Scripted (19 page)

“Selwyn, you're late. Please come in now.”

“Sorry. Just a sec.” Selwyn takes a deep breath. “Thanks, Nettie. I appreciate it—everything.”

“No problem. See you later.” As I walk away, the only sounds in the hall are the dolorous notes of the cello and the brief, crystal silences in between them. Appropriate.

And then I hear the thud of heavy boots. Several pairs, and they're coming closer. I know what's about to happen. I turn the corner and flatten myself against the wall. I see working cameras everywhere, looking at me. I know I should run, but I stay put, closing my eyes.

A door swings open roughly, hitting the wall behind it, and the music stops. Selwyn's scream is bloodcurdling. I hear Mrs. Taro murmuring and thuds and jostles. A
clunk
as something topples over and then a crack, the crush of wood bending and breaking. I open my eyes—I have to know. I lean around the corner, and I see a burly Authority yanking Selwyn out of the music room. Selwyn pulls back. She keeps screaming, but no one comes. Gone is the subdued, worn-out girl I left in the music room. She looks desperate, her black hair flying wildly, teeth clenched as she struggles. One of the Authority takes out a metal instrument and aims it at her neck. A high-pitched zapping sound rings out, and Selwyn goes limp.

• • •

I sit through history without any books or writing materials until Clemma Gosling takes pity, tears a page out of her notebook, and hands it to me, along with a dull pencil. Somehow I make it through.

When I finally make it to my locker between classes, I can feel the heat of stares on me. They know; everyone knows. I avoid looking at Selwyn's locker as I shove my books into my bag. Where is she? What do they do in the Sandcastle, when they're not running obstacle courses? I only have three more classes. I want to be home in my room. I want to be alone.

The reminders. I'm going to have so many reminders.

I see Callen farther down the hall, talking to Rawls at his locker. He's blurry because my eyes are full of unshed tears. I blink them back furiously and hurry past. I don't want to see him. Because I won't be able to actually talk to him, not in the hallway, with tons of cameras watching.

Lia's already in the classroom. She's wearing her most confident pose—head high, hands primly out on the desk—but she's pale. I look away from her as I sit. There's a rushing in my ears, as if I've just been dunked underwater, and it's a struggle to pay attention as Ms. Pepperidge draws a diagram on the whiteboard, showing all the characters in
The Player in the Attic.

I shouldn't have brought them to the bathroom. But how could I have known she would crisp? Lia glances at me, but I stare straight ahead. I'm not mad at her anymore. Compared to Selwyn getting cut, Lia's bitchiness in the bathroom is trivial.

“Lia, what do you think?” Ms. Pepperidge asks, coming up to her desk.

“About what?” Lia snaps to attention. “I didn't hear you.”

“Why did Bruno choose to stay in the attic when the other children went to the carnival?”

“Um . . .” Lia's forehead wrinkles. “I think the idea of the carnival scared him. Meanwhile, the attic—even though it was just a shabby little room, it was
his.
He felt powerful there.”

Ms. Pepperidge beams. “Great answer. Power comes in many forms . . .”

Power.
I think about the word as Ms. Pepperidge drones on. I felt powerful when I first started taking the suggestions. With Callen, when I began to suspect he liked me. Spending my bonus money at Delton's, doing the reenactment with Selwyn by our lockers. Power gave my life a jolt, a thrust it had lacked before. But no matter how powerful I felt, I'd always been a puppet. With Media1 pulling the strings.

I'm heading for the door at the end of class when I feel a hand on my arm. Lia. “Wait, Nettie—” She hesitates. “Do you want to do the Diary of Destiny after school?”

Anger bites at me again. Selwyn's
gone.

I imagine Lia sitting on my bed, explaining that Selwyn will be better off, like Belle, or that it's her own fault for breaking the Contract. That she deserves it. “No, thanks. Um, I gotta go to calculus, but I'll call you tonight,” I say, skirting around her and out of the classroom.

For once Mr. Black is on time. I sit at my usual desk, not looking at Scoop but wishing I could talk to him. His trip to the Sandcastle is my last chance to save Selwyn from the army or slave labor or whatever miserable fate is in store for the Patriots when they leave the island on the twentieth, five days away. We need to expose what's going on before then, or I might lose her forever.

I write a note at the corner of the page and nudge it to the edge of my desk. Scoop looks down briefly and nods, the smallest trace of a smile on his face.

I'm coming with you.

Selwyn Baker became a Patriot today under Clause 53, Item B, Risk to the Show. As per the Contract, please refrain from mentioning Selwyn. As per the Contract, rid your personal sets of any reminders of Selwyn.

• • •

It's official:
Selwyn crisped. Seasons ago, it might have been a fine. Now she's cut. It's like they're choking the life out of the island. I turn the Missivor off and go downstairs to get a garbage bag, aware that my room needs more than the five-minute scans I gave it after Revere and Belle.

I pass Mom, who is vacuuming the couch with a fabric hose. Her face is screwed up in concentration, her hair tied back tightly, like some sort of home facelift. The sound of the vacuum rasping over the fabric makes me cringe.

I escape upstairs and start filling my trash bag. There are silly ballpoint cartoons from when she used to draw in her spare time, birthday gifts—a checker set, a jelly bean dispenser, a hot pink wig, a book on watch repairs. All into the bag. In the midst of my hunt, I come across the fan letter Luz gave me, and I stuff it in my pocket, taking it with me as I haul the trash bag downstairs.

I dump the trash in the basement and come upstairs, letter still in hand. I pause in the kitchen, reading it one last time.
You're just like your parents: funny, tough, and smart.
I used to feel sorry for the Audience, but now I feel too sorry for myself to care about their drab Sectors lives. I click the gas on, hold out the paper, and watch the flames eat Kat Deva's letter.

The smoke is faint, but predictably, the alarm goes off. I'm scrambling on top of a stool to disable it when Mom comes in, frazzled, arms swooping about, like she can catch the noise in the air and quell it. My fingers are clumsy. I can't figure it out, and I resort to banging the alarm on the counter until the batteries pop out.

“Oh, my goodness,” Mom says, her hand over her heart. “What was that about, Nettie?”

“Burning some junk mail,” I say, washing my hands.

She pushes her glasses up her nose and fixes me with a stare.

I wipe my hands on the dishrag and cross my arms over my chest, daring her to ask more. Her eyes flit to the cameras in the ceiling. “Would you come with me to my office?” Her voice has that don't-mess-with-the-librarian air, and I follow her, too surprised by the invitation to refuse. Mom's office is her sanctuary, and though I used to come in here when I was younger to play with blocks on the blue carpet, I hardly ever go inside it these days.

“I want you to see my plus-ten view of Ginevra Herron's snowdrops.” She steers me to a corner by the windows. All I see, however, is a blur of white as she jostles me tightly into the corner, then, to my astonishment, begins fralling with me for the first time in ages.

“Nettie, I don't know what got into Selwyn, but I'm worried about
you.
You're old enough to know now: your father was a Show Risk.”

I blink.
A Show Risk?
That's
what Violet meant when she said he was rebellious. I didn't realize she meant he acted out toward Media1. I thought she meant he got into trouble with Characters, not Reals.

“Toward the end, he was completely careless about fralling. He'd wave to the crickets. He even deliberately broke a few cameras, and one day—” She closes her eyes, like she can't bear to remember, then opens them and forces herself to go on. “He took his mic off. I saw him do it, before he went to work, and I tried to stop him, but he wouldn't listen. All he would say was that his life wasn't a performance. Who hasn't felt that way? But he didn't have to— I got home, and there was the Missive.”

“Wow.” I know Mom wants to scare me, but the only thing I feel is a weird sort of pride.

“Nettie, there's no
wow,
” she mouths. “I'm worried you're going down the same road. You're not yourself—you've abandoned your building hobby, you didn't go to the Flower Festival, and now one of your closest friends was a Show Risk cut.”

I take pity on her. “Mom, I've been acting differently because of the Initiative. Have you heard of it?” On-mic, I add sweetly, “Those flowers are gorgeous.”

“I know. Ginevra told me they were hybrids—a cross between lilies and roses?” she says on-mic. She switches back off. “The Initiative? I hear it can do wonders for your ratings. Is that why you're buying all those new clothes? I'm so proud of you, sweetie. This is wonderful.”

Her reaction baffles me, but then I realize what's behind it—she thinks I'm a success now. She doesn't see beyond the Audience. “Mom,” I mouth gently, “the Initiative is an excuse for Media1 to interfere with our lives.”

“But your ratings are going up, right?” she mouths.

I'm conscious of how I can't see behind her. Her tall form blocks me off from the rest of the house. Her brown eyes implore me to say what she wants. Be who she wants me to be. I imagine telling her my latest suggestion. She'd probably ask what night I was planning for and offer to stay out so Callen and I could have the house to ourselves.

But instead I ask something that's been on my mind forever.

“Mom, do you miss him?” I mouth.

She stiffens. I wait, hoping she'll answer, and she does, but she's speaking on-mic, something about the Flower Festival and a display Mrs. Herron put together outside town hall. I nod, ask a few questions, and don't push her any further. I am who she wants me to be.

• • •

Safe in my room, I lie on my bed and think about our plan to get into the Center, imagining each detail as vividly as I can, scrutinizing each step for potential errors. My brain gets exhausted, and I can't even drag myself to my feet to check the radio for Reals chatter.

I just want to sleep and forget about what happened to Selwyn. I turn on my side and stare at the empty space. Where Callen is supposed to be this week. But I can't do that.

I'm over wanting to be a Media1 pet like Lia is, but there's one thing she has that I still want. I can't quite come up with the perfect word for it. Resolve? Certainty?

Callen would probably just say she's bossy.

I sit up straight. I have an idea. I look at myself in the mirror and tilt my head in my Lia pose, the one that I use to give me confidence. I need to act like Lia used to with Callen. Right before he broke up with her, she came on too strong about the close-up. What I'd always thought of as confidence, he viewed as manipulation. If I do that, he'll refuse me for sure. He might even break up with me.

That's what I need, I realize. A breakup. The one thing that could get me out of the suggestion.

• • •

I rummage through the fridge late Wednesday afternoon, searching for whatever requires the least preparation. I settle on strawberries and bread, but perching on the kitchen stool, I find I'm too nervous to eat them. Instead, I fidget with the wire cutters I dug up in the garage. They're for Scoop and me to bring with us on Thursday, to cut through the fence that surrounds the Center. Oddly, breaking into the Center is causing me less anxiety than this close-up. Or is it a setup? A setup close-up.

All day, anxiety has swirled inside me. As I handed my overdue Double A application in to the principal. As I met with Scoop behind the loud fridge in the cafeteria to make sure he'd stolen the wigs from the scene shop. As I sat between Lia and Martin during lunch, pretending Selwyn never existed.

I give up trying to eat after a few strawberries. They taste more sour than sweet. I dump the rest of them back into the big bowl in the fridge, wash and dry my plate, and return the uneaten bread to the bread bag. I go into the living room and lie down the couch for a second before straightening up Lia-style, checking myself in the mirror above the fireplace to make sure I nail it.

The doorbell chimes. I jump up off the couch and run to the door. I fling it open, smiling. Too exuberant?
I'm already doing things wrong.

“You made it. I'm glad,” I say, struggling to come up with what Lia would say. “I haven't been able to stop thinking about tonight.”

Callen's wearing his usual, a T-shirt—but this one's pumpkin orange and isn't faded at all—and jeans. He puts his arms around me, and I breathe him in. He feels so real and solid as I hold him, like he can withstand anything, and for the first time all day, the worry starts to fade.

“Whoa, tight grip.” He laughs above me, the skin around his eyes crinkling in that way I like.

“Sorry.” But I'm not. I finally let him go when I hear a camera swiveling. For a few seconds, I forgot about the suggestion. I take his hand and lead him up to my room, wishing I felt sexy. I hope my hand isn't sweating.

We enter my room. It's tidier than it's been in months: I'd done a lot the night of Selwyn's cut to make it spotless and even more when I got home today. Past projects are tucked away into drawers, books lined up on the shelves, mirror nice and clear. Soft evening light spills in from the open curtains.

“Plus ten,” he says, stopping at the desk and picking up Belle's bottle. He flicks it, and a high-pitched note undulates in the air. I catch my breath, worried a Real behind the cameras might notice that the bottle is a reminder.

He puts the bottle down gently, and I relax. He surveys the rest of the room. “Everything's so organized,” he says, smiling at me. “Not that I'm surprised. It's very you.” He sits on the bed and plants his hands on either side of him. Now. Now. Now. I sit next to him. We have about two hours before Mom comes back. Our knees are touching. The seventeen cameras in my room flare at me.

“I can think of more fun things to do,” I say, pushing him down so he's on his back. The words seem to stumble out of my mouth, but at least I get them said. I straddle him, but I don't feel at ease like I did in the Brambles. My whole body feels heavy, like it's working against me. I close my eyes, bend down, and kiss him.

He's underneath me and pushes my tank top straps down, the microphone going with it. I think there's actually a clause in the Contract about intimate situations.
Microphones can be moved . . .
I shouldn't be thinking about the Contract. Even if it's the whole reason I'm here. Kissing. I should be thinking about kissing. Thinking kissing. Frustrated, I open my eyes so that I can see his, but of course, they're closed. I check the clock on my night table. Got to stay on track. Callen notices my distraction, and his eyes follow the path of mine and latch on to what's next to the clock.

“Are those . . . ?” He sits up on his elbows and picks up the condoms.

“Um, yeah,” I say. “I mean, yes, of course. For us. Tonight.” My tank top straps are halfway down my arms, and I don't know what to do with them. What would Lia say? “I'm
so
ready. Aren't you? Don't you want to?”

“Well . . .” I tense again. What if it doesn't work? He starts to kiss me again, and I panic—is he going to go through with it?
I can't.
My first close-up
can't
be because of the Initiative.

He breaks off the kiss and mutters something, his eyes half shut so I can't read them.

“What? What's wrong?” My voice is too—so much more hesitant than Lia's. “Don't tell me you haven't before,” I say, lacing the words with a hint of scorn. I pull my mic up so it's lying on the pillow next to my head.

He reaches down and cups my cheek in his hand.

“I want to . . . one day,” he says. “I haven't either.”

I'm both surprised and not by this. It's odd for trac Callen, but not for the shy Callen I've known most of my life.

Callen drops his hand and finds mine and holds it. He turns, and our foreheads touch, like they did on the beach.
I wish this were all the Audience wanted.
Because it's all I want now.

“Let's do it,” I force out, pushing up his shirt again.

He looks over his shoulder at the clock. “Isn't your mom coming home in an hour? This is so sudden and so rushed. You're acting like . . .”

“Like what?”

“Lia,” he says reluctantly. Yes. It's working. “She was always after me to close up, like it was some kind of competition.”

My mind scrambles, trying to come up with whatever will turn him off the most. “Well, isn't it? We need to win.”

Callen raises his eyebrows, incredulous. It's all I can do not to tell him everything—but I can't risk his getting cut. I couldn't live with myself.

“Come on,” I reach for his shirt again. “We don't have much time.”

“Stop.” He pushes my hands away. “Nettie, this is crazy. Can we wait? Just until it's a little more, I don't know, just natural?”

“Why wait?” I pout. I get an idea. I get close to his ear. “We'll get such great ratings.”

He recoils. “Are you kidding?” he says, switching to on-mic. Good. “Now you're exactly like Lia.” He grabs his microphone from the bed and clips it back to his collar. I watch, hating his anger, but knowing that it's exactly what I need to keep both of us safe.

He sits on the edge of the bed and ties his shoelaces in brisk, fast motions. I decide to leave my tank top straps hanging off my arms—I don't want Media1 to suspect I didn't try. I have to fight down every instinct I have to leave him alone when I reach over and put my arms around him, murmuring, “Why don't you want to? You're being weird.”

He throws my arms off and gets up. His face looks cold, his eyes icy. I lose my confident Lia pose, and I'm unable to speak.

But he can. “I think we need a break—maybe we shouldn't see each other for a while.”

I raise my head, facing the icy eyes straight on. “Okay,” I answer, making my voice small. He hesitates, lingering at the door. Like he expects me to protest. Snap back at him like I'm sure Lia did. But I just get up and start neatening the bed, turning my back to him. I hear him go down the stairs and out the door.