[NSW-Fic] 2014 (My "1984" Homage Fic)

[Tysyacha]

PART ONE: NEWSCHOOL

 

In my class, there were twenty-six kids. Twenty-six pupils, one name for each letter of the alphabet. Our names were short and easy to remember, which made life easier for everyone, teachers and students alike. The girls had two-syllable names which usually ended in a or e or y, including mine, and the boys' names were one syllable long. Here we were:

 

Abby, Ben, Courtney, Dan, Emma, Frank, Gina, Hal (the hottest guy in school, though he only noticed Emma); Inga, John, Kistrel (the only girl in school with a name as strange as mine, my best friend); Lance, Mindy, Ned, Olive, Pete, Quincy, Rod, Sarah, Troy, Uma (yes, as in Thurman, but the rest of us sort of resented those famous knockoff names); Vince, Wendy, Xave, Yery (me!); and Zach.

 

A laundry list of kids to be washed clean of teenage "ungrowth", and most of all, a fated lack of work ethic. That's why we all went to Newschool--we couldn't compete. In the year 2010, China and Japan had finally gotten the edge on the tech rat race, followed closely by Taiwan. Our longest class in Newschool was called Pre-Job, and it taught us how to work. No other subject was worth learning for its own sake anymore. (Had it ever been? Schyah! Algebra schmalgebra. Glad that torture was gone!) I did well in most of my classes, but I thought I was about to fail Pre-Job for the third time in a row. No surprise there. "Unfast Yery", the kids snickered, and I couldn't say I blamed them. I flunked Sorting and Filing for that very reason. I was in Client Calling now, and I couldn't make the 2-minute time limit for customer-service calls. Maybe I just wasn't cut out for this "job" thing.

 

I was most likely a "tretty", a third-class citizen. Sounded like "traitor" to me.

 

The thing is, if you weren't a worker, you were a traitor. That's the way life was. If I flunked Pre-Job, I wouldn't pass Newschool, and you know what happened then? I'd get legally kicked out of my house and would have to live on the streets, fending for myself. Skid row. Not a very nice choice for the recently (and not so recently) jobless, but at least they die quicker. I'm not afraid to die. I'm just afraid that my life is really nothing.

 

"Yery? Excuse me? What are you looking at? Does something interest you?"

 

Staring out the window in Newmath again! I sighed and shook my head.

 

"Good. I'd hate for you to fail a class other than Pre-Job." The kids laughed. Here in my hometown (all the towns are small here, just packed very closely together, like sardine cities), everyone knows everyone else's business, and the teachers made no bones about nailing you if you were slacking off. I wasn't the first one to get caught, but I hoped not to be the last.

 

"It's all right. Just pay attention, and you'll do fine. Now to page threet..."

 

She meant 302. "Threet" was just easier to say, especially when you had a lot of Newmath to cover and didn't want to waste time with long page numbers. We all followed along, and I make extra effort to ensure that my columns were lined up when I multiplied decimal percents. Hard stuff. It wouldn't be so hard if she'd give us a break, but then again, we've had enough breaks and waited too long to shape up, it seems. We can't compete. That's the price you pay for spending more time not working.

 

But wait--if we worked so hard, 80 hours by law for adults, then how come we were still so far behind? We were making more gadgets than ever, but what's up with that? Something was wrong with this picture. I just wish I knew what...

[Tysyacha]

My thoughts quickly stopped when the bell rang to rescue us from Newmath. Time for lunch! I wouldn't have been so excited if I'd known we were going to have hot dogs with baked beans, though. The beans congeal. They taste like barbecued lumps of paste if you don't eat them quickly enough! Luckily, Kistrel was there to cheer up my noon-meal blahs. She slid over next to me.

 

"Yery. You'll be OK. You're not going to flunk Pre-Job. I'll see to that."

 

I smiled and scoffed a little. "You mean you're going to mess with every computer at the Client Calling workstation and make sure they can't time my mock calls? Not even Dan can do that, and he's the computer geek in our class. You'd do better trying to cheer me up by not talking about Pre-Job." I was grateful for the hot dog. Any kind of meat was getting rare.

 

"Got it. I sent in my letter of intent to The Heights. Done that yet?"

 

Kistrel smiled, and I did too. Every kid in my tiny town, and every other tiny town clustered around ours in beehive-cell formation, wanted to be accepted to live in The Heights. There, you could wear more than just jeans and a T-shirt, which was what most everyone could afford. In the Heights, there were gourmet foods and exotic fashions--Prada, Gucci, Versace. Only reserved for the lucky few, and those who were elected by the Heights City Board as its new residents. Newschool seniors were encouraged to apply, but none of us needed any prodding. We lived and breathed for The Heights, and we all swore if we didn't make it, we'd all jump off of the Big Bridge en masse--a publicity-stunt suicide. None of us wanted to be stuck in Farmtown all our lives, even if we were the "tretties" living on the streets.

 

"I did. Got it done right away after the teachers said we could start doing that. It took a lot of work, but I had a lot of recommendations."

 

"Me, too." Kistrel sighed. "Not as many as I would have liked, though."

 

A sudden shiver ran down my spine. Kistrel, unsure? Uncertain? This wasn't good. All through life, she'd been my rock, a fountain of iron will. When I was weak, she had been strong. It was her greatest weakness, and her greatest strength. Kindness was second to everything. You couldn't eat kindness. Kistrel was both strong and kind, which made me lucky to know her.

 

Most kids were just jerks. The ones who called me "Unfast Yery", anyway.

 

"Kistrel? What'll happen to us? Are we going to be stuck here, or what?"

 

"I don't know." Kistrel bit her lip. "All I know is these baked beans suck."

 

We cracked up and secretly tried to fling some at Lance, the class dumb jock.