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Show 36 SEVEN "Scheduling 2,000 students into six class periods a day is the ultimate challenge of modern education," Parker had written in an essay for Mrs. Simpson. "As everyone knows, the well-ordered school day depends entirely on students responding to bells." He'd studied it in sophomore biology, of course. Pavlov. Ring the bell, saliva flows: conditioned response. It was the same pattern they followed every day at school. Ring the bell, classes change. Simultaneously each room disgorged its students into the halls; five minutes later, more or less, the rooms swallowed them up again. We even exit in the same order, Parker thought, hurrying out of creative writing behind Big John. Anzak always went first-like in the alphabet. He himself followed. Eccles next, Sanelli and Vandermeide side by side, then the girls. "Like a pack of stupid Pavlov dogs!" Parker muttered, taken by the similarities. All of us, that is, except Dyna. Suggs wasn't so predictable. Today, in fact, she'd stormed out of the room somewhere around the middle of period one and never returned. Moving into traffic along with the other robots, Parker wondered where she'd gone. Right on Parker's heels, as per program, Derek Eccles and company pushed out into the hall. "What'd you do to make her so mad?" Parker heard Sanelli ask. "Me? You talkin' to me?" Derek said. Parker slowed, falling into stride alongside Derek as Mike Vandermeide caught up on the other side. "You'll learn, Eccles!" Mike cut in with his favorite barb. "You guys got nothin' better to do than follow me around?" "If I were you," Sanelli grinned over Derek's head, "I'd pick on someone my own size next time." "Yeah," Mike agreed, "she's a monster. I'd hate to have her beatin' on m^ ass!" Derek cut back and let them walk ahead, but Sanelli pivoted to face him again. |
