All Good Children - Catherine Austen [14]
I came fourth in the New Middletown Freakshow betting pool two years ago, but I couldn’t claim my prize because I was underage and Mom wouldn’t step up for me. She says the show is reprehensible. I know the time is coming when she won’t refuse any money, no matter where it comes from, so I lay a bet on Zipperhead.
After lunch I do my homework, tidy up and jog to Ally’s school for the three o’clock bell. I don’t hear much of what she says on the walk home, because I’m on my RIG fighting communism in the Chinese Civil War. I don’t play often, not like throwaways, but New Middletown just added the game Underdog to our network. Your ISP marks your alliance, so every American logged on right now playing the 1946 China map is a Kuomintang. Every Brazilian is a Communist. It makes gaming an act of patriotism.
A soldier spawns into my projection and stands there doing nothing for so long I suspect he’s a Commie spy. I’m about to knife him when he says, “Stop wasting your youth, Max. Log off and apply for the manual arts exhibit. I’m coming over after football.” Somehow Dallas always finds me idling online. I knife him before he exits.
I skim the manual arts application at home and submit my portfolio with an essay on why I should be a representative artist. I lie like a rug, apologize for my three graffiti convictions, flaunt my grades in art and architecture, and claim to be a productive citizen.
Ally tugs on my earpiece. “There’s someone at the door.”
A redheaded man with a handlebar mustache stands in the hallway holding a bowl of apples. His smile is lopsided and his teeth are blackened, but there’s no mistaking his vocals. “They said these apples are organic, but I found pesticide residue on them so I’m sending my samples to a laboratory for testing because they’ve stretched the certification definitions beyond reason.”
I smile. “Come on in, Xavier, and we’ll slice them up.”
When Mom gets home from a double shift at six o’clock, Xavier and Dallas are lazing on the couch watching an ancient movie about machines that take over the world. Dallas is wearing the red wig and mustache. Xavier is chatting through the action scenes.
“Why aren’t you in there with your friends?” Mom asks me.
I point to the kitchen screen, where I’ve projected Ally’s homework. “We’re working.”
Mom skims Ally’s ethics assignment: an evil bunny paints graffiti on the wall of a grocery store, all the nearby plants are poisoned, distracted drivers crash into bikes, the store gets robbed, and all hell breaks loose until two tattler bunnies save the day by ratting out the evil bunny, who repents when interrogated. The follow-up asks, What makes a good community member? What should you do if you see someone harming property? “Wow,” Mom says. “That’s advanced for grade one.” She frowns with worry, then sits next to Ally and asks me to heat supper.
I wear my earpiece to drown out Ally’s struggle with every sentence. I don’t know why Mom won’t let her use the speech editor—half the country can’t read or write, and they’re not missing anything except the odd evacuation notice. They’re on question four of ten when I ladle out the soup. “Dallas! Xavier! Want to eat?”
Xavier streams the movie through his RIG and brings it to dinner. Mom hates electronics at the table, but she’d never hurt Xavier’s feelings.
“Elaine was asking about you today,” she tells me. Elaine is a patient at the geriatric center. I adopted her as my community grandparent for a sadistic school assignment in grade seven. “Why don’t you come for a visit tomorrow?” Mom asks.
I cringe. I would rather eat vomit than go back to that place. Elaine is sweet and funny but that just makes it worse, her being stuck there with thousands of people pissing themselves and rotting slowly. “I’m getting my hair cut tomorrow.”
“No!” Ally says. “I like your hair long.”
“Me too,” Xavier adds. His own hair dangles in his tomato soup.
Dallas laughs. The mustache falls off his face into his bowl. He pinches it between his fingers, holds it up dripping like a severed tail. “Max has high-maintenance