I came up to stand in front of Beth again. I had that feeling again that there was something I was supposed to say, something she was waiting for. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. I just stood there with my mouth open for what seemed like about half an hour.
Finally, Beth laughed-not in a mean way, just in a kind of what’s-going-on way. “You forget what you wanted to say?” she asked me.
“No. No, I didn’t forget,” I said. “I just… I wanted to say… It’s just… it’s just I really like you, Beth.”
I couldn’t believe I said that. I just blurted it right out. I felt like such an incredible idiot.
But Beth didn’t laugh at me or anything. She just kind of opened her eyes wider and looked really surprised. “Oh,” she said. “Well, thank you…”
I stumbled on quickly, without thinking, because I didn’t want there to be any more stupid silences. “The thing is: it makes me really nervous when I talk to you.”
She looked even more surprised. “It does?”
“Yeah!” I said. I laughed. It was actually kind of a relief to just say it out loud like that. It was a relief not to try to hide it or to pretend to be cool with her. “I get, like, really nervous. I feel like my tongue is superglued to the top of my mouth.”
“Agh, I hate when that happens.”
“No kidding. I really gotta stop messing with that stuff.”
She laughed. She had a nice laugh. “Well, I’m glad you like me anyway,” she said. “I like you too.” She actually said that. I swear I’m not making this up.
“Really?” I said. “Cool. So you want to, like, go see a movie together or something?”
It was that easy in the end. Suddenly I’d just said it. Suddenly it was just out there.
And just as suddenly, Beth said, “Sure, that’d be fun. Only nothing scary. I hate scary movies.”
“Me too,” I said. I don’t know why I said that. I love scary movies. It just came out because I guess I wanted to make sure she went on liking me.
“My mom doesn’t let me go to them anyway,” said Beth. “She says they’re disgusting.”
“Right, no scary movies. We don’t even have to go to a movie at all. We could just get a pizza or something.”
“Oh, I love pizza.”
“But no scary pizza.”
She laughed. “Right. Or we could go see the Dragons play. Anyway, why don’t you just call me and we’ll figure something out? Here.”
She handed her books to me and I held them while she fished a marker out of her purse. Then she took my free hand in one of hers. She wrote her phone number on the back of my hand with her marker.
“That tickles,” I said.
“It’s a very funny number,” she said.
I laughed. While she finished writing, I took the opportunity to study the way her hair fell forward across her face. It was a nice way. Definitely nice.
“There,” she said. She gave me my hand back. I gave her back her books. “Your tongue still superglued?” she asked me.
I moved my tongue around in my mouth to check. “What do you know?” I said. “Stuff’s not as strong as they say.”
“There’s no truth in advertising.” She shifted her books back under her arm. “Well, I’m really glad I stopped by.”
“Me too.”
“So I’ll see you, right?”
“Right. Definitely. You’ll definitely see me.”
That’s what I thought as I stood there watching her walk away. That I’d see her-definitely. I glanced down at the number written in marker on the back of my hand and I thought: I’ll call her and I’ll see her. Just like that. The way it felt… it almost didn’t seem real to me. It seemed like something I would daydream. It was something I would daydream-that I had daydreamed-only I wasn’t daydreaming now. It was all real.
Then she went out the door, out of the cafeteria, and she was gone and I never saw her again-never again that I remember, anyway.
Because when I woke up the next day, the daydream was over and I was right in the middle of my worst nightmare.
CHAPTER TEN
Leave Me Alone, Winston Churchill I lay dazed in the cab of the upside-down pickup truck. I was in the middle of the field, about two-thirds of the distance from the compound to the forest trailhead. The guards with their Kalashnikovs were running across the field toward me.
But I wasn’t thinking about them. I was thinking about Beth. Her smile flashed through my mind again, that 9.5-on-the-Sweetness-Scale smile. I saw her as clearly as if she were right there in front of me. I saw her turn her eyes to me. And she spoke! Only it was the weirdest thing. I could see her face, I could see her lips moving. But the voice that came out was not her voice. It was a deep voice-a man’s voice-and it had a British accent.
It said: Never give in.
I groaned. I shook my head slowly back and forth: no, no, no. I thought: Leave me alone, Winston Churchill. I’m tired now. I can’t do anything more. Leave me alone. Let me talk to Beth.
I tried to make him go away. I tried just to concentrate on Beth, just to see her there and hear her voice instead of his. But the harder I squinted, trying to hold on to the sight of her face, the more she seemed to fizzle and fade like the TV picture at my house when a strong wind blows tree branches in front of the satellite dish. The image of her became choppy and transparent, and I could look right through her and dimly make out the window of the overturned truck and the upside-down world beyond it and the upside-down meadow out there with its green grass and its white wildflowers-and the upside-down guards with their upside-down guns, running as fast as they could right toward me.
Coming to get me. To drag me back to the compound. To kill me.
Never give in.
There he was again. Whispering insistently in my ear. Bugging me.
Leave me alone, I told him again. I’m tired. The battle is over. I lost.
Never, never, never, he answered.
Was this guy the biggest pain in the neck ever or what? Always saying the same thing over and over and over like a broken record. I couldn’t imagine how he ever got elected prime minister of Great Britain. He didn’t understand. He didn’t grasp the complexities of the situation. He didn’t know-he couldn’t know-how much every bone in my body ached, how every muscle screamed with pain. He couldn’t know how tired I was- more tired than I’d ever been in my life-and how dazed and frightened I was after being tortured and shot at and banged around inside this stupid truck. All I wanted was to slip away inside myself and be with Beth again and see her smile and hear her voice.
I tried to explain it to him. There’s nothing else I can do, Winston Churchill, I said. This is just the way it is now, okay? Sure, it’s kind of sad, them coming to kill me and me being only seventeen and everything. And I wish it weren’t happening. I really do. But I mean, it’s not my fault! I don’t even know how I got here. I don’t even know what’s going on. I tried my best to get away just like you told me, and I failed. That’s all. It didn’t work, okay?
Never give in, said Winston Churchill in my ear. Never, never, never, never.
I sighed wearily. All right, I thought. I’ll try. It’s not going to help, but I’ll try.
Using all my strength, I forced my eyes open wide.
Everything came clear in front of me. I could see that only a second had passed since the truck had rolled over. My memory of Beth-my conversation with Winston Churchill-all this had flashed by in only a moment. The guards were still just coming through the gate of the compound, just beginning to cross the meadow toward me. If I could get myself moving-if I could get myself out of this truck-there might be time-there might just be time for me to make a run for it into the forest and find a hiding place among the trees.
That thought-that hope-sent new strength and energy coursing through me. It gave me strength. I started moving.
The first thing I had to do was twist my body around so I could get out through the window. It wasn’t easy. As soon as I started to move, a shock wave of pain radiated through me. Every sinew in my body seemed to have been scorched raw. There seemed no place left inside that wasn’t in agony.