The Wicked Awakening of Anne Merchant (45 page)

“Three years now, Anne. Three years I’ve waited.” He stares ahead at the screen. “We’ll talk about this later. But you’d better have a good explanation for your behavior.”

I do
, I think,
but will you listen?

“I’ve decided to switch up the graduation ceremony, as well,” Dia says to a hushed audience. Molly grabs my hand. “More about that after we name the valedictorian.”

“Oh, how exciting,” the woman behind me says.

Molly and I exchange an annoyed stare.

“And now, to the short list and the ten students who have made the cut.”

Dia reads the names. Alphabetically.

When he gets to number nine, Jack Wesson, Molly squeezes my hand. Because there aren’t many names other than Zin that come after Wesson. Joie Wannabe preceded him.

“And, number ten,” Dia reads, “Mr. Ebenezer Zin.”

Then he slumps back into his chair.

Molly and I gasp with relief. I want to hug her, but there’s a room of graduates and their parents that are facing the worst right now. The audio cuts out. In the moments before the screens go black, mothers fall to their knees and fathers throw back their heads.

Invidia offers a voice-over. “Next,” she explains, “the Guardians of the short listed will make a single one-minute statement about their student. It will be timed. The rest of the Guardians will then vote to determine the three students whose Guardians will debate their case before Headmasters Villicus and Voletto.”

The screens light up and the audio kicks in again.

The battle for the Big V begins.

Finn Kid introduces us, quite passionately, to his student, Veronica Brass as her PT appears in a banner on the screen. A minute later, Dr. Tina Naysi tells the Guardians why we should care about Corey Dewitt, and we learn his PT. One by one, Guardians present short pitches meant not only to save their students but also to save themselves.

If I had the Seven Sinning Sisters serving me, I could save everyone. None of this would be happening. If only that were the mission Teddy and my mom had in store for me. Instead of destruction, life.

I glance at Teddy.

“Nervous?” Molly whispers to me. “You’re shaking. Don’t worry. Garnet can do this.”

No sooner has she uttered those words than Garnet’s beautiful face appears on screen. Written below her face:
Ebenezer Zin. To succeed in life by making sacrifices
.

I can’t watch.

I close my eyes. And listen.

“What if your entire future rested on your actions during a mere nine-month period?” Garnet begins. “Whilst your competitors have as many as two full years to prove themselves, you must prove your worth in the blink of an eye. That is the reality my student Ben Zin faced.”

So far, fine—but not great. Finn Kid opened with Veronica’s death at the age of thirteen, when she was volunteering at an orphanage. That was a good opener. This? I hope for a miracle.

“Yet here Ben is,” Garnet continues. “He is at the top of his class, a valiant competitor who has applied himself to his
prosperitas thema
, which is to make sacrifices, the way only a great man does. In fact, he is so giving to those less fortunate,” she says, “that he has made the ultimate sacrifice.”

I hold my breath.

“Ben Zin has offered his spot on this short list to one other deserving but overlooked student. Yes, he has surrendered this opportunity and wishes to offer it to one of the forty who did not make the Top Ten.”

twenty-nine

THE VALEDICTORIAN

I JUMP OUT OF MY SEAT. I WANT TO SCREAM “NO!” BUT MY
heart is thumping in my throat.

Molly tugs me down, and my dad gives me a look that says he’s sure I’ve lost it.

“Why’s Ben doing this?” I whisper to Molly, panicking. “All the work. Everything I did.”

“
Shhh
,” she says, stroking my arm as she pulls me to her. “There’s gotta be a reason.”

What reason? He knows Jeannie is alive! He knows what I’ve done to help him! He knows we wanted a life together, that this was all part of my plan for us. Could he have betrayed me? Could he have been the equivalent of Pilot Stone all along? But, no, that’s not possible! Why would he give up his chance now?

My eyes are glued to the screen. Everyone’s are.

“Last year,” Garnet says, with just fifteen agonizing seconds left to speak, “I graduated as valedictorian, at a time when Guardians saw no reward for their efforts. This year, we Guardians too get a prize should our student win. My PT, some of you will recall, was to act
selfishly
.” She looks from Guardian to Guardian. “And so, all things considered, I have overturned Ben’s request.” The crowd is one big collective sigh. “His sacrificial behavior matched with my selfishness is sure to render us a power-couple like no other. And so I
ask you to consider him a top candidate for the Big V because, when you vote for him, you vote for
us
.”

Molly whispers, “Your heart beating again?”

I look at her. We’re both thinking the same thing: well played. Little wonder Garnet won last year. She’s got a knack for working a crowd.

After that pitch, it surprises no one when Ben’s name is called as one of the top three candidates, along with Veronica Brass and Joie Wannabe. The camera cuts to the faces of the parents whose children didn’t get through. I look away when they show Jack’s dad, who looks like he’s about to punch something.
I’m sorry
, I think. But my weak apology is not enough. Not nearly enough.

“Joie made it,” Molly whispers to me.

“But Jack didn’t.”

The debate that follows will be swift, Invidia explains.

“First,” she says, “former Headmaster Villicus will present a challenging life scenario. Each Guardian will be given the chance to explain how their student’s PT would help them succeed in that scenario. They must then support their hypothesis with an example from their life to date. They will have thirty seconds to present their argument. The countdown will show on the screen.”

It’s the real-life examples that present the most trouble for Ben, who’s got just nine months of graded experience to pull from, three months of which were spent
not
trying.

“When all three Guardians have made their arguments,” Invidia says, “the Guardians may then challenge each other.”

“These challenges,” Superbia interjects, “are by far the most important component of the debate. Some Guardians will look closer to find the truth, and others will stop inspecting and simply accept the surface for the truth it reveals.” Her gaze lands on me. Something inside me flutters. “Because there is no fiction. And you needn’t always read between the lines or look closer. Sometimes the truth is plainly written on one’s face.”

Is she talking to
me
?

I glance at Teddy, but he’s vanished. He was just standing there a moment ago.

I half expect Molly to nudge me with some little joke, like
I guess
I Love Porno
guy really does love porno
. But she doesn’t. She is looking
at me, though, out of the corner of her eye. I catch her just before she glances away.

Invidia continues her speech as if Superbia hadn’t interrupted. “Villicus and Dia will then assign A, B, or C to each candidate, with A being the most desirable grade. The candidates and crowd within the hall will not be able to see the grades, but you’ll look no further than the right-hand screen, where they’ll be displayed. Five rounds of questions. This will be followed by our judges’ assessment and ultimate ruling. You will then have your valedictorian.”

We all hold our breath as Villicus begins.

“Your student,” he says to Finn, Mr. Farid, and Garnet, “is guilty of a hit-and-run. The laws of man would send them to prison for life. With the goal of true success in mind, what do they do? Mr. Kid, begin.”

Finn says, “Veronica’s PT is to lie. A very clean, very elegant
prosperitas thema
. She intends to become a lawyer, which will give her the skills and the network to defend herself effectively and bend the truth to her will. As we all know, the truth, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. It is easy enough to convince someone that an utter lie is the truth. So, knowing people are more prone to believe what they’re told than to question it,” he pauses to think about an example from Veronica’s recent history, “Veronica promised a student named Molly Watso that, in exchange for an MP3 player, she would be kind to a boy named John. But Veronica swiftly planted the player in John’s book bag and told Headmaster Dia what John possessed. Following this event, John was expelled.”

I glance at Molly to see tears in her eyes. Her gramps kisses her on the hair.

“Time,” Villicus calls. “Mr. Farid, you’re next. Same scenario and question.”

“Joie’s PT is to love her neighbor,” Mr. Farid says. “You may think that such a PT condemns her to a life of do-gooding, but I assure you it does not, for Joie’s brand of love is one often referred to as
tough love
. She is a master of drawing strong, often brutal lines to protect herself and ‘help’ others. Earlier this year, a junior named Tallulah Josey broke a rule. The girl entered the front office when the secretaries were preoccupied elsewhere and called her boyfriend. Joie witnessed this. She promptly told another girl named Harper
Otto, whom she was certain would turn Tallulah in. That’s exactly what happened. Tallulah needed to learn a lesson, and Joie applied tough love to teach it.”

“That’s a whole lotta tough,” I whisper to Molly.

“And not much love,” she finishes.

“In the hit-and-run scenario, Joie would do the same.” With an eye for time, he rushes to finish. “She’d dig up dirt on the person she killed, and she’d use that to weave together a story of righteousness in which she was merely a vessel for a cosmic, justice-seeking power.”

“Time,” Villicus says.

When it’s her turn, Garnet takes a moment.

Molly and I shift on our chairs.

“Dr. Zin’s son,” my dad whispers to me.

“Yeah, I know him.” I never told my dad about the two of us.

“Dr. Zin mentioned that you and Ben don’t get along well.”

I’d laugh if I wasn’t so damn nervous.

The clock starts ticking away the seconds.

We watch Garnet smile and take a sip of water. I hear her swallow. She pats the corners of her mouth with a cloth napkin. Behind her, Ben sits tensely, his hands folded on the table. The woman behind me starts whispering about whether Garnet knows she’s up or not. Just when I think Garnet might say nothing at all—might throw in the towel and declare that she knows Ben and I are in love—she sets down her napkin and faces the audience, not the judges.

“When we hear that Ben is to be ‘sacrificial’ to succeed in life,” she begins at last, “we think he will sacrifice his own wants for those of another. We fool ourselves into believing he is magnanimous. But that is not Ben Zin.”

The camera zooms in. On one screen, Ben’s face. On the other, Garnet’s.

“What would you sacrifice to save your life?” she asks the audience. “To whom would
you
go to make such a sacrifice?” She turns back to Villicus and Dia, who looks half-asleep. “Although Joie and—what’s that other girl’s name?—Veronica might spin their little wheels in search of a way to outsmart the laws of man, they would, in fact, be playing by those very laws, which, let’s be honest, we all know are the laws of fools. Ben Zin has spent nearly six years on
this island. Six. And he’s learned what each successful mother and father here knows well: that the truly successful do not face such obstacles alone. We do not show up for a gunfight armed with a gun; we show up with Mephistopheles at our side.”

My breath catches. Around me, most of the students look taken aback, but the only parent that seems surprised by what Garnet’s revealed is my dad.

“Ben would sacrifice whatever you tell him to, Headmaster, to escape prison.”

Just five seconds left.

“So know this,” she looks pointedly at Villicus, “you will not lose Ben Zin, or his father, when you make him valedictorian today. They will always be yours.”

Garnet’s either clever, or she’s just cheated.

I watch the screens for Villicus’s reaction. His expression reveals nothing.

“The floor is open to the candidates,” Villicus says. “Debate.”

Garnet seizes the moment.

“Finn Kid,” she begins, “you’ve just told us that Veronica is a liar. How could any human being trust a known liar? It would take little, in the real world, to expose her. She would have been wise to have a PT to be an escape artist, for that is the only way she’ll get out of jail.”

Villicus smirks, and Dia smiles weakly.

Veronica’s dad boos from the audience.

“And Mr. Farid,” Garnet adds, “what if there was no dirt on the person Joie killed? What if she’d killed Gandhi? Any decent lawyer—hell, even Veronica—could dig up just as much dirt on Joie, especially given that she’d have a rather black period on her record. Remember that if she were to win the Big V today, she’d need a new identity. The first eighteen years of her life would be unknown… and suspect.”

Finn and Farid have little to say to her. How can they argue that Ben couldn’t use Mephisto? How can they say, to Mephisto’s face, that he wouldn’t be able to protect Ben from prison?