My name is Niki. That is the name by birth mother gave me. I don’t know who she is because I was born in 2055, which is an odd year, so I never got to see my birth mom. I was born on the wrong year so I was supposed to get killed, but someone wanted me. The 2070 kids are going to be born in just a few weeks. The people that took me were Simon and Justina Boldmers.

 

     Ten weeks ago, I had a little thing happen. I asked my teacher about books. I asked her and she sent me to the jail where they make you learn about history and the world. They also make you read. I loved it, but everyone else there hated it. They sent me to a different jail because I loved reading so much.  There you could only watch TV all day, non-stop.

 

     The first person I met there was Nina. She was a nice girl and she was my age and was also born in the wrong year.  She had also asked her teacher about books because she wanted to know why they were illegal. The teacher told her she could never ask that question again to anyone, and then sent her away to jail. She told me her parents were very nice and didn’t want her to leave and visit her every so often in jail. Nina told me that she grew up in the town that my great-grandmother grew up in. She said her great-grandmother probably knew mine.

 

     The second person I met was also a nice girl. She was only 10 years old. Her parents had died and she had no place to go and so came to this jail. They allowed her to come and go as she wants and she doesn’t have to watch TV at all. She gets to have good food, other than rice and fish. She comes to visit me and Nina a lot. She wishes that she could stay with us, but doesn’t want to watch TV all day. She loves to read also. When she comes, we don’t have to watch TV because we have a visitor. The odd thing is, she doesn’t have a name.

 

     The third person I met was a guard. He didn’t have a name, just a number. We gave him a name, Tom, because we felt bad that he didn’t have a name. He lets us read when he is on duty. He brings us better food like cakes, cookies and ice cream. He has two kids. One is 10 and one is 20. He told us his wife is having a baby in just a few weeks. He wishes he had brothers and sisters. We tell him we are his sisters. I met his oldest daughter who is very nice. She loves books also, but hasn’t told anyone. Her dad lets her read a few books every now and then.

 

     Twenty years went by and finally Nina and I were able to go free. It was a great feeling to travel to different places and read about those places. It was great. Nina became President of the United States later in life. She changed all the laws, and reading was finally allowed and the television was taken out of the school. The children were finally able to learn about math, English, history and science.

 

     Things went back to the times when my great-grandmother was a child, except, of course, no one had cars. People had given up their cars because of the increased global warming. All of the wild life eventually came back. People stopped all the wars and lived in peace with each other.

 

      I had three children. The youngest child looked like my great-grandmother when she was a child. The house that I lived in was haunted because my great-great-grandmother had died there. It was only her spirit finally bringing reading back into the world. I wished I could have met her. She was nice and loving and we would have been great friends.

 

     After my death, the time machine was invented and the people could go back in time and see all the changes that were made by me and Nina. Nina and I became famous in the eyes of all the children of the future.