History of the Trap: December Stars Part 1

1

Yes, I know I'm running out of time.  But I'm going to do my best to get the first year done before our next meeting.  That gives me three days to cover five months. 

The three most important things about December was the trial of Robert Pelley, and what Larry Wiseman found out about the stars.  I will get to those very shortly.

December's weather was remarkably stable.  It was Michigan winter, for goodness sake, and we were still having San Francisco weather, with temps of about 70 in the day, and no lower than 60 at night.

Our crops continued at an incredible rate of gestation.  Supplemented with the diary and meat products from the farm, and the seemingly endless supply of canned and packaged foods found in the underground shelter, we were now less concerned with starving to death.  It upset my father that some students were starting to waste food again, sometimes leaving half or more of their tray of food just to dump in the trash.

Charley's Aunt was performed at the end November, and was sort of our last hurrah before the trial began.  Even though I had been in several plays, and knew many of the actors, I did not go.  I could not bring myself to come into the auditorium.  Not after witnessing Jack Kessler die there (just as he was trying to kill me), and than a few weeks later coming across the body of my beloved Lisa.  I did hear that Franny Cranfield was excellent in it, and that Oliver Sanders absolutely brought the house down as Babbs, the character who dresses as Charley's Aunt.

We were going to have student council elections in mid-December, but my Dad pushed that back to January.  He didn't want the elections at the same time as the trial, nor did he want it to compete with Christmas events.

Although the trap barrier was tested and prodded, no other changes or weaknesses were found.  Mr. Cairn, the physics teacher, and a team looking at it, were confounded by how the farm was discovered.  Was the gap always there, or did an opening appear?  As long as Mr. Cairn was with us, he and his team would continue to probe and analyze.  Later, more anomalies would appear, but I won't go into those now. 

I was back to a routine, more or less.  The darkness of our losses continued to haunt me, but life, as strange as it was in the trap, went on.  Unless you prepared to take a quick exit, like Vice Principal Crowler and a depressing number of students did, you just had to bear it as much as you could.

And now I had to face the trial.  Mr. Branch's government classroom was remade to be a courtroom, and space was very limited.  There was a lottery to determine who would get to sit in on the trial.  Because I was a close friend to Lisa, and a witness who would need to testify, I was going to be able to sit in on the trial.

The first controversy was whether my father should be the presiding judge, given that I might be one of the witnesses.  I thought they might actually replace him.  It was finally agreed that, when I came to the stand, that Miss Schram (our journalism teacher who was part of the three judge panel) would preside instead of my Dad.  Mr. Branch, who had agreed to defend Robert Pelley, was a little uneasy with my Dad as Presiding Judge, but the bottom line was that my Dad still had the best reputation in the school for fairness and evenhandedness.

And that's how I began December.  Waiting for the trial to begin.  Waiting for justice to be served on Robert Pelley.

I was in for quite a surprise.