It was a slow dust of a day. The earth swirled in mini tornados, scratching up the eight meter walls and slipping back down again, because in this place there was nothing for it to cling to. It skittered across the grass, kissing the blades, and tearing around the perfectly manicured trees that sat in the front yard of every home. Here in the rings of Pau Brazil, nothing settled—nothing ever could.
*****
I shrugged on my grey uniform. My mother was right about it being cheap and nasty. It was itchy and it seemed to beckon hot air and repel cool air. It clung to the wrong parts of me and billowed unflatteringly everywhere else. I didn’t really care. Everyone looked the same so it didn’t matter. I let the back of the shirt fall, wincing a little as the rough cloth brushed against my sliced-up skin. I couldn’t quite see it but I could feel it lightly with my fingertips, raised ribbons of split flesh. New scabs were already forming over the old scars. I never gave it a chance to heal. Soon there would be fresh cuts to add to the healing ones. I gathered up my assignment papers and shoved them in my bag, placing my mother’s treasured mascara into my pencil case. She would kill me if she knew I had it. It was given as payment about ten years ago and she only used it sparingly and on very special occasions. Well, this was a special occasion, I thought as I smiled to myself. My lips fell quickly as I remembered today was Friday. Friday was the worst day.
I tried to get out before she saw me, edging along the faded carpet, the door just in my sights, but a hand grabbed the back of my shirt and gently halted my stride. I thought maybe she knew, but her face only showed the same exhausted apathy it always did.
“Rosa, please eat something before you go.” My mother sighed, her hand falling to her side. She looked tired, ill, a hazy shade of green sitting just beneath a layer of dark brown skin like she was being diluted. I rolled my eyes at her.
“You don’t need to whisper, Mother. I’m sure Paulo approves of you feeding me. It’s the rules, remember?”
She nodded, her hand trembling a little as she put the kettle on and started the ridiculously particular process of making tea for her husband so it was just right.
I listened for sounds of Paulo and heard the shower running. I nodded and picked up some toast. As I was spreading a very thin layer of jam on the bread with my mother eyeing my every move, I saw the billow of steam push out into the hall. He was out, and so was I. I slammed two pieces together and made a toast sandwich. Half walking/half running out the door, I yelled out, “Have fun sorting apples, Paulo. I hope you don’t end up in the off bin with the rest of the rotten ones!”
I turned around and saw my stepfather’s expression as the door rebounded open from me slamming it too hard. His dark face was a wrinkled mask of pure wrath. Good.
Satisfied, I walked to school following the curve of Ring Two until I reached the first gate. It was chilly and I cursed myself for not bringing a jacket. I sought out a sunny patch on the wall and stood with my back against it, stalling. The wall was warm where the sun touched it, yet it always gave me shivers. At least eight meters tall above ground and four meters under, I felt that trapped rat feeling and kept moving. I know not everyone felt this way but I couldn’t help it. We were trapped, even if they said it was for our own protection.
I scanned my wrist tattoo at the Ring gate. It opened reluctantly, groaning like it had just woken up. I passed through it, my eyes holding contact with the camera that was following my movements. Quietly laughing, I stepped backwards, then forwards, the small black eye zipping as it tried to follow my sporadic movements. When I was done teasing, it closed behind me only to be forced to creak open for someone else a second later. I wasn’t the only one who was running late. The difference being, when the gate opened, the other kids ran through it and sprinted to the school like their life depended on it. I took my time. Being tardy would result in a detention. I needed a detention.
I peered through the iron bars to see the older kids hanging around outside one of the classrooms, their backs against the grey-green rendered walls. This would have to be their last day. The five students exuded the stagnant combination of nervousness and hope—prisoners about to receive parole. I snorted to myself. There was no hope, just change. They were going off to the Classes in a few weeks’ time.
I arrived at the school gate and scanned my wrist again. The double gates opened and I fell in to line with the stragglers. The neat rows of concrete classrooms looked dull and uninviting like the rest of the town. As I passed the older kids I heard a boy say, “Yeah, I’m hoping for Teaching or maybe Carpentry.” His voice sounded confident, but with an edge of resignation tacked on, making his voice sound strong at the start only to peter out by the time he got to the end of his sentence.
The girl standing next to him bumped his shoulder affectionately, her red-brown ponytail swinging and brushing his arm lightly. He flinched and pulled away like it bit him. “Maybe we’ll get in together. Wouldn’t it be great to be allocated the same Class?”
The boy shrugged. “Doesn’t much matter, we’ll be separated anyway, you know that.”
Smart, I thought, the girl needed to be shot down now. There was no future for anyone from the same town. The great claw of the Superiors would make sure of that. I imagined it like a sorting machine, kind of like what Paulo did, but instead of apples, the Superiors sorted races and Classes. These kids were going to be plucked from Pau Brazil, thrown into the Classes, and separated out into Uppers, Middles, and Lowers. The boy was right, at the end of training at the Classes, they would certainly be separated. Kids from the same town were not allowed to marry.[CS1]
As I rounded the corner and made my way into my first lesson, I snatched a glimpse of the hopeful girl’s face. It offended me. Her eyes were wide and brimming with moisture. I had little sympathy. This was the way things were. She needed to accept it. And really, she was lucky. I envied her. At least she was getting out of here soon.
*****
First class. The teacher stood in front of us and asked us the same five questions she asked us every day. Pacing back and forth in her sensible shoes and friction-causing nylon stockings, she nodded as the class answered in unison. I scrunched up my nose; a woman that large shouldn’t pipe herself into stockings that tight. The way her thighs were rubbing together, I thought she might spontaneously combust.
A while ago, I started formulating my own answers in my head. Different every time to beat the monotony. Today I went with a root vegetable theme.
“Who are we?” she barked in a low, almost manly voice.
“Citizens of the Woodlands,” a chorus of bored teenagers replied.
I mouthed the words, ‘Various vegetative states of potatoes’.
“What do we see?”
“All kind,” we sung out loudly. The meaning lost on some but other eyes burned fiercely with belief. As a potato, I thought, and having no eyes. I am not qualified to answer that question.
“What don’t we see?”
“Own kind,” we said finitely.
I muttered under my breath, “Everything, geez, I’m a potato.” I laughed to myself just at the wrong time, when the whole class was silent. The teacher gave me a sharp look, her black, olive-pit eyes narrowed.
“Our parents are?” she snapped, whipping her head to the front.
“Caretakers.”
“Our allegiance is to?”
“The Superiors. We defer to their judgment. Our war was our fault. The Superiors will correct our faults.” Our faults being that we had not yet developed into the super race that was to prevent all future wars.
I looked around the classroom. Most were dark skinned or tanned, dark hair and dark eyes. One girl had conspicuously fair hair compared to her caramel skin; she was favored in the class since she looked like the ideal Woodland citizen. Her parents must have ‘mixed appropriately’. Kids like me were too dark, too short, and my eyes were undesirable to say the least. I shrugged; I would have had better luck currying favor if I really was a potato.
I peered down at my skinny, dark fingers, the cracks in my palms darker than the skin surrounding them. Two hundred and fifty years on, despite the purposeful splitting up of families and distribution of races amongst the towns, you could still tell where a person came from. You could tell that my mother was Indian, as you could tell that I was half Indian, half Hispanic. The whole, All Kind and Own Kind thing hadn’t worked the way they wanted it to. People didn’t choose their mates because of their race but they didn’t not choose someone because of their race either. I guess you can’t just mix everyone up and assume they’ll make the choice you want them to.
My father used to say, ‘You can’t help who you fall for,’ but then he also said he thought the Superiors were about to change everything and start forcing us to mate with someone of their choosing. That was eight years ago and nothing had happened yet. I massaged my temples, feeling a slicing headache coming on. I hated him popping up in my mind without prompting and besides, my father was wrong about a lot of things.
The teacher smacked the table with the flat of her palm. “Good. Let’s begin.”
The first few classes went by as they always did. No one sat next to me, not that I cared. I was used to being treated like I radiated some awful smell. Sometimes I used to sniff my armpits and then look around the class. It got a couple of laughs, but didn’t endear me enough for anyone to sit next to me. I got into trouble, a lot. And it wasn’t because I was being treated unfairly or the teacher had a grudge. Trouble just found me. If there was a bad choice, I just had to make it, regardless of what would happen. I couldn’t stop myself.
I felt preoccupied, barely able to pretend I was listening to my teachers. I sat up straight, holding onto the edge of my old wooden desk like I was riding a wave, nervous excitement about my final class blowing imaginary wind through my hair.
Lunch, bell.
As the bell shrilled out across the pathetic yard, I watched a child get dragged by her hair across the plastic lawn. Her little legs struggling to find a foothold so she could stand but just sliding uselessly across the dampness. My stale sandwich stuck in my throat. Tears were streaming down the poor girl’s face. She couldn’t have been more than nine. One of the policemen wrenched her head violently, trying to pull her to standing. Blood appeared at the nape of her neck as the hair pulled out of her skin. I saw her face contort and her small pink mouth form an O as she tried not to scream.
“I think she’s had enough, don’t you? You’ll pull her hair right out of her head,” I shouted. I had the students’ attention but it was morbid curiosity—no one would help me. In fact, I saw a couple of kids take a few steps back. Both policemen turned their heads my way. One of them sneered at me, his olive skin scrunched around a bulbous nose that twisted at me in disgust. He closed the gap between us in a few long strides. His eyes had that familiar hardness to them that most of the policeman had. His were a stiff set blue, with flecks in them like chipped paint.
He laughed as he spoke, looking me up and down. “Are you talking to me, girl?” Meeting my eyes, he seemed confused as to which one to look at.
Don’t say it, I thought. If only that voice in my head was louder. “I don’t see anyone else trying to scalp a child, do you?”
His expression showed that was exactly what he had been hoping I would say. He retracted his elbow like he was loading an arrow to a bow and gave me a sharp punch to the stomach, hard enough to hurt but not hard enough to cause any permanent damage. Trained well. Part of my sandwich flew out of my mouth and I doubled over, winded. Feeling the pain spread like a stain soaking into cloth.
The policeman didn’t look back, but I could see his head swinging around, taking in the witnesses as he stormed back to his partner. Satisfied that no one of importance was watching, they continued dragging the young girl. Finally, she fainted from the pain and he scooped her up. Thankfully. Most likely her parents had done something. Probably something minor. The Superiors loved to make an example. I crossed my fingers I wasn’t going to be summoned to the center circle to watch another horrific punishment this week.
*****
I drummed my fingers on the table in Mathematics, rubbing my sore stomach and seeing whether I could do both at once without messing it up by drumming my stomach and rubbing the desk. When I stuffed it up and started rubbing my hands across the small, wooden table, I took a pencil out and started tapping a rhythm instead. The kids around me leaned away, afraid to be sharing the same air as me. I looked up and teacher number five, whose name I couldn’t remember, was staring down at me. She snatched the pencil from my hands.
“Rosa!” she said, like it was a swear word. “Go stand at the back of the class with your face to the wall. I’ve had enough of your distracting behavior.”
I smiled at her sweetly. “Yes, Miss…um...” The teacher stared at me incredulously. Her thin tweezed eyebrows arched, her face creased in frustration. Damn, what was her name?
She put her hands on my shoulders and squeezed, digging her fingernails into my skin. “Mrs. Nwoso,” she said angrily. Blinking once slowly, I considered it.
“Oh yeah, Miss Knowitall,” I said, feeling her fingernails trying to touch each other through my flesh, burrowing a painful hole. She released me quite suddenly, shaking her head and showing her white teeth, which looked especially bright against her ebony skin.
“That’s not going to work on me today, Rosa. Stand facing the wall,” she pointed.
I shrugged and did what I was told, the eyes of my fellow classmates following me as I trudged between the neat rows of desks. I walked to the wall and leaned my forehead against a laminated poster about pi. Staring at it until my vision blurred and all I could see was the red of the circle, the numbers fading away with the monotonous tone of the teacher. The rings of Pau started to push to the front of my mind. I knew the rings were supposed to resemble a tree trunk but to me, the eight rings had always reminded me of the ripples in a puddle. And I was a stone, always trying to disrupt the order. Sending my own set of circles radiating out that didn’t match and didn’t line up with the ordered concrete.
I turned my cheek to the wall and stared out the window, watching the wind pick up leaves and bits of rubbish, hypnotizing myself and forgetting about my pain for a while. Sometimes I felt like the dust. Relentlessly banging my head against the walls, never getting anywhere. Always ending up in a pile somewhere, never in a corner though. There are no corners in a round world. Sleeting across the path, searching, settling for a second then pushed along, again and again.
I was startled out my reverie when the door started opening and closing, sending vibrations through my jaw. I quickly grabbed my things and ran out. Miss Knowitall was yelling after me, but I pretended I didn’t hear her.
Last class, History.
I hung my bag outside and retrieved the mascara, shoving it in my pocket. I pulled out my scrunched-up assignment and smoothed it out on my legs until it at least resembled a rectangle. I grinned and strode inside, ignoring the cramping in my stomach.
Everyone sat down and Mr. Singh read the roll.
“Last week, I asked each of you to write about an incident from Woodland history or select your favorite Superior and detail how the incident or person had inspired or influenced your life. I ask that you read your assignment to the class and hand in the written part for me to mark later. Who would like to go first?”
No hands went up, so he picked someone. I rolled the mascara between my palms, rolling my eyes at the student’s extremely boring presentation, clearly plagiarized from the textbook.
“…So the Superiors developed the Classes—a brilliant way to train the youth of the Woodlands, give them a purpose and a sense of fulfillment…” Ugh! Blah, blah, blah. It was a brilliant way to force children to work in jobs they would probably hate and blame it on a test. It was a brilliant way to take children away from their families, brainwash them, and fill them with Superior-loving rubbish. My brain shut me down before I yelled something out in class. Besides, thinking this way was pointless. I would have to go to the Classes too when I turned eighteen. I had no say in the matter.
“Excellent work, Miguel. Next please.”
I had to sit through a few more rambling presentations, each more sleep-inducing than the last, before Mr. Singh called out my name.
“Rosa Bianca?” he said with a note of anticipatory fear in his voice.
I took a deep breath and walked to the front of the class.
[CS1]Notated.