Scripted by Maya Rock Read Free Book Online Page B

obsessed because I see these things. Chicken or egg deal. I see that his aloofness covers up his sensitivity. I see how he distances himself from all of us at lunch and I know that he still thinks of himself as someone who’s on the outskirts of every social situation, even though his sports success has made the opposite true. He didn’t have to tell me he was tired of baseball. I see him flinch when the other tracs get too rowdy. I know he doesn’t feel like one of them. That he isn’t one of them.
    The Herrons’ screen door slams shut. They’re inside now. I get up and jerk the cord on the blinds, ignoring Media1’s encouragement to keep our windows unshaded. I can’t risk seeing them close up. It’s bad enough that Lia’s going to share every detail when she comes over tomorrow. She’s going to be thrilled, and not just because they did it. When she started closing up with Martin, her already high ratings skyrocketed, and she’s sure that’s why. Yet another way in which her desires coincide with what the Audience wants to see.
    As I walk away from the window, my elbow knocks against an empty blue bottle that stands next to the old telephone receiver I’m using for the radio. My breath catches as the bottle wobbles precipitously. I reach out and still it.
Rid your personal sets of any reminders of Belle.
    Belle gave me the bottle in sixth grade.
    We’d taken a field trip to Avalon Beach, playing tag on the shore. I’d broken off from Selwyn and Geraldine Spicer and scrambled onto a jetty, hunting for seashells. But Belle had beaten me there and was bent down, spidery-legged, pulling out a bottle wedged between the rocks.
    â€œWhat’s that?” I asked.
    She gasped, surprised, and stammered in her faltering voice, “Sorry, I thought—I didn’t hear you. Um, I just—it’s a bottle.”
    I came closer. “It’s nice,” I said.
    She glanced at it and back at me, calming, her hazel eyes assessing me. It was one of the few times I’d seen her without her glasses, and she almost looked pretty, her stringy hair wet and clinging to her cheeks.
    â€œYou think so?” She didn’t wait for me to answer, just stood and thrust her hand out at me. “Here, take it.”
    â€œOh, okay, thanks,” I said, cradling it. She was already scurrying back over the rocks to the shore. The deal was done.
    I haven’t thought of her connection to the bottle in seasons.
    I want to keep it.
    I wonder if Mom had struggled with letting go of my father’s reminders. If she hadn’t given them up willingly, Media1 would have taken them and fined her. I wouldn’t know if they’d missed any. He was cut a long time ago, and I don’t have any memories of him. Sometimes my grandmother Violet rambles about him as if he’s still on the island. From what I’ve pieced together from her accidental reveals, he was shy. He liked the rain. He disliked the sound of markers scrawling on paper.
    â€œI have to do something,” I mumble to myself. I’m sick of thinking, so I decide to work on the radio. Everyone’s so impressed I can build stuff, make things, figure out how electricity and levers and pulleys and transistors work, but it’s easy to do when the reward for working on a project is
peace.
I never get that feeling at Fincher’s, where I’m pressured to hurry up and fix; it’s totally different from slowing down and creating.
    I’m in the final stages. I have all the materials I need—now it’s time to put them together. I use an old pen to poke four holes into a used-up hydrogen peroxide bottle that I snagged from the chemistry classroom and then carefully weave green insulated wire through the holes. I’m following the instructions from an electronics book I borrowed from Fincher’s. Then I coil the wire around the outside of the bottle. I tape the wires to the