Review – A School for Scavengers
Here’s where art imitates life. For I wrote A School for Scavengers while I was working part-time for an educational technology (edtech) company called Lexia.
I wrote this story during third quarter 2024. This is a quarter when I was writing every day.
Background
I had created the Ziranqui before and felt there could be more occasions to use them. This story turned out to be perfect for them. And I will most likely use the Ziranqui again!
Right now, they are serving as my pet bad guys.
The title is a reference to the Richard Sheridan book, The School for Scandal.
Plot for A School for Scavengers
After a devastating alien germ warfare attack that takes out nearly all of the adults, untrained Ava takes up the daunting task of teaching the surviving children around her how to read.
Characters
The characters are Ava Hillman, Randy, Troy, Tina, Frankie, Christy, Debby, and Sally. Eventually, I add a character named Jake. Ava is the main character, and I tell the story from her perspective.
I named Ava after my first grade teacher, Mrs. Hillman. Apparently, her first name was Marjorie. She also drew a picture of a bump and a stick figure to illustrate her name for the kids who couldn’t yet read.
That was … a while ago.
But back to Ava. She’s only alive because she was in a special program. But other adults were not so lucky.
Memorable Quotes
“Yeah, I guess it was. But let me get back to what was going on just before the Ziranqui arrived. See, we had ways of communicating over vast distances. Before anyone asks how we how that works, my answer is: I haven’t the foggiest.”
“Why don’t we have these things now?” asked Christy.
“Blame the war,” said Ava. “All the stuff needed to keep that stuff going? It just fell apart.”
“Will it ever go back to the way it was?” asked Sally.
“I don’t know. I hope we can at least get some of it back.” God knows I would love for there to be electricity again before I die.
“You were talking about these communications things,” said Troy.
“Yes. Well, even from outer space, the Ziranqui could hear a lot of the signals we were broadcasting. So, they started to manipulate it. And, in turn, they started to manipulate us. They did so by spreading what’s called misinformation. They cause one country to think another one was going to attack them. They did that a lot. So, a lot of countries went to war.”
“Why did they do that?” asked Sally.
“They did it because, fundamentally, the Ziranqui are lazy. They didn’t want to have to trouble themselves with conquering us if they could have us take care of the first third to half of our destruction all by ourselves.”
Rating
The story has a K rating. While it is post-Apocalyptic, the characters are all decent people. Ava swears maybe one time.
Takeaways for A School for Scavengers
This one has two possible endings. It’s really whether you want to end with something downbeat, or with something more positive. Frankly, while I’m a sucker for a happy ending, I think the downbeat ending is better.
The happier ending is a bit more tacked-on, I feel.