Teen, Inc.

by Stefan Petrucha

  “Oprah? Please. Hold out for The Daily Show or South Park.”

  “I don’t think I can guest star on an animated show, Nate.”

  “Sure you can. They do it all the time. You can just do the voice-over.”

  “Actually that sounds pretty cool. Ha! I can do a confession about how my corporate parent beats me.”

  “Yeah, well, watch out in school tomorrow. I’ve got a feeling Deever isn’t as secure as NECorp.”

  Huh. He had a point. And not just on top of his head.

  “Hey! Gotta go! Caitlin’s IMing me!”

  I raised an eyebrow. “She still got you wrapped around her little finger?”

  “No! I said she was IMing me, right? Okay, so maybe I gave her the PDA as a permanent loan sort of thing. But I’ve still got my laptop. Sure, maybe it’s a little older, but…”

  I shook my head at him. “You are such a sucker.”

  Nate shrugged and the screen went blank. As it turned out, I never had anything to worry about with Nate. He thought my situation was cool. Didn’t even blink, really. Felt lucky to know me. At the time, I was feeling pretty lucky to know me myself.

  After not sleeping last night, I slept like a log and woke up a little late. It wasn’t until I went to breakfast that I remembered Ben was gone. I made a mental note to write to him as soon as I got back from school. I didn’t even order home fries. I had the French toast, and some sausages. It just didn’t seem right to order eggs and bacon from someone else. Not yet, anyway. It was too soon.

  Eyeballs drove me to school, but I didn’t feel much like talking to him, which made for a very quiet trip. After he realized I was still pissed at him for grabbing the memo, he just turned the car radio up loud and we bobbed our heads to some trashy alternative rock.

  I suppose I shouldn’t have been angry with him. He was just following Nancy’s orders, and, really, that had turned out for the best, hadn’t it? Now NECorp had a chance to do the right thing itself, and even if everyone did know my secret, at least I wouldn’t have to be totally ashamed.

  What came next made me feel a little better about ol’ Eyeballs. There were a bunch of reporters out in front of the school, with video cameras, interviewing kids on their way to class. It wasn’t until I got out of the car and all the interviews suddenly stopped and the reporters came rushing in my direction, that I realized they’d been asking those kids about me.

  “Is NECorp sending you to public school because they’re too cheap to send you to a good school?”

  “Do they let you date?”

  “Do they give you a curfew?”

  “Do you have a Web site?”

  “Is it true NECorp is raising you without any religion?”

  “What do you think of Eric Tate’s accusations against LiteSpring?”

  It wasn’t like I could have answered even if I’d wanted to. They were like a bunch of human-sized bugs, swarming, shoving mikes in my face. And here’s where Tony showed his stuff. He got himself between me and the paparazzi, wedged his way through, and pulled me along, all the while saying loudly, “The press conference is at NECorp tonight. No questions until then. Give the kid a break, he’s got to get to school.”

  Not that they listened, but he was big enough to be intimidating and moving fast enough to make a difference, so we made it all the way to the front door. There, Deever’s security guards, whom I’d always thought of as sort of lazy given all the contraband that gets through, took over, and stopped anyone who wasn’t a student from coming inside.

  I popped into the school hallway like a bubble from the bottom of a glass of soda. Then, of course, as I walked along, there were the stares again, but people were getting a little bolder and I suddenly found out I had all these friends I’d never met before.

  “You need something, you ask me,” some truck-sized guy said in homeroom. I’d never seen him speak before, so I’d always figured he was mute. More than one girl gave me a big smile, too. Nate asked me to sign an autograph for Caitlin, which was totally weird, and Ms. Chrob actually seemed nervous when she was talking to me, stumbling over her words and stuff.

  But Jenny, Jenny barely looked at me.

  I had to actually corner her after class.

  “Will you talk to me? Just for a minute?” I said, trotting up alongside her.

  She stopped. She shook her head. “I’m not supposed to.”

  “Come on! I’m not the enemy here! I’ve got some stuff I have to tell you. Good stuff. Really good stuff. Stuff so good you won’t even believe it’s real stuff.”

  She stopped and looked at me. “Like what kind of stuff?”

  I looked around. Six other kids had stopped, too. They were pretending to look away, like they weren’t paying attention, but it was so obvious.

  “I can’t tell you here.”

  “Then forget it,” she said, and she started walking again.

  “No, no, no, no!” I cut her off again and leaned in close.

  She pulled back, maybe thinking I was going to kiss her, but I just gritted my teeth and whispered in her ear.

  “Give me a second. After school, Tony’s going to park in front and they’re going to send me out the back, so the press won’t corner me. Just meet me there and walk me across the field. Just across the field. Five minutes I promise, you’ll want to hear it. Your dad will want to hear it.”

  She looked up and made a face. She looked down and made another face.

  “Come on,” I begged.

  “Okay,” she finally said. “Now can I please get to class?”

  I stepped aside and swept my arm out for her. I thought this was kind of cute and endearing, until some of the kids following me around did exactly the same and all of a sudden she was running this gauntlet of swept arms.

  “Will you give me a break?” I said to them.

  The rest of the school day was unusual, to say the least. Shanna Denton had apparently forgotten about the ugly Hello Kitty incident and started trying to flirt with me. Mr. Abbate implied he’d raise my Spanish grade if I appeared in a commercial for his brother’s used car dealership. There were more incidents like that. Mostly they involved offers and requests from fellow students and their parents, like asking me to appear at fund-raisers.

  Anyway, the last bell finally rang. Security escorted me to a small room while the halls cleared, then to the rear exit. There’s a concrete pavilion just before the football field, and you could see for miles around that no one was there, except for the limo waiting for me at the far end of the field.

  As the security guard opened the door for me, he spotted Jenny sitting on a bench, wrapping her arms around herself for warmth. He looked like he was about to chase her off, but I shook my head. “It’s okay. She’s my friend. She’s walking me.” He nodded and closed the door.

  I walked up, Jenny stood, and we started across the field. Not a word for the first few yards. I didn’t know where to begin exactly, but I knew I was glad to be with her and afraid that if I didn’t say just the right thing, she wouldn’t stay very long.

  But what did I have to worry about, really? I did good, didn’t I? I talked the CEO into coming clean about the pollution, after all. But what if that wasn’t enough for her and her dad? Mr. Tate looked like he was out for blood. He might have preferred it if NECorp went belly-up.

  Jenny was wearing denim overalls. The straps were hidden under her coat, but the pants ended mid-calf and she had on ankle socks that made for a lot of bare leg. Anyway, I was looking down as we walked, and I guess I was staring at her legs, because she turned and looked at me with an annoyed expression on her face, like I was staring at her like she was a piece of meat.

  “Yeah?” she said.

  “Aren’t you freezing in those?” I asked, trying to pretend that was really what I was thinking.

  She shook her head, “no,” but then smiled a little and said, “Yes. I am. So why don’t you tell me what you wanted to say so I can go inside somewhere?”

  Since
now it meant I was keeping her out in the cold, I started.

  “But you have to promise not to tell anyone.”

  “Jaiden.”

  “Especially your dad.”

  “Jaiden.”

  “Really. A lot of people could get in a lot of trouble if what I’m about to tell you gets out early, so you have to promise not to tell.”

  “Okay. Fine. I promise.”

  With that, I launched into an explanation of what happened yesterday between me and Mr. Hammond, hoping that Jenny would be pleased. Instead, she furrowed her brow for the longest time. We were walking all the while, and the limo was getting closer and closer, so I was starting to be afraid that our walk would end with her brow still furrowed and without her saying a word.

  But finally she stopped. “That’s good, Jaiden, I guess, but even if the plant goes back to the old levels, the mercury is still dangerous. Do you know it’s been pumping that stuff into the water and the air for almost twenty years? I mean, really, the plant should be shut down permanently, or moved somewhere further away from drinking water.”

  “But …I mean … is there really enough mercury in the water to make anyone actually sick?”

  “My dad’s trying to figure that out, but so far the only thing he’s come up with is a small rise in local autism rates.”

  “Autism? You mean like when people can’t read emotions?”

  “Yeah. Mercury can affect fetuses, and there are some studies that link it directly to autism, but they’re controversial. The rise in autism here goes back to when the plant was first built. It’s not something you can just fix. And you’re part of it.”

  “Guess there aren’t any fluorescent bulbs in your house, huh?”

  “No, there aren’t.”

  She had me there. “So what do you think I should do?”

  She looked at me. Her nose was red from the cold and she rubbed it a little with her hand. “Tell my dad what you told me. Tell the press. Don’t let NECorp just clean it up. Make them close it down.”

  “I can’t. The scandal could bring down the whole corporation. Everyone could be fired. A lot of lives could be ruined.”

  “So? NECorp’s not your parent, Jaiden. It’s a company, a company that’s poisoning people.”

  “It’s not just a thing. It’s the people in it. I mean, a lot of the investors live on a fixed income and…”

  She shook her hands in frustration. “Aghh! Do you believe what you’re saying? Do you even know if it’s true? Jaiden, I like you. I think you’re a good guy, but isn’t it about time you became your own person?”

  I stood there thinking about everything she said, my head spinning in all sorts of directions at once. Everything I thought I should do seemed wrong somehow, like there was no right answer. The whole poisoning thing was sticking out loud and clear, but then all of a sudden, her last sentence struck me, and I clung to it like it was the only thing floating in the big black sea I was drowning in.

  “You’re a funny one to talk about being your own person,” I told her.

  Her face scrunched up. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, look at you, you say you like me, but you’re doing exactly what your dad is telling you and not hanging out with me anymore. Is that what someone who’s their own person would do? You’re always worried about being ‘cool’—is that cool?”

  She kept her face scrunched up for a while. A bit of wind whipped through her hair. I could see the tiny wool fibers on the strands of her knitted cap twitch and shiver in the air as she thought.

  “You’re right.”

  I was?

  “Of course I’m right,” I said.

  She looked nervous, but kind of happy about it. “So, do you want to work on our project some more this afternoon?”

  “You mean now?”

  “Yes. Now. My dad’s at a big meeting at his office.”

  I shrugged. “Sure. Do you want to head to your house?”

  “No. I’m not sure exactly when he’ll be back. How about yours?”

  “Uh …I don’t have a house, remember?”

  “Sure you do. A great big one. You live at NECorp, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So take me there. I’d really like to see it.”

  I thought about it. No way would Nancy let the daughter of Eric Tate into the building, not with the press outside and all the hush-hush negotiations going on. Jenny just wouldn’t be trusted. But heck, I trusted her. And what could she see anyway if we just went to my room? I’d already told her all the important stuff.

  But how to get her inside?

  “Okay, but you’re going to have to trust me about something else, too.”

  She furrowed her brow. “What?”

  About half an hour later, I met her on her bike at one of the loading docks outside NECorp. Deliveries arrived mostly in the morning, and with security focused on the press out front, the place was empty enough for me to sneak something relatively small inside, something like Jenny.

  Not that she was wild about hiding in a garbage can. I brought out one of those big orange suckers with huge wheels and a nice tight lid, the cleanest I could find. After I showed it to her and assured her it was disinfected, she kind of got into the idea that it would be fun to sneak into NECorp.

  She tossed her books in and tried to climb in after them. I had to steady the can a bit and help heft her, which was kind of cool. I think she smiled at me as I put my arm around her waist. Once she was in the can, I sealed her up nice and tight and wheeled her inside and into the service elevator.

  The service elevator let us out in a corridor right near my suite, so I was able to wheel her in without anyone noticing. Unfortunately, it was right then that I noticed what a total wreck my room was. Comic books, video games, and laundry all over the place.

  She started rapping on the lid and whispering, “Is it safe yet? Is it safe?”

  I whispered back, even though no one could hear: “Uh, can you wait a minute?”

  In a frenzied attempt at tidying, I kicked stuff under the desk and bed. Less than twenty seconds later, though, while I stood there with a bunch of dirty underpants in my hands, the lid of the trash can popped open and Jenny burst out.

  She looked around, laughing. “It’s … it’s an office. All the furniture, the rugs, everything, it’s totally corporate. How could this be your room?” Then she turned to me and noticed the pile of underwear I was holding. I dropped it immediately and grinned.

  “Did you notice the plasma TV?” I asked, nodding toward it.

  I flipped it on to one of the local news channels. Interestingly enough, they had a baby picture of me up on the screen, over the announcer’s shoulder. I didn’t change the channel, since it was a cute picture, but I did grin sheepishly.

  Jenny shook her head. “It’s your room, alright.”

  She put her hands on the rim of the can and realized she couldn’t get out alone. “Help me out,” she said.

  “Love to.” But no sooner did I walk over, then a rapping came at the door.

  “Jaiden! Jaiden! Are you in there?”

  I knew the voice. “Oh crap! It’s my manager!”

  “Your manager?”

  “Yeah. Nancy. I can’t let her see you. Get down.”

  For some reason, Jenny picked right then to try to be funny. “What? I’m not good enough to meet your manager?”

  Ha-ha.

  I stared at her while Nancy knocked again. “Not while your dad is trying to bring down the company! Now quit kidding around and get down!”

  I pushed the lid back over her and opened the door. Nancy tried to step in, but I was in the way and didn’t move.

  “I just wanted to tell you there’ve been a ton of high-level meetings all day, put together by Mr. Hammond. I don’t know the details, but they’re planning an announcement soon. It looks like … it looks like things are swinging our way.”

  She was talking fast and had this expression on her face that looked ve
ry unusual. It took a second for me to register what it was. A smile. Nancy was smiling.

  She was happy.

  After the big speech I’d just gotten from Jenny about mercury poisoning, I really didn’t know how to feel about “things swinging our way,” but I figured the least I owed Nancy was a “That’s great!”—which I gave her.

  “The announcement may bounce your press conference. If they fire Bungrin, it may push you out of the news cycle entirely. It’s so … it’s so … why is there a garbage can in the middle of your room?”

  We both looked back at it, sitting there.

  “I’m just … I’m just throwing out some old junk.”

  She smiled at me. “Well, you really are growing up a bit this week, aren’t you?”

  She didn’t know the half of it.

  You could see she was just bursting with all this feeling. For the first time since we met, she actually reached out and patted me on the shoulder. I smiled at her and tried to pretend it wasn’t the most incredibly awkward thing ever.

  “I’ll let you know as soon as I do. I have to go back to listening at the door to the conference room now.”

  She waved and walked off. I shut the door and exhaled before pulling the lid off the can. Jenny was curled up in the bottom, looking up at me.

  “I really should tell my dad,” she said.

  “No, you shouldn’t.” I answered. I reached in and pulled her to standing. We were pretty close, separated only by the orange plastic of the garbage can.

  “Look, once this Bungrin guy is history, I’ll work on getting Mr. Hammond to shut down the plant or move it.”

  “Come on. You can’t even have a friend over to your room and tell your manager about it. You really think you can influence NECorp’s decisions on something that big?”

  I ran my finger along the lip of the plastic can, near her shirt. “The CEO loves me like a son.”

  “Oh, he does, does he?”

  “Yeah, really.”

  I looked up at the same time she looked at me. Her green eyes were perfect and her pupils were opening up a bit. Her lips turned up, just a little, into this half smile like the one on that famous painting, Mona Lisa.