Scripted

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

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Copyright © 2015 by Maya Rock.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rock, Maya. Scripted / Maya Rock. pages cm

Summary: “Nettie Starling has spent all her life on the set of a reality show, but as her friends mysteriously get cut, she learns that her seemingly perfect world hides some dangerous secrets”—Provided by publisher.

[1. Reality television programs—Fiction. 2. Popularity—Fiction. 3. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 4. Revolutions—Fiction. 5. Mystery and detective stories.] I. Title.

PZ7.R5876Scr 2015 [Fic]—dc23 2014015073

ISBN 978-0-698-17494-8

To my mother, Gwendolyn Williams, my guiding light, and my father, Anthony Rock, always in my heart.

I like
the hallway after lunch, when the sound of lingering Characters fills the space like a choir. Crickets with cameras on their shoulders weave through the crowd, searching for good scenes. Our lockers are right in the middle of it all, halfway between the school's entrance and the cafeteria. I watch everyone from here, but my eyes keep coming back to Callen.

“Selwyn, tell us
now,
” Lia insists, pushing her flame-colored hair back as she kneels to rummage through the bottom of her locker.

Today, at lunch, Lincoln Grayson said he'd closed up with a girl at his parents' beach house last Saturday, after the Apocalypse (Lincoln likes his parties to have grandiose names) officially ended. We tried to guess who it was—Geraldine Spicer? Caren Trosser?—but he shook his head at each name we threw out.

Lia grumbled about the sin of secrets between friends, then accused him of making it up. Neither tactic got her a name. We left the cafeteria in a huddle, speculating feverishly, until Selwyn admitted that she knew the real story—“It's not like he said. I heard the girl's side.”

“Who? Who?”

“I can't say anything else.” Selwyn fidgets with her
liberato
beads. “I overheard her talking to her friends—Lincoln will kill me if I give it up.” I'm worried about the audiotrack: Selwyn's voice is naturally soft, and with the noise in the hall, I can barely hear her. Last quarter's mark landed me on the E.L., so I need to make sure all my scenes are fit for broadcast. With a quick flick of my fingers (to the Audience it'll look as if I scratched my neck), I straighten the microphone pinned to my collar and step forward an inch, closing the gap between us.

“We'll keep our mouths shut, right, Nettie?” Still crouched down, Lia jabs my ankle with her elbow. Her eyes flit up to me, searching for support.

I always say what she needs to hear. “I won't tell anyone,” I promise, tracking Callen as he moves away from his locker, accompanied by Rawls Talon, the Pigeons' second baseman. Callen's hair, so blond it's almost white, makes his path through the mass of Characters easy to follow. He ends up in front of the principal's office, checking out the poster tacked to the bulletin board.

I can't see it from here, but I know it by heart. I was with Lia when she wrote it.

A
PPRENTICESHIP
A
NNOUNCEMENT
S
CHEDULE
AND
G
UIDELIN
ES

The Seventy-Third Apprenticeship Announcement

April 20

S
CHEDULE

10
A.M.
Mayor's Speech

10:15
A.M
.
Poem

10:30
A.M.
Ceremony

D
RESS
C
ODE

Semiformal dresses for girls

Suits and ties for boys

Selwyn gazes intently at her
liberato
moccasins, until finally, she squares her tiny shoulders and coughs it up. “Mollie Silverine.” She grins, relieved the pressure's off. The smile turns lopsided as she curls her lip down to conceal the chip on her upper left canine tooth. No one but her notices the flaw, but she's still self-conscious about it.

Lia smirks. “Mollie Silverine? You're kidding. I guess this won't make her gossip column.” She's stopped rummaging, focused on our conversation.

“It's not like that. She was sleeping, and Lincoln tried to, like, nuzzle her,” Selwyn goes on, “and she seriously thought he was the dog and pushed him away. Didn't sound like a close-up to me.”

“Of course there was no close-up,” Lia says scornfully. “I don't think Lincoln's ev—”

“Shhh, keep your voice down.” Selwyn flaps her hand, eager to avoid the scrutiny of the Characters crowding the hall.

“Lincoln's never even kissed anyone,” Lia whispers.

“He probably wanted her to play Spate with him,” I joke, miming Lincoln briskly dealing cards, my tunic's clumsy bell-shaped sleeves fluttering in the air. Lincoln loves Spate. He's gotten so into games that he's knocked down glasses at our lunch table in his playing fervor.

“Lincoln and his Spate.” Lia sighs. Selwyn giggles. I roll up the sleeves of the blouse. I can't wait for the motif change; I've about worn this shirt out. A smile lingers on Lia's face as she starts sifting through the junk in her locker again. She's one of those Characters whose smile transforms her. Without it, the even, defined lines of her face—high cheekbones, firm jaw, and hard green eyes—make her seem cold.

Selwyn moves closer to me and Lia, trying to seal us off from the rest of the hall. “Remember, it's a secret.”

“We know.” Lia doesn't look up. Old play programs and candy wrappers float down like autumn leaves. A pen clatters to the floor, and she snatches it up with a triumphant flourish. It's the slick red pen her dad gave her two seasons ago for her fourteenth birthday. She uses it when we work on the Diary of Destiny—she thinks it's lucky.

“Thank God. I need all the help I can get for the chemistry test,” she says, standing up and shoving the pen in her pocket. She crushes the books and papers back into her locker and shoves the entire side of her body against the door to force it closed.

“You're as bad as Callen about that stuff. He sets his mitt underneath the oak tree in his backyard the night before every game for good luck,” I say, cringing as soon as the words leave my mouth. Mentioning him to her is a pinch I can't resist giving myself.

The corner of Lia's mouth turns down, and she mutters, “Callen.”

I can't let it go. “What do you mean? What about him?”

Selwyn hums, flipping the top buckle on her cello case up and down in an uneven rhythm. She's caught in a middle that Lia doesn't know about. Around us, the swirl of Characters intensifies as they move out of the hall toward classes.

“He did that with his mitt last year,” Lia reports, “but I don't think he cares anymore. He actually forgot to bring his mitt to practice yesterday.” She rolls her eyes. “That reminds me—I've got to talk to him about tonight. His parents are going to be out late. Maybe we'll
finally.
”

Nonono.
I whip around and start twirling my combination with jittery fingers, getting it wrong on the first try. Lia just won't stop talking about how Callen won't close up with her.

“Why do
you
think he won't, Nettie?” she asks, smiling.

“Scared?” I suggest. At last, I hear the click and my locker opens.
Would he be scared with me?
I feel my skin heating up, and poke my head into the locker so no one can see my embarrassment.

“Poor Callen,” Selwyn says behind me.

“Poor Callen?” Lia squawks. She leans her back against her locker, her face inches away from mine. She surveys the hall like a queen. “Poor
me.
Something's wrong with him. What could it be?”

I grab my math book and back out from the locker, calmer. “Maybe it's a ritual, like with the mitt.” I think it's a reasonable guess. “Like if he closes up during baseball time, he'll lose games.”

“Maybe,” Lia says, drumming her fingers on her locker. “Whatever it is, he needs to get over it. I'm
ready,
you know what I mean?” Selwyn snorts with laughter, resorting to pressing her face against her arm to smother the sound.

I shrug. “Not really.” She knows I've never closed up before.

Lia sighs. “Well, he better not cancel again. I want to get home late tonight anyway. Mom's been on a rampage.” The drumming stops as she realizes she's said too much. Her eyes dart to the camera, risking a fine but hoping to make the footage unusable.

She succeeds in escaping the Audience, but not Selwyn.

“What rampage?” Selwyn asks hesitantly. Her inky black eyes are wide.

“Hmm? Oh, well, you know how mothers can be.” Lia picks up the stylish straw bag she got for
liberato,
ready to make a run for it to escape the conversation. She's kept her mom's alcohol problem a secret from other Characters and tries to avoid talking about it on-camera, even though the Audience probably knows.

“My mom doesn—”

“Where's Callen?” Lia cranes her neck, scanning the hall. “This is the last chance I'll get to talk to him before practice.”

“By the bulletin board, talking to Rawls,” I report. They aren't looking at the poster anymore. Now Rawls is gabbing away, and Callen is listening, as usual.

“Okay, great.” Her eyes flick past him and land on Mollie, the tall, coltish girl who spurned Lincoln, sauntering through the hall with her friend, brawny Thora Swan, Selwyn's apprenticeship rival. “Mollie really dodged a bullet,” she muses. “She's so nice, and he's so Lincoln. What if we sent a blind item about it in to her column? She might not even realize it's about her, and he'd be so mad. What do you think?”

I shake my head.

“You're right,” she says, adjusting the bag under her arm. “Too mean. Okay, I'm going to try to catch Callen. God, I should put a blind item in her column about
him.
”

I play along. “What precocious pitcher . . . ,” I begin while Selwyn starts fiddling with the buckle again, embarrassed.

“Can't close the real game,” Lia finishes with a chuckle. “Bye.” She rushes down the hall, hollering his name. He looks up, grins, and waits. I like the way he waits. When Callen is still, he reminds me of a river, fixed in space yet coursing with inner energy. Lia catches up with him, and their hands join. They don't look right together. Her purposeful stride, his loose glide.

What a nightmare.

“So weird and sad for you.” Selwyn squeezes my shoulder. She has a light touch. She's like a doll come to life—her small, flat nose, inky black eyes, and wide face. Everything about her is mild and unthreatening, especially her girlish, whispery voice.

“Let's talk about something else.” I wiggle free from her grasp and glance up at the clock across from our lockers. Ten minutes until class. “How's orchestra?”

Someone leaving the hall jostles her cello case, and she hugs it closer. It's almost as big as she is. “I'm practicing. A lot. Can you believe how close the Double A is?”

I stuff my math book into my book bag. “April twentieth is still a month away.” The nearer we get to our Apprenticeship Announcement, the less excited I feel about what's supposed to be the most important day of my life.

Selwyn peers closely at me. “You're not excited?”

“I haven't been to Fincher's much lately,” I confess. It's typical to put in a lot of hours at the apprenticeship you want before the Double A—like a pre-apprenticeship—so the Characters you'll be working with can get a feel for you. Mine, the repairman apprenticeship, would be at Fincher's Fix-Its, so I trudge down there every so often to tackle broken clocks and malfunctioning toasters. It's mind-numbingly boring. Imagining a life stuck in a dusty shop is depressing, but the alternative—getting anyassigned into some lame job no one wants—is worse. When I feel depressed, I try to remember that lots of people in the Sectors don't even have lifetime jobs. Compared to the Reals, I have it easy.

Selwyn glances over her shoulder to make sure no one's eavesdropping, then turns back to whisper, “Is it because of Witson?”

“No, not because—well, not
just
because of Witson.” Unfortunately for me, Mr. Fincher is my ex's father, and Witson gets lurky whenever I'm there. But he
always
blows his own cover by stumbling over paint buckets and nail boxes, then stammering apologies while I watch him pick the stuff up, thinking,
I can't believe our lips ever touched.
“I'd be okay with Witson if I felt better about the apprenticeship.”

“You feel bad about being a repairman?” Selwyn's cello case rocks, pushed by some geeky sophomore girls standing behind her, and she reaches out and steadies it. “It seems to fits you so well, though.”

“Mom agrees with you. She thinks it's perfect because I like to build stuff. But the garage feels like a bat cave, and the work all seems the same after a while,” I say. “It's too late to switch.”

“Technically not
too
late to do something else.” Selwyn purses her kitten lips and twists the buttons on her flowery cardigan as she thinks. “The apprenticeship lasts a year, but your profession is forever. You can write whatever you want on the Double A application . . . or leave it blank.”

“If I put something new in, I'd be up against people who've already put in time. And blank means anyassigned, which would be a disaster. Face it, I'm stuck.” I turn back to my locker, snagging the tunic sleeve on the handle. “Literally.”

“Aw,” Selwyn croons, rushing forward to help me untangle myself. Lia would have laughed.

I'll be wearing this tunic after school when I bike to the Center for my Show Physical. I'm so tired of billowy
liberato
fashions. Like I'm tired of Fincher's. Like I'm tired of Lia and Callen.

“Think of the positive. You get the parts you need for your own projects free, like that diode thing for the radio you're making,” Selwyn says, running her hand through her long midnight-black hair.

“Yeah. Great.” I gaze into the locker's void, then pull out my chemistry book. “That's nice, but it doesn't help when I'm in the garage, ready to claw my eyes out.”

Selwyn sighs. “At least you know you'll probably get the repairman apprenticeship. I don't know if”—she lowers her voice—“if I can beat Thora Swan for the orchestra one. She practices constantly. She's a
beast.
I'm going to end up anyassigned to trash collection—”

Stomp. Stomp. Stomp.
I dimly register the sound of footfalls, their rhythm regular, mechanized. Selwyn stiffens and complains about how her parents won't buy her a new cello. Then she stops talking, and so, I realize, has everyone else—the hall is silent except for those footfalls. I turn my head from my locker, dread fluttering through me, remembering my last ratings mark.