Freedomford

This is part 3 in my "Marenford" series.

Read part 1, "Everything's Illegal in Marenford."

Read part 2, "This is Marenford High."

Image: Pinterest

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As soon as math was over, I stormed out of the classroom.

I’m gonna lose so many Worth Score points because of this, I thought angrily. Not that it mattered. I was leaving tomorrow. Why did I care so much about my Worth Score, anyway?

“Hey!”

I didn’t need to turn around to know who was talking to me. It was Noah. 

“Hey! Who told you that?” he persisted, catching up with me.

“Who told me what?” I snapped, pulling my backpack tighter over my shoulders, walking fast with my eyes on my class schedule. Only one class left.

It dawned on me that this was my last day of high school. Ever. Unless they had high school wherever we were going. Where was it that we were going? I needed to ask Sam for more info.

“Who told you I got kicked out of three schools?” he asked, his gaze nervous.

I shrugged nonchalantly, still walking. “I just heard.”

He stepped out in front of me to face me. I was seething. I noticed his jeans had holes in them that looked man-made. 

“I didn’t mean to get you in trouble, you know,” he said, his eyes softening “I know it, like… probably messed up your Worth Score or whatever. It wasn’t on purpose.”

I sighed. “Okay. It’s fine,” I said.

I was starting to feel bad about what I did. He just transferred to this school and already had rumors about him. But that wasn’t me, that was just how Marenford was. Everyone was held to a very high standard. If you messed up in any way, shape or form, everyone knew. If it was super bad, they would post it on the Government website online.

But honestly, how do you get kicked out of three schools? I thought to myself.

“For the record, I don’t think many people know who you are,” I reassured him. “But maybe try not to get in fights with teachers.”

I turned on my phone to check my Worth Score. It was the first thing to open up. A glowing red screen said -5 points (minor infraction.) I still had an okay score, though. A sixty-seven. I sighed. I thought I’d made it out of the 60’s for good. 

“Wow, your score is amazing,” he said, peering over at my phone.

I held it closer to my chest and narrowed my eyes. “It’s not that great, honestly.”

“Mine’s a -120,” he said with a grin. “It’s terrible.”

I snorted. “How do you even get a -120?”

He shrugged. “You get kicked out of three schools.”

I laughed, stuffing my phone back in my pocket. “Anyway, I don’t care about my Worth Score.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Sure.”

My lips firmly pressed together in a thin line as I verified what room my last class was in. Art. Room 201. I started walking in that direction, away from him. 

The hallways were packed with kids, excited and already talking about their weekends. I had big weekend plans. Probably bigger plans than any other teenager in this whole school. I’d never have to see the slimy beige walls of the hallways ever again, or the chipping floor tiles caked with mud and dust. I’d never have to squint in the cheap, flickering overhead lights while wondering why the Government didn’t put more into the school budget. I’d never be here again.

The door to the art class was open and I walked in. I took my usual seat in the back corner. The art class was decorated with students’ various art pieces, good and bad. It was like an art monster exploded in here and left its guts everywhere. There was one art piece made entirely of macaroni. 

The art teacher wasn’t strict at all. She mostly just let us draw our own stuff. Her name was Ms. Marigold. She always wore cardigans with unique-colored pants. Today her pants were a bright green. I wondered if she was crazy sometimes. Her smile creeped me out.

She seemed especially relaxed today, leaning back in her chair scrolling on her phone with it on full volume. Maybe I’d get a nap today. I was tired from getting up so early the day before. I would’ve fallen asleep in my first period if it weren’t for Mr. Peters. He hated when people fell asleep in science class and always found some way to embarrass them.

In my art class, there were three cliques. One was the hockey boys. I always made it my mission to sit as far away as possible from them. They reeked. The second group was the art girls. They worked in complete silence, taking art as seriously as if they were in some prestigious fine arts college. I tried making friends with them once but they were too uptight.

The third group was, well, me and a bunch of other random students who didn’t care for art that much. We usually just slept. One boy was already out, his face flat against his desk. I think he was snoring.

I leaned back and closed my eyes, my shoulders relaxing. Art class was a nice place to sleep. I started nodding off, the classroom becoming dimmer and dimmer as students chatted away.

“Guess we’re in the same class again.”

I hit my elbow on my desk in my surprise and winced. 

You’ve gotta be kidding me.

I looked to my right and saw Noah again. He was smiling.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Dude, you seriously need to stop,” I said, ignoring his question and sitting up in my chair abruptly. I rubbed my eyes.

Noah raised his eyebrows. “What? There’s nowhere else to sit,” he explained. “And those guys stink.”

He cringed as he looked over at the group of boys all huddled around a computer.

They always said they were drawing on an art software, but they were probably playing some soccer game. The teacher didn’t care. She herself looked about ready to fall asleep.

I just sighed and tried sleeping again, but I couldn’t successfully doze off with the sound of Noah scraping his charcoal crayon on his paper. I gave up sleeping and looked at what he was drawing. He was surprisingly good at art.

“Is that… you?” I asked, pointing to a figure on the page.

He nodded. “Yeah.”

He drew himself in thick lines, marking out a determined facial expression. In the drawing, he was running away from an island. He wrote, Marenford in the center of the isle in thick, dark lettering. So that’s what he was running away from. He was running away from Marenford. Wait, what? My eyes darted around the room, wondering if anyone saw the drawing.

What if someone saw it and reported him to the Government? Sam had just told me about the Government cracking down escapees this morning. What if there was an agent watching us through the cameras right now, planning on throwing us in jail?

However, Ms. Marigold was asleep in her chair, her legs resting on the table. The hockey boys were engrossed in their game, for once being silent. The serious art girls were using rulers to measure out their masterpieces. 

“You drew yourself… running away from Marenford?” I asked slowly.

He smiled, but his smile was kinda sad. “Don’t say that too loud. Your Worth Score might drop again.”

I shrunk back in my chair, visualizing my Worth Score decreasing as we spoke. 

“I’m kidding,” he said with a chuckle. “I don’t care. Besides, nobody can hear us.”

“How can you not care?” I whispered, anxiety creeping into my voice. “We could go to jail.”

Noah raised an eyebrow. “It takes more than just talking about escaping to go to jail,” he said in a knowing tone. “Trust me.”

Suddenly I regretted ever talking to this guy at all. Was he implying that he’d been in jail? Maybe he was a criminal. Maybe that’s why he got kicked out of three schools. Maybe he’d lit one of the schools on fire and burned all of the students. Maybe he’d bombed a school and it exploded into millions of pieces. 

I imagined an alternative universe where I was in a different math class with different classmates and a different teacher who wasn’t on her fifth divorce. None of this had ever happened, and this conversation wasn’t even happening, and I was sleeping away in art class, ready to leave and never see Marenford High agai-

“Do you wanna know something?” he asked, his voice interrupting my thoughts.

I cocked my head. Do I, really?

He took my silence as a yes.

“The reason I got kicked out of three schools was because I tried escaping three times,” he said in a hushed voice. “Well, four, actually, but that time I didn’t get caught. And it didn’t work out that time anyway.”

He ran a hand through his hair, deep in his thoughts. 

I tilted my head. “Are you serious?”

He scratched in some other characters on his drawing. “I had issues with teachers and classmates because of some stuff my family got into before I was born,” he said, wringing his hands.

I cut him off, tucking a curl behind my ear. “Why are you telling me all of this?”

Noah raised his eyebrows. “Well, I don’t want you to think I’m just some kind of criminal. I had my reasons for trying to leave.”

I nodded slowly, processing the information. He reminded me a lot of Sam. Her dad got into legal trouble when she was a kid. Wasn’t paying his taxes properly or something. And it impacted her Worth Score just because she was related to him. That’s when she started getting into trouble. I guess she just didn’t care anymore.

He continued drawing in silence, his eyes focused. He drew himself running towards another island. He named the island Freedomford.

I didn’t know what to think at this point.

“So, what about you?” 

I looked up at him. “What about me?”

He shrugged, dusting the charcoal off his fingers. “You plan on staying here?”

“Yeah,” I said slowly. “I do,” I lied.

Noah looked disappointed.

“What?” I asked. 

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

The bell rang and Noah scrunched up his drawing and threw it into the garbage can.

“Gotta get rid of the evidence,” he said, half-joking.

“Right,” I replied, slinging my backpack over my shoulder. It felt heavier. I wasn’t sure why.

We walked out of class. My mind was busy. It wasn’t fair. Marenford wasn’t fair. Why did you have to pay for the decisions your parents made? Why did your Worth Score matter so much? Why did we have to worry about cameras when we spoke? Why was everything illegal?

We walked and he pushed open the front door for me. I stepped through.

“Thanks,” I said, the cool afternoon breeze greeting me. 

The door slammed behind him.

He gave me a small smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

My heart sank. You won’t. You won’t see me tomorrow. You won’t see me ever.

He waited for me to reply, but once he saw that I wouldn’t, he just shrugged and walked away.

I needed to do something. I needed to say something. Otherwise it would haunt me forever. I just knew it. I stood there as kids flooded out of the high school, knowing this scene would play in my head forever if I didn’t do something.

I took a deep breath in. “Noah, wait.”

He turned. 

I hoped I wouldn’t regret this.