by Lance Rubin
“You’re being weird, Feel, I don’t wanna take your—”
“Yeah, well, I just assaulted a cop. It’s a weird day.”
“Nice!” Paolo says.
“I can get my bike from your house, Denton,” Millie says. “It’s a little messed up, but you can use it to go somewhere.”
“That’s perfect,” Felix says.
“I’ll go with you. We’ll cab it. See you soon, Dent.”
Paolo and Millie dash away.
“You think I should take Millie’s bike?” I ask Felix.
“Absolutely not,” Felix says. “I did that to get them out of here. This is dangerous enough as it is; they don’t need to be involved. Were you contacted with an address?”
“Contacted? What are you talking about?”
“An address! You were supposed to be given an address.”
“What? No, I…Oh, wait!” I reach into my pocket and pull out a scrap of paper. On it is written: I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you more in the car. Too risky. But you’ve survived. Go to 301 W. 53rd St., 2D, NYC. You will be OK. Brian
“Oh good, you wrote it down,” Felix says.
“No, this is from Brian Blum, he put it in my pocket.”
Saying his last name aloud triggers a phrase in my brain: Come to Bloom!!
What the…
Come to Blum! Find the address.
I was supposed to click to find the address in Happy Dinosaur’s message. But I didn’t. So Blum came to me.
He always knew I would live.
“When?”
“Just before, when I was on the stretcher.”
“Oh man, well, he got it to you, at least. You need to go to that address.”
“But this is in New York City.”
“Denton.” Felix once again puts his hands on my shoulders, and I notice he has a big gash on his forehead, I’m guessing from the car accident. He peeks back to make sure no one is coming, then looks directly into my eyes. “I love you, but you don’t fully understand what’s happening he—”
“So help me understand! What is happening?”
“Listen to me. You have outlived your deathdate. Because of, well…”
“The virus, right? Paolo’s mom told me our mom injected me with a virus before I was born.”
“Oh.” Felix wasn’t expecting me to know that. “Yeah. Yes, she did. But the government found out. And they do not want you living through your deathdate. At all. Which is why, it turns out, Paolo’s mom’s been watching you your whole life.”
“But why is this so bad for the government?”
“Long story. But suffice it to say, important people have lots of money riding on the fact that the deathdate system works. If you live, maybe it doesn’t work. The whole system is undermined, and those important people lose lots of money. You get me?”
“Not really.”
“It doesn’t matter. What matters is that for all intents and purposes, you are dead. The government will list you as deceased, and the world will believe that Denton Little is no more. There will probably be some headline about the car crash and your death in the newspaper. So use that cash, and stay off the grid. And grab the bag in the stairwell. It has clothes to change into.”
For a moment, I wonder if I would have been better off if I’d actually died.
“How do you know so much? Are you working with Brian Blum?”
“Something like that. Look, I’m sorry I could never tell you all this until now. We honestly didn’t know if it would work, but—”
“They’re coming,” a voice says from behind me. Veronica has emerged from the stairwell door at the other end of the hall. Her hood is down, and she looks afraid. I’m so glad she’s okay.
Felix spins around and looks out the window of the door leading to the stairwell behind him. “Cops, Denton! Go go go!”
I don’t think. His voice is the starter pistol, and I take off. I make it to the end of the hall, where Veronica has the door held open for me.
“Veronica,” I say. “I…”
“I know. I feel those things, too, okay? I’m really, really happy you’re not dead. But you need to get out of here,” she says.
I look back and see three cops emerge into the hall. They tackle Felix. I feel Veronica’s hands on my back as she shoves me through the threshold.
“Go, idiot!”
“Okay!”
I go. Down the stairs. Pick up the plastic bag. Into the basement. Out the door. Into the night. And I run. The pins and needles are gone, and I run. I picture Coach Mueller whistling and cheering me on, and I run. I feel out of breath, but I run.
I run.
It turns out there aren’t many trains after midnight. In fact, as I stand on the near-empty platform, feeling antsier by the minute, I’m starting to think there won’t be any trains until tomorrow morning. I probably didn’t need to dramatically sprint the whole way here.
There’s a young guy in some kind of military outfit standing next to the machine, so I haven’t bought my ticket yet. What if he’s a colleague of a certain horrible policeman?
I realize I’m still in a suit. I grab a hoodie out of the bag of clothes Felix left for me and throw it on. As I zip it up, I hear the clanging bells that signal the train’s approach to the station. Hallelujah. The military guy walks down the platform away from the machine—hallelujah squared—and I race over to it.
In my anxious state, I keep pressing the wrong buttons and needing to start over.
Finally, I get it right: one adult ticket to New York’s Penn Station.
One-way.
The machine asks me how I want to pay. I choose cash and slide in a crumpled twenty. It slides back out as I see the train approaching out of the corner of my eye. “Shit! Come on, come on!” I smooth out the twenty along the side of the machine and try again. It slides out.
A woman with big hair and glasses who just got in line behind me sighs.
“Sorry,” I say.
I so badly want to use my credit card, the one my parents pay, but I know I’m not supposed to. I need to stay off the grid.
Because the world thinks I’m dead.
I slide the bill in once more, and the machine finally decides to approve my lackluster twenty. As the train slows to a stop behind me, I wait for the machine to spit out my ticket. I hope it happens soon, before I have time to think harder about all of this and change my mind.
“This train to New York, Penn Station,” the conductor shouts as he steps onto the platform. “New York!”
The ticket comes out. I grab it.
I turn around, ready to get on the train, when the woman behind me gasps.
“Sorry about the wait,” I say, trying to get by her.
“No, you…” She holds up her phone, with the browser opened to our area newspaper’s website. On the screen, there’s my senior year photo, under the headline LOCAL TEEN DIES IN CAR CRASH. The article begins, A 17-year-old teen died Friday evening in a three-car accident on County Route 103 in Marstin. Denton Little died in the last hour of his deathdate when the car he was driving in—
I stop reading. I need to get on the train.
This newspaper says I’m dead. The woman stares.
“Oh, um, yeah, I know,” I say, ducking my head away. “Looks like me, right? People always got us confused. It’s very sad. The death, not that we were always getting confused.”
I can’t tell if this lady is buying what I’m selling. She keeps staring.
“Last call, New York!” the conductor shouts.
“Well, see ya later.” I slide past her and past the conductor and step onto the train.
My cover is probably blown. Sooner rather than later, the police and Paolo’s mom and whoever else is tied up in all this will know I’ve gone to New York City. And they will follow. I wonder if I’ll ever see my parents again.
I walk down the aisle as the train starts chugging forward. I plop myself into an empty two-seater, scooting in toward the window. The t
rain car is mainly empty, with one guy Felix’s age sitting five seats ahead of me, wearing glasses and headphones, and a mom and her threeish-year-old daughter sitting two seats back on the other side of the aisle. The little girl is coloring in a coloring book. It seems strange for her to be awake on a train in the middle of the night, but okay. I inadvertently make eye contact with the mom, then quickly look away.
It occurs to me that any of these people could be following me, watching me, and it gives me the chills. It seems insane, but then again, so does the idea of Paolo’s mom spying on me for my whole life.
I need to be careful.
In other news, I must be in shock, because I’m not feeling much at all. Certainly not feeling like I’m leaving my town and everyone I love behind, maybe forever. Certainly not feeling like it’s a miracle that I lived through certain death. Not feeling insanely guilty that if it weren’t for me, my stepmom and dad wouldn’t be in the hospital, where I’ve abandoned them.
As the train pulls away, I gaze out at nothing in particular. I hear police sirens getting louder and louder, approaching the train station. Maybe they’re onto me. Maybe it’s unrelated.
Then a fast-moving blur coasts into the station’s parking lot, and I see that it’s Millie and Paolo on her barely rideable bike. Paolo stands up on bike pegs over Millie, who’s pedaling. They brake to a stop and stare at my rapidly accelerating train as it leaves the station.
I involuntarily put a hand up against the glass, reaching out to them.
They are too late.
A second later, they are out of view.
Felix was right. I don’t need to get any more people involved and injured on my behalf. And in Paolo’s case, his deathdate coming in less than a month, I don’t want him spending the last days of his life on some terrifying adventure that ultimately kills him.
Besides, I don’t know how much time I have left myself. An extra day? An extra month? A year? Maybe my deathdate certificate just got the date wrong by a day. Who am I kidding? I know that’s not true. My dead mother has somehow kept me alive.
I take out the crumpled piece of paper from my pocket and look at the address one more time. And it all hits at once, this time in my heart as well as my brain: I can’t go home.
I think about my life till now, about how much of it has been defined by the fact that I would have an early death. Opportunities specially granted, dreams realistically reined in. Of course I never wanted that to be what I was all about, but how could it not be?
I’m Denton Little, the kid who’s gonna die during his senior year of high school. That’s who I’ve always been. But my deathdate has come and gone.
So now?
I’m Denton Little, and I am still, somehow, alive. And afraid. And alone. Very much alone.
My eyes tear up a little. I wipe them clean with my hood. I know this should be a gift, but it feels like a big, blank, scary nothing. I didn’t plan for any of this. I scrunch my body up against the window and try to take a nap. I’ll plan later.
“That’s so good, Dylan,” the mom behind me says. “Next time maybe you can try to color within the lines.”
“I don’t think so,” the little girl says. “I like it better this way.”
I fall asleep.
Strong hands shake me awake, and I stare into the eyes of the train conductor.
“Penn Station, buddy,” he says. “Everybody out. Unless you’re wantin’ to go back to Jersey.”
“Yeah, no thanks,” I mumble, standing up and gathering my meager belongings. I’m only half awake, and it feels possible that the past few days have all been a strange dream.
I float out the door of the train car and onto the gray platform.
The one other time I went to New York City by myself, it was overwhelming and intimidating. But there’s no space or energy in my brain for either of those emotions. I ride up escalators and walk down corridors. I follow signs with circles on them and find myself staring at turnstiles leading to the subway.
The slip of paper in my hand says Fifty-Third Street. The nearby exit says Thirty-Fourth Street.
I skip the subway and walk up the steps.
It’s late at night, but the streets are crowded. I walk for three blocks, then turn the other way once I realize that the numbered street signs are going down instead of up.
I walk straight through Times Square. It’s bright. I wrap my hand around the dead phone in my pocket. Even if it had a charge, I couldn’t use it. It would lead the world straight to me. I toss it into a mesh trash bin.
I walk. Turning on streets, crossing at avenues. I make it to Fifty-Third Street, becoming more alert as I go. I don’t know what I’m moving toward. I’m not even sure how I got here.
I look up at a building. Number 247. Getting close.
What if I walk into this place and immediately don’t want to be there. Where will I go?
A huge truck passes by, reverberating down the street.
I arrive at 301. It’s a blocky, nondescript building. I walk up the large stone steps.
The rest of my life starts now.
I buzz 2D. I wait. I hear the creak of stairs inside, and I want to run. I shouldn’t be here. The door opens. It’s an older woman.
“Denton,” she says.
“Ohmigod,” I whisper.
She has brown curly hair. She has my smile.
“Am I dead?” I ask.
She shakes her head.
“No,” she says. “I’m alive. We’re both alive.”
I stare at my mother’s face.
“We’ve been waiting for you, Denton.”
For a moment, everything spins. Then it stops.
I nod at my mother.
I walk inside.
She closes the door behind us.
Don’t miss
Denton Little’s Birthdate
coming spring 2016
Acknowledgments
Thanks for reading this book! And also for feeling invested enough in it to want to read the acknowledgments. You are cool.
Huge thanks from all four chambers of my heart go to:
All of the early readers, whose thoughts, criticism, and encouragement were invaluable: Katie Schorr and Mariel Rubin (who both read the first two hundred words written and were so encouraging, as if they could really tell anything from that one paragraph), Zack Wagman, Ray Muñoz, Dustin Rubin (whose in-depth story notes were particularly amazing), Julie Harnik, Hannah Smith, David Smith, Rachael Weiner, Dayne Feehan (the book’s first actual young adult reader), Erin Rubin, and Todd Goldstein.
Mollie Glick, agent extraordinaire, for her astute guidance, her refreshing honesty, and her general knack for getting shit done. Thanks also to the other superb humans at Foundry Literary + Media, including Jess Regel, Emily Brown, Sara DeNobrega, Emily Morton, and Katie Hamblin.
Nancy Siscoe, my terrific editor, for loving all the same things about this book that I do, having a hawk-eye for detail, and being so generous with her “Ha!”s. Thanks also to the rest of the amazing team at Knopf BFYR and Random House, including Angela Carlino, Katherine Harrison, Heather Kelly, Artie Bennett, and all the super people in sales, marketing, and publicity.
Zack Wagman, BFF of the century, who has supported my creative endeavors for decades and has been one of this book’s greatest champions since the first draft. Thanks for all the sharp insights and enlightening conversation, and for talking up Denton all over the land. Rubber chicken vids 4eva.
Ray Muñoz, one of the most hilarious human beings of all time and an even better friend. You know the deal.
Stephen Feehan, MRHS, Lenny’s on 9th Avenue, Fearless 15ers, Iconis and Family, BTTF, Argo Tea, Andy Hertz and TBBME:TM, the Gang, Birch Coffee, EST, Brown, the Tea Lounge, UCB, the NYC, and everyone who responded in a genuinely supportive way when I told them I was writing a YA novel.
Firecracker grandmother Minna Rubin, incredibly supportive in-laws Jenny and Larry Schorr, and happiness maker Sly Rubin (though he didn’
t exist when most of this was written, the idea of him was hugely motivating).
Mom and Dad, two wonderful, funny people, whose unconditional love and unwavering support of my creative career path have been two of the biggest gifts of my life.
And, above all, thanks to Katie Schorr, whose intellect, humor, love, ability to talk out this book for literally hours on end, and steadfast confidence in me, even when I had nothing of the sort, have meant the world. She made this book way better, and she makes life way more fun. Thanks, Kit.