Even When You Lie to Me by Jessica Alcott Read Free Book Online Page A

we’d get to do our own ideas.”
    “That would make sense and be fair,” Mr. Drummond said. “But I want you to stretch yourselves. So let’s go around and choose. Chuck?”
    I started as if he’d shocked me. “Sorry, what?”
    He smiled patiently. “Which story would you like? First choice.”
    “Uh.” I frowned feverishly at the board. The letters all looked like runes. “The first one, I guess.”
    “It’s éclairs,” he said as he wrote my name next to the story idea. “For future reference.”
    “I’ll make a note of it,” I muttered.

“So what did you guys think of the end?” Mr. Drummond held up his battered copy of
Catch-22.
    There was a pause. “I didn’t like it,” Sean said.
    A couple of kids laughed nervously, but Mr. Drummond held a hand up for silence. “Why not, Sean?”
    “Okay, I liked Doc Daneeka. He just, like, owns being a dick. But Yossarian’s supposed to be a hero and he’s actually a complete loser.” The class laughed again. “And like I needed to know that war is bad. It’s funny at first, I guess, but toward the end it’s just, like, well, life sucks and then you die.”
    “Isn’t that kind of the point?” Lila said.
    “How is that a point?” Sean asked.
    “You don’t think that’s the entire point of the book?” Asha said. “That war is futile?”
    “If it is, that’s a really dumb book.”
    I looked to Mr. Drummond, feeling panicked. He was watching them with a placid expression. He glanced at me and I looked away again.
    “Okay, Sean,” he said. “Do you have to agree with all of a book’s ideas to like it?”
    “Uh,” Sean said. “Yes?”
    “No?” Lila said. “Unless you’re a dumbass like Sean?”
    That got another laugh. Sean stuck his middle finger up at Lila and she blew a kiss at him. Ugh.
    “All right,” Mr. Drummond said. “Let’s keep the level of discourse above obscene gestures at least until we get to Jane Austen.” He paused. “So. Sean thinks the book is arguing that life is pointless, and that argument doesn’t convince him. Let’s take a step back. Why would a book make an argument like that?”
    Sean shrugged. “Dunno.”
    “Do you think it could encompass a larger argument? Like, say, one for atheism?”
    I looked up sharply.
    “Explain,” Lila said.
    “Think,” Mr. Drummond said.
    Lila grinned. I felt something turn in my stomach.
    “What do we find out about the catch-22?” he said.
    “It doesn’t actually exist?” Lila ventured. “But the powers that be tell them it does exist, so it kind of does.”
    Mr. Drummond leaned forward and Lila did too. I suddenly noticed how low-cut her top was.
    “And who does it benefit?” he said.
    “The people in power.”
    “How?”
    “It…keeps them in power?”
    “The idea does?”
    “Yeah.”
    “So it’s an idea that benefits the status quo, keeps people afraid and complacent, and is almost impossible to disprove once it’s been established,” Mr. Drummond said. “That remind you of anything?”
    I’d been distracted by Lila’s cleavage, but when he said that, I looked up at him in surprise. I could feel something inside my mind twist open. When he noticed me watching him, he raised his eyebrows at me. Again I looked away.
    “So you’re implying that the book’s talking about…” Lila trailed off as if she would get in trouble if she continued. Her eyes looked luminous.
    “You can say it,” Mr. Drummond said. “But keep in mind that I have a duty to report any seditious thoughts to Dr. Crowley.”
    Lila was delighted. “Is it talking about God?”
    “Let me get this straight,” Mr. Drummond said. “You think it’s saying God might not exist but we’ve been led by people in power to believe he does, for their own benefit.”
    “Yeah, I guess,” Lila said.
    Mr. Drummond leaned back and pointed to the door. “Get the fuck out,” he said with mock ferocity.
    The class exploded into laughter with the sudden force of a balloon