“Why? What did she say?”
Her grin grew wider as she leaned in closer. She kept her eyes on Jared, making sure he wasn’t really awake. “He failed,” she whispered.
Alex’s grin quickly grew larger than hers.
“Grade 2!” she added.
They burst out laughing, not at all worried about waking Jared.
“How can you even fail Grade 2?” Alex asked, exasperated and excited by the new piece of information. “Did he forget to bring stuff for Show and Tell every day?”
“I dunno,” Kaitlyn replied, “but he did!”
Alex relaxed as he looked at Jared. He wasn’t as threatening as he had seemed earlier; as he had seemed every day of Alex’s life up to that very moment.
“Don’t worry,” Kaitlyn said, walking away. “We’re all on your side.”
Alex smiled back at her and then watched her walk down the hall to play games with Hannah at the top of the stairs. My side, he thought. All on my side. None on his.
DAY 9
ALEX
The next day Alex began to suspect, much to his dismay, that he’d been wrong. He thought that if he had asked the rest of the group, they would have been on Jared’s side after all.
Jared was being helpful. Far more helpful than Alex had been the entire time he had been there.
He helped ration out breakfast, helped David with the final construction of his SPLICER!, and was almost ready to help him move it downstairs. Now he was working with Nicole on something.
He’s charming them, Alex thought as he watched Jared discuss further food runs with Nicole. Crap! He’s never gonna screw up bad enough!
“Hey, Alec!” Jared called to him. “Come on in here! We need to talk to you.”
Alex was already getting sick being bossed around by the same jerk who had forced him into so many embarrassing and painful situations in the past.
“We’re making up a list of jobs,” Nicole said, as he walked into the supply room. He noticed that someone—probably stupid Jared—had set up a folding table, which they stood behind.
“What do you mean ‘list of jobs’?” Alex asked, making the situation seem far more unreasonable than it actually was. “We don’t have jobs! Whenever something needs to get done, people just say they’ll do it, then they do it! That’s the system that we,” indicating only himself and Nicole, “have been using the whole time. It works.”
Jared stared at him, not revealing any emotion. “Yes Alec, but—”
“Alex.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“My name is Alex.”
Jared looked back at him, then at Nicole, then back at Alex. His expression was almost comical, as if he was joking, but Alex did not find it funny. “Was I not saying ‘Alex’? I’m so sorry, Alec-suh.”
Alex fumed, mostly because Nicole didn’t seem to notice Jared pushing his buttons.
“Anyway, Alec-suh, yeah, we’re making a list of jobs and, you know, trying to make everything more efficient. Make better use of our time and resources. Do you understand, Alec-suh?”
Alex stared, certain that his face was growing redder. He looked to Nicole for some kind of reaction, but she was busy with the lists and still didn’t notice what was happening.
“For example,” Jared continued, “Nicole is in charge of things like making schedules and lists and checking that there’s enough food and stuff like that. It’s an important job, right, Nicole?”
Nicole simply nodded, keeping her eyes on the list.
“David is in charge of security,” Jared continued, “and he’s a damn fine look-out, too, from what I understand. Don’t you think so, Alec-SUH?”
Alex clenched his fists, wondering if Nicole would keep looking at her lists if he punched Jared in the face.
“Kaitlyn is responsible for the other girl,” Jared looked to Nicole. “Hannah, right?”
Nicole nodded once again.
“She’s kinda a babysitter. Which is good, because some people here are too young to be able to do much else. Isn’t that right, Alec-suh?”
Alex felt his fingernails digging into his palms as they became more and more clammy.
“So,” Jared said, pen in hand, “what is it that you do here, Alec-suh?”
“What?” Alex blurted, angry that he had been asked such a question.
“I’m sorry, did he not understand me?” Jared asked Nicole. “What can you do around here? You know, like a job. Like the rest of us.”
Alex pictured his response: he’d stare Jared down—stare him into silence. Then he’d turn to leave, but first, he’d whip back around and slug him right in the face. Jared would spin, cartoon style, and flop down onto his stupid lists.
But instead, he just turned and left.
“Okay, Alec!” Jared called to him. “I’ll just put a question mark for now, okay? Thanks!”
As he stomped down the hall to visit Shadow—his last loyal friend—Alex noticed that the others were doing their jobs, just like Jared had told them to.
He spent the next few hours with his dog, keeping out of other people’s way. He didn’t want to interfere with their “jobs,” now that they were given them by President Jared and Vice President Nicole. After some time, David came in looking for something. He seemed surprised to see Alex.
“Oh, hey,” he said as he entered. “I thought you went out.”
“What? Where would I go?”
“I dunno,” David shrugged. “Taking Shadow for a walk or something? I dunno. Jared just said that—”
“Well, Jared doesn’t know everything,” Alex snapped. “He doesn’t know much, actually.”
David continued looking around the room. An uncomfortable silence passed between them. Shadow approached David, looking for fresh hands to pat her.
“You know, he’s not that bad,” David said, scratching Shadow behind her ear. “He’s even going to help me move the dead guys from the spikes outside.”
“Good for him.” After a moment, he caught what the other boy had just said. “What? The dead-dead mudmen? I thought—”
“They’re not really made of mud, you know,” David said with a shrug. “They’re just dead, right? Jared says—”
“I don’t really care what Jared says, okay, David?” Alex said, standing up to leave.
David
