The Woodlands Read Online Free

person had inspired or influenced your life. I ask that you read your assignment to the class and hand in the written part for me to mark later. Who would like to go first?”
    No hands went up, so he picked someone. I rolled the mascara between my palms, rolling my eyes at the student’s extremely boring presentation, clearly plagiarized from the textbook.
    “ …So the Superiors developed the Classes—a brilliant way to train the youth of the Woodlands, give them a purpose and a sense of fulfillment…” Ugh! Blah, blah, blah. It was a brilliant way to force children to work in jobs they would probably hate and blame it on a test. It was a brilliant way to take children away from their families, brainwash them, and fill them with Superior-loving rubbish. My brain shut me down before I yelled something out in class. Besides, thinking this way was pointless. I would have to go to the Classes too when I turned eighteen. I had no say in the matter.
    “ Excellent work, Miguel. Next please.”
    I had to sit through a few more rambling presentations , each more sleep-inducing than the last, before Mr. Singh called out my name.
    “ Rosa Bianca?” he said with a note of anticipatory fear in his voice.
    I took a deep breath and walked to the front of the class.

I stood before the class and held my paper in front of my face, my hands shaking a little; I patted my pocket for reassurance. Someone sneezed and I waited until the fit had ended before I started. I had the insane thought that maybe I really was dust and the corner of my mouth turned up in a suppressed smile.
    “ Get on with it, child,” Mr. Singh said impatiently.
    “ Superior Grant is the lawmaker of the Woodlands. His carefully weighted and wise decisions have brought prosperity to the Woodlands,” I said, rolling back on my heels, hands clasped behind my back. Trying my hardest to look like the model student.
    I went on to describe several of Grant ’s laws. The one about people from the same town not being permitted to marry, the one about children not being allowed into certain Rings to preserve their innocence and maintain their safety. I also mentioned Grant’s failed law, when he stated that people with the same eye color couldn’t marry. This had turned out to be a huge mistake as almost everyone, in our town anyway, had brown eyes. This law was reversed after one year when the birth rate plummeted and the poor, blue-eyed people in our town were being harassed. Singh’s face pinched at my use of the word failed but I quickly covered it by saying that Grant was not so proud that he couldn’t admit a mistake and correct it. By this time, I had Singh slightly less unimpressed and the rest of the class was half asleep.
    “ The one-child law was Grant’s most recent law. The law was made to protect the philosophy of All Kind on which our society is based. It has also raised the level of competence in schools and at the Classes five-fold due to the focused attention on one child rather than several and has therefore been a successful endeavor.”
    I looked to Singh. He was nodding along encouragingly.
    It was so boring I was almost putting myself to sleep. And it was entirely false. The Woodlands had suffered due to his latest law—with fewer children, there were fewer workers, and of course, fewer marriages. I crossed my arms, pausing for a second. It didn’t make much sense when one of the main objectives of the Woodlands was interracial breeding.
    My heart started beating faster and I could feel my cheeks redden as I started into the last part of my speech, “Grant came to our town to announce the law when I was eight years old.” I deliberately dropped my piece of paper. It floated down to the ground slowly, like a feather caught in the wind. I crouched down with my back to the class to get it and quickly whipped out the mascara to smear it over my top lip and chin.
    I stood to face the class and stroked my chin, winking at the front row, “Hi