Day 19 (a future history)

Wednesday, February 7, 2018

Everything that was bad about life before all of this stuff started happening keeps getting worse, and all of the good things are gone. Even the good things that I didn’t know about before. Like books. But soldiers came to the school today and took lots and lots of books from the library and came and took books away from us if we had any that were on their stupid list of books they were taking away.

But they only took library books from us, because those books are in the system, I guess, and they knew who had them. They did go through all of the teacher’s rooms, though, the ones who have books that they loan out to us, and took tons of their books, too. Just took them like they took my dad’s TV, but they didn’t offer to pay for the books. They didn’t search us, though. I guess they didn’t have time. That was good, because I still have my copy of Fahrenheit 451 that I got from Mrs. Madison. I only have about 25 pages left, and I would have been SO MAD if they had taken it.

Mrs. Madison was so mad. I wasn’t in her class when they went in and took her books, but everyone was talking about it after. Evidently, the soldiers had to hold her down while they were taking her books. They had to evacuate the students from her room because of how she was screaming. It was making some of them cry.

Some people said they locked her in her classroom after they took her books, and a bunch of the boys were saying she was raped because there was a lot of screaming while they were keeping her in her class. A bunch of other boys were laughing about it and laughing that some people cried.

Boys are making school even worse than it usually is, lately. There’s a bunch of them that are going around all the time talking about how they get to do whatever they want to now. They slap us on the butts in the hall and one of them, Caleb, grabbed Jenna’s boob right in the middle of class yesterday! That was in Mrs. Madison’s class, and she sent him to the office, but he was back 20 minutes later like nothing had even happened. And he grabbed Jenna’s ass when class was over, too! Mrs. Madison made him stay behind, but I saw him after school, and he was laughing about it and said there was nothing they could do.

Caleb and his group of friends think they are going to get to be part of a new student patrol, but no one knows if they’re making that up. No one has announced anything about that, not even Trump, though I wouldn’t be surprised if he did. But Caleb’s dad is one of the National Guard soldiers who came to the school and took the books, and Caleb said his dad said it’s going to happen.

So maybe he’s talking shit or maybe he knows something he’s not supposed to know. No one knows, and everyone is scared to find out. Even the teachers, I think. Everyone except Caleb’s friends who think they’re all going to be in charge.

But, anyway… Mrs. Madison wasn’t in her class when I got there for 5^th period. She had gone home. Or got sent home. Or got taken away. It really depends on who you talk to. All the boys who had laughed said the soldiers took her away and that she would probably never be back. It makes me so mad that they were saying those things, and I don’t know what to do about it.

I don’t think anyone knows what to do about it either. Everyone is scared, even the teachers. Having soldiers raiding the school doesn’t help.

I think I need to go to the book store and buy some books, because I might not be able to buy any soon. Assuming they didn’t already go to the bookstores and take their books, too. Except I don’t have any money, and books cost a lot. And I can’t order them from Amazon, either.

Not that I even know what books I should try to be getting. Fahrenheit, I know. And Hunger Games. And they took some book about flies, King of the Flies?, from Jimmy, but I don’t know what else. I just know that I want to read all the books they don’t want me to, and I need to figure out how to get some of them.

I used to never care that we didn’t have books in our house; now, I’m kinda mad that we don’t. What’s wrong with my parents that we don’t have any books? And why didn’t they ever tell me how important it is to read? And what is it in these books Trump doesn’t want us to read? I mean, I understand with Fahrenheit – It’s ALL about this! – and maybe I understand with Hunger Games, but I don’t know why they are so scared of us reading these books, and I want to know.

I WANT TO KNOW!!!