Not Now, Not Ever

by Lily Anderson

  “Oh hell no,” Perla snarled, launching herself off the bench.

  “When did you overhear the counselors talking?” I asked Leigh under my breath, as we watched Perla stomp across the dining hall toward the counselors’ table. “We stood in line at the breakfast bar together.”

  “Hm?” She blinked at me as she took a bite of squelchy pancake. She shook her head as she chewed. “Oh, that was a statistical gamble. Adults eighteen to twenty-four make up forty percent of Starbucks’ annual sales. With twelve counselors that fit that demographic currently fighting off sleep deprivation and looking forward to their first day of teaching, someone’s going to share Perla’s need for coffee.” She batted her eyelashes at the rest of the table. “I could call her back over?”

  We all turned to watch Perla wedge herself between two counselors at the table in front of the window. Her hands immediately starting pointing and flapping as her rant built up steam again.

  “No,” Galen said firmly. “Let her get her fix. Maybe she’ll be nicer.”

  “Caffeine causes your cerebral neurons to increase fire,” Brandon said, stirring his cereal. “Your pituitary gland shoots out adrenaline, in case you’re being attacked. Most people aren’t nicer when they enter fight or flight.”

  Kate sighed. “We’ve established that she’s neither an afternoon nor a night person. Our last hope was a spike in cheerfulness before noon.”

  Hunter put his head in his hands. His shoulders quivered against today’s too-tight T-shirt. It took a second before the sound of his giggles slipped between his fingers.

  “Sorry,” he wheezed, wiping his eyes with his knuckles. “It’s just—I don’t know. When you think about going to genius camp, you don’t think, I’m going to be surrounded by geniuses.”

  “Because it’s implied in the name?” Jams asked.

  “Technically, it’s not ‘genius camp,’” Kate said, wiggling a dozen air quotes next to her long face. “It’s a camp for the gifted.”

  Galen laughed. “Tell that to your IQ test.”

  “I get what you mean, Hunter,” I said. “Back home, my friends would have just called Perla a downer and moved on.”

  Jams snorted. “‘Downer’ would be a decent start.”

  Kate rolled her eyes. “Borderline personality might get us closer to the heart of the problem.”

  “But that’s what’s great about being here,” Leigh said. “There’s no dumbing anything down. Everyone can keep up. Can you imagine what life would be like if you always got to hang out with people as smart as you?”

  “More problematic than you’d imagine,” Brandon said to his cereal. He caught my eye and added, “Probably.”

  I felt like I’d eaten a crate of kiwis and had surrendered myself to anaphylactic shock.

  Not that it mattered. Boys were the gateway to full-on Importance of Being Earnest-y farce. First it was one cute boy making eyes at you over breakfast, and then it was all Wildean misunderstandings and double entendres.

  No, thank you.

  “At least we get to see the library today,” Kate said.

  My thoughts evaporated into a record scratch as I whipped to look at her. “Wait, what?”

  “The library,” she repeated. Slower this time and with more tongue flapping. “Where else would we study literature?”

  “Ever, seriously,” Leigh scoffed. “Open your binder.”

  10

  The Maurice T. Lauritz Memorial Library was cold and quiet inside. Brass placards gleamed on the edge of each bookcase. The floors were covered in deep crimson carpet that muffled even Leigh’s skipping steps. Every study table had a small lamp with a pleated yellow lampshade.

  No matter how much Hari insisted that every self-respecting Mudder called it “the Mo-Lo,” I refused to besmirch the Lauritz’s majesty with skanky abbreviations.

  This building, this palace of literature, was the entire reason I’d run away from home. Somewhere below me, past the spiral staircase, deep in the jungle of polished redwood bookcases, was The Science Fiction Section. All capital letters.

  Rayevich didn’t have the standard Asimov to Zahn catalog that you could browse at the county library. There were no gaps in the Rayevich collection. If there was an English translation, it was here. If it’d been out of print for fifty years, Rayevich had found a copy and bound it in plastic to keep the dust off. And they kept the fantasy books elsewhere. No cross-pollination to distract.

  I had read an article about the collection on a blog my freshman year. I’d ordered my first Rayevich admissions packet the next day.

  And now I was here. I was so close. I could almost taste the hundreds of books that—if I won the Melee—I would spend four years consuming. And by the time I got here, the collection would be even bigger.

  Hari burst my bubble with the slam of a yellow binder. It rattled the mason jar full of pencils and highlighters on the coffee table in front of him. “For the literature portion of the Melee, each of you will be required to analyze the short stories in your study materials. There are five stories, covering multiple categories of English literature. Wilde, Hammett, Jackson, Lahiri, and Murakami.”

  The air-conditioning sank deep into my skin and froze my bones. I hugged my binder closer to my chest. “Oscar Wilde?”

  “Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde,” Jams said, eagerly squishing himself deeper into the armchair he’d claimed. “Born in 1854 to—”

  “There will be no questions on the author,” Hari interrupted sharply. He took a deep pull from the Starbucks cup in his hand. Leigh’s gamble had paid off, although it didn’t seem to be enough to erase the purple bags magnified under Hari’s glasses.

  I flipped past the pages describing proper literary analysis techniques and found the list of our short stories. There it was, the very first title, printed in bold: “The Nightingale and the Rose” by Oscar Wilde.

  More Wilde quotes to clutter my brain. Balls.

  “The library will be at your disposal for the hour you’re with me and during your study periods,” Hari said, smothering a yawn that twisted his lips into a Picasso slant. “But because you are guests here, none of the books can leave the Mo-Lo. The book sensors at the front door are armed. Once you finish with a book, place it on the return cart and a counselor will come through to reshelve at the end of the day.” He gestured to the mason jar on the table. “Help yourselves to a pencil and a highlighter. Both will need to be returned at the end of the hour.”

  Galen wet his lips and shot a look around at the rest of us. “That’s it?”

  Hari took another long drink. “Have any of you read all five of the stories and made notes on the authorial intention and literary allusions contained within?”

  I felt Leigh’s hand start to raise. I kicked her foot and she stilled.

  “Off you go,” Hari said, losing the fight against his yawn. It muddied his words, but his hand waved us away. Apparently, we’d worn out our welcome in the lounge.

  I stood up, tucking my binder under my arm as I grabbed a pencil and a highlighter. The rest of the team followed me down the stairs.

  “Ten bucks says he’s going to nap up there,” Hunter muttered.

  “He’s drinking green tea,” Perla said, her voice weighted with disgust. “With soy milk.”

  “That’s just wrong,” Leigh shuddered.

  “Green tea only has a third of the caffeine that coffee does,” Kate said, pulling up the rear. “So, no, Hunter, I don’t think anyone will be taking your bet.”

  We all gathered at the base of the stairs, eight yellow binders displaying the camp logo held close.

  “I guess we’ll split up?” I said, jerking my head toward the tables laid out between aisles.

  “What else would we do?” Perla asked. “Do it elementary style and play popcorn?”

  “I was always more of a Heads Up, Seven Up kind of guy,” Brandon said.

  “Oh, man,” Hunter laughed. “I ruled at Heads Up, Seven Up.”

 
; “You peeked, didn’t you?” I asked.

  His lips lifted into that practiced smile. “Of course. How else do you win?”

  “Sensing the auras of your classmates,” Kate sniffed.

  “Not cheating,” Brandon said.

  “Elementary school was the tits,” Jams said. “When was the last time you got to have a Capri-Sun?”

  “Everyone track down a dictionary and look up facetious,” Perla said, swishing toward the nearest table.

  “Tomorrow,” Leigh said, “I will not help her get coffee.”

  “Tomorrow,” Galen said, his eyes disappearing under the apples of his cheeks, “we should totally play Heads Up, Seven Up.”

  *

  As the rest of the team claimed tables and study cubicles, I wandered deeper into the stacks. I’d come too far not to glimpse the sci-fi section.

  Luckily, there were signs leading the way. After weaving through M–O literature, a hard left at philosophy, and passing a dark information desk, I was standing at the rounded arch that had been the background on my laptop for three years. Another brass plaque was built into the side of the arch. I pressed my fingers into the engraved letters.

  SCIENCE FICTION SPECIAL COLLECTION, EST. JANUARY 1, 2001.

  Underneath, the message repeated in binary.

  I honestly didn’t know if I’d ever been happier.

  Other than the gallery wall of screen-printed posters advertising different fictional planets, the room wasn’t much different from the rest of the library. The study tables had the same small lamps and there were a few of the armchairs that had been up in the lounge. But they were set apart from the collection.

  I settled on my stomach between two of the tall redwood bookcases. When I won the Melee, this room would be my reward. These books were the only incentive I needed.

  Not ready to start committing more Wilde to memory, I started with the last story in the packet, switching between highlighting and making small annotations in the margins—monkey, magical realism, secret name.

  After I wrote my first note on the second story—What kind of name is Twinkle?—I popped my knuckles and stretched. My eyes slid right. On the bottom shelf, there was a myth wrapped in an ivory jacket and printed with bold yellow font.

  I have to keep studying, I thought. I can’t fall behind.

  But the forbidden book was already in my hand.

  Octavia Butler’s books took up an entire shelf on my bookcase at home. When I was up late and too restless to sleep, Butler’s stories kept me company. Considering she wrote terrifying books, this was probably not normal. But I’d been addicted to her prose since sixth grade, when my mom had sent me a copy of Kindred.

  Survivor was the only book of hers that I’d never been able to get my hands on. Butler had hated it so much that she’d refused to let it stay in print. It could have been three hundred pages of stick figures for all I cared. It was the missing link in the Patternist series.

  All three of my parents had laughed every time I’d asked for a copy. Even used, it was worth hundreds of dollars.

  But it was here. It was in my hands. Ignoring it would be the height of sacrilege. Like spitting on the pope or telling Katee Sackhoff that you preferred Dirk Benedict’s Lieutenant Starbuck.

  Ugh. I offended myself just thinking about that.

  It wasn’t like I was going to go to sleep at lights-out anyway. I could catch up on the rest of the short stories before the next time we met with Hari.

  I opened the book. The pages were musty sweet.

  “Ever?” Leigh’s voice dragged me away from the Kohns’ planet and thrust me—bleary-eyed and wobbly—back into the present. I took a breath as the seconds since I’d started reading righted themselves into long minutes. Balls. Were we late for our next lecture?

  “I’m here,” I said hoarsely. I tore off a strip of paper from my binder and stuffed it into Survivor. I forced myself to put it back in the empty space on the shelf. Looking down, I realized I’d cut off the first paragraph of “This Blessed House.” Balls again.

  Leigh appeared at the end of the aisle. “Oh, good. I knew this is where I’d find you. Kate went to check the bathrooms. Not that you couldn’t have to pee, but—Are you okay?”

  I closed my binder, hiding the evidence of my academic infidelity. I was sure that Leigh wouldn’t understand getting sidetracked on the first day of classes. She’d probably read through all five stories with time to spare and moved on to finding research books for the next section. That morning, she had talked about wanting to find the text our art history guides were pulled from.

  I got to my feet, making a show of patting down the pockets of my shorts.

  “I lost track of time,” I said. “I don’t know where I left my phone.”

  “It’s on your desk, between your face wash and your lotion,” she said, the worrying draining out of her face. “Come on. Hari’s counting the pencils and highlighters before he lets us leave the building. And I’d like to, you know, learn something today.”

  11

  We learned nothing.

  Okay, it wasn’t exactly nothing. The study packets were full of new ideas, dates, and philosophical questions. My retinas burned with words emblazoned with highlighter strokes. My hand cramped from making notes.

  It was the counselors’ silence that was starting to wear on everyone’s nerves. In all of our classes, our collegiate advisers hadn’t said more than “Open your binders.” Some of them hadn’t even introduced themselves. I still didn’t know the Perfect Nerd Girl’s real name.

  All of the vim and vigor of the first day had disappeared like fog burning off in the sunlight. Each morning, we fought for shower stalls in the communal bathroom. The teams sat together for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We trudged from building to building, sitting in silence except for the rustling of binder paper. Even our first music class had consisted of us reading our notes while we “imagined a symphony,” and our counselor, Faulkner, put on a pair of headphones.

  “It has to be a test. Like hazing,” I said, as the team sat down to yet another lackluster lunch on Friday afternoon. We’d been released from Cornell’s class without so much as a handshake.

  “I think they’re all completely incompetent,” Perla said. “It’s not like they’re that much older than us. They aren’t certified to teach us anything.”

  “You’re just mad that they got your coffee order wrong this morning,” Kate huffed.

  “Well,” Perla said, stabbing her fork into her iceberg lettuce salad, “if they can’t tell the difference between white chocolate and caramel, then I don’t want them trying to explain something that would actually require a spare neuron.”

  Galen dragged his hands over his face, his fingers leaving trails on his cheeks. “I’ve got a massive study hangover. It’s all I’ve done for three days. I miss TV.”

  “There’s a movie in the quad tonight,” Leigh said.

  “They’re playing The Breakfast Club,” Jams growled. “Again.”

  I tugged at my hair. “That’s every night this week.”

  “They could switch it up next week and give us a night of Pretty in Pink,” Brandon chuckled.

  “I hate Molly Ringwald’s face,” Perla said.

  “You hate everyone’s face,” Kate said under her breath.

  One of Perla’s eyebrows arched. “Mostly yours. You’re looking particularly moisturized today.”

  “I didn’t take your stupid face lotion!” Kate groaned. “Why would I?”

  “Yeah, someone else came into our room and took my moisturizer,” Perla said stiffly. “I’m sure Cheeseman needed my Kiehl’s for his gross, sweaty head.”

  Galen threw up his hands. “What happened to Cheeseman? Shouldn’t he be supervising something?”

  “He was at dinner last night for about a minute,” I said. I’d caught a glimpse of Cheeseman’s bald head bobbing around the counselors’ table, but he’d disappeared before we’d been excused to stack our plates.
r />   “We are two weeks away from the first round of the Melee,” Hunter said. “We’re totally screwed.”

  “We’ll mutiny!” Jams said, punching his fist into the air. “It can’t be only our team who isn’t learning anything. There’s forty-eight of us and only twelve counselors. If we rally, they can’t hold us down.”

  “Truth,” said Galen.

  Kate crouched low, her chin almost landing in her sandwich as she used the rest of us as cover. She lowered her voice to a hiss as her bright blue eyes slid from person to person. “Do you really want to unionize with our competitors?”

  Jams mockingly mirrored her hunched back and loud whisper. “No. I really want to tie down all of our fake professors until they’re forced to actually bloody teach something, but I don’t think that will work.”

  “James—Jams—whatever you’re calling yourself,” Perla said, “you are an American. You are from Oregon. You do not have an accent, pip pip. So stop being so bleeding, bloody, bollocksing barmy.”

  Jams’s ears lit up neon pink as he thrust a shaking finger at her. “My mum—”

  “‘Mom,’” Perla corrected loudly. “You’re putting a U where an O goes, you Anglophile arsehole.”

  “I am not an Anglophile!” he shot back.

  “Yesterday, you wore Union Jack socks,” Leigh noted, running a hand over her scalp.

  “Leave him alone,” Hunter said. “He has dual nationality.”

  “Ch-cheers, Hunter,” Jams said, his tongue tripping with indignation. “Not that I have to prove anything to you all, but, yes, I am a citizen of both the United States and the United Kingdom.”

  “Fifty bucks says he’s never been outside of Oregon,” Perla said in a cruel singsong.

  Jams’s mouth pinched tight into whatever the opposite of a poker face was.