The last class of the day on Monday was the first such since Avelina and Kelly had returned from Brazil. Almost in tears again, Avelina told the other students about how the Brazilian government wanted her as the keystone in the new São Paulo Technologia Social Escola Secundária.
“I don't want to go. I don't want to go. But it is my duty, I must. What do I do? What do I do? I must go.”
“Why you, Avelina? There are other Brazilian students in the school”, Suzy Nicholson asked.
“I think it's my fault, Suzy. I'm so sorry, Lina”, Kelly said. “It is because of me, my family, my mother. You have lived with us for months, most of a school year. That is why they want you.”
“I have news, Kelly”, her other close friend, Coriola, said. “My father told me last night. I have a choice. I can stay here in America with my family, or go to Italy, to be in the new school they are starting in Naples. My mother says she doesn't want me to leave, but I should obey my father. He told me to choose for myself. I said I would talk to you in class today. Now, here is Avelina, about to go to Brazil. What should I do?”
The rest of the class looked on, not ready to say a word. Half of the class was built around Kelly, consisting of her three Level 5 friends, Suzy, Coriola and Avelina. The other half was another cluster, three of them were all Level 5 friends of another core person, a senior girl. Two of those three were linked to Suzy, being very compatible musicians who often played together. Everyone in the class was more or less compatible with all of the others. They got along perfectly together.
Suzy looked at Kelly and then at her other two friends. They looked to the senior at the core of their group, a girl named Mariana Romya. She gave those two intermediaries a meaningful look. They in turn gave Suzy a meaningful look. Not a word was spoken. Suzy put her hand on Kelly's arm. “Kel.”
“I know.” She looked at Avelina, then at Coriola. It was a sad look that spoke more clearly than words. It said she would miss them. That meant they should go.
Coriola spoke up. “Yes, I know. I have a duty to my mother country and to the movement this school represents. I must go. I will miss you all, but I must go.”
Avelina looked at Kelly again. “I understand. Yes, I also have a duty, not only to the movement and my mother country, but to my people, the poor from the favelas.”
Now Mariana spoke. “I am proud of you two. I think you have made the right decision. It means this class will be torn apart soon. I graduate in June. You two leave soon. Next year the class will be different, but I will always remember it the way it was now.”
So it was decided. But Sally Aston advised Avelina to play her cards carefully.
“They are making too much of you, and will put too much pressure on you. You are here on a student visa and we will make sure you can stay in this country if you that's your choice. So you don't have to back. They know that. When they introduced you to your teacher, they were hoping your would take that to mean it was all a done deal. Hold back a bit, don't say that the decision is made. Ask them for some assurances.”
“What should I ask for?”
“I am not the right person to advise you, Avelina. I am older and perhaps wiser, but I am not truly close to you. Talk to Future and to Kelly. Tell them my suggestion, but leave the details to them.”
Future knew what should be Avelina's first demand. “Tell them not to expect you there right way. It is only April. They want you there early to get an early start, the way STH got going. Instead, have them send people to your school in New York. I think Kelly's mother can arrange for the students and teachers they want in their school to have limited visas, good until September. That way the Brazilians won't be afraid of losing their people. Tie them into the school, even if only for a few months. I am sure that can be done. Then they can all go back to Brazil with you, Avelina. That way you will not be the only one with experience in our school.”
Kelly agreed, and added, “Talk to the other Brazilian students here about the kind of duty you feel. See if some of them would go with you. That way their school could start up as a forest of rooted trees, rather than just one tree with you as the root. I am assuming no cross-linking will be possible for a while, so a group of people will fan out from you. They should make your tree of friends and friends of friends as big as possible, but not depend on you. Let them plant other roots as well.”
“I understand. Yes, I will do both of those things. And one more. I think what matters is pool size. We all know that. Opening the new schools will not rob this one of Italian and Portuguese speaking students. It will enlarge the size of the pool of connected students. If I remain in contact by video, then our links will persist. The same with the other Portuguese speaking and Italian speaking students – they can all remain linked, by laptop video through the school's wi-fi network, if nothing else. In some ways we will be one school. I will ask the authorities to accept this fact and let compatibility determine where students go to school, not nationality. I will promise them a year, but only a year, and only if they promise to let the social technology determine where I belong after that.”
“That is wonderful”, Future said. “Exactly the right think to say to them. I think they will agree.”
Avelina talked seventeen other Portuguese speaking students into going to the new school, three of them from Portugal itself, wanting the adventure this would surely be.
“I hope they will all agree to come, Kelly.”
“If you get your government to tie them in, they probably will.”
Working with Sally and school principal Paul Grey, Avelina gently pushed the government in the directions the three girls had agreed on, using her own participation as an inducement. She explained that the other students she had recruited felt the same way. They wanted ties made in New York, first.
This would not be easy, but many teachers and students in Brazil did have enough English to get along at Social Tech High. Some of those would be suitable matches for Avelina and the other seventeen Portuguese speaking students.
By the time June arrived, Avelina was happily studying with two teachers from Brazil, and had three new friends with her in New York — five people radiating out from her. The other seven from the school, her recruits, were similarly connected, though none of those trees were themselves interconnected. They did not make a larger tree nor a larger connected graph of any kind, just a forest. But that would be good enough, for now.
Back in Brazil, links were being forged for the teachers and students in New York. When they arrived home at the beginning of September they would be much better connected up.
Kelly turned thirteen in June. Avelina and the others stayed for the more casual summer school, with Future Green joining them. It was wonderful for Avelina to have her best friend there with her, day after day.
Coriola had been doing the same thing with students and teachers bound for Italy. Another student that Kelly barely knew had collected students and teachers for a school to be formed in New Delhi, India. Kelly promise to visit Coriola as soon as possible, but when it came down to a decision it had been Avelina's Brazil that Kelly had chosen to visit.
The last day of August, all the new students for the Brazilian school flew to São Paulo. Kelly and Future went with them, to stay the long weekend before the fall term started at Social Tech.
There was a surprise for Avelina when she arrived at the impressive new school. There were her mother and sisters, clean, nicely dressed, smiling happily at the sight of her, then breaking down into tears as one by one they hugged Avelina. A bigger surprise, the biggest yet. Avelina's mother could drive! And had a little car! How could this be?
“I have a job now, Avelina. I work at the school”, her mother said, in Portuguese. “I clean, some during the day, some in the evening. Not skilled work, but work. I like it. I keep the school looking pretty. It is very pretty, my darling, you will enjoy going there.”
Her family had an apartment! A very small apartment, but an apartment. Two bedrooms. Avelina would have to share with a sister, the other sharing with her mother, but they had an apartment and could be together. Avelina wept with joy. Sharing a room with Kelly had been magical, but she loved her family.
Kelly shed some tears of her own, happy for her friend. But she was not Avelina's only Level Five friend now. She had many. Two teachers, three students. Plus the two long distance friends, Future and Kelly, always available though her laptop computer or by using one of the school's many video walls.
Avelina had taught Kelly some Portuguese over the past few months, so she could have simple conversations with the girl's family, if they spoke slowly enough. It was good to see how their life had changed, how happy they were.
“Avelina, you should use the Tech Fantasies software and find a man for your mother, probably a step-father for you.”
“Is it possible? There are already four of us in the house. I know we are probably not very compatible, just being thrown together by the randomness of biology, but we have always been close. Could a man be added without problems?”
“Set her up with a long-wait request. Test the waters by having the machine monitor possible candidates for a month. That should tell you what level of compatibility to expect. Then put in a request for someone of that level, having her check out the closest matches as they arrive.”
“I guess that should work.”
Kelly returned home to start the fall term at Social Tech High without her close friends, Coriola and Avelina. Before the summer had ended, she had spoken with video to strangers, two new girls, possible replacements for Coriola and Avelina. They seemed likely friends, but a disheartened Kelly had not let the prospect of meeting them take her mind off a deep feeling of loss. She had shed tears while looking at Avelina's empty bed. No new girl would take her place there, Kelly would have her room to herself once again.
This mood did not last long. She met her new friends in a couple of classes during the day, then both of them were with her for the intense last class. That class was entirely different. Suzy and her fellow musicians were not in it. But three other girls she knew and liked were there. Two girls from higher grades filled out the room. Kelly had seen them around the school, but the school was big now, 4200 students, so it was not surprising that they were effectively strangers. A new teacher was there to “chair the meeting”, without participating much.
In 50 minutes all eight girls felt like friends. When the class ended, Kelly realized that the girls who had entered her life were going to be important parts of it. That would not stop her from missing Coriola and Avelina, but then those year-long friends were just a video-phone call away. She spoke with them that very evening.
By the end of the week it was clear. Kelly now had five Level 5 friends: Suzy and the new girls, Ching and Sina, at the school, Coriola in Naples, Avelina in São Paulo. Now in Grade Eight herself, Kelly's friend Ching from Hong Kong was in Grade Seven. Her friend Sina from Sri Lanka was in Grade Nine. Both were new to the school.
Together with Kelly they formed that much desired transitive grouping, Ching and Sina being mutually compatible at slightly above Level Five. Despite a difference in age, they shared a room in one of the residences. Ching was part of the regular intake of Grade 7 students to replace the graduated seniors. Sina had been added to help fill a gap left by the departure of students to other schools. Because of her, Kelly realized. Ching and Sina had both been admitted to the school because of her. Seeing their joy at being in this special environment made Kelly happy. Three friends at the school, her two long distance friends, and a wonderfully compatible class to enjoy at the end of each day. She had gained much, lost nothing.
This was true for all those who had felt a great loss when their friends had left for Naples, New Delhi, or São Paulo. All of them used long-distance video links to maintain their friendships, while acquiring new ones.
Many other links between the schools were forged at this time, so none of them operated alone. Social Tech High was still central, because it drew upon the pool of students from around the world, offering the attraction of famous New York City itself as an inducement for to join that pool.
As the years went by, Kelly Phillips and her family would be part of an always expanding international community of students and their families. The new friends she made this year would not be needed for the ever growing number of new schools in the network, so they would stay with her for the rest of her time as the school. She'd get to know their families, who would eventually immigrate into the US.
Over the years Kelly would get high level relationships outside of school, but within the city, including one boy, then another. She grew into a mature young woman whose pretty face and other physical attributes were nothing in comparison with her education, wisdom and mental abilities. The school turned her into someone truly special, unique.
The year Kelly graduated and turned eighteen was the year that her twelve year old sister entered a much more mature version of the school. Kate came to Social Tech High from an affiliated Social Tech School for kindergarten, primary and elementary education, which had been created two years after Kelly entered high school.
That same year the STH Annex was opened in a nearby building. It was an experimental school based on the team teaching methods that had been successfully used for education students at the high school and for all students at Connected College. The Annex proved a success, so after one year at the main school, Kate had transferred there.
From that first year, when Alice Ames entered the school, till Kelly Phillips graduated, fifteen years later, the school had grown from a small experiment into the centre of a large network of schools based on social technology, all over the world. Each had a great effect on the cities and nations in which they operated. The world had changed around it, but in many ways Social Tech High had changed the world.
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