A NAME ON A LIST
A NAME ON A LIST
I don’t know how long I have been here.
I don’t know how long I’ll be here.
But all I know is that I didn’t come here by choice.
Every part of my body hurts, and my head is pounding.
I’m not sure where I am, but I feel like I have been here for a while.
The air is damp and cold, with a pungent scent of old wood and rust.
I feel the cold metal against my skin. I hear the sounds of something moving, maybe waves? Or it might be the motor humming while driving down a highway, I’m not sure. But I think I’m in a moving container, like the ones that go on ships.
I don’t think I will find a way out. Not soon, at least.
At the top, there is a slit through which the only light and cold air comes from.
I’m not sure how much longer I can be here.
Who brought me here?
Why do they want me here, and not someone else?
To make sense of any of this, I need to start from the beginning.
I am Rayla Hartel. I’m 16 years old. Until now, I was a regular kid with a regular family, and I had a regular life, but then everything changed. I have 2 siblings, a brother and a sister.
I am a pretty tall kid. I have green eyes, dirty blond hair, and barely visible freckles.
My brother’s name is Alexander; he is 14 years old, and you’ll never find him without a screen glued to his face.
My sister’s name is Daisy; she is 12 years old. She is a bit of a nerd, always having a random fun fact ready and a book stuffed in her bag. She also loves our dog, Jack.
My parents aren’t anything special; my mom, Elena, is a bank teller. My dad, Mark, is a computer coder.
That’s my main family; we aren’t really in touch with our extended family.
Last Monday, I woke up late for school, jumped out of bed, and grabbed my clothes while running to the bathroom. I put my clothes on while brushing my teeth, then I ran downstairs and met my sister, brother, and mom. There, I saw my sister trying to start a conversation with my brother, and my brother was, as usual, stuck on his phone while definitely not listening to Daisy. I grabbed an apple and headed out after I said goodbye to everyone.
I started walking to Allie while eating the apple. Oh, right, Allie is my best friend. She’s also pretty tall, she has wavy blond hair, and blue eyes. She has an amazing sense of humor.
Allie lives a block away from me, so it’s a short walk. On the way, I finished the apple and threw it away into the bin. The cold air smelled of petrichor (the smell of the ground after rain) and old gasoline from the car shop, and sadly, there were no crunchy leaves to step on because of the rain. On the way, I couldn’t shake the feeling that somebody was watching me, just then, I noticed there was someone walking after me, even after I made a few turns. I started to get suspicious, but at the last turn, they stopped following me. I thought I was just paranoid. I got to her door and knocked. She opened the door, and I saw her looking as if she couldn’t find something.
“Come on, let’s go! We’re gonna be late!” I told her
“Wait a second, I forgot my phone in my room,” she said
“Run! Go get it.” I said while starting to get annoyed
She finally came back and said
“Let’s get going. I found my phone.”
So we started walking to school, and we were already late.
around the middle of the 10-minute walk, Allie shouted
“Last there is a rotten egg!” and ran off.
So, of course, I ran after her, and I caught up to her pretty quickly.
We finally got to school, and we were right on time. We were about to enter the school gates, but then Ms. Morris came out of nowhere and shut the gates in our faces.
Ms. Morris is a horrible math teacher in our school. She treats all the students like roaches, and if you ever dare to forget to bring or not do your homework, good luck with Saturday detention and a pile of essays that you need to submit the next day.
She started laughing in our faces and said
“Too slow. Bell already rang!”
I could smell her pungent breath across the gate, as if she had just eaten a whole onion while watering it down with a strong espresso. I had to keep myself from gagging because of the smell. We asked Ms. Morris,
“Can you please let us in? only this time, we promise it’s the last time.”
I was sure there was no way she’d let us in—at least not without a lecture or detention. But, to my shock, Ms. Morris surprised me in the best way possible.
Ms. Morris’s face barely twitched as she opened the gate.
“Last time you two, next time it’ll be detention.”
“Thank you!!” Allie shouted and almost hugged Ms.Morris
Allie’s parents are super strict; if she’d gotten detention, her parents would kill her. Ok, maybe not kill her, but she definitely would have had a screen ban, and she would be grounded for god knows how long.
We ran to English class, my heart almost beating out of my chest.
We finally arrived at class, and guess what? No teacher inside.
We were both gasping for air after sprinting half the school and climbing 2 flights of stairs.
We got to our seats, and just then the teacher came in. “Good morning, students!” Mr. Grayson said as he walked in, wearing his usual sleek black suit and tie with those squeaky dress shoes. Mr. Grayson is our teacher for English and history. He is in his late 30s, he has light hazel eyes, his dark brown hair is always perfect, and he looks as if he just walked out of his barber’s that morning, not a hair out of place. His beard is always perfectly shaved. You can smell his cologne before he comes into the room, sharp and fresh- like cedar and fresh laundry. Now to think of it, Mr. Grayson might be a bit of a perfectionist, to be honest, looking back, I suppose I noticed—but at the time, I just didn’t care enough.
“Good morning, Mr. Grayson,” the class mumbled, our voices flat with exhaustion and annoyance. I slumped into my seat, wondering if the rest of the day would be just as horrible as the beginning.
After sitting through 2 hours of English torture, we finally had a break. Allie and I walked to our next class, which was sadly history, which meant another hour of Mr. Grayson, how fun.
Around the end of the lesson, I was barely listening, but for some reason, my brain decided Mr. Grayson was going to say something important, Mr. Grayson started saying,
“There will be a schedule change today,” he continued smoothly. “A few students have been selected for a new special academic opportunity.”
Groans rippled through the class.
“Is this, like, extra work?” someone muttered from the back.
Mr. Grayson smiled—but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.
Mr. Grayson’s eyes scanned the room slowly, lingering on each student just a second too long. When his gaze reached me, I felt an odd chill crawl up my spine, as if I’d just stepped into a shadow.
He grabbed a clipboard out of his sleek briefcase, on it, written names, his eyes went over all of the names one by one, and finally said, “Rayla Hartel.”
Allie leaned towards me. “Lucky you,” she mumbled.
I had a gut feeling that I wasn’t very “lucky,” but I tried to put that feeling aside. Then the bell rang, and we all started leaving, but just then Mr. Grayson pulled me aside. The conversation went something like this:
“Ms. Hartel, you are probably wondering what this ‘special academic opportunity’ is.”
“Yes, in fact, I am,” I replied, about to start asking the hundred and one questions on my mind, but then Mr. Grayson stopped me.
“Trust me, we will explain everything you need to know today at four in the library. Come to the murder mystery section.”
“We? Who else will be there?” I asked, but Mr. Grayson was already walking away.
I had a feeling that whatever this was, I wouldn’t be able to walk away from it.
