The Ones (5 page)

Cody shrugged, not knowing for sure and not too excited to find out.

They took seats and leaned against walls in the waiting area, staring at the closed office door of Principal Bixley. Ms. Bixley kept them waiting, the school day passing by around them, other students walking by and staring at them like animals in a zoo. Cody grew frustrated, knowing she was missing her chemistry lab now, where she had been looking forward to messing around with some liquid nitrogen. At least sweet old Margie shuffled around with her candy bowl at one point and whispered an apology. Cody smiled at her, trying not to make her feel bad. Other than that, they waited silently.

When Ms. Bixley finally emerged, she had the usual fake smile plastered on her face. Cody had always felt that Ms. Bixley was petty and calculating, but apparently her trick worked on other people. She was young for a principal and carried herself with an eager but serious manner, like the daughter of a president, a perfect angel who had never made a mistake.

“I hope you weren't waiting long,” she said.

“Why are we here?” Cody asked, not able to take it any longer.

“I'd love to explain, Cody, if you'll let me,” Ms. Bixley said cheerfully. “I'm sure some of you are a little anxious about the Supreme Court decision yesterday. It seems to have triggered some unintended and ugly consequences across the country, and I'd be nervous, too, if I were in your shoes. I understand, sadly, that even Shasta is feeling the effects of this new atmosphere, and I'm sorry to hear that many of your homes were vandalized last night.”

Cody jolted up, surprised. Apparently, she wasn't the only One who'd had a brick shatter her window. It made her feel better and worse at the same time. She turned to James, who was leaning against the wall next to her. They hadn't talked since he'd taken her home after the quarry. She mouthed a question to him, and he shook his head—his house hadn't been hit.

“In light of these events,” Ms. Bixley continued, “we want you to know that we will do everything in our power here at school to preserve a safe, welcoming environment. To ensure that, we have decided to give all of you special school ID cards. Margie?”

Ms. Bixley reached out to Margie, who scurried around her desk with several lanyard necklaces attached to plastic ID tags. Ms. Bixley took them and started to walk around the room, holding each necklace open and placing it over the head of every student as if they were part of some sad Olympic-medal ceremony.

“We've put sensors on the school doors, and these cards will let us know when you enter and exit all the buildings. That way, if there's any trouble, or if your parents are looking for you or something else comes up, we'll always know exactly where you are. Just make sure to wear them at all times!” she explained.

When Ms. Bixley got to her, Cody didn't bow her head. “I'm not wearing a tracking collar.”

“It's for your own protection, Cody, and it's not a choice. You won't be allowed in school without one.” She reached up again to fit the lanyard over Cody's head, but Cody grabbed it from her quickly and stuffed it into her fraying jeans.

“Then I'll keep it in my pocket.” Cody glared at Ms. Bixley but just got that same wide smile in return.

“All right, then, back to class, everyone.” She held her gaze on Cody. “And stay safe.”

*   *   *

Cody sat through her next class in a fog of anger, the ID card burning a hole in her pocket. Sure, every student had a school ID that they used to check out library books and register for classes and things like that. And if the Ones and their families and their property were in danger, Cody understood the need for precautions. But Ms. Bixley's insistence that they wear the IDs around their necks drove her crazy. That wasn't a safety measure; it was a scarlet letter, a piece of plastic that practically screamed out the word
genny
.

When her history class ended, Cody started to file out with everyone else, but her teacher waved her over. Mr. Oberlee rarely got up from his desk, which was understandable considering that he was shaped like a penguin and equally unsuited for walking on land. Yet somehow Mr. Oberlee also coached the cross-country team, an irony that had always delighted Cody. She thought he was the best teacher in the school and even enjoyed his passionate reenactments of Winston Churchill speeches, so she let him slide on being clueless about the biomechanics of long-distance running.

“Hi, Cody, I wanted to catch you before practice. I imagine you're pretty excited for the meet on Friday?” Mr. Oberlee said.

“Of course,” she said. Even more than running on her own, Cody loved the chess match of the actual competition. Her main tactic was to bolt hard right from the start, making the rest of the pack nervous and forcing them to exert themselves too early. But the smarter girls stalked her, assuming that Cody would eventually fade. Cody's secret was that she always saved a hidden gear for the final stretch and would open her stride when the other runners made their move. She loved seeing the surprise on their faces when she let loose—loved imagining it, rather, because she never actually saw their faces.

“As you know, we can only enter five runners in the race,” Mr. Oberlee continued. “And I thought that this week might be a good chance to give some of the other girls a shot.”

“I don't understand,” Cody said, genuinely not following him.

“You're not going to run this week.”

“But I'm our fastest runner.”

“I know that. And I get that this might seem unfair. To be honest, I don't like it, either,” he said, looking down and then out the window, and Cody could tell that this ridiculous idea hadn't originated with Mr. Oberlee.

“Then why can't I run?” she asked.

“Because, well, that's just how it has to be this week,” he said, and started fiddling with some papers. “I'm sorry, Cody.”

Cody stumbled out of the classroom, crushed about not being able to run, but even angrier about the new reality that she had to acknowledge:
Reed v. NIH
had changed things. Technically speaking, it applied only to banning the technology for future generations, but practically speaking, the whole world was against her now. Maybe they always had been, but now they had permission from the government. And as she walked into the cafeteria for lunch, Cody discovered that she wasn't the only One suffering for it.

A group of Ones was gathered around a single table.
Weird
, Cody thought, to see the Ones from different grades all together like that again—and to her irritation, all of them had their ID draped around their neck. The group huddled around Laura, who was sobbing. Cody had never liked Laura and thought she was an entitled brat who worried too much about matching her nail polish to her scarf. But Laura did seem genuinely distraught, so Cody sat down and tried to catch up.

“
Understudy?
He actually said I could still be the
understudy
!” Laura squealed, with tears and saliva falling onto her magenta silk blouse and skinny jeans.
So much for that outfit
, Cody thought. She made eye contact with James, and he walked around the table and knelt down next to her.

“She lost the lead in the musical. The drama teacher gave the part to somebody else,” James said, filling in the blanks. “And the same thing happened to me. I was supposed to deliver the final rebuttal for our debate team tomorrow. But our faculty adviser just told me I'm out. No explanation at all.”

The rest of the Ones each had a similar story, but Cody barely needed to hear them. She saw all too clearly that a systematic policy had been implemented to take away everything the Ones had earned. Cody stood up and bolted into the hall, heading for Ms. Bixley's office.

She barged straight through the waiting area, past Margie, and through the principal's door. “I know this is all your idea,” Cody accused her.

Ms. Bixley smiled, as if she was pleased at Cody's agitation. “Is something wrong?”

Cody could have flipped over her desk right then, but she had already used up the benefit of the doubt when it came to suspicious acts of violence against Ms. Bixley. During last year's homecoming weekend, Cody and her teammates had been warming up for their soccer game. Behind the field, Ms. Bixley was at the bake sale, and with a ball at her feet, Cody couldn't resist ripping a shot in Ms. Bixley's direction with the vague intention of startling her or knocking some cookies off the table. To Cody's surprise and secret satisfaction, the soccer ball bounced squarely off Ms. Bixley's face, and the blood that gushed out of her nose ruined every last baked good. Cody had apologized, of course, and the whole thing was written off as an accident, but any reasonable person who saw the location of the soccer goal might have drawn a different conclusion. Regardless, Cody knew she probably couldn't get away with injuring Ms. Bixley a second time. So she tried her best to be civil.

“You are kicking the Ones out of the positions they earned,” Cody said. She assumed Ms. Bixley would deny it or play dumb, but her answer made Cody even angrier.

“Of course we are. It's a new day, Cody, and everyone is focused on equality right now. The Supreme Court, Congress, the Board of Education—they all think it best if we are a little more vigilant about giving everyone equal opportunities. I'm just following their new guidelines. Don't you think it's fair for those other students to get a chance?”

“Not if they don't deserve it. And not if they're worse.”

“
Deserve?
Did the first group of students
deserve
it? Or were they just more fortunate?”

Cody saw where Ms. Bixley was going: She was implying that the Ones hadn't earned their accomplishments. Cody understood the logic, but in her case it just wasn't true. Yeah, she was born with long legs and a strong heart, but those abilities were still totally organic to her. In fact, they might have existed no matter how she was born. There was no way to know, and Cody couldn't stand being punished for that.

“What if you got fired because the school hired someone less qualified?” Cody asked. “Would that seem fair to you?”

“I earned this job. Through hard work and my God-given abilities,” Ms. Bixley said. “It wasn't bestowed upon me in a petri dish.”

Cody stared back at her, wishing she had a soccer ball. Then Ms. Bixley walked over to stand right in front of her. There was a different look on her face; she had dropped the perfect-principal facade and appeared more relaxed than Cody had ever seen her. This caught Cody off guard, and she stepped back, stumbling and falling onto the office couch. Ms. Bixley kept walking forward until she was standing right over Cody.

“It's all right to be scared about what's happening. You should be scared. Every last
one
of you.” Ms. Bixley kept staring at her calmly. “Now get the hell out of my office.”

*   *   *

“We're in trouble, James,” Cody said as they left school together. She had filled him in on her chilling encounter with Ms. Bixley, and since neither felt inclined to participate in their respective extracurricular activities, they were leaving early to hit up their favorite diner. “The green light has been given to mess with us. And people seem pretty happy about it.”

“I think they're just testing us,” James said. “They're provoking us, and we're failing.”

“We should let them do whatever they want? Come on, we have to stand up for ourselves.”

“The bricks, the ID cards, the demotions—it sucks, I'm with you. But what good does getting angry do? You almost died last night. And now you've got Bixley gunning for you. Fighting back has only made things worse.”

“So we shouldn't even react?”

“That's not what I'm saying. Just … react better. If they want to be violent, we can be peaceful. If they act petty, we stay classy. We do that, and this will all blow over soon enough.”

“All right, Gandhi,” Cody said. She was annoyed by how preachy James sounded, but she saw his point.

“Next time one of these idiots acts out, promise me you won't lose your cool?” he said.

“Fine,” she said begrudgingly.

“Well, that doesn't inspire much confidence.”

“I don't have to like it, okay? But you're right. They want us to overreact so they can justify doing something worse. I won't give them a reason, I promise.”

James put his arm around her and kissed her temple, and then they walked up the steps to the Starlite, the local diner. It wasn't busy, so they took seats at the empty counter. A waitress trudged over, weary but smiling.

“Hi, Mom,” Cody said.

Her mother, Joanne, reached out and squeezed Cody's arm. “Hi, kids,” she said. Joanne was a small woman, her straw-colored hair half gray now after thirty years of working at this same counter. She was an eternal optimist, though, and was proud that her daughter wasn't going to be pouring coffee for a living.

“The usual, please,” Cody said.

“Not so fast. What the hell happened last night? I saw the window.”

“Sorry, I thought James would get mad at me if I told you,” Cody said.

“What?” he said, surprised. Cody kicked his leg under the counter.

“He and his friends were in some stupid water-balloon fight all day, you know, like a prank war. They followed us back to our place and tried to hit us as we ran inside.”

“A water balloon shattered your window?” Joanne asked, dubious.

“Yes. It must have been a big one,” Cody said. She kicked James again, harder this time.

“Yup. A really big one,” he said.

“Wow. Are you all right?”

“We're fine,” Cody said.

“And don't worry about replacing the glass—I already made my friend pay for it,” James said, and stood up to pull his wallet out of his khakis. He counted out some bills and handed them to Joanne. “Sorry about all that.” James sat back down sheepishly, but Cody was the one feeling terrible. She felt bad taking James's money, but she knew he had it and she didn't.