Becoming The Code

Becoming The Code: Part 1

Jamal fidgeted with a pencil at his table. He doodled on a gum wrapper. The scent of mint drifted into the sterile room. His mind wandered through the spiral as he drew it. The clicking of keyboards brought him from his trance. He focused on his computer. An image of a black square appeared. Odd, is that a glitch? He squinted at the screen next to him but saw nothing unusual. The square floated away in pixels. Jamal blinked. His lesson returned, and he needed to calculate. Darn, I missed the number.

He nudged Frederick beside him and whispered, "What was the equation?"

"I'm not telling." Frederick's fingers flew around the keyboard. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

Figures. Frederick never helped Jamal or anyone else. He was the school's top calculator and planned to keep it that way. Jamal tried to see the girl's screen beside him, but her hair blocked his view. He scanned the row in front and noticed a four but couldn't make out anything else.

The monitor called the next question in her monotone voice. "Question six: the square root of nine. Calculate."

Everyone's fingers responded in quick succession, punching numbers. Jamal decided he might as well skip the last question and typed the nine followed by the square root symbol. He observed the screen and tried to notice a pattern. He still had a minute or two before the lesson ended, maybe he could salvage his mistake. A pattern itched at his brain but did not reveal itself. If I only knew what square root meant. He huffed under his breath.

"Class submit your lesson and set up for reading." Her shrill voice grated against his skull. He pressed the enter button and squirmed. There's going to be trouble. "Jamal." Her beady eyes narrowed.

"Yes, ma'am."

"You missed a question." She made a disapproving noise in the back of her throat. "Tsk. Tsk."

"I know... I didn't hear."

She adjusted the collar of her uniform -- a grey jumpsuit with yellow trim that demonstrated her monitor status. "Didn't hear or didn't pay attention? Tsk. Tsk."

"I didn't pay attention, ma'am."

"One demerit." She made a notation on her computer.

"Yes, ma'am."

Frederick raised his hand.

"Yes, Mr. Edmonds." She always did that, called the others by their surnames but Jamal by his first. A simple act to make sure he knew he didn't belong.

"Ms. Spencer, Jamal has a pencil." Frederick smirked. Jamal glared at Fredric through gritted teeth.

"A pencil? Tsk. Tsk. What is he writing on?"

"Some scrap of paper, Ms. Spencer."

"Jamal. Tsk. Tsk. This is the last time you will bring a pencil to school. Do you understand? Tsk. Tsk. Throw it away."

"Yes, ma'am." Jamal slumped to garbage bin at the front of the room. He tossed the pencil in. It landed with a clink, joining a pencil he had deposited two days ago. The bin was usually empty. What would anyone else throw in it? That was my last pencil. His head drooped as he returned to his workstation.

"Three demerits. Tsk. Tsk."

He tried to sink into his seat but realized it had been moved and the table raised. They alternated their lesson between standing and sitting to prevent obesity. The program was largely unsuccessful, but they stood anyway.

Ms. Spencer examined her computer screen and announced. "Frederick is our top calculator again." She smiled at him and he beamed. She put a star next to his name on the only paper in the room, a motivational chart with the title: Fast Calculators Are Our Future. "Open your text to screen thirty-four-–Maintaining Health as a Computing Officer. Let's begin reading." The whole class read along with Ms. Spencer.

"In the past, computing officers suffered poor health because of the many hours of sedentary life in their daily jobs. Fortunately, most businesses converted their spaces granting computing officers a higher quality of life. Now, most workplaces have included these health-saving measures throughout their buildings."

Select the correct answer to the following question.

Computing officers suffered from:

a. Low wages

b. Long commutes

c. Poor health

d. Sedentary life

Jamal punched "c" when the moderator paused the reading.

"And three, two, one." The class began reading in unison. Jamal forced himself to pay attention. "The environment of the workplace was improved with better lighting and standing desks. Offices, like most schools, alternate every thirty minutes between standing and sitting. This helps to fight off any adverse effects of the more sedentary computing officer's careers. They take short breaks with..."

Jamal's mind submitted. His thoughts drifted to his Gran's apartment. I hope she has an extra pencil. Stacks of books littered the tiny apartment -- dusty old things made of paper and bound together. One had to turn the paper to read the words. It felt nothing like scrolling through a screen. The rich text brimmed with life and described adventures to faraway places -- like Pierre Aronnax traveling the depths of the ocean.

Now, because of the three demerits, he would be staying after school doing extra computing. He may not even have time to stop by for a visit on his way home. His mother hated that he spent time with "the old bat" as she called her.

He punched in answers to the reading assignment and moved his mouth to appear like the others. His mind returned to the numbers in the lesson. Maybe he could find a book that mentioned square roots in Gran's apartment. There must be a pattern. His brain worked that way, sorting out patterns in things, especially in numbers. He wasn't bad at computing, but he would never be the fastest. Besides, he didn't even like punching the equations -- patterns though, they were special.

Ding. A bell rang through the school. All the children stopped reading and started stretches. The students participated in unison. The loudspeaker shouted directions. "Begin the Tree Park fitness program brought to you by Stenson and Peters Law Firm. Touch your toes. Stretch to one side and then the other. One minute of running in place. Twenty-five jumping jacks." It ended with a demand to return to your lessons rejuvenated.

Permitted to sit again, the children clanked the tables as they locked into place, and chairs screeched as they dragged against the sparking, white tiles. Dennis fell. Ms. Spencer's voice rang out. "Dennis, another demerit." This happened to him at least once a day. The children who could not sit still were never considered good candidates to be computer officers. It's odd he's still in school, but his parents are calculators. Dennis fits. It doesn't matter if he falls out of his chair every day.

Writing began, and they started spelling work. The moderator started with the first word to compute. Jamal's attention ended. He hated spelling. It made no sense -- no patterns in it. Even worse, when you thought there was a pattern, it would disappear. "Book," "foot," and "look" are spelled with a double "oo," but "put" is spelled with an "u." Frustrating and nothing like numbers.

Author's note: Thank you for taking the time to read. I hope you will enjoy the other chapters. Please let me know what you think of the story in the comments. Of course, likes are appreciated.