Deprivation House (9 page)

“What exactly would I have to do as part of the alliance?” I wanted to know.

“Do your best to win,” she told me.

That sounded okay.

“And do your best to make sure that everyone who isn't one of us loses,” she added.

I couldn't help wondering if that included murder.

“Scrambled eggs? Plain scrambled eggs? Aren't you supposed to put tomato or mushrooms or spices in them?” Ripley wrinkled her nose as she
stared into the frying pan on the stove.

“Watch out, Joe, she's gotten seven chefs fired,” Kit said from her perch on the countertop next to the toaster. “Or was it eight, Rip?”

Ripley turned her back on Kit, and I thought I heard her counting to ten under her breath.

“I guess I could put in some of that stuff.” Joe pushed the eggs around the pan with the fork. “Except I'm not sure there's time.”

“There isn't,” I told him. “Another thirty seconds, and you'll have added the fine flavor of charcoal.”

Joe pulled the pan off the burner. “I guess we're ready to eat.”

“The table's set,” Mikey said, joining us in the kitchen. “I hope nobody cares about whether the forks and knives are on the correct side. I can never remember. But I guess there's a fifty percent chance I got it right.”

Four pieces of toast popped up, and Kit immediately reloaded the toaster. “Cooking is fun!” She took a big gulp of her coffee.

The timer on the stove went off. I glanced at Ripley. She didn't move. “That's for your Tater Tots.” She stared at me blankly for a few seconds. Then she nodded.

“Right. So all I have to do is take them out of the oven, right?” she asked.

“Maybe add a little caviar and parsley,” Joe teased.

Ripley narrowed her eyes at him but didn't say anything. She managed to get the Tots out of the oven without hurting herself or anybody else.

“Breakfast!” Kit shouted into the intercom. I wondered if she completely understood the intercom concept. Then she slurped some more coffee, grabbed a plate of toast in each hand, and left for the dining room.

I took the bacon, Joe took the eggs, Ripley took the Tots, Mikey took the juice, and breakfast was served.

“No peanuts, right?” Bobby T asked when he took his seat at the table. He looked good, like he hadn't had a near-death experience last night.

“No peanuts, no peanut oil, no one even said the word peanuts while performing food prep,” Joe told him.

“Thanks again for last night,” he told Ripley.

“You're welcome,” she said.

Had she turned her head a little toward the camera mounted in the corner before she answered? She didn't do it in an obvious Kit-style way. But I thought she might have.

“You cooked these?” Brynn asked Joe, forking some scrambled eggs into her mouth.

“I did,” he answered.

She smiled. “You're so talented.”

If my brother was a cartoon, he'd have little hearts circling around his read right now. I could see it. There was something about her that just made you want to look and keep on looking.

“The food's a lot better than last night, that's for sure,” Wilson commented.

“There was nothing wrong with last night's food,” snapped James. He was one of the cooks of last night's food.

“I loaded the dishwasher last night, and approximately forty-three percent of the food was left on the plates,” Rosemary volunteered.

“That's because we'd spent the day scooping up cockroaches,” Hal protested. He'd also been one of the cooks. “Who could eat after that?”

He had a point.

“The hamburgers were bloody in the middle,” Mary said. She gave a little shudder.

“And the frozen french fries—you're not supposed to serve them frozen,” Silent Girl said.

Kit pointed at her. “You spoke!”

“I didn't even know you could,” Mikey said. “I didn't want to ask in case there was some kind of tragic story.”

“Any information you give about yourself can be used against you on these shows. So I decided
not to talk. I'm going back to not talking now. Those french fries made me do it,” Silent Girl answered.

We all watched her for a few seconds, but she returned to eating. It didn't seem like she had any intention of speaking again.

“Actually, last night's dinner gave me the idea for what luxury I'm having taken away,” Bobby T announced.

The room went still.

“I decided to give up hot food,” Bobby said. “So no stove or microwave.”

“No toaster, no waffle maker,” Veronica added, stepping into the room. She had on an emerald green suit today. Short and shiny. Her white-blond hair was in a complicated twist at the back of her head. “No George Foreman grill. No barbecue. No crockpot, no rice cooker, no espresso machine, no coffeemaker, no hot plates, no—”

“Wait! Back it up!” Kit exclaimed. “No coffeemaker?”

“Nothing to make hot food or beverages,” Veronica said firmly.

Kit grabbed her coffee cup and drained it. Then she dashed to the kitchen. She returned moments later. “It's already gone!” she burst out.

“Yes, it is,” Veronica said with a smile. “Also, the
phones have been removed. I'll need all your cell phones, too.”

Mitch appeared with the velvet bag, and we all—well, most of us—began pulling cells from our pockets. I noticed Olivia didn't have one. Wilson either. Bobby T had four.

“What if there's an emergency?” I asked. “I had to use my cell to call 911 for Bobby last night.”

“Use the intercom. It reaches my quarters and all the crew and staff's,” Veronica answered. “I can see some of you are already feeling frustrated. Now is the perfect time to tell you about the Deprivation Chamber. We've set up a soundproof booth in what used to be the billiard room. If you feel the need to vent about how horrible it is to live without your usual luxuries, just pop into the booth and go ahead.”

“But filmed, right?” Olivia asked.

“Of course filmed,” Veronica answered. “And anything on film may be used on any of the episodes. But film from the chamber will not be used when the judges and I make our decision each week about who must leave the house.”

“Nothing we say in there can be used against us?” James leaned his chair back on two legs and crossed his arms.

“Not a word. Now get back to your breakfasts. It
will be the last hot meal you have for quite a while. Unless anyone would like to take the option to leave today . . .”

No one did.

Veronica left us to ourselves.

“I can't believe you did this to me,” Kit told Bobby. “I can't live without coffee. Coffee is my life.”

“Drink soda. Soda has caffeine,” Joe suggested.

“Caffeine is not coffee,” Kit snarled.

Joe held up both hands. “Okay.”

“No iPod is a lot worse than no hot food,” Brynn commented. “Last night I actually put my pinkies in my ears and hummed. We've been here two days and I'm losing it!”

“You just don't understand,” snapped Kit.

She was still complaining when we'd all finished breakfast.

“Hey, Frank,” Olivia said when I stood up from the table. “I wanted to get some aspirin from the supply closet, but the shelf it's on is a little too high for me. Will you get it?”

“Sure.” I followed her to the walk-in closet.

“No camera in here, either,” Olivia said. “I wanted to know if you'd made a decision about the alliance.”

“I did. And I'm in,” I told her. I thought Olivia
was a strong suspect. The best way to keep a close watch on her was to join her inner circle. If another alliance formed that we needed to investigate, I figured Joe could infiltrate it.

“Great,” Olivia told me. “I want you to help me pick the other members. I think we need two. I'm still thinking about Wilson. You talk to as many people as you can and let me know who you think is one of us.”

I nodded. Talking to as many people as I could was what I needed to do anyway.

Olivia started for the door. “Oh, you'd better get me the aspirin. I don't want anyone getting suspicious.”

I handed her a bottle. “Hey, Olivia,” I said, trying to sound as if the thought had just occurred to me. “What's the deal with Ripley? You said she was only on the show for PR.”

“You're not going to believe this,” Olivia answered. “See, Ripley's parents are really upset about all the bad publicity she's gotten. And you know it's really bad when the drummer for Tubskull thinks it's bad. So they told her that if she didn't change her act and get some good press, they were going to cut her off.”

“No money?” It was hard to imagine Ripley with no money.

“Nothing until she gets her inheritance—when she's thirty,” said Olivia, sounding really happy. “So she definitely doesn't need to win the million. She already has what she needs to get all the money she wants. She's on a TV show. All she has to do is act basically nice. That will get her the good publicity, and she's golden.”

Olivia reached for the door handle. “We can't stay in here together too long. The first rule of forming an alliance is that no one can suspect you of forming an alliance.” She hurried out.

I waited a couple of minutes, then left myself. I needed to find Joe. We needed some bathroom time. Or I guess it could be supply closet time now.

It took me a while to track my brother down, but I finally found him sitting by the fountain. With—of course—Brynn. Did I even have a partner on this mission? It didn't exactly feel like it.

“Joe, can I talk to you for a minute?” I called.

“Did you find my sunglasses?” asked Joe. Then he said something softly to Brynn and headed over to me.

I took him into one of the downstairs bathrooms and filled him in on the deal with Olivia. He was way too entertained by her sneaking up to my bed, but he agreed that my joining her alliance was a good call.

He socked me on the shoulder. “If she tries to make you sign something in blood, I'd—”

“Everybody, get up to the living room—great room—whatever. Now!” Kit shouted through the intercom. “Right now!”

“I
think this place should be called Screaming House or Shrieking House instead of Deprivation House,” I told Frank as we dashed up the stairs. A few people were ahead of us, a bunch behind.

“What? What?” Mikey burst out. He was one of the first into the great room.

Kit pointed at the plasma screen. On it, Ripley was plunging a needle full of epinephrine into Bobby T's thigh.

“That's our room,” exclaimed Hal.

“That's me,” Bobby T said, pushing his way to the front of the group.

“What is this?” Brynn asked Kit.

“
Baristas,
” Ripley answered for her. “It's a gossip show.”

“It's a gossip show with coffee,” Kit corrected. “I figured if I couldn't drink it, it might help to watch other people drink it.”

The clip disappeared and was replaced by two twenty-something women standing behind a coffee bar. “That's a Ripley Lansing we haven't seen before,” the one with the long brown hair said.

“It seemed like she was thinking about that boy instead of herself,” the one with the long blond hair agreed.

“That's not—,” Ripley began, then bit her lip.

“What does she mean, ‘that boy'?” Bobby T scowled at the screen.

“That boy is actually Bobby T,” Long Brown told Long Blond. “He and Ripley are going to be on a new reality show together. They are locked in a house—a villa in Beverly Hills actually—right now. The details are hush-hush. Bobby's saying as much as he can on his blog, but he hasn't said what the show is actually about.”

“Huh. So that was Bobby T. I guess he's good with Photoshop. He doesn't look much like the pictures on his blog,” Long Blond commented.

James snickered.

“But back to our Ripley. She was like something
out of that doctor show we're addicted to. Young. Beautiful. Saving lives,” Long Brown continued.

“She might even get herself off Santa's bad list in time for Christmas,” agreed Long Blond.

“Speaking of Santa, did you see that hilarious clip on YouTube?” Long Brown asked.

“How do you think they got that tape?” Wilson said.

“Veronica leaked it to them, of course,” answered Olivia.

“At least they mentioned the blog.” Bobby T didn't sound happy.

But Ripley had a big smile on her face. I thought about what Frank had told me during our bathroom break. Could Ripley have slipped Bobby T the peanut oil just so she could “save” him?

With cameras everywhere, she could have figured the rescue would get out sooner or later. And Ripley was right there almost at the moment Bobby T ate carpet.