Read Kingdoms Away 1: Jorian Cluster Archives for Free Online

white V on his
chest with a comb. Her dad pulled out a storybook from her large
collection in the bookshelf recessed in the wall. A security panel
slid back across, making sure nothing would turn into a projectile
in the event of an emergency.
    Feena listened to him read. She put a small
hand on his short dark hair and stroked it as she had seen her mum
do. She loved listening to his deep calm voice read the tale of the
“Three Foxes.” In spite of her valiant effort to remain awake, she
drifted off.
    William gently disengaged himself from Feena
and tried to remove the bear, but she had the bear in a headlock
and grumbled sleepily. She turned slightly and all William could
see of the bear was the big nose and tufts of long comic head hair
that circled the face.
     
    The next day, Benny, with his red hair
carefully brushed behind his ears, and Jo, who was still sick but
had to come for the test, sat at their desks getting nervous. Jo,
his black hair slick from being in bed, had a box of tissues with
Elysians printed on the outside. The teacher came in, the crabby
Mr. Weffna. Benny told her Mr. Weffna was grumpy because he was so
old, but Jo scornfully told them that his parents were at least two
hundred years older that Mr. Weffna and they weren’t grumpy.
    Silence filled the large, stark classroom as
twenty-three students of age seven to nine tried not to fidget. Mr.
Weffna had his old brown jacket on, grey shirt, bow tie and brown
pants. Feena caught Benny’s eye. He was sitting at the desk to her
right. Mr. Weffna was wearing one brown shoe and one black shoe.
She tried not to giggle.
    Under the teacher’s arm was a package with
their tests. He solemnly opened the yellow package and took out a
sheaf of papers. He walked up and down the desk aisles placing
sheets of paper, wrong side up, on each student’s single desk. When
he got back to his large rectangular writing table he raised an
arm, looked at his watch, and said in a solemn voice, “You may
begin.”
    Feena gave Benny and Jo a quick grin and
turned over her paper. There were three sheets and three questions.
Some tests they had to do on computer but the adults insisted
handwriting was still a required and necessary skill.
    The first question was about the excerpt she
had recited the night before at dinner, so that was easy. She wrote
that down. Behind her, Jo blew his nose.
    Feena finally looked at the last question.
She didn’t have a lot of room left on her last page. It read,
“Absolute Law was handed down to the Reos in eight hundred and
seventy-five EO time; name two of the eight laws.”
    She only had to name a couple. That was
easy.
    She wrote down the first law in her own
words. “You shall not neglect, abuse, kill or eat an animal.” She
breathed out, checking for spelling mistakes. Time was running
out.
    Then, she squeezed in the fourth law right at
the bottom of the page about not doing anything that resulted in
the death of lots of living creatures or wasting resources.
    “Time is up.” Mr. Weffna’s firm voice invaded
her thoughts.
    Feena didn’t think she’d spelled resources
correctly but didn’t want to be told off in front of the class for
writing after the announcement. Mr. Weffna allowed Benny to collect
the papers and the three friends walked out into the narrow
corridor, relieved. They headed for the main passage.
    “I gotta go.” Jo sniffed, his brown eyes
watering, and headed out of the school area.
    Feena and Benny walked slowly down the wide
passage toward the school entrance. The wide, transparent doors
were still swinging from Jo’s departure. The reception and visitors
lounge were on either side of the double doors.
    “How did it go, Benny?” Her friend had more
and darker freckles than she did, and was skinnier too. But he was
taller.
    “Okay, I think. How about you?”
    “I remembered most of the stuff. I remembered
the mantra that the Elysians sung.”
    “I wrote some of it down too. Did you
remember to write