Young Writers Society

I hurried towards class, breakfast clasped in one hand, backpack straps biting into my shoulders. Halfway to class, the bell rang. Calling it a bell was a bit of a stretch. The sound that dictated our schedules was a long electronic buzz. It didn’t sound like much of anything aside from just noise.

At the so-called bell, the hallways flooded with jostling teenage bodies, in all their colors, sounds and smells. I ducked under a senior football player’s armpit to avoid a mob of preppy cheerleaders. Bad move. I didn’t make myself late showering this morning for nothing, I admonished myself, wrinkling my nose.

Alas, navigating the crowded school hallways was both an extreme sport and an art, and my sleep deprived brain and aching body weren’t in the mood to play. By the time I made it to my class (AP Novus history, goshdarnit, I hadn’t been counting on long nights playing superhero when I signed up for classes.) I had collided with three people and had countless other close calls. It was a miracle I hadn’t spilled my coffee.

I slid into my seat just before the final bell, letting out a relieved sigh. I had beat Xen there, which was surprising and almost impressive, considering how hectic my morning had been. My shock faded when I remembered it was Xen I was thinking about. My best friend was chronically late, even without the excuse of an alter ego. (That I knew of, anyway, but I supposed that was the point of an alter ego.)

I pulled out my battered, decade old textbook. What was I supposed to read from this? I wondered. What chapter are we even in? Xen would know.

Right on cue, the gangly-limbed, pop-punk human who had been my best friend since second grade slid into their desk next to me. I nodded at them amicably as I rifled through my folder to find the notes packet I’d only half completed. Okay, make that a quarter completed. Xen silently passed their neatly completed packet across the aisle. I smiled at them gratefully.

Once upon a time, Xen and I had battled for supremacy on the playground, then in the classroom. Races from the swings to the slide became races to sign up for more AP and honors classes, as both of us made a game of competing for top of the class.

That had all changed when Mom got sick. Study sessions at the library were replaced by late nights at the hospital holding her hand and counting IV drips. All at once, in one fatal diagnosis, math tests became the last test results I had time to care about.

Xen had never held it over me as I slipped further and further behind in our race. They never even mentioned it. Instead, they patiently helped me keep my head above the water as my straight A’s slipped to B’s and C’s, letting me copy their notes and helping me stay on top of homework in a way that would have been unthinkable in the days of our rivalry. Our friendship, a friendship that had always been based in friendly competition and well-meaning jabs, had been tested, and had solidified into something solid and unshakeable. And I loved them for it, I really did. But that did not excuse the ridiculous shirt they were wearing.

“What is that?” I asked with a snort.

The shirt was pale pink, though it was impossible to tell whether that was original or due to fading. The printed design was faded as well, though still visible. An overly simplified cartoon of a cat, reduced to cutesy whiskers, a round white face and ears, and a yellow button of a nose. The cat, if it was a cat, as it seemed to be wearing a pink dress and a jaunty bow, was outlined in pink plastic rhinestones and stamped over a background of hearts and some sort of Asian character writing.

“What?!” Xen said, as though they didn’t know what I was talking about.

“Your shirt, that’s what!” I exclaimed, trying to hold back my laughter.

“It’s ironic!” Xen protested, their olive skin coloring.

“Ironic?” I said, around a mouthful of bland burrito, “Its ridiculous, that’s what it is. And what is that writing, Chinese?”

“Its Japanese,” Xen said defensively. “And you know how hard it is to get vintage Japanese fashion, now that the original country is underwater,” They smoothed their shirt, “Once the original archipelago became uninhabitable, half the population moved on to dominating the space travel industry, and the other half is living it up on their floating eco-cities, refusing contact with the outside world.”

Our teacher breezed in, turning sideways to pass between Xen and I on her way to the front of the room.

“Excellent summary of the second period of Japanese Isolationism, Xen,” She trilled, overhearing, “So lovely to hear you discussing our current unit!”

So that was what we were learning about. Xen smirked at me as the teacher breezed by.

“See,” They said in a superior tone, an echo of the days when we had battled for classroom dominance, “Ms. Jenkins thinks my shirt is cool.”

I stuck my tongue out at them, an echo of our days on the playground in elementary school.

“First of all, you are such a nerd. Second of all, what does Japanese isolationism have to do with you wearing a shirt with a Japanese cartoon cat?”

“First of all, she’s actually an American cartoon character, originally. She was just very popular in Japan. Second of all, I’ll have you know that way back before we were born, Japanese street fashion was considered very cutting edge.”

“Whatever, nerd.”

As Ms. Jenkins began roll call and we both turned to face the front of the room, I made sure they caught my teasing eye roll. Xen was usually by far the more fashionable of the two of us, so it wasn’t often I got to make fun of them. This would not be the last they heard of this.

As the teacher finished role and called the class to order, I quickly copied down Xen’s notes, struggling to transfer their loopy, calligraphic cursive into my own hasty scrawl. Who even writes cursive anymore? I thought as I squinted at their writing, trying to puzzle out where one letter started and the other began.

It’s not like it was taught in schools these days. Xen had taught it to themself in middle school, spending long hours spent researching last-century handwriting lessons and scribbling out practice in spiral-bound notebooks.

They had always had a fascination with the old world, before the founding of Novus City. Their unusual handwriting and their current interest in vintage fashion were just two examples of a lifelong hunger for knowledge about the way things had been before.

Glancing over at their slouched form, with their long, slender limbs that toed the line between scarecrow-awkward and dancer-graceful, their curly mop of black hair, their artfully smudged eyeliner, my amusement at their shirt was tinged with fondness. (And I did have to admit; they sort of pulled it off. What was dorky-chic on them would have been plain old dorky on me.)

So long as they’re happy, I thought, and so long as they stay out of trouble. Vintage fashion is all well and good, but digging deeper into the past only leads to trouble.

It struck me with a twinge of guilt that Xen wouldn’t have hesitated to take the Doctor’s offer of secrets from the past, whatever the risks might be. Did that make me smarter, or them braver?

Speaking of the past: the history teacher was shouting, ironically, for quiet. A middle-aged woman in a batik skirt and a lime-green cardigan, Ms. Jenkins was thin and wiry, with an oversized messy bun of gray-streaked hair wobbling precariously above her watery-eyed face. With her colorful clothes and overall hippie aesthetic, you might have expected her to be the cool teacher. But Ms. Jenkins similarities to a hippie ended at her fashion sense. She shared none of the radical ideals of peace and love that I knew, thanks to Xen, that hippies had stood for.

Ms. Jenkins booted up the projector with today’s slideshow of sanitized and government approved history. I pulled out a notebook and flipped through it to a blank page, my pen poised over the paper, ready to take notes I probably wouldn’t study. As I snuck in bites of my burrito and sips of coffee in between bullet points, I tried to pretend that everything was as it had been.

I was a regular, seventeen year old girl. I hadn’t done my homework because I’d been up late playing VR games or video-chatting with my friends. The ache in my ribs came from falling off my bike or tripping over an untied shoelace. My mother wasn’t sick, my sister wasn’t growing up too fast, my cupboards had food, and my bank account had credits. My most pressing problems were my best friend’s ridiculous shirt and the cute girl in the school café. For this one refreshingly dull class period, at least, everything was normal.

Sort of.

“Okay!” Ms. Jenkins shouted cheerfully, interrupting my fantasy of being boring, “Now that we’ve covered the Japanese response to the rising sea levels and depleted resources, can anyone tell me about the United States’ response?”

Xen raised their hand. They were the only one. After waiting a good fifteen seconds to see if anyone else was going to volunteer, Ms. Jenkins sighed, and with a forced smile pointed at them.

“Well, unlike the Japanese, who saw what was coming and prepared for it, America tried to deny the crisis as long as possible. They were one of the last countries to move away from fossil fuels. They also saw the crisis as an opportunity to seize more and more power for the societal elite, by stripping away the power of the common people.” Xen answered all in a rush.

Ms. Jenkins smile, already brittle, seemed to freeze on her face for a moment, and then shattered.

“Well, you’re absolutely right that America was one of the last countries to move away from fossil fuels entirely,” Ms. Jenkins said patronizingly. “But to say they denied the crisis is a misrepresentation. America couldn’t exactly just drop everything and switch to solar,” Ms. Jenkins tittered as though she’d never heard something more ridiculous, “The U.S. government made the most of the resources and technology at their disposal, but it would be unrealistic to expect them to just switch to renewable just like that, not without devastating their economy, anyway!”

Xen didn’t wait to be called on. “But Japan did just that! Switched over to renewable, I mean, and they had less than half the money and resources. And when you say it would’ve devastated their economy, you just mean the people who were profiting from the fossil fuel industry, or from the instability and shortages. Big corporations, not regular people!”

“What are corporations made up of, if not people?” Ms., Jenkins replied smoothly, in a tone usually reserved for small children, “And I don’t care for this “big corporations are evil,” attitude, either. We live in a free market, not some socialist state. What was the government to do, just ban these corporations altogether? I thought you were in favor of freedom!”

Xen’s face flushed redder than when I’d made fun of their shirt.

“Let it go,” I begged under my breath. As usual, they ignored me.

“If those corporations are exploiting natural resources and contributing to a climate crisis, then yes, they should be banned! Freedom is about individual freedom, not companies doing whatever they want. If the market is the only thing that’s free, than that’s not a free state, it’s a corporate oligarchy!”

By the end of this little speech, Xen was nearly shouting. Now it was Ms. Jenkins turn to turn red.

“I’ll have you know, Mr. Wang-Kastellanos, that you would do well to get your information from the textbooks we provide you, rather than whatever anti-government propaganda you’ve been filling your head with.”

Xen wasn’t shouting anymore. “Its Mx.,” they practically whispered, avoiding eye contact.”

“What was that, Mr. Wang-Kastellanos?” Ms. Jenkins nearly shouted.

“They said its Mx., not Mr.,” I said loudly. Xen was an idiot who picked all the wrong fights, but I wasn’t going to let some sorry excuse for an educator disrespect them.

“ I beg your pardon!” Ms. Jenkins said in a dangerously quiet voice, stalking down the aisle towards where the two of us were sitting.

I got out of my chair and blocked her path. I was taller than her by a good half head, something I was suddenly uncharacteristically grateful for.

“For the second time, it’s Mx. not Mr.! It’s 2099, I shouldn’t have to be telling you this.”

“Watch your tone, Ms. Wyler. I am trying to address a discipline problem in my classroom and get back to teaching. I’m not interested in being corrected on a technicality like this.”

“If you’re not smart enough to get it right, you’re clearly not smart enough to be teaching anyone anything! And it’s not a technicality, it’s basic decency. You might have an easier time earning your students’ respect if you led by example.”

Ms. Jenkins took a step back, opening and closing her mouth without making any noise. A chorus of “oohs” and giggles went up from the rest of the class, most of whom I’d never even spoken to.

“What happened to ‘letting it go’?” Xen muttered from behind me, exasperated.

I blushed. Now that the red haze of my anger was dissipating, I was uncomfortable to find myself as the center of attention. Again. Didn’t you get enough of playing hero when you were literally running around in a mask? I chided myself.

“What can I say, I just don’t like bullies,” I said, a head-spinningly brief period of time later.

I was sitting next to Xen in an uncomfortably straight-backed chair in front of the frowning, hunched visage of our principal. Despite the sign behind his head instructed me to think of him not as a principal, but as my PrinciPAL, he was not looking very friendly.

“Ms. Jenkins is not a bully, Ms. Wyler. She has been teaching at this school for twenty years.”

“I don’t see any reason that that would exclude her from the definition of the word bully, Principal Miller,” Xen piped up in a tone that sounded polite but wasn’t. “The way I see it, you just admitted to signing a bully’s paychecks for the last two decades.”

Now it was the principal’s turn to flush bright red and struggle for something to say, and my turn to shoot Xen an exasperated look. Between the two of us, we were on a role today.

After a thorough chewing out, Principal Willis showed us to the door of his office.

“You are both suspended for the rest of the week. I will see the two of you on Monday, Ms. Wyler and Mx. Wang-Kastellanos.”

Despite our punishment, Xen and I shared a smile.