The Year of the Gadfly

by Jennifer Miller

  It was strange to hear this phrase used outside of a history book. But it was accurate. We’d passed from one century to another in my lifetime. This would be the stuff of history one day.

  “For too long, this school has been obsessed with social climbing, success, and power. We may not have a Rex on our hands, but the strong are still taking advantage of the weak.” As Julia said this, I could feel waves of frustration radiating from the four of them. “Ask anyone about the scandals going on around here, Iris, and you’ll see that the administration doesn’t give a damn about the Community Code. The Community Council is like the Mafia. Nobody questions them, because they know they’ll wind up discredited, their reputations ruined. It’s happened more times than you can imagine. And most of the kids here only care about getting ahead anyway. Brotherhood, Truth, and Equality for All is a sham. We’re the only voice of dissent.”

  “Except”—Winston stood up—“for you.”

  His voice made me shiver. “Me?”

  Now Syme jumped from his chair and began hurling verbal missiles at me. “We know you’ve been pitching serious stories to the Oracle with no success. We know you’ve been writing essays for European history on CBS’s coverage of the Second World War. And we know you worship Edward Murrow like he’s Jesus.”

  My mind buzzed with questions: how did they know these things, and why did they even matter? Meanwhile Syme stood over me, like a cocky prosecutor cross-examining a hostile witness. I realized I was hoping that Winston would defend me, but he said nothing.

  “Iris,” Julia said. “We know you don’t care what other people think of you. You value the truth, period. Even if it means you’re . . .” She dangled the unfinished sentence before me, as though for sport.

  “Even if I’m what?”

  “A freak of nature.”

  I tried to protest, but Julia continued, “That’s a compliment, Iris. And we’ve brought you here because we need your help. Prisom’s Party is facing a serious problem.”

  I waited.

  “His name”—she leaned forward until I could see two dark eyes through the slits in her mask—“is Jonah Kaplan.”

  My mouth fell open.

  “Pasternak hired him in order to hunt us down,” Syme said, “and if he outs us, then you can say goodbye to the legacy of Charles Prisom.”

  “And your remedy for this is—?”

  “Blackmail!” O’Brien burst out.

  “We have reason to believe Mr. Kaplan is hiding damaging information,” Julia said icily. “If we can find out what, we can give him an incentive to back off.”

  “But Mr. Kaplan’s not like Thelonius Rex. What could he possibly have done?” I remembered my mother telling me that Mr. Kaplan was almost kicked out of Mariana as a student, but that was a long time ago.

  “Jeez, Iris, I don’t know,” Syme said, snorting. “How about put his students through a perverse psychological experiment in which he manipulated a bunch of fourteen-year-olds into giving one another fatal electric shocks?”

  “It wasn’t real. It was a simulation to show us—”

  “It was sadistic,” Syme snapped.

  “And you guys are so full of love? Look what you did to Marvin Breckinridge!”

  “We did that for the school’s benefit!” O’Brien growled.

  Julia stepped forward. “You’re a smart person, Iris. I think you know that Mr. Kaplan isn’t all he seems.” Her face was very close to mine, the pig’s rubber snout almost touching my cheek. “Look at his reaction to that book of yours,” she whispered.

  Had one of them been hiding in the stacks or behind a carrel when I showed Lily’s book to Mr. Kaplan? And if so, how did they know about our meeting in the first place?

  “None of this makes him guilty of anything,” I said, but Julia ignored me.

  “You have now seen him react to the Prisom’s Party symbol twice —on the first day of school in the girls’ bathroom and again today in the Trench. He’s afraid of us, Iris. And the only reason to be afraid of Prisom’s Party is if you have a black stain on your past.”

  Winston nodded at Julia to take a seat and knelt by my chair. “Look, we could be wrong about all of this. But we owe it to ourselves and to this school to investigate.”

  I didn’t know what to say. My brain was reeling.

  “We don’t want to hurt Mr. Kaplan, Iris. We just want to be left alone.”

  I looked from face to face, but of course the masks revealed nothing. “But why me?”

  “We need someone on the outside, someone Kaplan would never suspect. One of us snooping around the Oracle archives would look suspicious. But you’re a reporter. Everyone expects you to be asking questions.”

  “You want to use me.”

  Winston shook his head. “We could have gone to anyone else on the paper. But you share our values. We can trust you.”

  “But you don’t. I don’t even know where I am right now! I don’t know who you are!”

  “If you prove yourself,” Winston said in a whisper, as though we were having a private conversation, “you’ll become part of us, part of this extraordinary history.”

  “A member of Prisom’s Party?”

  Winston nodded. “Fully sworn. Become a steward of the truth, Iris. Help us.”

  I so badly wanted to believe that somebody my age could say “steward of the truth” without rolling his eyes or making a sarcastic crack. I wanted to believe all this was real.

  “It’s quite simple,” Julia said. “You can go back to your old life and you’ll never hear from us again.”

  “Or,” Syme said, “you’ll just be alone out there. Four years without friends, without parents who understand you. Four years pining after ghosts.”

  “We’re fighters,” Winston said. “We won’t give up on life.”

  “What are you talking about?” My heart drummed inside my throat.

  “She left you.” Winston’s voice was quiet but firm. “She gave up. We won’t do that to you. Ever.”

  “How do you know about Dalia?”

  “We have resources, access to student files, psychological reports,” Julia said. “That’s why we always break the important stories.”

  “Iris.” Winston touched my shoulder. “Think about what being a member of Prisom’s Party would mean for your journalism career. You’d be able to write whatever you want for the Devil’s Advocate instead of being Katie Milford’s pawn.”

  “Who do you want controlling the flow of information around here?” Julia added. “The people who only care about being powerful or the people who want to use their power for good? It would be irresponsible—wrong, in fact—to do nothing. Don’t you think?”

  Winston squeezed my shoulder, and I knew that behind the mask he was smiling. There was something about the strong, comforting pressure of his hand that filled me with a sudden and overpowering desire to see his face. O’Brien’s rage, Julia’s highbrow diction, and Syme’s creepy sibilance gave me the odd sense that the three of them were acting. But Winston, despite his mask, somehow seemed to be himself.

  “We don’t want to pressure you,” he said. “So we’ll let you go and you can decide for yourself. But if you turn this offer down, you won’t have another chance.”

  What would Edward Murrow do? But of course I knew. In the Blitz, he refused to hide in bomb shelters. He rushed to Vienna during the Anschluss to await the arrival of the Nazis. He wasn’t afraid to stick his neck out even if there was a guillotine hovering overhead.

  Winston dug into his pocket and produced a small white pill. “This is a sleeping pill,” he said. “Once you’re conked out, we’ll take you back.”

  The pressure in my chest was about to burst. “Can’t you just blindfold me again?”

  “Sorry, kid. Company policy. You can’t come in and out the same way.” Winston gave me the pill. “Everything is going to be all right, Iris. I’ll make sure of it.”

  I turned the pill over in my fingers and thought about Julia’s
earlier comment: Just because something looks sinister doesn’t mean it is. At first this had seemed a convenient excuse—but then I remembered a passage from Marvelous Species. The microorganisms metabolizing toxic chemicals in the earth’s core had created and shaped human life. So what seemed harmful to us was just the opposite; it was the source of our existence.

  The Party members looked at me, their masks expressionless and cruel. I closed my eyes and popped the pill into my mouth.

  III

  Investigating the Unknown

  Over three hundred species of extremophile life, including tube worms, blind shrimp, and giant white crabs, live among the poisonous hydrothermal vents of the Mariana Trench. Since laboratory conditions often prove fatal to such creatures, scientists wishing to study them must travel into the ocean depths and observe these organisms in their natural habitats.

  —Marvelous Species: Investigating Earth’s Mysterious Biology

  Lily

  December 1999

  TWO WEEKS AFTER Lily and Justin’s first date, the Queen of the Geeks requested an audience with them. “In the Trench?” Lily asked Justin. She’d heard the rumors. Most troubling was the story about a student from the 1950s who hanged himself from a Trench light fixture. His girlfriend found his body turning slowly from a jump rope. Lily’s father assured her no such thing had ever happened. But the fact that she could never enter the Trench without wondering exactly which light the boy had chosen meant that something awful had happened there. You could remove the physical evidence of an event like that, but you couldn’t erase the eerie feeling that remained.

  On the appointed day, Justin met her outside the Trench door. “Ready for your descent into Dis?”

  Lily frowned.

  “It’s the underworld. Aeneas walks through ‘Dis’s empty halls.’” He squeezed her hand and led her in.

  Indeed, the Trench was dark, cold, and quiet. Lily kept glancing behind her, certain she could hear a creaking rope. Justin put his arm around her shoulder. “There’s only one really frightening thing down here,” he said. “And that’s a four-foot-ten-inch troll with a big puff of orange hair and a bad attitude.”

  But Jonah didn’t worry her. She was far more concerned about Hazel.

  They arrived at the Academic League room, where Jonah Kaplan sat with his back to the door, a sea of note cards between him and his friend Toby, an equally diminutive boy with little-kid dimples. Eric Randall zipped his fingers across a laptop keyboard and absent-mindedly picked at an infected pimple on his cheek. Ellen Day lay on her stomach, reading a beat-up copy of Dune.

  “Hey, guys,” Justin said. “You all know Lily?”

  As soon as Toby saw them, he began scooping up the note cards. Jonah swung his head around with such force it looked about to spin off his neck. “What’s she doing here?” He helped Toby gather the cards. The others watched anxiously.

  “Hazel told me to bring her.”

  “Well, she didn’t tell us. Jesus. A little notice would have been nice.” Toby unlocked the bottom drawer of a file cabinet and deposited the cards.

  “Shove over,” Justin said, but nobody budged. “Move!” The color rose in his face.

  Toby whispered into Jonah’s ear like a lawyer conferring with his client. It was obvious who in the room was the prosecution and who was the defense. Jonah ran a small hand through his huge hair. He shook his head. “Look,” he finally said aloud, “this isn’t going to work.”

  “Why not?” Justin demanded. “This is just a team meeting.”

  “Jonah’s right,” Eric said.

  “Nothing personal,” Ellen murmured, turning the page.

  Jonah ran his fingers through his hair again and muttered, “Not to you.”

  Lily looked at Justin. “I can go. It’s no big deal.”

  “You’re my girlfriend.” Justin’s mouth cinched up like he’d bitten into a lemon. “She’s not going to tell—”

  “Shut your fucking mouth before you get us in a shitload of trouble,” Jonah snapped. “She’s Morgan’s daughter!”

  “Hypocrites!” Justin shook his head in disbelief. At that moment the door opened. “Oh look,” he snorted. “Your queen arrives.”

  Hazel smiled broadly as she entered the room. Then she saw Lily, and something in her smile shifted. “Lily!”

  Lily couldn’t tell if it was excitement or disapproval she heard in Hazel’s voice. Hazel scanned the unhappy congregation. “What’s the matter?”

  Justin led Lily into the hall, but Hazel overtook them and pulled him into a private conference. Seconds later, Jonah followed. The trio huddled together: Jonah’s flaming head, Justin’s sandy-red crown, and Hazel’s auburn locks bent into a multicolored sun. Lily stood alone, a distant white star, and watched them. From what she’d observed over the years, Hazel treated Justin like a best friend and Jonah like a beloved younger brother. The twins—one big, one small—were like repellent magnets. But somehow Hazel held them together.

  Jonah slunk back into the Academic League room, passing Lily as though she were invisible. Then Hazel took Justin’s hand in her own and squeezed it. Lily’s stomach torqued at the sight, but here was Hazel walking toward her with a smile. As Hazel passed, she muttered, “Hades receives many, but few return.”

  Justin arrived at Lily’s side. “I’m so sorry,” he said.

  “What did Jonah mean, it wasn’t just a practice? And why do you lock up your materials? And what’s that thing painted on the wall over there?” Lily had noticed the large, frightening face when she came out of the Academic League office. The image was partially covered with stacks of chairs, but she could see a couple of crazed eyes and a gap-toothed mouth.

  Justin tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “You know how little kids play house? Well, my friends are playing popular. Finally they have somebody to exclude.” He put his arm around her shoulder. “Come on. The underworld’s getting on my nerves.”

  ***

  Lily wasn’t certain about Jonah and the others, but she suspected Hazel was no child innocently donning adult clothing. The girl was complicated and capricious. And her intentions were far from clear. She was like an ominous storm head hovering in the distance, but whether the threat was real was impossible to know.

  Lily had never been close to Hazel, but for a short time they’d been friends—of a kind. The particular moment of their entanglement lasted less than a day, and it should have been one of those painful childhood memories that eventually come to feel so dreamlike you question whether it happened at all. But for Lily—and quite possibly for Hazel—the memory was a living, feeding thing. A memory made flesh.

  Until she turned thirteen, Lily spent her summers at the expensive day camp popular with Mariana parents. It was called Camp Sunshine, and Lily hated it. She wasn’t allowed to play outside. (Lily’s doctor said she could spend time in the sun with the proper precautions, but her mother distrusted doctors as much as she did sunlight.) And perhaps as a result of her indoor confinement, she had no camp friends.

  Hazel Greenburg, a roly-poly girl one year ahead of Lily at Mariana, had no friends either. She designated herself Lily’s partner in all camp activities, and stuck to her like a barnacle. As far as Lily was concerned, the only thing the girls had in common was their status as biosafety hazards. Coarse hair sprouted like a fungus between Hazel’s eyebrows, and freckles swarmed over her arms and legs like a bad case of chicken pox. Lily reeked of sunblock, and her coloring resembled that of the undead. People kept their distance.

  The year Lily turned eleven, the camp announced a special field trip to Water World, and the Morgans granted their daughter permission to attend, as long as she promised to remain in the park’s indoor complex. On the morning of the trip, Lily stood before her mother in a metallic purple bathing suit and rainbow flip-flops.

  “Turn around,” Maureen ordered, and Lily turned. “Hair,” she said, and Lily held up her ponytail. The lotion made sucking sounds between her mother’s palms and was
cold and slimy on her skin. “Pull your suit down so I can get your back,” Maureen said, closing the cap on one bottle and opening another.

  “Can’t you just rub it around the edges?”

  “The sun goes right for the tan line. Pull it down.”

  “Can’t I do it myself?”

  “If you want to go on the trip, you’re going to do it my way.”

  Slowly, Lily pulled the spandex straps off her shoulders as though she were peeling them from a bad burn. Maureen yanked the back of the bathing suit down. “Hold still.” She braced her daughter’s shoulder with one hand and rubbed with the other. “Turn.”

  “Mom!”

  “I’m just doing your neck and sides. I’m not looking at anything. And anyway, it’s not like there’s anything to see.”

  Finally Maureen snapped the bottle shut. “Now get your things.” She sent Lily out with a slap on the butt.

  Not long after that, Lily sat on the Camp Sunshine bus, slick and smelly from her mother’s morning rubdown, reading The Scarlet Letter. Her father had given her a set of The Classics for Christmas. The phrase conjured a hoary man droning in a large auditorium, and it wasn’t long before Lily grew bored with The Mill on the Floss and Bleak House. But The Scarlet Letter was different. Lily envied Hester Prynne’s dark, glossy hair and eyes, but more than this, she was in awe of Hester, who wore her stigma with so much pride. She loved escaping into Hester’s embattled, heroic life, and she did so now as the bus rumbled down the highway. Hazel sat beside her bubbling with excitement. “It’s going to be the best day ever!” Hazel exclaimed, and Lily shifted toward the window.

  An hour later Lily was jolted from her book by Hazel’s finger jabbing her shoulder. Beyond the haze of the interstate, monolithic towers rose against the blue sky, their metal structures gleaming in the sun. Tubes of intricate slides encircled these structures, winding hypnotically toward the earth. It was a fantastical new world, a realm of unforeseen possibility, a place where anything could happen. The bus turned in to the massive parking lot, and with a hacking cough, stopped outside the ticket booth. The kids streamed out. Lily followed Hazel into the women’s changing room, carrying her towel, knapsack, and special prescription sunglasses. Her flip-flops slapped against the tiled floors.