1 That's me. I am the April fool.
LIFE. IT'S WEIRD HOW MUCH THAT ONE WORD SAYS, AND HOW MANY DIFFERENT MEANINGS IT has. When hearing it you could think of the birth of a new child: the beginning of a life. You could think of a tragic death, the morning of a lost soul: the last part. Or you could think of where I am right now: in between. But that might not be all. And not only for me. To put it simply the earth is dying. It's expected to go out completely in three months. I, Maenzee Downmane, am going to stop it. Sure, it's going to be hard for me, a 17 year old female, and a few friends, to make such a huge change, but I've never stopped before. I've done many protests and fundraisers for a variety of things, from woman's rights, to animal shelters, to wildfire prevention. A lot of people say I just like the "fame" but most of the time I just shy away from the cameras and do my own thing. No one could have predicted this whole altitude difference thing in the 21st century. We only found out this was a thing in 2130- two years ago. No one has found any way to change this, but I have an idea. I've talked to Cestirihe and Qu, two of my best friends, about it and got them on board.
I shut the door to my locker and turn to go the my first class, English, as I do so Qu jumps out and scares me. I would have screamed if she hadn't covered my mouth with her way too sweaty, ice cold, callused hands that were as shaky as usual.
"No." I say noticing the devilish gleam in her eyes she has anytime she wants me to do something with her that could get us in trouble.
"Come on we are not skipping again." I say stressing the word not. "You know how much trouble i got into last time.
"That's not what I was going to say" She protests in an unbelievable tone.
"Okay sure."
"Really, I wasn't."
"What were you going to say then?"
"I was going to ask you if you were sure about the whole you know what thing."
"The altitude difference thing? Yes, I'm sure I want to go through with that. Someone has to take initiative. Also I talked to Ms. Milo about it and she said it would probably work. And she's willing to help!" I can feel my face light up at the last part, hers mirroring mine when I mention Ms.Milo, our chemistry teacher is willing to help us.
"Really? That's amazing! When do we start?"
"I still have to talk to Ninley, but I was thinking we could start this week. Do a bit of research. I've been really curious about that whole government security breach and how that's the only reason we know about this in the first place. Someone must have known about this and didn't want anyone else to. Someone else might have found out about it and told everyone else. Or it was a hacker that found it and thought that we all deserved to know. Either way it seems really interesting. It also might help us to get more of an idea of how the whole thing works."
"Okay I understand where your coming from, but don't you think that it would be better to start on a model so at least we have an idea of what these will look like and how it works" She says pointing to the sketch I didn't realize I had gotten out during our short lived conversation.
"Okay we can start on modeling it but after the model is done we're doing research." I negotiate with her.
"Okay that seams fair enough." She says, but it still sounds like she's avoiding doing reseach.
By the time we had finished our conversation, we had made it to the door for Science, Qu's first class. I ran down the twists and turns of the mile long hallways to get to English, a split second before the bell rung. I entered the class, slightly out of breath, and took my seat beside Maria, the quiet girl, and Dalbyne, the nerd and my twin brother. I don't talk to him much at school, but it's nice to have someone with you all the time that knows what your doing in class, especially sence I don't pay much attention. Ms.Gainet always looks odd, and even though she's only in her mid twenties, she wears clothes that look like they were from the 2040's. Today she's wearing a dark red skirt that hugs her thin torso, before flaring out loosely over her legs, stopping just above her knees, and a bright white silk blouse tucked into it. She's wearing bright red shoes, close to the same color as her bright red lips that look even brighter against her pail face. As she blabs about Shakespeare, I continue to fill my notebook with ideas of what could go wrong with the invention, and how to fix them. Every so often I will look up to see Ms.Gainet writing on the blackboard, which stands out on the baby blue walls of the newly painted classroom. All the rooms were painted over the Ascension Day break. I was surprised by how quickly they had finished painting it. All other classrooms were painted white, but Ms.Gainet insisted that her class be baby blue, the same color as her eyes that were way too big for her face of small features.
I hear a bell ring and wonder if I had fallen asleep, because I had just sat down a few minutes ago, but by everyone lining up at the door, I can see it's the fire alarm. I look over at Dalbyne and he reassures me it is just a drill, though no class has gone out to the hall. I believe him until I look across the hall and see home ec. has smoke pouring out of it, teachers spraying it it with bright red cans, which are easily identifiable as fire extinguishers.
Soon enough the fire is out and charred belongings are being tossed out to be claimed. Somehow I see my sketchbook full of ideas for changing altitude difference on top of the pile. I'm confused as to how it got there, before remembering that Ninley had joined our conversation and asked to look at the drawings over his lunch break. I run over to grab it, see all the the pages were engulfed in flames and charged past recognition before it was able to be put out. My heart drops to my stomach at the sight of it and as I picture how long i'll be up tonight -- or tomorrow if it comes to that--, already knowing i will be running off very few hours of sleep tomorrow.
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After school that day I decided to run to the nearest craft store to pick up a new sketchbook. As I run the puddles of a recent rain splash up and spot my white jeans and black shoes with the revolting brown of a new spring's muddy slush. We got a bit of snow this year, witch was a only in a life time opertunity. I see, out of the corner of my eye, a birdbath overflowing with birds, some getting drinks, and others just sitting there. They all look different, with short, thin legs and a small beack and throught. It looks peaceful to say the least, and I brush off the way they look. If only they knew what was coming- maybe they do and are trying to figure this out as well. No, just a dumb thought. I continue my run towards the art store, glance at my watch when I arrive, and see the time; 3:45; I ran here in fifteen minutes. I picked up the first sketch book I could find, wanting to get the designs down before I forgot them, but I got distracted looking at the different pencils. There had to be more than fifty different types of them, with a bajillion different designs for each type. I pick up one with a word on it. All the pencils were done in black and white, including the add-ons on top. Looking at this world, my mind starts to drift, asking millions of questions at once and not getting an answer to them. I hate when I dont know things, and I hate even more when there's no way of getting the answer, but that doesn't stop me from thinking; is this what it will be like after all life has been wiped? How long will it take to be habitable again? How hard will it be for civilization to reform? Will humans even form again, or will there be some other animal- or animals- with a conscious mind? I figure it would be better if I didn't find out, best if no one had to.
As I'm running back home, I pass by the same birdbath as when I went to the store, noticing that most of the birds are in the same position as when I came by before. I stop, joging a bit, before turning back and walking into the yard where the birdbath is. I now notice that the birds are actually cameras and its a security system. Pretty cool.
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I glance at the clock; 2:00am. I have been up in my room sence I got home, putting pencil against paper and re-drawing all of the designs to the best of my ability. My parents came up to give me dinner, witch is still sitting on my night table, stone cold. Cestrirhe is the artist of the group, so she drew all of the models, but I do my best to try and match it. I hear my brothers footsteps outside my bedroom, along with someone fiddling with the door handle, bringing me up from my drawing. Though I'm not very good at drawing, it helps me take my mind off of the real-world stress. I stand up and peak out the door, seeing a string getting pulled from Dalbyne's hands, connected from my door handle, to what looked like was going to be my parents door handle. That's when i realize that it's April fools day. Dalbyne gives me the death stare because I just ruined his evil April fools day plans. I decide to tip toe out of my room and over to him, making sure I avoid the creaky sections of the floor to make minimal noise as my parents are still asleep.
"If we team up there's less against us and more against them." I whisper, nodding at our parents door.
As if to say "yes", Dal gave me a bag full of cocoa powder and whispered; "put this in the shower drain, I'll tie this to the outside of your door, but give you enough slack to pull it in. When someone takes a shower the cocoa powder will rise up and brown stuff will fill the bottom of the tub." Remembering that he has to take the first shower later, I take the bag, and run as fast as i can, while still being quite, down the hall, gaining a sense of joy that I get to be mean to my brother on his own terms. My father works from home, so I grab a bunch of cups from the kitchen and fill them with water, placing them one by one on his office floor. He also types while looking at his keyboard, as do I, so I pop out some of the keys and switch them around. Lastly I switched the coffee grinds for cocoa powder, even though Dal never asked me to, before heading to bed.
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The only reason I wake up on time is because of Dal's screeching about the brown powder. It takes me a few minutes, but I now realize that he's not actually scared, but my mother and father will be when they see the brown water rising from the tub drain. I decided that there's no going back to sleep with the high pitched girl screaming coming from my slightly older brother, so I put in my earbuds and let the music take control over me as I get ready for the day. No matter how evil it was for Dal to skreech, knowing I was asleep, music brings me out of any bad mood.
As I'm getting ready to leave my parents have their first sip of the "coffee" I made them, spitting it out almost instantly.
"What is this?" I heard them both ask concurrently.
Before sliding them each a to-go cup I put together last night I say all-to simply; "I thought you liked cocoa." They just roll there eyes as my father gets up, way too tired from a night of no rest which was interrupted by hyena-like noises, and dragged his tired, sagging body into the office with no care of looking down. He stepped directly on the cup with the most water, making it explode under his feet. I toss him some paper towel and run out the door before the insanity occurs. I dont stop running until I get to the bus, and am as late as usual. Dal tried to keep up, but sprinted and stopped, sprinted and stopped, sprinted and stoped all the way over. I didn't bother waiting for him, knowing that he would catch up before I set foot on the sidewalk tile alongside of the bus. I'm surprised by how much energy I had, since I was up until 4:30 this morning adding detail to the drawn models.
On the bus, I sit in my usual spot, next to Ninley with Qu and Cestirihe in the seat next to ours and start to talk to them, explaining the morning I've had so far, realizing that my parents hadn't done anything. Yet.
"That sounds hilarious!" Qu comments.
"Oh, you should have seen her face! That was priceless." Dal chimes in from the seat in front of us, laughing the words out instead of saying it.
"You missed it, there was a hyena in the house yearlier. Oh wait, never mind, it was just you screaming about the cocoa powder that you had me put in the drain." I say, joining in on the laugh talking.
"Please. At least I was acting." Dal is a terrible actor and a terrible liar, at least to me as we are twins. We've been through everything together, even birth!
"Your a terrible liar. And at least I was smart enough to get out of the house before stuff went down."
"Leaving me with the aftermath." He said, his voice taut.
"As I said, at least I was smart enough."I gloated
At this point he had just given up and scoffed, talking under his breath just loud enough for me to hear it. He said something along the lines of; at least I know when a dream should be left alone miss I'm gonna change the world. This made me mad, but I figured if I kept quiet about it, I could bring it up in a future argument and catch him off guard.
The rest of the bus ride is spent with Qu, Cestrirhe, Ninley and I talking and laughing about april fools day pranks.
