Emerald Elementary was a strange name for a school. To the students the name suggested grandeur, wealth, and stability, all things missing from their lives. There was little of that to be found inside of the school. The building had, it was said, held thousands of children when it was first opened in the middle of the twentieth century, but a century and a half of age and decay, coupled with declining enrollment, meant that the school was nothing more than a relic of the past, and a dismal one at that. The only thing that shone about such a place was a plaque out front, telling of how the community had come together twenty years before to save the school from destruction when the government wanted it torn down. Going above and beyond, they’d turned the school into an exact replica of what it would have been in the far off and beautiful year of 1957, when it had first opened.
The three hundred children who went to this school were less students than they were historical actors. None of the subjects they talked about covered topics relevant to the world they lived in. Math, science, literature, none of these topics were things children were meant to care about. The only time they learned anything useful were the daily computer classes, where they learned how to use the internet, and recess, where they learned how to interact with each other. In a school as shabby as this one, even recess didn’t have much to teach them. With four playgrounds the children could run away from one another, even if the equipment hadn’t been maintained as well as the rest of the school had been. The children learned about each other in kindergarten, and they kept that knowledge all six of the years they were allowed to stay at this dismal school.
Five inmates sat on asphalt at one edge of the playground. Recess time had been doubled for them today, because their teacher didn’t want to teach them. She was a woman from the community, working for a small amount of money, but she lacked passion for her work. They didn’t realize this though. None of the teachers they’d learned under knew much about their craft. In the distance, they heard children from their class screaming, running, enjoying unearned leisure time. None of them felt like playing. They were fifth graders, and they felt they’d had enough of school, but they still had several months to go before the bell rang one final time.
Renee, the eldest of the girls, looked solemnly at the tattered flag flying above them. “The American flag doesn’t even look like that anymore.” She thought, having seen the most recent one online. Admittedly, they did look similar, but the newer version had far fewer stars. “How long ago was that flag put up?” She wondered. It looked like it could have come from the twentieth century, but it could just as easily have come from the twenty-first.
Renee turned to Anne, her cousin and best friend. “Why don’t they just close down the school?” She asked.
“I don’t know.” Anne replied. “I think it’s just to torture us.”
“I’ve seen pictures of schools in big cities.” Said Rosemary, another cousin. “They don’t look anything like this. They’ve got special devices that let you see holograms and all of their computers come outfitted with programs that let you interact with artificial humans.”
“Mom says that the AI powering artificial humans will be the death of us.” Clara said. She was the youngest of the bunch. Even though she was almost out of school, she still carried her favorite stuffed rabbit in her backpack with her everywhere she went.
“Who cares about AI?” Heather said. She was Rosemary’s twin sister.
“A lot of people do.” Rosemary said. “They think that AI will make it so that nobody is poor anymore.”
All of the girls looked at their school building. The faded paint, the worn out roof, the play equipment that was showing signs of rusting way to nothing. It was a school for poor children who lived far from a city, children who still needed parents to raise them.
“I wonder what it will be like when we aren’t poor anymore.” Clara said.
“They’ll still send us to school. Mom says that she can’t find work because we’re too poor, but the moment she finds work she’ll make me go to full days of school instead of half days. She won’t be at home all of the time.” Renee said.
“My mom says that if we had enough money, she’d hire a private tutor. She says the way they teach kids here is atrocious.” Anne said.
“I wish we had enough money for a private tutor, or even just a few virtual classes.” Heather said, glumly. “I hate staring at a book all day trying to figure stuff out for myself.”
“There’s lots of helpful tools online.” Clara said.
“Not if you can’t pay for them.” Heather said.
“I think it’ll be nice to be rich.” Rosemary said. “We could go out to eat whenever we wanted and have beautiful clothes. Once I saw a pretty necklace at the toy store, but mom said we couldn’t afford it.”
“Don’t your parents get food stipends?” Anne said.
“Yes.” Rosemary replied. “They say those don’t go far with two children.”
“If we do become rich,” Renee said, “I’m going to be one of those influencers on Fantasy Instagram who has a million followers.”
“In this day and age?” Anne said, “Don’t be ridiculous. Mom says nobody has over a hundred thousand unless they head a community.”
“Well, I’ll change that fact. I’ll have people in to interview every day, and I’ll have my name and face shown on every website in existence.”
“Like Cameron Walker?” Clara asked.
Renee gave her cousin a withering look. “Cameron Walker isn’t real, Clara.” She said.
At that moment, they heard the bell ring for the end of class. Apparently, their teacher had decided not to teach them anything at all. It wasn’t the first time she’d done this, and the girls heard rumors that the principal was going to fire her soon if she didn’t improve. “I wonder when we’ll get a new teacher.” Renee thought to herself.
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