Jayden's Cybermountain

by Katrina Cope

  Jayden did just that. He watched his newfound friends hard at work on drafting their inventions. He was amazed at their skill—at such a young age—with the drafting tools. A sickening worry filled him. How was he ever going to achieve the level of skill expected of him? He pushed this self-doubt aside to concentrate on the job at hand. After watching his friends working for a while, he left his chair and wandered around the room.

  The other students’ inventions were also amazing. No inventions were as good as Robert’s, though. But they were still brilliant. There were ideas of a ceiling fan that didn’t just hang and push the air directly down. It rotated at a forty-five-degree angle with the blades just missing the ceiling but staying high enough that it wouldn’t touch anyone below. This way, the fan would push the air to all four corners of the room instead of just to the middle.

  One of the students, a boy who wore glasses, was drafting a dirty-glasses sensor and cleaner. The device had miniature arms that moved like windshield wipers on a car, and they worked automatically. This way, the person didn’t even have to take the glasses off for cleaning and could also wear them in the rain.

  Jayden approached a female student. When he managed to see around her long, blonde hair, he saw she was working on what looked like a little box with a screen and a camera hidden inside the box.

  He thought it didn’t look very impressive, so Jayden had to ask, “What are you making?”

  “A color-recognition device,” she answered, and saw his doubtful expression. “Yeah, I know,” she said, answering his unasked question. “It doesn’t look like much on drafting paper, but I’m working with Ryan over here.” She jerked her thumb toward a boy with red hair and freckles who was sitting on her right.

  Jayden looked at Ryan’s draft, and saw it was a robotic arm.

  “You see, we take turns with chores—laundry being one of them,” Ryan responded, having overheard the conversation. “To save us humans some time on laundry, not to mention saving people from the work everyone hates, we’re developing a robotic clothes-sorter. Ashley’s color-recognizer will work along with my robotic arms. Together, they will sort the different colors of dirty laundry into different piles, so that we will just have to place the sorted piles into the washing machine.”

  “That’s quite impressive. Is anyone working on either an actual machine, or a robot to do the washing for us?” Jayden asked.

  “Yeah! Emma—over there.” Ryan pointed to a girl who was sitting in front of Ashley. “She’s working on scales large enough to weigh the clothes baskets, to tell the computer when it has enough clothes for a full load.” Then he pointed to the left of Ashley, where a boy was sitting. “Nathan over there is working on a robotic arm that the washing basket will sit on. He’s designing it in such a way that it will lift the basket up, move it over the washing machine, and tip the dirty clothes into it.”

  Jayden could feel the beginnings of a headache. “And this is normal work for students our age?” Jayden asked, rubbing his temples.

  “Don’t panic. Most of us have been here for a few years,” Ashley said. She looked at him with sympathy. “It wasn’t easy for us at first, either. With time, you’ll get the hang of it.”

  “I’m not so sure,” he said. “I haven’t done anything like this before.”

  “Jayden,” called Professor Schnell, while coming toward him. “You must’ve seen quite few images now—enough to help you decide what to draft.”

  “Actually, Professor, I’m more worried now than before whether I’m actually going to be able to do this.”

  “Nonsense.” She brushed aside the statement with a dismissive gesture of her hand. “I expect you to have an idea that we can work on together by the end of your first week. It can be something simple, but just having the idea will be a start. Now go back to your seat, and you can start doing some thinking. We only have twenty minutes left of the lesson.”

  Jayden returned to his seat. He sat worrying about what he could make while he watched Robert working on his design, with precise accuracy of size and line. He shook his head. Who would’ve suspected that there really was a precise side to sloppy Robert? He really was a master at this kind of work.

  ~~~~~

  MONDAY, DAY TWO at Ernest State College, had arrived. As his mom had requested, Liam had contacted his parents to let them know he was settling in well. She was such a worrywart—he shook his head at the thought. Dryden was up, and they were both getting ready to go have breakfast before their first day of classes. They walked down to the dining room. The room was as to be expected for a large, communal dining area for teens. It was wide, long, and filled with several long, sturdy dining tables that were surrounded by plain plastic chairs. At this time of the morning, it was about three-quarters full.

  They went to the buffet and chose a hearty breakfast from the array of bacon, eggs, fruit, breads, and cereals. It was a simple presentation, but the food was certainly plentiful.

  When Liam saw Hayley arrive and they made eye contact, he gave her a little wave. She selected her food and joined them at their table.

  “So, how was your first night’s sleep in the college of your dreams?” she asked them.

  “Pretty good, actually,” Dryden replied.

  “Mine would’ve been better if it weren’t for Dryden’s snoring,” Liam said, looking at Dryden.

  “What?” Dryden turned to look at Liam.

  “Do you snore, Dryden?” Hayley asked, trying to keep a straight face.

  Liam frowned. Before Dryden had a chance to answer, Liam said, “Come to think of it, it was probably good he snored, because it masked the sound of him farting.” Liam tried to keep his smile hidden.

  “No way! Speak for yourself!” Dryden cried out. Then he noticed that Liam and Hayley were both smiling. “Oh, ha, ha. Very funny.” The two teasers broke into hearty laughter.

  “You certainly fell for it,” Liam teased him, then took a mouthful of scrambled egg.

  “There are a lot of students here, aren’t there?” Dryden marveled, looking over the dining room. “I didn’t think that there’d be so many here—compared to a normal school, I mean.”

  “Well, they’re from all over the country,” Liam said.

  “True,” Dryden agreed. “What’s our first lesson? Do you know?”

  “We don’t have a first lesson today,” Hayley said.

  “Really?” Liam asked.

  Hayley nodded while chewing her food.

  “What do we have, then?” asked Dryden.

  “We have a kind of introductory roll call for grade seven, so we’ve to go to the large hall.” She looked at the clock on the wall. “In fact, it starts at eight, so we’d better get a move on. We only have a little over ten minutes to finish our food and get over there.”

  They hurried to eat the rest of their breakfast and made their way to the great hall. They carried the map as a guide to the unfamiliar campus.

  Once they were close, Dryden stated, “We don’t really need a map anymore.”

  “Oh? Why’s that?” asked Liam.

  “We can just follow everyone else who’s carrying a map and looking lost. After all, there can’t be that many child geniuses going in the wrong direction.”

  “Or can there?” asked Hayley. “Geniuses often aren’t particularly good at the practical aspects of life.”

  “True,” Dryden agreed as they all chuckled. “But I’m willing to take my chance on this one.”

  They continued to the entrance of the building. All concerns about going in the right direction vanished once they saw all the other kids going through the door to one particular room. The ceiling of the room was high, with fans circulating the air. At the far end, there was a long stage that had been set up with a podium and microphone. The rest of the room was lined with several rows of chairs, with an aisle down the middle.

  The three friends filed in behind the other students, taking seats close to the middle of the room, and waited until everyone else had
arrived.

  While waiting, they noticed a small group of teachers who were at the front of the room, making their way up to the stage. One of them was a little older than the rest of the teachers. Liam’s heart immediately skipped a beat when he recognized him as Dr. Graham Ernest from the doctor’s photo in the school brochure. He gave Dryden a nudge with his elbow as he indicated the doctor, and Dryden nodded in excited recognition.

  When the clock on the wall showed exactly eight o’clock, Dr. Ernest made his way toward the podium. His black skin gleamed under the bright light that was positioned on the speaker’s stand. He gave all the students a welcoming smile that showed off his brilliant white teeth.

  “Welcome to you all.” For an elderly man, he spoke in a very positive and upbeat manner. “It’s a pleasure to have a bounty of such bright and intelligent young scholars. You’re the new crop of our specially chosen, year-seven students who will represent us in the exciting year ahead. Hopefully, your enthusiasm and eagerness to learn here at Ernest State College will be nurtured in this upcoming year. We’ll be encouraging you all to continue to expand your minds and put them to good use here at Ernest State College.

  “For those few who aren’t aware of the history of this college, we’d like you to know that we’re renowned for our excellence in science, mathematics, technology, and for our martial arts skills. The latter has been proven in many major tournaments. We also do well in many other subjects and sports—however, it’s these particular ones that we thrive on and continuously work on in order to remain the leader in these fields.”

  He gazed across the assembly of students before continuing. “As you’re all aware, this school can only be entered by scholarship—and each student must continue, throughout the year, to prove his or her worth to the school. If a student starts to fall behind in their efforts and achievements, he or she will be given three written warnings that improvement is required. If there is no noticeable improvement, the student will regrettably be removed from the school.” He rubbed his balding head, which was more skin than hair.

  Liam became distracted as something flew past him and landed on the student who sat in front of him. His eyes focused on the little moving spot and he realized that it was a ladybug. He thought it must’ve flown in through the open door when all the students entered. It crawled up the male student’s shoulder to the highest point. For a while, it sat on that spot and then fluttered its orange wings with black spots and flew away.

  He refocused his eyes to the stage, where Dr. Ernest was continuing to give his introduction. By this time, the kind-faced Doctor was showing a PowerPoint slide show of pictures of different inventions that students of the school had made in the past. They were rather impressive. One of them was a robot in the shape of a bird. It could fly and even had the ability to see and hear—however, it looked like a robot with its metal exterior. Despite this, the robot invention was still very impressive.

  Again, something distracted Liam by flying past. He allowed his eyes to follow the movement and was surprised when he saw a ladybug again. It had landed on the same male student in front of him. He thought that this was odd, but Liam assumed the student must’ve had some plant residue on his clothes. The ladybug climbed to the highest part of his shoulder and seemed content to stay there.

  Liam looked in Hayley and Dryden’s direction to see if they’d seen the insect, but they didn’t seem to have noticed. They were both looking and listening intensely to Dr. Ernest, who was starting to introduce the teachers.

  “Now to the left of me, you’ll notice our esteemed professors, who are the main teachers of your grade. One professor will be allocated as your home or family teacher and will be your main teacher to contact if you have any problems, or need to discuss any concerns. You’ll have each one of these teachers teaching you on different occasions. However, this family teacher will be like a parent to you throughout your time at the school.”

  His eyes passed over the students again and then he continued. “Firstly, I will introduce our professors. On my left, we’ve got Professor Michelle Watkins.” A thin and fairly short woman with blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail stepped forward, smiling, and gave a little wave of acknowledgement. To Liam, she looked like she was in her thirties and very friendly.

  “Now, don’t be fooled by this pint-size professor,” Dr. Ernest continued. “She may be small, but she’s one feisty lady. If you attacked her in a dark alley, you’d be sorry. Professor Watkins is the head of the junior high physical education and is a sixth dan in Tae Kwon Do. She may be small in stature, but she makes up for it in determination.”

  Professor Watkins looked bashful while stepping back to join the other professors. “Oh stop, Dr. Ernest,” she said.

  “You deserve every word of praise for your skills,” said Dr. Ernest. “Next, we have Professor Stephen Clickclacker.”

  An overweight man with glasses and gray hair stepped forward and nodded in acknowledgement.

  “Professor Clickclacker is your mathematics expert.” Professor Clickclacker stepped back in line with the other professors.

  “Next is Professor Henry Klarance,” Dr. Ernest said, indicating the next person.

  A thin man with large, protruding ears gave a small wave from where he stood.

  “He’s the science expert for your grade,” Dr. Ernest explained. “Now then, we have Professor Timothy Green.”

  An overweight and much younger man who looked to be in his early twenties stepped forward and gave a small nod and a wave before stepping back.

  “Professor Green is your technology expert, but don’t let his youth fool you. He’s very savvy,” Dr. Ernest warned the students. “Last, but not least, we have Professor Angela Thornton.”

  A lady in her midthirties came forward. She was slightly plump, but not overweight, and had a pleasant, friendly-looking face. She also gave a little welcoming wave and a smile before returning to her spot.

  “Professor Thornton is our expert in English,” Dr. Ernest explained. “Now that the main professors have been introduced, we’ll split you all into your individual groups so that you can become better acquainted with each other.”

  Dr. Ernest continued separating the different students by calling out their names to be matched with the selected teachers. “The following students are to go with Professor Henry Klarance: Dryden Compton, Hayley Meyers, Liam Honeywell and…” Here he announced some other names. “Please make your way to the far back right corner, and gather near Professor Clarence.” The three friends and several other students made their way to the back as instructed.

  When Liam reached the designated area with the other students, he saw an orange dot on the shoulder of one of the students. He realized that he was standing behind the student who’d been in front of him earlier in the hall—the same one that had the ladybug on his shoulder. This time, he reached forward and went to cup the insect in his hand. At his touch, the student turned around.

  “Oh, sorry!” Liam said. He felt his face heating up while he took his hand away. “I was fascinated by a ladybug that seems to like you and keeps landing on your shoulder.” Liam breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that the boy had a friendly face.

  “Really?” asked the student. “Where?” Liam leaned forward and placed one of his hands in front of the ladybug in order to coax it onto his hand. After a moment’s pause, the beetle crawled onto his hand, but as he was starting to pull it toward him to have a better look, it flew away.

  The other student saw the beetle fly away and said, sounding shocked, “There really was a ladybug on me!”

  Liam chuckled. “Yeah, well, I don’t usually go touching total strangers. By the way, I’m Liam, this is Dryden, and this is Hayley.” He gestured toward each of his friends.

  “I’m Brendan,” said the boy.

  - Chapter Nine -

  The Other Occupants

  Jayden sat at the dining room table. A world of worry sat on his shoulders. He stared out the dining room
window at the magnificent lake that glimmered in the distance in the midday sunshine. He ignored the loud chatter and noise that surrounded him. On the table in front of him was a plate full of delicious-looking food, which he normally would’ve been very happy to polish off. At the moment though, the knot in his stomach was too tight for him be hungry. He picked at the corners of a sandwich that sat on his plate.

  I don’t know how I’m going to do this, he thought. I really, really don’t want to mess this up.

  Robert was sitting next to him but not paying any attention to him, as he was busy gorging himself on the food in front of him.

  Aaron had just arrived in the dining room. “Hey, man. Why the long face?” he asked. Jayden didn’t answer.

  After the long pause, Robert butted into the conversation with his mouth full of food. “I don’t know. He’s been like that ever since we got here. If he doesn’t start eating that sandwich, I might grab it.”

  “Oh, Robert. Seriously, you’re such a pig!” Eva, who had overheard the conversation, joined the table. “Be nice and stop thinking only about your stomach for a change.” Turning to Jayden, she asked, “What’s bothering you?”

  Jayden hesitated, then answered, “You all seem so advanced in your schoolwork. I don’t know if I will ever be able to catch up.”

  “Don’t sweat it, man,” Aaron said, “They don’t expect you to be at the top level, especially not right away.”

  Eva added, “I’ve been here for a couple of years and in all that time, I’ve hardly ever seen anyone being taken away to foster families. Those students who were taken away were given all the help they needed, but they just didn’t want to try. I don’t know why they didn’t want to, but with the amount of concern you’re showing now, I really doubt you wouldn’t try.”

  Jayden cheered up a little. “What’s the story with this place? Like, how does it run? A couple of the students in graphics said we all do chores. Is that right?”