“Yup,” Jo said. “Sometimes things take us by surprise, and we’ve got to make do with what we’ve got.”
Wyatt and I exchanged a glance. We could still hang out after the meeting, but that meant we’d miss the last few hours of daylight to prep for the game, and that was not a good idea. I made a face at him and he nodded. He got it. “This is exactly what we need to practice,” he said. “It’s going to be hard.”
“I’m going to make it a little harder, too,” Jo said. “No sharing of resources for this one. No teamwork. Everyone for themselves.”
Chloe frowned, but Hunter asked the question. “Why?”
“Testing different skills,” Jo said. “Remember Wyatt’s original question, back at the beginning? It wasn’t about whether we wanted to survive in general; it was about whether we were willing to survive alone. We’ve been doing all our lessons and games in a group, but that’s not really what this is about. It’s about time to test whether we can make it solo.”
It seemed to me that this game was skewed in Jo’s favor, which was funny given that she couldn’t win. I wondered, too, whether she’d missed the point of Wyatt’s question. It wasn’t really about surviving alone; it was about surviving without the people you loved, about your willingness to start over and learn to be with new people, and maybe to love them too. Still, she had a point. We’d need to survive alone for a while, anyway, and why not start here, now, where it was safe?
“We can still talk, though, right?” I asked. “Hunter and I need to study.”
Chloe snorted. She knew Wyatt and I were supposed to hang out after the meeting.
“You can talk all you want during the day, in class or at the dining hall or wherever, but as soon as you’re responsible for your own light you’re on your own. Unless you’re comfortable together in the dark.” I’d have expected her to look at Chloe for that one, but her gaze was fixed on me. How did she know about me and Wyatt? Had Chloe told her? Or was Hunter right and everyone else had always known, except me?
“Afternoon study sessions, I guess,” Hunter said.
Chloe stuck her hand in the air again. “You still have questions, Princess?” Jo asked.
“Just the obvious one,” Chloe said. “How do we win?”
“Outplay, outwit, outlast,” Jo said. “Last person standing.”
“So this isn’t just a week,” I said.
Jo laughed. “One week is the qualifier. If you all crap out in under a week then no one wins. Let’s see how real those internet addictions really are.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Chloe said. “The lack of a hair dryer alone . . .”
Chloe loved taking on the drama queen role, but we were all freaking out. One week of studying with no computer and no internet access was doable, but two weeks? Three? I felt my dream of winning the game slipping away. My only hope was that no one else was capable of going that long without power either, but I had a feeling Wyatt could be a real threat.
“Come on, let’s try it,” he said. I bet he knew he could win, too. I’d have to tease him about it later. “How will we ever know we can make it if we don’t practice? Isn’t that why we agreed to do this?”
“So how’s it going to work?” Hunter asked. “And will you play, even if you can’t win?”
“Of course,” Jo said. “Someone has to show you wimps how it’s done. Game’s over when we’re down to one person, and you have to come find me to tap out. Then I’ll call a meeting and announce the winner.” Like one of the survival shows I’d watched on TV, where people got dropped off somewhere in the wilds of Canada to live alone. Each season ended with one scrawny, haunted-looking winner having trouble remembering why he’d gotten involved in the game in the first place. “Is everyone in?”
“The sacrifices I make for you people,” Chloe said. “Yeah, I’m in.”
Jo looked surprised—she must have expected more resistance from Chloe. “I’m in too,” I said, and Hunter and Wyatt agreed.
“Excellent, team,” Jo said. “I’ll look forward to seeing who falls first.”
We all split up to go back to the dorm and scrounge. I had no doubt Chloe had a giant pile of scented candles she’d gotten from her site, but I knew where Hillel stored the Shabbat candles, and I pilfered a couple of boxes as my first order of business. Wyatt probably already had a battery-powered lamp or something. My money was definitely on him. It was definitely not on Hunter, who I imagined would be the first to drop out.
And I was right. We were only a few days in when Hunter dropped his tray across from me and my eyes widened at what I saw.
“Hot dogs?” I asked. “Tater tots? Please do let me know how you’re going to justify this to Jo.”
“I’m not.” He stuffed an entire hot dog into his mouth.
“I’m not going to save you if you choke, you know. It serves you right.”
He chugged a fountain Coke and got the rest of the hot dog down, then let out a long, low belch.
“Gross,” I said.
By then Chloe had arrived. “Hunter’s tapping out,” I said. “And he swapped a hot dog and tots for his nasty sub.”
“I needed something cooked,” he said. “It wasn’t enough of a celebration to just eat something refrigerated.”
“Guess it’s down to you, me, and Wyatt, then,” Chloe said. She’d been eating these weird bean salads since the game started, all stuff you could get in cans. Not very appetizing, but whatever got her through the day, I supposed. “Just so you know, I have to win this one. It’s a pride thing.”
As if she were the only one who had any pride. “Well, we’re going to make it as hard for you as possible.”
“Oh, look, they’re a ‘we’ now.” Chloe chucked me under the chin. “So adorable!”
“Don’t even,” I said, and she knew enough to stop.
“I feel like a total loser, but honestly, I cannot believe how hard this has been already.” Hunter launched into his tale of woe, which included indoor soccer practices all week at night and accidentally cheating the very first night by chugging an energy drink from his mini fridge, which of course he’d forgotten to unplug. “I’ve been a disaster from the minute we started.” He bit into another hot dog, squirting mustard and relish onto his tater tots. “Quitting might be worth it just for this.”
“This is tragic,” I said, but I couldn’t help laughing. He didn’t care, and that was fine. “You okay with afternoon studying still, so I can try to win this thing?”
“Of course. Take her down!”
Chloe glared at him.
“Oh, come on, you’ve already won one,” I said. “It’s not like whoever wins the most games wins an even better prize—we never even came up with prizes for the individual games. Give the rest of us a chance.”
“Throw a game?” She sniffed. “Never. But you’re welcome to try and beat me fair and square.”
I didn’t mention how she’d hardly been fair and square during my game. “Challenge accepted,” I said. “And good luck to you.”
Unlike Hunter, I was finding everything pretty easy so far. It took me a couple of days to get used to not having a computer or a phone, not being able to look anything up as soon as a question popped into my head. But it wasn’t long before I got used to the idea that I’d have to be patient, that my questions would be answered in good time or not at all, and if I really wanted to know something, I’d have to look it up in an actual book. Since I didn’t have any papers due, I didn’t need the computer for much else. I was shocked to realize how much time I spent on it now that I couldn’t use it at all, and I was even more shocked at how much other stuff I could get done in its absence.
I had more time to think than I knew what to do with, though. At first being alone in my own head was so disconcerting that all I could do was try to remember the plots of books and movies I loved, or make a bucket list in my journal of everything I wanted to do before I kicked it, or write down my dreams for the future. I thought about my friends, a
nd Wyatt, and everything that had happened at home, and everything that was happening here. Hunter was getting over the takedown interview, Chloe hadn’t found out who sent the pictures but I knew she was still upset about them, and Wyatt never learned who sent the books or signed him up for all those emails. Three of my closest friends hurt; three people who were in the same club. The only Eucalyptus members who hadn’t had anything bad happen to them were me and Jo, and I while I knew I wasn’t responsible, Jo seemed capable of anything, including some degree of cruelty. But every time she let us scrape past her surface, even with something so simple as admitting she was afraid of the dark, it felt more like she trusted us, and that she cared about Eucalyptus. She might be the only one of us left, but I was having trouble making myself believe it could be her.
I debated whether to run my theory past Wyatt. On Friday afternoon I went to try and find him to see if he wanted to take a walk; I knew the cross-country team didn’t have practice, the weather was unseasonably less-than-freezing, I was going to miss my first Shabbat dinner because I couldn’t eat the food, and I wanted to keep busy. His face brightened when he saw me, which made me happy.
Wyatt picked out one of his favorite paths through the woods, and at first we walked quietly, with him pointing things out on occasion—markers to keep track of the path, evidence of animal burrows, different kinds of trees. It was like he knew about an entirely different world. All I taught him was stupid stuff, like how to find (and use) the emoji keyboard on his Mac and who certain pop stars were.
As I suspected, his week was going great. He didn’t mind eating the few kinds of food available as long as he could carbo-load for cross-country, and having limited access to technology was something he was used to. He’d probably be able to continue forever, which meant he was almost certain to win.
I wasn’t really struggling yet, but I could see it coming. I’d been starting to play with the rules in my head: Was tea really off-limits, if I could theoretically boil water over a fire? Did that mean I could cook certain things, too? Jo had said no cooking, but she meant no cooking with electricity, right? I hadn’t crossed the line yet, but the fact that I was even thinking about it told me this wouldn’t be the game where I showed my true competitive spirit.
“Want to sit for a while?” Wyatt asked. “I brought a blanket.”
Seriously, he was the most thoughtful person I’d ever met. He spread out the blanket next to an enormous tree with a thick enough trunk that we could both lean against it. At first we both sat stiffly, our backs as flush with the tree bark as we could make them, legs stretched out in front of us (his jean-clad, mine covered in black leggings, as usual). But I fidgeted to avoid the knots in the tree trunk, and he wiggled his legs as if they hurt, which maybe they did—he seemed to be getting taller by the day—and before either of us knew it we’d rearranged ourselves so his arm was around me and I was curled into his chest, his legs crossed, mine making a sideways V, my thighs pressed into his. It felt comfortable and natural and it was strange to me how we could be so easily entangled together when we hadn’t even kissed yet.
“This is nice,” Wyatt said, and I nodded into his armpit.
All I wanted to do was stay here, nestled into him, moving only for what felt like the inevitable moment when he would finally kiss me. Or when I would take the plunge and kiss him; why was I so intent on making this his responsibility? He’d done all the hard work up to now. I’d done nothing but be receptive. That was unfair, I decided. I had to be brave.
I lifted my head from his chest and started to scoot up a little so our faces were closer together, but at the same time Wyatt turned toward me and bent his head down. Great minds think alike, I thought, as our noses banged into each other. It was so fantastically awkward that all I could do was laugh, and Wyatt laughed too. I was still smiling when he finally leaned in and kissed me, his mouth fitting right where the corners of my lips turned up. Suddenly it wasn’t so funny anymore, and I stopped smiling, but only so we could kiss properly, forever.
I gave up the following Wednesday. Wyatt and I had spent the daylight hours of the weekend making out, which left me somewhat behind in my schoolwork, and once my English teacher assigned us a paper, I knew I was done for. I celebrated by making so many cups of tea I barely got a good night’s sleep because I had to get up to pee so many times, but it was worth it.
“You’ve got this in the bag,” I told Wyatt on Thursday. We were taking another walk. Somehow I didn’t care about the cold anymore.
“Maybe,” he said. “But Chloe’s stubborn. This could go on forever. And I don’t know that I want to follow Jo’s rules anymore if it means I can’t see you at night.” I understood. There was something different about being together only during the day, something missing. We’d spent some of the time over the weekend talking about what we’d do when we weren’t restricted anymore, making a list of the movies we wanted to watch together, even if that just meant lying together on a rec room couch, snuggled under a blanket.
“Give it until Saturday,” I said. “I’ve got Shabbat dinner Friday night anyway—I skipped last week because I couldn’t eat, and I’ve been dreaming of roast chicken ever since. Then you can go tell Jo you’re out, if you want.”
“Will you come with me? She’s still kind of scary.”
“Do you think she means to be scary? I’ve been wanting to ask you about her.” I’d never managed to bring up the topic of Jo the other day in the woods; once the kissing started, there was no room for anything else. Now I explained to him what I’d been thinking. “In some ways she’s the only person who makes sense, and yet I can’t really picture her doing any of this. She’s nothing if not straightforward about how she’s feeling. If she wanted us to know she knew these things about us, I think she’d just say it.”
Wyatt nodded slowly. “Yeah, she scares me because she’s so in your face, not because I think she’s a bad person. I’m so used to everyone around me being nonstop positive because of the commune and all—it’s hard for me to get used to her. But I don’t think she’s the one who sent me those emails or did any of the other stuff.”
“So who do you think did?”
“No idea,” he said. “I don’t know that it’s worth trying to figure it out, especially not if there isn’t any more bad stuff happening.”
He was probably right. Better to just focus on the game.
With no word from Chloe on Friday, Wyatt and I set out for Jo’s dorm on Saturday morning so she could call an afternoon meeting and we’d have Saturday night to ourselves. Neither of us had ever been there before; she lived in the same building as Chloe but on a different floor, and Wyatt had never ventured into the forbidden part of the girls’ dorm. I held Wyatt’s left hand as he knocked on the door with his right.
A girl I didn’t recognize opened the door, wearing a long fleecy nightgown that looked like something someone’s mother would wear. “What do you want?” she asked, yawning. I supposed we’d woken her up, but it was ten o’clock, so I didn’t feel that bad about it.
“We’re looking for Jo,” I said, peering around her into the room. I’d have expected Jo to stake out her space, for half the room to be all black or something, but their dorm looked a lot like everyone else’s, desks piled with books, floor piled with clothes. One of the beds had a rainbow-striped duvet covering a lump that I presumed was Jo.
“I got this, Grandma,” the lump said, and then Jo emerged from under the duvet.
“Seriously, can you stop calling me that?” the girl said, and flounced back to the other bed.
“When you stop dressing like a grandma, I’ll stop.” Jo came out into the hall, in pajamas herself, though really it just looked like she’d kept on one of her myriad white T-shirts and swapped out her jeans for men’s boxer shorts. “You crapping out on me, Survivor?” she asked Wyatt.
Wyatt squeezed my hand, but I couldn’t answer for him. “I decided I was wrong,” he said. That wasn’t what I was expecting.
It wasn’t what Jo expected either. “Wrong about what?” she asked, and she forgot to add a nickname.
“About my question. That first night. Even if we had to survive without anyone we knew, that didn’t mean we wouldn’t come to know other people too, later on. It didn’t mean we had to be completely alone.”
Funny, that’s what I’d been thinking about too, when Jo proposed the game. How similar Wyatt and I had turned out to be.
“Anyway,” he continued, “I don’t think I could survive if I had to be really alone. I don’t think I’d want to. I don’t need to win more than I need people in my life.”
Jo looked at me even as she asked Wyatt the question. “Guess you’re not talking about your roommate, are you?”
Wyatt was so cute when he blushed. “No, but now that you mention it, he is getting sick of sleeping on the rec room couch.”
I’d met his roommate, who I knew had been more than happy to spend the past two weeks sneaking into his girlfriend’s dorm room. Wyatt was just drawing Jo’s attention away from me, which was sweet.
“Okay, I’ll call the meeting,” Jo said. “See you in the bunker after lunch, okay?”
“We’ll be there,” I said.
At the dining hall I watched Wyatt eat a truly shocking amount of pasta, and then we headed to the bunker so Jo could give Chloe her victory. I couldn’t imagine Jo would enjoy it; they were tied now, with only Chloe’s game to come, and I was sure Chloe would try as hard as Jo had to make her game impossible for Jo to win. She handled it well, though.
“We all know why we’re here,” Jo said, once we’d all settled in. I sat between Wyatt’s legs, his arms wrapped around me. Everyone knew about us by now, and I hated missing an opportunity to be close to him. “You all fought bravely—well, most of you.” She narrowed her eyes at Hunter, but she smiled at the same time. “Only one person didn’t last the week, and two people made it to the very end, but there’s only one winner. Before I announce—”
How to Pack for the End of the World Page 17
