The Locked and The Lost by Julia Finch (read my book TXT) 📖

is a T with a sign pointing blue in one direction and orange in the other. I follow the blue tunnel, which goes into the work and school areas. Had I taken the orange path, I would have encountered grocery stores and shopping centers. 

I hang a left when I reach another intersection, and begin to see people wandering out of their houses on their way to work or school. We have three elementary schools, one middle school, and one high school. I am in the fourth year of high school, and I will start my career at the end of this term. I will probably choose a science career, because it is my best shot at studying plants and animals. I it's not definite that I'll get a biology career, but since it is my best subject at school, it is likely. 

The first few hours of school rush by. First I have Language (we have two languages to learn. There's an English/Spanish class, and an English/French class. French and Spanish are the only options because Canada and Mexico are our only two contacts right now.) I find Spanish interesting, but it's one of my best classes, although in general, I am a good student. Then I go to social studies (not quite as interesting) and then an art class (also not very interesting.) Finally, at the end of the day I have math and science, and I can enjoy myself while reading a book about genes and how to make punnet squares. I enjoy math too, but algebra isn't as fun as the science part of the class. When class gets out, I head home to eat and get my homework done. 

I sit down at my desk in the right corner of the front row, and get out the science book. I open it to the page written on the clay board at the front of the room, and find myself looking at pictures of chromosomes undergoing mitosis. An adult walks into the class room, but it is not Mr. Samson like I expect, it is another teacher. He sits in the teachers chair next to the board and I sigh. We have a substitute today, and therefore almost definitely, a bad science teacher. Most people living in our township don't think that science is important, for obvious reasons. Biology is useless, and unless you'd like to design houses and buildings, engineering isn't the most welcomed job either. Resources are scarce, and dirty for the planet. Most people only become science teachers because the council needed more science teachers, not because they wanted to. Mr. Samson is the only exception I've found so far, which is pretty lucky on my part considering I want to pursue science.

The man introduces himself as Mr. Morison, and starts to go over the chapter in the book. As we finish the second page, Mr. Morison suddenly starts to talk about criteria that isn't even in the chapter. I flip through the next couple of pages, but can't find it. By this time, he isn't even talking about genes any more. I raise my hand to point out his mistake. "yes?" he asks me in a rough, crackly voice. "The material you're teaching isn't in this chapter," I say, trying to get back on topic. "so? This section of your science class is only here to preserve knowledge, even if it's not useful. If you really want to learn about genetics, you can read about it at home." His answer surprises me. This is the first time a teacher has aggressively told me that they didn't care. I start to protest, and to explain how Mr. Sampson would do the lesson, but I'm cut off. "Everyone get out your math books," Mr. Morison says. I take out my math book, but don't open it. I read from the science textbook for the rest of class, ignoring anything that Mr. Morison tells the me. This is my silent protest for the next half hour, until the class ends.

Colin finds me before I can escape and asks me how school was. I start to complain about science, pridefully explaining my strike on not learning science. Colin seems horrified (although I suppose he has a right to be, he is a teacher) and starts lecturing me. "Ava, you need to respect your teachers more. No matter how badly they teach their subject. Science isn't the most important class after all, and people like to be important. They like to matter in peoples lives. That's probably why he teaches more math then science, so he can matter in students future careers.

"You're as bad as Mr. Morison!" I yell at him. "Science is very important! if people took it seriously, we would already be living outside again. With clean air and animals, and the sun!" "Ava, you don't mean that. The Council is doing all they can to help us get back outside. They help us survive until the day we can return to the outside." Colin seems to believe what he says, which makes me even more angry. This isn't just a 'you need to cool down' talk, he truly believes that people should just wait out the smog.

Before he can say anything else, I run in front of him until I reach an intersection. At first I go the opposite direction of my house, but quickly change my mind when I feel my stomach pinch from hunger. I turn around and head home even though I know that my parents will tell me off for running away from Colin. I can't just leave everything behind me, I wouldn't be able to survive. With no money and no home, I would have no where to go and nothing to eat. No matter how frustrating my community and family can be at times, they are necessary.

Chapter 2: The Lost Country

When I reach home, everything goes as expected. My parents agree with Colin, I get frustrated, I get lectured, and then everything goes back to normal. Mr. Sampson comes back the next day, and laughs when he reads the class notes from Mr. Morison. He talks to me after class, but is obviously not too upset. The day goes on, and nothing particularly special happens.

The next couple of weeks are not exceptional. Finals are coming up, so most of my time is spent studying. It's nearing the end of the year, and these final tests will help determine my future job. Although the system was created so that jobs would be spread out among the people, the system is easy to work around.

Supposedly, on Choosing Day, the child who is selecting their job will state their category, and the council will review the kid's file and give them a job. The Council will choose the job based on what the child has showed promise in in the past. Mostly, the information in the files comes from schools and test scores, so if a kid wants a certain job very very badly, then they can ace the subject they like, and fail the others. I'm not quite that extreme, but I've purposely done worse than I could have on physics tests so that biology shows up as one of my 'best subjects.'

It's a little over a month until Choosing Day, and my mom is already choosing out clothes she thinks would look nice for the celebration. For a while I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to go in a big fluffy cream dress, but then she finds a nice blue skirt tucked in the back of my closet that she likes better. My mom doesn't normally act like this. She's a very down to earth kind of person most of the time, but she can get really excited about big events- mainly when she isn't in them.

Later in the day, I find myself alone in the house. My mom and Colin have gone to their work places, and my dad is out of the house, probably trying to find the cheapest fertilizer that he still considers 'good quality.' This generally means it has to be really nice. I decide to slip out before anyone gets home, and head down to the library.

Once I get there, I go to the desk, show the librarian my card that says I volunteer there, and head for the back room. The back room is a dark little corner of the library that is full of boxes of books. And when I say boxes, I mean hundreds. Piled against walls, stacked to the ceiling. I find the box I'm looking for, and turn on the light at the desk in the back.

Once the box is unpacked, I have about fifteen books spread out in front of me. I sift through them until I reach a book I haven't read yet. I just finished my sixth book from this box. Most of the books in this room are pretty boring. The storage room is mostly there for books that people don't check out often, but since most people didn't care about sciences they couldn't use, I found some good bio books too. 

All parts of biology aren't considered useless. For example, many people still study bioengineering, because it can help with all sorts of stuff like medicine, and the indoor crops. This however is not what I mean by biology. I mean field biology more than work biology. As most people point out, this is rather difficult to do without a field. In ancient field bio, field scientists could just go hiking, drawing and recording animals and their sounds and every little detail. Today, field biology has just become scientists looking at hundred year old specimens, trying to piece animals back together or trying to figure out the purpose of plant A, B and C. It can be very disheartening to think about my dream job.

The book I've selected sounds a bit less realistic than most of the books in the box. Almost like science fiction. It's called Cascadia: The Lost Country. The other book sound more like text books. The titles include Understanding the structure of Cells, and Hikers Guide to the Northwest. I open the Cascadia book and it appeares like most text books. It has a table of contents, and sections on the ecoregion and Flora and Fauna.

I start reading, but don't recognize a word. I flip back to the glossary, but I accidentally go to far. At first, I think nothing of it. I find the glossary, then flip back to the table of contents to find where I was. Then I realize that there shouldn't be any pages after the glossary. I read through the table of contents, but there is nothing there. It says glossary and then nothing. The pages shouldn't exist. I start to go back to the end of the book, but someone knocks on the door behind me and I jump, dropping it on the floor. 

"Hey, honey," my mom says behind me.

"Oh, hi," I reply. "How'd you find me?" She laughs quietly, and I smile back.

"I just figured you would be at the library when I came home and you weren't there. The woman at the desk told me where you went."

"Oh," I say. I look up and see that she has more to say. When people are talking to you, it's normally pretty easy to tell when they're