Weds, Oct. 7th, before classes
Classroom 2-C
Jack's frustrated groan echoed through the mostly-empty classroom. A few early arrivals glanced over, then went back to their own conversations.
“This doesn’t make any sense!” Jack exclaimed, looking as rattled as he sounded.
“What doesn't make sense?” asked Joel.
Jack held up his notebook, revealing pages covered in crossed-out lines. “The computer class assignment. We’re supposed to write a program to check if numbers are prime, but no matter what I do, it always says they aren’t.”
I was already starting stand up to get a better look at Jack's notebook when Joel replied, “You really should ask Mark about that.”
“Can I take a closer look?” I asked Jack.
“Yeah, please,” Jack said, sliding the notebook over. “You took computer programming last year at your old school instead of chemistry, right? I think you mentioned that.”
I looked over Jack's notebook. His handwriting was messy, and I'd never seen that exact language, but I could make out his attempted solution. He was trying to check for prime numbers by dividing them, but something caught my eye in how he was checking the results.
“I think I see the problem,” I said, pointing to his code. “When you divide these numbers, the computer's probably treating them as integers - whole numbers. It won't check for decimals at all.”
Jack groaned. “So that's why it keeps saying everything's divisible by two! Even the odd numbers.” He slumped back in his chair. “I don't suppose you know how to fix it?”
“You'd need to convert the numbers to decimals first. Did your teacher cover type conversion?”
“Yeah, but...” Jack sighed. “It didn't really click.”
“Want to look at it over lunch? We could check the textbook together.”
Jack lit up. “Yeah, that'd be great. Thanks!”
“Speaking of notes,” Joel said, glancing toward Elise’s desk, “we should probably grab those English and history notebooks from yesterday.”
Not long after, Elise walked in, her bag slung over one shoulder. She looked a little tired but still smiled when she noticed us looking her way. Joel didn’t waste time; as she reached her desk, he walked over.
Elise looked up from arranging her books and pulled two notebooks from her bag. “Here you go,” she said, handing them to Joel. Then, after a brief pause, she added, “About your offer to help with chemistry—are you free tomorrow during the PE period?”
Joel nodded. “How about we meet in the library for that?”
“Thank you, that would be perfect.”
I watched their exchange with mixed feelings—amusement at Joel’s easy confidence, but also a twinge of concern. It was the first time I’d seen him interact with Elise one-on-one, and it struck me how natural he seemed about it. Although, watching them, I couldn’t help thinking about Tess’s request to help connect Joel and Violet. I really needed to ask him if he’d helped Violet with her paper yet.
As for Elise... was this just genuine appreciation for help with science class? It was hard to tell.
Lunch Period
When Jack and I looked in the textbook over lunch, we quickly found how to tell it to use real numbers, and I was eager to check whether what we had found would fix it. “How about we go test it?” I asked.
“It's not that easy,” he said. “I won't have computer time until tomorrow afternoon. Mr. Pertiness doesn’t let anyone use the lab outside the free period unless they’ve signed up in advance.”
“We’ve got a bit of time – what’s the worst that can happen if we drop by during what’s left of the lunch period?”
“We can give it a try,” Jack said, but he was shaking his head skeptically when he did so.
The computer lab was on the first floor of the other building, below some of the elective classrooms. It was closed off; through the large windows, we saw rows of green and amber screen terminals blinking idly—no students, and certainly no modern PCs, in sight.
In a raised area at one end of the lab there was a desk, and a larger screen – and behind it, Mr. Pertiness. Even from the entrance, I could see his tall, spindly frame, and the odd clash of his ponytail and tweed jacket.
The door to the lab was locked, so I knocked. Jack looked at me skeptically, as if to say Maybe we'd better go?
Mr. Pertiness looked over at us, and gave a brief wave - it was unclear whether that was to acknowledge us or to indicate we should leave. I shrugged and waved back. After a few moments, he got up and met us at the entrance.
“The lab's closed,” he said, his nasal voice making it sound like a personal affront that we'd even considered otherwise. Up close, he looked even taller and thinner, and his hair pulled back tightly into the ponytail only emphasized the severity of his narrow face. He wasn’t obviously older than our other teachers, but he had the air of being out of step with time, like he’d have been more at home in an archive of musty books than in a computer lab.
“I’m sorry to interrupt, but it looks like the machines are free. Can you make an exception?”
Mr. Pertiness’s thin eyebrows rose slightly, like I’d just suggested something unspeakable. “Exceptions,” he said, drawing out the word, “set precedents. Precedents lead to chaos.”
Jack winced visibly, but I pressed on. “It’ll only take a minute. We already found a solution; we just want to confirm it works.”
Pertiness folded his arms. He regarded us for a long moment, and then, with an exaggerated sigh, he stepped away from the doorway to let us in. “One terminal,” he said, jabbing a long finger toward the nearest row. “Five minutes.”
As we went over, and Jack started pulling up the file with the earlier version of his program, Pertiness talked to me, with an accusatory tone of voice, “I don’t recognize you from class. Why are you here with Mr. Allard?”
My first thought was, OK, since when do teachers refer to students as Mr-Last-Name? but it didn’t seem like the time to ask that. Instead, I just said, “I took a similar course last year at my old school, so I was helping Jack get unblocked with his assignment.”
Pertiness cracked a very slight smile. “Oh? How nice. I hadn’t thought many other schools had these classes. Where were you attending?”
“William Jennings Bryan.” I said automatically, and then realized from Pertiness’s puzzled look that he had no reason to recognize it. “I’m from America, on the other side of the Gate.”
The slight smile disappeared, replaced with a sneer. “Oh, you’re one of them. Neil warned me about you ‘Americans’ and your… stories,” he said, literally making air quotes with his hands when he said ‘Americans.’ “I’ll ask you to leave now. Mr. Allard, you can finish up testing your code quickly on your own, I assume?”
“Actually, I’m all done,” he said, and to me, “you were exactly right about converting the input value to a decimal.”
When we were a safe distance away, I asked Jack, “Is he always like that?”
Jack started to shake his head, then paused mid-thought. “That’s worse than usual, but yeah, he’s kind of always like that.”
Thurs, Oct. 8th, After School
Fencing Club Room
Towards the end of fencing practice, Gwen clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention. “Okay, folks, sorry to interrupt, but we’ve had a couple of requests from the student council.”
She paused, giving us a look that suggested the requests weren’t entirely welcome, and I couldn’t help wondering if Neil was behind this, especially after his dismissive introduction of the club at the opening assembly.
“Apparently,” she said, pausing as though carefully choosing her words, “someone over there dug up our club charter and noticed that we’re supposed to have an armorer and a recorder as separate offices. That’s been done by the same person for as long as I’ve been here—right now, that’s Kai.”
Kai gave a little wave from where he was leaning against the equipment rack, looking about as enthused as someone who’d just been told they had extra homework.
“I’m not sure why they’re insisting we split the roles now,” Gwen said, rolling her eyes slightly, her tone neutral but edged with annoyance. “And that’s not all. They have also asked... well, more of a demand, really... that we provide an inventory of the club's equipment."
A murmur rippled through the room. The idea of an inventory didn’t seem that bad to me—until Kai stepped up and started to explain.
“Yeah, thanks, Gwen!” Kai said, looking around at all of us. “I’m not sure how many of you have been back in the storage room, but, uh, we’ve got... well, let's call it an interesting collection back there. Some of it dates back to the school's old location."
“That place was shut down in, like, the 1890s, wasn’t it?” someone whispered behind me, and I felt my eyebrows rise. No wonder Kai looked overwhelmed.
“So, we’ve got some cleaning to do,” Kai continued. “We’re canceling tomorrow’s practice to get started, and if any of you PE folks are free after classes, we could really use your help. Also, heads up, if we’re not done tomorrow, Tuesday's practice is canceled too.”
There was a collective groan from the group, but no one outright objected.
As we broke for the day, I made my way over to Kai—partly because I was curious about what we might find in that storage room, and partly because it seemed like the kind of tedious task that could use an extra set of hands.
“Hey, I can help tomorrow after classes,” I offered.
“Great! Thanks, Mark. The more hands, the better,” he said.
After gathering my stuff, I headed out and caught the streetcar home, which gave me time to wonder what we might find tomorrow. When I walked into the apartment, was already at the dining table, surrounded by textbooks. The wet ground must have led to soccer practice being cancelled, and Joel had decided to make the most of the extra time to study.
Meanwhile, the cat had sprawled across the couch, grooming itself with the smug confidence of something that clearly owned the place.
Joel glanced up with a grin. “The little guy sure has made himself at home.”
Right on cue, the cat let out a loud meow that sounded suspiciously like agreement.
I watched it carefully, remembering Jaklamina's odd comment “don’t forget to feed the cat.” I couldn’t shake the feeling this cat wasn’t just an ordinary stray—or even someone’s lost pet. Whatever secrets it might be hiding, though, it wasn't giving them away just yet.
