The Princess Game (Faraway collection)

by Soman Chainani

LUKE: No.

  CHANG: We have surveillance footage from a couple weeks ago. You two were in a dark gym for an hour before you left together.

  LUKE: Don’t remember that. Must be a different day. Our security guards are pretty lazy. Probably tagged the footage wrong.

  PEDERSON: Did Phillip prep you to talk to us?

  LUKE: Phillip and I don’t talk.

  PEDERSON: Your student file says you got beat up for harassing him at Homecoming.

  LUKE: I deserved it.

  PEDERSON: Deserved it?

  LUKE: Drank a bottle of vodka, probably got on his jock a bit. You know, barking up the wrong tree. Like Kelly was trying to set you up with me.

  PEDERSON: So you do talk to Phillip. In fact, you were hitting on him, and he wasn’t responsive. That’s what you’re saying.

  LUKE: Can’t remember. I was really wasted. Maybe I shouldn’t say that to a cop. Then again, I didn’t know you were a cop when we were drinking at the same parties.

  (Silence)

  CHANG: Mount Zion Church explicitly rejects homosexuality and other cardinal sins. Says it right on their website. Even offers links to conversion-therapy services. How did you feel about you and your parents being thrown out of the church by Phillip’s dad?

  LUKE: We’re back in now.

  CHANG: Since when?

  LUKE: Like a couple weeks.

  CHANG: So around the time Kelly came to know about you and Phillip . . . Maybe Phillip was afraid his secret would come out. He had to get rid of Kelly. And keep you quiet. Bet he got his boys to stop bullying you too.

  LUKE: Honestly, don’t know what you’re talking about.

  CHANG: So what changed, then? Why would a homophobic church bring you back?

  LUKE: Better to have me in the fold than out of it, I guess. If you don’t mind, I’m going back to class. We got a test in Calc, and unlike you, he’s a real teacher.

  (Door opens.)

  REBECCA: Oh, hey, Luke . . . Oh, sorry. Thought my dad was here.

  PEDERSON: Principal Walker gave us his office to do a few last interviews.

  LUKE: I’m gonna go.

  (Door closes.)

  PEDERSON: Rebecca—

  REBECCA: My dad must really believe you’ll find the killer. Otherwise he wouldn’t let you both back on campus. Best of luck with it. I’m gonna catch up with Luke.

  CHANG: Rebecca, mind answering a few questions for us real quick?

  REBECCA: Um . . .

  PEDERSON: Leave her, Chang. We’re good.

  REBECCA: Actually, I have time. As long as I get to ask a question first.

  CHANG: Sure.

  REBECCA: Callum, did you tell anyone what happened between us? In the gym, I mean.

  PEDERSON: No. Did you?

  REBECCA: No. We made a promise.

  PEDERSON: We made a promise.

  (Silence)

  REBECCA: What questions do you want to ask me?

  CHANG: What happened in the gym with Callum?

  PEDERSON: Dude!

  CHANG: Okay, okay, relax . . . This is an interview with Rebecca Walker, Monday, May 4, 12:58 p.m., in Principal Walker’s office at Chaminade High School. Lieutenant Chang and Detective Pederson present. Rebecca, what can you tell me about the Princess Game? Where do you stand in it?

  REBECCA: Nowhere. I know it for what it is. It isn’t about the “Princesses” in the slightest. It’s the Princes who are playing games. It’s always been about them.

  CHANG: What do you mean?

  REBECCA: The boys assign a hierarchy to the girls, scoring them on their looks. But it’s the boys who have the real hierarchy. Being a man means hooking up with the hottest girl they can, telling their friends about it, and tossing them out like trash. Get drunk, hook up, brag about it, humiliate the girl, then try for someone hotter. That’s the real game. And the girls were starting to figure it out. Maybe that’s why they’re ending up dead. Someone out there is warning what happens to girls who don’t play by the rules.

  CHANG: Who was figuring it out?

  REBECCA: All the girls. That’s why Ariana started telling people what a creep Adam was. And why Charlotte cheated on Eric with Flynn, because she knew Eric was passing private pictures of her around the locker room. And why Anika Gelt went with Raymond Green to prom, when she heard Naveen was calling her a racist for rejecting him. Girls were starting to turn the tables. For once, I had hope that things were finally changing. That we could win the game. But at this school, the Princes always win. (pause) Even the ones you think are different.

  CHANG: Different? How?

  REBECCA: Imagine a new boy who comes in. Honest, vulnerable, real. One who doesn’t know the rules. And out of all the girls at school, somehow he takes a liking to you. He treats you well. He cares about you. You sneak out to old movies at the Lantern. You make s’mores in the woods at night. You send each other playlists, and his has Joni Mitchell on it. He lets things go slow, without pressure, and you feel at home with him. But then he starts hanging out with the Princes. Eric. Flynn. Phillip. Adam. And all the others. They start pressuring him to hook up with you. Flynn, especially. Telling him to seal the deal and prove he’s one of them. He tries to ignore them, but he can’t. His manhood is on the line. Every boy wants to be a Prince—even this one who thinks he’s a “good guy.” Suddenly, he’s putting a little more pressure on you. Maybe he doesn’t even know he’s doing it. Pushing you to do what you weren’t ready for. But you care about him. You know who he really is. So you pretend you’re okay with it. You let him take you further . . . one day in the school gym, when it’s dark. And it goes badly. Not for you. For him. You try to make him feel better. You tell him it’s okay. But then he just ignores you. Throws you away like the Princes taught him to. Could be worse, of course. He could lie and tell the whole school he banged you in the gym. Then he’d be a real Prince. But as long as he doesn’t lie, you hold out hope that maybe deep down, he’s still the guy you once knew.

  (Silence)

  PEDERSON: He is still the guy you once knew. And he would never lie.

  CHANG: (Mutters.) Christ.

  REBECCA: Please tell my dad I’m looking for him.

  PEDERSON: Rebecca?

  REBECCA: Yes, Detective Pederson?

  PEDERSON: (softly) Why didn’t you tell me how you felt? Why didn’t you speak up?

  REBECCA: Ask Madelyn Mayberry what happens to girls who speak up.

  KRISTOFF

  PEDERSON: What happened with you and Madelyn Mayberry? No bullshit, or we’ll haul you down to the station.

  KRISTOFF: Slooooow down, cowboy. Comin’ in hot! Hear that’s your specialty, though.

  CHANG: Both of you, cool it. It is Monday, May 4, 1:18 p.m. This interview is taking place with Kristoff Arendelle in Principal Walker’s office at Chaminade High School.

  PEDERSON: Kristoff, you kissed Madelyn because of a locker room dare.

  KRISTOFF: False. She kissed me. She insisted we do it with my mascot head on, but I was like no way, fair princess, you gotta taste these fat, chapped lips in front of all these boys.

  CHANG: This was after basketball practice?

  KRISTOFF: I run mascot for spring sports, so me and the cheerleaders usually rehearse on the sidelines with the teams once a week. Behold “Prince Chaminade,” who looks like a cross between Jack Sparrow and Liberace, and somehow that’s supposed to intimidate teams like the Titans or the Wildcats? God, that costume smells like ass. I usually shower after practice with the boys, because wear that foam head for an hour and you come out smelling like necrophilia. Plus, hang around those Princes long enough, and you end up catching a little wench tail on the back end.

  CHANG: The girls the “Princes” reject.

  KRISTOFF: Stewards and wenches gotta scavenge somewhere, right? They nickname me “Incel,” and even then, I still get more play than most of those pretty boys. I just don’t brag about it like they do, ’cause I don’t want to spoil a girl’s reputation. But Madelyn . . . well, she
doggone went and spoiled her reputation all by herself.

  PEDERSON: So this dare.

  KRISTOFF: Madelyn Mayberry is like the Virgin Queen of Flyover Land. Dresses in pink and wears butterfly berets and eats Greek yogurt at lunch. Ariana and Charlotte were down to bone, but Madelyn’s hot in that Mormon-girl way, which is why half the dudes in school wanted to climb that tower, even if they all crashed and burned. Only evidence that Madelyn had any libido at all was when she let Phillip feel her up during Eric’s birthday party. Phillip told everyone about it, of course. That’s the point. And then suddenly Madelyn’s on this rampage, saying that if our team name’s the Princes, then guys need to treat chicks better, and before you know it, she’s asking for mandatory Chivalry Training—she was really into Chaminade’s fairy-tale lingo—like we’re some kinda ground zero for #MeToo. Says boys and girls need to be held to the same standards, because if chicks treated dudes the way we treat them, then all hell would break loose. Which is true, but that’s evolution, man. Don’t hate the players; hate the genes. No one listened to her, but she’s editor of the school paper, so she decides to eavesdrop on the locker room after practice and expose just how filthy our mouths are when we talk about girls. Kelly Blake sneaks her in, but Kelly’s big ass trips, and we end up catching them both. Then Phillip tells Maddy that he’s going to report her for spying in the guys’ locker room—which by her own “equal rights” logic should result in being expelled, since if a guy did that in the girls’ locker room, he’d be put in a hole. Only way Phillip won’t report her and ruin her life is a game of truth or dare—and he dares her to kiss the ugliest boy in the room. She instantly looks at me. Stares right at me like I’m a hobgoblin about to eat her. Phil never said my name. She could have made the case for any other dude. Hell, Maddy could have picked Phil for being ugly “inside.” But not after she looked at me like that. Ugly to Maddy meant unshowered, rank-smelling, pizza-faced Kristoff, with a jiggly belly and hair on his shoulders. Still remember those wide, revolted blue eyes. She’d rather die than kiss me. But didn’t have a choice, did she? Her fate was sealed. Had to be five seconds long, and the boys counted it out, two seconds for every one.

  PEDERSON: Were you insulted? By the way she looked at you?

  KRISTOFF: Hell no. Still got to kiss her, didn’t I? And she had to pass me in the hall every day after. That same disgusted look on her face, like she was reliving every second. Like I was the worst moment in her life. That’s victory to me.

  CHANG: Until she ends up in a glass coffin.

  KRISTOFF: Anyone could have done it, honestly. You know how Snow White had to clean up after her damn dirty dwarfs? Maddy was trying to clean up all of mankind.

  CHANG: “Incel.” Why is that your nickname?

  KRISTOFF: ’Cause I look like a Reddit troll.

  PEDERSON: Had nothing do with the essay you wrote last year for Crowder’s class?

  KRISTOFF: Excuse me, we were learning about “polemics.” The assignment was to write a manifesto. Valerie Solanas wrote the SCUM Manifesto in 1967, about ridding the world of men. I argued the same about women. Solanas’s manifesto is considered a classic. Mine got me suspended. Double standard, wouldn’t you say?

  PEDERSON: You have a tattoo on your back.

  KRISTOFF: Would you like me to disrobe and show you?

  CHANG: What’s it of?

  KRISTOFF: You know what it is, otherwise you wouldn’t be tag-teaming to ask me.

  PEDERSON: It’s Dopey. One of Snow White’s dwarfs.

  KRISTOFF: A lazy, pointless oaf, and yet the only dwarf people remember. A role model if I’ve ever seen one. Hmm . . . History with Madelyn. Writes about getting rid of women. Has a Snow White tattoo. Fits the profile, doesn’t it? Only one problem: When was Maddy killed?

  CHANG: April 15.

  KRISTOFF: Exactly. And I was in Hamelin at State Swim Champs, running Prince Chaminade for the girls’ team. So I ain’t your killer, am I? But that’s where you’re going wrong. Worrying about profiles and motives instead of looking at the real story. Five dead princesses. No prince to save them. Fairy tales end with a moral, don’t they? Well, these dead girls are trying to teach us one. You just got to figure out what it is. Then you’ll find who’s responsible.

  PEDERSON: And you have no idea who would have something against Madelyn?

  KRISTOFF: You’re as good at listening as you are as sleuthin’. (pause) Look, hell if I know. Probably all the dudes she wouldn’t fuck. But I got closer than any of ’em, didn’t I? Glass box. What a way to go. Kinda fitting if you think about it.

  PEDERSON: Fitting . . . ?

  KRISTOFF: Flopping around inside, looking out scared at whoever put her there. Probably the same look she had when she knew she had to kiss me.

  CALLUM

  “Wednesday, May 6, 3:58 p.m. Jogging around Cheshire Park, trying to settle my brain down, but it’s just making it worse, so figured I’d talk it out. Fucking voice notes turned Dear Diary. I don’t care. Got no one else to talk to. No Rebecca. No boys. Chang’s being pissy. Mom still thinks I’m at the academy; if I tell her what I’m up to, she won’t sleep at night. Or she’ll stop letting me send her money and ask Dad for help instead. I’d rather put my head in an oven. Boys are probably at lacrosse practice right now. Damn. I miss it. When I was at practice, I’d forget about everything else. Eye on the ball. Run, run, run. Now when I run, all I think about is dead girls and how those girls used to be alive, in my classes, at my games, at the parties I went to, and now they’re dead . . . and I’m the one they’re counting on to find the killer. A killer who’s so close, I can taste it, and yet nothing adds up. Not the alibis, not the motives. No matter how hard I look, the answer just vanishes right before my eyes, like I’m the blind spot, like I’m the one who’s— (Phone dings.) Shit. Chang’s texting. (Footsteps stop.) Says Flynn’s ready to talk. Lawyer called; Flynn has a statement to give. Says to get to the precinct as fast as I can. Two weeks Flynn hides from us, and now suddenly a ‘statement’ . . . That rat bastard. That small-balled coward. Coming to confess or trade info for immunity. I knew it was him. He cracked . . . He finally cracked . . . (Footsteps pick up.)”

  FLYNN

  CHANG: Wednesday, May 6, 5:06 p.m. at the Middletown precinct. Lieutenant Chang and Detective Pederson, both present with Flynn Fitzherbert—

  PEDERSON: Why’d you kill them? Because Charlotte told Eric you hooked up with her? Because all the Princesses knew you slept with your best friend’s girl?

  FLYNN: As my lawyer told you, I have a statement to read.

  (Silence)

  CHANG: Go ahead.

  FLYNN: Five of my classmates are dead. Five. And now some people are saying I did it.

  Slashed all these girls. Alright. So here’s my confession.

  I know who the Princess Killer is. Or at least, I think I know who it is. Been sending tips over to the precinct, trying to get them to investigate.

  But no one cares what I think.

  Instead, two undercover policemen come into my school and invade our safe space, trying to bait and trap students like me. On what grounds? First, the Middletown Police claim that Chaminade High had a culture of “toxic masculinity” that made me and my friends the prime suspects for the murders. Guys who are just trying to manage homework and sports practices and somehow carve out enough time to scarf down dinner, let alone start murdering our friends. But common sense doesn’t matter. Not when they’ve made up their minds. From the start, the Princess Killer had to be a Chaminade “Prince.” Case closed. They turned down the FBI’s help. They never brought in state investigators. Instead, they send in two of their own: an aging lieutenant who’d been trapped behind a desk for decades and a twenty-one-year-old greenie who hadn’t even made it out of police academy. This is who our own law enforcement entrusted with finding a sociopathic killer on the loose. Even more, neither of these cops has the slightest experience with homicide, serial killer cases, undercover operations, or field detective work, and
I’d bet they haven’t even compiled a proper profile for the suspect yet, given that they’re still interrogating me and my friends day after day, instead of hunting the real murderer, who’s out there laughing at them, planning his next kill. To axe five girls and get away with it requires deliberation and planning and resources and time that no single boy my age could ever pull off alone. The idea that Chaminade is the root of all evil—that one of us is responsible—is so laughable that it makes you ask: Who could possibly come to such a stupid conclusion?

  Good question. Let’s meet the two “cops” who were tasked with finding the killer. First, there’s Joseph Chang, who not only led this farce, but did it while masquerading as a chemistry teacher—a subject for which he had no background and confessed to a friend during his questioning that Chang’s own son was the one grading our tests and helping tutor his father on the side. So not only do we have an incompetent cop investigating us, but an incompetent teacher teaching us at school. Two for one. We all lose, including the next girl who turns up dead. Then there’s Callum Pederson, a poor man’s Timothée Chalamet and poetry-writing sad boy, who seems to be on this case less because he has any actual value and more because he wanted a second chance at not being a high-school loser. Former Brookside Nobody now thinks he’s gonna be a Chaminade Prince. The instant Callum arrives, he’s mysteriously added to the lacrosse team, and buddies up to me and my friends like the worst version of a male wench, acting like we’re bros just because he says so. We all saw through him for the lame suck-up he was, but we put up with him as best we could. We may be “toxic males,” but at least we’re polite. We invited him to our houses, to our parties. He met our parents, ate our food, played video games in our rooms. But deep down, we knew he was an impostor. A sheep in wolf’s clothing. We didn’t know he was a cop, of course. But we knew he wasn’t one of us. He wasn’t a Prince, even if he spent his whole life wanting to be. It’s why I don’t tell him who I really think is killing the girls. Or that I’ve started to investigate things on my own. To clear me and my friends’ names. I’ve started asking all the questions the detectives aren’t.

  And no wonder! Because while I’m looking for the killer, “Detective” Pederson’s too busy going to house parties and making a play for the principal’s daughter, which sounds like statutory if I’ve ever heard of it (someone call a cop!). But even in his second try at his glory years, little Pederson bungles it. In fact, he screws up with her so bad that they both promise not to tell anyone what happened. But then Pederson breaks this promise by spilling the beans to Phillip and his lawyer, and soon everyone finds out . . . so now Rebecca Walker is telling her side of the story. You see, Principal Walker’s daughter really liked Callum. She wanted to take things slow. But Callum pressures her to hook up with him in the school gym. He’s desperate to bang her. To prove he’s one of us. It’s his only shot at redemption for his wasted life—but he’s so worked up that a girl is actually into him that he creams his pants before they even get to second base. Then, while he’s pretending this is the first time he’s ever shot his wad at first touch, and Rebecca’s pretending to believe him, Cal hears footsteps in the gym, freaks out that someone might see them, and jumps up, elbowing Rebecca Walker square in the eye. So now the girl he tried to smash has a grade-A shiner, but he doesn’t even bother to help her. Instead, Cally Cal leaves her high and dry and books it out of the gym, covering his stained skinny jeans. Never apologizes either. He ignores Rebecca from that day forward, even when she walks by him in the hall with a black eye.