All Good Children - Catherine Austen [64]
Celeste comes over the next morning to stay with Ally. Xavier clings to her hand with both of his. His hair hangs in wet waves and smells of strawberries.
“Is he sick?” I ask. “I mean, with a cold or something?”
She shakes her head. “He got in a fight at school and ran away. We’re home-schooling him now. It’s either that or an institution for the uneducable.”
“Uneducable?” I’ve seen Xavier build robots and hack into government networks.
She walks her brother to the couch and helps him sit.
He holds his neck at an odd angle and wears a pained expression that smoothes into emptiness when she turns on the big screen.
“Where’s your tent?” she asks.
I point to a huge pile of canvas beside the door. “I have to take it in for the exhibit. I’m giving it to Xavier afterward.”
“Really? Why?”
I shrug. “I don’t know what else to do.”
We run laps in the bitter sunshine during gym class. Coach Emery asks for volunteers to clean out the football trailer at lunch. Every student raises a hand. He chooses me, Dallas and Brennan.
The trailer is a reeking mess, with discarded clothes smelling up the corners and busted pads wedged under the benches. The walls are smeared with dirt and sweat and unidentifiable body fluids. The coach gives us a garbage can, a bag of rags, and three bottles of disinfectant. “Do a good job.” He nods toward the surveillance camera in the corner. “I’ll know if you don’t.”
They installed cameras in the change rooms a few years ago. There was some concern about privacy, but a damaged assault during a football game hushed it up. It’s hard to imagine public safety without surveillance. So somebody sees you naked. If it keeps people from raping and murdering you, what’s to argue? At least that’s what I thought before the treatments.
I act like a zombie janitor in the trailer, partly because of the camera and partly because Dallas and I haven’t had a real conversation with Brennan since the vaccinations and I’m scared this is a trap. When we’ve scrubbed the place clean, Brennan checks the time and says to me, “Why don’t you go outside and ask my father if anything else needs to be done?”
The coach is waiting for me around the back of the trailer. “Good work, Connors,” he says loudly. He pulls me close and whispers, “I advise you to get out of town as soon as you can.”
It’s just not right to hear a football coach whisper. I squirm away.
“I’m serious,” he says. “Arlington Richmond doesn’t think you were properly vaccinated. He says there’s something wrong with the way you laugh.”
“I didn’t know I laughed anymore.”
“He recommended revaccinating you. Graham is hedging because overdoses are dangerous. He’ll probably do it after the holidays.”
He talks like that’s just around the corner, but three weeks is an eternity these days.
“Suffice it to say that your teachers are going to keep a close watch on you until then,” he says. “And you’re not going to pass scrutiny. Feelings pass over your face all the time. You mutter to yourself when you think you’re alone. Your eyes gleam from ten yards away.”
“Should I wear contacts?”
“It’s no joke, Connors.” He takes my head in his hands and shakes it like he’s trying to rattle a ball of truth into the right hole. “They’ll never let your mother give you the next shot. They are suspicious. There won’t be any warning. You understand me? You have to get out before the decision is made.”
“We are getting out. But we need a car.”
“So buy one from the carpark. I know your mother’s not rich, but she must have something tucked away. A small car that works is cheaper than a van that doesn’t.”
“Are you going? Are you taking Brennan?”
“We’re holding tight for now.”
“Is it true that the top student in each class didn’t get the treatment?” I ask.
He lowers his eyes and mumbles, “They don’t know how permanent the effects might be. They know they’re going to need some critical thinkers once you kids are in college so—”
“So they saved the cream of the crop,