"Newt. Newt, wake up."
Newt sleepily opens his eyes and looks right in the eyes of his teacher. She is hanging over his table, and she doesn't look very happy. The boys in the class are staring at him.
The teacher looks at him over her glasses.
"Sleeping in maths class is not something I appreciate," she says, a strict tone in each word.
Newt clears his throat, trying not to sound too sleepy. "I'm sorry, Miss," he says. "It won't happen again."
His teacher sighs, obviously annoyed, and stands up.
"All right," she says. "But this is the last time you will ever fall asleep in this classroom. Make sure it will not happen again, or I will make sure you get punished."
Newt nods, though he knows he doesn't mean it. He falls asleep almost every hour; he can't help it, the lessons are just too boring.
His teacher turns around and walks back to the front of the classroom, her high heels clicking loudly on the hard floor. Newt plays with his pen when she continues writing numbers and symbols on a big, white screen.
He has been in the Headquarters for nearly five years now. An organisation named WICKED, the same organisation that is the owner of the Headquarters, has taken him away from his family, at the day he turned eight years old.
Worst birthday present ever.
He still remembers how those WICKED guys had thrown him into a car, how his older sister had screamed and cried, how his mother had pressed one last kiss on his forehead before the car door slammed shut. How he realized that he would never see them again.
He arrived at the Headquarters the day after, still scared and confused and with his cheeks wet with tears.
They pulled him out of the car and brought him to a big room with bunk beds, through long, white corridors. There were at least twenty other boys there, all of them different.
Newt remembers himself crouching against the closed door. He was scared of the other boys, scared of the WICKED people, scared of everyone else. He only wanted to be with his family.
One boy had kneeled next to him then, a shorter, brown-haired guy named Thomas, and had started talking to him. Newt can recall each word of what Thomas had told him.
"We know what happened to you. It has happened to all of us. We are all taken away from our parents, kidnapped to this place. I know, it is terrible and weird, but it's gonna get better. You'll see."
And it did get better. He went to school in the Headquarters the next day, the other boys became his best friends, they had a lot of fun every day. But over all of that is still lying that shroud of sadness about his family, though it seemed to have thinned a lot since then.
Newt's thoughts get interrupted by the welcome sound of the school bell; the end of the school day.
Finally.
He quickly stuffs his books and notebook in his backpack and hurries out of the classroom. The others follow his lead.
They all want to get away, just like Newt. When the boys reach the doorway, they start to run, just like they do every afternoon; when they put you in a classroom from half past eight in the morning to five PM, you have to grasp each and every free minute you can get.
They dash through the long, white corridors, shouting and dodging passing WICKED people. And when the group finally reaches the glass door that leads to the large place between the sea, the forest and the Headquarters, they hurl outside, still yelling and laughing.
Newt throws his hands up when he feels the cool fresh air.
He loves to be outside; finally released from that strange, white-coloured building.
For an hour.
Newt already feels himself grow uncomfortable when he thinks about that, but he puts it aside.
For now, he has an hour to make fun and be – kind of – free.
