Scripted - Hardcover

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Chapter 1

I like the hallway after lunch, when the sound of lingering Characters fills the space like a choir. Crickets with cameras on their shoulders weave through the crowd, searching for good scenes. Our lockers are right in the middle of it all, halfway between the school’s entrance and the cafeteria. I watch everyone from here, but my eyes keep coming back to Callen.

“Selwyn, tell us now,” Lia insists, pushing her flame-colored hair back as she kneels to rummage through the bottom of her locker.

Today, at lunch, Lincoln Grayson said he’d closed up with a girl at his parents’ beach house last Saturday, after the Apocalypse (Lincoln likes his parties to have grandiose names) officially ended. We tried to guess who it was—Geraldine Spicer? Caren Trosser?—but he shook his head at each name we threw out.

Lia grumbled about the sin of secrets between friends, then accused him of making it up. Neither tactic got her a name. We left the cafeteria in a huddle, speculating feverishly, until Selwyn admitted that she knew the real story—“It’s not like he said. I heard the girl’s side.”

“Who? Who?”

“I can’t say anything else.” Selwyn fidgets with her liberato beads. “I overheard her talking to her friends—Lincoln will kill me if I give it up.” I’m worried about the audiotrack: Selwyn’s voice is naturally soft, and with the noise in the hall, I can barely hear her. Last quarter’s mark landed me on the E.L., so I need to make sure all my scenes are fit for broadcast. With a quick flick of my fingers (to the Audience it’ll look as if I scratched my neck), I straighten the microphone pinned to my collar and step forward an inch, closing the gap between us.

“We’ll keep our mouths shut, right, Nettie?” Still crouched down, Lia jabs my ankle with her elbow. Her eyes flit up to me, searching for support.

I always say what she needs to hear. “I won’t tell anyone,” I promise, tracking Callen as he moves away from his locker, accompanied by Rawls Talon, the Pigeons’ second baseman. Callen’s hair, so blond it’s almost white, makes his path through the mass of Characters easy to follow. He ends up in front of the principal’s office, checking out the poster tacked to the bulletin board.

I can’t see it from here, but I know it by heart. I was with Lia when she wrote it.

APPRENTICESHIP ANNOUNCEMENT
SCHEDULE AND GUIDELINES

The Seventy-Third Apprenticeship Announcement

April 20

SCHEDULE

10 A.M. Mayor’s Speech

10:15 A.M. Poem

10:30 A.M. Ceremony

DRESS CODE

Semiformal dresses for girls

Suits and ties for boys

Selwyn gazes intently at her liberato moccasins, until finally, she squares her tiny shoulders and coughs it up. “Mollie Silverine.” She grins, relieved the pressure’s off. The smile turns lopsided as she curls her lip down to conceal the chip on her upper left canine tooth. No one but her notices the flaw, but she’s still self-conscious about it.

Lia smirks. “Mollie Silverine? You’re kidding. I guess this won’t make her gossip column.” She’s stopped rummaging, focused on our conversation.

“It’s not like that. She was sleeping, and Lincoln tried to, like, nuzzle her,” Selwyn goes on, “and she seriously thought he was the dog and pushed him away. Didn’t sound like a close-up to me.”

“Of course there was no close-up,” Lia says scornfully. “I don’t think Lincoln’s ev—”

“Shhh, keep your voice down.” Selwyn flaps her hand, eager to avoid the scrutiny of the Characters crowding the hall.

“Lincoln’s never even kissed anyone,” Lia whispers.

“He probably wanted her to play Spate with him,” I joke, miming Lincoln briskly dealing cards, my tunic’s clumsy bell-shaped sleeves fluttering in the air. Lincoln loves Spate. He’s gotten so into games that he’s knocked down glasses at our lunch table in his playing fervor.

“Lincoln and his Spate.” Lia sighs. Selwyn giggles. I roll up the sleeves of the blouse. I can’t wait for the motif change; I’ve about worn this shirt out. A smile lingers on Lia’s face as she starts sifting through the junk in her locker again. She’s one of those Characters whose smile transforms her. Without it, the even, defined lines of her face—high cheekbones, firm jaw, and hard green eyes—make her seem cold.

Selwyn moves closer to me and Lia, trying to seal us off from the rest of the hall. “Remember, it’s a secret.”

“We know.” Lia doesn’t look up. Old play programs and candy wrappers float down like autumn leaves. A pen clatters to the floor, and she snatches it up with a triumphant flourish. It’s the slick red pen her dad gave her two seasons ago for her fourteenth birthday. She uses it when we work on the Diary of Destiny—she thinks it’s lucky.

“Thank God. I need all the help I can get for the chemistry test,” she says, standing up and shoving the pen in her pocket. She crushes the books and papers back into her locker and shoves the entire side of her body against the door to force it closed.

“You’re as bad as Callen about that stuff. He sets his mitt underneath the oak tree in his backyard the night before every game for good luck,” I say, cringing as soon as the words leave my mouth. Mentioning him to her is a pinch I can’t resist giving myself.

The corner of Lia’s mouth turns down, and she mutters, “Callen.”

I can’t let it go. “What do you mean? What about him?”

Selwyn hums, flipping the top buckle on her cello case up and down in an uneven rhythm. She’s caught in a middle that Lia doesn’t know about. Around us, the swirl of Characters intensifies as they move out of the hall toward classes.

“He did that with his mitt last year,” Lia reports, “but I don’t think he cares anymore. He actually forgot to bring his mitt to practice yesterday.” She rolls her eyes. “That reminds me—I’ve got to talk to him about tonight. His parents are going to be out late. Maybe we’ll finally.”

Nonono. I whip around and start twirling my combination with jittery fingers, getting it wrong on the first try. Lia just won’t stop talking about how Callen won’t close up with her.

“Why do you think he won’t, Nettie?” she asks, smiling.

“Scared?” I suggest. At last, I hear the click and my locker opens. Would he be scared with me? I feel my skin heating up, and poke my head into the locker so no one can see my embarrassment.

“Poor Callen,” Selwyn says behind me.

“Poor Callen?” Lia squawks. She leans her back against her locker, her face inches away from mine. She surveys the hall like a queen. “Poor me. Something’s wrong with him. What could it be?”

I grab my math book and back out from the locker, calmer. “Maybe it’s a ritual, like with the mitt.” I think it’s a reasonable guess. “Like if he closes up during baseball time, he’ll lose games.”

“Maybe,” Lia says, drumming her fingers on her locker. “Whatever it is, he needs to get over it. I’m ready, you know what I mean?” Selwyn snorts with laughter, resorting to pressing her face against her arm to smother the...