Away We Go - Emil Ostrovski Page 0,1

few remaining chairs.

“Sit,” he ordered.

Before I could say a word, he told me, “Stay.” He exchanged a few words with the proctor at the front of the class. I counted maybe twenty other boys who’d come to take the test. He returned with “a present.” He deposited this present, which looked suspiciously like an NAAP, on my desk. Frowned at me. Said, “Oh yeah.” Thrust his hand in his pocket, took out a dull pencil, and placed it next to the test packet masquerading as a present.

I waited for him to change his mind. Maybe he’d sit down to take the test with me. But instead he gave me a two-finger salute, turned on his heel, and left.

A couple weeks after that Saturday on which so many hours of sleep were stolen from me, the teachers posted our scores on the gym wall.

I got a 150. Better than anyone else at Richmond. Still, it wasn’t good enough, not for a place like Westing, the only recovery center of its kind in the entire National Recovery Program. Supposedly a prototype for the next generation of recovery centers, for now it was where America herded away its best and brightest to recite Eugene Onegin, live in progressive coed dorms that challenge the gender binary, and, eventually, disappear like all the other infected kids. The official story was that kids too sick for regular recovery centers got transferred to tertiary care clinics, but Alex maintained the government probably shipped us off to Area 51 to be dissected by aliens—a popular theory.

I stumbled through the cafeteria crowds, everyone soaked in sweat, because the AC wasn’t working again. I wanted to tell Alex the good news: I’m staying, bitch. His chosen table had a crack down the middle and graffiti of the Suck my dick variety covering every bit of the surface. He was picking at one of the slightly green gelatinous globs that passed for mac and cheese at Richmond. A small plastic bag lay next to his plate.

“Yummy,” I said as I sat down across from him.

“If you say so,” he said, biting absentmindedly at a dirty nail.

“What’s in the bag?”

He reached in to produce a chocolate bar. Wiggled it. He must’ve bought it from one of the dealers; probably paid a fortune for it, too. Anything from outside cost a fortune. He slid it over to me.

“Your congratulatory feast.”

“What do you mean?”

“Come on, son. Don’t ruin it.”

“I didn’t get a one sixty. Not even close.”

“You beat the next closest guy by five points,” he said. “If anyone gets in from here, it’ll be you.”

“I’m telling you it’s not good enough.” I’d felt relief when I saw my score. I could barely remember my parents, my brother, so their loss was like the loss of a dream you forget upon waking. But Alex was as solid as the ground beneath my feet. “I’m not applying.”

“Yeah, you are.”

“What is wrong with you?” I said, my frustration finally spilling out.

“What is wrong with you?” He was angrier than I’d ever seen him.

“Westing can suck it,” I replied, inspired by the graffiti.

Alex closed his eyes. He spoke in a tone of forced evenness. I had to lean in to hear.

“Oh, No. My bro.” He opened his eyes and flashed me a thin smile. “It’ll be good for you there. Trust me. If you don’t want to do it for yourself, do it for me.”

“And besides,” he continued, “at Westing you’ll be able to get some pussy.” He said this with a decisive air, as if he felt that should settle the matter once and for all. But I didn’t want pussy. Without access to girls, guys at Richmond sometimes took to experimenting with each other. What Alex and I had done, I’d liked.

“And Noah?”

“Yeah?” I was using my sulky voice.

“For your essay?”

“Yeah?”

“Write it on your acting.”

I pictured the Westing admissions committee, a group of old prunes I’d never met sitting in suits at a glass conference table, all quiet and regal and trying not to pass gas, weighing the decision of whether to admit Jacob S. or Sarah P. with such gravitas you’d have thought the papers in their lined, neatly manicured hands contained an imprint of the applicants’ souls.

Instead of writing the essay to them, I wrote it to Alex. In reading my essay to Alex, the admissions committee read of me performing plays real and imagined in closets and bathrooms, and on the roof of Richmond at half past two on many a winter