Futuretrack 5 Read Online Free Page A

turning. “Better go and see, hadn’t you?”
    The scrum was thinning rapidly. Lads passed me, heads down, not looking, going to join Rog. Others clustered round the flagpole, jumping up and down and shouting. Then silent suddenly, as they remembered the gate group.
    The pass list flapped out through the broken, bloodied glass. I bent to read it, sick for Rog. Ran my eye down the list, peeved I wasn’t top.
    My eyes ran further and further. Panic gripped my guts. My name wasn’t above the pass line. I checked again. A third time. It was insane…
    My eye dived gingerly below the pass line. Deeper and deeper, through kids I could’ve eaten for breakfast, three at a time.
    My name wasn’t below the pass line either. I went on reading, above, below, above, below. Nothing. A computer hiccup. I’d have somebody’s guts for garters…
    Then I saw at the bottom: “Kitson unclassified. Report to Headmaster at nine.”
    It was hard not to walk round in circles. It was hard not to scream. I was nothing. I had nowhere to stand. Nobody had ever been unclassified before.
    The group round the flagpole stared at me, baffled; then wouldn’t look at me at all. Neither would the group outside the gate. The two groups shouted jokes and rude remarks to each other, but the flow soon dried up, and they turned their backs on each other.
    Silence again. It was unbearable to be alone.
    For a fleeting bitter second I even wanted to join the mob outside the gate.
    But the Unnem van was mercifully quick; they don’t hang about. It pulled up, grey and battered, heavy mesh over its windows. It looked like people had been throwing bricks at it all its life. A Paramil opened the rear doors and silently threw out some bales of blue cloth. Silently, the new Unnems stripped off torn blazers and dropped them in the road. We’d all been trained to get changed quickly. Within two minutes they were wearing faded thin denims, heavy-studded unpolished black boots.
    The Paramil gestured with his blaster. They got aboard silently, without looking back. The van did a U-turn across the discarded blazers and drove off. I couldn’t see through the heavy mesh if they waved or not. Then there was only their clothes in the road, looking like a bloodless massacre.
    Once the van had gone, the new Ests cheered up quickly—like after a funeral. The teachers came out and started slapping them on the back. The new Ests began calling the teachers by their Christian names, telling them what bloody awful teachers they’d been and what they’d hated most about their lessons. The teachers took it jolly well, laughing loudly and heartily. Quite a party, except when they caught sight of me. Then they stopped laughing, like I was a blockage in the drains, or a rain cloud on sports day. Finally, they turned their backs and kept them turned.
    Then the Head bustled up and led them off, tattered and bloody, for celebration champagne. Later, when they’d washed the glass splinters out of their hair, they’d be going to a dance at the Ladies’ College. Now Ests were truly Est, courtship rituals could begin. Staff would not be patrolling the shrubberies.
    Trouble was, to get to the Head’s house, they had to pass me. The Head swept past, marble-blue eyes tilted well above my head, looking at the last of the sunset. Like newly born goslings following a gander, nearly all the new Ests did exactly the same. I wanted to laugh,
    they looked so smug and pseud. A few still looked me in the eye, twisting mouths or raising eyebrows to show how upset they were. Only Alec looked really miserable. I was left alone to wander. A blackbird sang from the shrubbery, not caring what I was. The corner flags for next season’s rugby threw long shadows as they fluttered. Far above, Concorde flew its monthly ceremonial flight. It flew high enough to leave a vapour trail, and I wondered which of its hundred fully trained Est pilots was actually getting a chance to fly it.

Chapter 3
    I entered the