by Maya Rock
“Hi.” Mollie sniffles, twirling her long honey-blond hair around a finger, fat tears rolling down her wan cheeks. Her blue eyes seem to well up even more when she sees me. My breath catches in my throat; she’s probably thinking, Nettie will be next.
Thora, the cellist built like a linebacker, grunts hello.
Terra, a senior, unlike the other two, and their chubby little leader, steps forward and glares. Mostly at me. As usual. “Shouldn’t you be in class?” She sighs, knitting her thick eyebrows together. Her pigtails make her look a lot more innocent than she is. Terra’s intense about everything she does, from managing her social life to maintaining her grueling doctor apprenticeship to being extravagantly rude to me because she thinks I’m into her crush, Scoop Cannery.
“Shouldn’t you be in class?” Lia retorts. “I’m fixing up my makeup.” She marches over to the window and plops her straw bag onto the windowsill.
“Nettie, have you thought of wearing makeup?” Terra purrs. “I hear Delton’s is having a sale on starter kits. But I guess it might be a little expensive for you, even with the sale.”
“Uh, no,” I bumble, unable (as usual) to think of a plus-ten retort. Like Lia, Terra lives in Treasure Woods, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods on the island. The Arbor, where I live, is firmly middle class. I can’t afford to buy toothpicks at Delton’s. While I’m struggling to think of a comeback, Terra and her friends start mouthing to one another. Characters learn to lip-read from an early age so they can frall without getting fined. The trio peppers their conversation with decoy on-mic remarks about makeup and other Delton sales.
“She should check out the sale on Shake-It-Off,” Lia murmurs to me when I join her by the mirror. Shake-It-Off is a popular weight-loss drink that comes in candy-cane-striped cans. Sometimes I see empty cans at Lia’s house—she says her mom chugs them down before Show Physicals because her weight target is too low for her to achieve naturally. Which reminds me again that I have to go to the Center for my own Show Physical after school. Ugh. I want to just go home and forget about today.
“Shhhh,” I hush Lia, worried Terra will overhear. It’s funny but too mean. I actually do feel bad for Terra when I see how ruthlessly Scoop ignores her. I relate far too well to the torture of being infatuated with someone who’s unattainable.
“She deserves it.” Lia strides over to the sinks and turns on all the faucets. Then she returns to the window and heaves the sash up. Cars zoom outside. The idea is for Media1 to blame the cars and gushing water for the mashed audiotrack. She shoves aside her straw bag and sits on the windowsill, draping her long legs over the radiator.
“Belle,” she mouths. “She turned sixteen two weeks ago. They got her in the cafeteria.” She brushes radiator dust off her fawn-colored skirt while waiting for my response.
“Belle Cannery?” I mouth, stomach lurching. Scoop’s sister. Slight and timid, with mousy brown hair that drooped onto oversized tortoiseshell glasses. I’d see Belle when I went to visit Mom at the library. “Belle is a Patriot?” No wonder Mollie is so upset; I’ve never heard of someone being cut so soon after they became eligible. It’s rare for anyone who’s still in school to be cut.
Lia tugs my tunic, grabbing my attention. “Let’s do the Diary tomorrow morning, okay?” she says on-mic.
“Yeah, come by around ten.” My gaze drifts behind her, toward the street with the cars and trucks and vans. Belle is probably inside one of the white Media1 vans right now, on her way to the Center.
“All right, great. Oh, it’s on with Callen tonight.” Lia coughs lightly to refocus me. I drag my gaze back to her, but seeing her eyes makes me want to crumble, so I stare at the peeling linoleum floor. Off-camera places are never as nice as sets. “His house,” Lia continues, undaunted by my lack of response. “I’ll give you all the dirty details tomorrow.” It’s a testament to how swerved off about Belle I am: these statements barely register. I keep my eyes on the sad, decrepit floor, in a fog.
Lia nudges my leg with her foot. I look up again, blinking.
“Are you okay?” she mouths briefly.
“Remember my last mark?” I mouth back. Media1 starts giving us ratings marks when we’re ten. For twenty-four quarters, reduced payments are the only consequence for Characters whose marks fall 10 percent below their targets. But after we turn sixteen, if our marks are 10 percent below target, we end up on the E.L., the Eligibility List, and can be cut at any time until the next quarter starts—then the clock resets. I turned sixteen six months ago, and found out that I was on the E.L. at my most recent Character Report.
Lia nods briskly. “What was it again? One eighty-two?”
“One sixty-eight,” I correct her. One hundred eighty-two is as low as Lia’s mind can go, ratingswise. “My target was two thirty-two.”
Her mouth twitches like she just got stung, then her eyes soften, and she mouths, “You’re not going to be cut, you’re imp—”
“I’m on the E.L., Lia. When the producers’ circle was making their choice, my name was on the list, just like Belle’s. I could be next. I could be a Patriot.”
Just like my father.
“I get it, Nettie. You’re on the E.L. But so are a ton of other Characters, and most of them aren’t going to be cut. Especially not at our age. You’re just scaring yourself,” Lia mouths. “You’ll be off in a few months.” Her back is to the sun, and her face is shadowed, the swirl of freckles around her eyes just visible. She looks majestic with her chiseled cheekbones and long neck. Her green eyes are glittering, framed by long, light eyelashes. She looks like she believes what she’s saying.
I wish I could.
I see my faint reflection in the window, my wavy, dark hair hanging behind me. I grew it out for liberato, and it just passes my shoulders now. My features are friendly: heart-shaped face with slight lips, and a small, rounded, upturned nose. It’s a good face, but suddenly, desperately, I wish it were more. I wish it were enough to entrance the Audience.
“You don’t know what will happen next quarter,” I mouth, turning to the other girls to escape Lia’s ineffective consolations.
“Belle didn’t care enough about her ratings,” Thora mouths, crossing her muscular arms.
Mollie wipes her eyes on her sleeve. “I wonder if Scoop knows.”
“I’ll be there for him,” Terra mouths solemnly. As if a sacred duty has been placed in her hands.
Lia pokes me, and I glance back at her. “I think she’s the youngest Patriot in seven seasons,” she mouths. The bell rings, and the others trot out of the bathroom, laughing and talking about weekend plans as they get back on-camera. The door closes, and the noise from the hall slowly fades as everyone heads into classrooms.
Every year, around twenty-five Characters are cut. About two a month. The longer I live, the more likely I am to be one if my ratings don’t improve.
Lia is watching me while she picks distractedly at the paint chipping off the windowsill. “Nettie, you’re not like Belle,” she whispers into my ear.
“I might not be like her, but my ratings are like hers. Lia, you’re used to high ratings. It’s never been easy for me. It wasn’t easy for my father, either.”
Lia’s eyes glint with determination. “Listen. Belle’s better off working for the company. You belong here, Nettie, not in the Sadtors, and don’t talk about your dad.”
Don’t talk about your dad. When we were ten or eleven, I was obsessed with knowing where he was and what he was doing. What I really wanted was to know him, but that was impossible, so I tackled the where and what questions instead. Sometimes I try to solve life, like it’s math or one of the toasters at Fincher’s.
The Contract says “Patriots are enlisted in the service of Media1 and are given lodging and food provisions for their lifetimes.” No more, no less. Still, rumors abound—I’d heard that Patriots become producers for the show, that they receive n
ew identities and assimilate into the Sectors, or that they do grunt work for Media1—maintaining cables and building sets. I think I’d heard about seven rumors altogether, and investigated all of them, dragging Lia along with me.
I’d hover around the Center, hoping to catch glimpses of Patriots who had become producers. I’d shadow crickets, hoping to catch them talking about the Patriots. I’d pester Lia for ideas. Finally, sick of my obsession, she wrangled the truth out of our producer, Bek, who swore her to secrecy, then revealed that the Patriots work on publicity for Media1 in Zenta, the capitol of the Sectors. Writing about the show for magazines, creating posters and books for fans, giving interviews.
Not awful, but not for me.
“I just want to stay on the island,” I mouth. “I don’t want to watch you on television from the Sectors.” The Sectors, the country the Originals fled from, where the Audience lives, is huge and varied, but there’s no real stability like we have on Bliss: there are no guarantees about getting jobs or healthcare or even having a home.
Lia hops off the windowsill and puts her hands on her hips. “All we need are some exciting plotlines for you. Plotlines that would make you branch out more. Make new friends. Or new more-than-friends. You haven’t so much as looked at anyone since Witson. A lifetime ago.”
I’ve looked at Callen. But I can’t say that. I’ve thought about milking my crush to get off the E.L.—best friends liking the same boy is a great plotline—but I don’t want Lia to find out. So I confine myself to sneaking small glances and making little complaints to Selwyn.
“Four months since Witson, not a lifetime,” I mouth, moving closer to the window, my jeans pressing against the radiator. Snowney covers the hill leading down to the street, sparkling in the sun. The lawn is usually a blinding green, enhanced by paint the crickets spray on. Commenting on the snowney would be a good bet if I want some scenes on the show. Even if Media1 doesn’t have footage of me, they can still work my dialogue over picturesque scenes such as snowney-blanketed hills. But all I can think is, Snowney machines kept me up late last night. Fralling.
“Four months is more than a whole ratings quarter. I’ll think up some plotlines tonight and we can talk about them when we do the Diary tomorrow.” Lia bites her lower lip, a habit she slides into whenever she gets away from the cameras. “But you know what might really help—have you heard of the Initiative?”
“The Initials?”
“No.” It’s so rare for me to misread her. “The Initiative,” she mouths again, more slowly. “Have you heard of it?”
“No, what is it?” Sounds like one of Lincoln’s parties. I always hear about them through Lia. He never invites me directly.
“Um, never mind,” she mouths. She whips out a pale pink lipstick, thrusts her face in front of the mirror, and deftly applies it. “We have to go to class. You have calculus, right? You should talk to Scoop.”
“And say what?” Scoop and I are friendly, but we’re not close.
“I guess, talk about whatever it is you two talk about—like, triangles?” Lia suggests, only half kidding, as she turns off the faucets. “The last Character he needs to see today is the Terror That Is Terra. She’ll try too hard.” She gives me a once-over. “You look really upset. Like, sickly. Crickets are right outside.” Now that she mentions it, I do hear cameras buzzing behind the door.
“Do this.” Lia pinches her cheeks.
I glimpse my pallid face in the mirror and obey Lia’s direction, then flex my fingers and roll my neck. Like I’m about to step out into a brawl, but there’s no enemy to prepare for. Just the Audience.
• • •
I walk into the classroom and slip into my seat next to Scoop. We’ve sat next to each other since the beginning of the school year. He started it—mostly so he could get me to help with his homework—but now we’re sort of friends, strange as that might seem. He’s this popular, charismatic, gorgeous senior, and in this class, I’m quiet, raising my head only to answer questions. A lot of my shyness is because I’m the only junior—save for the couple of days a month when my classmate Revere joins us, helping out Mr. Black in order to lock down the math teacher apprenticeship.
No charisma for Scoop today. He stares out the huge classroom windows that overlook the snowney-white lawn.
I’m not sure what to say, so I study my desk’s surface until I find fresh graffiti scratched into it. The Initiative Sux. Lia didn’t seem to think it was so sucky.
Mr. Black is always late, so Characters have spread across the room like an oil spill, talking and laughing hard, overcompensating for the shock about Belle.
“Let me know if you have any questions! I’m here to help!” Revere Yucann calls out in his singsongy voice. He’s in a button-down plaid shirt and jeans that have been pressed flat—he always dresses well on his math-help days. Even his stringy hair is pulled back in a neater-than-usual ponytail. He flits from student to student, offering help with a dazzling smile. He winks as he passes me. We’re not super-close, but Revere is one of the Characters I admire most. Always cheerful and generous with his time, even with the most duncelike seniors. He’ll make a great math teacher.
A cloud moves outside, and sunlight warms my cheek. Okay. Conversation idea. I think this is the longest Scoop has ever gone without talking.
“It’s so warm, you’d think it was summer,” I say. Too late, I remember the Missive from a week ago that said we’re supposed to pretend it’s cold. Hence, the snowney. The company likes it if our weather roughly coincides with that of the most-populated regions of the Sectors; sometimes they manipulate the weather with chemicals, sometimes they have us pretend, sometimes both. Bottom line: my flub won’t make broadcast.
Scoop turns his head, dubious, as if I’ve spoken in another language. My pulse quickens. With high cheekbones, a cleft chin, and dark brown hair that swoops over his brow like an ocean wave, he qualifies as handsome in a universally acceptable sort of way. Girls kind of melt around him. I found it hard to look at him when he first started talking to me—Lia called it the Scoop Swoon. Sometimes she jokes about how we should date, even if the swoon wore off long ago.
“You must be running a fever or something, because it’s freezing,” Scoop says finally, unenthusiastically. I exhale, relieved. He points to the knitted hat on top of his book bag. “I actually had to wear the hat inside, at morning assembly. Side benefit: I couldn’t hear Martin.”
I laugh like it’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all day. Martin Fennel, the senior class president with the paunch of a fifty-year-old, transforms weekly announcements into extended soliloquies. He’s an odd one. He and Lia used to go out, and she’d chosen him to take her virginity (“dispose of her virginity” is how she put it). Afterward she reported that he’d fumbled through the whole thing and talked the entire time.
My laughter seems to energize Scoop, who grins. “Ninety-nine or a hundred?” he asks.
“What do you mean?” I smile back tentatively. He seems to be keeping it together.
“You’re going to aim higher? Hundred and ten? Is that possible?” Scoop shifts sideways toward me.
“Do you mean the test? I think a hundred.” Math is my best subject; it’s always come easily to me.
He moves closer and glances at the cameras on the ceiling. I do the same. Only one is aimed at us.
He puts his hands around his mouth. “I’m worried about Belle. Where do you think your father is?”
Don’t talk about your dad.
I remember my gloomy days about Dad all too well. I could save Scoop the gloom by telling him that they’re doing publicity, but Lia swore me to secrecy, because she doesn’t want to get Bek in trouble. I look down and start pushing the worn corner of my textbook back and forth, wishing we actually could just talk about triangles.
“Here, I’m here.” Mr. Black bumbles in, wiggling his doughy torso to straighten the w
ire connecting his mic to its battery pack. As he contorts, we get a view of his ever-expanding bald spot, shiny as an egg. Everyone returns to their desks, moaning and groaning about the test. Mr. Black kicks haplessly at the doorstopper. Five tries later, the stopper is dislodged and the door swings shut. He’s so awkward. A camera horror.
“Let me just, ergh—one second—um,” he says, pulling out papers from his briefcase. He begins passing them out, squeezing down the aisles between desks. “Put away your book, Ella. Only prayer can help you now.” He guffaws at his own joke.
Scoop gamely tilts his face to the camera-studded ceiling, closes his eyes, and joins his hands in mock-prayer. He and Belle have similar pillowy lips and hazel eyes. This is as close as I’ll ever be to Belle Cannery again.
When he opens his eyes, he catches me staring at him, and I blurt out, “I’m sorry.” Everyone hears me practically fralling on-mic, and the Terror That Is Terra exchanges a look of disapproval with Mollie.
“That you didn’t study for the test,” I add hastily.
“Me too,” Scoop says, tapping his pencil on his desk. Mr. Black passes out the tests, and I place my palms on the white sheet, trying to focus, but an uncomfortable feeling rises inside me, making my chest tight.
Belle didn’t deserve this, even if the Originals did sign a Contract that allowed sixteen-year-olds to get cut. Even if Lia’s right about Belle fitting in more in the Sadtors. Belle’s too young to be torn away from her family.
I look sideways at Scoop. Should I tell him? He’s jotting down answers—well, guesses—on his test. He feels my gaze, raises his head, and grins his fast, electric grin, and I think about how he may fool the Audience, but he can’t fool me. I can’t forget the worst days of obsessing about my father: the turmoil, the uncertainty, the questions that build a cage around you.