The Disappeared by C.J. Harper Read Free Book Online Page B

it’s flawed and outdated. I could have written a better one myself. And it’s internal only. A sickening coldness creeps over me as I realise that I have no way of contacting the outside world and no one knows I’m here.
    Finally the buzzer sounds again. My stomach contracts painfully. I’m starving. I follow Ilex out of the grid. The boy on the other side of me seems to have a chunk torn out of his ear.
    ‘What are you looking at?’ the boy says.
    ‘Your ear,’ I say. ‘I mean, more the part that’s missing, so really I’m looking at nothing,’ I babble.
    He scowls. ‘Don’t look at me. You look at me, I hit you.’
    Before I can reply he has walked away.
    ‘Why is everyone so rude?’ I say to Ilex. But he doesn’t seem to understand ‘How come no one is saying they’re going to hit you ?’ I ask.
    ‘You talk. I don’t talk,’ he says.
    He leads me upstairs, asks me for my student number, and then shows me my dormitory. ‘I have to go,’ he says and then disappears into the throng of students. My heart sinks. I wish I was back in my own bedroom at the Willows.
    I walk into the dormitory. The walls are swamp-green and, like all the other rooms I’ve seen today, it’s huge. There must be fifty beds down either side. These are metal and they’re bolted to the floor. At the end of every bed is a small box-shaped locker. That’s it. There’s nothing else in the room. No cupboards, no pictures, no windows, not even a carpet.
    Something else is bothering me. Lounging on the beds and looking in the lockers are both boys and girls. This is a mixed dormitory. I feel my face grow warm. How on earth will I get undressed? And what about the girls getting undressed? Whoa. I run my hand through my hair and realise that I’m staring at a girl sat on a bed. It’s the blonde girl from the dining hall. She looks up and catches me gawping at her and I have no choice but to walk over.
    I raise my hand and spread my fingers in the national Learning Communities gesture of friendship. She doesn’t respond. She just stares at me.
    ‘I’m Blake,’ I say. ‘AEP score 98.5. I was wondering . . . I mean, I’d appreciate it if you could explain a few things to me.’
    She tilts her head on one side. ‘I don’t know your big words.’
    Is she giving me the brush off? ‘I want to talk,’ I say.
    She looks at me, but says nothing. Her lips are pressed together. Maybe I should have chosen a different girl to talk to. Maybe one that I didn’t get into trouble with a pool of lumpy brown stuff.
    ‘Sorry about everything earlier. I didn’t really understand how the system works,’ I say.
    ‘I don’t know your big words,’ she says again.
    ‘I’m just trying to talk to you.’
    ‘I don’t want to talk to you.’ And she rolls over on her bed so she has her back to me. My eye catches the number printed above her on the wall: 1248. I turn round; the next berth is labelled 1247. My magic number. I sit on the edge of the bed. It sags under my weight. There’s a stiff green blanket and a limp, stained pillow. This place is disgusting.
    ‘Are there any single rooms?’ I ask.
    The girl turns back with a scrunched forehead, like Ilex. I can’t believe they have such trouble understanding me.
    ‘A small room. A bedroom with just one bed for me.’ I point to myself.
    She snorts. ‘No. No dormitories with one bed.’
    I suppose I already knew that. ‘Is there anywhere I can get something to eat?’
    ‘You eat in feeding pod,’ she says slowly, as if I am the stupid one.
    ‘Can’t I eat now?’
    She looks me up and down. ‘What place do you come from?’
    ‘I’m a Learning Community student. I’ve got an AEP—’
    ‘Oh, you’re a brainer.’
    The way she talks makes me bristle. It seems like Academy students really have got a limited grasp of language.
    ‘This place is so uncivilised,’ I say.
    ‘I feel sad-for-your-trouble,’ she says but she doesn’t look sad, she looks amused.
    And what on earth