“Girls, there’s somebody in the office here to see you,” she said.

After dropping our backpacks in our room, Kim and I walked up to the office doorway. Sitting in a chair to the side of the staff desk was an older man, probably in his fifties, wearing a gray suit. He was a tall, balding man. Steve was sitting behind the desk and waved us in.

“Girls, I’d like you to meet David Marcus.”

Looking at David, I asked “The same David that wrote me the letter?”

“Yes, Miss Rose,” he replied. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

 

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Author's note: As mentioned in my blog entry earlier today. I've had some issues writing this story. I've had to go back to the last 4 parts (and the Interlude) and make further retcons so this part would make sense. Now that I have a definite sense of direction for the story, there shouldn't be any further changes. Feel free to re-read those parts if you find yourself lost. I want to thank everyone for reading. I hope you all continue enjoying "That's How the System Works".
Hugs, Danielle
 

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That’s How the System Works — Part 5
By Danielle Rose

Chapter 10

As Steve escorted us to the front office of El Modena High School early on Monday morning, I could feel the students checking out the new girls. Juanita, as usual, was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. Kim and I were both dressed in blouses and skirts. My skirt was substantially longer than Kim’s, having elected to wear a long flowing one rather than one to just above my knees like Kim. It was one of many I had picked out during our shopping trip on Saturday. I never knew I could enjoy shopping as much as I had that day. We spent two hours in Target before heading to the local mall, where we had spent another three hours going from store to store. Due to my extenuating circumstances, Stephanie was given a credit card to pay for my purchases rather than the standard cash allotment usually given for clothing. Kim and Juanita were given $300 in cash to buy things they would need as well. During lunch at the food court, I almost choked on my iced tea when I found that the final bill for my shopping spree totaled almost $1,000.

“Can I help you?” asked the secretary once we had entered the office.

“I’m here to enroll these three,” replied Steve. He handed the secretary some paperwork that indicated us as wards of the state of California, and that Olive Crest was our legal guardian. There were also transcripts from our previous schools.

“Please fill these out,” the secretary said, handing Steve three stacks of paper.

We walked over to a row of chairs and sat down. Steve began working on my paperwork, asking me an occasional question. About ten minutes later, he began working on Kim and Juanita’s paperwork. Once he was done, we walked back up to the counter. Taking the paperwork, the secretary picked up her phone and dialed.

“There are three students here for enrollment. Okay.” Setting the phone back down, she said, “The principal will be out in a few minutes to finalize everything.”

“Thank you,” said Steve.

We returned to the seats and waited for about five minutes before a tall woman came out of the door marked “Mrs. Janet Frasier, Principal”. She looked like she was in her fifties, and was tall and thin.

“Hello. I’m Jan Frasier.”

“Hi. I’m Steve Goclowski, case manager for Palm House in Olive Crest,” Steve said as he handed his business card to Mrs. Frasier. “This is Kim Wilson, Amber Rose, and Juanita Camacho.”

We all shook hands with the principal, and then she escorted us to her office. Kim and I sat down while Mrs. Frasier cleared off a third chair for Juanita.

“I’m sorry my office is such a mess. I’m still getting settled in. I replaced the previous principal only a few weeks before winter break.”

“It’s understandable,” said Steve. “You should have seen my office when I first took over Palm House. And I only have six kids to work with, you have a couple thousand.”

Sitting in her chair behind the desk, Mrs. Frasier began looking over our paperwork. As she read each, she made notes in a notebook. Looking up at both Kim and I, she asked “What electives would you like?”

“Excuse me,” interrupted Steve. “Doesn’t the counselor make the schedules?”

“Usually,” said Mrs. Frasier. “I was the guidance counselor here until I got promoted. I’m kind of doing both jobs until my old position gets filled.”

“I see,” said Steve.

“So,” began Mrs. Frasier. “What electives would you like?”

Earlier that morning, Kim had convinced me to join choir with her.

“Can we get choir?” Kim asked.

“Let me check.” Mrs. Frasier turned to the computer beside her desk and began typing. “Yes. There are openings in choir. It’s a zero period class on Tuesday and Thursday with some after school practices as well.”

“How early would we have to be here?” I asked.

“Zero period starts at 7:40.”

Kim and I looked up at Steve. “I don’t see a problem with that. You can take the local OCTA bus. I’ll get you some monthly bus passes.”

I looked at Kim, and she nodded her head.

“We’ll take it,” I said.

“Would you two mind sharing your other classes?” asked Mrs. Frasier

Kim and I shook our heads. “Not at all, we’re best friends,” said Kim.

“Good, we don’t have very many AP classes, and that would make it easier to schedule your classes.”

Kim looked at me in astonishment and mouthed “AP?” I giggled a little. Mrs. Frasier turned back to her computer. The printer came to life a couple of minutes later.

“Here are your schedules,” Mrs. Frasier said as she handed Kim and I a single sheet of paper each.

As I looked over my schedule, I saw that in addition to choir I would be taking AP Calculus, and AP English, World History, Science, and PE. The last class on the schedule had me confused. It said IL/W. I asked Mrs. Frasier about this.

“That’s Independent Living and Working. It’s a class we give to everyone either in their junior or senior years. It teaches you things like how to adjust for college, time and money management, and how to find a job. As part of the class, some of the students become teacher or office aides; others work in the cafeteria or assist the janitorial staff.”

“Olive Crest started that program nearly twenty years ago, and it quickly spread to the local high schools. About half of the high schools in the county have it now.” said Steve.

Kim and I showed each other our schedules, and we shared every single class together.

“Miss Camacho, your schedule will be different.” said Mrs. Frasier. “With the exception of fifth period PE and sixth period Independent Living and Working, you will not be sharing any classes with these two.”

“That suits me just fine,” said Juanita.

Mrs. Frasier picked up her phone. “Kim and Amber are ready. I’m sending them out.”

Mrs. Frasier hung up her phone and looked at Kim and I. “The secretary, Mrs. Baker, will get you your locker assignments and one of her aides will show you to your first class. I need to speak with Miss Camacho and Steve privately please.”

Kim and I stood up and made our way back into the main area of the office. Walking over to the counter, Mrs. Baker handed us each a folded index card with our locker assignment and lock combination number. Kim and I smiled as we realized our lockers were next to each other.

“You know,” began Kim. “It’s a good thing we like each other.”

A couple of minutes later, a short boy with strawberry blond hair walked into the office. Walking over to us, he introduced himself. “I’m Ben. Mrs. Baker asked me to show you two to your first class.”

“Thanks Ben. Lead the way,” Kim said.

Chapter 11

The day progressed rather quickly. AP Calculus and AP English were a little challenging, but Kim and I managed. The other classes were easy. Before we knew it, it was lunch time. There were two lunch periods. The freshmen and sophomore classes had their lunch during our fourth period, and junior and seniors had lunch immediately after them.

“Ugh, please tell me we're not having meatloaf!”

I stood on my tiptoes and looked ahead to the food serving area. “Yup, that’s what it looks like,” I responded. “Oh no... Why does everybody always have to serve Potatoes Au Gratin with meatloaf?”

“And here I was hoping the food would be better than at Orangewood.”

I giggled a little as I lowered myself back to my normal height. “Anything is better than last week’s Tuna Surprise.”

“I heard that, Amber,” came a familiar voice.

Kimmy and I turned towards the voice as our eyes opened wide in excitement. "Louise!" We yelled in unison.

"Hey, sweeties," said Louise. "I'll bet you’re wondering what I'm doing here, right?"

"Um, well Yeah," I replied.

"Well, I used to run this cafeteria years ago. The head lunch lady left and moved out of state to be with her grandkids, so the school district called me up and offered me my old position back!"

"That's great, Louise, but, um, can I ask you something?" I asked.

Louise held up a covered Tupperware. "I was already thinking about you. I know how much you hate those "Ugh Rotten" potatoes," she said, shaking the Tupperware full of tater tots.

"So how did you know we were going to be at this school?" Kim asked.

"Stephanie told me."

******

Once school had ended for the day, Stephanie picked all six of us up in the house van to take us home. Pulling up to the house, we noticed an old style limousine parked on the street in front of the house. Stephanie asked us to wait by the van while she went inside. A few moments later, she came back out and waved us in.

“Girls, there’s somebody in the office here to see you,” she said.

After dropping our backpacks in our room, Kim and I walked up to the office doorway. Sitting in a chair to the side of the staff desk was an older man, probably in his fifties, wearing a gray suit. He was a tall, balding man. Steve was sitting behind the desk and waved us in.

“Girls, I’d like you to meet David Marcus.”

Looking at David, I asked “The same David that wrote me the letter?”

“Yes, Miss Rose,” he replied. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

“We have so many questions,” Kim said.

“Yes, I thought you might,” said David. “That’s actually why I’m here. I was planning on sitting down with all of you and telling you what I know.”

“How many girls like us are there?” I asked.

“Well, that’s a little complicated. Let’s go get the other girls together and I’ll do my best to answer that.”

A few minutes later, Kim and I, along with the rest of the girls and staff, had assembled in the family room. David stood in front of the couches and introduced himself to the rest of the girls and staff.

“I know you all have at some point or another asked yourselves what exactly happened,” David began. “To put it simply, you are not where you belong. Now let me ask this, how many of you like science fiction?”

Jeff, Stephanie, Jessie, Michelle, Kim, and I all raised our hands.

“The best way I can put this is we are all in some kind of parallel reality different from the ones we came from.”

“The ‘ones’ we came from? You mean we’re not all from the same reality?” asked Jessie.

“No, Miss Taylor, I am from one where human beings had developed strong mental abilities. I am what your science fiction would call a telepath. I have the ability to sense someone’s thoughts. This gift is what has allowed me to sense a new individual’s arrival in this reality.”

I raised my hand. “So you knew about me the moment I woke up in the police department?”

“Yes. I asked Officer Samuels to request to his superiors that he be the one to take you to Orangewood, so that he could inform Ms. Miller of your circumstances.”

“Ms. Miller?” I asked. Stephanie waved her hand, indicating she was Ms. Miller.

“So how did we become girls?” Kim asked.

“The only thing I’ve been able to come up with is there were two of you being pulled from your realities at the same time. One of you was male while the other was female. I can only surmise that your male memories must have somehow integrated with the female version of you.”

“So everybody here is from a different reality, but not everyone has memories of being in their original reality?” asked Jeff.

“With the exception of a small handful of individuals, that’s correct Mr. Robertson.”

“Are any of us from the same universe?” asked Kim.

“No Miss Wilson, however you and Miss Rose are from very similar realities.”

“How was this reality created?” asked Michelle.

“To the best of my knowledge, some cataclysmic event destroyed my original reality and shattered the space-time barriers between realities,” replied David. “Now, I’m not a scientist, but I have theorized that the multi-verse created this reality as an orphanage of sorts. With the barriers no longer keeping the realities separate, sometimes a person becomes cosmically disconnected from their reality and “land” here in this reality.”

“I received a letter from someone that I knew in my original reality,” I said. “How is that possible if she’s from a different reality?”

“Let me explain a bit further,” said David. “When someone is brought here from their original reality, their original memories are replaced with ones of having been from this reality. When someone they are cosmically linked with arrives in this reality, their memories are further changed to reflect the arrival.”

“What would happen if another version of Amber or Darrell were pulled into this reality?” I asked.

“Nothing,” replied David. “The multi-verse theory posits that the same matter cannot occupy the same time and space. It simply cannot happen.”

“Why do we remember our original realities?” asked Juanita.

“I believe that is a side effect of your male memories integrating with the female version of you, Miss Camacho.”

“I wonder what happened to the people that knew us in our original realities.” asked Jessie. “Do you think they think we’re missing?”

“To my knowledge, their memories of you would be left intact,” said David. “I wish I could offer you a better answer.”

“So my parents must think I’m lost in the system,” I said. Tears began to form in my eyes. Kim gave me a hug and I laid my head on her shoulder.

******

Several hours later, I laid in bed thinking about everything David had told us. If my parents really did remember me, would they be looking for me? I hated the thought of causing them any more grief than I already had. My last thought before falling asleep was how much I missed my family.