Backshift-Replay by Judy Colella (books for students to read .TXT) 📕

“I think so.”

He leaned down, lifted it, and smiled. “The key!” He straightened, holding aloft a small object that gleamed yellow-silver in the streetlamp’s glow. He looked at the door, studying it for a few seconds, then with a soft exclamation, nodded and stuck the key into something. A moment later, he pushed the door open. “Here we go!”

We were to live in the same place, but list our addresses as different when registering at school, getting driver’s licenses, and for all things that required our personal information. That way, we could keep things simple on a physical level, and easy to remember until we’d aged enough to strike out on our own as autonomous adults.

Once again, I found the light switch, and to our mutual delight, discovered our new home to be a lovely place, furnished with taste and style, and with enough room to keep us from being unintended annoyances to one another. Similar to the houses of our own time, this one had a kitchen, dining room, living room, a large, less formal space for relaxing (a family room, I was told), four large bedrooms, three bathrooms, a garage that could house two vehicles, an attic and a basement for storage. I was pleased.

We chose our bedrooms, and after a brief discussion about what we would do the next day, said our good-nights. My room was a restful gray-blue with cream moldings, its own bathroom, two huge windows that looked out over whatever was behind the house, and a big, cozy-looking bed with four posts draped in pink gauze. A thick quilt with blue and red roses among dark green leaves, and fluffy pillows in complementary colors five-deep by the headboard, made it most inviting. I stripped, took a long, hot shower, and after drying off, slid in under the quilt. The bed was as comfy as it had looked, and before I could review the events of the day, I was asleep.

All of which would have been great, had I not gotten woken up far too early the next morning by something large, heavy, whimpering, and smelly landing with a grunt on my stomach and going, “WOOF!!!”

By the time I was born, there were no more countries. Everything was referred to only by its continental designation, so I grew up on Continent America. That included everything that had been divided as South, Central, and North America, as well as what at one time was called Canada. All of this was divided into states, but these were far fewer in number than what had originally existed. My home state was called Colonia, so designated because it encompassed all thirteen of the original colonies during the settlement of the eastern seaboard by Great Britain. Boring, yes? You who are hearing or reading this record know all of that, but in case at a future time someone unfamiliar with world history finds it, I thought I’d throw that tidbit in before continuing. I also mention it because the place where we had chosen to grow up again was the State of New York, as I may have mentioned before, in a small town located in one of the wealthy counties (they had an awful lot of divisions back then, eh?) north of what was once Manhattan. So…here we go.

I was being smothered. By a tongue. My chest felt like it was about to collapse. Great way to start the day. After considerable struggling and some giggling I couldn’t control, I got the beast off me and rolled out of bed.

“WOOF!!”

“You’re very loud, aren’t you?” I patted the gigantic head that I thought might belong to a Great Dane, but because it was too shaggy to fit the breed as I knew it, I wasn’t sure what it was. I noticed something shiny dangling on its chest, realized it was a tag, and that somewhere under all that fur was a collar. At great risk of getting my face slobbered on again, I crouched in front of the creature and squinted at the tag. Thor. The thing’s name was Thor. Good grief. I stood and waved at it to follow as I headed for the door.

“Hey, you met our pet!” Niam, who was sitting at the kitchen table, stood up when I walked in, Thor at my heels. He was grinning (Niam, that is), looking stupid happy, and for an instant, I found myself wishing the hairy monster was the actual god for which it was named.

It seemed to like me, and had I asked it to zap Niam with a bolt of lightning, it probably would have done so with glee. “No,” I told my toothsome roommate, “I was pounced on by our pet. Why do we have a pet in the first place? There was nothing in the brief about this – whose idea was it?”

“Mine.” Niam came forward and scratched the dog’s ears. “I thought we’d fit in better if we had a dog.”

“A dog. This is not a dog, Niam. This is a small dinosaur. With fur. And a tongue the width of my face.” I glared.

Thor wagged its tail, nearly knocking me down with it. Great. It didn’t help one bit that Shadow, who was busy doing something at the stove, was laughing. Or sobbing. I wasn’t sure at first; all I could see with his back to me was that his shoulders were shaking. “What are you doing, Shadow?”

He snorted. Yup. Laughing. Wonderful.

“It’s a good thing that whatever you’re making smells so good. I find none of this funny.”

Shadow turned, his face contorted into that strange configuration of features one displays when trying harder than is almost humanly possible not to laugh out loud.

“Fine. Laugh.” I threw myself into one of the chairs at the table.

He did. Loud, doubled over, then started to gasp, eventually sobering enough to say, “I’m sorry – I couldn’t resist.”

“Resist?”

“Yeah – I opened your door so Thor would go in and wake you up.”

I believe I began looking around for a convenient butcher knife. “Did you. I see. Well. I’m going to go take a shower now and wash dog spit off my face. With any luck, I won’t have too many bruises on my boobs and stomach. You’re a great guy, Shadow.”

As I was going back upstairs, I could hear the guys guffawing, what sounded like someone slapping the table as their hysterics got wilder, and hoped Thor would think they were dangerous and eat them both. What the heck.

When the meal was over, Thor having licked all the plates clean (yuck), Shadow took a map from one of the drawers and spread it out on the table.

“Okay – this is us.” He pointed to a spot circled in red. “The school is here – “ another circle, this one green, “ – so it looks like the easiest and fastest route on foot would be to take this road, cross here, turn this way, and go straight for what looks like about an eighth of a mile, and it’s on the left.” He’d been running a finger along the route as he was speaking.

“Shouldn’t take us more than fifteen, twenty minutes to get there.” I stood. “Are we ready for this?”

“Do we have a choice?”

“Yes, Niam. No one knows we’re here, so it isn’t like someone is going to send out the Truancy Patrol to come get us. We could hang out here all day. However.” I started to leave the kitchen.

“However what?”

“However,” Shadow said, continuing my thought, “we need to get this done and over. Our papers are in our bedrooms, along with the pack things they used to carry books in. Check your closet – should be on the floor.”

“Books! Real books!”

“Yup.” I thought Niam looked way too happy about it. “Although I would certainly prefer not to have to haul them around, but that’s all they have here – and some electronic versions, but not many schools used that.”

“Have you ever smelled a real book, Tosca?” Niam got to his feet, eyes going distant.

“Apparently you have, but no. Seen one, never smelled it. Why would I do that?”

He shrugged. “Never mind. You’ll find out.”

“Cryptic bugger,” I muttered, following him out of the room.

When we reached the school, we stood at the entrance and stared. The building was a four-story structure of white cement, its windows large and framed in the same material but painted turquoise. It reminded me of some of the constructs designed by an early twentieth century architect – Frank Lloyd Wright, I think his name was.

Interesting place, Shadow. I stared around at the students, curious.

You got that right. Huh. Are we ready?

I am – Niam?

Ready. Let’s go.

Walking side-by-side, we entered the school grounds. A second later, we found ourselves the subject of multiple stares as the teens around us began to notice our arrival. It occurred to me that as tall as we all were, and the way we were walking together, we were probably an impressive, maybe even scary, sight. None of the kids said anything to us, but I could feel them continuing to stare as we passed through the crowd and entered the school.

A few steps inside, an older individual saw us, did a double-take, and stepped in front of us. “Hold on,” he said, frowning.

We stopped.

“Who are you, and what do you want here?”

We exchanged glances and shrugs. “What do you mean?” asked Niam.

“This is a high school and I know you aren’t among the student population.”

“Not yet.” Shadow smiled and put out a hand. “I’m Shadow Calaban – these are my friends, Tosca Blane and Niam Collins. We’re here to enroll in classes. Just moved here from out of town. Could you tell us where we can do this?”

The man shook Shadow’s hand but his body language shouted uncertainty. “Mr. Corso. I’m the Vice Principal. Why don’t you follow me – I’ll take you to the Registrar’s office.”

Along the hallways through which we passed, the stares continued, many accompanied by frowns and scowls. I couldn’t understand that second one – why would anybody be upset with us?

“Here we go. This is Mrs. Jarvis, our Registrar. She’ll get you sorted out – welcome to Dickinson High School.” He flashed a brief smile and went out, leaving us to the mercies of this Registrar person.

She gave us a long, narrow-eyed stare, this woman who may have been anywhere between forty and eighty years old, and whose features made me think she ate raw lemons for a living. When she spoke, her pursed lips relaxed only a little. “Do you have your transcripts? And where are your parents?”

I hope we don’t have to deal with her a lot, I thought at Shadow.

Reminds me of an animated prune.

Shut up, Niam – don’t make me laugh. Shadow cleared his throat and dug deeper into the thing we were told was called a backpack.

Mrs. Jarvis took our paperwork, placed what I recognized as a sight-improvement device called eyeglasses on her nose, and began reading. She nodded now and again, but said nothing until