Since I just read the notice board, I know the answers: All of my classmates are my friends. I want to work in the field I excel in. Each teacher is suited to his subject.
Ally takes the survey with the enthusiasm of a chatty corpse. When Lara asks, “Who is the top student in your class?” Ally says, “Every student does their best. No matter how small a part we play in the future, we’re building our great country together.” When Lara asks, “Do you work better alone or in teams?” Ally says, “It’s good to be able to work independently, but too much time alone can lead to thoughts and feelings that bring trouble into our lives.” These are the teachings I have to look forward to.
Lara closes her screen and turns to Mom. “You’re having difficulty adjusting to the treatment.” It’s a statement, not a question. Lara has been briefed. “Your children haven’t changed, Mrs. Connors. The treatment has no ability to physically change the child.”
“All medications change the patient physically,” Mom says. “That’s how they work.”
Lara smiles a tight so-that’s-how-it-is smile. “We’re manipulating them ever so slightly to give them the advantage of being better able to focus on their studies.”
Mom doesn’t return her smile. “I’m concerned about side effects.”
“We all are! That’s why we’re monitoring the treatment in every area it’s been piloted.”
“How many areas is that?”
Lara shrugs. “I don’t know that sort of thing. But I do know that every child being treated is being given a treat.” She giggles. “They could hardly do anything the way they were, and it wasn’t cost effective to sort them out.”
Mom gasps, like she doesn’t do the same thing herself every workday.
“It’s not a bad thing!” Lara says. “At least seventy percent of the kids needed it, but one hundred percent benefit from it.” She looks at Mom with sincerity. “Kids with behavior problems and learning disabilities used to rule the classroom. They brought our standards down so much that even the smartest students wouldn’t learn until grade twelve what kids in other countries learn by grade eight.”
Mom nods. “I heard that.”
“You heard about school closures in places where they couldn’t afford to pay the teachers?” Lara asks. “Bands of children had nowhere to turn but crime. But with Nesting, education is so cost-effective that the schools can reopen.”
“Have they reopened?” Mom asks.
Lara shrugs. “I think so.”
“With larger classes?”
“Yes, but kids thrive in larger classrooms because they scaffold each other.”
“How is that possible when they have no initiative?”
“They monitor each other’s progress along the program of study. They don’t need initiative.”
Mom shakes her head. “Our country can’t survive without initiative.”
Lara smiles. “Our country still has initiative. Those among us who use their initiative for the benefit of the community will always be allowed to have it.”
Mom has no response to that.
Lara packs her things. “These kids seem healthy. Not like that poor boy down the hall. He needed a new patch. In this family, it’s just you who has the problem.” She stands up and stares at Mom with a bright white smile. “So we’ll monitor the family unit for the next two months.”
“Too bad about that ankle,” Coach Emery says when I step out of the trailer in my gear, ready for the championship game. “Go plant yourself on the bench.”
The Grizzlies descend from their bus in a long line of beige and brown. They drove ten hours to get here from New Harrisburg, Illinois. Their school is run by a different Chemrose governing board, but they’re zombies, all the same. And they’re lousy at football.
When our team scores, I stand up and clap, but my hands beat alone, like the only pulse on the field. A whistle blows and everyone joins in. Clap, clap, clap, pause, clap, clap, clap.
Ally shouts, “One, two, three. It’s Dallas for me!” She stops before Mom has a chance to shush her.
Brennan plays too intensely for his own good. He swears at a Grizzly who takes him down a few yards from goal. His father pulls him aside for some whispered coaching.
Dallas is a better zombie than the real zombies. I get chills when I look at him. He keeps his mouth moving for my benefit, to look like he’s eating brains. When I see him chewing, I know he’s still himself. Anyone else would think he dislodged some food from between his teeth—repulsive maybe, but still within allowable zombie limits.
There’s one Grizzly who might be a real kid. He leaps for his tackles and looks around the field more than anyone else. But the rest are machines of flesh and chemistry. After a while, I can’t even watch them. I close my eyes until it’s over.
Clap, clap, clap. We won.
I nudge Dallas in the ribs. “Good job. Wish I could have been with you.”
He smiles and shouts, “Don’t be silly, Maxwell! Some of us are on the field and some of us are on the bench, but we’re all on the same team and our team did a fine job today. So good job to you too.” Then he starts chewing brains. I swear he’s going to make me laugh out loud some day and blow my cover.
“Please come celebrate at my house,” he says. I hesitate, so he repeats, “Please.”
Only three kids head over with the coach: me, Bay and Brennan. Three black kids. I don’t know if that’s significant.
Dallas’s house is sparkling clean. The living room has been decorated green since I was last here. “Relaxing, isn’t it?” Mrs. Richmond asks when she catches me holding a couch pillow up to a curtain. She wears a gray dress and carries a black RIG, messaging while she mingles.
“You have a nice home,” Bay says from behind me.
Mrs. Richmond smiles. “Who won the game?”
Bay scrunches his massive brow. “We did, I think.”
“Excellent.” She wanders toward the adults, her eyes glued to her screen.
Bay follows her. He tugs Coach Emery’s sleeve like a five-year-old giant. “We won the game, didn’t we, Coach?”
The coach stares at him for a moment before answering. “That’s right. We won.”
Brennan leads Bay to a corner armchair and sits with him in a green silence.
Dallas joins me on the couch. “Feeble party,” he whispers.
“We should fly,” I whisper back.
“I wish.” There’s a sadness in his voice that eats at me.
“Good game though,” I tell him. “I mean it. Good job.”
He doesn’t answer. We sit on the forest-green couch and hug the mint-green pillows. “Who do you think would win in a fight?” he whispers. “Bay as a zombie or Brennan as himself?”
“Shh.” I nod toward the doorway. “Austin’s home.”
Dallas shakes his head. “He won’t catch on. His class was done last week.”
“So he’s—?”
Dallas chews his brains.
Austin takes off his shoes and tucks them in a slot in the hall closet. He stores his hat on top and straightens his shirt before he enters the living room. His gaze roves around and stops on me. He smiles politely and approaches. “Hello, Maxwell. It’s nice to see you again.” No “Hey, faggot, come to ask me out?” No “Where’s your daddy, little orphan?”
“Hi, Austin. How are you?”
“Very well, thanks. Did you win your game?”
I’m waiting for the punch, or at least the punch line, but there is none. “Yes, we did.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t see it. I go to a homework club after school. We’re helping each other prepare for next year.”
“That’s premium.”
Austin smiles. “You two have fun.” He kisses his mother on the cheek, laughs at a joke his father makes, picks up the empty bottles and exits.
“He’s changed a bit,” I say.
Dallas’s eyes gleam. “Just a bit.”
His father’s voice carries across the room. “No mor
e police visits for underground fighting. No more slutty girls sneaking over the back fence. No more constant arguments.” He points at the couch and says, “And with the other one, there’s no more detention or loud music or faggot Christmas productions.”
His mom chimes in. “And they eat whatever I make for dinner with no complaints.”
Coach Emery smiles politely. Dr. Richmond laughs until he chokes on his whisky.
Dallas hugs his pillow and stares at me. “So who do you think would win in a fight, Max? Us or the rest of the world?”
TWELVE
I hide in the tent with the Freakshow finale on my RIG and grow depressed watching Zipperhead haul his massive skull around the stage. I wonder what life was like for him growing up in Freaktown without surveillance cameras or Blackboard networks or nosy nurses.
Mom peeks around the front flaps. “Is Ally in here?”
“Don’t touch that wall. It’s still wet.”
“Why aren’t you doing your homework?” She grabs my RIG and dissolves the screen.
“I’m watching that!”
She kneels in front of me and takes my face in her hands.
“You have to do your homework or you’ll be revaccinated.”
I shrug and stare at the messy sheets draped over the furniture.
“I know you’re tired,” she says.
“You don’t know anything about it.” I take my RIG from her hand and turn the show back on.
Ally pops up from behind the couch, wearing her earpiece and singing, “Pussycat ate the dumplings, Pussycat ate the dumplings. Mama stood by and cried, ‘Oh fie! Why did you eat the dumplings?’” She giggles and claps.
“Get to bed,” Mom tells her. “And don’t sneak out again.”
“You too,” I tell Mom. A commercial comes on for a fertility drug, and I absentmindedly pick at my patch.
She puts her hand on mine. “Don’t give up, Max.”
I shove her hand away. “But I’d eat and sleep and take up hobbies.”
“I won’t let that happen.”
“You let it happen for years.” I look her in the eye and sing, “Mama stood by and cried, ‘Oh fie!’”
She looks away from me to the faces I painted on the walls of my tent—Tyler, Xavier, Pepper. I turn up the volume on my RIG.
There’s a knock at the door. We stare at each other, wide-eyed and paranoid. I peek through the tent window while she answers.
It’s Dallas, vacant-eyed but chewing. “Hello, Mrs. Connors. How are you?”
Mom holds her hand over her mouth.
“It’s okay, Mom. Shut the door.”
Dallas smiles. “I’m good, aren’t I?”
Mom nods. “You’ve always been good. Goodnight, boys. Do your homework.”
Dallas sits beside me on the couch, and I stream the show on the big screen. He looks around the tent walls. “Wow. You’re taking a risk.”
“I take a risk every time I leave the house.”
“I take a risk every time I stay home.”
I give him that one. “How’d you escape?”
“I told my dad I was going to the Christmas Ball planning session. I couldn’t miss the final Freakshow, and there’s no way I could watch it with Austin. It stinks in here.” He points to my wall of throwaways—the Asian kid skating for his life while Tyler and Washington leer over a railing. “Those were good days.” He blows out a big breath. He looks exhausted. His hands shake. He holds them over his face and swears aimlessly.
“Have you lost weight?”
He shrugs. “I have diarrhea every day so I just stopped eating.”
“You have to eat, man. Want some nachos?”
He looks at my paint-spattered plate and shudders.
“Want something else? We have apples and cheese.”
“Maybe an apple.”
He takes one bite of a Red Delicious and chews for forty seconds before he can swallow. “I’m tired, Max,” he says. He lays the apple on my nacho plate. “I can’t take this smell.”
We close the flaps and sit in front of the tent on the carpet, four feet from the big screen. We scrunch our legs and lean back on our elbows, craning our necks. “This is better,” Dallas says.
He cracks a smile. “This is so much better than home. I can’t even fall asleep anymore because I’m afraid my dad’s got surveillance on me and I’ll give myself away in a dream.”
“You have to sleep, man.”
He rolls his eyes. “Easy for you to say.”
They show the gruesome freak tryouts for next season. I turn up the volume to mask my laughter in case Lucas is below us with a glass to his ceiling. I relax for the first time in days. “I’m so tense lately. I feel like ripping someone’s head off.”
Dallas nods. “I’m suffering withdrawal from fighting with Austin. I have too much adrenaline flooding through me now. I’ll probably die of a heart attack before the zombies get me.” He smiles briefly. “Which would you rather be? A brain-eating zombie or the kind at school?”
“Brain-eater.”
“Me too.”
The show comes back on. Because it’s the final episode with this batch of freaks, they spotlight the last two contestants’ families in Freaktown. They show the place before the leaks—lush forests and fertile fields, buxom women and rugged men, vague urban vistas of crowded sidewalks, money and success. Then they show the place now—buildings boarded up and crumbling down, soup kitchen lineups, blankets draped over lumpy bodies, kids with warped eyeballs and exposed jaw bones drooling over drugs.
“My father was there before the spill,” Dallas says. “He has photos on his website.”
“Has he gone back since?”
“No. Why would anyone go there?”
I shrug. “Criminals might. To get away from the ids. Or maybe to get to Canada. There’s still a border crossing there. I heard terrorists sneak into the country that way.”
“I’d go south to get away from the ids,” Dallas says. “Just hop in a car and keep driving. Wouldn’t you? It could take years before anyone found me. Don’t you think?”
I nod. “I want to go back to Atlanta.”
“I don’t know much about Atlanta,” he says. “Is it big enough to get lost in?”
“I think so.”
There’s a closeup of Zipperhead’s scars and sorrows.
“I wonder if he was happier when his brother was still attached to him,” Dallas says. “It’s hard to believe there was a whole person there once and now there’s just a scar.” His face pulls tight and his eyes tear up. “I have to get out of here, Max. I can’t do this anymore.”
“Are you serious? Because my mom would take us. She already said she would.”
Dallas wipes his nose. “Count me in.” He stares at me hard, trembling with exhaustion. “Even if they get me. Pack me up and take me with you. Don’t leave me here with them.”
I envision Mom driving out of town and Dallas racing after us with a hundred zombies on his heels. “I won’t leave you here.”
He nods, over and over again. He only stops when they announce this season’s winning freak. “Squid?” he whispers in surprise.
Zipperhead hangs his massive head to hide his tears. It’s hard to see why he would bother to lift it up again.
I swear and moan. “Life isn’t fair.”
“I always knew that,” Dallas says. “I just thought mine would be better.”
Ally wakes me up the next morning. “Time for school.”
I look at my watch. “Shit.” I stayed up painting all night, and I’m a mess. I rush into some pants and smooth my hair as best I can. I walk as quickly as I dare down the hallway. “Do you have a lunch?” I whisper. She nods. Thank god Mom doesn’t rely on me.
We arrive late in the lobby. I fake a limp. Seven kids are gathered to walk to the trade school. “I’m sorry,” I tell them. “I tripped on my weak ankle and re-sprained it. I hope I haven’t made you late for school.”
Lucas bows his head.
“We understand. Your mother works in the early mornings and you have no father, so you have to do things for yourself.”
I nod. “I enjoy doing things for myself. But I can be slow.”
He checks his watch. “It’s fine. Let’s go.”
I limp all the way back to the apartment.
At school, I keep my nose to the grindstone as the minutes tick by. I don’t feel safe until I’m back at home. I pull Mom inside the tent. “Dallas says he’ll come with us to Atlanta. We have to go soon, though, before he loses it. They’re still fighting the ids down there, right?”
She shrugs. “I think so. No one asked for ours except at the airport.”
“Good. Then we just have to get there without flying.”
“They’d probably ask at the speed rail too,” Mom says. “But maybe we could find a private car.”
“Can we take him with us?”
“Who, Dallas? I guess so.”
“You can’t go back on this.”
“All right. Yes. We can take him with us.”
“Is it illegal to leave New Middletown?”
“No. I don’t think so.” She sighs and nods repeatedly. It’s a habit everyone is picking up these days.
I walk Ally to the park in twilight. A few fat adults are heading home from work, all bundled up. A few skinny ones jog by in caps and T-shirts. Ally and I turn toward the park. “Hey, they put up a fence!” I say. It’s not a real fence, just an orange plastic weave tacked onto temporary posts five feet high.
“Is it closed?” Ally asks.
“Looks like it. Wait. There’s a sign.” I read aloud, “Public Notice. This playground is temporarily closed due to the—” I shut my mouth.
“To what?” Ally asks. “Due to what?”
I shiver like a ghost walked through me. The swings tremble in the breeze.
Ally steps in front of me to read the sign. She sounds out the words. “Due to the Rodent Central—”
“Control,” I correct.
“Rodent Control Program,” she continues. “In response to the virtual—”
“Viral.”
“Viral outbreak at New Middletown Manor Hegs—”
All Good Children Page 15
