Tell the Machine Goodnight. Katie Williams

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СКАЧАТЬ cool, who’s not, jocks, nerds, whatever—is, for Saff and me, something that exists only in movies about high school. When you have a class of twelve people, there really aren’t enough of you to divide up into cliques. Sure, there are some best friends, like Ellie and Saff, or like Josiah and me (used to be). There’re some couples, Ellie and Linus for a while, then Brynn and Linus, basically every girl and Linus. Except Saff. She’s never been with Linus. Though maybe she has this past year; I wouldn’t know, I’ve been gone. My point is, mostly everyone hangs out with everyone else.

      There is one role, though, one rule: Ellie is always the leader. It’s been that way from our first year, back when Ellie would whip the dodgeball at you and then, when you cried over the burn it’d left on your leg, explain how that was just part of the game, explain it so calmly and confidently that you found yourself nodding, even though the tears were still rolling down your cheeks. That makes it sound like I think Ellie is a bad person. I don’t. In fact, the older I get, the more I think that Ellie’s got it right, that she knew at five what the rest of us wouldn’t figure out until our teens: the world is tough, so you’d better be tough right back.

      “And so?” I say to Saff, because there’s always more to the story when Ellie is involved.

      “And so, after Ellie comes up with the scapegoat idea, she even volunteers to go first. Which, if you think about it, is pretty smart because at first everyone is, you know, gentle. Warming up to it. Also, if you go first, you haven’t scapegoated anyone else yet, so they don’t have anything to pay you back for.” Saff pauses. “Do you think she actually plans this stuff out ahead of time?”

      “I think Ellie has an instinct for weakness.”

      “Well, that first week we didn’t do much—tugged Ellie’s hair, kicked the back of her chair in class, made her carry our lunch trays. Nothing really. I think she had fun. Actually, I know she did. The last day, she dressed up as Calla Pax, from that sacrifice-on-the-ice movie we watched. In, like, a sexy white robe. She looked great. Of course. Then, the next week, Linus went. The guys were rougher on him, but not in a mean way, if that makes sense? And you know how Linus is. Easy with it all. It felt like a game. Fun even. Like free. When you have permission to … if you can do whatever … sometimes it’s like …” She taps a thumb against her chest, then gives up trying to explain and takes another cookie. Her third. (I can’t help counting other people’s food.)

      “But then it got bad. Each week, each new person. We kept upping it. Meaner. Rougher.”

      “When did you go?”

      “Last,” she says, smiling bitterly. “Like a fucking fool.”

      She looks like she’s going to start crying again. I type some notes into my screen to give her a chance to get ahold of herself.

      “‘An instinct for weakness,’” she mutters.

      I look up from my screen. “I didn’t mean that you’re weak.”

      “I don’t know. I feel pretty weak.”

      “You’re not, though. That’s why they gave you zom. They had to make you weak. Which proves you’re not. See?”

      She bites on her lip. “I haven’t told you about Astrid yet.”

      “Astrid is weak.”

      “Yeah, I know. She was scapegoat just before me.”

      Astrid’s parents both work as lawyers for big tech, her mom for Google, her dad for Swink. For them, arguing is sport, which maybe partway explains the way Astrid is. If you’re someone who needs to explain why people are the way they are. In second grade Astrid used to brush her hair over her face. Right over the front of it until it covered everything right down to her chin. The teachers were constantly giving her hair bands and brushes and telling her how nice she looked in a ponytail. At Seneca Day, there’s a certain style the teachers are all supposed to use, “suggesting instead of correcting.” But finally one day, Teacher Hawley lost it and shouted, “Astrid, why do you keep doing that!” And all the rest of us looked to the back row where Astrid sat and here comes this little voice, out from behind all that hair: “Because I like it better in here.”

      I still think about that. Because I like it better in here.

      “We got carried away,” Saff says. “We thought because we’re such good friends that we could say anything, do anything, and it was safe.”

      She goes quiet, so I prompt her: “Astrid.”

      “I just rode her, Rhett. All week. I didn’t let up.” As she talks, she pushes up her sleeves like she’s preparing for hard work. “I knew it was bad, too. I knew she was going into the bathroom to cry during break. And that made me even harder on her. Talk about an instinct for weakness.”

      “You’re saying Ellie put you up to it?”

      “That’s the thing. She didn’t. It was me. All of it. I was way worse than the rest of them. Even Ellie probably thought I was going too far. Not that she’d ever stop anyone from going too far.” Saff shakes her head. “I didn’t know I could be like that.”

      “And you think Astrid wanted to get back at you?”

      Saff shrugs. “I’m the one crying in the bathroom these days, aren’t I?”

      She looks so beyond sad. Which is maybe why I make the mistake of saying, “It’s been pretty bad, huh?”

      And Saff starts crying right there in my room.

      “It’s not the soap,” she says, through sobs, “though I still gag every time I have to wash my hands. It’s not the stupid eyebrow.” She touches it, rubbing away more of the pencil. “It’s not even that I was naked. It’s that everyone saw me. All the seniors. All the middle graders. The teachers. My friends’ parents. My parents’ friends. When they look at me now … well, mostly they won’t look at me. That, or they look at me really intensely, and I can practically hear them thinking to themselves, I’m looking her in the eye. I’m looking her in the eye.”

      She puts her face in her hands. I watch her cry. I know I’m not going to hug her, know I’m not even going to pat her arm. But I feel like I should do something. So I take a cookie from the tube. So I bite it. It’s the first solid food I’ve had in over a year, and chewing feels funny. Saff looks up at the crunch. Her eyes are wide, like it’s some big deal, which makes me want to spit out the bite. Instead I take another bite. Then I pass it to her. She takes a bite and passes it back to me. We finish the whole cookie that way, bite by bite.

      CASE NOTES 3/27/35, EVENING

       M EANS

       Any of our suspects could have found the means to dose Saffron Jones.

       Linus Walz (age 17) deals recreational drugs, primarily LSD, X, and hoppit, but it wouldn’t be difficult for Linus to get zom, either for his own use or for a classmate. Ellie never confessed where she got the zom she was caught with last year, but it’s common knowledge that Linus got it for her.

       Josiah Halu (age 16) is СКАЧАТЬ