No Such Thing as the Real World

by M. T. Anderson

  ALEC: Okay. You’re freaking me out.

  SAM:—you don’t have any substance, and I’m trying to hold on to you, and I can’t, because there’s nothing there but light.

  ALEC: Stop it.

  SAM: And sometimes—

  ALEC: I swear to fucking god, stop it.

  SAM: Sometimes we’re having the first conversation we ever had—the first real conversation—about an assignment where we have to improv that we’re married. We’re back at the beginning.

  ALEC: You are so fucked up it’s not even funny.

  SAM: And it’s my dream, because I’ve had a crush on you for at least two years.

  ALEC: You are so fucked up. Okay. It’s over!

  SAM: I can’t talk like a girl anymore. I know too much. I’m seventy, and still sad.

  ALEC: You’re so fucked up.

  SAM: Your middle name is Dwight. Your parents’ house is in Canaan, Massachusetts. Your father has an airbrush painting of a blond woman Rollerblading on the wall of his home office, which drives you crazy. When you were thirteen and you had a party, you covered the picture with a blanket because you were so embarrassed by it. Your little sister, Sylvia, was born with a harelip, now almost invisible. She calls you “Gaddy.” Your first kiss—

  ALEC: Holy shit. You are a complete stalker.

  SAM: I’m not a stalker, Alec. I’m sorry. The pretense is over. I can’t stand this.

  ALEC: You are insane. Fucking insane!

  SAM: I can almost never get through a scene with you without—

  ALEC: Scene’s over.

  SAM (as if to a dead man, via his live image): Alec, I love you. I loved you. I loved you.

  ALEC: It’s over! I’m done! I’ll take the F, thanks!

  SAM: I loved you…. I miss you…. I miss you.

  ALEC: I’m leaving now. (Heads for the door.)

  SAM: Honey, don’t.

  ALEC: Don’t fucking “honey” me, you insane bitch.

  SAM: When you walk out of the door, you’ll cease. There’s no environment there.

  ALEC: I’ll fucking cease all the way up to Daley’s office and tell him I’m not working with you.

  SAM (desperate): Alec, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’ll stop.

  ALEC: You’re fucking insane. Stop talking to me. Stop stalking me.

  SAM: I’ll stop whatever you tell me to stop.

  ALEC: You need help. I’m not trying to be mean.

  SAM: You’d never be mean, Alec. The kids—when the kids were little—

  ALEC: Fuck you! Fuck you!

  SAM (a threat): You can go if you want to. I’ll just reconstitute you again.

  ALEC: INSANE!

  SAM (desperately): I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I’m not telling you that. Go. You’re just a kid.

  ALEC: Of course I’m just a fucking kid! Of course I’m just a fucking kid!

  SAM: And we’re going to go to a party, a graduation party, and driving—we’ll be driving down the road, and we don’t know where we’re going. And we’re sitting there, and I’m looking around at us and we’re all young, and I wonder how we’ll teach ourselves ever to be grown-up, and I wonder whether we have our deaths curled up in us already, waiting to bloom, and our fates, like ferns, and we don’t know, so—

  ALEC: This is all bullshit because I would never go out with you in a thousand years, and I would never fuck you in China, and I’ll never make out with you in Nantucket, because you’re a crazy, drug-addicted bitch and fuck you.

  Sam weeps.

  SAM: Our whole lives were ahead of us. That’s the saying. Our whole lives.

  ALEC. And for the record, I made up the part about us getting lost. That was me.

  SAM: I know.

  ALEC: So don’t go saying it’s real.

  SAM: I know.

  ALEC: I’m completely out of your league. Try this on one of your acting buddies. You can work out a whole “situation.” If one of them by accident isn’t gay.

  SAM: Fuck you.

  ALEC: That’s right.

  SAM: No, fuck you. Fuck you, Alec.

  ALEC: That’s right.

  SAM (weeping): Fuck you for making the imprint.

  ALEC: Jesus Christ.

  SAM: Fuck you for never dying. Fuck you for never dying, so I can never grieve over you, but I can keep replaying each scene, and keep wrecking them like this because I want you to be here—fully here—fully knowing—fully who you will be—not some kid—or some young father—but the man I lived with for thirty-six years—and so I can’t stop seeing you—and I can’t stop telling you—and now I don’t even have my own memories—because all I remember now are a series of these fucking scenes where we start and it’s like it was and then I try to tell you—like an idiot—and you—of course—you—

  ALEC: Walk out.

  SAM: Sometimes. Sometimes. Sometimes you don’t. I can hardly remember what happened before you were just an image. And I’ve never grieved, and I’ve never lost you, and I’m always losing you.

  ALEC: Right now.

  SAM: I’ve lost you.

  ALEC: Right now.

  SAM: There’s so much possibility. Originally, we didn’t argue. I didn’t tell you you couldn’t be a spy. Our deaths aren’t with us yet, Alec. Nothing’s decided.

  ALEC: It’s decided.

  SAM: For the moment. Until I turn on the machine again.

  ALEC: See you at lunch.

  SAM: Sure, Alec.

  ALEC: At lunch. Out the fucking door.

  SAM: Sure.

  Alec leaves.

  For a long time, Sam sits silently.

  SAM (announcing, as if to no one): All right. That’s all. I’m done. That’s the situation. I’m done.

  There’s a long silence again. She gets up and leaves. She flicks a switch by the door. It must be a light switch. At least, the lights go out.

  The end.

  About M. T. Anderson

  M. T. Anderson is the author of many critically acclaimed picture books and novels, including Thirsty, Burger Wuss, Feed, which was a National Book Award finalist and the winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation Vol. 1: The Pox Party, which won a National Book Award and was a Michael L. Printz Honor Book. His picture books include Handel, Who Know What He Liked, illustrated by Kevin Hawkes, and The Serpent Came to Gloucester, illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline. Additionally, he is the author of the M. T. Anderson’s Thrilling Tales series, which includes Whales on Stilts and The Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen. He lives outside Boston, Massachusetts.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

  Survival

  K. L. Going

  In twenty minutes I will stand before my graduating class and give the class president’s speech honoring our years of hard work and achievement. I’ve chosen as my theme “Surviving High School.”

  In five minutes my classmates and I will file onto the football field under a cloudless blue sky, a spectacle of bright green gowns and tasseled caps. Our friends and family will stand to applaud this, the crowning achievement of our adolescence. One moment in time, eighteen years in the making.

  In one minute I will take my place in line, waiting to hear the command that will start our procession forward. My palms will be sweaty and my breath will be short. I will shut my eyes and go numb.

  In this moment, I am watching my older sister kiss the only boy I’ve ever loved under the Thomas Jefferson High School bleachers.

  Sarah

  When we were little, my sister Sarah was a twirler. She was always wearing something sparkly that flowed around her in waves, and now as I look back, I wonder if she chose those things herself, even at ages three, four, and five, or whether Mom and Dad made an unconscious decision to stack her wardrobe with clothes that would catch the light.

  My clothes were colorful sometimes, with cool decals and maybe fun stitching, but next to Sarah’s they w
ere flat and dull.

  Once, when I was four, I asked Sarah to teach me how to twirl the way she did.

  “Please?”

  She put her hands on her hips and stuck out her stomach the way only a seven-year-old would.

  “No.”

  “Please, Sarah? Please, please, pleeeease?”

  “You won’t do it right.”

  “How come?”

  “Because you have to be grown up like me.”

  “But why?”

  “’Cause when you’re grown up, you’re smarter and prettier and everyone loves you more. When you’re little, you can’t do anything.”

  “Nuh-uh!”

  “Yuh-huh. You can’t twirl. Only I can do it. See?”

  Sarah held her hands up high over her head like a ballerina and twirled around the living room. Her long blond hair, unbrushed, swirled around her face, and her blue jeans with the sequined butterflies on the back pockets sparkled like diamonds. She looked exactly like a ballerina.

  “I’m going to do it too,” I said.

  I put my hands up over my head, but they felt awkward, like they weren’t really part of my body. What should I do with them?

  I studied Sarah’s hands, the exact way she held them in little water-fountain arcs, so they bent together, pinkies extended, and I tried to copy the way that they looked. Then I launched myself forward, feeling the momentum take me, the dizziness rushing in.

  Now I’m twirling, I thought, and next time Grammy and Grampy come over, I’ll show them how I can do it the same way as Sarah and they’ll clap for me just like they clap for her.

  I went faster and faster, the light from the bay window making patterns behind my closed eyelids every time I passed by. The world was moving in circles, coming unglued.

  Then I heard a crash and my mother’s footsteps rushed in from the kitchen.

  “Girls! What are you doing?”

  As I slowed, she came into focus, a blurry figure kneeling next to the shards of colored glass that lay beside the living room hutch. At first the scene wouldn’t stay still, but finally it stopped, and I could see that her face was knotted and her lip was quivering just like mine did when I tried not to cry. My eyes were wide.

  “Your father gave me this on our first anniversary. It was…”

  I knew it had been her favorite. Daddy always said, “Beautiful, just like your mother” when he held it up to the light. I’d stroked it many times, always so careful.

  “Who broke this?”

  My heart beat fast. Had I done it?

  Sarah pointed at me.

  “Rachel,” my mother said, “go to your room.”

  Like an explosion, I burst into tears of guilt and remorse, but Mom just shook her head. I knelt on the floor and grabbed one big chunk of glass that had scattered under the rocking chair. It was the lady’s legs from the knees down. For a moment I thought maybe the figurine could be glued and everything could be fixed, but there were no more large chunks. The rest of the glass was broken into tiny shards and some of those were ground into the living room floor as if a sneaker had trampled them.

  Sarah’s feet were right next to the shards of glass, and she was wearing sneakers with red glittery swirls on them. I was wearing plain brown socks.

  I cried harder. “Mom, Sarah did it!”

  My mother grabbed my elbow.

  “Not another word out of you, young lady. I told you to go to your room.” She pulled me hard, which wasn’t like my mom at all. Mom was soft, gentle. Except today she was crying, and no matter how hard she pulled at my sleeve, seeing her tears was worse.

  “I told you not to play next to the hutch,” she said, wiping her cheek with the back of her hand. “How many times do I have to tell you girls, no twirling in the living room?”

  But I had never twirled. Not once until today.

  Mom ushered me into my room and I collapsed on my spaceship quilt.

  “Ten-minute time-out,” she said, shutting the door behind her. “Then we will talk about this.”

  I sobbed for a long time, then breathed in hard gulps. My eyes stung. I lay still and wondered…had I done it or had Sarah lied?

  I tried to remember exactly where I’d twirled. Had I gotten close to the hutch? Had my elbow grazed the edge, causing it to shake, so the figure had fallen and smashed? I remembered the stomach-churning pull of the dizziness. I’d closed my eyes and hadn’t watched where I was going. But Sarah had sneakers on. I didn’t. She was the one next to the hutch.

  I pictured her face as she pointed, her blue eyes solemn, staring straight at me. Then I pulled my stuffed unicorn close and buried my head in my pillow. I will never grow up, I vowed, repeating the words like a mantra. Being grown up is stupid and I won’t ever do it, even if it means I never get to twirl again.

  But in my mind I heard Sarah’s words again. “…when you’re grown up, you’re smarter and prettier and everyone loves you more. When you’re little, you can’t do anything.”

  And I wondered…was she right?

  Kenneth

  The first time I met Kenneth, we were freshmen and I was doubled over, gasping for air. My face was bright red, the way it always got when I ran, and sweat was dripping down my neck, through my shirt, and into the sports bra that was flattening my already flat chest. Not exactly a shining moment, except I’d just run 5:42 in our first timed 1500-meter and Coach was impressed.

  “Not bad, Rachel. By the time you’re a junior, you’ll be one of our top competitors.” He turned to the next group of girls and gave the signal to start. I was grateful for the break. I considered collapsing on the grass in an undignified heap, but someone reached over and handed me a water bottle.

  “That was awesome,” a voice said from slightly behind me.

  I took the water bottle and drank, unable to stifle my smile.

  “Kenneth Fisher,” the boy said, extending his hand. “School newspaper.”

  “Rachel Greeley.”

  Kenneth had tufty dark brown hair and eyes that were deep set, as if he hadn’t gotten any sleep the night before, only you could tell that was the way they looked all the time. He was thin and wiry, a classic geek, yet there was something about him that made me flush.

  “You’re a freshman too, right?” he asked.

  I nodded, straightening.

  “I remember you from the all-state track meet last year. I went to Hillsborough Middle School and covered it for the school paper.”

  “Really?” I said, finally able to breathe normally again.

  “Yeah. My family moved here this past summer just in time for me to start high school knowing exactly no one.”

  I laughed, but Kenneth was squinting at me.

  “You won the fifteen-hundred-meter, right? I watched that race.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  It was hard to believe anyone would remember me.

  “You beat out one of our best competitors by a fraction of a second.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Sorry.”

  Kenneth laughed. “Don’t be sorry. Have you been running your whole life?”

  I shook my head. “Hardly. I used to play tennis, only last year I switched to track instead.”

  Kenneth took this in, but he didn’t ask the obvious question. Why switch in eighth grade? I could tell he wasn’t truly in reporter mode. He was interested in me.

  Even so, I thought about the years I’d spent playing tennis. Waiting outside the chain-link fence until I was big enough to hold a racket and play on the court with the older girls. The hours spent mimicking everything Sarah did, trying so hard to catch up to her.

  I was good, too. You always are when you want something bad enough.

  Kenneth ran a hand in front of my face.

  “Earth to Rachel. You okay?”

  I took a deep breath. “Of course. Let’s go sit on the bleachers before Coach calls me up again.”

  I took off and Kenneth followed. There was something easy about him, as if we were already good frien
ds even though we’d just met. When we got to the bleachers, he leaned back, feet up on the shiny metal riser in front of us, elbows propped on the riser in back. He looked comfortable, and without thinking about it, I eased myself next to him.

  “So, you probably know all these people, right?” he asked.

  I looked around at the rest of the track team milling around below, some stretching, some making their way around the track, some looking lost, the way I usually did.

  “Not really,” I admitted. “I mean I know who most of them are, but it’s hard to join a sport late. Everyone already has their friends, you know?”

  “Oh, yes,” Kenneth said, serious with a touch of self-mockery. “I know very well. But at least you know their names. It’s hard to write a story about the track season kickoff when you don’t know who anyone is. So tell me, who’s that guy doing the long jump? And the girl with the braided hair?”

  “Dave Ratchet and Kylie Anderson. Dave’s the hottie everyone lusts after and Kylie is the girl everyone is afraid of.”

  “And the redhead over there?”

  “Claire Witherspoon, who claims she’s related to Reese Witherspoon, only no one believes her.”

  “The guy with the Mohawk?”

  “Duane Right. Nice guy, but I can’t figure out how he ended up on the team.”

  Kenneth laughed.

  “You’re good at this.” He paused and looked around. “How about…” His eyes lingered for a long time—so long, I thought he might have forgotten all about our game. “Her…” he said at last, too casually. “The beautiful one with the long blond hair?”

  I followed his finger with my eyes.

  “Which one?”

  “The one who’s about to finish first.”