effort to be nice to each other. Mika’s family hadn’t had a proper argument until the day he decided the school was trying to poison him.
Mika’s school looked just like all the other buildings in the new towns that had been built following the Animal Plague. It was a square lump of concrete, rust-streaked, damp and cold, supported on four algae-stained legs that looked too skinny to hold up all those children above the floodwater. The playground was a slice of cold, dark air beneath the main building. The dimly lit hallways smelled of stale breath and the classrooms had unpainted walls and concrete floors. There were no real windows in Mika’s classroom; on one wall there was a row of scratched screens showing views of a playing field that hadn’t existed for forty-three years and on the other wall was a row of history posters, most showing holopics of animals with the plague, their eyes bloodshot and foam flecking their mouths. There were also two pictures of Earth, one showing it before the Animal Plague, with patches of green indicating the locations of rain forests and grassy plains, and one showing Earth after the plague, which wasgrey at the top above The Wall to represent all the concrete towers, and yellow at the bottom, below The Wall to show that everything was dead and covered in poisoned dust. There was nothing cheery to look at if you were born a refugee child. They didn’t even have real teachers; they had cartoon teachers who taught them from the screens that slid up from the backs of their desks. Their tutor, Mrs Fowler, sat at the front, but the only thing she was paid to teach them was how to shut up and get on with their work.
In winter it was so cold in the classroom they wore their coats buttoned up to the necks, and Mrs Fowler put a blanket over her knees and wore fingerless mittens and a bobble hat. Heating was too expensive for a refugee school. You had to go to a private school for heating, teachers and windows. So Mika was extremely surprised when he entered his classroom one Monday morning to find balloons stuck to the grey walls and coloured streamers bobbing on the ceiling. The lurid colours burned his eyes and he stood in the doorway blinking for a few seconds, wondering if he’d walked into the wrong school by mistake. Then he saw Mrs Fowler at the front of the class, blowing up balloons. She had streamers tied to the buttons on her baggy old cardigan. Mika walked to his place along the front row and sat down. On his desk lay a cake on a small plastic plate and he looked at it suspiciously as he dumped his bag on the floor and unzipped his wet jacket. Around him his classmates were talking excitedly, awoken from their coma of boredom by the party decor.
‘Don’t eat your cakes yet!’ Mrs Fowler shouted, sticking another balloon on the wall. ‘Wait until everyone has arrived!’
Mika looked at his cake. It had the letters YDF written on it in blue icing. He pushed it away from him to the back of his desk and closed his eyes, fighting off the wave of depression he always felt when he arrived at school without Ellie. School had been the hardest thing since she had gone. For a few days after her disappearance, his classmates were kind and told him how sorry they were, but it soon became clear they thought she was dead. Ellie’sfriends went to the school memorial, cried like babies, then two weeks later were behaving as if she’d never existed.
Mrs Fowler was more considerate, although Mika found her attention embarrassing; she asked him all the time how he was feeling, and nodded like a priest at a funeral while he lied and said he was OK. He started avoiding her and in the end she gave up and left him alone, which suited Mika fine.
Then the mockery began. There was a boy in Mika’s class called Ruben Snaith. He was a pale shrew of a boy who looked as if he had milk for blood and a nose sharp enough to peck holes through doors. Ruben was popular with the other kids, but only
Mika’s school looked just like all the other buildings in the new towns that had been built following the Animal Plague. It was a square lump of concrete, rust-streaked, damp and cold, supported on four algae-stained legs that looked too skinny to hold up all those children above the floodwater. The playground was a slice of cold, dark air beneath the main building. The dimly lit hallways smelled of stale breath and the classrooms had unpainted walls and concrete floors. There were no real windows in Mika’s classroom; on one wall there was a row of scratched screens showing views of a playing field that hadn’t existed for forty-three years and on the other wall was a row of history posters, most showing holopics of animals with the plague, their eyes bloodshot and foam flecking their mouths. There were also two pictures of Earth, one showing it before the Animal Plague, with patches of green indicating the locations of rain forests and grassy plains, and one showing Earth after the plague, which wasgrey at the top above The Wall to represent all the concrete towers, and yellow at the bottom, below The Wall to show that everything was dead and covered in poisoned dust. There was nothing cheery to look at if you were born a refugee child. They didn’t even have real teachers; they had cartoon teachers who taught them from the screens that slid up from the backs of their desks. Their tutor, Mrs Fowler, sat at the front, but the only thing she was paid to teach them was how to shut up and get on with their work.
In winter it was so cold in the classroom they wore their coats buttoned up to the necks, and Mrs Fowler put a blanket over her knees and wore fingerless mittens and a bobble hat. Heating was too expensive for a refugee school. You had to go to a private school for heating, teachers and windows. So Mika was extremely surprised when he entered his classroom one Monday morning to find balloons stuck to the grey walls and coloured streamers bobbing on the ceiling. The lurid colours burned his eyes and he stood in the doorway blinking for a few seconds, wondering if he’d walked into the wrong school by mistake. Then he saw Mrs Fowler at the front of the class, blowing up balloons. She had streamers tied to the buttons on her baggy old cardigan. Mika walked to his place along the front row and sat down. On his desk lay a cake on a small plastic plate and he looked at it suspiciously as he dumped his bag on the floor and unzipped his wet jacket. Around him his classmates were talking excitedly, awoken from their coma of boredom by the party decor.
‘Don’t eat your cakes yet!’ Mrs Fowler shouted, sticking another balloon on the wall. ‘Wait until everyone has arrived!’
Mika looked at his cake. It had the letters YDF written on it in blue icing. He pushed it away from him to the back of his desk and closed his eyes, fighting off the wave of depression he always felt when he arrived at school without Ellie. School had been the hardest thing since she had gone. For a few days after her disappearance, his classmates were kind and told him how sorry they were, but it soon became clear they thought she was dead. Ellie’sfriends went to the school memorial, cried like babies, then two weeks later were behaving as if she’d never existed.
Mrs Fowler was more considerate, although Mika found her attention embarrassing; she asked him all the time how he was feeling, and nodded like a priest at a funeral while he lied and said he was OK. He started avoiding her and in the end she gave up and left him alone, which suited Mika fine.
Then the mockery began. There was a boy in Mika’s class called Ruben Snaith. He was a pale shrew of a boy who looked as if he had milk for blood and a nose sharp enough to peck holes through doors. Ruben was popular with the other kids, but only
Similar Books
