The rest of us—Merry, Vijay, and me—watched this play out. It was late; we were all wiped. I, in particular, was a quivering mass of sore muscles and mental exhaustion.
But Robin said this book was important. She said we’d be tested on it. In two short days, I’d learned not to doubt Robin—not ever.
“We’ve read this book before,” she explained to me. “When we talked about it in class, Strepp exploded. She said we’d misunderstood everything, that we’d missed the whole point of it. So we’re rereading it. Trying to figure it out.”
I leaned back against the cool cinder-block wall. “It doesn’t make sense,” I said. “It’s written like it really happened, and it says ‘Memoir’ on it. But it’s like, totally made-up. A totally made-up world.”
Robin nodded. “I know. That’s what we said. Strepp says we’re wrong.”
“Where’s his cell?” I demanded. “What was his vocation? Not a single person in that whole book was contributing to the United! And what kind of cell name is Bal-ti-more? It’s ridiculous!”
For a second I flashed on my twin calling me Ridiculous Rebecca, and my throat closed up. Cassie. Would I ever see her again?
“Maybe it took place in the past,” Vijay suggested. “Just… somewhere else.”
I looked at him, seeing the intelligence in his dark-brown eyes. It hit me: All these kids were smart. Every one of them would be assigned higher schooling, or some brainy kind of vocation. Why were they here? Why were any of us here?
“Maybe it’s a cell just for bad citizens,” Merry said.
“Oh, God, who knows?” I almost wailed, and closed my eyes just for a moment.
“Uh-oh—sorry, guys,” said Diego, lunging to our one open toilet.
“No, Diego, no!” we all yelled, but it was too late. There was a horrible squishing sound, like a hog rolling in mud, and then our small space was filled with a noxious stench much worse than when Cassie and I found Mrs. Simpson’s dead cow. So much worse.
I clapped my hand over my nose and mouth. Vijay desperately pressed his face to the metal bars, trying to suck in clean air from the hall. It was too late: the kids across from us were now shrieking, pulling their jumpsuits up over their heads, pressing their faces into threadbare blankets. The nuclear cloud of evil and beans rolled down the hallway, and the cries of horror grew as it traveled.
“Whew!” Diego said cheerfully, flushing for the third time. “That was intense! Sorry, guys! Wow! When you gotta go, you gotta go!”
We glared at him in mute protest, unwilling to uncover our noses and mouths to speak.
Then his face fell, and he jiggled the handle of the toilet. “Hm,” he said. “Think it’s clogged.”
31
CASSIE
HAVING TO GO TO SCHOOL again was awful, but with Pa at Healthcare United and Becca missing, there was no one to write me an absent note. Could I write myself one?
The bell rang right as I was grabbing my social studies book out of my locker, and I almost jumped when I shut the locker door and saw Nathaniel Allen standing there.
“Jeezum! What do you want?” I asked, pushing past him to get to class.
He took hold of my arm, and I stared at him. “Let. Me. Go.”
“I just need to talk to you,” he said.
“I don’t want to hear anything you have to say,” I snapped, and jerked my arm away.
“You don’t understand,” he began, but I cut him off.
“You don’t understand that you need to leave me alone!” I said. “You’re the son of the Provost! You don’t talk to me! You don’t even look at me! Got it?” Leaving him standing in the hallway, I spun and hurried to my last class. I’d never spoken to anyone like that in my life, but I was walking on the edge, my emotions getting frayed like the end of a wheat stalk.
Like I said, having to go to school while Becca was still missing was awful, but you know what real torture was? Having to sit in Mr. Harrison’s class. I’d tried to get Mrs. Woodrow for history, but she’d left midterm. So every day, I had to sit in a classroom while that jerk stood at the front of the room and lectured.
Now I had to talk to him on purpose, to ask about Becca. So instead of leaping up the instant the bell sounded, I lingered by my desk while the rest of the class filed out. “Mr. Harrison? Can I talk to you?”
“Of course, Cassie. What is it?”