Bounders (8 page)

The freckly kid, whose name turns out to be Ryan, snagged the rack next to ours and is unloading his geode collection. Weird. Why would anyone waste his weight allowance on rocks? Cole doesn't think it's odd. He hops off the bunk and launches into a never-ending talk with Ryan about crystals and gems and meteor fragments.

As soon as I made it back to the bunk with my bags, I stuffed my clarinet case under my pillow. I'm kind of jealous of Ryan, the rock guy. At least he has no problem being right out there with his dorky hobby. I spent the last three years hiding the fact I still love to play an instrument. Clarinet does not equal cool at East, District Eight, Grade Six. Why do I care what other people think? Addy always asks me. I don't know. Being out there with the clarinet was inviting others one step closer to the truth. I'm different. I'm a Bounder.

But at the EarthBound Academy, I'm not different at all. That will take some getting used to.

Marco, Regis, and a big group of cadets from the back bunks cluster around the center tables. Regis jumps on top and pulls up another cadet. They wrestle until one of them falls off. After five matches, Regis is still the victor. When no one else will fight, he skips down the length of the tables until he reaches the front.

“Hey!” Regis shouts. He looks right at me. I duck my head and hope he's talking to someone else.

“Hey, you! Top bunk!” he yells. Reluctantly, I lift my head. “Get up here. Show these clowns how to chicken fight.”

I don't see a way out. And there's no way in the world I can beat that guy. I can barely make it off the air rail without tripping over my own feet. I'll be laughed right out of a fight.

Still, I have to save face. I slowly slide off the bunk and cross to the table. The metal chair leg screeches against the floor as I pull it out. I lift my foot, still stuffed in its indigo sock, onto the chair seat and hoist myself up. Regis's crowd claps, egging me on. Regis beckons me with his hands. He looks wild, hungry, like he wants to devour me.

A whistle pierces right through the ruckus.

I turn. We all do. Lieutenant Ridders stands at the door. I leap to the ground.

“Stand and salute your senior officer!” he shouts.

Everyone snaps to attention.

“Obviously, you need to be reminded you are Earth Force officers. I expect you to show respect for your rank at all times. Am I clear?”

A hodgepodge of “yeahs,” “yeps,” and “uh-huhs” answer back.

Ridders walks right up to Regis, who jumped off the table when the whistle blew. “There is only one way to address a senior officer when he asks you a question, and that is ‘sir.' Understand, cadet?”

“Yes, sir,” Regis says.

“And what about the rest of you? Am I clear?”

“Yes, sir!” we reply.

“Good,” Ridders says. “Lights out, cadets.” He crosses to the door and presses the control panel, leaving the room lit only by floor runners. “Wake-up call is at six hundred hours. Stay in your bunk. Leaving the dormitory at night is against the rules.”

When Ridders leaves, everyone slumps. Some of the cadets—mostly Regis's crew—complain about the rules. Others are annoyed Ridders pulled rank. And from what it looks like, a lot of kids are just plain anxious—pacing, mumbling, rocking, whimpering, all of the above. Me? I'm just relieved I don't have to fight Regis and make a fool out of myself in front of the entire dorm.

After climbing up to my bunk, I pull out my clarinet case. The supple leather gives beneath my fingers. I pop the clasp and fit the pieces together. As I grip the black-and-silver instrument in my hands, I recall each detail of last night. The whisper of Addy's movements in the dark. The sad melody that slipped from the strings of her violin.

There's still some chatter in the dorm, especially in the back where Marco and Regis set up camp, but most of the kids are silent except for the rustling of sheets and swish of blankets. I put my clarinet away and shove the case in the crack between the mattress and the bed frame.

It's cool in the dormitory. And even though I'm surrounded by dozens of boys—dozens of Bounder boys like me—I feel completely alone.

“Cole,” I whisper into the darkness, willing my voice not to crack.

“Yeah?” he replies.

“Good night.”

“Good night, Jasper.”

Maybe I'm imagining things, but I think he sounds grateful. I close my eyes and drift to sleep.

The next morning brings a true taste of life in the Force. Lieutenant Ridders shows up at six a.m. He's nice enough, but he has five other officers with him. Each is meaner than the next. They shout at us to get out of bed, and drag out the cadets who aren't fast enough. Anything we forgot to stow away—shoes, hats, even one cadet's framed picture of his pet hamster—they kick across the dorm floor. They bark orders to get into daily uniform.

I'm not even sure which clothes make up the daily. I dig into the duffel filled with Academy gear Mom packed. Earth Force shipped the stuff direct to us a few months back. Predictably, Cole knows exactly what to wear. I copy him as best I can, and once he's dressed, he rummages through my storage bin and pulls out the rest of what I need.

“How were we supposed to know?” I say. “I figured daily uniform was what we wore yesterday.”

“No,” Cole says. “Those were dress formals.”

“It would have been nice to get a little direction. I mean, we're just kids.”

An officer with black hair and bad breath steps close. “You got something to say, plebe?”

“No.” What on earth is his problem?

“No, what?” the officer says.

“Uhhh . . . I don't get it,” I say. “Just no.”

The officer bends down and yells in my face. “No, sir!”

I try not to turn away as his bad breath rolls over me. “Got it,” I say. “Sir. I mean, no, sir.” I hold my breath, hoping that's enough to get him off my back.

The officer stretches up to his full height. He looms over Cole and me, and he's thick. “That's more like it, plebe. Don't step out of line. I'll be watching.” He shoves my shoulder, knocking me straight into my storage bin.

He lingers for a moment, a sick grin on his face, and then moves on to the next rack to harass some other cadets.

I scamper out of the bin and struggle to catch my breath. Pull it together, Jasper. Don't let that bully scare you. That's all he is. A bully. After all, what could that clown do? You're the Bounder, not him.

Cole tugs my sleeve. The cadets are lining up. The officers position us by the door and march us out.

“He's probably just jealous,” Cole says.

“Who?” I ask.

“The officer with the bad breath.”

Yeah, right. “Why on Earth would he be jealous of me?”

“Did you see his rank?” Cole asks. “He's an auxiliary officer. That means he was skipped over for quantum aeronaut.”

Hmmm . . . he couldn't even make the cut? I smile. Cole with all the knowledge. He's definitely a good first friend. “Yeah, he's probably annoyed he has to chaperone a bunch of Bounders.”

Ridders leads us out of the dormitory and into the long narrow corridor. Something about the dorm felt a bit more homey—probably just because my stuff was there—but the hall is like a slap to the face. Wake up, Jasper, you're not in Americana anymore. My dull headache returns the second I step under the bright lights, and the walls close in around me. The only thing that breaks the monochromatic sameness of the spearmint walls is the occasional door with its brushed metal handle and a flashing keypad mounted alongside.

And the place still stinks. Did they forget to circulate the air in here?

We follow Ridders, all dressed in our dailies, in a single-file line down the center stripe. If you ignored our out-of-sync steps and our short stature, you might actually think we were Earth Force officers.

Wait a second—we
are
Earth Force officers. Geez, that is awesome. Mind-blowingly awesome.

“What do you think the sensor is for?” Ryan asks as he places his foot on the platinum stripe.

“Definitely some kind of automated transport device,” Cole says.

“Oh!” I say. “It's for these mini Spider Crawlers. They look like plain black boxes when they're zipping along the sensor, but then they have these long spiky limbs for walking just like the big Crawlers.”

“How do you know that?” Cole asks.

Uh-oh. The only reason I know about the robots is because of my escapade with Marco. The last thing I want to think about right now is that mystery alien, and I'm definitely not ready to tell Cole. I shrug. “I must have read it somewhere.”

Cole frowns. I worry he's going to interrogate me, but I'm saved by our arrival at the mess hall.

The hall is filled with a couple dozen circular tables, all a funky orange color. The walls are the same dull green, but the orange brightens the place up. There are even portholes along the wall where you can look out into space.

When we walk in, our formation falls apart. The girls are already here, and there's a lot of chatter. If I close my eyes, I can almost believe I'm in the school cafeteria back home.

Most of the boys beeline for the food. I'm hungry, but I can't shake the horrid smell of stale hot dogs. It kills my appetite.

Lucy rushes over and steers me to a table in the back. Cole follows. She frowns at him, but she doesn't shoo him away.

“Guess what I found out,” she says.

I raise my eyebrows. She's going to tell me no matter what I say.

Sure enough, she keeps right on talking. “After breakfast they're announcing the pods.”

“Really?” Cole says. “Have you learned any more about how they assess compatibility?”

She shakes her heard. “No. Total silence on that front. But Florine says they're not going to finalize assignments until this morning.”

Hmmm. What are they waiting for? What grand insight into our character did they expect to get in less than twenty-four hours?

At the next table, Ryan and some other cadets inhale plates of something yellow and spongy that might be scrambled eggs. As I watch them, I try to make sense of what Lucy said.

“Well?” Lucy asks. She must have kept talking. I zoned out.

“Sorry. Ask me again.” I fix my eyes on Lucy. She's changed her hair. Her ribbons match the daily uniform—indigo and orange. Like the tables.

“How was your night?” she asks.

“Fine,” I say. Cole embellishes my answer with a technical description of the racks and storage areas and the morning wake-up committee.

“That sounds just like the girls' dorm,” Lucy says. “But you guys didn't have the late-night excitement we did.”

“What happened?” I ask.

“I bet you could guess. Oh, don't bother. I'll tell you. Dancing Queen decided to take a stroll in the middle of the night and set off all kinds of alarms. Let's just say, no one could have slept through it.”

“Mira?” I ask.

Lucy nods. I follow her gaze across the mess hall. Mira sits alone by a porthole, her hand pressed against the glass. Her shirt is untucked, and some of her hair has pulled loose from her braid.

“Wait a minute,” Cole says. “The dorm doors are linked to an alarm?”

“To put it mildly,” Lucy says. “It was like a five-alarm fire when Mira wandered off. Before we knew it, a dozen armed officers showed up. They checked each bed, taking a head count.”

“I don't understand,” Cole says. “Why would they need that kind of security?”

Lucy shrugs. “Let's eat.”

As I follow Lucy and Cole to the chow line, I'm struck by the memory of what Marco and I saw in the med room. I have no clue why they need so much security either, but I can't shake the feeling it has something to do with the alien.

ONCE WE GET OUR FOOD, LUCY
ditches us for a table with a group of girls. Cole and I set our trays down next to Ryan and some other guys who have bunks near us in the dorm. They seem all right, although one guy constantly interrupts, and another can't seem to get off the topic of astroharvesting as the future of agriculture. A thrilling topic for absolutely no one.

I shovel an enormous bite of scrambled eggs into my mouth.

“Blahhh!” I spit the eggs back onto the tray. “What is that nastiness?”

“Fluffed tofu,” Ryan says. “They ship it here freeze-dried and then pump it with hot air in the kitchens. I kind of like it.” His mouth is overflowing with the stuff as he talks.

“Take mine if you want it.” I push my plate away and nibble on some fruit sticks I grabbed in line. Maybe lunch will be better.

I talk to the other cadets and try to ignore my grumbling stomach. Two guys at our table are from Americana West. One of the guys is from Eurasia. And another is from Australia. I guess there really are Bounders everywhere.

The Westie next to me keeps checking his watch.