Chapter 7 – School bell ringing

A knock on the door pulls me out of my dreams of home and comfort and family disputes. Somewhere along the line of the small hours creeping by I must have fallen asleep.

“Who is it?” I demand annoyed.

“Delivery,” someone answers. I open the door with a wave of my hand and a young woman, no more than 20 I’d guess, hovers a stack of boxes into my room.

“Thank you,” I tell her and open the top box. I send my clothes flying into the wardrobe and my toiletries arrange themselves in the bathroom. I don’t get any further than that before a second knock interrupts me.

“Who is it?” I demand again.

“My name is Miriam,” a high-pitched voice answers. “I was sent to show you to your first class,” she says in a more natural tone.

“Were you given any means to make me go?” I might not have a way out of here yet, but I’m also not inclined to make keeping me here easy or pleasant for them. There’s definite hesitation out there.

“Do I need one?” The high, nervous pitch is back. I wave my hand and open the door.

“No; just wanted to know what they thought of me.” The girl on the other side is maybe 17, perhaps even a little younger. I guess most people are found early on. I wonder what they do when they’re done here.

“I hope I don’t need any books,” I tell her. It’s not her fault I’m here, I can afford to be nice to her.

“They’ll lend you what you need, you can order them at the post office in the village, that’s…”

“Just through the woods, I know. How much will that cost me.” I don’t have endless supplies, and what I have I don’t fancy using to keep my captors happy.

“The books are free,” she assures me. “You just need to let them know you need them.”

“Free books?” I’m astonished.

“It was agreed in 1876. ‘Education should not have a price mark’” She quotes. “It is to give all students a fair chance here.”

“What about those that make the books? What do they think about that?”

“They are funded through donations to the schools. There are quite a lot of those, it is common to donate 10% of your income once you graduate and get a job.”

“And what kind of job would that be?” I let my curiosity get the better of me.

“Some get regular jobs like anyone else, others chose to use their gifts.” Like the InT I suppose, and not much different from… No, I shouldn’t think about that.

“So, I was pulled away from a job so I could come here, learn to control a gift I have controlled since I was one, go out and get a job, and pay 10% of my earnings to the school who lost me my family?” She looks confounded and utterly lost. “Sorry, that has nothing to do with you. Give me a minute and I’ll go with you.” I get up off the windowsill she waits while I brush my teeth and put on a fresh shirt.

“This way.” She leads me to the staircase. “We aren’t divided by grades, but by gifts and skill level. Seeing as you are new you will have to start in the pillow room. That’s 610, we just call it the pillow room because…”

“Because all you’re allowed to move is pillows?”

“Yes.” She smiles shyly.

“What level are you at?”

“I’m at level 3, room 639. The transporters have the 6^th floor. Most of the classes are fairly small, some have as little as one student sometimes. It changes frequently.”

“How many levels are there?”

“Four.”

“Almost done then,” I compliment her.

“The last level is not required, and the first 10 rooms are used for theory and history lessons. The entire first floor is dedicated to regular school for those who get here early in life.”

“How long have you been here?” I change the subject to something more interesting.

“Since I was 9.” The pride in her voice is kind of funny, but she seems like a nice girl, so I order myself to behave. My fight is not with her.

“What about your family, where do they stand on all this?”

“There’s a family day every three months – it’s usually there people decide if they want to go here or not.”

“There’s a choice?” She looks down at her feet to avoid my gaze.

“I guess maybe it’s different for you. People say you are a Langdale.” She leads me from the stairs to a small hallway and follows it around to the right.

“I’m starting to feel like name the Langdale means something to people here.”

“We’ve all heard the stories,” she tells me. “Is it true though?” She might not look it, body language wise and everything, but the girl has confidence. We reach the end of the hallway and follow the left turn.

“That’s what my mother told me at least.” A small “wow” escapes her before she can recollect herself.

“This is 610,” she quickly changes the subject and points at the door clearly labeled 610.

“Really?” I ask.

“Yeah, it says so right…” She pauses mid-sentence. “You were kidding. Right.” I smile reassuringly at her. She opens the door instead of looking at me. The room does indeed contain a whole lot of pillows, and only three students and a teacher.

“You must be miss Langdale,” the teacher greets me.

“So I’ve been told.” I agree.

“Come in, come in. Perhaps you’d like to give us a little demonstration?” I look at the two young girls eagerly paying attention and a boy asleep in the pillows. I hold out my hands and twitch my fingers till the pillows stack themselves neatly into the Eiffel tower. Both girls clap eagerly. I smile and hold up a finger to silence them. I point to the boy asleep and back to the tower. They nod eagerly and smile jubilantly as only children can. I wave my hand gently and send the pillows crashing down over the boy. He wakes up startled and pops his head out of the pile to look around with sleepy eyes.

“What’s going on?” he asks.

“Class,” the teacher says. “Miriam, can you take miss Langdale to 625 instead.”

“Of course, Professor. This way.”

“I’m guessing the numbers go up as you move along the row?” I ask her.

“From the front door, they go up when you go around to the left, when you’ve come full circle the next row goes the other way around, and the third row also goes from left to right.”

“So the numbers are grouped together, like 36 and 40 are fairly close to each other?”

“Exactly. The history and theory classes are in rooms 1-9, they are towards the North-West; your room is facing due South if you need a reference point. The advanced classes are the inner lines facing North and South with the staircase in between them. The Transporters have Professor Holt for those, he does things a little differently than the others, but you will see that when you get there.” If I’m here long enough for that.

“What about the kitchen? Is there such a place here, are students allowed to use it, are the shifts for helping out in the kitchen?”

“The teachers’ lounge, library and living rooms are all on the 7^th floor, dining hall and the kitchen are on the 8^th. Toilets are connected to the rooms, and otherwise in every corner on every floor, except on the 8^th where the North-East and South-West corners are stairwells instead.”

“Seems simple enough.”

“Some special classes are on the roof or in the forest – have you seen that yet?”

“I’ve seen the view from one of the towers.”

“It’s stunning isn’t it?”

“Mesmerizing,” I agree.

“But only level 4 classes are taught there.”

“That’ll be you soon enough.”

“Yeah, I can’t wait. They say Professor Holt is amazing! Erhm, 625.” She points at the door I almost passed.

“I guess it’s a good thing I’ve got you with me after all.” She blushes slightly. Sweet girl. She knocks on the door and opens it.

“Yes?” a female teacher asks.

“Miss Langdale for you Professor.”

“Right, come on in. I was wondering where you’d end up.”

“Professor 610 told me to come here.”

“You must have impressed him then. I am slightly harder to impress, but you can do your best. Take a seat.” I look around her fuller classroom. There’s probably about 20 students here, all seated neatly at their desks and paying attention. I guess the advanced stuff is more interesting. No empty seats though. I clap my hand to my thigh as if I was summoning a dog. The chair from my room flies in and settles on the floor towards the back of the room.

“Not bad. Though, you could have just asked. The 30’s focus on problem-solving, the 20’s are more about toning your finer senses and working in minute detail.”

“I can just go to 635 if that’s what you want?”

“No. Thank you, Miriam.” I smile and nod at Miriam who smiles back hesitantly. “You’ll need a table too; do you want to get that yourself as well?” I look at the lack of floor space.

“I’ll just make due. Not much for tables anyway.” I have to admit that I’m starting to enjoy this a little bit. Apart from the constant tests of course, and the expectation that my genes will somehow decide how well I do, it is nice to get to use my abilities freely and around people not related to me. I could never impress my family with anything, there’s always someone more advanced than yourself when you’re a Langdale. There’s always the Permanenters.

“As you please, miss Langdale,” she says as if she’s expecting me to fail miserably in a minute.

“Why do you use my name like that?” I demand. She meets my eye straight on for the first time for more than a fleeting second. “Why am I miss Langdale and everyone else is Miriam or Sasha or Professor?”

“As you wish, Elisabeth.” Not really an answer though, is it? Not that I can’t guess.

“Lizzy, please. Elisabeth was my grandmother.” I see her jump at the new information, eager to share it with whoever is hunting my family. “Deceased. 10 years ago. Sorry to spoil your victory.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.” She tells me in a slightly stern voice as if to reprimand me for mentioning spoiling her victory in front of all her students. She turns back to the class instead.

“As I was telling you, today we’ll be practicing details. Learning how to move a couch is good, learning how to keep track of a hundred small things in your mind is what will help keep your ability strong and help you grow. In other words, this is where you can learn to be exceptional.” She sends packs of tiny, colored pearls flying to each of us. “I want you to make a pattern or a shape with these. The only rule is the pattern or shape must be recognizable, I have to see deliberaty in your works, and, of course, you have to use your ability for this. You have all day, so take your time, get a grasp of the pearls before you start flinging them around the room.” She looks around at her students to make sure they all understand her, then her eyes turn to me. “I will get you a table now miss Langdale.”

“I don’t wish to be a burden, besides, there’s no room down here.”

“You are expected to participate in the classes here,” she reminds me sternly.

“Really? Professor 610 just let me build the Eiffel Tower and sent me along.”

“Well, if you can build the Eiffel Tower out of pearls, I’ll send you along as well,” she promises in mockery.

“Can I have some pearls?” I ask innocently. She looks at me with her brows slightly furrowed in a mixture of worry and wonder.

“If you spill them you can pick up every single pearl spilled in this room.”

“Sure, I’ll do that.” She sends the bag of pearls flying to me, and I catch them with my hands still in my lap. I open up the bag and pour the content in the air, catching them all of course. The pearls are smaller than the ones on Nina’s wedding dress, but I’ve done this before. I’ve done this for fun before. I start by dividing them into colors. I have some brownish red ones, some deep blue ones I really like, some dark forest green ones, some yellow ones, and some black ones. I hear the sound of pearls clattering to the floor and look to my left. A teenage girl looks as if this is the most embarrassing thing she’s ever experienced. I stealthily wave a finger at her pearls and make them gather on her table again. She looks around confusedly, but everyone seems to have gone back to their own work after realizing it wasn’t their pearls making the sound. She looks at me, mostly by mistake I think. I wink at her and indicate towards her sweater hanging on the back of her chair.

“Put it under them,” I mime at her. She gets it and smiles relieved – until she notices that she’ll have to lift every single pearl at the same time to make it happen. I shift the hold of mine to a single hand – seeing as they are all still it’s not a problem for me – and lift hers of the table with a small (hopefully unnoticeable) lift of my left hand. The look of wonder on her face is so clear I’m afraid we’re going to get caught.

“Hurry,” I whisper to her with a smile. She pulls the shirt around and places it across the table. Pearls are always easier to work with when you have fabric underneath to keep them from going on adventures on their own. I place her pearls gently down on her table again. I smile, and she smiles back. I turn back to my own pearls and notice in the turn the teacher looking at me. She quickly turns away when she sees I’ve noticed. I smile to myself and go back to color sorting my pearls and placing them in neat piles in the air. It takes me half an hour, and then I’m good to go. I turn my hands palm up and place each pile in an order I can remember. Brownish red go on the far left, I’ll take those with my left thumb, deep blue is assigned to the right thumb, dark green to left index finger, yellow to the right index finger and the black to the left middle finger. The piles I’ll keep floating with the left pinkie, and the pattern with the right pinkie. I close my eyes and make sure I have a feel for each and every pearl, and that I have none lying in between piles.

I lift my right hand up to keep the pattern-to-be steady, and I send a stream of brownish red ones flowing in a line upwards and shaping themselves into a thick, somewhat short line with rounded ends.I picture it all in my mind, keeping easier track of them without the distractions of the rest of the room.

The blacks follow next, tracing a thin line in curves protruding from the first line, and the reds follow tracing next to that line, and then the blacks again. I trace patterns within the three-double line on each side of the thick red one, matching them as best I can so they mirror each other. Some parts of the pattern I fill out with blue pearls, some with green, and just a few small ones I fill with yellow to have something less forest like in there as well.

My fingers wave back and forth, bringing forward the pearls I want, as if I were playing an invisible, upside down piano with no melody. Something comes flying at me from somewhere to my right, but I’m too focused to do anything but repel it so it falls to the floor. I let the last yellow fly to its place and open my eyes to make sure there isn’t a single pearl somewhere that decided to go its own way (or that I placed in the wrong pile, or simply misplaced). Every eye is on me, even the teacher isn’t hiding it anymore.

“Langdale blood.” Someone mumbles to my right. A pencil case is lying on the floor between us.

“How was that so easy for you?” the girl I helped with the sweater asks. I look around. No one else has anything in the air, and few even have something beginning to resemble a pattern on the desks.

“I’m a seamstress,” I brush it off. “I’ve worked with pearls quite often before.”

“But you did it in the air!” she complains.

“It’s easier to see how they will move with the fabric if you don’t keep them on a plane surface.” I bat the wings of the butterfly. “See?”

“I was told you worked in an office before,” the teacher tells me.

“I did. I wrote statistical reports for a fashion company. I mainly sow for family, and then a few orders once in a while, if they’re interesting enough or I really need the money.”

“It’s beautiful,” the girl whispers.

“Thank you.” I’m just about to offer to make her one on a jacket or something when I remember I’m not going to stay that long.

“It must be amazing to just be able to do all of these things without having to try.”

“How old are you?” I ask.

“15,” she replies.

“And when did you first realize you could do this?”

“When I was 8.”

“So you have seven years experience, I have 20.”

“How’s that possible, you only just got here.”

“I’ve been doing this since I was 1.”

“And no one ever saw you?”

“Not till the day they caught me. We can do it freely at home, we have protections set up so anyone looking in will basically see us watching TV or doing dishes or something.” Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. It’s so much easier to keep your mouth shut when you know you have to, other times things just slip.

“You stay here,” The teacher tells me. “I’ll be right back. Just lend a hand wherever you can, and make sure no one hurts themselves.” I decide not to ask how someone could hurt themselves on pearls; I’m guessing she’d have an answer for that somehow. She leaves the room and leaves me in it.