George settled a large, warm hand over my shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “See you at dinner later?”
I nodded, and George smiled just a bit, making me melt. I turned, crossing with a slight hesitation over the threshold into the room. It was a morbid location on the best of days—windowless, gray, illuminated by buzzing neon light—and when death came to call, the gloom clung to the walls, seeping through the rivets like motor grease. The kids were quiet, a wholly unnatural state of being for their age, and the pupil who ordinarily would be the happiest to see me met me with red-rimmed eyes and a quivering lower lip.
“Oh, Arden,” I said, engulfing her in a hug. She sniffled into the slick fabric of my coat, and I glanced over at my thirty-odd pupils, sitting behind their communal-style desks with eyes politely averted. Enough of them had suffered the loss of a parent or family member that no one would judge a fellow student for crying in class.
What should I say? Surely not the platitudes they’d said to me, a seven-year-old shocked numb by the passing first of a father—accidental death, on the job—followed swiftly by a grief-stricken mother, by her own hand. Something about God’s will, and how at least now there’d be two fewer mouths to feed. While a pragmatic person, I wasn’t heartless.
“You can skip today’s lesson if you want. You won’t get in trouble,” I said gently, easing my way out of her grip and toward my desk. She nodded solemnly, retreating to a shadowy corner where the recessed lighting in the ceiling didn’t quite reach.
“Good afternoon, class,” I began with a deep breath, retrieving my lesson planner from the communal drawer all the student teachers used and flipping to where our last lesson had left off. “Who can tell me how a volcanic explosion can lead to an ice age?”
A hand shot up. Carter, one of my eagerest pupils, always reading ahead for the pleasure of it. Despite the melancholy, I caught more than a few kids rolling their eyes in Carter’s direction. I called on him, knowing failure to do so would send him into a tizzy.
“When a supervolcano explodes, all the dust it releases into the air blocks the sunlight,” he said. Competent enough for an eleven-year-old.
“That’s just one part of it,” I said, “but good job. And how long can an ice age last?” Carter’s hand flew up again, but this time I waited a beat longer. A boy named Jefferson took the bait.
“Ten thousand years?”
“Not the big one,” I said. “I was thinking more of how long this current one is predicted to last.” Because there was no point in making a roomful of children panic.
“Two hundred years,” a girl in the second row called out.
“That’s what we’re hoping,” I said. “And when it comes time to go back down to the surface, all your farming skills will come in handy.” I toed the Stalwart’s line perfectly, following the lesson plan they’d given me to a T, even if it made my teeth ache to push out the words. I knew an ice age caused by a supervolcano explosion could last a thousand years, and two hundred was a lowball estimate. “Your assignment for today is to write a short story about your ancestors who left Earth. What do you think they thought about the supervolcano? How did they find out about the evacuation, and what was it like to leave Earth behind and live in spaceships for the first time?”
I pointedly didn’t mention all those who had been left behind. It was possible for human beings to survive an ice age; history indicated as much. But the percentage would be paltry; the casualties high. I tried not to think about all who had perished, though it was hundreds of years ago.
The students set to writing—it would be a class with a lot of downtime. I decided to seek out Arden, lest she be left too long to her own thoughts. I found her huddled in the back, crying over a potted plant.
“I don’t understand,” she sniffled, her voice hoarse.
“I know.” I crouched down to her level, laying a comforting hand on her back. “It’s not fair.”
“But I watered it and everything!” Arden gestured at the plant, which, now that I considered it, was looking a bit droopy.
“If I can’t figure out how to make it grow, I’ll never get to be a farmer, and what if they stick me with something awful, like engineering?” she let out in a string of breathless words, then snapped a hand over her mouth. “I’m so sorry, Stella, I didn’t think—”
“It’s okay. Engineering isn’t all that bad, but I know it’s not for everyone.” It was barely for me, but I’d take it over farming, personally. Arden, however, came from a long line of farmers—everyone on the Stalwart did—and I understood her angst. Everyone had to pull their weight on board, and working the fields was one of the more stable, fulfilling jobs.
“Did you put it under the sunlamp?” I asked. She nodded in the affirmative. “Okay, then how much did you water it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you can water a plant too much, effectively drowning it,” I said gently.
Arden’s face fell. “I used my water rations to give it more. I thought it would help.”
“Oh, Arden.” I sighed. “Drinking your daily water ration is very important. You’ll get dehydrated.” Especially with all the tears she’d be expending over the coming weeks and months. “Come with me.” I directed her to the front of the room and out into the corridor, where I unzipped a stealth pocket in my skirt and handed her my half-drunk day’s rations. She greedily sucked it down, offering me her first smile of the day.
“Listen,” I began, and her reaction was immediate—she obviously did not want to talk about her mother. So I veered into safer territory. “You’re really bright, Arden, one of my best students. I’m sure you’d make a fine farmer, but it’s not so bad if you end up doing something else. What don’t you like about engineering?”
“It’s dirty,” she said, eyeing my less-than-pristine hands, then lingering on my face. Great, I must have a smudge on my face. And George didn’t say anything. Jerk. “And,” Arden continued, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “I really, really don’t like the dark.”
“It’s actually not that dark down there,” I reassured her. “But you shouldn’t be afraid of the dark, either. Think of it this way—the dark helps us to better see the stars, so it can’t be all bad. Don’t you like the stars?”
Arden nodded, glancing over at a large recessed window, through which distant stars could only just be seen. I wandered over, knowing Arden would follow, leaning so close to the thick glass that my breath fogged it up. I cupped my hands on either side of my face to block the haze of light from behind, squinting out at the myriad heavenly bodies.
“After I lost my mum and dad, I started talking to the stars,” I said. “Someone told me that when we die, we are released out there, turned into something burning and brilliant. I don’t know if it’s true, but it brings me comfort. Maybe you can talk to the stars too. They’re excellent listeners.”
“Thanks, Stella,” Arden whispered, leaning heavily against my side. And then she turned and was gone.