Disconnect (6 page)

“I finished my project,” Emerson told me. “I wanted to show your friend.”

“Maybe another time.”

I stumbled out of the house and down the front path without looking back.

Chapter Twelve

The next day, Cleo dragged me into the library on our way home from school. She settled in front of a computer. “I hope I can find this stuff again. I told you. There's loads about technology addiction.” She clicked on one article after another. “See?” she said. “Discomfort. Short temper. Anxiety. That's you.”

“I don't have a short temper,” I snapped.

“It says here that it's much like any other addiction,” said Cleo. “It shares many of the same withdrawal symptoms. It's an illness, really. And you're not the only one.” She glanced around the library. Some people were reading in the lounge chairs. Others were hunched over tables, studying. But nearly everyone had a phone sitting beside them, was plugged into an iPod or was texting. “Don't you think it would be a great topic for our socials report?” she asked.

“I thought you told Stryker we were going to do our project on homelessness?”

“That was the first thing that came into my head when she assigned us to work together. Do you have a better idea?”

“Not this, that's for sure.” All I needed was to treat my rotten life like a research project. “What's wrong with homelessness?” I asked.

“Lots!”

“I mean for a project, you jerk.”

“See. There you go again,” said Cleo. “Temper, temper!” The purple pompom on her hat bobbed. “Do you happen to know any homeless people?” she asked. “If we do addictions, it would be like a real scientific study. I'll be the control, as I'm not addicted to anything. You could be the subject, seeing as you are the one who's hooked.”

“Why me? What about your dad?”

“I'm talking about technology here. Not booze. So shall we do this or not?”

“All right, all right,” I said. Wet rag meets bulldozer, I thought. I knew which one I was. “But before we get into it, let me check Facebook while I have the chance.”

“This can be the first experiment.” Cleo grabbed the mouse as I tried to move the cursor to the address bar. “We need to document what happens when you are prevented from feeding your addiction.”

“Give that to me.” I tried to yank the mouse back.

She held on tight. “Withdrawal symptom number one. Impatience.”

“Cleo!” I squeezed her hand.

“Violence now? I'd better record this stuff.” When she released the mouse to reach for her bag, I grabbed it.

She hauled it away from me by its cord.

“Girls. Girls. You know the rule. One person at a work station at a time,” said the librarian with the red spiky hair. “If you can't work quietly, I'll suspend your Internet privileges for the day.”

“Excuse my friend,” Cleo told her. “She's going through withdrawal. But we're cool.”

“Thanks a lot,” I hissed as the librarian went back to her desk.

“Loss of sense of humor. Must include that in our observations. This is going to be great!” Cleo picked up her bag and stood up. “You log off, and I'll find us a table.”

“I'll be right there.” I was about to open my email when I noticed one of the links.
Project Disconnect
, it said. I opened it up to find it was a website about a school in the United States that had banned all phones, iPods, iPads and other devices for a month.

“It would never catch on at our school,” said Cleo. “Log on. Log off. Check this. Text that.” She rolled her eyes. “One person in withdrawal at a time is all I can handle.” She opened her binder and wrote down a bunch of notes. “Your task is to start a journal of all your symptoms. Make a note every time you feel the urge to connect with someone, and record the side effects of staying offline.”

Any minute, I thought, she would stick me on a treadmill or clip wires to my head!

I'd often worked with Josie and Selena on projects. Josie was the one to assign tasks and set timelines. Then something would come up. Flu. A dance exam. Visitors from out of town. And soon Selena and I were on our own.

Cleo was a born organizer. And bossy too. By the time we left the library, we each had a list of things to do. Timelines, even.

She said she wanted an A for our first joint project.

And she didn't care what it took.

Chapter Thirteen

“How come you didn't call before?” said Selena when I snuck in a call before Mom got home.

“I told you. I'm not even supposed to use the phone. And I got hung up on this socials project at the library with Cleo.”

“Who's Cleo?”

“Just some girl.”

“What's she like?” There was an edge in her voice.

“She's okay. A bit weird, I guess.”

“Weird, how?”

“I don't know. Just different.” I could have told her about Cleo's hats and piercings and strange home life. But it felt disloyal. “Is Josie there?” I asked. “Let me talk to her. I don't know when I can connect again.”

“She and Luca took off to check out some skateboards.”

“Are they going out?” I asked.

“Ye-es! Like for at least two weeks! You really are out of the loop.”

In the background, someone yelled for her to hurry up. “So what else is new?” I asked. “Selena?”

She was talking to someone else, away from the phone. Katya Blewett, I figured from the voice. “Selena?”

“Talk later, okay?” she said. “I've got to go.”

I looked at the dead phone in my hand.

I dumped it on the floor and pulled my covers over my head. I might have gone to sleep if Mom hadn't stuck her head around the door. “Hi. Everything okay?”

I hadn't heard her come in. I swung my legs down, kicking the phone under the bed. “Fine.”

“How was school?”

“Fine.”

Mom shrugged. “Now we've had our mandatory hello-how-are-you conversation, I'll be in the kitchen.”

I waited to hear that she was downstairs before I grabbed the phone and dialed Cleo's number.

“Hi. It's me. Daria.”

“I could be your sponsor,” she said. “Like in AA? Dad had one. Now he sponsors other people. When they feel tempted to drink, they call, and he talks them through it. Though I guess in your case, being as you are a recovering techno-phile, you are not likely to call for help on the very instrument you're withdrawing from. You think?”

I had to laugh. Cleo may be weird, but she was smart and funny.

“So what's up?” she asked.

“I thought I'd give you a call,” I said. “I had to sneak the phone from downstairs. Now I have to figure out how to get it back without Mom seeing.”

“Is that why we're whispering?” she whispered.

I told her about Josie and Luca. And Katya Blewett. Someone Selena had no time for before. Now they were hanging out together at the mall. I bet they could find room for
her
in Selena's mom's Kia.

“Well, people do move on, don't they?” said Cleo. “I've left people behind each time we moved. You can't stay friends forever with everyone you leave behind.”

“What about that ‘enough love to go around' stuff you were on about?” I asked.

“That's a load of crap.” She laughed. “Well, not really. But you've got me now. Selena has Justine. Josie has Luca. It all works out. So, of all the guys in school, who do you have your eye on?”

She was trying so hard, and I was sick of talking about Selena and Josie. And Daria makes three. “You mean here?” I asked.

“Of course here. Me, myself and I? I think Drew Galling has a nice face.”

“The chess freak?” I laughed. “You like his face? What about his arms? Or his shoulders or his chest?” I had never looked closely at any of them myself. “I'll have to think about it,” I told her. “I'd better go before Mom sneaks up on me again.”

“Me too. How are you feeling, by the way? Remember to keep notes of all your symptoms.”

“Yeah, yeah. I'll do it as soon as I hang up.” Which I thought was pretty funny.

The phone was safely under my pillow when Mom put her head around the door again. “Dad's home. Can you help with supper?”

The look she gave me reminded me of when I was at Nana's a few weeks ago, on the phone to Josie. “Do you remember when we used to cook together?” Nana had asked. That made me think of the woman at the mall telling me about her grandsons always texting.

What was it Dad said? I wondered. Something about not being in the same room?

“Sure. I can help,” I said. I followed her downstairs and managed to sneak the phone back on its base without her noticing.

Seconds later, Dad came in and grabbed it. I followed him into the study. “What's wrong with your cell?” I asked.

“Nothing. I just thought I'd try doing without my cell for a while. To keep you company in your suffering,” he said. Like it wasn't his idea! “How's it going, anyway?” he asked.

“Fine.”

He looked at me sideways, as if he suspected something.

“So how's it going for you?” I asked.

He made a face. “Old habits die hard and all that. I keep thinking I've lost something. Keep patting my pocket.” He did it now.

I knew the feeling. “Cleo and I are doing our socials project on addiction to technology,” I told him. “Can I interview you about your withdrawal symptoms?”

“Me?” He held out a shaking hand. He made his head twitch, his tongue loll out of his mouth. “What withdrawal symptoms?” he asked.

“What is wrong with you?” asked Mom when I followed him into the kitchen.

“We're comparing withdrawal symptoms.” Dad took the potato peeler from Mom. “I feel better with something in my hands. What about you, Daria?”

It was nice of Dad to let me know in his weird way that he understood what I was going through. I grabbed the placemats. “Me too. Who knows? I might even volunteer to do the dishes.” Or not.

Chapter Fourteen

I spent so much time working on the project with Cleo over the next week that I barely had time to connect with Selena or Josie.

Sometimes, as Cleo and I hung out comparing notes or talking about school or movies or books, I sensed what things might have been like before
TV
and phones, in the dark ages before everyone was connected by technology.

That didn't mean I didn't miss technology. My hand still searched out my phone dozens of times a day.

One afternoon, Josie called our landline. Mom listened for a moment, frowning. Then she handed me the phone. “I think you'd better talk to her,” she said. “But make it short.”

“I tried calling you,” Josie sobbed. “I've left loads of texts.”

“I don't have my phone, remember? Are you okay?”

“No. Yes. No. I don't know.” She took a long, shaky breath. “It's Luca. I like him. I mean, I really like him.”

“So?”

“It's just. You know boys. He seems really hot for me too. Until he's around his skateboard buddies. Then I hardly exist.”

“Did you have a fight?”

“Kind of.”

“What does ‘kind of' mean? Did you, or didn't you?”

“He told me he hated clingy girls. I wasn't clinging, I…hang on, there's another call.”

“Josie?”

She came back on the line. “That was Luca. I'm headed over there now. I'll call you later, okay?”

I stared at the phone for a second. Then I handed the phone back to Mom without saying anything and headed upstairs.

There was no point trying to figure out what that had been about. Figuring out boys was hard enough. Figuring out Josie and a boy, forget it.

Maybe there was an upside to not being in constant contact!

I reread the Project Disconnect article I had downloaded. An entire school participated, even the teachers. Some university prof published a paper on the changes the teachers had noticed. Kids talking to each other. Spending more time in the library and at after-school clubs.

When I bring it up again to Cleo the next day, she said, “Don't mention it, okay? It would be death to our popularity ratings.” Popularity ratings?

I gave her the notes I got from talking to Dad. She grabbed my hands. “Look at your nails! You've bitten them so far, they're bleeding. Better add that to your list of withdrawal symptoms.”

I hadn't even noticed I was doing it.

In class, Ms. Stryker checked her notes when I reported on our project. “I thought you and Cleo said you were doing homelessness.”

“We changed our minds.” Cleo said
we
as if it hadn't all been her idea.

“That's a pity,” said Stryker. “It's an important subject.”

There goes our A, I thought.

“We're doing that topic,” said Sara from across the room.

“We want permission to bring in a guest speaker,” added her partner Shauna.

Stryker frowned at her notes. “I have here that your project was to be about getting a first job.”

“A guy called Dennis lives in the bushes behind my dad's business,” Sara explained. “My dad gives him stuff sometimes. Food. Blankets, when it got cold. Dennis agreed to come in and talk to the class.”

“All right, all right.” Stryker held up a hand to hush the chatter. “Sara and Shauna, that's something you'll have to clear with the vice-principal. Now, can we finish with the updates and get on to other work?”

“That's what we need,” said Cleo on our way out of school. “A guest speaker. Maybe we can invite your dad.”

“We don't need to invite him,” I told her. Like I was going to let my own father stand up in front of my classmates! I was almost as surprised as Cleo when the words came out of my mouth. “I can be the guest speaker.”

“What do you mean?”