“Can I borrow your phone?” I asked.
Laurence handed it over without question and then turned and walked back inside.
I went to the website. I pressed my finger to the phone number. I was actually doing this.
“What’s up? You got the Grayson St. John fight squad hotline.”
The man who answered the phone sounded like he was having the best day of his life. I scurried to the far corner of the yard, as far away from the house as I could get.
“Um, hi,” I said quietly. “I’m Clara. I’m interested in joining?”
“That’s awesome. I’m Victor.”
“Uh, yeah,” I said.
“Where are you?” Victor asked. “Did you look at the list of charter buses on our website?”
“Yeah. I’m in Dallas.”
“Perfect. You’ll go to Atlanta. So here’s how it’ll work. I’ll get some details from you—age, race, gender, current address, combat background, all that jazz, and you’ll be all set to try out when you get here. Do you have a passport?”
“Yes.”
“Perfect. We’re asking that you bring that with you to Atlanta. If you pass, you won’t be returning home before going to Paris. Do you have any questions?”
“Um.” What are my chances of dying? Have I lost my mind? Are you people sure you know what you’re doing? “It’s not a problem that I’m only seventeen?”
“Nope. As long as your parents are cool with it, we’re cool with it.”
“How are you going to know if they’re cool with it?”
“I’ll email you a consent form. Just have a parent or guardian sign it and bring it with you or email it back. You’ll need to include their phone number too. We’ll call to follow up.”
There was no way that Mom or Dad would sign a consent form.
But there was also no way for anyone on the St. John teams to know if I forged the signature and put Laurence’s number down instead. He never answered his phone anyway. And his outgoing voicemail message just said “leave a message if you want, but I don’t check them.”
“Cool?” Victor said.
“Cool,” I said. “Where will we be going? If I make it, I mean.”
“I can’t answer that one. Certainly not the US, but other than that, it depends on where your team is assigned. You’ll all start in Paris, but we’ll have teams in the UK, certain parts of Europe, and China.”
“OK.”
“And be aware that the US government is extremely skeptical of what we’re doing, and they are monitoring our activities very closely. The NSA is probably listening to us right now.” He raised his voice a little. “What’s up, NSA? How’s the weather over there?”
I laughed, then quickly covered the phone so they couldn’t hear it. Maybe you shouldn’t laugh at the NSA.
“But most importantly, we need you to understand that this is a one-way ticket. We won’t pay for return tickets until you’ve been with us for at least a year. You’ll have to get back to the States on your own if you want to leave before that, and plane tickets to the US are outrageously expensive and hard to come by these days. Once you’re there, it will likely be very hard to get back.”
That might have been the most appealing reason to do this so far.
“Why don’t I get some information from you while you’re thinking about it. We’re gathering info on everyone who calls us. Voluntary, of course. And keep in mind that our buddy at the NSA is getting it all too.”
“Sure,” I said, suppressing another laugh.
“Full name? First, middle, last.”
“Clara Rivera Pratt.”
“Gender? This one’s optional, if you’d rather not answer.”
“Female.”
“Race?”
“Hispanic and white.”
“I don’t know if I can click more than one . . . Oh, I can! Perfect. Date of birth?”
He asked a few more questions and hummed as he inputted my info. I gripped the phone, wondering if I’d lost my mind.
“The Dallas bus leaves tomorrow at ten a.m.,” Victor said. “If you miss it, you can find your own way to Atlanta, but we can’t help.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Sorry, it’s after midnight, isn’t it? I mean today. Saturday.” Keys clicked on a keyboard. “So what do you think, Clara? Should I sign you up?”
I looked at the house. It was dark except for the small barred window of Laurence’s bedroom. It wasn’t a bad house. There were worse ones in the neighborhood.
Mom always liked to point out how things could be worse. We could be homeless, or run out of food at the end of every month, or we could have been born in the UK or Europe, where scrabs attacked constantly. We might get slapped around occasionally, but there was always someone who had it worse.
But this felt like the worst. The things that my mom had decided to accept were as bad as it could get for me. This house with the man who was allowed to terrorize us, over and over, was the worst thing I could imagine.
Victor had remained quiet, even though it had been at least thirty seconds since he’d asked his question.
“It can’t be worse than this, right?” I whispered.
I thought he’d laugh, or make a joke about how fighting scrabs was no picnic. Instead, he let out a breath of air that sounded like agreement. “Yeah,” he said. “I know what you mean.”
5
After a few hours’ sleep, I stuffed my backpack with clothes, underwear, and my sneakers. The confirmation email Victor sent me said to pack lunch and snacks, but when I checked the kitchen late last night, the only snacks I found were some very brown bananas. Mom didn’t keep the pantry well stocked when Dad was away.
I could live without food for a day, but I really wanted my phone. Dad would cut off the service as
