The Lottery by Beth Goobie Read Free Book Online

for the doorknob. The cool metal slipped under her hand, and she had to try a second time. Then, suddenly, the door was swinging toward her, panic opening wide, as if someone had torn the ribs from her chest and now there was nothing to stand between herself and the sheer fear of her heart.
    For a moment she saw them as they were without her — nine senior students in jeans and rugby shirts, sprawled across an old couch and several armchairs, and laughing over cans of Pepsi and cafeteria lunch trays. Linda Paboni, vampire queen, perched on a guy’s lap. Others sat, feet dangling, along a row of cupboards. They could have been a group of popular students from any public high school. There was nothing to distinguish them in any way except the presence of Sal Hanson herself, standing in the doorway with the third scroll clutched in her right hand.
    A face turned toward her, then another. Like a chalkboard eraser, silence moved across the group, erasing conversation. A gleam seemed to hover over them and they radiated an invisible menace, their layered eyes looking out from behind secrets. Even though Sal was the only one standing, it felt as if they were all looking down at her. Someone snickered.
    “Come in, come in,” called a soft voice. “Don’t let the grass grow beneath your feet.”
    The speaker sat in a burgundy armchair, a shaggy, dark-haired guy with long sideburns — Willis Cass, trumpet player, Student Council vice president, and one of the school’s top athletes. Not once, during all of last year’s Concert Band practices, performances and parties, had Sal spoken to him. Now, as she stepped slowly into the doom of that room, she felt his eyes watching her speculatively, as if she was some kind of conversation piece, curious and oddly shaped. Settling onto the arm of his chair, a bleach-haired girl giggled and slapped his shoulder.
    “Close the door behind you, if you don’t mind.” Willis’s voice seemed to lean toward Sal, encircle her with concern. Turning too quickly to comply, she knocked her hand against the doorframe and felt nothing. She’d gone completely numb. The door clicked quietly as it slid into place, closing her in, and she stood staring at the doorknob as if she’d never seen one before.
    “We’ve saved a chair for you. Come and sit down,” Willis continued, his voice gentle and insistent. Sal watched her hand slide off the doorknob as if it belonged to a stranger. It did belong to a stranger — she was a stranger, she’d never met the person she was becoming, walking woodenly toward the footstool Willis was indicating at the center of the group.
    “Sit down,” he said and she sat facing him, her eyes on his sloppily laced Reeboks.
    “Give me the scroll.”
    Automatically, she handed it to him, his voice the key that unlocked her movements.
    “Thank you,” he said and a silence ensued, a silence of eyes and breathing. All about her she felt it — a soft-breathing circle of watching eyes. She wasn’t looking up, no way was she making eye contact with the horde of predators that pressed so close, she could have touched any one of them without stretching. She might have to be here, trapped in this room, there might be no physical escape, but she knew how to squeeze her mind small and run off into cracks and crannies. They could stare at her body for as long as they wanted, she was already gone, crawled into a hole in the baseboard or deep into the wall — The Wall Live, her favorite CD, the classic album of all time and the one she and Dusty pumped to top volume in the rec room when their mother wasn’t home. “Don’t be a brick!” they would yell at each other, twitching and convulsing to Gilmour’s achingly gorgeous guitar chords and Waters’ heartbeat bass, throbbing at the core of the universe. “Don’t be a brick!”
    “You know why you’re here,” Willis said after a long pause.
    Eyes fixed on the double knots in his shoelaces, Sal jerked out a nod.
    “Tell