Free The Survivors by Will Weaver Page B

he asks.
    â€œSure am!” a man’s voice calls from a cubicle just beyond. A head pops up, bald on top but with a thin gray ponytail behind. “Be with you in a few minutes, Miles.”
    The teachers here are cooler than at regular school, too, ones such as Mr. Lewandowski, who didn’t fit into public school—“The Machine,” as Mr. L called it.
    Rather than hang with the girls in the lobby, Miles heads to the bathroom, where he takes a long time on the toilet. Afterward he spends time at the sink washing up all over, including his armpits, which were, he has to admit, a tiny bit rank. Clean, he reemerges, ready for a second chance with the girls on the couch. The young mom and her baby are gone, but the pierced girl glares at him as if daring him to say something. He sits down anyway. Looks through a gummy magazine.
    â€œI hate this,” the girl says suddenly.
    â€œWhat is this ?” Miles asks pleasantly.
    â€œEverything,” she mutters.
    â€œLet’s turn that frown upside down!” Miles says. It’s supposed to come out funny—a parody of an overly cheerful host on a kids’ television show—but it clanks.
    The girl stares at him. “Are you insane?”
    â€œAh, I don’t think so,” Miles says. “But you never know.”
    That clanks, too. The girl crosses her arms across her chest and looks out the window. Miles is trying to think of something not insane to say when Mr. Lewandowski calls his name.
    â€œSorry, got to go,” he says to the pierced girl.
    She does not reply.
    â€œSo, how are things?” Mr. Lewandowski asks. They shake hands, and Miles sits down.
    â€œNo problems, really,” Miles says.
    Mr. Lewandowski leans back in a creaky chair. “Your stuff is all good—math especially.”
    â€œThanks.”
    They take a few minutes and go through his packet, after which Mr. Lewandowski hands Miles the next one. This school proceeds at the student’s pace; and since Miles is all caught up, they have time to BS about the state of the world. “I try to remain optimistic,” Mr. L says as he kicks back, “because, hey, what’s the alternative?” He laughs.
    It takes Miles a second to get the joke.
    Back at the library, Miles finds that his mother is still waiting for a computer terminal. She holds up her hands and shrugs, so he skulks along the magazine shelves. He picks up a Fun FAQs About Volcanoes sheet that has been scrawled upon and defaced. It’s good to see that some kids—by the looks of the handwriting—are on guard against stupidity. He glances around the library but sees only adults and little stumblers plus a couple of crying babies.
    He scores a well-thumbed Popular Mechanics . He reads and people watches over the top of his magazine. The library patrons have some rough edges; their clothes smell like dogs and wood smoke. A mother and her three squirming kids check out a stack of DVDs. The bestseller display is picked mostly clean. Audio books are mostly gone, too. In the far corner there’s a big-screen television in a small room, with headsets for listening. On the silent screen, a rolling banner beneath two talking heads reads “Climate conditions improving: full summer growing season predicted.” Right. That’s what they said at the beginning of the summer, and barely a seed sprouted. If adults obsessed about the weather before the volcanoes, now the weather report is the only topic. Miles is tempted to listen, but the television room is crowded and warm, and anyway, he has given up on television. There’s no good news, and if there is, who knows if it’s true?
    A fat woman gets up from a computer terminal. The librarian calls out, “Natalie?”
    His mother hands Miles her purse and the mail for safekeeping, and takes a seat at computer station number four.
    The woman librarian glances at the sign-up sheet. “It’s