by Pat Schmatz
I hide the komodo away in my pocket, and I fidget and pace with prickles of watching eyes all around me. Why, oh, why did I challenge her? I shouldn’t have cut my hair. I should’ve just shut up like all the other comrades because now she can do anything to me. She can cage me forever. I could rot down here. Maybe she has Sabi hidden away down here like a wild dog. Maybe she’ll set Sabi and the guides on me as punishment. . . . It will be bad. It will be worse than . . .
A full-blown picture explodes in my head, and it shakes me so much that I start to crawl under the bed — but no — the cams. I go to the privo and pull the curtain and crouch in the corner by the toilet, directly under the cam. It can’t see me here. I wrap my arms around my knees, komodo clenched tightly in my fist, and try to stop the picture from playing, the picture of my always-dreaded future and past that I try to shut down, ignore, explain away, but there’s no stopping it now.
That day in the school yard roars to life, bigger than ever.
“It belongs with the girls.”
Shove.
“Not with us. It’s wearing boys’ boots.”
Shove.
“Well, we” — shove from Liam — “don’t want it.”
It still felt like a game, a bit of a game, even with Liam’s icy eyes, a bit of push-rough-tumble, and I liked it — not this or that, just back and forth, like I was the ball and part of the game.
“Not ours.”
Shove.
“Not ours.”
Shove.
Then Liam caught me by the hood, wrenched the collar tight around my neck, and faced me toward the girls.
“What is it?” he yelled.
Then he laughed. And the girls I was facing, they laughed. And the boys behind, they laughed. Even Clare, who I thought was my friend. She didn’t try to stop Liam. Neither did Niko.
“What is it?” yelled Amanda.
Not Amanda anymore, not Niko or Clare or Skyler or Jonas. Just a laughing swarm without smiles, pushing without hands — what IS it what ARE you what IS it what ARE you — and then I was on the ground and the voices blended and the boots kicked near my face, ice chips flying; and when I closed my eyes the terror roared in, louder than yelling or boot thuds, louder than anything, a roar so loud that it drowned out the world until suddenly Sheila’s words slipped beneath the roar and said, Listen to your radio.
I squinched my eyes tighter and listened sideways, and there! — a whisper of whirr. I followed it through space to the place where I am me and that’s all I need to be, where the sun shines warmth into my skin and the cool comfort surrounds me without human words, and I drifted forever, until forever ended and I opened my eyes.
The kicking boots were gone, and I knew for a fact and true that I had no human friends. Nobody but Sheila. Just Sheila.
I shouldn’t have worn the boy boots that day. Sheila used to let me, before Decision Day. I’d wear all boy clothes when we went to the other side of the city, and people thought I was a boy. Not even a question. I liked the game of back and forth. But after that day, it wasn’t a game anymore. Nothing was.
That was the day when I truly believed the saurian stories. I was lizard-dropped, and only the lizards could save me. One day they’d come and help me do whatever good deed I’m supposed to do here on Earth, and then they’d take me away to the land of Lizard Radio where everyone is like me.
I really did believe that all along, tucked away in my secret insides. I believed it like I believed in Sheila, and then in Korm.
Now I have no Sheila. No Korm. I’ll end up in Blight, and that day will go on and on and on, never-stopping, no gov, no SayFree, no regs, just the violents hating me for being me. I’ll have nothing but a tiny silver toy.
I hold the komodo between my thumb and forefinger, shielded by my hand. We go nose to nose, and I search it for signs of intelligent life. The music stops abruptly. I scramble to my feet, jamming the komodo in my pocket as footsteps echo on the stairs. I run and land myself on a bed, trying to look as if I’ve been there all along.
Machete enters and closes the door behind her. She brings over a tray with a sandwich. She looks completely collected and Machete-ish, as if that last moment in the doorway never happened. She pulls a chair over.
“You must be terribly afraid.”
She was watching me on cam. She knows that I was hiding in the corner.
“You’re so vulnerable right now, and you have nowhere to turn.”
She’s so sad and so understanding, but the dragon doesn’t trust her.
“Since Sheila disappeared, I’ve been doing some research on fostering regs. I’ve explored your options, and I think that I’ve come up with a solution that will work for all of us.” She leans forward, elbows on her knees, hands clasped. Her eyes, looking up slightly, are earnest and warm and open. “I could foster you —”
Every breath of air sucks out of my cells. The lizard in my pocket is dead silent.
“— if you’d like that. You would stay here at CropCamp, and become a young guide until you’re old enough to have more options. You’d receive your full agricultural education here if you like — you seem to enjoy working with the crops — or you could go to school. All of this depends, of course, on you cooperating so that you receive your camp cert.”
She waits for me to speak. I cannot speak. My insides shift and recalibrate, unstack and restack. If I do as she says, I could live deep in the green and the skies, the crops and the oak grove. Days on end of that deep tangy smell and a home and comrades, kickshaw-flavored and under Machete’s control. Completely human, completely safe. All I’d have to do is shut the lizard up. Forever.
“Kivali. I know that you had a rough time coming up. No disrespect to Sheila, of course, but there were some serious gaps in your guidance. I’m afraid that she indulged some of the very traits that make it hard for you to get along, hard to include yourself in the One. Is that true?”
That is true.
“Your comrades need you. I need you. You’re exceptional, and I don’t want to lose you. I’m willing to work very hard to help you, but I need you to work with me. I need you to commit to me, and to what we do here. I need you to make a firm decision.”
My only other option is Rasta’s MaDa. But is that an option? Even if they’d want me, would the gov let me go there? I wish that I could go home to Korm. Korm always speaks truth. Always.
“I can’t decide until you tell me about Donovan Freer,” I say.
A tinge of color rises up Machete’s neck and across her face. I want to lick my lips and smell the fear again, but I hold perfectly still and wait.
“I will. You have to understand, Kivali. This is sensitive for me. You and I will talk more about vaping. But first, we need to settle some things between us. I want to teach you how to wield your power responsibly. I want to help you develop into a strong leader that your comrades can trust.”
“I don’t want to be a leader.”
“But you are.”
“Sully’s more of a leader than I am.”
“Sully likes power and knows how to use it. Your fear of power will, in the long run, make you a better leader.”
“What about you?” I cannot stop the lizard from speaking. “Do you like power or fear it?”
Machete smiles. Not a big smile. Just a lip-tip.
“You also have uncanny nerve and interesting twists of perception.”
“But do you like it or fear it?”
“We’re talking about you, not me.”
“But do you like it or fear it?”
Machete’s eyes deliver one fiery knife-flick, and then she turns away. She stands and paces the room as I did earlier, several times around. I wait with a fast-beating heart. I’m holding power here, but I don’t understand it. I fear it.
“Will you work with me or not?” she asks.
“Will you tell me the truth or not?”
Machete brings a hand up to rub her forehead, hard. Scrubbing it. As if she’s trying to e
rase something. In the distance, the gong rings.
“We have a lot to talk about, but I can’t do it now. I have to take care of some things. I’m afraid that I can’t let you back out with your comrades, not until we have more time to reach an understanding.”
“But you can’t just keep me in here. Everyone’s going to wonder where I am.”
“I’ve told them that you’re in the Quarry again. The stress of grief is too much, and you’ve fallen ill. You’ll stay here until we can be sure that you’re not contagious.”
“Because what if I am.”
“Exactly.” Machete nods. “Because what if you are.”
THIS TIME, I HEAR the turn of the dead bolt.
I pace again, gripping the komodo in my pocket. The walls seem to have twitched closer together, pressing the air tense and dense around me. The music starts again.
I lie flat on the cot and draw a deep breath against the heaviness of my chest. The sharp corners of the komodo comfort my fingertips. I try to follow my breath to a place of clarity. I wish for the oak grove. I’d lie in the breezy grassy clearing, bask in the sunlight, and let it warm me inside and out. I’d relax there. Maybe I could tune in, or maybe Sully would come and find me. She likes the lizard in me. She’s the one who named me Lizard. She believes in Sheila and the saurians. We’d lie in the soft grass and figure things out together.
Sully would run her fingers through my hair, and she’d pull me close, and my body would be so happy, every cell of my body, because it all feels so good. The sun, and Sully, and the birds in the oak tree overhead — it is very perfect. I’ve never been happier, never felt better. Sully’s hand moves on my scalp, and suddenly, she grabs my hair hard and yanks my head back, her face right up close to mine.
“Kivali,” she says. “We’re all counting on you. Me, too.”
My eyes pop open to the Quarry. No Sully. No grass, no birds, no sunshine. The kickshaw music plays on.
I do not like the cage, but I’m not afraid. The lizard is with me. I didn’t have the komodo back in the school yard, but I have it now. And for some reason, Machete is at least a tiny bit afraid of me. Or of the lizard in me. Either way, it’s good.
Hours later, the music fades into footsteps, and Machete enters without knocking.
“We have a problem,” she says.
We?
Machete and I face off in the center of the Quarry.
“Your comrades are worried that something’s terribly wrong with you. Three of them will come to visit this evening, and you will tell them about your distress, and the intensity of your grief.” She glances down at my untouched sandwich. “And your upset stomach and your need for rest, and they’ll be reassured.”
“You want me to lie to my comrades?”
Machete walks over to the windows. “No need for you to lie.” She speaks with her back to me. “In a position of leadership, you learn to limit what you say. You tell carefully chosen truths. This is one of those times. Until you’re on more solid footing, and until you and I can find an understanding between us, throwing out untested truths and half-formed ideas to your comrades could cause tremendous harm.” She turns to face me. “If you think it through, you’ll see that I’m right.”
I shake my head. I don’t see anything.
“Kivali, I won’t let you bring harm to the other comrades. I don’t want to expul you, but I will. You’ll leave here with no cert, and the gov will choose an appropriate foster for a CropCamp disciplinary expul. You don’t want that.”
“You’d expul me for asking about Donovan Freer?”
She turns away but not before I see it again, that flash of vulnerability. The moment where the power balance tips. It’s brief, though. When she spins back to face me, her eyes are sharp and clear.
“I am offering you the kind of dedicated care and attention that I’ve given to very few campers over the years. Beyond that, I’m offering you a place to call home. Choose that, or choose to fight me and leave this place. One or the other.”
You must be brave, and you must be smart. A sudden ache for Sheila pierces through me so sharp, it almost takes my breath.
“You have tremendous potential. If you decide, if you make a full commitment, then and only then will I answer all of your questions, because I know that you’ll use the information with care. I’ll teach you to step outside the lines and examine the ambiguity that troubles you. That’s always been the problem for you, yes? Ambiguity? This and that? Not one or the other?”
Yes. No one has ever articulated that for me so well. Not Korm, not Sheila.
“I’m not asking you to lie to your friends. I’m asking you to choose the manner and content of your truth-telling carefully. Learn to understand that gray area so you don’t fear it.”
“Is that what you do?”
“Yes. Remember what I said at the beginning of CropCamp? If you leave here without a cert, it’ll be because of your own choices. Kivali, you’re one in a thousand, maybe one in ten thousand. Trust me, I’ve seen many young people over the fifteen years I’ve been directing this camp. If we lose you, it’ll be a terrible loss.”
The room reeks of fear — and not just mine. The air around Machete vibrates with it.
“Which three?” I ask.
“Sully. Rasta. Emmett.”
Machete crosses to the door and stands in front of it, hands on her hips.
“I have a camp to run, and timing is difficult at this point in our program, but I’ve cleared my schedule for tomorrow. Directly after breakfast, you and I will talk through all of this and work some things out. Then you can move back out to Pieville with your comrades, and you and I will work together for your good and the good of the camp and community. I trust you, Kivali. I’m asking you to trust me.”
“I’ll tell them that I’m resting,” I say. “But I’ll also tell them that I’ll be out by tomorrow at lunch, for sure.”
Machete smiles.
“You know more than you think you do. You will be a pure pleasure and challenge to work with over the weeks to come.”
“Wait.” I stop her as she pulls the door open. “How did they get you to agree to a visit?”
“They asked. I agreed.”
“That’s a carefully chosen truth,” I say. “If you trust me so much, then tell me.”
Machete closes the door again and leans against it.
“They threatened a camp-wide sit-down strike if I didn’t let them see you. Didn’t even ask me — just came forth with the threat. I must say, I’m tempted to let it happen so I can see how they work it out, how they get everyone to cooperate. It’d be an interesting and informative exercise. But they needn’t resort to threats to see their ill and grieving comrade. It’s a perfectly reasonable request. Besides, I thought that they made excellent choices in the delegation.”
I hold back the huge smile that dances up from my chest. It’s not just me and the lizard. We have friends, and they are brilliant. Rasta’s heart. Sully’s leadership. And with Emmett in, of course Machete would say yes.
“What time are they coming?” I ask.
“After Cleezies. Fifteen-tick visit. No longer, because we don’t want to wear you out. I’ll be here during the entire visit, of course, for your safety and guidance.”
SULLY. I’LL SEE SULLY before nightfall. And Rasta, and Emmett. I’ve only been away one day, but it seems like forever. I haven’t talked to Rasta alone since early Sunday. I really, really want to know what she thinks about her da signing off on the kickshaw drug.
Unless . . . a flaming arrow pierces my thoughts.
What if he didn’t?
Your parents and guardians know of this drug, of this practice. Is that a carefully chosen truth?
I press the komodo’s metal claws into the pad of my thumb as I pace. If I trust Machete, if I decide to go that route, it’ll be so easy. But it’s wrong, something is wrong, something is bigger than wrong, and the lizard knows it and I tried burying the lizard deep in the earth bu
t it popped back up. Rasta knows that it’s wrong, too, but she doesn’t know any more about the what and why than I do. If only there were someone who could —
Nona.
I jerk the dragon out of my pocket and hold it close to my ear because I could swear it spoke. The komodo doesn’t speak or squirm in my hand. I scratch my ear for the benefit of anyone watching me on cam, and put the komodo back in my pocket.
Nona. Back to pacing. Nonanonanona. I haven’t thought about her one time through all of this. You’re the only one she actually likes. That’s what Rasta said. Why isn’t she part of the delegation? Sully would never include her, that’s why. Besides, she answers questions with questions, like Machete. Maybe she’s a Machete spy. No. Not with the way her face pinches when she says “Ms. Mischetti.” Not a spy, but something different. Something different from everyone else.
The evening slowly ticks away. The music stays off. The gong rings for dinner, then for Cleezies. Now it’s Social, and everyone is on the Quint. The room gradually dims, and my stomach twists and writhes and chews on itself. I want Rasta. And Sully. And Emmett. I want to be with my comrades. If I cooperate with Machete, she’ll let me out of here, and I’ll tell Rasta everything, every everything, and we can decide things together, maybe convene with Nona.
Finally, footsteps on the stairs. Machete opens the door and switches on a dim overhead leddie.
“Get in the bed.” No kickshaw voice now. “They’re waiting upstairs.”
“Why in the bed?”
“Because you and I have not yet resolved anything. Because this is my camp, and I can expul you — and I will, here tonight, if you don’t cooperate with me on this completely. Don’t make me do it, Kivali. I will.”
I cross my arms and look into her eyes. I try to look past the dark brown and the black centers, into the depths. I smell no fear. She is solidly in charge. The darkening room casts deep shadows beneath her eyes. She looks old, older than Sheila.