“Don’t worry about what?” I asked.
“Don’t worry, we won’t survive,” he said.
“We?” I asked.
“I mean they. I mean they. Hell, I mean we too. It’s only a matter of time before we do this. It is in our nature to destroy ourselves.”
“What are you even talking about?” I asked.
“Unfortunately, humanity will one day enter a nuclear war. I hope humanity survives.”
He was on a tirade now.
“But there’s no way the human race will survive. Too many believe in the magic man in the sky while having power over nuclear weapons. We’re Homo sapiens—the only species smart enough to create its own extinction and the only species stupid enough to do it. One big bang and we all fall down. We’re going to have a ringside seat to Armageddon. Victory to the country that recovers first after a nuclear war.”
I felt sick to my stomach.
“Oh—about the book,” he said, smiling. “It seems fitting to begin with ‘The End.’”
I grabbed his cup of complimentary “coffee” and chugged.
Chapter Fifteen
I came running down the hall and nearly tripped over Max at my locker. He was sitting on the floor with books strewn all around him in front of lockers that had been spray-painted white.
“Who did this?” I asked, standing in front of him.
“Seniors, I think,” he said.
The FEMA pamphlet did say all interior walls should be painted antiflash white, and the walls in this hall are basically lockers. So I guessed they were doing us a favor. You know, saving lives and all.
“They’re in the principal’s office,” he added.
“Getting a lecture or an award for a job well done?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
I touched one of the lockers with my pinkie to make sure it was dry before sitting down on the floor beside him. I didn’t want a bunch of wet white paint on my purple shirt.
“So why are you not in homeroom?” I asked.
“I could ask you the same thing,” he said.
“I overslept.”
“Likely story,” he said, picking at his braces.
Max’s nerd transformation was now complete. Full-on metal mouth.
“Don’t even ask.” Max spoke while drooling. “I’ve got the headgear too.”
“Oh, my gosh, I’m so sorry,” I said, thankful that my parents weren’t too concerned about the well-being of my teeth. Max, on the other hand, had parentitis. “Do they hurt?” I asked.
He nodded and tossed one notebook aside and then started on another.
“Homework?” I asked.
“Yup,” he said, flipping the pages of his western civ book.
He always waited until the last minute to do his homework. He was, like, crazy smart but kind of had a hard time focusing.
“I miss the days when homework was just coloring,” he said, scratching out a sentence.
“Me too.”
“And I wish that Mr. Meyer didn’t require us to write out the questions too. I mean, come on. I hate that man.”
“I had him last year. I got Mom to make sure that I didn’t have him this year.”
“I should have done that. We have new partners in science today,” he said.
“For you,” I said with a laugh.
“I’ve been thinking about pulling the shower string,” he said, nodding.
“Do it. It’s liberating.”
“Mr. Truitt would smell a conspiracy. Two of his smartest students breaking the rules.”
“Oh, I love a good conspiracy,” I said.
“Me too,” he said, leaning in close. I could smell his foul Cheetos breath. “Did you know there have been twenty-six nuclear tests this year?”
“Is that a lot?” I asked.
“There’ve been two this month alone. France and the USSR did tests. This year the USSR have done sixteen; we, the United State, have done six, France has done three; and Great Britain has done one. At least, that’s all that I could find. We’ve probably done more than six. But sixteen for the USSR, shit—this is scary as hell. If it does happen, I would want to be vaporized right away. Fuck getting cooked and being in agonizing pain.”
“How do you know this?” I asked.
“Classified.”
I side-eyed him. And then he spilled. “Hacking,” he said.
WarGames certainly did a number on him.
“I think all these sirens are getting us ready for the big one,” he said.
“I hope not,” I said.
“Come on. The big bang to end all big bangs. Isn’t your dad preparing for World War Three?”
He had me there. And he had me somewhere else: my dad lived in a world of classified information. Just like 1984. What a book to have an anniversary. I hoped I was as smart as George Orwell when I grew up. It would be nice to know the nightmares that occurred to me now would manifest themselves thirty-six years later.
They probably would. The whole state of Arkansas was almost a cover-up. Four years ago, it was almost erased from existence after a nuclear missile silo accident. It meaning Arkansas. Thankfully, nothing happened, and we Arkansans were saved, meant to live another day to tell the ordeal, which hardly anyone would believe. Arkansas almost nuked themselves. Max would like to say how could we tell the difference? Ha. Ha. Very funny. But seriously. American flags would have to be replaced; instead of fifty stars, there would only be a need for forty-nine.
We, as make-believe historians, like to rewrite history.
Maybe we are Oceania and Mr. Meyer is Big Brother himself.
We were averaging three sirens a week, which wasn’t normal at all. Since the start of the school year (school started two months ago), we’d had thirty-four of what our parents would call duck-and-cover drills. It was easy to say that the administration was overreacting, but was it? The editor of the Shiner News assigned me an article for the school paper on why there were so many sirens in early October. I dug and dug. I had some findings but nothing concrete. No one gave their name. I even went to my dad and asked, but he couldn’t tell me anything, and most definitely wouldn’t go on record, and wouldn’t be anonymous either. No one would be my Deep Throat.[46] When I turned my story in to the editor, who turned it into our advisor (we don’t have a free press at GFHS), it was redacted so much that the only thing left was my name, and that was misspelled. The editor still hadn’t fixed my byline, even though I told her half a dozen times that my name is Laura, not Lauren.
“I’m telling you, Laura, the BOOM is coming,” Max said, using his hands to show an explosion.
People were wrong; just because you have lemons does not mean you have to make lemonade—the same argument goes for a nuclear bomb.
“I’m afraid we won’t live past tomorrow,” I said.
We were in agreement.
He’d been hard hit in his family too. The sickness of a questionable tomorrow. You know—my granny believed in the Rapture. Like Jesus descending from heaven to take all the believers back with him. Saving them from all the trials, tribulation, and damnation. Don’t get the mark. And pray like it’s your last prayer ever. She lives for today by making sure she has a tomorrow in heaven. She does that by, of course, sending hundreds of dollars, money she doesn’t have, to Reverend Lowry. But Max’s family’s version of a questionable tomorrow was different. His mom was racking up the credit card debt. Max told me they were in dire financial troubles, but it wouldn’t matter. There was not going to be a tomorrow. A nuke was going to take care of that.
46
The name of the secret informant who gave information to