Body of Stars by Laura Walter (free ebook reader for iphone TXT) 📕

conduct a special reading. Bypassing this changeling inspection was far more meaningful than forgoing one of the twice-yearly obligations.

Marie frowned, but I could tell she knew I was right. None of us wanted to undress at school and allow a federal employee to run her cold fingertips over our skin, but objecting meant forfeiting important opportunities. While our transcripts were confidential, we had to disclose them in order to advance professionally or personally. When I applied to university, I’d submit my official government markings transcript along with my grades. When I looked for a job, that transcript could mean the difference between getting an interview or not. No records meant, in some respects, no future.

I leaned toward Marie. She looked clean, untouched. I felt protective of her and grateful at once. I was remembering the year before, when I didn’t have money for the summer festival, and how she asked her mother to pay my admission. It had been a blazing July day, and Marie’s mother sweated under her layers of clothing as she counted out the bills for our tickets. I didn’t know how to thank her. I simply accepted the money, which felt swollen from the humidity.

There at the lockers, I reached into my back pocket and pulled out the index card I’d received in homeroom. My name and appointed inspection time were typed across the top in a crooked line, the ink fading into almost nothing by the end. I showed the card to Marie.

“My inspection isn’t until two o’clock. When’s yours?”

Marie hesitated, then lifted the edge of the magnetic mirror inside her locker. She’d tucked her index card underneath, hiding it just behind her reflection.

“Twelve thirty,” she said.

I nodded. “Same time as Cassie. You two can go together.”

Marie stared at the card until she seemed to reach a conclusion. She took the conscientious objector form back from me. I watched as she folded it on the diagonal, cutting a sharp crease through the paper.

“There,” I said, pride in my voice.

The bell rang. Marie slammed her locker, and we headed toward our next classes. On the way, I watched Marie toss her objector form into the trash can. The paper slid in gracefully, almost as if it had soared there itself. As if that’s where it always belonged.

*   *   *

To think of how many hours I spent with my friends in that school building, how solidly those walls contained us, how trapped and yet how safe we were—it’s remarkable. At the time, that school was everything, the place where we learned and fought and grew. We were challenged, we rebelled, and we looked ahead to when we could strike out on our own as adults.

At school we were tested constantly, on all subjects, including the future. Every year, we received diagrams of a blank female body, that familiar image from the front of Mapping the Future, and were asked to label the universal marking locations. By the time I was fifteen I could receive the test sheet, close my eyes, and fill in everything. I earned full marks each time, my teacher decorating the top of my test sheet with a hastily scrawled star. I thought this meant I had it figured out, that the future was orderly and would evolve per my expectations. Now I understand that all I saw or could not see in my skin, all that was predicted or not, was only one part of the story.

The rest I’ve had to create myself.

*   *   *

At two o’clock, I clutched my index card and walked toward the gymnasium at the end of the science wing. Classes were in session, so the hallways held a ghostly silence. Still, I could sense the activity in each classroom, the energy of students tucked away in that concrete mass of a building. On my way past the chemistry lab, the flare from a Bunsen burner lit up my peripheral vision.

When I reached the gym and heaved open the metal door, I was met with a clash of echoing voices. The inspection line began near the basketball net, where screens had been set up for privacy, and stretched halfway across the gym. We’d strip down in the same space where, on other days, we played volleyball or badminton.

Everything reeked of disinfectant. I cut across the gym, my shoes squeaking against the floor. I already felt washed out, exposed. Windows near the ceiling—windows placed so high it was impossible to glimpse anything outside other than sky, windows that made me think of portholes or prisons—provided some natural light, but otherwise the industrial fluorescents showered the gym with a poisonous glow.

I took my place at the end of the line, behind Anne from my homeroom. She turned to greet me and started gossiping about a mutual friend, but I couldn’t focus—because there, just a few spots ahead of us in line, was Deirdre. Deirdre in her rose-colored sweater, her hair in a ponytail to show the back of her neck, the gold chain of the opal necklace clasped at her nape. Deirdre, who stood out from the others like a hot spark. I’d found her at last.

I swallowed, absorbed by desire. It was like wanting to touch fire despite understanding it would burn. For most men, this sensation manifested in a potent sexual desire. But no men were present—the gym was closed to boys and male teachers for the day, out of respect for our privacy. It was just me, just Deirdre. No one else.

“It wasn’t fair of him to do that, not when he knew I was already having a bad day,” Anne was saying. “Don’t you think?”

I blinked, trying to guess what she might be talking about.

“Right,” I said. “Completely unfair.”

The line inched forward. Whenever a girl finished her inspection, she appeared from behind the partition and streamed toward the exit with a tangible sense of relief. Free, her body her own again. We waited and waited until Deirdre reached the front and slipped out of sight behind the