Disconnect

by Lois Peterson

  “She and Luca took off to check out some skateboards.”

  “Are they going out?” I asked.

  “Ye-es! Like for at least two weeks! You really are out of the loop.”

  In the background, someone yelled for her to hurry up. “So what else is new?” I asked. “Selena?”

  She was talking to someone else, away from the phone. Katya Blewett, I figured from the voice. “Selena?”

  “Talk later, okay?” she said. “I’ve got to go.”

  I looked at the dead phone in my hand.

  I dumped it on the floor and pulled my covers over my head. I might have gone to sleep if Mom hadn’t stuck her head around the door. “Hi. Everything okay?”

  I hadn’t heard her come in. I swung my legs down, kicking the phone under the bed. “Fine.”

  “How was school?”

  “Fine.”

  Mom shrugged. “Now we’ve had our mandatory hello-how-are-you conversation, I’ll be in the kitchen.”

  I waited to hear that she was downstairs before I grabbed the phone and dialed Cleo’s number.

  “Hi. It’s me. Daria.”

  “I could be your sponsor,” she said. “Like in AA? Dad had one. Now he sponsors other people. When they feel tempted to drink, they call, and he talks them through it. Though I guess in your case, being as you are a recovering techno-phile, you are not likely to call for help on the very instrument you’re withdrawing from. You think?”

  I had to laugh. Cleo may be weird, but she was smart and funny.

  “So what’s up?” she asked.

  “I thought I’d give you a call,” I said. “I had to sneak the phone from downstairs. Now I have to figure out how to get it back without Mom seeing.”

  “Is that why we’re whispering?” she whispered.

  I told her about Josie and Luca. And Katya Blewett. Someone Selena had no time for before. Now they were hanging out together at the mall. I bet they could find room for her in Selena’s mom’s Kia.

  “Well, people do move on, don’t they?” said Cleo. “I’ve left people behind each time we moved. You can’t stay friends forever with everyone you leave behind.”

  “What about that ‘enough love to go around’ stuff you were on about?” I asked.

  “That’s a load of crap.” She laughed. “Well, not really. But you’ve got me now. Selena has Justine. Josie has Luca. It all works out. So, of all the guys in school, who do you have your eye on?”

  She was trying so hard, and I was sick of talking about Selena and Josie. And Daria makes three. “You mean here?” I asked.

  “Of course here. Me, myself and I? I think Drew Galling has a nice face.”

  “The chess freak?” I laughed. “You like his face? What about his arms? Or his shoulders or his chest?” I had never looked closely at any of them myself. “I’ll have to think about it,” I told her. “I’d better go before Mom sneaks up on me again.”

  “Me too. How are you feeling, by the way? Remember to keep notes of all your symptoms.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’ll do it as soon as I hang up.” Which I thought was pretty funny.

  The phone was safely under my pillow when Mom put her head around the door again. “Dad’s home. Can you help with supper?”

  The look she gave me reminded me of when I was at Nana’s a few weeks ago, on the phone to Josie. “Do you remember when we used to cook together?” Nana had asked. That made me think of the woman at the mall telling me about her grandsons always texting.

  What was it Dad said? I wondered. Something about not being in the same room?

  “Sure. I can help,” I said. I followed her downstairs and managed to sneak the phone back on its base without her noticing.

  Seconds later, Dad came in and grabbed it. I followed him into the study. “What’s wrong with your cell?” I asked.

  “Nothing. I just thought I’d try doing without my cell for a while. To keep you company in your suffering,” he said. Like it wasn’t his idea! “How’s it going, anyway?” he asked.

  “Fine.”

  He looked at me sideways, as if he suspected something.

  “So how’s it going for you?” I asked.

  He made a face. “Old habits die hard and all that. I keep thinking I’ve lost something. Keep patting my pocket.” He did it now.

  I knew the feeling. “Cleo and I are doing our socials project on addiction to technology,” I told him. “Can I interview you about your withdrawal symptoms?”

  “Me?” He held out a shaking hand. He made his head twitch, his tongue loll out of his mouth. “What withdrawal symptoms?” he asked.

  “What is wrong with you?” asked Mom when I followed him into the kitchen.

  “We’re comparing withdrawal symptoms.” Dad took the potato peeler from Mom. “I feel better with something in my hands. What about you, Daria?”

  It was nice of Dad to let me know in his weird way that he understood what I was going through. I grabbed the placemats. “Me too. Who knows? I might even volunteer to do the dishes.” Or not.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I spent so much time working on the project with Cleo over the next week that I barely had time to connect with Selena or Josie.

  Sometimes, as Cleo and I hung out comparing notes or talking about school or movies or books, I sensed what things might have been like before TV and phones, in the dark ages before everyone was connected by technology.

  That didn’t mean I didn’t miss technology. My hand still searched out my phone dozens of times a day.

  One afternoon, Josie called our landline. Mom listened for a moment, frowning. Then she handed me the phone. “I think you’d better talk to her,” she said. “But make it short.”

  “I tried calling you,” Josie sobbed. “I’ve left loads of texts.”

  “I don’t have my phone, remember? Are you okay?”

  “No. Yes. No. I don’t know.” She took a long, shaky breath. “It’s Luca. I like him. I mean, I really like him.”

  “So?”

  “It’s just. You know boys. He seems really hot for me too. Until he’s around his skateboard buddies. Then I hardly exist.”

  “Did you have a fight?”

  “Kind of.”

  “What does ‘kind of’ mean? Did you, or didn’t you?”

  “He told me he hated clingy girls. I wasn’t clinging, I…hang on, there’s another call.”

  “Josie?”

  She came back on the line. “That was Luca. I’m headed over there now. I’ll call you later, okay?”

  I stared at the phone for a second. Then I handed the phone back to Mom without saying anything and headed upstairs.

  There was no point trying to figure out what that had been about. Figuring out boys was hard enough. Figuring out Josie and a boy, forget it.

  Maybe there was an upside to not being in constant contact!

  I reread the Project Disconnect article I had downloaded. An entire school participated, even the teachers. Some university prof published a paper on the changes the teachers had noticed. Kids talking to each other. Spending more time in the library and at after-school clubs.

  When I bring it up again to Cleo the next day, she said, “Don’t mention it, okay? It would be death to our popularity ratings.” Popularity ratings?

  I gave her the notes I got from talking to Dad. She grabbed my hands. “Look at your nails! You’ve bitten them so far, they’re bleeding. Better add that to your list of withdrawal symptoms.”

  I hadn’t even noticed I was doing it.

  In class, Ms. Stryker checked her notes when I reported on our project. “I thought you and Cleo said you were doing homelessness.”

  “We changed our minds.” Cleo said we as if it hadn’t all been her idea.

  “That’s a pity,” said Stryker. “It’s an important subject.”

  There goes our A, I thought.

  “We’re doing that topic,” said Sara from across the room.

  “We want permission to bring i
n a guest speaker,” added her partner Shauna.

  Stryker frowned at her notes. “I have here that your project was to be about getting a first job.”

  “A guy called Dennis lives in the bushes behind my dad’s business,” Sara explained. “My dad gives him stuff sometimes. Food. Blankets, when it got cold. Dennis agreed to come in and talk to the class.”

  “All right, all right.” Stryker held up a hand to hush the chatter. “Sara and Shauna, that’s something you’ll have to clear with the vice-principal. Now, can we finish with the updates and get on to other work?”

  “That’s what we need,” said Cleo on our way out of school. “A guest speaker. Maybe we can invite your dad.”

  “We don’t need to invite him,” I told her. Like I was going to let my own father stand up in front of my classmates! I was almost as surprised as Cleo when the words came out of my mouth. “I can be the guest speaker.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’ll present our report, like we planned. And then I’ll tell everyone what gave us the idea for the project.”

  “That’s already part of the introduction.” “Not just about having my phone confiscated. But why.”

  She took a step back and stared at me. “Like, about Caden? I thought you didn’t want to go into specifics.”

  “We were going to use case studies anyway. The one about the guy who stepped into traffic because he was so busy on his phone. And the girl who didn’t hear the truck backing up when she was plugged into her iPod.”

  “That’s different. No one knows those people,” said Cleo. “But they know you.”

  “If we put a face to the risks, it will have more impact, won’t it? Like having a real live homeless person is sure to get everyone’s attention.”

  “I guess that’s one way to make friends and influence people!” Cleo looked doubtful. “I can’t figure out if you are brave, stupid or suicidal.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The class yawned through much of Sara and Shauna’s PowerPoint statistics on homelessness. But they sat up and took notice when Dennis shuffled into the room.

  It was probably the first time most of us had seen a homeless person up close. His coat was worn, his jeans were rolled up a couple of times and one of his runners had holes in it. I could smell him from where I sat. He told us about the accountant’s job he lost after he got sick, about the family he lost when he turned to drink and drugs. Even though his eyes were bloodshot, his face sallow and his hair greasy, he spoke like a professor or a doctor. He sounded educated and had a big vocabulary.

  “That’s a hard act to follow,” said Cleo as Sara and Shauna showed him out. She pushed the thumb drive with our presentation into the laptop.

  “All set?” asked Stryker. “We still have three more presentations to get through today.”

  “We’re good.” Cleo hit a key. The screen went blank. “Hang on,” she said. “This should work.” She hit another key.

  Nothing.

  “I’ll get it.” I leaned across to help.

  She elbowed me aside. “No. Hang on. It can’t be that hard.” She slapped random keys, twiddled with the focus on the projector. “It worked a minute ago. Shauna must have done something to mess things up.” Cleo bit her lip so hard, I expected the ring to pop out. She yanked her hat on tighter and rubbed her bright red face with her hand. “How hard can it be?”

  “It’s fine,” I told her. “Let me get it going.”

  “Go ahead, then. You’re the technology whiz.” She stomped back to her seat.

  But by now, the laptop had frozen and the projection screen was blank.

  “Can I help?” Ms. Stryker fiddled with all the knobs. But she could not bring the setup back to life.

  “You could try rebooting the laptop,” said Drew.

  “I’ll reboot you,” Cleo muttered, loud enough for everyone to hear.

  Stryker checked her watch. “Time’s a-wasting here,” she said. “Perhaps you would prefer to present with tomorrow’s group.”

  “It’s fine. I have copies of the slides here,” I told the class. “We can work from these.”

  “Cleo, are you going to come up and present with Daria?” asked Ms. Stryker.

  “I’m fine,” she muttered. “Daria’s fine. Go ahead, why don’t you?”

  I got through our presentation without too much stumbling. Most people listened. Some threw out a remark or two.

  “Cleo, how about you join Daria for a quick Q and A?” Ms. Stryker said as I slid the prompt sheets into their folder when I was done. “I can give you two minutes.”

  “As long as I don’t have to touch that projector thingy again,” said Cleo as she sidled up to stand next to me.

  A few friendly laughs went around the room.

  “There’s a bit more background I need to share,” I said. Having Cleo standing there encouraged me to go on. “We’ve given you the facts.” It had been me, not we actually. But I wasn’t about to quibble. “About some of the effects of dependence on technology. But I want to tell you why my phone was confiscated for a whole month. Why I am disconnected for another two and a half weeks. Eighteen days to be exact, but who’s counting?” I cleared my throat and glanced at Cleo.

  She smiled and nodded.

  “I had a babysitting job. So I could earn the fare to visit my old friends in Calgary. One day, when I was on the phone—” My voice trembled. I took a deep breath. “The little boy I was babysitting, Caden, he fell off the bed and bashed his head. He knocked himself out. There was blood everywhere.” My voice sounded very loud. “He could have died,” I said. “Because I was not paying attention. My parents confiscated my phone, and I got fired. A little boy nearly died. Because of me.”

  As I was wondering how I could get out of there, Harrison asked from the back row, “So what happened to the kid?”

  Everyone turned to look at him, then back at me.

  “He’ll be all right.” I touched the back of my hair. “But he had to have twenty-one stitches in his head.”

  Some students gasped. Others muttered.

  “But he’s fine now,” Cleo added quickly.

  Harrison clapped. Other students joined in.

  I dropped the handouts on the desk.

  “Our presentation is about the effects of dependence on technology,” I said. “But you probably know all about it already. In fact, I bet right now most of you can’t wait for class to be over so you can check your messages. That’s how dependent you all are.”

  There was lots of shuffling and nervous laughter.

  “Some schools in the States did something called Project Disconnect,” I went on quickly. “The school banned all devices. For a whole month. Not even teachers could use them on school time. Can you imagine! We don’t have to go that far, maybe. But perhaps my story—and our project—is enough to make everyone think about their preoccupation with technology.”

  “That’s it, folks,” said Cleo. “Send your questions by carrier pigeon, if you have any!”

  “Thank you, girls.” Ms. Stryker tapped my arm as I went back to my desk. “I’d be interested in knowing more about Project Disconnect.”

  A couple of students groaned as I handed her the printout.

  “I wonder if this might be worth considering as a class project,” said Ms. Stryker. “What do you all think?”

  The room erupted in jeers and cross talk.

  “I’m in.” Cleo’s voice cut through the noise. “Who’s with me?”

  There was laughter. Some from the back called out, “You’re kidding, right?”

  “You don’t even have a phone,” Drew said.

  “You can’t even make a PowerPoint work!” jeered someone else.

  “Maybe I can’t,” said Cleo. “Maybe I don’t,” she told Drew. “But what about you, Mr. Chess Champion? Are you up for it?”

  “I’ve got a chess app on my phone,” he said. “There’s an important tournament coming up.”

  “Fine. What ab
out you, Harrison?” Cleo asked.

  Now, he had a nice face, I noticed.

  “Okay, okay,” Drew interrupted. “But just for one week. One week and no more.”

  “I’m in too.” Harrison pulled his phone from his pocket. He made a big deal of turning it off and dropping it into his bag.

  Ms. Stryker watched without speaking as one student after another signed on.

  Some of them volunteered on their own, others were bullied into it. Peer pressure at work, I thought as Cleo picked out the kids trying to pretend they were not in the room.

  I confronted a girl who was texting under her desk. “You in, Madison?” I asked. “Or are you going to be one of the holdouts?”

  When Madison saw everyone staring at her, she slammed down her phone. “Okay. Okay. Now get out of my face.”

  “That was interesting. And enlightening,” said Ms. Stryker. “I’ll spend a bit of time with this, do some of my own research. I’ll figure out how this might work. But for now, we have a few more projects to get through.”

  Cleo turned toward me and raised her hand.

  We high-fived.

  “That has to get us an A,” she said.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Cleo was wrong.

  “An impressive piece of work.” Dad read Stryker’s comment below the A-minus on the report.

  “We deserved an A,” Cleo said for the hundredth time.

  “And we might have got one if we hadn’t screwed up on the PowerPoint presentation,” I said, being careful not to look at her.

  “That’s right. Blame it on me.” When she shook her head, the strings on her hat flailed around her head.

  “Didn’t your teacher tell you that you lost points because you depended on technology for a project on technology dependence? Not because you couldn’t make it work?” asked Mom.

  “Isn’t that the same thing?” I asked.

  “No. It’s not,” said Cleo. “Besides, we would have aced the project with a better speaker. I’m not saying you didn’t do a great job,” she said when she saw the look on my face. “But Dennis DeVos stood out. You, you’re just one of the crowd.”