Imani took a deep breath of salty air and made a determined effort to realign her thoughts. There at the mouth of the channel, beneath the towering cliff face of Corona Point, the world was putting on a brilliant show. Seagulls were diving and the salt air was sticking to her skin. There was not an eyeball in sight, and though her cuff was constantly pinging her location to Score Corp, it was neither score negative nor score positive to be where she was. On the high plateau of Corona Point, the stone facade of one of the mansions was just visible between two pine trees.
There were around twenty mansions on Corona Point. The whole area was private and gated. None of the kids went to Somerton High, and none of the parents kept their boats at LeMonde Marina. They kept them in Waverly, so that they wouldn’t have to rub elbows with the few remaining clammers and lobstermen in the area.
Cady followed Imani’s gaze up the cliff face to the plateau. “None of them are scored,” she said.
“They don’t have to be,” Imani said. “They can buy admission to any college in the world.”
“What a racket.”
“You sound like my dad,” Imani said. She knew such inequities existed, but she also knew that before long the score would be universal. That was what everyone was saying. When that happened, if that happened, it wouldn’t matter how rich you were. If you didn’t have a score, you wouldn’t get anywhere in life. You’d be just as doomed as the other unscored, like Parker Gray and his ilk.
For a long while, Imani and Cady faced west, where the distant mound of Hogg Island swallowed the sun in a long slow gulp.
“Man, will you look at that sky?” Cady said. “Will you just look at that shit?”
There was something magical about it. How the electric blue deepened and turned steely. Eventually, it would redden in a final burst of color before the darkness swallowed it all.
“Hey, Imani?”
“What?”
“I’d understand completely if you wanted to dump me.”
“Shut up.”
“No, I’m serious. You know you have to consider it. Before it’s too late.”
“No score talk on the river,” Imani said.
“We were twelve when we made that pact,” Cady reminded her.
Their separate place, their unwatched territory, had been breached, as all things inevitably were, by the score.
It would be dark soon, but that hardly mattered. There were still three hours until low tide, and as long as there was water in the river, Imani could get them home. She could do it blind if she had to.
“Cady,” she said after a long pause, “there are two things in this world I will never give up. Not for my score or for anything else.”
“Two things?”
“Yes.”
Cady paused for a moment to think about it, then said, “Oh, right.”
That was the hallmark of true friendship: the things you didn’t have to say. None of Imani’s fellow 90s would know what she was talking about, because they didn’t understand her the way Cady did.
The two things Imani would never give up were Cady and the river.
2. first tuesday
SOMERTON HIGH WAS a squat one-story off the Causeway, studded with clumsy additions in mismatched brick. It had begun life as a clam-processing plant, and when it was low tide in the nearby salt marshes, you could smell that past.
Cady dropped Imani off at the front entrance, a metal double door with three concrete steps leading up to it, then drove around to the back to park her scooter. They wouldn’t speak or acknowledge each other for the rest of the day.
Everything inside Somerton High was gray—the lockers, the walls, the floors, even the air. Everything, that is, except for the eyeballs, which dangled at ten-foot intervals from the ceiling. It was a dreary place in the best of circumstances, but on the first Tuesday of each month, when new scores were posted, dreary became ominous.
There were 763 kids at Somerton High, and most of them were scared. Beneath the gaze of the eyeballs, they sized each other up, wondering if they were safe in their gangs, if they dared hope for ascension, or if they were about to be demoted. Whatever their behavior had been for the previous four weeks, the monthly reckoning was at hand.
So as to avoid inadvertent contamination, Imani’s gang, the senior 90s, had decided not to acknowledge each other on first Tuesdays until the new scores were posted. It had been Anil’s idea, but they’d all agreed that it was mature and showed a serious commitment to self-improvement.
Imani passed Anil every morning on the way to her locker. On most days, he’d smile as warmly as he was capable of smiling and offer a few polite words of greeting. But on first Tuesdays, he didn’t give her so much as a glance. Anil Hanesh was going places. At 96, he was one point away from ascension to that most exalted gang of all—the high 90s. There were only two high 90s at Somerton High: Chiara Hislop (98) and Alejandro Vidal (97). Anil wanted to be their lunch mate so badly it had come to define him. The last thing he needed was a 92 with an “unfortunate friend” jeopardizing his chances.
Imani constantly told herself not to take such things personally—either on her own behalf or on Cady’s. It was nothing but the execution of an agreement she’d gone along with. It was sober, clear-eyed fitness at its best.
* * *
The first two classes were write-offs for most students. It was nearly impossible to concentrate on your teacher when the real grade was floating through the ether, shaped like either a bullet or a kiss. Most teachers knew this and didn’t bother introducing anything important until after the scores were posted, which was sometime between nine and eleven.
Imani spent first-period Spanish staring emptily at Mr. Malta’s smartboard, with its scroll of verbs in their neatly ordered conjugations. She was not paying attention, which was in violation of the fourth element of fitness, diligence, as well as the second element, impulse control. What she should have been doing was role modeling Chiara Hislop, who sat two desks over.
Chiara was undistracted as she watched the smartboard, her face a picture of serenity. She wore the gold-rimmed data specs given by Score Corp to those who scored 97 or above. The specs provided optical Web access and allowed Score Corp to spy even more intimately on its highest scorers. Imani still had her specs from that one glorious month in eighth grade when she’d crept up to 97. When she’d dropped back to 96 four weeks later, Score Corp had deactivated them. They sat in her sock drawer at home.
Chiara was going to Harvard in the fall, on a full scholarship, provided she maintained her high score. Score Corp would have paid for her to attend any state school in Massachusetts, but Harvard had a special fund for high 90s. Chiara was a true scored success story, having risen from a low of 40 to 98 in four years. Her parents, long ago laid off by the last remaining fish-packing plant in Somerton, had sold her story to a writer in New York. As long as she didn’t screw up between now and June, Chiara Hislop, the pride of Somerton, would become a role model for thousands, perhaps millions.
Above Mr. Malta’s head, the clock inched forward as the class grew restless. Imani was not the only one committing impulse control and diligence violations. Waves of anxious distraction—the snick of tapping feet, the fabric scrape of fidgets—crept from the back of the room. When the bell finally rang, the class leapt, almost as one, for the door. Only Chiara remained calm, gathering her books before walking with extreme composure to the hallway. Imani tried to mimic Chiara’s demeanor and pace but soon found her feet rushing forward in the swiftly moving current of Somerton High’s lesser students.
To combat cheating and distraction, all mobile hookups—cuffs, specs, cells, tablets, smart scrolls, gloves, etc.—were automatically deactivated on school property by sensors located throughout. The only way to learn your new score was to go online at one of the library tablets or check outside the principal’s office, where Mrs. Bronson, the school secretary, taped an alphabetized list up to the glass. A desperate crowd bulged at each location, but to no ava
il. The scores weren’t posted yet. Mrs. Bronson shooed everyone away but wouldn’t say when the scores would be up because she didn’t know—something she had to remind them of every single month.
Imani’s next class was twenty-first-century American history. The teacher, Mr. Carol, was frequently annoying and painfully unfunny, but it was still the most interesting of her classes and, therefore, the least conducive to impulse control and diligence violations. In Imani’s opinion, however, it should have been renamed Mr. Carol Lectures Everybody about How Dumb They Are for Not Realizing How Dumb Things Have Gotten in This Dumb Country.
Mr. Carol was a “creeper,” someone who worried about the “creep” of surveillance and scoring into all areas of society. Like all creepers, he was fond of the phrase “slippery slope,” which, regardless of its grim intent, had always sounded nursery-rhyme-ish to Imani. Mr. Carol had tenure, so he couldn’t be fired for his beliefs, but rumor had it that the principal, Ms. Wheeler, was dying for him to hug a student or download porn to his smartboard so that she could oust him. Once, Mr. Carol had obstructed the eyeball in his classroom by draping a miniature American flag over its lens. When Ms. Wheeler found out, he had to take it down, then apologize to his students for keeping them out of coverage. It was embarrassing for everyone.
Under normal circumstances, only unscored students, of whom there were thirty-six at Somerton High, were assigned to Mr. Carol’s classes. But that year a round of layoffs had left the school one history teacher short, so Imani and two other scored kids had been assigned to Mr. Carol’s class.
Imani pitied the unscored. Though some of them attempted to dignify their status with caustic politics, Imani was convinced that was purely defensive. Most of them, she assumed, were the victims of bad parenting. In some cases, their parents had been too lazy, too drunk, or too absent to sign the consent forms. In the absence of a score, the software assumed the worst, which made association with the unscored the severest peer group violation of all.
It was a small class. By senior year, most of the unscored had dropped out of school. Mr. Carol kept the desks in a circle to “encourage free-spirited debate,” but this merely resulted in the three scored in the class—Clarissa Taylor (74), Logan Weisgarten (93), and Imani—sitting on one side, while the four unscored sat on the other. Every day, the halves of the circle inched farther apart until Mr. Carol noticed and pushed them back together, reminding his students that classroom interaction was “score neutral.” He always used finger quotes when he said it.
Imani took her usual seat between Clarissa and her fellow 90 Logan, being careful to obey Anil Hanesh’s first-Tuesday rule. Logan ignored her expertly.
Mr. Carol arrived late and, as he did on most mornings, said, “Good evening.” No one had ever laughed at this joke, but that didn’t stop him. Mr. Carol carried a banged-up secondhand smart scroll plastered with political stickers, along with a sloppy stack of handouts he’d printed from “the great hive mind of the Web”—another of his un-laughed-at jokes.
“The curriculum Nazis tell me I have to give you guys more tests, so …” He glanced around the classroom. “Diego, think of five questions to ask your fellow students about the Second Depression.”
Diego Landis, one of the unscored, nodded, then started scribbling in his notebook. Even for an unscored, Diego was strange. He had arrived at Somerton High late in his junior year. Imani didn’t know where he’d come from. He had straight black hair, which always obstructed half his face, leaving only one of his blue eyes visible.
Mr. Carol sat on the desk that divided the circle. “Okay, who here knows about the Otis Institute?”
No one did.
“Right,” he said. “So Sigmund Otis was this eccentric educator who founded a think tank to—”
“Mr. Carol?” Clarissa raised her hand as she spoke. They were allowed to interrupt, because Mr. Carol believed in treating students as equals. “Should we be taking notes, or is this another one of your … you know …”
“One of my tangents?” he said. “No. The Otis Institute has this brand-new scholarship. It’s for public school seniors only, and they’re judging it based on an essay. It’s for forty thousand dollars.”
“Forty thousand dollars?” Clarissa exclaimed. At 74, she was well below Score Corp’s scholarship line.
“I know,” Mr. Carol said. “And it’s renewable every year as long as you maintain, I think it’s a B average.”
From the way Clarissa’s shoulders straightened, it was clear that Mr. Carol’s words had opened a window of hope. Clarissa was a good student but had not managed to budge above 74 all year. It was one of the mysterious quirks of the score that dropping was easy but rising was hard.
“So here’s what I’m thinking,” Mr. Carol continued. “Final paper, I want you all to write an essay for the Otis Scholarship. Two birds. One stone. What do you think?” Mr. Carol didn’t merely assign homework. He proposed it.
“Is this supposed to be a joke?” Rachel Sloane asked. She was unscored, with spiky orange hair and a fondness for snarky comments.
“Of course not,” Mr. Carol said.
“So they’ll actually give the scholarship to an unscored?”
“Only if you write the best essay,” he replied.
Rachel folded her arms across her chest. “I don’t buy it.”
“Look,” Mr. Carol said. “Believe me, I know how scarce scholarships are these days, but this one’s legit. And the best thing is, it’s brand-new. Hardly anyone knows about it yet. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if one of you won it.” Mr. Carol could not prevent his eyes from flicking to Diego Landis.
“Mr. Carol,” Logan said. “Do you really think it’s fair to hand out a scholarship to someone just for writing one good essay? Some of us have been working hard all of our lives to get over Score Corp’s scholarship line.”
“You want a medal for being a score whore?” Rachel asked. She managed to shoehorn that phrase into most class discussions.
Next to her, Diego, who’d been writing out test questions for the rest of the class, raised a finger.
“Yes, Diego,” Mr. Carol said.
Diego took his time finishing what he was writing, then looked up through his hair. “Correct me if I’m wrong,” he said, “but wouldn’t it brilliantly upend everyone’s stereotype of the unscored as stupid, shiftless deviants if one of us won?” He cast a sly smile at Rachel, who saw his point and took a moment to relish the possibility. “And as to your comment, Logan,” Diego continued, “if you think fairness has anything to do with the fact that you’re getting a full boat to college, then you are seriously deluded.”
Logan gazed out the window. “Sour grapes, if you ask me.”
“I don’t recall anyone asking you,” Diego responded.
“Mr. Carol.” It fell to Imani to interrupt the debate. Diego would decimate Logan. He always did. And she was in no mood for another display of his showy intellect. Besides, if Logan wasn’t careful, his antagonism of the unscored would hurt his score, and by association, hers. “Does this mean you’re assuming the unscored have a better shot at winning the scholarship?” she asked.
“Of course not, Imani.”
“So it’s not rigged?” she asked. “It’s not a creeper organization or anything?”
Mr. Carol shook his head vigorously. “The Otis Institute’s sole mission is to provide educational opportunities for kids ‘overlooked’ by the current system.” He used finger quotes again.
“Because it would be incredibly unfair,” Imani said, “and probably career-damaging for you to mislead us on such a thing.” Imani was thinking of Clarissa.
“Imani LeMonde, you are full of suspicion and mistrust,” Mr. Carol said. “I like it. Keep it up. Okay, so here’s what I’m thinking: five thousand words, and—”
“Five thousand words?” Clarissa echoed.
“Yes,” Mr. Carol said. “Five thousand whole words. Plus footnotes. I’m teaching this as a college-level cl
ass, in case you hadn’t noticed. And in college you don’t take multiple-choice tests. They’re the height of stupidity, actually. Diego, how are you coming with those questions?”
“I have three,” he said. “I need two more.”
“Good. Don’t go easy on them either. Where was I?”
“The height of stupidity,” Logan said in a wounded monotone.
“Right,” Mr. Carol said. “Exactly. So, guys, this is your chance to take everything you’ve learned in class and own it.” He squeezed his right hand into a fist. “It’s your chance to shine. Okay? So think big. I want to see this thing sourced to within an inch of its life. I want breadth and depth. And I want counterarguments too. Don’t make it easy on yourself. Engage the opposite point of view. Oh, and feel free to collaborate with your classmates. You guys could learn a lot from each other.”
Imani could feel a collective squirm rise up from the seven students.
“Can we write about anything we want?” Clarissa asked. “Like the Second Depression or …”
“No, no.” He shook his head. “Any American high school student can write about the Second Depression. I want to do something that will really stand out. I’ve given this a lot of thought and …” He smiled deviously. “I know it’s a little out there, but …”
Imani sensed the arrival of another reckless idea, another career-threatening attempt to “subvert the dominant paradigm.”
“What I want,” he said, “is for the scored to write essays in opposition to the score.”
“What?” Logan said. “You can’t make us do that.”
“Yes, I can.”
“Mr. Carol,” Clarissa said, “I think I have to be excused from this paper on the grounds that it could totally hurt my score.”
“No, it couldn’t,” Mr. Carol said.
“Yes, it could,” Clarissa insisted. “Because actually? There was a girl in my health class who asked to be excused from the reproductive system, because impulse control was a fitness challenge for her.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
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