The Adjusters

by Taylor, Andrew

  An ear-splitting siren sounded and kids started scurrying for class, although Henry was surprised by the lack of noise within the building. The corridors of his last school had been deafening in the moments before class began, as students yelled, argued and shouted last minute messages to one another. Seconds after the siren stopped in Malcorp High, complete silence had fallen over the corridors.

  At the uniform shop, Henry was issued with a pair of black trousers, a grey shirt and a green and gold blazer and tie. The woman behind the counter told him that a spare set would be sent to his lodge and his mom would be billed. Henry took his new clothes and put them on in a tiny changing room, checking the tie in a mirror on the wall. His last school hadn’t had a uniform, so the blazer and tie felt weird. Henry stared at his reflection and sighed.

  “You look soooo cool.”

  He swiped the curtain of the changing room and jumped to find Blake standing right there, waiting eagerly.

  “Man, you look great!” Blake exclaimed and pumped his fist in the air. “One of us! One of us!”

  “Right,” Henry said, putting his old clothes into his bag and slinging it over his shoulder. “We should get going. Don’t like being late on my first day.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Blake said as they walked alongside one another down the corridor. He consulted his diary. “Hey, we’ve got class together! French.” His face fell. “Man, what a way to start the day!”

  Henry looked at him and smiled. “Have we found something you don’t like about school?”

  “It’s just…I’ve been studying that darn language for six whole months and I don’t seem to be making any progress.”

  “Well, six months isn’t long,” Henry replied. French was actually one of his favourite subjects. He’d had it at his last school since he was twelve, clearly a lot earlier than they started here. He’d found, to his surprise, that he had a real facility for language and had been top of his class in both French and Spanish for most of the last two years. To let Blake know he was no slouch when it came to languages, he added, “La pratique rend parfait.”

  Blake looked at him and roared with laughter. “Nice accent, Jean-Claude! Where did you learn that, a Pink Panther movie? Jeez, you’re a kidder!”

  Henry was still puzzling over what that was supposed to mean as they reached the classroom door and Blake pulled it open. The entire class was silent, heads down over thick textbooks while a prim-looking woman stood at the front, casting her eyes over them. She turned her gaze on Blake and Henry as they entered.

  “Pardon, Mademoiselle Chabrol,” Blake replied in perfectly accented French. “J’ai dû prendre Henry pour aller chercher son uniforme.”

  The teacher gave Henry an unimpressed look. “Et ce nouveau spécimen ne parle pas pour lui-même?” Doesn’t he speak for himself?

  There was a smattering of laughter around the room, which was silenced by a stern look from Mademoiselle Chabrol. Henry had worked out, despite the speed at which the teacher had rattled off her question, that it was his turn to speak.

  “Je m’appelle Henry Ward,” he said, trying to sound as fluent as possible. “Uh…je suis un student nouveau dans votre classe…”

  “Oui, oui,” the woman said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Asseyez-vous et ouvrez le livre à la page cinquante-six. Nous lisons À la Recherche du Temps Perdu.” As she turned away, she muttered, “Mon dieu, il y a du travail à faire avec celui-ci.”

  Blake nodded to two spare desks at the back and they sat down. Henry picked up the book in front of him, which was almost a thousand pages long, and flicked through. It was written in incredibly complex French – far more advanced than anything he’d ever been asked to read before in class. He looked at Blake who, like the other twenty students, had become engrossed in the French text. He turned towards the front and saw that the teacher was regarding him with a look of barely disguised contempt.

  “Avez-vous un problème, Monsieur Ward?” she called across to him. “Préféreriez-vous quelque chose de plus simple à lire?” Would you prefer something easier to read? She held up the French equivalent of a Janet and John book, causing more giggles around the room.

  “Non, mademoiselle,” Henry replied firmly. He looked down at his book and pretended to read.

  “How long did you say you’ve been studying French?” Henry asked Blake at the end of the period, as they walked to the next class, which was maths.

  “Six months,” Blake replied. “You were struggling, I could tell. But don’t worry, you’ll soon get up to speed. Mademoiselle Chabrol is the best.”

  “Yeah. She seemed like a…really nice lady.”

  “How’s your maths?”

  “Not bad,” Henry said with a lot less certainty than he might have done an hour earlier. “Do you know what we’re studying this term?”

  Blake held open the door for him to enter the maths class. “Nothing too difficult: quadratic equations with integer coefficients.”

  Heart sinking, Henry took a seat as the teacher at the front began to chalk up equations on the board that looked as if they belonged to the space programme. He was left behind from the beginning, while the rest of the class had no problem answering the most complex questions. In fact, they seemed to have the answers even before the teacher asked them, hands shooting into the air, desperate to provide the solution. Henry surreptitiously looked around for anyone else who was struggling, but saw no one. Every student was switched on, alert and fully engaged. In a normal class there was certain to be a couple of kids sleeping through things at the back, but this class was nothing like normal. Christian was nowhere to be seen, leading Henry to wonder if he’d been put in the wrong stream – was this some kind of genius-level group he’d been placed in by mistake? And if so, where were all the normal kids?

  The remaining classes of the day were exactly the same.

  In History the teacher presented a text written in Old English that Henry might have had a chance of following if the class hadn’t whizzed through it as if it was an easy reader. Science was an analysis of Einstein’s e=mc2 that left Henry behind after about two minutes. It was a relief when the final class of the day came around: Phys Ed. Finally, something I can do, Henry thought with relief as he got into his kit in the changing rooms.

  “Tough day, Ward?” a familiar voice asked from a couple of lockers down. He looked round to see Steve, the kid he’d met at the pool. “I saw you in French class. What was it you said? Uh…je…suis…un…student…”

  Several of the other boys in the changing room laughed.

  “Leave him alone, Steve,” Blake said, appearing at Henry’s side. Steve waved his arm as if it wasn’t worth it and started talking to his mates in low tones. They cracked up at something he said. Great, Henry thought, even the jocks around here are smarter than me.

  “Ignore him,” Blake said.

  “What is with this place anyway?” Henry asked quietly, unable to keep the frustration from his voice. Academically, he’d never been one of the high achievers, but he was comfortably above average. Top of the class in a couple of subjects, like French… Or at least, he had been. He’d always felt sorry for those kids who seemed to struggle with every new thing that came along, but during the course of the day, he’d gained a fresh sympathy. He’d become one of them. “Were those classes supposed to be for geniuses or something? Because I am no genius.”

  “Geniuses?” Blake asked, genuine confusion in his tone. “Oh, you mean the gifted and talented kids? No, they have different classes by themselves. Y’know, more difficult stuff.”

  “Right,” Henry said, slamming his locker shut. He was beginning to suspect that behind Blake’s apparently guileless exterior, there was something altogether smarter going on. He could sure as hell speak good French, for one. And hold his own in a conversation about Einstein’s theory of relativity. But so could most of the other kids at Malcorp High, it seemed. And if these were the average kids, what were the gifted and talented like?
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br />   They ran out of the changing rooms onto the sports field to meet the gym instructor, a middle-aged guy with greying hair who looked fitter than most of the kids in the class. He sent them on a warm-up jog around the field and then called them back in with a blast from his whistle. Henry pushed his way to the front of the group. This was one lesson where he knew he could make a good impression, and he intended to do so.

  “Sports day coming up in less than a month,” the instructor said, his accent clipped and British. “So, we’re practising middle distance events, starting with the three thousand metres.”

  There were a few theatrical groans around the group, which the instructor acknowledged with a grin.

  “Yes, I know this is your favourite, so let’s put on a good show.” He pointed at Henry. “New kid, try to keep up. But don’t push it, okay?”

  “I’m fine, sir,” Henry said. He’d run cross-country at his last school for a while. He could manage three kilometres.

  The instructor slapped his hands together. “Okay. Everyone line up. And remember, it isn’t a race!”

  The class ran over to the track and as he joined them, Henry noticed a lone figure sitting atop the bleachers. Christian. Typically, his uniform looked as if it had been dragged through a hedge and he was missing his tie. He raised his hand and offered a little salute as he saw Henry looking.

  “Good luck,” Blake said, nudging his arm.

  Henry looked round at him. “What did he mean? It isn’t a race.”

  Blake gave him one of his innocent looks. “Well, it isn’t. Sports are non-competitive at Malcorp High.” He bent slightly, preparing for the start along with the rest of the class. “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it.”

  “Non-competitive,” Henry repeated as he prepared for the start as well. Then something occurred to him. “What about the football teams? How do they do non-competitive?”

  “Easy. They just take turns winning.”

  Before Henry could respond, the instructor raised his starting pistol and fired. The class started off and Henry sprinted in line with them. Competitive or not, he intended to do well.

  Putting his head down, he caught up with Blake and passed him with ease. To his surprise he also passed Steve, who was at the head of the group, a second later. Then, without having to push himself too much, he found himself steaming ahead of the rest of the class. Looking over his shoulder, he saw the twenty or so other boys running together in a huddle as he moved steadily away from them.

  “Ward!” the instructor yelled across the track, as he came to the bend. “Slow down, dammit!”

  Almost tripping over his feet in confusion, Henry slowed his pace until the others caught up with him. Steve shot him a murderous look as they passed.

  “Get with the programme!” he hissed.

  Henry fell back until he was jogging alongside Blake, who looked at him and said, “We run as a unit. I should have explained.”

  As they completed their first lap of the track, the instructor fired his gun into the air again. On this signal every boy in the group doubled his running pace. Surprised by this sudden change, Henry found himself struggling to keep up. By the time he’d caught up with Blake, the instructor had fired his gun once again.

  The group doubled its pace once more. Getting wise to what was going on, Henry was ready to increase his work rate this time and had no trouble keeping up. Blake nodded his head and said, “Now you’re getting the idea.”

  Henry almost laughed with relief. Finally, a class where he wasn’t a million light years behind everyone else…

  The starting gun fired again.

  The group broke into a full-on sprint. Henry kept with them as they tore around the track. After a revolution at this sprint pace his heart was racing and he was gasping for breath, but the group showed no sign of slowing. Casting a look at Blake he was surprised to see him at full sprint and not in the least fatigued. In fact, he hardly appeared to be out of breath. None of the class did.

  The starting pistol fired again, barely audible to Henry above the blood thundering around his temples. The group actually increased its pace once more. They completed another circuit of the track. By this time, Henry’s head felt as if it was going to explode with the blood pulsing around it from the effort of the prolonged sprint.

  The gun fired again. The runners’ speed increased…

  Henry gasped and tried desperately to keep up with them. He managed another two hundred metres before his legs simply gave way. He collapsed on the grass beside the track, barely able to get breath into his lungs. For a moment he lay on his back, before a wave of nausea overcame him and he rolled over and vomited.

  “Difficulty keeping up, newbie?” the instructor said, appearing at his side. He showed little concern at Henry’s condition.

  Henry wiped his mouth and looked round as the class flew by on another lap of the track. After almost two thousand metres they were still running like they were in a hundred-metre sprint. “I’m fine,” he said.

  The instructor gave a snorting laugh and walked away. Face burning as much from humiliation as from the blood pumping like crazy around his body, Henry turned towards the bleachers.

  The spot where Christian had been sitting was empty.

  “They really need to get a grip on their sterilization procedures. I mean, no wonder they’re having contamination issues when there aren’t even no-touch soap dispensers in the lab.” Jennifer Ward paused briefly to spoon cornflakes into her mouth before she carried on talking at a mile a minute. “I really think I’m going to be able to raise their fertilization rate by four to five per cent without having to break a sweat…”

  “That’s great, Mom,” Henry said, pushing his cereal around in his bowl distractedly.

  The last two days at Malcorp High had followed the same pattern as his first. In every class he felt lost with the sheer complexity of what was being studied and the speed with which the other students moved through the material. Even the jocks, like Blake and Steve, left him for dust. Just as he thought he was getting a handle on a subject, they’d move onto something else that he’d never even looked at in his last school. From what he could gather, they were studying college-level material in all subjects.

  Jennifer stopped talking and looked at her son with concern. “Listen to me, rattling on. How’s things, kiddo?”

  Henry gave her a smile. “Great. Just great.”

  “You are a terrible actor,” she said. “What’s up?”

  Henry shrugged. “You know. School stuff. I’ll get a grip on it…” He didn’t want to admit that he was struggling in class – in all classes. He’d never had problems in school before. A couple of subjects, maybe. But not everything.

  “If you want me to talk to your teachers…”

  “Mom!”

  “Okay! Okay!”

  She reached round and grabbed a note from the fridge.

  “I forgot to say. Your friend Christian dropped this round while you were in the shower. I asked him to come in, but he said he didn’t want to wait.”

  Henry reluctantly took the note from her hand and unfolded it. It said: How’s class? Coming round to our way of thinking yet?

  “That kid is not my friend,” Henry said, scrunching the note in his fist and throwing it at the trash.

  “Over here, Henry!” Blake yelled across the lunch hall.

  Carrying his tray of food, Henry approached the long table near the windows looking out across the sports field. It was the nicest spot in the room and, he’d quickly learned, the exclusive domain of the in-crowd at Malcorp High. Steve and most of the football team sat along one side, with a collection of cheerleaders who looked like they’d stepped off the front cover of a magazine.

  As he approached the empty place next to Blake, the six-foot quarterback on the other side placed his foot on the seat.

  “Henry’s okay,” Blake said, giving him a look. The quarterback reluctantly removed his foot.

  Henry sighed and looked
at Blake. “If this is a problem…”

  “Hey, you’re one of us!” Blake said, waving him into the chair. “Or at least, you’re going to be. Right?”

  “I guess,” Henry replied as he sat down. This really wasn’t his scene. Looking along the table, he met the eyes of everyone else in the group. Steve and several of the others were staring at him with barely hidden hostility.

  “My grandad said we should help you fit in,” Blake said, loud enough for the entire table to hear.

  It was like a switch had been thrown. Frowns turned to smiles the length of the table. Hands were raised in greeting.

  Henry raised a hand back. “Uh, nice to meet you all.”

  Only Steve was still staring at him frostily.

  “Y’know, you’ve been seen with that kid Christian again,” Blake said. “You don’t want to get associated with that freak.”

  Henry felt the need to defend the other kid. “Christian’s not a freak. Just a little…unusual.”

  Blake laughed. “That’s my definition of a freak.” His attention wandered across to the far side of the hall and his expression turned to a frown. Henry followed Blake’s gaze to a table where a group of pretty normal-looking kids were sitting.

  “When’s the last time that kid got a haircut, d’you think?” Blake asked, referring to a boy whose hair was only slightly shaggy.

  “We should remind Principle Carpenter about the school regulations on hair length,” the cheerleader to his left said.

  Blake nodded. “Why don’t you do that, Stacy? And mention uniform standards at the same time. Half of the student body look like hobos, walking around with their shirts hanging out.”