Chapter 5: T3 Arrives

Josie pushed open the classroom door, nervously. Mrs Carter wasn’t there of course, but Josie couldn’t see her replacement either. The first row of student desks was also empty, and she noticed the old posters had been taken down from the walls – the animals and numbers and flags. Josie opened the door all the way, waiting for the squeak. At least that was the same. And then she saw her new teacher.

T3 – named for the grade of the students she would teach – was sitting on a desk at the back of the room. She didn’t look like a robot. The kind of machine you saw at technology fairs in Japan. But the teacher looked almost human, which was much more frightening. As T3 walked towards her, making a gentle humming sound, Josie wanted to run back into the corridor, down the stairs, across the playground, and home. But she didn’t. She couldn’t stop looking at the teacher’s face. The eyes were almost like human eyes, but not quite. What was different? Josie couldn’t tell.

‘Good morning,’ said T3. ‘Welcome to class.’

The teacher’s voice had the same problem as the eyes.

‘I . . . I’m Josie,’ said Josie, and was surprised to hear T3 reply, ‘I know.’

So that’s why the eyes looked so strange! T3 was scanning her student’s face. Josie shifted from foot to foot, feeling like she was being photographed – and she hated having her picture taken.

‘You may sit down,’ T3 said, with something that resembled a smile. ‘Your desk is A5.’

For the first time, Josie noticed that the desks were new, too. They were silver, with rows of buttons along the edges. She looked for A5, which was on the front row. In Mrs Carter’s class she had sat at the back with Amie and Clay. Sometimes they’d got in trouble for giggling, but never anything serious. It felt private and cosy back there. Josie took a seat at the desk marked A5, wishing that her friends would arrive soon.

‘Which subject do you like, Josie?’ asked the teacher.

‘Geography, I guess,’ she answered. ‘I liked learning about volcanoes with Mrs Carter.’

‘There are 1,500 active volcanoes on Earth,’ said T3. ‘The United States has the most volcanoes, followed by Russia and Indonesia.’

Josie didn’t know what to say in response. It wasn’t a question, was it?

‘You are good at geography but better at English. You like writing stories. Last year you read 23 books from the school library. You got a gold certificate for reading. You always get good marks on spelling tests.’

All of things were true – but Josie felt uneasy that T3 knew. It had been fine for Mrs Carter to know. After all she had taught her, corrected her spelling, encouraged her, given her stickers for good work, recommended books she had loved as a girl. But who was this person – person? – telling Josie all about herself?

‘Which books did you like when you were young?’ Josie asked. She didn’t know why she said it. Obviously, the teacher wouldn’t be able to answer. Was it a kind of test? T3’s eyes went blank for a moment and her neck twisted a little to the left.

‘When I was young ,’ the teacher began, but didn’t get to finish. The disbelieving face of Josie’s friend Clay had appeared at the classroom window.