Student Perspective

​​February 1st, 2098

Dear diary,

I hate it here. I want to go home. My REAL home back in England. Not here. I want to be anywhere except here. Everything is so different in Toronova. I miss my old friends. I miss my old school. I miss my old sports. I miss my old bedroom. Mum and dad said things would be better here, but it isn’t. I can’t believe they lied to me just to get me to agree to come to this stupid city.

Back in England, I was the top front-stroke swimmer in my year. Mum told me I should try out for the swim team at my new school. I used to love swimming back home, so I didn’t think it would be so bad. I reckon that was the worst mistake I have made since we moved here two months ago. I couldn’t believe how fast the other girls were. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. They were so fast that they kept lapping me in the water. I didn’t stand a chance at making the team compared to these girls. The boys were even faster. I had never seen such effortless athleticism in my life. I was the only normal kid that tried out for the team and I can see why. All the other kids that tried out were the lab kids and normal kids don’t stand a chance to the lab kids.

I came home from swim tryouts crying and dad said I shouldn’t let it get to me because they were built like that. Dad said I was built in God’s image so I was made perfectly. He said those girls were made in a lab instead of by the hands of God. I’m not sure I believe him anymore. The girls here are all so beautiful and smart. I can never be like them.

Can you believe my teacher has after school homework help only for kids who AREN’T genetically modified? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? They think there’s a problem with the normal kids? Ms. Smith says the other students don’t need the extra help because they were engineered to know all the answers. I like Ms. Smith because she’s normal like me, but she says we shouldn’t compare ourselves to the lab kids. She says our genes aren’t designed to think or act like the lab kids’ genes, so it’s like comparing apples and oranges. I think she says that to make me feel better and it does a little, but I don’t think that’s true. I’ll never be as smart as the lab kids. I’ll never be as beautiful as the lab girls. I’ll never be as athletic as the lab kids. I’ll never be as outgoing as the lab kids. I’ll never be a lab kid. I’ll always be this normal, boring kid who will never be the best at anything.

The lab kids even have different work than the normal kids. The math they do looks so complicated, and they read big books with big words I’ve never heard of before. They even dissected a frog with Ms. Smith the other day while we were making models of systems in the body. I wish I was dissecting the frog instead of making the stupid reproductive system. Ms. Smith says I’ll learn the same things as the lab kids when I get to secondary. I wonder what the lab kids will learn in secondary?

There were barely any lab kids in England. There was only one boy Adam in my year who was a lab kid, but he was super weird and no one really talked to him. I heard Adam got switched to secondary because he was so smart. I think he felt so out of place that he asked his parents to homeschool him. I’m starting to feel how Adam probably felt at school and now I feel bad for not paying any attention to him. I wish I had been nicer to Adam.

The worst part about this whole rubbish move is that mum and dad wouldn’t let me stay for my last year before secondary. I just wanted one last party with my friends before I never see them again. One last normal party with normal people. Instead, they had to move me in the middle of the school year right before Christmas break. Do they know the humiliation of being the new girl halfway through the year? Thankfully Chelsea was my assigned buddy when I started and we’ve been friends ever since. She’s normal like me and she hates the lab kids. I’m starting to see why she hates them because I think I do too.

Mum says if I get good grades I can go to Uni back in England and be with my friends again. She said my grades would have to be so good that the Uni would give me a scholarship to go because mum and dad don’t have the money to send me. How can I ever be as smart as the lab kids? I’ll never get a scholarship with these lab kids around. Hopefully they only apply to Canadian Universities so I can go to Cambridge or Liverpool Uni. If they apply to England Universities I don’t stand a chance. What am I going to do without Uni? Mum and dad say I shouldn’t worry about that right now, but it’s all I can think about. They should make Uni’s just for normal kids so that we have a chance.

Well, I have my science unit test tomorrow that I should probably go study for. Hopefully all the after school homework help pays off. Mum says things will get better in time. I hope she’s right. Until next time.

Katherine

P.S. I can’t believe how cute the lab boys are. They all have beautiful eyes with muscles and nice hair. I know they’ll never go for a normal girl like me, but at least I still get to look at them.