thing to do.” His voice was incredibly dull and seemed to suck all the excitement off the event. The bright smile on the blond boy’s face immediately faded as he went to the back of the line. He saw Scott give the boy a sympathetic look as he passed.

“You next.” Mr. Warden ushered a stubby legged boy with a heavy build to the line. “Ready, set, go.”

The boy set off at a noticeably slower pace than the boy in front of him, taking much longer to get around the track. The exercise continued until it was Cyrus’s turn. He went up to the line with a deep feeling of excitement.

“Ready, set, go.”

Cyrus took off as fast as his feet could carry him. The freedom of being able to stretch his legs and run was a thrill to him like no other. The wind whipped through his hair, and all concept of time seemed to fade as he ate up the track. A feeling of contentment stole over him, a feeling that ended far too soon as he reached the line again. He forced his unwilling feet to take him back to the end of the line. When he got there, Scott turned around to speak with him.

“That was amazing!” Scott spoke as quietly as he could as to not attract attention to himself. It was clear from his face that he was excited for his classmate. “You were really fast. I think you were just as fast as Will from the front of the line.”

Will was the blond boy that had run the track first. Cyrus didn’t know if it was true, but suddenly he really wanted to run the track with Will to find out. He didn’t know why it mattered to him, but he really did want to see who was faster.

“Okay, that’s everyone,” Mr. Warden said as the children all fell back into line. “What we’re going to do now is divide you into running lines. The leader of the line will be the person on the left-hand side of this track. The leader of the first line will be you.” He pointed to the stubby-legged kid who ran after Will. The boy hesitantly made his way to the farthest left-hand lane. Five people including the boy were placed in the line. The second leader was a girl with big hair and an awkward looking body. Five people were placed in the line, including her. The final line was led by a short, squat boy who waddled as he walked. This boy was placed in a line of three.

“All right, here’s the deal. I want you kids to run five laps around this track. Here are the rules you must follow. No one may pass the leader in their line. They must stay in a complete straight line with their leader. Secondly, neither of the back two lines may pass the line in front of it. The leaders of each line will set the pace you will all run at. Everyone will run at that pace because that is as fast as any of you can go. Now, when I say go, all of you will run five laps around the track. Ready, set, go.”

The lines all took off down the track at an incredibly slow pace, or so it seemed to Cyrus. His body ached to rip away from the crowd and run as fast as he could. He felt as though he was plodding along, not really running at all. In front of him, he saw Will give the leader of their line a look of frustration, clearly feeling the same as Cyrus did.

When he looked at the children who had been chosen to lead, he could only think that their teacher must have chosen the slowest members of the class to lead the lines. Anger boiled in his stomach as he continued to plod down the track at a slow pace.

After what seemed like an unnecessary amount of time, the class finished their five laps. The leaders were breathing heavily as they came to a stop, while Cyrus, Will and a few others were perfectly fine. Mr. Warden looked at them all in his gray and blue shorts outfit, seeming completely uninterested in the task they completed.

“Well done,” the man spoke in monotone, sounding like he could care less about what they’d done. “That concludes this lesson. Ms. Linda will be waiting for you at the gate. Please line up and meet her.”

When they did so, he escorted them to where Ms. Linda was standing by the gate. Without another word, Mr. Warden walked away from them and allowed Ms. Linda to take over. Their caretaker escorted them to the bathrooms where their regular clothes were kept. They were separated by boys and girls by Ms. Linda and another black armored guard. They were sent into their respective bathrooms with the armored guard telling the boys they had ten minutes to shower off and change. They did as they were instructed as quickly as they all could. Cyrus hated being watched by the armored guard and didn’t want to do anything to make him angry.

Once they were finished, the line was reunited, and they were led back to their rooms. As they walked away from the school, Cyrus looked back longingly, imagining himself running down the track for as long as he wanted as fast as he could.

As the weeks drudged on, Cyrus found that the one lap he ran around the track as fast as he could would be the highlight of his month. His physical education class continued to have them run a few excruciatingly slow laps at the beginning while teaching them soccer afterward. As far as Cyrus could tell from the games he played so far, the teacher picked a position for you. If you were on defense, your job was to stand where your position was supposed to stand and not move. If you were on offense, one member of your team kicked the ball down the field and scored a goal. Once both sides had an equal number of points, the game was over. Cyrus found the entire “game” to be a pointless, boring affair.

Though, Cyrus thought to himself as he propped his head up so it wouldn’t hit his desk, pointless and boring could really be used to describe any of these classes.

Currently, Cyrus was sitting in his math class, which was his least favorite class of the day. It wasn’t because he didn’t understand the material, but because it was the class with the slowest pace of all. They were still stuck on addition and subtraction sheets, the same ones the class had been doing since school started. As soon as Ms. Neva started the same explanation about addition and subtraction he had heard yesterday and the day before, he felt like banging his head on his desk again and again.

If Cyrus was taking this class badly, Scott was faring even worse. Cyrus had managed to finish the addition and subtraction sheets without much difficulty the first time. Scott, on the other hand, whizzed through it and finished before anyone else was done. After weeks of doing the same worksheets, both of the boys were eager to move on. The only difference was that Cyrus was able to hide these feelings of impatience much better than Scott.

He glanced over at Scott, who was sitting with his head in his hand, and the look in his eyes told anyone who happened to glance in his direction that he was angry at the world. Scott zeroed in this anger on the three students who were holding everyone back. One was a girl student who was clearly trying, but simply didn’t understand. Cyrus felt sorry for her, which was more than he could say for the other two. They were a pair of boy students who sat right next to one another and spent most of their time lollygagging instead of filling out their sheets. If it had been allowed, Cyrus would have gotten up and hit the two of them in the back of the head with his notebook.

Once the worksheets were finally taken away, the students were given their addition and subtraction blocks. They were small, brown blocks representing ones, tens, and hundreds. Ms. Neva instructed the class to use them to solve the math problems she wrote on the board. Cyrus found he enjoyed building little towers with the different blocks instead of using them for math problems.

“Now, class,” Ms. Neva said after she finished writing another problem on the board, “does everyone understand how to add three hundred plus two hundred?”

Everyone heard her, but no one responded. Most of them were too lost in their dazed stupor to pay attention and answer her. Enduring the same lesson day after day was taking a toll on all of them. Scott was slowly rolling his pen across his desk; Will was nodding off in his chair, and Melody was switching between twirling her hair around her fingers and looking at her nails.

“No? Oh, I guess that nobody in this room understands addition and subtraction.” There was a hint of malicious amusement in her tone. “What a pity. I guess we’ll just have to repeat the lesson again next class.”

“I understand it,” said a small furious voice. Cyrus turned to his right in surprise, realizing it was Scott. His posture was stiff; his fists were balled, and he was shaking a little.

“Why, of course, you don’t my dear.” Belittlement was clear in her fake concern. Her voice was pure poison, slow and cruel.

“Yes, I do! I’ve completed those stupid worksheets since the first day we got them!”