Project Aquarius (The Sensitives Series Book 1) by Colleen Jordan Page A
Authors: Colleen Jordan
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exciting day for all of humankind and you shall have your answers shortly. Please direct your full attention to the front screen. All will become clear in a matter of minutes. I appreciate your patience and your dedication to GenetiCorp. After the presentation, please remain seated. You will likely have many questions and I will be available to answer them. Please keep order. What you are about to see may be frightening to some, but I assure you it is an exciting future that you have been chosen for. Presenting Project Aquarius.”
CHAPTER NINE
Sammy
Sammy didn’t have a good sense of time. Time was confusing. Clocks were even more confusing. But Sammy had a gut feeling that he had been in the seclusion room for longer than ten minutes.
He got up off the floor and tried to peer through the reinforced window near the top of the door. He stood on his tiptoes, but all he could see was the far wall adorned with student artwork. He wanted to try the doorknob, but that was against the rules. So he waited.
He counted to six hundred, slowly. Counting solved everything. Ten sets of sixty seconds equals ten minutes.
When he finished, he was certain he had been in the seclusion room for a really long time. Slowly, he reached for the door handle. Please don’t be locked. Sammy knew it was against the rule for adults to lock children in seclusion rooms. His Mom had said so.
Sammy pulled downward on the handle and heard a dull click. As the door opened outward, he felt a sweet relief wash over him. But halfway through its swing, the door bumped into something and refused to open any further. Sammy slammed the door into the blockage. One. Two. Three times. He was trapped. A lump formed in his throat.
He had to get out. He pushed on the door with lots of force, but it bumped up against the obstruction and refused to give way. Push. Bump. Push. Bump.
Finally, in a panicked fury, Sammy threw all of his body weight at the door and it moved enough to create a small opening for his frame. He shimmied through the hole into the hallway and drank a deep breath of peace.
Sammy’s aide, Mr. B, was napping on the floor next to the seclusion room. His legs had blocked the door’s swing.
Calmly, Sammy stepped around Mr. B’s limp body and started the walk back to his classroom. He knew it took 74 steps on the waxed tile floor to get back to safety.
22. 23. 24. Thankfully, the hallway was quiet except for a kid and a teacher playing tag.
“Come back here!” the teacher yelled.
When Sammy stepped on the blue diamond carpet inside his classroom, he found everyone else napping too.
Must be in their schedule.
Schedule!
The thought of completing his visual schedule excited him. Sammy went back to his study cubby and gathered the smooth plastic cards backed with Velcro. They were cool and crisp in his hand. He put all the icons in their right places on the schedule board that hung on the inside right wall of his cubby. Putting his day in order put his brain in order. Sammy cleaned up all the extra cards and scooped them back into the zippered pouch. Relief. Finally, everything was nice and quiet and orderly. Time to move on with his day.
Based on the chair arrangement Sammy knew Circle Time was over. And based on the position of the sun through the window, he knew music, writing, and first recess had already passed.
Sammy waited as his desk for a few minutes. His stomach rumbled. Must be lunchtime. He went to the coat closet and retrieved his lunch from his bag.
Sitting at his desk, eating mushrooms out of plastic ware was part of his routine. So that’s what he did. When he was done, he cleaned up, went and used the bathroom, and returned to his study cubby.
Sammy referred to his visual schedule. On Mondays, math came after lunch. He took out his multiplication manipulatives and began to work on the six times table. He had been working hard lately with the little yellow plastic cubes. Each cube was a number,
CHAPTER NINE
Sammy
Sammy didn’t have a good sense of time. Time was confusing. Clocks were even more confusing. But Sammy had a gut feeling that he had been in the seclusion room for longer than ten minutes.
He got up off the floor and tried to peer through the reinforced window near the top of the door. He stood on his tiptoes, but all he could see was the far wall adorned with student artwork. He wanted to try the doorknob, but that was against the rules. So he waited.
He counted to six hundred, slowly. Counting solved everything. Ten sets of sixty seconds equals ten minutes.
When he finished, he was certain he had been in the seclusion room for a really long time. Slowly, he reached for the door handle. Please don’t be locked. Sammy knew it was against the rule for adults to lock children in seclusion rooms. His Mom had said so.
Sammy pulled downward on the handle and heard a dull click. As the door opened outward, he felt a sweet relief wash over him. But halfway through its swing, the door bumped into something and refused to open any further. Sammy slammed the door into the blockage. One. Two. Three times. He was trapped. A lump formed in his throat.
He had to get out. He pushed on the door with lots of force, but it bumped up against the obstruction and refused to give way. Push. Bump. Push. Bump.
Finally, in a panicked fury, Sammy threw all of his body weight at the door and it moved enough to create a small opening for his frame. He shimmied through the hole into the hallway and drank a deep breath of peace.
Sammy’s aide, Mr. B, was napping on the floor next to the seclusion room. His legs had blocked the door’s swing.
Calmly, Sammy stepped around Mr. B’s limp body and started the walk back to his classroom. He knew it took 74 steps on the waxed tile floor to get back to safety.
22. 23. 24. Thankfully, the hallway was quiet except for a kid and a teacher playing tag.
“Come back here!” the teacher yelled.
When Sammy stepped on the blue diamond carpet inside his classroom, he found everyone else napping too.
Must be in their schedule.
Schedule!
The thought of completing his visual schedule excited him. Sammy went back to his study cubby and gathered the smooth plastic cards backed with Velcro. They were cool and crisp in his hand. He put all the icons in their right places on the schedule board that hung on the inside right wall of his cubby. Putting his day in order put his brain in order. Sammy cleaned up all the extra cards and scooped them back into the zippered pouch. Relief. Finally, everything was nice and quiet and orderly. Time to move on with his day.
Based on the chair arrangement Sammy knew Circle Time was over. And based on the position of the sun through the window, he knew music, writing, and first recess had already passed.
Sammy waited as his desk for a few minutes. His stomach rumbled. Must be lunchtime. He went to the coat closet and retrieved his lunch from his bag.
Sitting at his desk, eating mushrooms out of plastic ware was part of his routine. So that’s what he did. When he was done, he cleaned up, went and used the bathroom, and returned to his study cubby.
Sammy referred to his visual schedule. On Mondays, math came after lunch. He took out his multiplication manipulatives and began to work on the six times table. He had been working hard lately with the little yellow plastic cubes. Each cube was a number,
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