Little White Lies

by Brianna Baker

  Oh, yeah, now I remembered the bit about SKOOLS 4 ALL. But I still didn’t remember being put to bed in the Cornelius guest room …

  “Oh, shit!”

  It was the loudest exclamation of the morning—from mild-mannered Mike.

  “What is it, son?” Douglas and Esther harmonized.

  I looked down at the screen to see if I could see what Mike saw. But all I could discern was a jumble of zeroes and ones.

  “Just what I thought: the research tools on these laptops direct students only to the educational content portals designed and/or approved by the Skools.”

  “To lessons like that ‘Builder King’ bullshit,” I felt compelled to throw in.

  “Right,” Mike acknowledged. “But you’ll recall that I also determined that their proprietary Internet browsers are gated in a far more permissive configuration, so that these laptops also function as a massive data collection network.”

  Rachel nodded. “So when the kids aren’t doing ‘Skoolwork,’ they get to surf the web at will. And the Skools can sell their individual and aggregate data to whoever has the euros.”

  “Right,” Mike remained even-keeled in spite of his exhilaration. “I knew about the Skools’ data collection conglomerate, but I didn’t realize that SKOOLS 4 ALL was part of it. And I never really questioned why all these laptops had such souped-up satellite Wi-Fi capabilities. The encryption was totally post-futurist, but I knew I could get through.”

  I glanced at Coretta, who appeared to regard Mike as if he were some kind of intergalactic god. Rachel had a similar look, though without any presumption that she would be allowed to touch him.

  F$$P vibrated in my hand. I checked the new text from Kris:

  YES. A & K R GRANDCHILDREN OF LUCIEN PHILIPPE MARIE ANTOINE (1906–1984), DUKE OF TERVUREN—ILLEGITIMATE SON OF LEO 2

  “Eureka!” I yelled. “The Skool twins are the grandchildren of Leopold II’s illegitimate son!”

  Nobody seemed particularly interested in this revelation.

  It made sense at the moment; in the grand scheme of evil revelations, this was fairly minor. (But at least my flunkies were finally getting around to their opposition research.) No, everyone was much more interested in Mike, who clapped his hands together. “The reason these laptops need such burly networking capabilities is because each one of these machines is a tiny cog in a huge, massive, global money-laundering scheme—and it’s all run by the Skools and their family members in Belgium and Africa.”

  Mrs. Cornelius gasped. “That’s horrible!”

  “It is horrible, Mom,” Mike answered matter-of-factly. “Dark pools.”

  “What do you know about dark pools?” Mr. Cornelius whispered.

  “What are dark pools?” Coretta asked Mike dreamily. “And who are you?”

  Mike smiled at Coretta but regained his game face. “Alternative economies we aren’t supposed to know about. Kind of like Bitcoins, before everyone knew about them. Do you know what Bitcoins are, Rachel?”

  Rachel looked down at the floor. “I think so. How do they work again?”

  Mike struggled to remain patient. “You know how BitTorrent works?”

  Rachel blushed. “Yes, I know how BitTorrent works.”

  “Bitcoins are like BitTorrent for money. Transactions are divided among thousands of individual computers, each one processing a fraction of the transaction. So that the movement of money is virtually untraceable. Or so people think.”

  Rachel processed out loud for the whole group. “So the Skools are going to use all these little blue laptops to break up their money into tiny little bits, and then move it around and hide it in secret banks?”

  “Pretty much,” Mike answered with a satisfied grin.

  “And we can prove this?” Douglas asked.

  “Pretty much,” Mike repeated, turning back to the laptop. “I just need a few more hours.”

  “My God.” Mr. Cornelius yanked his son out of his seat and pulled him into a hug. “You done good, son. You done good.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Coretta (April 4, 2014)

  Karl and I sat in a dressing room together at Pulse TV.

  I say “a” dressing room, but really it was my dressing room a month ago. I had only used it once, and I didn’t have any dressing to do in it, but it felt strange to be back. Perhaps because this time, every security guard in the building was watching our every move. And yes, I mean every move. Luckily I didn’t have to use the bathroom. I’d seen hidden camera shows, and I wasn’t going to be a statistic! (At least not that kind of statistic.)

  You see, dear reader, Karl and I had asked the Skools if we could make a public apology. We’d told them that we wanted to do it together and that we thought it would be best to do it before the debut of their new TV show, the one that was taking the Little White Lies time slot.

  Seeing as the Skools were going to be hosting a teen talk show of their own, they thought that our mea culpa and blessing—”the blessing of the fallen,” as Karin put it—could be beneficial.

  A couple of days earlier, Rachel and I met once again in my bedroom.

  Then, as before, I didn’t feel like I had the strength to look her in the eye just yet. She was my best friend. I knew she was there for me, but I still felt so much shame—for where I was at in my life and where our friendship was at. It didn’t help that she felt ashamed, too; it only made things worse.

  I looked at the walls of my room and remembered when this was only a den of teenage dreams for us both. What our next thrift store outing would bring, what boy we would text and laugh about, what juicy school gossip we would share. Nothing of any weight, just laughs about the present.

  But that was gone, and shit got real. I’d made this bed, so I might as well lie in it and recognize it for what it was. I told Rachel that I needed to make a public apology with Karl. Not to use a church term, but I needed to cleanse myself. He felt the same. It was a tall order—especially given how Mike could have gone public at any time with what we now knew about the Skool twins—not to mention that it was hard to predict the end result. But I guess that’s life.

  “Are you sure that this is what you want to do, Coretta? That this is what is best?”

  I could tell by the way Rachel had asked that she knew that it was the best thing to do. Even as much as it might hurt, and as scary as it was to think about. “Yeah, Rach, I’m sure. If you’re with me, I can do it. Please tell me you’ll go with me.”

  “If we can get the twins of the Illuminati to give me clearance, I’m there a thousand times over.”

  Of course she was.

  We would have exactly two minutes to read our agreed-upon mea culpa.

  Karl and I had written it together, and the Skools had approved it. We used fewer jokes and way fewer Beyoncé references than in our previous collaborations. We’d agreed to be escorted out of the building after our last word. Forever.

  As I sat next to Karl on the stiff white IKEA couch, I looked straight ahead into the dressing room mirror. I locked eyes with his reflection.

  A melancholy haze lingered over both of our faces.

  Okay, I was feeling dramatic. It was dramatic. I silently compared our moment to rebellious soldiers in hiding together just before battle: we were armed with spears, facing an enemy armed with guns. Granted, I’d been studying such warfare a lot in the wake of learning about King Leopold II and his battle for the Belgian Congo.

  I’m not sure what Karl was thinking, but I was for sure wondering (as I had a thousand times) how I’d gotten myself into this. How I found myself sitting next to Karl Ristoff, backstage in a TV studio, sweating so hard that my armpits smelled like onions and chicken noodle soup.

  Our preapproved mea culpa, or “agreement to fault,” began with a painful apology from me. It ended with a short but equally painful apology from Karl.

  Then he was supposed to hand over the stage to the Skool Twins and their new show, Takin’ U to Skool.

  Then we were b
oth supposed to disappear forever.

  My parents thought it best to have a caucus at the Cornelius home to discuss what exactly was going to take place on air—before, well, it happened on air. They’ve always let me make my own decisions, and be my own person, but I’ve since learned that they actually do possess the wisdom that comes with being thirty or so years older than I am.

  The gang was back together, minus Karl and Alex.

  My parents, the Corneliuses, Mike, and Rachel gathered in the entirely too-formal living room. All strategies were welcome. My dad began.

  “Now, Coretta, you can’t just go up there and think that being cute and whatever is going to make people listen to you.”

  “Thanks for that, Dad.”

  “I’m just saying that you’re going to have this Karl Ristoff guy next to you, who, and I’m just going to say it, looks like a questionable character. We have to acknowledge that this is a weird optic. A beautiful African-American teen girl side by side with a white man who looks like he builds computers and owns stock in Nabisco. How do we know that he isn’t going to throw you under the bus once the lights come up? What do we even know about this guy?”

  “Now let’s not get into what Karl looks like,” my mother, the great equalizer, chimed in. “I’ve spoken with Alex Melrose. I believe he’s on the level. Let’s just try to keep everyone on the same page and have a game plan.”

  I told my dad what he needed to know. That Karl, as sour and road-haggard as he looked, did have a good heart. That he’d honestly got as caught up in all of this nonsense as I had. And he was quite skilled at what he did and had a reputation to reclaim, far more than I did. If we told Karl what the plan was, he would be on board, one hundred percent.

  One minute till air. Karl and I both took a deep breath.

  For some reason, I shook hands with him. He broke into a wide smile, and I nervously smiled back. We rose in unison, looked at the dressing room door, then back at each other. Our double-locked gaze said it all. We knew what we had agreed to do, and we also knew what we had to do.

  As soon as we exited and approached the set, those ridiculous lights started flashing. Then it went black. The lights came up again, and the camera pointed at Karin and Anders as they both stood center stage. God, they looked ridiculous and perfect at the same time. But they were dressed … differently. They appeared hipper, younger, more approachable. More attractive. Anders had on gray jeans, wingtip shoes, and a plaid shirt. No tie, no jacket. Karin wore a white mini-dress that for once did not make her look like the Evil White Witch of the Woods. A wolf in sheep’s clothing?

  The cameraman began the countdown: “Five … four … three …” Then he stopped talking.

  “Hello, America!” Karin announced in a bright voice. “Hello, world. I am Karin Skool, this is my brother Anders Skool, and this is … Takin’ U to Skool, the teen talk show that will give an honest voice to your generation. But before we dig into the topics for tonight, we have two brief guests who’d like to say something to you all.”

  Anders came offstage and led us both by the arm into the spotlight. I tried not to squint under the brightness and heat. My heart was thumping even harder than when I’d first come to this place.

  “Hello!” Anders said. “Now before you guys go and boo them off the stage, haha, please hear what they have to say. Karin and I want to make abundantly clear that everyone deserves a forum to express regret. Yes, even in the face of such loathsome behavior. That is the spirit in which we offer our new show. Thusly, we have agreed to let them speak to you tonight.

  “Coretta, Karl, the floor is yours.”

  In that instant, my mind flashed back to Mike’s kitchen, where he and I had gone to be alone after hatching the plan. We’d left Rachel and Mike’s parents alone with Karl and Alex Melrose. I remember giggling at the thought of those five people—so weird and different, really with no business hanging out at all, yet totally united and connected—discussing logistics.

  “Coretta, are you okay?” Mike asked.

  I stopped giggling. “I’m okay. I feel pretty great, actually.”

  He took my hands. “I know you’re worried, and I would be worried, too. It’s natural. But I need you to remember that I know what I’m doing, and I’m not going to let you down. You and Karl show up to do your part, and I’ll show up to do mine. We have an inside man now, too, remember? It’ll work out.”

  I nodded. I did remember, of course. Our inside man was none other than little Ethan. He had been the subject of quite a few scathing emails from his employers—they’d called him a “spineless yes-man”; a “PR embarrassment”; and most memorably “minion shit-show”—which Mike had gleefully hacked and then shared with him. After that, Ethan became quite eager to join our cause.

  “It wasn’t as if they would promote me,” he’d told Mike.

  I looked at Mike’s sweet, sweet face. I hoped he was right about it working out. But even if he wasn’t, we were still doing the right thing.

  Now, scrolling on the screen behind us, was our apology for all to see.

  I looked into the teleprompter, and we were off to the races.

  “For those of you who don’t know who we are, I am Coretta White, creator of the blog Little White Lies, which, as most of you know, was set to become a television show on Pulse TV. The man standing next to me is Karl Ristoff, who worked briefly as a ghostwriter for my blog. You might remember both of us from separate yet equally unfortunate Pulse TV debuts.

  “We are here to say that we are sorry for the parts that we played in his whole ordeal. We are sorry to our family, our friends, our peers, teachers, mentors, and especially you, our viewers and readers and the public at large. I didn’t consider myself a dishonest person, so when I found myself in this mess, my conscience mandated this apology so I could take a real breath again.

  “I, Coretta White, employed Karl Ristoff to write some of the content for Little White Lies, and I was passing it off as my own. For this, I am very ashamed and sorry.”

  I nodded to Karl. He took a deep breath. Okay, he was overacting a little with his ponderous expression, but it was too late now. “I have no defense in any of this,” he said, “and I don’t wish to rehash it all. I only want to say that I’m sorry, and also to say that both Coretta and I would like to wish Anders and Karin the best of luck with their new show Takin’ U to Skool. Thank you.”

  That was our cue. Peering through the lights, I spotted Rachel behind the teleprompter with her headphones in her ears. She gave me the nod to let me know it was all going as planned. And with that, the words on the teleprompter shifted.

  “Before Karl and I leave, we wanted to thank the Skools for having us here tonight,” I piped up, taking a step forward and staring right into the camera. “We did a lot of soul-searching, and frankly, truth-searching, which led us down a path that we wanted to share with you …”

  I was aware of movement and murmuring at the side of the stage. Karin and Anders knew something was wrong—immediately. I couldn’t waste any time; this was the critical window where they could pull the plug. I steeled myself and plowed forward, per our rehearsals:

  “Seeing how Karl and I are being held accountable to ourselves, our families, and the public at large, mostly with the help of Karin and Anders, we thought: What better way to repay them than to return the favor? Karin, Anders, please come join us.”

  They stopped fidgeting. It worked. Now they were beyond the point of no return. They couldn’t shut down the broadcast, because the audience was hooked. They were both hate-smiling from the wing. Hate-smiling: You know when you smile, but really you’re clenching your jaw and hating each and every word that you are hearing and everything you are seeing? Yes, that. The audience started cheering, and Karl and I joined them.

  Karl walked over to Karin and Anders and led them back onstage, much as Anders had led us to the stage moments ago. “Coretta and I wanted to thank you for sending us on this mission for truth,” Karl said.


  A scrolling PowerPoint presentation appeared on the screen behind us with the snappy title takin’ the skools to school. Karl pulled the small remote control from his pocket and cleared his throat. “Being that this is Takin’ U to Skool, how about a history lesson?

  “First, allow me to introduce myself. I’m Karl Ristoff. I graduated from Harvard University; I have clandestinely worked for the US State Department, the United Nations, and the US Council on Foreign Relations. I’ve coauthored several books on the New York Times Nonfiction Best Seller List, and yes, I have also worked as a ghostwriter and social media consultant for numerous luminaries whom I would prefer not to name. Suffice it to say you’ve heard of most of them. Now please allow me to introduce you all to a very important historical figure with whom you may not be as familiar—but who happens to be the great-grandfather of our esteemed hosts.”

  I shot a glance at Anders and Karin. They were still hate-smiling, still utterly poised, no doubt plotting how they would spin this once they figured out how to get us offstage without looking like they had something to hide.

  Karl pressed the remote, and the text gave way to a black-and-white photo of a stern-looking white man with a huge hipster beard and a flouncy military uniform above the caption:

  LEOPOLD II: BUILDER KING.

  “If you were to enroll at one of the Skools’ hundreds of charter ‘schools’—which on their best days are propaganda tools masquerading as cyber-schools—then you would learn all about the magnificent deeds of this great monarch, Leopold II, the so-called ‘Builder King’ responsible for so many grand buildings and public works in Belgium.”

  Karin and Anders turned to each other. Hurry up, Karl, I silently urged.