Scored (21 page)

“Why?” Imani asked.

Mrs. Landis laughed lightheartedly. “I’m useless with note-taking,” she said. “My hand has already cramped up. Do you mind?”

“Um, I guess not,” Imani said. Then she told her the rest of the story.

When she had finished, Mrs. Landis paused before speaking. “Are you saying that Ms. Wheeler told you this would
help
your score?”

“At first, she said it was uncharted territory,” Imani explained. “But then yesterday, she told me she was sure I’d get over the scholarship line because of it.”

“You realize that’s a lie, of course.”

Imani’s heart sank, which she knew was absurd. Imani hadn’t believed Ms. Wheeler when she’d said it, and, at any rate, she had done so much to destroy her score between then and now that it shouldn’t have mattered. But hope could be so stubborn. Even false, deluded hope. “I figured it was a lie,” she said.

“Okay then,” Mrs. Landis said. “Is there anything else?”

“No. That’s all.”

“Will I see you at the meeting tonight?”

“I don’t think so,” Imani said.

“Okay. I do appreciate your candor,” Mrs. Landis said. “You did the right thing.”

“Did I?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Landis said. “Belatedly, but yes.”

After Imani hung up, she sat on her bed staring through the
window as the sky brightened with the morning. Her confession did not, as she had hoped, lighten her load. If anything, she felt heavier.

Imani arrived at American history class early that day, took her usual seat, and began slow deep breaths in anticipation of Diego’s arrival. She presumed that Mrs. Landis had told him the whole story but was holding out hope—false, deluded hope, perhaps—that she hadn’t. Imani had already decided not to look at him in class, because no mere glance could make amends for what she had done.

Students drifted in one by one. Even Mr. Carol arrived on time. It was only when the late bell rang and Mr. Carol sat on the middle desk that Imani realized Diego wasn’t coming. That meant he knew. His mother had told him and he was so angry that he couldn’t bear the sight of her.

The topic of the day, ironically, was civility in dissent. While Mr. Carol lectured them on how reasonable people could disagree without resorting to character assassination or accusations of stupidity, Imani glanced repeatedly at Diego’s empty chair. She knew he would return to school before long. Pride, if nothing else, would force him to face her. But no matter how eloquently he argued in class, Imani knew she’d miss their private disagreements. Despite his defects, Diego, in all fairness, had a mind to be reckoned with. She realized how much she would have enjoyed cowriting that essay with him, now that it was no longer a possibility. If she hadn’t spoiled things with her appalling betrayal, and he hadn’t spoiled things
with his confession of feelings, perhaps, she thought, after her final score was in, they might have become something like friends. Now they’d never know.

For the rest of the day, Imani wandered through the hallways and endured her classes as if in a daze. Her teachers’ voices were an irrelevant drone, and her fellow students had become universally distasteful to her—both the lowbies and the highbies, but especially the highbies. She no longer envied them. They seemed lifeless, inhuman. What she wanted, more than she’d ever wanted it before, was to be on the river. So, for the second day in a row, Imani decided to cut school early. On her way to the exit, she passed Deon, hugging a chemistry book while avoiding eye contact with everyone. As she watched him shuffle meekly to class, she realized there was one last thing to do before she left.

She went to the school library, waited for a tablet to become available, then printed out the article Diego had shown her from
Neuroscience Quarterly
. When the bell rang, she found Deon at his locker. He shrunk from her approach, but Imani was not there to attempt friendship; she was there to help him escape. She told him about Amber’s plan to ostracize him from the gang, and, since she knew Deon would have no idea what to do with such information, she handed him the article she’d printed.

“The gangs are a bug, not a feature,” she explained, while flipping to the page she’d highlighted. “You don’t have to sit with the sixties at lunch just because you’re a sixty. It doesn’t help you. It might even prevent you from ascending.”

“But where would I sit?” he asked, without looking at her.

“You could sit alone if you wanted,” she said.

He looked up from the article, suddenly hopeful.

“You’re under no obligation to the sixties, Deon. You get no advantage from them. And they’re about to dump you. Why not dump them first?”

Deon looked down and speed-read the section Imani had highlighted.

“You can keep that,” Imani said.

Then she left him alone, which she knew was his preference.

Imani took the river at breakneck speed, heading straight for Hogg Island with her clam fork and bag. In the Corona Point channel, her motor started clicking oddly, so she pulled into the small strip of beach by the abandoned marina. She lifted the motor out of the water to have a look but could find nothing awry.

Not far away were the cliff steps that led to Diego’s house. She wondered if he was there now or if he was out tearing up the dunes on his scooter. She tried to imagine what Diego did when he felt the way
she
felt. Then she realized he wouldn’t feel the way she felt. Whatever state of lousiness he was in would be complementary to hers, not identical.

She dropped the motor back in the water and, not wanting to risk getting stranded on Hogg Island, went home.

As she approached the marina, her father, hearing her boat, looked up from the drainage pump of the Lowries’ whaler. He walked down to the slip to meet her, wiping his hands on the
front of his jeans. “Your mother says you cut school early?” he called out to her.

Imani tied up Frankenwhaler and lifted the motor out of the water. “I think there’s something up with Cady’s board. Can you look at it?”

“Not answering my questions anymore?” Mr. LeMonde stood rigid on the dock, pointedly refusing to look at Imani’s motor.

“I didn’t feel well,” she said defensively.

“But you had a miraculous recovery, I see.”

“Dad—” Imani looked away, to the remnants of Frankenwhaler’s wake lapping the muddy edges of the marina.

Her father stood still for a moment, waiting for Imani to change her mind and talk to him. When she didn’t, he climbed into her boat with a little groan. “Let’s have a look, then.” He opened a compartment in the motor and poked around. “Yup,” he said. “Wrong screws.” He held one up for Imani to see. “Cady is all about power, but she’s impatient with the details. You can’t go sticking these things in willy-nilly.”

“And I paid her in lobster.”

Imani sat on the edge of the boat and watched him carefully remove the rest of the screws, wishing she’d spent as much time learning from him about motors as Cady had. They’d have had so much more to talk about then. But Score Corp had identified her core strengths as academic, not technical, and Imani had gone along with it. She’d never even questioned it.

“Hey, Dad,” she said. “Do you have to go to Isiah’s scrimmage tonight? Could Mom go instead?”

“Why?” He pulled the circuit board out.

“Because I was wondering if you’d go to that meeting with me,” she asked nervously.

“So you
do
think the LeMondes should be represented.”

Imani looked down and laughed nervously. “Oh, I have a feeling we’ll be represented, all right.”

Her father shifted his weight. “Imani Jane, what have you gone and done?”

When she looked up at him, she almost told him the truth. But there was too much to tell, and she wasn’t ready yet. “Will you go with me?” she asked coyly.

After a moment, her father took her hand and helped her out of the boat. “Could I say no to my one and only daughter?”

They headed down the dock together.

“Hey, Dad, did you ever read the book
Brave New World
in high school?”

“Sounds familiar,” he said. “I think it was assigned. But unless it was a comic book or a dirty magazine, I probably didn’t read it.”

If Elon LeMonde had been scored as a teenager, he would have undoubtedly been a lowbie.

THE AUDITORIUM WAS
standing room only. Up by the stage, Ms. Wheeler huddled with members of the town council, her crisp pink suit expressing a soft nurturing approachability backed by a spine of pure steel. She appeared unaffected by the mishap at St. James College and showed no sign of knowing that Imani had ratted her out to Mrs. Landis. But the calm she exuded seemed forced to Imani, who could see in her the Wakachee teenager she’d once been—ambitious, tightly controlled, but intensely aware of the possibility of total failure. Despite all that had transpired between them, Imani couldn’t help but feel sorry for her.

Imani stood with her father in the back, unsure of what her role would be. But whereas her father had an air of cautious excitement about the proceedings, Imani was all sharp nerves.
Scanning the auditorium, she spotted Cady and Parker. They stood behind a tall slender woman Imani recognized instantly as Diego’s mother. They had the same piercing eyes, the same straight dark hair. Seeing Cady wave to Imani, Mrs. Landis made her way through the crowd and introduced herself.

“I’m glad you’re here, Imani,” she said. She turned to Imani’s father. “You must be—”

“Elon LeMonde,” he said, shaking her hand.

“You should be very proud of your daughter,” Mrs. Landis said.

“Is that so?” Mr. LeMonde looked at Imani pointedly.

Catching on to his ignorance of the activities in question, Mrs. Landis changed the subject. “I was wondering, Imani. How would you feel about speaking tonight?”

“You mean live? In front of all these people?”

“All you’d have to do is answer some questions. It’s up to you.”

Imani could feel the blood draining from her face.

“Okay,” Mrs. Landis said in an accommodating tone. “Alternatively, I could play the recording of our phone conversation. Would that be better?”

“Imani?” her father said. “At some point are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

Imani looked from her father to Mrs. Landis, both of whom wanted different things from her and wanted them badly.

“I don’t want to put any pressure on you,” Mrs. Landis said. “I know you’ve already been through a lot, but don’t you think the people of Somerton have a right to know who their school principal is?”

It could ruin her, Imani
thought.

Mrs. Landis leaned in and spoke softly. “She won’t stop, you know. She won’t give up until every unscored is banned from this school. Do you think that’s right, Imani?”

Mrs. Landis was so sure of herself, Imani thought, so firm in her convictions. She was, in a way, just like Ms. Wheeler.

“Look,” Mrs. Landis said. “I don’t want to stress, but—”

“Play it,” Imani said. “It’s the truth. Play it.”

“Now, hold on,” Mr. LeMonde said, holding out his hands. “What exactly are we talking about here, Imani?”

“Play it,” Imani said.

“Okay,” Mrs. Landis said. “Why don’t we do this. I’ve got the recording. When I go up to speak tonight, if you want to join me, just head down to the front of the auditorium. No pressure. How’s that?”

“I won’t be speaking,” Imani said.

“Either way,” Mrs. Landis said, “I want you to know you’re a brave girl.”

Imani nodded noncommittally. Brave was the last thing she felt. She supposed Mrs. Landis meant that it had taken courage to come clean about her actions, but it was the kind of thing only someone with firm convictions would say. What Mrs. Landis didn’t seem to realize was that Imani’s convictions were anything but firm. She had gotten there by riding an undertow of half-buried feelings that didn’t quite rise to the level of conviction. It was that pull—possibly familial, possibly even genetic—that had delivered her there. It wasn’t bravery. It was more like surrender.

When Mrs. Landis returned to Cady and Parker and a clutch of other people who all seemed to work for her, Imani began to feel as if the whole enterprise was as muddled as she was. And that it was missing the point.

There was a small commotion at the door, then Diego pushed his way through. A few underclassman highbies parted for him with eyes averted. He stood behind the last row of chairs.

Imani watched him, then gripped her father’s hand.

“Who’s that?” her father asked, looking at Diego.

Diego hadn’t spotted her yet, but as he scanned the auditorium, Imani’s throat went dry.

“My victim,” she said hoarsely.

“Imani?” her father asked.

“Don’t worry, Dad,” she said. “You’re about to find out everything.”

Up on the stage, Ms. Wheeler walked to the podium. “Wow,” she said. “What a great turnout. Those of you in back, there are a few chairs up front here.”

Two parents standing next to Diego brushed past him to claim those chairs. Diego turned and saw Imani, locked his eye on hers for a moment, then turned coldly away.

Ms. Wheeler began her speech, but Imani could barely take it in, something about “tough choices” and “brighter futures for everyone’s children.” Imani was staring at Diego’s profile, willing him to look at her. His long hair obscured his face, but Imani was certain he could feel her presence.

Ms. Wheeler was making a brilliant case. The unscored were “spoilers,” who prevented the score from “fulfilling its
promise” of upward mobility and true meritocracy. Though she no longer had the trump card of Diego’s arrest to boost her case, Imani knew she’d win people over.

Imani began a mental countdown. Ms. Wheeler was savvy. She would be persuasive but concise. She wouldn’t risk boring her audience with a surplus of detail. It would be so much more expedient to feed their fear with a few indisputable facts, then leave them to imagine the horrors of inaction on their own. Then she’d step down and Mrs. Landis would take the stage. At that point, Imani’s actions would be known by everybody. Nicknames would be thought up for her. Irrelevant but plausible-seeming sexual connotations inferred. She was, after all, the best friend of Cady Fazio, the star of Farm Field F *& k Fest. The episode of Imani LeMonde, Ad Hoc Spy, would seep through all elements of Somerton society, leaving a residue of shame and self-righteousness whose most enduring impact would be to fuel the system that had given rise to it in the first place. The system was robust, she realized, and could turn anything to the cause of its own survival. And this show, Imani conjectured, this contest between Patrina Wheeler and Dena Landis, meant nothing.