Free Meta (Book 3): Rise of The Circle by Tom Reynolds Page A
Authors: Tom Reynolds
her.
"I certainly hope so."
7
T he rest of the move goes smoothly, thanks mostly to the fact that I really didn't bring much stuff. A lot of my things are still in boxes from the last time Derrick and I moved, so my rule was if I hadn't taken it out of the box and used it by now, it probably wasn't all that important in the first place. I'm feeling pretty smart about that decision, which means I'm sure to find out that I forgot something super important at the worst possible time in the very near future.
Derrick gets a phone call from his office and has to leave in a hurry. He doesn't tell me what the call is about, and I don't ask. Nowadays it could be a breaking story or it could be that the water cooler needs to be refilled. There doesn't seem to be any problem too small to bother Derrick about lately.
This is fine by me since it's not like there's a whole lot of room to hang out in my dorm room. Even if there were, I don't think I could take the awkwardness of watching Derrick getting hit on by a woman twice his age again.
I was hoping to get a chance to walk around the campus and get a better look at everything, maybe even meet some people. I probably wouldn't have actually gone up and talked to anyone, you know, the thing that is required if you actually want to meet new people, but it's still nice to have dreams. My pretend mingling will have to wait until later, though. On his way out the door, Derrick told me he’d heard back from Michelle and that she wanted me to come meet with her now. Hopefully this means I won’t be getting my messages from her through Derrick anymore. Otherwise, this is going to start getting really tedious.
The place she asks me to meet her at is way, way on the other side of campus, which I'm actually thankful for. It's a nice fall day, and the walk gives me a chance to take a look around. Classes have already started for a lot of the people here. Since there's a steady flow of new students all the time, new classes are starting up every week. Maybe the only good thing that will come out of having state-mandated learning for the years prior to this is that everyone technically should be on the same page as far as lessons go, which should make it easy for students to come to this new school and pick up right where they left off ... at least in theory.
On paper, that all sounds great, but in reality I have to imagine people are still all over the map with what they've already learned and what still needs to be taught. Not everyone learns at the same speed, which is what the smaller classrooms are mostly used for, according to Derrick. Those rooms are perfect for after school tutoring and catch-up lessons. I was already warned to make sure I pay attention during class, because I won't have time for either of those.
The campus is full of people coming and going all over the place—the chaos of families dropping off their children. There seems to be thousands and thousands of students, a lot of them even younger than I am.
After walking what feels like the entire campus, I find the building where Michelle has asked me to meet her. The building looks out of place, but not for the reasons you'd expect. It looks out of place because it just looks ... ordinary. On a campus full of ugly, faux-futuristic buildings, this is the one old-brick building that wouldn’t actually look out of place on a traditional college campus. The building is large with three floors, but still smaller than many of the others I've seen. From the outside, the building looks to be made entirely out of brick with a handful of windows in every classroom. The windows look like they haven't been washed in a decade, which is probably true.
There isn't an obvious entrance to the building, or at least there isn't one that looks like the big entrances I've seen on all of the other buildings on campus. After wandering around the outside of the building for a few minutes, I decide to start trying the windowless doors that
"I certainly hope so."
7
T he rest of the move goes smoothly, thanks mostly to the fact that I really didn't bring much stuff. A lot of my things are still in boxes from the last time Derrick and I moved, so my rule was if I hadn't taken it out of the box and used it by now, it probably wasn't all that important in the first place. I'm feeling pretty smart about that decision, which means I'm sure to find out that I forgot something super important at the worst possible time in the very near future.
Derrick gets a phone call from his office and has to leave in a hurry. He doesn't tell me what the call is about, and I don't ask. Nowadays it could be a breaking story or it could be that the water cooler needs to be refilled. There doesn't seem to be any problem too small to bother Derrick about lately.
This is fine by me since it's not like there's a whole lot of room to hang out in my dorm room. Even if there were, I don't think I could take the awkwardness of watching Derrick getting hit on by a woman twice his age again.
I was hoping to get a chance to walk around the campus and get a better look at everything, maybe even meet some people. I probably wouldn't have actually gone up and talked to anyone, you know, the thing that is required if you actually want to meet new people, but it's still nice to have dreams. My pretend mingling will have to wait until later, though. On his way out the door, Derrick told me he’d heard back from Michelle and that she wanted me to come meet with her now. Hopefully this means I won’t be getting my messages from her through Derrick anymore. Otherwise, this is going to start getting really tedious.
The place she asks me to meet her at is way, way on the other side of campus, which I'm actually thankful for. It's a nice fall day, and the walk gives me a chance to take a look around. Classes have already started for a lot of the people here. Since there's a steady flow of new students all the time, new classes are starting up every week. Maybe the only good thing that will come out of having state-mandated learning for the years prior to this is that everyone technically should be on the same page as far as lessons go, which should make it easy for students to come to this new school and pick up right where they left off ... at least in theory.
On paper, that all sounds great, but in reality I have to imagine people are still all over the map with what they've already learned and what still needs to be taught. Not everyone learns at the same speed, which is what the smaller classrooms are mostly used for, according to Derrick. Those rooms are perfect for after school tutoring and catch-up lessons. I was already warned to make sure I pay attention during class, because I won't have time for either of those.
The campus is full of people coming and going all over the place—the chaos of families dropping off their children. There seems to be thousands and thousands of students, a lot of them even younger than I am.
After walking what feels like the entire campus, I find the building where Michelle has asked me to meet her. The building looks out of place, but not for the reasons you'd expect. It looks out of place because it just looks ... ordinary. On a campus full of ugly, faux-futuristic buildings, this is the one old-brick building that wouldn’t actually look out of place on a traditional college campus. The building is large with three floors, but still smaller than many of the others I've seen. From the outside, the building looks to be made entirely out of brick with a handful of windows in every classroom. The windows look like they haven't been washed in a decade, which is probably true.
There isn't an obvious entrance to the building, or at least there isn't one that looks like the big entrances I've seen on all of the other buildings on campus. After wandering around the outside of the building for a few minutes, I decide to start trying the windowless doors that