Read Online After: Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia by Ellen Datlow, Terri Windling [Editors] - Free Book Online

away. “I knew all the stuff that
     was on it, but I just…drew a blank.” She shrugs. “Like I said, it happens.”
    Lauren looks surprised too, but only because she did not know. “You failed that? But
     that test was easy.” Her breathing has begun to slow. She sets her jaw, distracted
     from her own fear. “That one didn’t matter, though.” She’s right. The cull only happens
     at the end of high school.
    Zinhle shakes her head. “All tests matter. But I told them I’d been sick that day,
     so the test wasn’t a good measure of my abilities. They let me take it again, and
     I passed that time.” She had scored perfectly, but Lauren does not need to know this.
    “You took it again?” As Zinhle had intended, Lauren considers this. School officials
     are less lenient in high school. The process has to be fair. Everybody gets one chance
     to prove themselves. But Lauren isn’t stupid. She will get her parents involved, and
     they will no doubt bribe a doctor to assert that Lauren was on powerful medication
     at the time, or recovering from a recent family member’s death, or something like
     that. The process has to be fair.
    Later, after the blotty toilet paper has been flushed and Lauren has gone home, Mitra
     walks quietly beside Zinhle for most of the way. Zinhle expects something, so she
     is not surprised when Mitra says, “I didn’t think you’d ever talk about that. The
     geo test.”
    Zinhle shrugs. It cost her nothing to do so.
    “I’d almost forgotten about that whole thing,” Mitra continues. She speaks slowly,
     as she does when she is thinking. “Wow. You used to tell me everything then, remember?
     We were like this—” She holds up two fingers. “Everybody used to talk about us. The
     African princess and her Arab sidekick. They fight crime!” She grins, then sobers
     abruptly, looking at Zinhle. “You were always a good student, but after that—”
    “I’ll see you tomorrow,” says Zinhle, and she speeds up, leaving Mitra behind. But
     she remembers that incident, too. She remembers the principal, Mrs. Sachs, to whom
     she went to plead her case. Well, listen to you , the woman had said, in a tone of honest amazement. So articulate and intelligent. I suppose I can let you have another try, as long as
     it doesn’t hurt anyone else.
    Zinhle reaches for the doorknob that leads into her house, but her hand bounces off
     at first. It’s still clenched into a fist.

    She gets so tired sometimes. It’s exhausting, fighting others’ expectations, and doing
     it all alone.

    In the morning, Zinhle’s homeroom teacher, Ms. Carlisle, hands her a yellow pass,
     which means she’s supposed to go to the office. Ms. Carlisle is not Ms. Threnody;
     she shows no concern for Zinhle, real or false. In fact, she smirks when Zinhle takes
     the note. Zinhle smirks back. Her mother has told Zinhle the story of her own senior
     year. Carlisle was almost in the cull , her mother had said. Only reason they didn’t take her was because not as many girls got pregnant that year
     as they were expecting. They stopped right at her. She’s as dumb as the rest of the
     meat, just lucky.
    I will not be meat , Zinhle thinks, as she walks past rows of her staring, silent classmates. They’ll send their best for me.
    This is not pride, not really. But it is all she has.
    In the principal’s office, the staff is nervous. The principal is sitting in the administrative
     assistants’ area, pretending to be busy with a spare laptop. The administrative assistants,
     who have been feverishly stage-whispering among themselves as Zinhle walks in, fall
     silent. Then one of them, Mr. Battle, swallows audibly and asks to see her pass.
    “Zinhle Nkosi,” he says, mutilating her family name, acting as if he does not already
     know who she is. “Please go into that office; you have a visitor.” He points toward
     the principal’s private office, which has clearly been usurped. Zinhle nods and goes
     into the