A Chronetic Memory (The Chronography Records Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

sky as Dani lowered her car into the orange-painted outlines of a parking spot. Parking lot descents were easy now, but she remembered how difficult they had been to learn. Her driving instructor had made her practice every time he rode with her. “People forget to check what’s below them,” he had said. “Anything could move into your spot: an animal, a rolling ball, a child. You can’t see it, unless you use your underview screen.” She remembered learning to center her car over the parking spot. That was easy. The trickiest part was turning while she hovered so the corners lined up. Parking spots abutted each other on four sides, with only enough room to open doors and walk between. Her early attempts had resulted in smashing more than a few holographic cars.
    As she entered the brightly-colored door to the elementary school, an efficient secretary greeted her at the desk with a pleasant, if preoccupied, smile. Dani read her name on the counter nameplate: Ms. Lawrence.
    “How can I help you?” asked Ms. Lawrence.
    “Danarin Adams. I’m here for the Chronography presentation.”
    Immediately, the secretary’s smile warmed. “Oh, the children love you! Do you have the fiddle player with you?”
    Dani fought off the urge to say, “Yes, right here, in the side pocket of my bag,” and decided to behave more professionally. She’d save the silly humor for the kids.
    “Yes, and several other recordings,” she answered instead. “Could you tell me how many children to expect?”
    “We have about two hundred children scheduled for your presentation, with a mix of ages. Even the ones who usually telestudy have made the trip in for this.” Ms. Lawrence gestured to a room behind her. “Would you like some coffee before you set up? Or something to eat? One of the parents brought in a fruit tray this morning.”
    “That actually sounds nice. Thank you. And then, if you could show me where to set up?”
    In a few minutes, Ms. Lawrence had escorted her to the auditorium, setting down a cup of coffee and some strawberries on a nearby table, and Dani was preparing her presentation. The kids would sit around her in a semi-circle on the floor, little ones in front and older kids in back. She would need a certain distance for the holographic projections to have the best effect. The little kids would want to touch and feel the things she had brought, so they needed to be close.
    The older kids would be more standoffish, but she knew exactly how to reach them if their attention wandered at all: She would ask for volunteers to operate the controls of a portable image reader that the institute had adapted to read real-time images from any location in the room and project them somewhere else. Kids liked to pretend they were flies on the wall, or bugs on the floor, and observe the presentation from other vantage points. They especially liked it when they could watch themselves in holographic form.
    She arranged her samples for the touch-and-feel part of the presentation. A metal disk. A small round stone. A scrap of leather. A plastic leaf. She set up the holographic projector and tested its projection height. She liked to raise it a foot or so off the floor so that the ones in the back could see it all. She pulled out a stack of touch-and-color handouts for the youngest audience members, and a box of holographic matching card games for the older kids. The holographic cards were popular for kids in middle school too.
    The kids filed in and seated themselves. A murmur of excitement rippled through the room as they spotted the image recorder and holographic projectors. When they were all seated, she stood, and the kids quieted instantly.
    “I’d like to welcome you all to my chronography show,” she began. “How many of you have heard of chronography?”
    Hands shot up all over the room.
    “Who can tell me what it is?” She pointed to an eager little boy in the second row from the front.
    “It’s where you can see and