Pulse

of slim pickings: so few boys tall enough to count.
    Liz leaned back and looked at Faith’s butt.
    “Nice jeans, that’s going to help. Got any Coin left or did they clean you out?”
    “Cleaned me out,” Faith admitted.
    “It was worth it,” Liz said, and then she slapped Faith on the butt and laughed loudly enough to draw the attention of the principal, who was standing at the main door glad-handing new students as they went inside. Faith and Liz stopped in front of the sprawling high school campus. It had been built in 1975, which made it seventy-six years old, but it didn’t look a day under a hundred. There was a billboard at the top of a paint-chipped white pole with a message:
WELCOME, NEW STUDENTS.
WE’RE GLAD YOU’RE HERE.
    Liz looked at the billboard, shaking her head. “I bet they are.”
    They waved weakly as a few of the students from their old school entered the main building. The other students looked shell-shocked at the prospect of starting at a new school, including the fact that it would involve shaking the cold, clammy hand of the principal. When Faith arrived at the door, she got her first look at Mr. Reichert and was immediately concerned. His skin had the pale texture of someone who had been ravaged by acne as a teenager. He cut his own hair or had hired a lawn maintenance supervisor to do it for him. It sat like a black dome over his egg-shaped head, straight and speckled with dandruff. He smiled hugely with the bleached white teeth he was clearly proud of showing.
    “Welcome, girls, we’re glad you’re here,” he said. He held the door open with his dandruff-speckled shoulder as he reached out his hand. Liz looked at Faith like she’d just smelled a glass of possibly sour milk. Faith nodded and smiled, then brushed past Mr. Reichert without saying anything or touching his clammy hand.
    “Stay to the right, down the hall,” he said, flashing that smile again. “You’ll find your way. And don’t go past any of the barriers; some places are closed.”
    Liz slid through the doorway before Mr. Reichert could hold out his hand, and the two girls were mercifully inside their new school. It was quieter than Faith had hoped, soft echoes from distant places bouncing off the long corridors heading off in three directions.
    “Here we are,” said Faith, suddenly unsure about the tightness of her jeans and the specter of a new school.
    “Yeah,” said Liz nervously. “Here we are.”
     
    Old Park Hill was constructed and managed under the assumption that 2,000 students would pack its halls on a normal day. And there was a time when this had been true. Back in the 2010s the school had even been over populated for a while. But now the student body had dwindled to 80 students, down from 140 the year before. Faith’s previous school had been getting even smaller; at last count there had been 53. Old Park Hill, being the slightly less run down of the two, was now the proud host to all 133 students from both schools.
    As Faith parted ways with Liz and began the search for her first classroom, she became aware of the almost complete lack of adult supervision. Budgets being what they were—nearly zero according to some estimates—the student-teacher-administrator ratio had gotten even worse. When there had been 2,000 students, there had been about 75 teachers. Now there were only 133 students, and a couple of teachers would have to suffice. And they’d need to double as the principal and vice principal.
    One hundred and thirty-three students.
    Two staff.
    And one overworked janitor.
    That was what high school was like at Old Park Hill in the year 2051.
    Faith glanced down the hallway, searching for help finding her class, and saw a redheaded girl surrounded by guys. She had the white complexion of a fish’s underbelly, which made her green eyes look like shiny marbles about to pop out of her head. Faith knew this girl, Amy, from her old school. Faith wondered what the guys always saw in Amy; it must have been her curvy figure that attracted them.
    “Hey, Amy!” Faith yelled down a long, nearly empty corridor. Amy turned at the sound of her name, her red hair moving softly like flames in a campfire. “Help me find English 300, will you?” None of the guys Amy was standing with had gone to Faith’s old school, but Amy had never been one to waste any time building a coalition of boys starving for her attention. The moment Amy saw Faith coming, she took the arm of one of them and