Away We Go - Emil Ostrovski Page 0,17
that the boy whose bed I’d shared wanted to lead us all home, and also how wrong it felt, to be so happy while sitting on a memorial dedicated to a girl named Alexandra Cheung.
All the benches at Westing were dedicated to the memory of kids who’d gone away.
“Give me a rating,” he said. “On a scale of one to ten.”
I bumped my knee into his. “Terrible.”
“I know. I know. I know.” He brushed a hand through his hair. “God, they were looking at me like I was downright crazy.”
“I helped,” I said.
“You did.”
“Because you were bombing. I mean, like, nosediving. I mean, like—”
“Dive-bombing!” he added excitedly. “Totally.” He bumped me with his knee.
“Soooo,” I said. “Wanna dive-bomb into your bed?”
“So sly,” he said.
“Right?”
“So subtle.”
“Right?”
He hesitated. “Not tonight, okay?” he asked softly.
I hid my hurt with an “Okay” and whipped out my phone. Alice had invited me to a movie night in Violet Hall. I’d been avoiding her, but now I messaged to ask if it was too late to take her up on her offer.
She texted back in record time:
ome quiccckkk, it’s only just starting. i saved u a seat : ) : ) : )
FRONT FOR THE LIBERATION OF YOUTHS IN RECOVERY
Think you’re free?
Then WHY are your e-mails, texts, and phone conversations monitored?
WHY is your Internet access restricted?
WHY can’t you call your family and friends outside?
WHY are you trapped behind motion-sensing walls?
Think you’re free?
Think again.
“We declare our right on this earth . . . to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary.”
—Malcolm X (assassinated in 1965)
A FEATHER ON PLUTO
Zach and I both had towels distinguishing us as humans of high caliber wrapped around our waists. The bathroom mirror was flecked with toothpaste.
Zach brushed his teeth, spat his toothpaste out. “You leave your room open this time?”
“No idea,” I said, trying not to stare. “I’m functioning at twenty-five percent capacity right now. I need at least three cups of coffee before short-term memory comes online.”
“I prefer tea,” he said. “Or hot chocolate,” he added with a wink.
A week or so had passed since Polo Club’s first meeting. I’d refrained from texting, or messaging him on AwayWeGo, at great expense to my sanity—if I ignored him, he would realize he needed me, and in a world so full of shadows that flickered and were gone, I needed to be needed, to believe I had more substance than that. While waiting for him to come around, I’d busied myself with busying myself. Marty had asked me to audition for a play he’d written, which the Westing Theater Troupe was putting on in April, and all my time whispering lines to myself at Richmond had paid off.
“So, I assume my speech at Polo Club—”
“Your rousing speech,” I corrected.
He nodded with enthusiasm. “I assume my rousing speech—thank you again, by the way—”
“You’re welcome.”
“—has been the obvious highlight of your Westing experience so far?”
“Not really,” I said, with as straight a face as I could manage. I took a shy step toward him.
“Wow.” He laughed, set his toothbrush down. He crossed his hands over his chest. “Honesty isn’t always the best policy, Noah.” He averted his eyes as he said that last part.
“Polo’s too bourgeois for me,” I explained. “I prefer acting. How do you feel about Romeo and Juliet? Star-crossed lovers and all that.”
“I think amorous relationships between the electors and the elected are complicated enough without involving astrophysics. The electors are all ra ra ra twinkle dinkle little star ra ra ra—”
“Sorry,” I said, cupping a hand to my ear. “What was that?”
“Ra ra ra twinkle dinkle little star ra ra ra,” he said to humor me, and chewed at the inside of his lip as I chanced yet another step. He was the only boy I’d ever met who wouldn’t actually look at you while flirting.
“Did I tell you I’m going to be Peter Pan?” I asked him.
Zach raised his eyebrows, so I explained about how Marty had won the annual MacGregor Playwriting Contest for Away We Go, his modern take on Peter Pan, and had offered me the main part.
Zach squinted, tilted his head to the side, gave me a thumbs-up. “I’ve often thought about what Peter Pan would look like if he were a Polo-playing Westing student brushing his teeth in one of our bathrooms, and