Gray Skies Read online

  “Hadley sat there,” he whispered just loud enough to be heard. Hearing her name gave him a good feeling, leaving him content for today. Tomorrow might be different, but then again, tomorrow might be different for everybody in the world. After all, today was to be the End of Gray Skies.

  “Attention, Class,” Ms. Gilly commanded again. The sound of chairs moving, and the hinged screeching and clunking of school desks opening and closing became rushed. The ruckus continued, as everyone prepared for the day, and then the noise slowed to a few stragglers before stopping. As Ms. Gilly began to speak, one last clunk of a heavy desktop made her eyes turn toward the offending sound. As she approached the source, young Rick Toomey went about his business of rummaging inside his desk, preparing a writing parchment. Ms. Gilly stared at the boy, who was unaware that he was holding up the class. With her eyebrows raised, she waited for him to finish and acknowledge her. It was only when the room had completely quieted that Rick Toomey took notice. When his upturned face met Ms. Gilly’s, he blushed with embarrassment, and forced a smile as the rest of the class let out a relieved laugh. Ms. Gilly chortled once, raising her hand to her mouth.

  “If you weren’t so darn cute…” she started, and then brushed her thick fingers through his hair, rustling it, before returning to the front of the class.

  “Does anyone know what day today is?” Ms. Gilly’s voice sang out over the class. The room was silent again. Of course, the older students knew what the announcement was about.

  Surely they remember, Declan thought. Certainly Sammi does. Like Declan, the rest of the older students had been here for the previous End of Gray Skies announcement. They had been here with a much thinner and younger Ms. Gilly, and they had sat close to the front row, like Rick Toomey was today. They’d listened to her exciting announcement, and had watched the world history moving pictures. And they had also been here for the failure; there had been no End of Gray Skies.

  “Does anyone know?” she repeated, speaking in a settled and calming voice.

  “It’s the End of Gray Skies,” the class answered. A few voices trailed off, and then hushed amidst the giggles and the clapping of a few hands.

  “And can anyone tell me what that means?” Ms. Gilly requested, with her voice pitched higher, as if she was holding back the need to spill the answer, herself.

  Declan shrank back into his chair, thinking that if he could make himself smaller, he’d avoid being called on. To his surprise, young Rick Toomey stood up with a toothy grin planted across his face. He turned, and spoke directly to the class.

  “The End of Gray Skies is when the five Oceanic-VAC-Machines will change our Earth back to the way it was.” He finished with a stern nod, and Declan couldn’t help but grin.

  “Thank you, Rick. That is correct,” Ms. Gilly acknowledged, motioning for the boy to sit. “Now, who can tell me why? Why is this of interest to us?”

  Ms. Gilly’s eyes crawled across the room, searching for someone. Her hand lifted, and jabbed at the air, as if counting the number of students in the class. Declan was familiar with what she was doing: if someone didn’t volunteer soon, she’d decide who was going to answer. She’d likely pick from the older children, and this wasn’t going to be a short answer. Declan began pushing back against his chair again. This time, he pushed until he heard the frame moan and creak, catching Ms. Gilly’s ear. When she turned to the sound, her eyes settled on him, and her finger stopped bouncing in the air. He sighed with a simple resignation. Ms. Gilly grinned, satisfied with her selection.

  “How about you, Declan? What can you tell the class about the End of Gray Skies? Wait…” she paused with her finger in the air, as though plucking words from it. “Actually, I want you to first tell the class about Gray Skies. What happened?”

  Silence; Declan hesitated, and didn’t say a word. When he felt a tiny jab on his back, he knew that Sammi was most likely laughing silently in bliss. She punched him again, hard enough this time to bump him forward. He heard Sammi’s mock laugh, while she landed another bump of her hand. Declan leaned forward, and then stood.

  “Come up here, so that everyone can hear you,” Ms. Gilly said, slapping her open hand against her hip.

  “Go on, Dicklan, go on, now,” a voice from the back row teased.

  “Don’t mind them,” Sammi comforted. “Go ahead, you’ll do fine. You always do.”

  Sammi was right, Declan knew it. But nerves played in his belly, and made his steps feel wobbly. When his mouth went dry, and his throat turned scratchy, he thought to go back to his seat. Maybe he could complain of a stomachache, or a headache. When he stopped and turned back, Sammi shooed him with a wave of her hands. Declan forced away the reluctance, and pressed forward until he found himself facing the class. Over the last ten years, he’d sat in every row and probably every desk in the classroom. He knew every corner, and every chip, crack, and scratch on the blackboard. He could name each turned up edge, and warped floorboard, and could even point out the pitted nails that were losing their grip on the wood. He knew everything there was to know about the room, yet the classroom looked different when standing at the front. It always did.

  The youngest of children sat in the front row, twiddling their fingers and hands, while looking at nothing in particular. One child stared at Declan with an absent look on his face, as he made noises by clapping his hand against his open mouth. Older children lined up in each row behind the first. The oldest students sat in the back rows, including Sammi. And though he was a little older than Sammi, he liked that she sat behind him.

  Sammi caught Declan’s eyes, and delivered a wide smile, and encouraging nods of her head. Even from where he stood, he could see the bounce of her red hair as she gestured her support for him. He smiled back, but it quickly faded when another voice teased from the back row. Ms. Gilly fired off a rapid set of claps to silence the class.

  Once everyone settled again, Declan began to tell the tale. Any trepidation or nerves that had juggled his insides went away. He didn’t feel the anxiety tugging at him; his legs felt firm, instead of rubbery and loose. He spoke to the class, as though he were writing one of his stories. This time, the words wouldn’t end up trapped in the filters of the waste-recycler. With his voice, and through his words, he showed the class what had happened. It was a sad, but good story.

  When the young children in the closer rows shifted in their seats, and he saw their expressions changing, he knew that he had them hooked. It wasn’t quite the fairytale that his mom used to put him and his sister to bed with, but it was their history. It was who they were, and what their world had been centuries before. He felt himself begin to relax, as the story unfolded from his lips.

  “Nobody knows exactly what happened. Nobody really knows what happened at all. Hundreds of years have passed since the massive Oceanic-VAC-Machines were built to fix what was broken. Five of the machines were built: one for each of the oceans. Over twenty years, thousands of people from all over the world worked together, communicating, building, and testing. They were going to save the world.

  “Whether the world actually needed saving might never be known. Some speculate that the gigantic machines were built to transform the oceans into a new energy source, feeding the world’s growing hunger for energy. Some believe that the machines were created to fix global warming, while others thought the use of the ocean could fix the Earth’s ozone layer.

  “Turning the machines on took months, but within just a few weeks’ time, the converted ocean seawater rose high enough above the surface, fixing whatever was broken, or so they thought. But it also made the Earth’s air heavy; too heavy. The machines were left on. The scientists expected Earth’s atmosphere to absorb, and to adjust, and since nobody could see a problem, nobody was alarmed. But the air continued to grow denser.

  “When they realized that the atmosphere couldn’t absorb the changes, the scientists had to try to fix the machines. The ozone layer was still a few years from being whole again, and the machines needed to remain running. So that is what they tried to do. Protection from the sun was better than before. For that, the machines worked. But at the same time, the machines were suffocating the planet.”

  “Why didn’t they just turn the machines off?” asked Stewart, a boy in the third row.

  At some point, while Declan presented the history of what had happened, Ms. Gilly had taken his seat in front of Sammi. Slouched forward with her chin resting on her hands, she lifted her head to listen.

  “That is a very excellent question, Stewart. Very good,” she complimented. Stewart smiled, his eyes beaming with pride, as he enjoyed the attention.

  “Tell us why they didn’t turn off the machines,” Ms. Gilly directed to Declan.

  Declan thought about this. He felt distracted, and wanted to present the details as he remembered; it was required learning for all the students from the fifth year, forward. His eyes darted around the class, hoping to land on something that would help him focus. He clenched his mouth as a wave of nerves haunted him like a bad memory. When enough time had passed to become uncomfortable, Ms. Gilly stood up from the chair, blocking Sammi from his view. A moment later, the round top of red hair appeared from behind Ms. Gilly’s bottom.

  Sammi mouthed the words, “They could not…”

  He lifted his brow and said, “Because the machines couldn’t be turned off. Well… they could, but since each of them needed months to turn back on, the scientists didn’t want to take the risk, in case they didn’t come back on, at all.” Ms. Gilly turned just enough to see Sammi’s head quickly slip back behind her.

  “That’s right. Thank you,” she said, and then added with a sarcastic lift in her tone, “Thank you too, Sammi.” The class let out a laugh, but then quieted again when Ms. Gilly raised her hand. She was laughing a little too. Declan was about to continue, when a skinny, pale arm sprouted from the fourth row. Before Ms. Gilly could call on the owner of the arm, Tabby Wetton began to speak.

  “Hi, Declan,” Tabby started to say, and then showed off her dimples through a bashful grin. At once, Declan felt flattered. Tabby had admired him for most of the school year. Sammi thought it was cute, especially the way Tabby followed Declan around, and fawned over him. He thought she was sweet, but he was careful to not hurt her feelings. Gently biting her lower lip, she straightened.

  “What happened next? Why didn’t anyone know there was something wrong?” This part Declan remembered from the history class. He remembered, because he’d had to write a short paper on the subject.

  “The people did know something was wrong. The scientists on the project told them there was a problem; a side effect, they called it. But it wasn’t something anyone could see, not without special tools. And then it began to happen: the clouds were lower in the sky, fog formed where it never had before. Then the day came when the clouds fell. The air was too dense. By then, it was too late. Turning the machines off wouldn’t make a difference.”

  “But how bad did it get?” Tabby continued. “I mean, how much changed?”

  Declan considered this last part. He only knew what he’d been taught during history lessons. “It changed everything. The fog that we’re used to was new to the old world. It was new to everyone. They’d seen and experienced fog as much as sunshine or rain, but this was different. This fog was rich with a type of salt. People weren’t prepared. They didn’t know that their machines would choke on it, and die in the streets. Silent corpses of cars and buses and trucks filled the roads and interstate highways. All traveling stopped. Even travel by foot became impossible, especially on days when the fog only gave a few hands of visibility. Families were separated by both land and oceans. Back then, in the old world, food was brought to you. It wasn’t like it is now, where each Commune grows its own. In the bad days, food was scarce. Medicines were gone. Machines struggled, sputtered, and died, and eventually, all the metals pitted, then peeled apart, and fell to the ground, turning to dust. It was chaos and pandemonium. And it wasn’t just the people. The animals, suffered too. Birds stopped migrating; they even stopped flying, and began to die off. Thousands of species vanished. People thought that it was the end of the world. Murder, and torture, and…”

  Declan was gone. The details he struggled to remember were at the ready; his mind was racing like it sometimes did when he was writing. He recalled all the details of his research about what had happened after the clouds fell, and told the class all of it. He left none of the details hidden. As he spoke, he stared past the class. He didn’t see anyone; he only saw the words from his mouth forming in front of him. His mind was pulling and pushing them as the story told itself in a stream of thought. Pride warmed him as he uncovered the juicy details, and tied them together.

  “Declan!” Ms. Gilly yelled, interrupting him. “Declan, thank you, I think that is enough,” she spoke in a low tone, and motioned with her hand to the front row. The third and fourth year students sat with wide eyes, and mouths agape. Some had furrowed brows, and their lips were drawn down and trembling. Tabby stared, too. Her hand was to her mouth. Her eyes were filled with confusion and fright. Declan realized then what he’d done. It hadn’t been his intention to scare them. He found Sammi, then. Though her eyes were wide like those of the younger children, she had heard the stories before. Sammi raised her brow, and motioned for him to talk to them.

  Declan stepped forward, closer to the children, and then he knelt down onto one knee. He found a hard crease in the floorboards, and briefly twisted his expression. He pushed a smile past the discomfort in his knee, and looked into the eyes of each of the children.

  “It was an ugly time, and it is part of our history. But you know what? We survived. Sad stories don’t always have to have a sad ending to be good. Sometimes a sad story can have a happy ending. We are here. Your parents are here. Your family is here. We have food and school, and we still have some of the things from the old world. Not a lot, but some. We survived.”

  “Then why do we need an End of Gray Skies?” Young Rick Toomey interrupted. “Why do we have to change anything? Isn’t everything fine the way it is?”

  Declan turned to face Rick. His face was cramped with confusion. Between the story of what had happened, and what was planned for later that day, Declan wondered how many in the class felt the same way. The world today, as they knew it, was their home. Should they try to change it? Of course, he knew the answer. He’d seen the electronic photographs, and he would do anything to see them come to life. Declan stood, and a hollow pop sounded from his knee, making the kids nearest to him lose their frowns, and laugh as children do.

  “Why don’t we let Andie show us?” At once, the class straightened in their chairs, and chanted, “Andie! Andie! Andie! Andie!” Ms. Gilly smirked, and with the wave of her hands, conceded the suggestion. Unlike the rest of the class, Ms. Gilly was not a fan of Andie, the robot. However, the kids loved, and adored him.

  “Someone is going to have to get on the cycle.” Ms. Gilly demanded as she stood to join Declan at the front of the room. When she reached Declan, she pulled on his arm until he leaned in to hear her over the continued chanting.

  “You know I can’t stand Andie, but if not for the good job you’ve done, we’d be moving on to our math lessons. Next time, leave some of your writer’s imagination up here,” she told him, tapping her hand to his head. He fixed a smile, and then left her side to fetch Andie.

  “Do we have someone to cycle up? We need twenty minutes, at least. Those energy-cells aren’t going to charge themselves!” Ms. Gilly shouted over the chanting.

  Declan raised his chin enough to see the cycle. He hated that thing. He hated it when it was his turn in class, and he hated it at home. In every classroom, and in every dwelling, there was a cycle. They came from the old world, a design handed down over many generations. At one time, they were used for recreation, but today, the design was used to put energy back into the energy-cells. “A big battery charger,” Ms. Gilly had once called it. Declan didn’t much care for the history; he just hated sitting on the thing for twenty or thirty minutes, pumping his legs up and down until his thighs burned, his stomach turned, and he sweated up a stink that carried on for the remainder of the day. Nobody was exempt, either: once you were old enough, you were required to put in your time on the cycle.

  The chanting faded to a low rumble, as the older students sought out a volunteer to hop on the cycle. When nobody in the class stood up, Ms. Gilly addressed them.

  “No cycle, no Andie. Declan, stay here; leave Andie alone.”

  Charlie Tabbot stood up from the last row, and raised a reluctant hand. The classroom broke out in a cheer, and applauded.

  Taller than anyone in the class, Charlie was at the cycle within a few steps. It looked awkward beneath him, and Declan wondered how much of a struggle it was for him to push the pedals. Charlie began the twenty minutes. His knees pumped up and down, nearly hitting the handlebars. When the motor behind the cycle started to hum, a thin yellow light began to burn, like an incandescent flame. The more Charlie pumped his legs, the hotter and brighter the light became, and with each faster turn of the cycle, the bulb grew brighter. Twenty more minutes, and the energy-cells would hold enough of a charge to last a week.

  “There, you see. That wasn’t so bad,” Ms. Gilly began. “I know I wasn’t getting on that thing,” she joked, and placed a gentle hand on Declan’s back, nudging him toward Andie. “Go on, now, get Andie.” Most of the excitement was in waiting to see the android, and to see what would happen. Andie was a bit of a little miracle, as most androids had only lasted a few years before being scrounged for parts. Declan’s own excitement grew, and he joined the children in the chant.

  2

  The saying must be true, Sammi thought to herself, as Declan played with the children. Sometimes we do find our soul mate. Her face warmed with the thought, and she felt an excited flutter inside. Her momma had once told her that the feeling meant she had butterflies in her belly. Sammi had never seen a butterfly; not a real one, anyway. She’d seen them in the classroom’s electronic photographs though, and sort of understood what her momma had been saying. She watched Declan kneel down, and rile up the kids into a grander chant for Andie.