Monday:

9:00 – Linguistics – 9:50

10:00 – special course – 10:50

11:00 – Lunch break – 11:50

12:00 – Mathematics – 12:50

1:00 – Physics – 1:50

2:00 – Physical Education – 3:50

Sara was in the vast library on the school’s second floor. At the same table sat the other six Marauder neophytes while a short man with a balding head and blue plaid top passed around old leatherbound books.

“Good morning, class,” he said, once he’d finished handing out his books, “This is linguistics, the study of languages and their structure. Our main goal here is to make you better able to communicate with your peers. English is the main language at this school, but you will notice many of the older students readily switch between a number of languages. At your age, learning a new language is difficult, but be warned that it is not impossible and I will expect it of you.

“Your project for this first week will be to read the book in front of you. It is in a language which you are not familiar with. Using the translation dictionaries I have also provided you, you will read the book, translating word by word if necessary. If you need extra assistance, you are to visit me and only me – my office is in the opposite corner of this library. During our lesson, one week from today, you will provide an accurate summary of your book. Understood?”

A series of moaning ‘yes’s came from the students as they reached for their books.

“Good, for our lesson today, we will analyze sentence structure comparatively between the main languages of the world.” With that, he pulled a piece of yellow chalk from his pocket and a blackboard from around the corner and began writing.

He took the opening line from Richard Adam’s Shardik and wrote it on the board: “Even in the dry heat of summer’s end, the great forest was never silent.” He then proceeded to write it again in Spanish, Dutch, Japanese and French, once in each of the student’s native tongues. Then they broke it down into all it’s different structural parts and compared the structures of the different languages.

By the time she returned to the common room for the Marauder’s meeting, she was tired: her mind raced in confusion, and her hand throbbed. As she passed through the door, an overexuberant, infectious Lee Chung greeted her.

“Don’t go far, Sara. We have orientation in just a minute.” called the head of house.

“Just putting my books down.” she yelled, already feeling more energetic as she bounded to her own little room.

By the time the warning bell had run, they were all seated on the couch with Lee in front of them. The older students were gathered at the far end, laughing and pushing each other around in the free time they were about to enjoy.

“The first thing we’re going to do is walk around the school a bit, learn where everything is and such. Everyone’s here, so lets go.” He stood and they all followed him out of the common room and down the stairs. “So, guys? Bottom to top, top to bottom, left to right, right to left, or scramble?”

“What?” laughed the neophytes.

“How do you want this tour thing to go? We’ve already passed the window of opportunity for top to bottom, because I’m not walking back up all those stairs.”

“How does scramble work?” asked Christien, laughing with the rest of them.

“Oh good, that’s my favourite. First stop, third floor, west wing. After that, second floor, south wing. And then, we can go to the observatory.” Laughing, he led the confused students randomly around the school, although he knew it was the best way for them to learn.

At lunch, Sara pulled out her leatherbound book and dictionary. It was Shardik, written in Dutch – she recognized the first line from class. It was slow, and she was stuck at one word, Kelderik, for a long time before finally realizing it was the character’s name.

Math was her next class and she was a little nervous walking in, until she saw John and Dan already sitting in the desks. It was her first real rotating class with people from every house. She recognized a few people as neophytes but in the class of twenty, most were upper years. The topic was three-dimensional planes, after a short review on the two dimensions first. They were just plotting coordinates and trying to apply basic distance formulas with the extra dimension. It wasn’t hard but Andrew Ferris, a neophyte like herself, was a mathematical genius and pushed the pace of the class until she could barely grasp the major concepts of the lesson.

When she walked into physics, Sara’s head was swimming. She took a seat and laid her head on the lab bench.

“Where were you?”

In her confusion, Sara didn’t realize that she’d sat next to Harry Stevenson, and it was his grumpy voice she heard now. “Math.” she answered flatly, “What about you?”

“Biology.”

“How was it?”

“You know, ribosomes this, mitochondria that.”

“Cell structure?” she was starting to get interested again – she wouldn’t have biology until tomorrow afternoon. “I love cell structure. Were you discussing Kreb’s cycles and that, or replication, proteins?”

He looked over at her now, dramatically rolling his eyes. “I said, ‘ribosomes this,’ and, ‘mitochondria that.’”

“So protein chains and Kreb’s cycle, then?”

“Sure.”

At the front of the class, a tall woman with a pointed nose in a lab coat stepped out, bringing with her a long pointer stick. She rapped it once on the bench in front of her, “Attention!” she called, “Welcome to physics.” she let the ‘s’ linger a little longer than normal and continued on, “The person next to you will be your lab partner. We will start with a simple experiment – everyone is comfortable with the basic physical nature of our existence?” She paused, letting her nasal tone ring through the classroom, “Good. Today, collisions in two and three dimensions. Please find under your lab bench a package of equipment marked as such.”

She took the blackboard in front of her and began drawing a sketch of the collision. “What are the factors we must consider in our calculations?”

“Gravity.” called out one of the older students.

“Simple. But yes.” said the teacher.

“Friction.”

“As a product of gravity.”

“Momentum.”

“Energy loss – sound.”

“Heat.”

Sara shook her head, “I wish I’d paid attention in class.” she muttered.

Harry looked over at her, unpleasantly amused. He raised an eyebrow and said, “London forces?”

“Pay attention now, Miss Andrews. Not large enough to make a significant contribution, Mr. Stevenson.” called the teacher’s shrill voice, causing them both to snap back to attention. “But gravity between two objects – that is strong enough to cause a slight variance in speed and therefore distance in time. Calculations now, class. At a velocity of 5.0 m/s from an angle of 40° to the horizontal, one steel bearing of mass 1.3g collides head on with another bearing of mass 1.1g traveling at a speed of 5.5m/s 30° to the horizontal. If each is identical in size so that air resistance can be set at a factor of 1, where and when will each bearing land?”

Sara gulped audibly, “I don’t get it.”

“Of course not.” muttered Harry, as he drew number on the page in front of him.

“Excuse me?” she said loudly, causing the people nearby to turn and see what the commotion was.

He sighed, “Just look at my paper, you just have to calculate the drop time for each – which is the same, by the way. Calculate the velocities in each direction – you make a triangle, ok – they collide head on, the lighter one loses x energy in cancelling out the larger one giving the difference to the lighter one which assumes a proportionate velocity in the opposite direction, it bounces back. They land on the floor at the same time, 0.10m per vertical metre apart.”

“Good.” called the teacher, “let’s test it.”

The athletic uniforms they were provided were unusual to say the least. Their hulk of a professor told them to put on the tight black full body suit first, over which they could put shorts or running pants and the long sleeved jerseys. They were also provided with soccer cleats in their massive bag of equipment.

Coming onto the field, feeling ridiculous, Sara pulled on white leather keepers gloves and pushed up the sleeves of her sweater.

“First game: red versus green.” On top of their sweaters the students pulled on coloured checkered jerseys. “European football, begin.” He dropped the ball and blew two short blasts on his whistle.

In the crease, Sara felt at home, although this was not the community soccer field stuck in the middle of the city, and her teammates were not the walk on, casual, inner city kids she had played with since she could run. Her defencemen, Harry and an older boy in second year, hadn’t moved, they stepped on the spot, watching the action at the opposite end of the field.

A goal was scored at the other end of the field and the action moved rapidly to her court. Ready before the ball left the ground, Sara moved to block it and caught the ball in her hands.

“Defense?” called the professor, “Where were you?”

“Oh, bloody hell.” muttered Harry, who hadn’t moved the entire play.

“Harry,” she called as the ball moved down to the other end, “You’re supposed to stop the ball before I have to.”

He had a sneer plastered across his face. “Well how am I supposed to do that if they don’t come towards me?”

“Meet them, challenge them!” she laughed, “Look, if you get me through physics, I’ll get you through phys. ed, deal?”

“I guess I have to.” he consented.

“They’re coming back.” she laughed again, “Run at them and kick the ball away from here.”

Harry managed, but barely. The other forward, a burly boy in third year, continued as Harry charged him head on. Haphazardly, Harry stuck his foot out and pushed the ball away, but not without tripping the forward and sending him flying. Unfortunately, the forward flew straight into Harry, knocking him down.

Once the forward, safe save for a grass stain across his knee and palms, rolled off of Harry, the first year struggled to catch his breath. His leg slumped awkwardly and he yelled in pain when he could. Sara could see why: Harry had fallen with his one leg out front and the other folded underneath him. When the bigger boy landed on him, it pushed his knee joint the wrong way; he probably tore something.

“Hold on, hold on.” bellowed the professor as he ran over to the circle encompassing the screaming boy, “Okay, okay, you’re okay.” He pushed his way through and helped Harry into a sitting position, “Just breathe, Stevenson. Someone take him to the hospital wing.” Sara watched him look around while everyone stared at Harry’s leg. “Come on, Porter, take Stevenson to the hospital wing.”

“Yes, sir.” It was John, coming forward now and helping Harry to stand and supporting him as he hopped off the field.

Dinner was nothing special, an array of salads and pastas that Sara picked through at the table while everyone else chatted around her.

“What do you think, Sara?”

“What?” Someone snapped her out of her reverie.

“Football or soccer?” it was Dan who was talking.

“Oh,” she shook her head, “sorry I wasn’t paying attention. Football makes more sense, but I’m used to soccer – is that what you’re asking?”

“Yeah.” laughed Dan.

“So, then, what would you call football?” asked Avril.

“I don’t know, it’s not even really a ball.” she answered.

Someone sitting down at the table beside her, gave her a start.

“Hey,” said John, “What’s up?”

“Football or soccer?” asked Avril.

“Oh, it doesn’t really matter, does it? Either way, Harry won’t be playing for a while.”

This sparked Sara’s attention much more than the original conversation. “What? Why?”

“He tore a bunch of ligaments in his knee.” John paused a moment for a drink, “It was really neat though, the doctor didn’t do much except put his hands on Harry’s knee for like a half-hour. He’ll have to stay off of it for a while, but he doesn’t need surgery.”

“That’s really lucky.” said a shocked Sara, “once those things rip, they don’t heal.”

“I know. The doctor is really good, he did some kind of voodoo-touch therapy thing so Harry doesn’t need the surgery. That reminds me, someone needs to bring him dinner.” Leaving the rest of the group stunned, John took another mouthful of food.

“Will do.” said one of the others, before likewise taking food. They were beginning to realize that this was not an ordinary place.