In the Quick Read online

  Girls started calling out answers again, and the writing on the board blurred. I blinked; I looked straight ahead. In another minute the equation was complete. Everyone returned to her seat. Theresa wrote three problems on another board and gave the class directions to complete them on paper.

  She approached my desk, put a blank piece of paper and a pencil in front of me. She said, not unkindly, Start at the beginning.

  I touched my chest. I’m June, I said.

  I know who you are. She tapped Carla on the shoulder and said, Check her work, and Carla shrugged. Okay. Then she walked to the board full of writing and erased everything below the first line.

  I picked up the pencil, cold and smooth against my fingers. I wrote the equation at the top of the paper. Around the room everyone had her head down and was focused on her work. I put my head down too. I remembered a lot of what was on the board and started to write from memory. Then I stopped. There was more than one way to solve the problem. I’d solve it faster than the class had and would show Carla and Theresa, and they would be impressed.

  I drew a diagram. Then I wrote the equation a different way. The next part came out of what I wrote, easily, and soon I had several lines of computations. But then I stopped. The way I was doing it would take too long and I erased it all. The bell sounded. The girls brought their papers to the front of the room and made a pile on Theresa’s desk. I stayed in my seat. Carla was supposed to check my work and my face burned because my page was blank. But she was talking to another girl, and she walked by me without saying a word.

  12

  That first day I moved from one class to another, following the schedule someone had pushed into my hands, a sheet of white paper with inky blue room numbers and abbreviations I had to decipher. I got lost twice and sat through half a lecture before I realized I was in the wrong room. Passing from one class to the next I often had to step briefly outside into the frosty air. Snow was falling, quickly and heavily, making thick drifts across the pathway.

  I looked for Carla in every class but didn’t see her again. In between classes I took out the equation I still hadn’t solved, pressed the paper against a chilly wall, and wrote out computations, erased them, and tried again. By afternoon, when I walked into classroom 108, a well-lit space that smelled strongly of melted plastic, all I knew was that I was meant to be here for something called MAT YR 1–2.

  In the doorway I waited for someone to tell me what to do. Framed drawings and schematics covered the room’s walls. One was an intricate drawing of the agricultural research station on Mars, another a series of sketches of the original Lookout Probe. On the opposite wall I recognized the schematics for the solar fields that stretched in a spiderlike grid across the Pink Planet, fields powered by technology my uncle had developed.

  Nearby a group of kids were winding tubing through some sort of plastic bubble; at another table the girl with the yellow tights was operating a whirring sewing machine. In the middle of the room Carla and two boys stood at a table with metal shapes on it. Carla had her hair tied back. She had taken off her shoes and was leaning against the table writing on a pad of paper.

  Finally Theresa came into the room. She was still in her blue uniform but now wore a cardigan sweater over it. She asked me, Where are you supposed to be?

  I don’t have a group—

  She waved at Carla. Did you check June’s equation?

  Carla was turning one of the metal shapes over in her hands. She didn’t answer.

  Carla, Theresa said again sharply.

  I haven’t yet.

  Well that works out because she’ll be joining your group.

  I thought Carla would be pleased, but she wasn’t.

  To observe, Theresa said to me. Her eyebrows pointed. To watch and listen.

  Why? I asked.

  You’ve arrived in the middle of the year. She appraised me with her small eyes. It’s going to be hard to catch up.

  The snow on my shoes was melting. I twisted my cold toes.

  So your job is to observe. Don’t get in their way. If the group wants to hear from you, they’ll ask.

  I didn’t like it, and she could tell.

  Carla’s group is working on something special, she said, and her eyebrows softened a little. Try to listen quietly. Try to learn. All right?

  At the table Carla was writing again, and a tall boy with a halo of brown hair stood next to her. His long frame seemed to lean toward Carla like a tree. On the other side of the table a shorter kid crossed his arms over his chest and watched me.

  There wasn’t any room at the table and I waited for Carla to acknowledge me. The tall boy turned first.

  I’m supposed to join your group, I said. I looked behind me, hoping Theresa was still there. But she had gone.

  How old are you? the short boy asked.

  I’m twelve.

  You look like you’re six.

  The other boy reached out his hand and his touch was warm. I’m Lion. Don’t mind Nico. He’s always in a bad mood.

  Lion had stepped away from the table to greet me, and now I could see what was on top of it. Hands—like human hands but not exactly. Six of them. They seemed, at first, to be the same, but upon closer look they had variations. One was simply Styrofoam, two were made of plastic, and three were metal. They differed in size, slightly, and in breadth of fingers. The metal ones were numbered four, five, six.

  Lion made room for me at the table.

  We have to redo the wrist joint, Nico said. It’s catching. He plugged the number-six hand into a battery pack and propped it up on the table.

  It was working yesterday, Carla said.

  Not really, Lion said. Only for a minute.

  Carla flipped a switch on the battery pack and with a soft metal clicking, the hand made a tight fist. Then it stretched its fingers long. But when she moved another switch and the hand rotated to the right, the clicking grew loud and the hand skipped and stuck. It jerked to the right and left but wouldn’t rotate back.

  We should go back to number five, change out the thumb, Nico said. It will work—

  We’re going to spend hours to find out it won’t, Carla said.

  They kept talking. The hands gleamed in the center of the table. I picked one up. It was smooth but not cool to the touch like I thought it would be, like other metal things were—a pair of scissors, a pot, a curtain ring. It was beautiful but seemed oddly weighted.

  Why are the fingers so heavy? I asked.

  That’s the old prototype, number four, Carla said. We fixed that—

  Maybe we should go back to number five, Lion said. Changing out the thumb might work.

  Carla turned her head. How?

  Lion picked up the number-five hand, plugged in the battery pack, flipped a switch. Its wrist rotated without clicking, without getting stuck, but its grip was weak. When he placed a wrench in its grasp, the tool slipped from its fingers and fell to the table with a thunk. He turned the hand off, picked it up, and worked the tip of its thumb backward and forward.

  Tell us what you’re thinking, Carla said.

  Let’s just try it, Nico said. See what happens.

  Yes let’s, I said.

  Carla frowned at me and waited for Lion to answer.

  Changing the thumb might not improve the grip strength, Lion said finally. But it will change the angle of the thumb relative to the fingers. And maybe that’s enough.

  Great, let’s do it. Nico started to dismantle number five.

  Carla pushed the paper and pencil to Lion. Show us what you’re thinking— she looked at Nico —and then we can start.

  Nico scowled but he stopped what he was doing. The whir of the sewing machine one table over filled the air.

  Lion tapped the pencil to the paper and started to draw.

  Nico leaned over him. We’ve b
een through all that. Skip ahead—

  I’m thinking. Is that all right with you?

  They argued. Their hands were busy, moving through the air.

  My hands rested on the chilly metal table. I wanted to know something—

  I have a question, I said.

  But nobody was listening.

  I grabbed Lion’s pencil and gripped it so he would stop. What does it do? I asked.

  We’re able to get good rotation or good finger grip, Carla said. But not both. That’s the problem. Didn’t you see?

  I let go of the pencil, even though that wasn’t what I’d asked.

  I’m going to take number five apart, Nico announced.

  Fine, Carla said.

  Lion went back to his drawing, and Carla and Nico began to dismantle the hand. They separated the thumb from the palm, fingertips from fingers. Wrist from hand. There was something awful about it, watching the hand become a pile of plates and screws and wires. As they worked they rehashed number five, each step they had taken, each decision they had made.

  I looked at their faces instead of the parts of the hand. I tried to follow their words and gestures, to keep ahold of the through line of their thought. I wanted to stay with them and most of me did. But— Part of my brain caught on something. Some bit of the argument that had already passed. My eyes drifted again to the pieces of metal on the table.

  In my mind I turned the parts of the hand this way and that. I made some parts larger, some smaller. I blew them up like balloons and shrunk them down like pieces of desiccated fruit. Then I put the shapes back together again in a wrong way, and again in a slightly less wrong way. I moved the fingers in my mind. It was still wrong. But the wrong was close to right—

  All the while Lion drew. He didn’t join in with Carla and Nico’s discussion, but he seemed in a way to be drawing it. Every time their dialogue shifted he added something or erased something or started again. When he was done he had created a hybrid of number five and number six.

  Carla and Nico finished dismantling number five, and they pulled Lion’s drawing close. They weren’t happy about it. They picked up pencils of their own and started adding things and erasing things. Lion talked now, defending what he’d done, relenting on some points, holding firm on others. Watching them I felt part of something exciting and important. And yet my own picture wouldn’t go away. My question—What does it do?—wouldn’t go away.

  You’re never going to make a hand, I said, louder than I intended.

  All three of their faces turned toward me. Carla looked like she had forgotten I was there. Lion’s face was a blank, and Nico’s brow was furrowed and sweaty.

  No shit, Nico said.

  You’re trying to copy. I turned my wrist in the air. But we’re not made of metal. We’re made of skin and muscles and bones…

  The wrong thing—the combined small and large shapes—moved in my mind. My imaginary hand rotated its wrist; it wiggled its fingers.

  What would a metal hand do? I asked. It felt like the exact right question.

  That’s what we’re trying to answer, Lion said gently.

  No, what I mean is— I struggled. I looked to Carla but she shook her head. She wasn’t following. What I mean is what would a metal hand do?

  Nico threw up his arms.

  I wanted them to understand. I wanted to say it again another way, but I couldn’t think how. They turned their attention to hand number six; they were talking to one another again.

  All around us kids were packing things up, putting tools away. It was the time of day when my aunt would be in the kitchen stirring pots of food. But Carla and Lion and Nico didn’t seem aware that everyone else was leaving, that it must be close to dinnertime. I was hungry. Lunch in the cafeteria had been soup that smelled bad. I picked up some small screws that came out of number five’s pinkie finger and felt their edges against my palm. Tears prickled at the corners of my eyes and I turned my head to the window so the others wouldn’t see. The light was fading and the snow falling fast. I watched the snow; I wiped my eyes with my sleeve.

  13

  The school day started at six with laps around the track. At seven was subjects—mathematics, physics, chemistry, or biology, depending on the day. There was a short break for breakfast at eight, and then back to subjects. From eleven to twelve was free period, when we wandered around in a yard littered with the shells of discontinued shuttles and jets and even a rusted-out blimp. On Wednesdays and Fridays we had our allotted time at a murky indoor pool inside an echoing and indifferently heated building. That was where we learned the basics of scuba, which would prepare us for more complex training later on in the NSP neutral buoyancy tanks.

  On my first day at the dive pool everyone began putting on gear to start the first dive, but I was directed to wait by the equipment cage. In the big pool kids sank quickly into the water. Carla and Lion sat on the edge of the pool; they talked for a minute and then jumped in. The minutes ticked by. I listened to the thrum of the vents overhead, the flapping splash of the divers in the pool. The air was humid and slightly dank.

  A voice came from behind me: You ready June?

  It was Simon. He pushed a pile of equipment into my arms and led me to a smaller pool. He laid all the equipment out on the pool deck and explained what each thing was and how to put it on.

  We went through a series of safety check simulations. I had to repeat these back to him three times, and then I finally got to put my mask on. Once it was secure, its rubber strap tight against the back of my head and pulling slightly at my hair, I pushed my regulator into my mouth, held my breath, and sank into the water.

  Hold up, he said. Practice breathing first.

  I straightened up and inhaled and exhaled through the regulator for several minutes. It hurt my jaw to keep my mouth secured around the regulator, but other than that it was fine.

  All right. Go for it.

  I submerged my head, blinked my eyes, turned my face. My line of sight in my mask was narrow. Below me Simon’s water shoes were brilliant blue and the bottom of the pool had a crack down the middle that looked like a fishhook. I let out the breath I was holding, bubbles surrounded me, and then I slowly inhaled. It was incredibly loud. Every inhale a rushing roar, every exhale a bubbling whoosh. My breath quickened and started to shake; my limbs were full of pinpricks. Something wasn’t right. I was breathing but didn’t seem to be getting oxygen. Panic tightened my chest and I pulled myself back up.

  Too fast. Simon put his hand on my shoulder and pulled the regulator from my mouth. You’re going to hyperventilate.

  Breathe from here, he said, and tapped his hand high on his stomach. Low and slow.

  I replaced the regulator and lowered my body back into the water. I forced myself to fill up my abdomen with each inhale and empty my lungs fully with each exhale. After ten breaths I came up, and Simon said, Better. But don’t bite your regulator.

  With each repetition my body calmed. I let my hands float in the water and relaxed my mouth. Then Simon handed me a pair of flippers and threw rings into the pool and I swam to retrieve them. My vision was distorted under water—the rings appeared closer than they actually were, and I kept grabbing for them and missing. But after a few minutes my eyes adapted and I stretched my hands farther and began to gauge the distance right.

  There’s just enough time to try a real dive before the buses come back to get us, Simon said. He asked me to repeat back to him what he’d taught me about controlled descent and then dug around in the equipment cage to find a wet suit in my size.

  It was impossible to put on. I struggled to tug it up my legs but couldn’t move the thick, stretchy fabric more than half an inch at a time. I twisted and pulled and began to sweat. I stopped and watched Simon, how he quickly and deftly folded the fabric of his own suit before pushing his limbs inside. I tried to copy him and
when he saw me he laughed. Here, he said, and came closer and grabbed my sleeve. His soft hair was hidden under his diving hood and I noticed for the first time how long his eyelashes were. He worked his hand inside my sleeve and pulled my arm through.

  We repeated the safety checks I’d learned earlier, and finally sat on the edge of the big pool and put our regulators into our mouths. A few kids stood on the pool deck, but most of them were still under the surface.

  We don’t need to stay down there long, Simon said, and stretched his arms in front of him. Just a few minutes, and then we’ll come up slow. Okay?

  We dropped into the water and sank an inch at a time. It was an odd feeling, being in a pool in a wet suit, weightless but with no sensation of the cool water against my skin. My breathing was still loud but I could hear other things too, the glug of Simon’s bubbles near my head, the flup of a kid swimming past—and in the background, a swaying hum that was the pressure of the water itself against my ears.

  Simon made sure he was right in front of me, always in my line of vision, framed by my mask. When I drifted he shifted his body in the water; when my body rotated, he nudged me back upright.

  We kept going, down and down. When the pressure in my ears increased, I held my nose and blew like Simon had shown me. I kept my breath low and slow. The pool was surprisingly deep, at least twenty, twenty-five feet. The water grew darker and quieter. Every so often I saw the kick of a fin or bubbles moving upward. I knew there were other divers nearby but it almost felt as if we were alone.

  Eventually my feet touched the bottom. Now I could see people clustered on the pool floor. One group was collecting plastic diving rings. Another was untying a heavy box secured to the floor. My breathing was fine; I was doing okay. I rotated my head to expand the narrow field of vision inside my mask. Left, right. But then I looked up; far above me fins splashed and dark bodies moved through the water. What was up seemed like it should be down, and the dimensions of the pool seemed to bend. My stomach turned and pressed against my skin. I clenched my regulator in my teeth and pulled my arms to my chest, and my body began to rotate.