PART ONE: QUITE ENOUGH ANTARCTICA

“The time has come,” Trilby says, “to talk of many things of shoes and ships and sealing wax of cabbages and kings and why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings.”

Ashley rolls her eyes, silently thankful Trilby’s not doing the Pledge of Allegiance or the Charge of the Light Brigade. Trilby is a good memorizer, but bad at playing pretend.

“Trilby,” Tasha says, with an exaggerated sigh, “you have to go stand under the big tree if we’re going to save you before dinner. Go drink your potion.” 

Tasha’s arms are akimbo, always. Ashley clears her throat.

“Tasha, Karen left about an hour ago to go to Temple so it’s not like there’s even a witch anymore. Can’t we just not have a witch? Can we skip that part and say we already saved her?” 

Ashley points at Trilby, across the yard under the big tree. Her mouth’s moving expressively as she pantomimes what they all recognize by gestures as her favorite scene from King Lear. Tasha will not be dissuaded.
 
“We have to have a witch. Get Weird Josh.”

Weird Josh is playing with bugs at the foot of the swing tree. He smiles up dimly at the girls’ collective groan.

“Tasha. Weird Josh is a boy.”

“Ashley, it’s okay. No guns or karate, or else he can’t play.”

“No, I mean he won’t make a very good witch.”

Personally Ashley thinks Tasha would make a tremendous witch. Very believable. But she keeps this quiet because if Tasha storms off, that’s it. Tasha’s imagination powers the game.

“Ashley, his main part is dying so it doesn’t even matter. Besides, he’s the biggest.”

“Well, he’s fine where he is. Think of it as a creative challenge. Like maybe the witch is very far away…”

“I need help!” Necie McNeely shouts. “I'm dying almost! Of this spell!” 

Ashley chucks a pretend bottle at her head with something not unlike contempt: “Magic potion.”

“A potion arrived by scout's raven,” intoned Tasha, “Along with a message…”

“Now if you're ready oysters dear we can begin to feed..."

“My scouts have notified me of a new threat.  We've only days to prepare,” Tasha says in a hush.

“The Witch is coming.”

***

She stands nude over a grimy public washroom sink, dyeing her hair. Balanced on the edge of the other sink a laptop sits open, streaming the news while the datamining software does its thing. The pipe under the sink drips a steady quiet stream. The hair dye smells sharp, but pleasant.

“One of the worst school shootings in recent memory, due to the ages of the children involved, but as we’ve been reporting, Chicago officials say there’s no reason to panic…”

She pulls up red briefs and grabs a large shopping bag from the dirty floor, checking her glossy red manicure, and tries this in a patrician Boston accent: “No reason to panic.”

“As we found when we arrived, the threat has been contained…”

This in a Michael Caine cockney: “The fret ‘as been contained.”

She produces a very luxe towel, tags still on, and dries her severe new platinum blunt bob.

“...Suspects are in custody. No more details are available at press time…”

She pops her head up into the mirror, breaking out in a grin like she’s just caught herself, flirting in a Southern drawl. “No more details. Are available.”

The news goes into ads and fades out; in the silence she practices smiling into the mirror.

Cockney again: “No reason to panic.”

She shakes her head, eyes focused on her red lips forming the words.

Southern: “Reason to panic...”

She frowns—none of these are right. The woman Emma needs to be this time is elusive. Then she smiles authentically, nodding to herself: She’s arrived at the winning accent—the posh South London, Received Pronunciation she’ll be using. 

“Officials say there’s no reason to panic!”

She nods, hair over one eye for just a moment before she swipes it back.

“…Postponed another vote regarding the incorporation of Eden Falls as a separate entity. Home of the small liberal arts college known for its Literature program and at one time considered the next best thing to an Ivy for the region…”

She rolls her eyes and changes the stream again, swift as a striking viper.

“Local public high school have not made an official statement but in the past they’ve made it clear they consider their security to be state-of-the-art…”

Puddled on the grimy floor is a dress that looks white from one direction and gold from another. This goes into the bin, followed by a black-cherry bob wig. Her colors now are blinding white and deepest black, with Louboutin-red touches. Emma Brodie. Emma Brodie pulls out sharp new scissors and snips tags off an over-the-top Gucci.

“…To be state-of-the-art.”

Bored, she flips again, to the BBC; looks herself in the eye as she pulls her new shoes on. “In Ukraine which we see as a response of a certain kind of masculinity taking hold, a toxicity we see in the treatment of queer citizens, female dissidents, Pussy Riot…”

The computer beeps, ending the broadcast: A window pops open, datamining software running too fast to see. Dossiers pop open on a few people—Jennifer Standish, Truman Miranda, Georgia Anderson—but none of the children. Not yet. There’s still work to be done.

She leans down for a closer look at Georgia Anderson’s file, comparing herself to Ashleys’ mother in the mirror until acrid smoke drifts across the screen. Emma rather seems to have started a fire. 

Emma Brodie applies a perfect matte lip, chucks the rest of her stuff into the trash fire and exits into the sun, just as the fire alarms are going off. The door closes behind her, on blinding daylight.

***

When Ashley gets home Mom’s acting scary. She seems to be mad at Brian for something that happened in Chicago, and also at Dad for trying to calm her down. 

A good thing to do would be throw a tiny fit of her own, Ashley knows, because they think she’s just a little girl. So she locks that down and then goes upstairs, to work on her novel.

It’s about a world of no grownups, and a smart, strong little girl who makes sure everybody gets fed. The kind of girl Ashley wishes she were. Eventually the girl heads out to see where the grownups went, but the problem is that Ashley has no idea where the girl is going to find them.

It’s mostly in cursive, with a few well-placed pictures, and the second the opportunity presents itself Ashley will force her brother Brian to help her put it online.

Brian is sixteen and very handsome, and much too busy to explain things like computers, or even really talk to her these days. Luckily there is a drawer in Brian’s bedroom that he acts weird about, so that’s how that will go. What’s inside doesn’t really matter—pictures of naked people, most likely—but whatever it is, it’s something only a teenager would care about. It’s not the commodity that matters, it’s the power.

Even with headphones Ashley can’t concentrate on her work, thanks to Mom’s meltdown. From what she gathered, a kid in Chicago took a gun to school and killed a bunch of people, like six or seven people. Which makes her shiver, but mostly makes her feel like a scientist, or a Special Investigator for the FBI: Why would a person do something like that? How would you plan it? Did he cry afterward?

Sometimes Ashley gets mad, sometimes she breaks stuff; once she gave Tasha a fat lip practically on accident. And that felt super great, for around an hour, but eventually she about threw up from guilt, and ran to Tasha’s house to apologize, sobbing.

It’s easy to get forgiveness for things by crying, depending on the person, but especially easy with Tasha because Ashley’s the only one that keeps everybody from hating Tasha. It’s her best skill, probably: Helping everybody stay involved, nobody left out, letting the less normal kids go about their business—like Weird Josh today, with his bugs—if they feel like it. Not to mention she’s the only person on Earth that can ever tell Tasha to even relax without getting yelled at.

***

Brian’s girlfriend Jennifer sees another boy from time to time, Eddie van Tenk, in the forest on one side of town, opposite the waterfalls from which the town of Eden Falls takes its name. It’s decorated with paper lanterns and Mardi Gras beads, sparsely. Right now Eddie’s sort of talking to himself while she jacks him off and the intensity and duration of his orgasm is surprising to her so she congratulates him, first of all, and second of all asks him to reconstruct the fantasy.

“You're modeling. Print model, to be weirdly specific. You get a…”

“ — Boner. Huge one.”

“Right. And they see the boner…”

“Fuck yeah. They all saw it.” He grins widely.

“And this made you feel ashamed?” 

He shakes his head. “No! But they wanted me to be.”

Jennifer can understand that. But Eddie says, no offense, but it doesn’t really matter if she understands it. She nods, hiding her irritation well, and prepares to exit, but Eddie kisses her pretty aggressively and she holds up her hands, like a surgeon going into surgery, and they laugh.

What they don’t know is that Miss Emma Brodie is there with a comically large parabolic microphone, spying on them. She is looking for something and she doesn’t know what it is.

Jennifer watches Eddie clean off, both fascinated and grossed out, and ignores a text from Brian because the key is never letting the streams touch. Eddie starts talking about socialism and how all the girls in socialism are free in their sexuality, some bullshit like this, and when she makes fun of him he asks how Brian, how “the QB,” is doing. How Brian is doing is: Pretty good considering he’s no longer the QB, but Brian also is: None of Eddie’s business.

None of which matters because just then Jennifer sees someone spying on them, and it’s a creep. Not the creep Emma Brodie but a separate creep, a regular man kind of creep, who spies on kids in the woods. He is also looking for something but unlike Miss Emma Brodie he doesn’t realize he has no idea what he is looking for. Unlike Miss Emma Brodie he doesn’t move, but meanwhile she’s circling to intercept him, so she misses whatever happens next that causes Eddie van Tenk to peel out and leave Jennifer there, waving goodbye. But it doesn’t seem like she’s too bothered.

Jennifer takes out her phone and calls Brian back; he’s ecstatic. He laughs when she says hello to Jeremy on the other end, because it’s not Jeremy — it’s his little brother Ashley, and he says they’re going to save the world.

Anyway, Jennifer says kind of loudly, she’s in the woods and heading to her car, and Brian points out there’s creeps in the woods, of which Jennifer is suddenly very aware, and she says even louder, “I will call you! In ten minutes when I get home!”

Jennifer pockets her phone and whirls around on the creep, who sort of creepily says it’s private property, but does not specify whose. “Your man leave you all alone?”

It takes her a second to even realize who he means and then she laughs: Eddie as her man. The creep steps nearer and she tells him to back the fuck up, so of course he calls her a bitch. This is when Emma appears and offers her assistance, friendly and helpful and out of the shadows.

“Thanks,” says Jennifer, who does not like Emma from the very first second she meets her: “I'm fine.” 

“Wasn't speaking to you, darling,” says Emma, and the creep says he’s got some ideas. Emma sort of violently snaps open a folded plastic rain poncho from her tasteful handbag and offers to discuss them. Jennifer’s not sure if she should run away or what but Emma tells her to leave and he’s genuinely hurt when Jennifer goes, “Alone with this creep?” Who is now, by the way, fiddling with himself.

Jennifer speedwalks away and when she puts her keys in the ignition it’s with a little bit of uncertainty because leaving those two creeps alone together is not what a superhero or a Vampire Slayer would do. But eventually she decides it’s adult business and they’re just two adults who are going to fight or have sex in the woods, and whoever that strange woman is she’s got some ideas about what to do. 

Which Emma does. She drops the guy a couple of times, easily. It’s about leverage. The creep’s nose is bleeding but he keeps coming so Emma just cracks her neck and puts on the clear plastic rain poncho and waits to hear the sound of gravel so she knows Jennifer Standish — who has dialed 9-1-1 but not pressed send, and has started her engine — is safe and gone. 

The creepy guy gets one over on old Emma and sort of plants himself on her, grunting and licking her cheek, so she fumbles a knife from her bag and drops it because she’s looking for something else. Jennifer finally drives away and Emma smiles and the man says “Are we doing this or what?” and she says “Yes!” and then turns her face to the side and fires two silenced shots into the creepy forest man.

When he’s done flopping around in the dirt and pine needles Emma sits up and repairs her smudged lipstick without even getting out from under him, because first things first. 

***

When Trilby Taylor’s family moved into the neighborhood, she and Ashley got along very well immediately. Ashley admired Trilby’s amazing memory, even if she didn’t seem to understand a lot of what she knew. The speeches came out in single, gasping breaths—like Tasha reading from books in class, not like a person talking at all. More like spitting. 

But this kindness toward Trilby pissed Tasha off, a lot, which made Trilby the target of a lot of mean behavior. So after Trilby’s parents dramatically mentioned maybe not letting her play with Ashley anymore, it was time for something big. She made some calls, talked to some people at recess, and by the end of school the next day Tasha was in Antarctica, as Weird Josh would say. 

Less than a week of the silent treatment caused Tasha to lose her mind completely in Music class, one Tuesday after lunch. It started small, with Tasha steadfast, pretending nothing was wrong, until Miss Babcock got one of her creative ideas. It was so creative Ashley can barely remember the point, but the basic plot had one student at a time naming their best song and then everyone playing instruments and singing it. Not real songs like on TV or the radio, but songs from Miss Babcock’s Book of Favorites, which Ashley’s pretty sure Miss Babcock makes up herself. 

Ashley’s favorite is “Kookaburra” because at the end part of the song everybody sings loud, “Gay your life must be!” and points at each other and then laughs hysterically for about fifty minutes.

It’s not the gay thing—Ashley knows you shouldn’t make fun of gay people from Brian, whose girlfriend Jennifer is queer, which is similar—but what makes her so happy about “Kookaburra” is how, every time they do it, things get out of hand really quickly, and Miss Babcock has never figured it out. She doesn’t get the joke. She just rings her little tin bell, or blows the stupid pitchpipe on the chain around her neck, and she blinks, and asks them kindly to settle down. Every time.

And that’s the funny part, because if Miss Babcock doesn’t fully understand the terms she’s using, what is the point of making a bunch of elementary students scream them at the top of their lungs? Especially right after lunch, when everybody feels a little crazy due to sugar.

At least when it’s Trilby it’s her show: She doesn’t force them all to say “The Owl and The Pussycat” or “The Raven” along with her, she just does her thing. Frankly, Music would be a hundred times better if it were just Miss Babcock singing her stupid Favorites alone, flapping her arms like a chicken, pointing to her head, shoulders, knees and toes all alone. Miss Babcock would enjoy it more, for one thing.

So this day Heath went, and Maya, and the McNeely twins, and the class sang all their favorite Favorites for Miss Babcock (Necie McNeely actually picked “Turkey in the Straw,” which Ashley’s mother has admitted to hating, when she was Ashley’s age, indicating that Miss Babcock is probably thousands of years old), and then she pointed straight at Tasha.

Tasha looked kind of worried and shy, which was not normal, and then said in a very quiet voice which was not her normal voice, “The Mickey Mouse Song,” which she only likes because it isn’t like singing but more like yelling, which she’s better at. Miss Babcock blew on the pitchpipe, and she and Tasha began a weak duet that soon died when Miss Babcock realized no one else was singing. 

Miss Babcock kind of looked around at everybody and asked the class to please sing along with Miss Babcock’s Favorites, and then she blew the pitchpipe twice, long, to make sure they had the note. Not even Tasha sang this time. Miss Babcock finished just the first line (“Who’s the leader of the club?”) before she stopped, and dropped the pitchpipe to her chest.

Ashley got ready to explain about all about Antarctica—she thought Miss Babcock was going to be pretty mad—but then Tasha was suddenly everywhere all at once, screaming in a foreign language that was only hers and making all the instruments work new ways and making the faces of rabies and then she was out the door and down the hall before Miss Babcock could even tip what was left of the tympani back over. And Ashley decided that their class had had enough of Antarctica, and needless to say, Tasha had had quite enough Antarctica. 

But since then, Tasha has been much more tolerant of Trilby. So it counts as a success.

***

Brian is masturbating but Ashley will not stop knocking, so he opens the door and acts cool, leaning against the doorframe next to a framed picture of his girlfriend, Jennifer. His room is sparsely decorated; he likes things to be relatively orderly.

“Brian. Tell me what happened downstairs. Why’s Mom mad?”

“I can’t explain Mom to you. Or Chicago.”

Ashley sighs and pushes past him to the bed, holding his old bear thoughtfully to her chest.

“No, I understand Chicago, Brian. What’s it got to do with you?”

“Nothing, kiddo. I don’t hug her enough and I’m good with computers and I’m home more often lately, so I’m suddenly in high risk of losing it.”

“You’re home after school because of your ankle. And because Jennifer works.”

“But then she’ll decide I should get a job.” 

He prowls the room, adjusting the placement of objects. Beside the bathroom door, Jennifer in a blue wig and Victorian dress.

“At the mall or something. I mean.”

“Who cares if you’re home? I just say, ‘Do your thing.’ It’s not like you have practice anymore.”

“She thinks if I stay home it means I don’t have any friends.”

“You’ve got friends. Cool friends. Way better friends since you left the team. Lisa, and Jennifer, and Corey and Martin and Jeremy Tyson...”

“That asshole?”

Brian’s relationship with Weird Josh’s brother is tumultuous. (Jeremy is also Weird.)

“Well, either way. Apparently you can have lots of friends and still be crazy.”

Ashley sticks out her tongue, hanging upside down on the bed. 

“You’re not crazy. Mom is crazy.” 

Brian smiles.

“Before I started driving, I remember this one day after school we had a substitute bus driver and all the kids were being mean to him. He seemed like a nice guy, you know, but kind of scared. He smiled at everybody. So after a while somebody chunks a watch, like this broken plastic watch, at his head, right?”

Ashley nods, eyes wide. Imagine that! Throwing something at a grownup like that.

“So he just stops the bus. I got worried because in eighth grade kind of the same thing happened with a math sub, and the guy totally punched a kid in the face. But instead of yelling or doing anything, the guy just gets up out of his seat—he left the keys in—and walks off. Down the road.”

Ashley shivers. That poor man.

“And like we were all too scared to actually drive the bus, thank God, so Jennifer got on the radio and they sent somebody out to save us, and it was creepy. But that’s what I think about when Mom starts yelling. Like we thought he was just a normal, well-trained bus driver, but in fact he could have been anybody.”

Ashley is impressed. Brian acts really nice around grownups. You’d never know.

“And I think that’s why they freak out about stuff like Chicago. Because it’s like, ‘Is there anybody driving?’ Like if they’re not in charge, who is?”

It’s the most Brian ever said to her probably, definitely since the injury, and it’s fascinating. The truth is that Brian can be pretty interesting.

“So that’s why they get crazy. But what about him? Why does it happen?”

He actually pulls her onto his lap, and gives her a big hug.

“I don’t really know, Ashley. But nothing like that could ever happen to you. For starters, you have a big brother that would protect you.”

She snorts and slides off his knees, one eyebrow cocked high.

“Get real, Brian. I’m not eight. I’m not scared, I’m interested. It’s interesting. Why did it happen? What was going on with that kid? Did he want to kill himself or be famous or what? Were they mean to him? Was he really smart or very, very stupid? Was he cute? Did he plan it for months? Was he rich like Heath, or poor like the McNeely twins? How can you just kill people? Was he creepy and lonely, or just really mad? Could people tell he was the kind of person who might shoot them? Would I have liked him? Would you be friends with him? I’m very curious about this.”

Brian sort of smiles but you can tell he’s disappointed. Even though he works out all the time and drinks disgusting protein shakes he still has to keep waiting to be a hero. He makes a thinking face, though, up and to the side, which means he is taking her seriously, which is: Awesome.

“If you need something to stop, you do anything you can. They think they're saving the world.”

Ashley scoffs. “From little kids?”

Brian just shakes his head. “It’s like terrorists. You always think the reason's good enough, or else you wouldn't do it. If you know you're right, and nobody will let you talk, that's the worst feeling in the world.”

“Worse than getting shot?”

He smiles. “Adults don't know what they're doing and they're all on drugs. Mostly. And figuring that out can really mess you up. So I think probably he didn’t have many friends, so when they were mean to him it was a bigger deal. Like if they made fun of him that’s the whole world. And he couldn’t see the end of it. Like he thought they’d be mean to him forever. Probably he was very sad, and very smart, and very angry, and lonely all the time, and one day it was too much.”

“Like Tasha.” She tells him the story of Music class, and he agrees with her assessment. 

“But then that means if Tasha had a gun, she could have shot us all dead.”

“Ash, Tasha’s obnoxious and crazy, but I don’t know if she’s that crazy.”

He wasn’t there so it’s pointless to explain how scary Tasha got that day in Antarctica. She moves on.

“Also nobody’s talking about dead teachers in Chicago. Just dead kids. Didn’t he shoot any grownups?”

“I guess maybe that wouldn’t be very exciting news. Grownups kill each other all the time.”

She shrugs and wrinkles her nose when he ruffles her hair. He’s got to get ready for Jennifer.

“You’re grounded for the stunt you pulled at dinner, right?”

“Maybe forever. Mom’s kind of...”

“Arbitrary,” he nods. She agrees, and then goes to her room to wait for Brian to leave, so she can go to the den and look up that word arbitrary. It is accurate.

Arbitrary is very Mom.

***

Ashley’s Mom is having an affair with Heath’s Dad Miles, the Mayor. She works in his office and it started out as just a job between social acquaintances but he’s so brightly selfish and unlike her sweet husband that what started as sort of babysitting duty turned into mommy shit which has turned into him constantly bothering her for selfies and sexy pics during the work day and begging to take her to the washroom, and sometimes she lets him.

Mayor Miles Oliver is like, he will refer to himself as “Daddy” in the third person when he’s horny, but also acts like a bratty little boy that needs to be controlled. Which apparently Georgia Anderson, on some level, responds to. She hates every side of this conversation, but that would also seem to be part of it.

Anyway now that’s out there. So when Emma appears smiling brightly from betwixt the empty cubicles on this sunny Saturday mid-morning, Georgia yells hello at her so he will hear it, and stop whatever next pervy thing he’s going to do. The thing is that consultants have been dropping by all week, so when Georgia asks if she’s there for the incorporation, Emma says yes. 

She also says her name this time is Estella Perrault, which is whom she’ll be for Georgia Anderson just like her name is Emma Brodie for Ashley. When Miles hears her voice he lunges out to stare her down, to puff himself up, which is amusing for both women. Emma pushes him backwards into his office and says it won’t take long, and once inside she takes stock of the situation — the incorporation of their suburb into a separate entity — and traces her finger along a map’s curves and contours.

“You don't need water, it's not Chinatown... What's left?” 

Miles, breathless, just says “Power.” He trails his hand up the back of her leg, where she has placed it in easy reach.

“Supply solar panels to the community. Issue a bond. Can the private school take them all?”

Miles can barely understand what she’s saying. “You’d have to ask the Dean,” he says, and she nods.

“Indeed. Why pay for schools in some other town? Think... bigger.” 

Emma turns his chair, placing a shoe lightly at his crotch, and Miles groans. He really is just so obvious. 

Emma's not joking in the slightest but Miles grins, wolfish. He thinks they’re playing a game. She thinks about killing him but instead she just calls him a quote “Dirty little boy,” which redoubles his erection of course, and then she sort of presses her foot into his whole area. Pretty hard. He gasps, grinning.

***
When Brian comes knocking on Ashley’s door that night it’s pretty late, and she’s got her headphones on again, so he lets himself in. Ashley smiles and pats the comforter beside her, so he’ll sit quietly until she’s done with her chapter.

In this part of the novel, the brave little girl meets a hermit on her solo journey. He’s maybe the only grownup left, and it’s been so long since he talked to anybody he doesn’t remember any words. 

Ashley is pretty scared of this character, but the brave little girl much less so. 

The girl thinks about taking him back with her, but ultimately decides it would be too frightening for some of the youngest children. Also, one or two of the older boys might start trouble if they saw a man.

“Your light was on.”

“I heard Mom snoring so I turned it back on. Why does she assume we need so much sleep?”

“Forget about it. When you were about two you made such a fuss that I wasn’t allowed to stay up past your bedtime.”

“That’s terrible! Are you sure that happened?”

“I am totally sure that happened. I remember, because it was Daylight Savings. I cried and cried because I had to go to bed before sundown.”

“Oh boy, Brian. I am so sorry. What a horrible feeling.” 

He smiles down at her.

“Jennifer and I talked about Chicago tonight. She was wondering why it happens so often lately.”

Ashley had been thinking about the same thing. That was what drove her back to her novel, eventually.

“I have a theory. I think it’s like bedtimes. Like, even though you had to go to bed criminally early when you were my age, now I basically have the same bedtime as you do. They make the rules, but if we can somehow show something isn’t so bad then it’s more likely to happen again. So once one kid took a gun to school and killed a bunch of kids then it made it easier for the next one to go through with it. Especially if it’s on TV a lot.”

“That’s kind of what Jennifer said. She said, what if it keeps happening more and more like it has been. Everybody’s parents are going to get weird like Mom and check our backpacks before school, or videogames will start to suck, or only bad guys will have guns, or something.”

“A lot of kids will die if that happens. It would make more sense if we stopped the kids going crazy in the first place. But I can’t figure that out.”

“Seems like you’d have to stop high school, then. School drives people crazy.”

“But that’s the problem, Brian. Kids teasing kids and kids shooting kids is the same thing. So we would have to save all of them, all at the same time.”

“Or when grownups make rules and don’t even get how dumb they are,” continues Brian. “That makes kids crazy.”

“And they won’t listen. That’s what arbitrary means.”

“That’s the whole problem. If they’d listen to us we could tell them how to stop it.”

Ashley thinks about this a while.

“That kind of thing makes me feel like a rat in a trap. Like kicking things.”

“I know, me too. But it’s like, we have to just listen to them no matter what, even if they’re obviously wrong. We’re not allowed to think of the difference. Like after that bus driver, we got yelled at because we should have just respected him, because he was a grownup. But obviously we should not have respected him, because he was a crazy jerk that just walked away from a bus full of kids. It didn’t even make sense but they yelled at us anyway.” 

As Brian gets agitated, Ashley stumbles over her words.

“Winos are our elders. Drug dealers are our elders. That scuzzy geography teacher who tried to touch Necie McNeely’s bottom was our elder. But if you bring that up they won’t even say anything.”

“They don’t know what to say. When they say our elders they mean them, because you’re arguing. So basically it just means shut up and listen to me just because I’m bigger.”

“And I bet if that geography teacher didn’t get his way he’d just say Respect your elders, too.” 

Ashley clenches her fists, hoping Brian will contradict her or stop this in its tracks.

“Not anymore, Ash. They should have to earn our respect. The good ones would anyway, and that way we can be sure, inside ourselves, and protect ourselves.”

“Yeah, right. They don’t want us to know the difference, because we would cause trouble.”

“No matter what, that’s what it would be. Causing trouble. Showing disrespect.”

“So we need to figure out how to make them listen. Everybody knew that teacher was creepy and thank God nothing really happened but what if they hadn’t listened to Necie? What if he had been really mean to her the day before, and they thought she was lying?”

“Well, Necie McNeely actually does stuff like that, Ashley.”

“I know that, Brian, but I’m saying we have to be more responsible, as a group. No lying, or even exaggerating. So they’ll know we mean business.”

“You sound like some kind of terrorist.”

***

Ashley’s house is like: Before Brian was born, before Mom and Dad were even in love, when Dad was a very young man, he was married to someone else. A woman. Her name was Anna. They were only married for a little while before Anna died in a car accident, but Dad found out afterwards she was pregnant when she died. This is just one example of a very important and very interesting thing nobody will tell you about.

Except for Brian, who only found out by snooping. The only thing Ashley knows about it firsthand is that when she was born, her Dad wanted her to be called Anna but her Mom named her Ashley instead. She wonders sometimes if Dad ever thinks about Anna and the baby, and she pretends the baby is her big sister—also called Anna, for whatever reason—who is beautiful, and kind, and bigger than Brian. She doesn’t know who would act scarier about this imaginary sister if they ever found out: Mom or Dad.

Probably (generally) it is Mom.

Mom is an only child that was adopted as a baby. When Ashley got old enough to wonder, she asked if Mom ever thought about finding her real parents. At first it bothered her when her Mom said she didn’t care who her real parents were, but later Ashley decided that was pretty cool. It means she loves Ashley’s Dad regardless of the first Anna, and she will love Ashley forever, no matter what. It makes Ashley feel special.

Mom acts very funny with Brian, and Jennifer and Corey (especially Corey) and Jeremy Tyson. Of course Mom is weird about Jeremy, Jeremy is weird (Ashley has funny feelings about Jeremy that more than likely mean they’ll have to get married one day, which is another reason she watches out for his brother Weird Josh), but as for the others, Ashley doesn’t get it. 

The assumption is that adults are usually funny about one thing, which is naked people, which they seem to think about all the time. So probably it is about this, Brian being naked, Brian and Jennifer being naked, Corey or Jennifer being queer and naked. All of them being naked, maybe. The way Ashley feels about Mom makes all of these equally likely, never mind that she herself has seen Brian naked with no ill effects, and even accidentally has caught Brian and Jennifer naked together, but that wasn’t scary: It was funny. Especially once they got scared, which was the weirdest part of all.

Which is when Ashley usually changes her train of thought—mostly to her unfinished masterpiece—because thinking of her Mom thinking all about naked people is one thing, but sitting there wasting valuable time thinking about naked people all on her own is something else entirely.

But in any case: The main thing with parents is figuring out what they want to hear and then saying it. Ashley’s Dad is easy because all he wants is to hear you’re happy, and then even if you aren’t that’s good too, because he can fix it. Either way he’s doing a good job.

But Mom’s harder, because sometimes she wants to hear you’re happy, and other times it’s better not to be happy, because then she can ask you how you’re going to fix it, and ask you and ask you until you guess how you’re going to fix it. And that means she’s doing a good job.

So maybe the problem is Brian’s doing an okay job all on his own, and Mom can’t tell if she’s doing a good job or not. Maybe the problem is Mom has different ideas about the kind of good job he should be doing; maybe if it’s not the same, that’s like Mom is not doing a good job.

Or maybe the problem is nobody in the family really paid attention when Brian hurt his ankle, because none of them care about football, and they didn’t notice his muscle mass draining away due to lack of exercise because none of them really ever looks directly at each other, and they haven’t really noticed how interesting and smart his new friends are, because they all just look like teenagers to Mom and Dad and Ashley: hungry and awkward and uncomfortable in their bodies. Angry and tired and revolting and terribly, terribly similar.

***

Ashley and Brian stay up very late talking about what they can do to fix the Chicago thing, but Ashley doesn’t bring up Ms. Grossman because Brian will just start talking about how hot she is. Which is annoying but also a waste of time, because Ms. Grossman is a beautiful and mature forty five-year-old that wears scarves and shiny pants and French-cuffed business shirts, and Brian is a pimply seventeen-year-old with dwindling muscle mass.

They don’t arrive at many conclusions about what to actually do, but there is a list now of demands, for later: 

RIGHTS & RESPONSIBILITIES

1. Adults will listen to Children honestly, and offer helpful advice if it is elicited.

2. Disagreements between Adults and Children will be resolved through the presentation of evidence and reasoned argument, rather than in terms of relative age due to unstable integrity of the Adult argument or as a timesaving gloss on the part of the Adults.

3. Adults will not avoid difficult questions due to personal cowardice, because Children will figure everything out anyway, but will instead answer honestly and ask for more questions.

4. Adults will never, for any purpose, tell to Children falsehoods, well-meant or otherwise, half-truths, or white lies, and similarly will not sin by omission of relevant facts or upcoming events.

5. Adults will do everything in their power to protect Children from each other and from other Adults, understanding that undue adversity does not build character but homicide statistics.

6. Adults will not side with one another for the sole purpose of presenting a unified front; this maneuver is transparent to Children.

7. Adults will make it clear to Children that their feelings for them are unconditional even if Children make the worst decisions possible.

8. Adults will not use guilt for the express purpose of making Children less troublesome.

9. Adults will never engage Children in any activity simply for the purpose of distracting or forcing them to be quiet.

10. Adults will not impose arbitrary rules or punishments on Children unless they can explain clearly the importance and benefits of the rule or punishment.

11. Adults will make nothing but the most objective and reasonable decisions regarding discipline and its administration.

12. Corporal punishment, being first and foremost an act of violence, will not be administered.

13. Adults will not spell words aloud or use coded language to shield the sensibilities of Children or surprise them (see 3 & 4).

14. Adults will make time with Children their highest priority, strictly using this time for neither criticism nor the imposition of guilt (see 8).

15. Children will find outlets for their anger or depression other than abuse of other Children.

16. Children will tell the truth without fail, accepting punishment with strength and optimism, assuming that these punishments are administered in good faith (see 10 - 12, inclusive).

17. Adults will not base criticisms of Children they do not yet know upon the appearance, beliefs, tastes, nationality, ethnicity, or social class of the Children or of the parents of the Children.

18. Adults will not unreasonably usurp the privilege of discipline from the parents of other Children; neither however will they defer reasonable responsibility for the safety and well-being of other Children on the basis of this rule.

19. Adults will respect the privacy and wishes of Children insofar as they do not reasonably endanger the safety, privacy or wishes of other Children or Adults, this distinction having been made on a completely unemotional and impartial basis.

20. Children will not defy rules for personal reasons, choosing instead to appeal unsatisfactory rulings in a calm and resolved manner.

21. Children will accord each other consideration, respect, and honor in all situations, making no distinctions due to appearance, beliefs, tastes, nationality or ethnicity, sexuality, gender, or social class.

It’s a good list; Ashley is proud. Brian inherited his gift for language from their Mom. She writes grants and fellowship applications, for the graduate students and for non-profit organizations all over town, with a specificity and directness that can be quite effective, and forceful, even if the concept of acting for something without profit—without a chance to grow—makes little sense to her. Charity, she thinks but rarely says, is the domain of religion and its only real purpose. For herself, Mom decides what she wants, and then she has what she wanted.

At the bottom of the page—leaving space for more rules later—Brian has written the words, “We the undersigned here proclaim this manifesto the only acceptable alternative to the current state of oppression of Children and young Adults. We look to the future and its brightness in the hopes that neither will the rules contained herein be ignored, nor will they ever be forgotten. The Children of the world are its future, and we will never forget the responsibility this entails. By placing your trust in the Children, your future, and acting in accordance with the Rules set here, you help to create Children worthy of that trust and responsibility.”

Ashley and Brian both write their names. Brian suggests that it might be better to just write their first names, since their last name belongs to their father and automatically places them in a family unit, which subverts the political statement. 

In terms of revolution, their family is now each other. And all the undersigned to come.

***

This was before Jeremy and Brian were friends, which seems like a million years ago, but they were both in Geometry. There was a substitute teacher, poorly shaven, in an ill-fitting sportcoat. And for whatever reason, the kids were not having it. Brian hated the guy but really they were all turned off by something about him. Plus he did not know a thing about Geometry, which was worse.

“I think they said the guy never even subbed before,” Brian tells Ashley in their backyard, where she is swinging on an old swing their Dad set up before she was born. “I hate subs because they gave up before they got there. They don't care about anything.” But Brian was feeling sorry for the guy too, at first, because being unpopular was a fate worse than death back when his ankle wasn’t messed up. Quiet Jeremy coughed out some kind of burn and they shared a moment: All-American quarterback and ponytailed dork.

“But what was the sub actually doing that was so wrong?”

Brian can’t answer that one. It’s something in the way he slumps his shoulders. Something in the fake bravado with which he addresses the class, like he’s their homie. Like he has this gift of talking to them — no, it was like he didn’t even have the right. But Brian doesn’t know how to put that into words.

It was like Jeremy and Brian were alone, laughing at this man, and nobody else existed. Until the sub came near and Jeremy went deadly still. Brian smiled up at the sub and sat pretty still too. He was too happy to move.

“Of course he thinks everything will be fine if I left…” But he had no intention of leaving. The sub got in his face, with Jeremy watching in horror, and Brian licked his lips, spoiling for a fight.

“So I thought if I just say I’m going to the Dean but really I go to the counselor, I can get this guy fired pretty easy.” Ashley hops to her feet, scandalized, but Brian explains: “I didn’t want him teaching anybody. I didn’t want you and Josh, or Heath, or anybody else to get him. He was a bad teacher.”

So Brian finally stepped out into the sun outside the portable building and the sub sort of weakly shoved at him, in some last stab at retaining power. Which was more delightful to Brian's adrenaline buzz than anything else could have been. The last thing he saw was the door closing on Jeremy’s face which was equal parts shocked, adoring, and amazed. 

His joy, the rebellion in him as he tells his little sister his biggest win. “I mean we’re sitting there paying for the privilege, okay, of watching this idiot try to understand geo proofs. He’s getting paid to babysit. And anyway I knew I could take him so it was like, What now? If he said add two plus two or else and I actually literally said Or else, what could he possibly do?”

Ashley shivers, not loving this. But it all checks out. Brian watches Ashley’s face very closely as he takes out a joint, and lights it. She doesn’t seem to register it.

“So you had other kids there, on your side. And it didn't even matter if they did anything either.”

“Nope!” says Brian, on the inhale. “He thought he was right. But there were more of us, and that’s why he had to try and hit me.”

Ashley thinks about it. “I should type out a list. Just of…”

“ — Never. Put this on a computer. We need to make that a rule. Never write down what you can say out loud and never say out loud…”

“What you can say with a look,” says Jennifer, who has finally arrived. “I taught him that. What are we not writing down?”

Ashley giggles at Brian’s answer: “Ashley’s building an army and you’re invited.” 

Jennifer accepts immediately, as if she’s been waiting her whole life for this.

***

Tasha’s family is like this: liberal, intellectual, and very political in that talking kind of way that only an upper-middle class white left-wing family can be. What this means is from a very early age Tasha has been concerned with her civil liberties, and is fluent enough in the jargon to support her efforts. 

Since her civil liberties, from all evidence, seem to include despotic control of all aspects of her environment, protection of these inalienable rights often takes on the dimension of serious and sometimes daily uphill battles against insensitivity and oppression.

Tasha would not have had to look up the word arbitrary. Tasha knows how to call her parents fascists in such a way that sometimes they actually cry. From earliest memory Tasha’s parents called their brash, hairy little offspring “the Brigadier” or, sometimes, “our little CEO.” 

Once Tasha learned to voice her demands in the language of her parents, these little nicknames had become less humorous, and fallen into disuse.

***

Weird Josh’s family is like this: silent and deeply brilliant. Their mother is an anthropologist who visits New Guinea twice yearly to take notes on a tiny tribe that’s slowly being ground out by industry and telecommunications. From her, the boys inherited a sense of wonder about other humans so quiet and inward-turning that their father — an accountant somewhere on the Northern Pacific Coast — privately diagnosed her on the spectrum. From him the boys inherit sleek black useless pieces of technology, greeting cards of grossly inappropriate sentiment, and the contents of same: Crisp hundred-dollar bills and US bond notes that smell like doing the right thing.

The boys, despite their absurd difference in age (Josh is eleven, Jeremy nearly seventeen), have a connection bordering on telepathic, and spend as much time as possible alone together. At some point long ago Jeremy had undertaken the task of being mother, father, and educator to his sibling, and the result was a crossbreeding of such radical and bizarre ideas that the boys often find it difficult to talk to others without making reference to their own specialized terminology. Being already socially disinclined, this causes the Tyson boys relatively little heartbreak.

The only kind of American who can be really interested in the revolution is the teenaged kind. And no one can be as dedicated to gap toothed theories as a sixteen-year-old, unless maybe it’s his fiercely devoted and dependent eleven-year-old brother.

***

Trilby’s family, the Taylors, is like this: an uncountable pandemonium of reedy and identical siblings with screeching voices and prodigious amounts of uncontrollable orange hair, each with more potential and star quality than the last. Had the family burst into its unlikely existence fifty years earlier they would have comprised a traveling circus. One plays the flute, one the piano and one the viola, there are whiteface mimes and altos and bassos, there’s a specialist in pantomime, a troupe in the tradition of commedia dell’arte, sopranos and tenors and a prestidigitator or two, balloon artists and clowns, a devotee of topiary on the grand scale and one who works only with bonsai, there are gymnasts and acrobats and pole vaulters, a martial artist, an animal trainer, a player of marimbas and the steel drum, one who can run up trees and buildings and flip herself over, a seamster, a teamster, a sound manager and a master of the gels. 

And then there’s Trilby, the dramatic monologuist and uncanny mnemonist. Trilby is the only one Ashley could tell from the others, and she’s been mistaken more than once. 

Ashley’s parents called the Taylors the Garland-Minellis when they didn’t know their children were listening: “The question is, which one is which?” 

“The real question is, where did all those children come from?”

Brian explained to her that Judy Garland was Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, but that was all he would say about it. And she supposed she could see it: Trilby’s Mom was like a sad, redheaded Dorothy sometimes, as though she’d opened her eyes one day on a colorful and fabulous world she had never expected, and spent every moment asking to go home.

Trilby’s Dad was very fun, all the time. It was easy to see why his army of progeny tried so hard to impress him. And greatest of all his joys was his Princess Trilby, who learned her poems and songs letter-perfect at his knee. Sometimes she’d begin, Kipling or Poe or Whitman, and his eyes would close, his graceful hands alive in the air, maestro to her memory.

***

When Ashley calls Heath Oliver to ask him to join, it is: Confusing and frustrating. 

She puts on her best lady-journalist voice when the woman answers, asking very politely for Heath Oliver, only to have the woman on the other end stammer for a few seconds before summoning someone else to the phone. Ashley knows her voice is kind of deep for her age, she’s run into this confusion a few times answering the landline at her house, but it’s still obnoxious when a man answers, and she has to ask again for Heath, and the line goes silent.

For a second she thinks Mr. Oliver hung up on her, and she’s incensed, but then she hears the thump of a door being closed on the other end, and then he breathes.

“Nina? This is my home number. What are you thinking?” 

“This is Ashley Anderson, I go to school with your... I’m sorry, is Heath even there?” 

After another moment of silent confusion, an extension clicks and now there are three people listening to each other breathe. 

“I’m sorry, this is Ashley Anderson. I am a classmate of Heath’s, and I was calling for him.” 

The woman’s voice, a little more cold and methodical than usual, answers her this time. 

“Ashley Anderson? Georgia’s daughter?” 

Mr. Oliver sighs and hangs up the phone. 

“Yes, that’s right. Is this Mrs. Oliver?” 

In doubt, always talk like they did in black-and-white television shows. 

“It is. Let me give you the kids’ line. They take phone calls on their … on their line.” 

She gives Ashley the number and Ashley feels dumb for interrupting his parents. The Olivers are kind of scary, from what she remembers; after a few drinks they get really excited about saying the most terrible things about people.

“Thank you so much, Mrs. Oliver. I am so sorry to have bothered you. I’ll use this number in the future.” 

“Oh, darling, it’s fine. Have a wonderful evening. And ask your mother to give me a call sometime, won’t you? I’ve read the most interesting articles lately.”

God knows. Eventually she gets off the phone and Ashley calls Heath’s line. Whenever Dad wants to talk to a bank, about the taxes or his practice, he always ends up yelling at himself afterwards about the goddamn red tape. Ashley gets that now.

Heath has a nice, furry voice, just like his sister Janna. She was in the grade above Brian’s; Ashley half-remembers something about her running away or something. Heath’s sisters are dark, where he is fair; the eldest Oliver sister, Sheila, is back east now; she is a few years older than Brian. He is not very chill around her.

“Hi, Heath. It’s Ashley.” 

“Anderson?” He talks just like his Dad but higher. 

“Your father thought I was... Someone else. They always think I’m a grownup.”

“You called the house number?” 

“Yeah. Sorry, is that okay?” Right now is not the time to annoy people’s parents.

“It’s fine. This number isn’t listed. They’re kind of used to giving out the number ever since Sheila went to school, and like Janna was always on her cellphone, so it’s just me. Not many people call, unless they’re calling for her. Hello, she’s in college? Teenagers.” 

Ashley covers her smile with a palm even though nobody can see her.

“So Heath. What’s up?” 

“Not much. I was going to a movie with somebody at another school but he got grounded. Why? I mean, what’s up.”

Like Mom would ever let Ashley go to a movie on a school night. Anarchy at the Oliver house, she’d say.

“Just writing, you know. I wanted to talk to you about something.” 

“Really?” 

Maybe she just wants him to sound excited or happy and that’s why. Maybe he is nervous like she is; if they both are, then she doesn’t need to be. It crept in between the calls.

“I was talking to my brother? And Karen? And we were discussing parents and adults, and how...”

Where did it go? Where was the rhetoric? She’d give anything for Trilby’s memory right now.

“Right, yeah. Tasha told me something about it.” 

Gross! 

“You were talking to Tasha? On the phone?” 

“God, no. She said something today at school. Like she’s starting some club, so grownups will listen to us instead of making us do stuff. Like going to bed early or whatever.” 

Ashley kicks over a chair, and Heath hears it, and he asks her if she is okay, and Ashley breathes.

“Okay. Hey Heath? You know how Tasha is?” 

“Yeah, I was like whatever. But if you’re into it that’s different.” 

“I’m not ‘into it’! I am it. I mean it’s my idea. God knows what she even said to you.”

“I can imagine what it was like. I mean, like Telephone. I know what she’s like. Tell me what you told her. Or just... Tell me.”

Ashley nods, still kind of worried that she sounds too big. It’s not all her idea, it’s not about getting there first. She and Brian hate people like that. This telephone call is turning her into an asshole. Like you could sit in the room watching her change. One more thing Tasha could ruin without even trying.

“You know my brother, Brian?” 

“Sure. My sister likes him.” Interesting. 

“He and I were talking about, you know, the stuff that’s...? Like Chicago?” 

“Yeah, we talked about it the other night. Shekhina was all nervous talking making dinner. The Devil or something. Mom just said it had to do with values. Something about Karen’s Mom.” 

“I was thinking, and Brian was thinking, maybe we could help. Like if we try to talk to everybody, we can keep the same thing from happening here. Maybe everywhere.” 

“Seems to me that it’d be pretty hard to come up with a solution.” 

“We think it has to do with not getting listened to, and hurting each other. Like if we all got together and agreed, it would be easier to make it stop.” 

“I think if those kids were better at getting their point across it wouldn’t happen in the first place. Like Mom said, values. Maybe because those kids are so weird in the first place, nobody listened that they were really pissed.” 

“Well, if we said it the right way maybe they would.” 

“Maybe we could stop some of the stuff happening in the first place.” 

You can tell by his voice that she has him.

***

Weird Josh and Donnie McNeely are sitting against the fence, behind the see-saws that nobody ever uses, where the tree is growing through it. They are tying leaves into bundles and loading them up with tiny rocks, which is Weird Josh's favorite kind of thing to do. Ashley admires his industry, even if there’s never a point. He is like in Social Studies when they talk about agrarian and hunter-gatherer. Ashley thinks of Josh as a “Tool User.” 

It always makes her smile; like, catching a nature show on at Tasha’s house and the otters roll over on their backs in the river, pounding rocks against their chests to crack oysters open. Not exactly pleasant, but very clever and cute from the outside. Just like Weird Josh.

Ashley creeps outside the fence, which is instant detention, to stand behind the tree the boys are back up against. They are mostly quiet.

“But if there was war, and you had to go, what would you want to do?” asks Josh.

“Chaplain? I can shoot a gun all right,” Donnie mumbles, concentrating on his task. His fingers aren’t as nimble as Josh's. Or maybe he just doesn’t have as much practice tying leaves around rocks.

“But you're so smart. Don't you think you'd make a good spy? Everybody likes you.”

“I couldn't do that. I can't lie for anything,” Donnie says, which makes Ashley roll her eyes because it is totally true, and frankly has really ruined things a couple times, “Besides, you think faster than me. I think you'd be a better spy.”

“What if we were on the wrong side?”

Donnie sighs and puts down his leaf bundle. He knows exactly where this is headed, which Ashley can see and Josh cannot, but he’s willing to play along for Josh.

“What do you mean?”
 
“What if we were the bad guys?”

“Like if we were in Korea? Like if we grew up somewhere scary?”

“No, like if we made the wrong choice. The USA.”

“I don't like that, Josh.” 

Donnie picks up his bundle of rocks again, and Josh stares out across the playground.

“I know.”

If they were girls, Donnie would say, “If you know that then why do you always bring it up?” because obviously Josh enjoys thinking about this stuff, it’s one of the main things he talks to his brother about, and she identifies with the desire to ask scary questions. It’s like daring yourself, like watching scary movies even though you’re not supposed to. Like when she couldn’t stop herself once she started thinking about the boy in Chicago, and got so upset. Seeing what crimes you can do, in your own mind.

Donnie doesn’t get those games like Ashley and Josh do and he doesn’t enjoy them like Brian and Jeremy do. And more importantly, Donnie loves God and the USA and his family and even the President, and Josh knows that. What Josh wants to find out is, which one he loves most. It makes Ashley feel gross to see all of this, like seeing Donnie McNeely in the shower: Knowing that Donnie gets tired of always playing by Josh’s rules, especially when it’s so obvious what he wants. 

But the truth is Donnie loves Josh best, for asking these scary questions, so he can pretend it’s just Weird Josh being Weird. 

The whole way around to behind that tree, she kept telling herself she wasn’t sneaking, or eavesdropping, just doing spy work to figure out her army. But behind that tree, she gets sick seeing Donnie better than even Josh does, maybe even than Necie does. That’s the thing that sends her back around to the gate. Why she hopes she’ll get caught.

***

Later the boys will find their nemesis, Bad Tom the tomcat, injured in an alley. Josh hates Bad Tom because he was witness once to Bad Tom’s attack on his own cat, who was in heat at the time. The screams and bloody viscerality of the scene still gives him nightmares. He doesn’t know what was happening, not really, but he knows Bad Tom is bad and he knows for a while he couldn’t look his cat, whom Jeremy named Muad’dib, in the eye.

They don’t really know what to do about the injured cat. Donnie knows that they should ask an adult, so he tries to imagine what an adult would say: Get lost. And then later when you came back the injured cat would have vanished. That’s how adults would do it. But Bad Tom is hurt, and screaming a song of his own. And it’s saying how bad it hurts and how scared he is. 

So then Donnie thinks maybe what an adult would do is help Bad Tom. So he finds a great big rock and makes sure Josh is okay with what he’s about to do, and then he does it. And Bad Tom stops crying. The boys set off together and it’s no problem, really. Josh wonders if he’ll just dream about this, instead.

***

In the post-lunch rush on Monday, most of the sixth grade pours out into the clear, bright sun. A shadow passes overhead as, at the other end of the parking lot, comes Emma Brodie striding, in bright daylight: Sunglasses, white cape, killer heels.

Necie McNeely, standing ignored on the very edge of a clutch of girls, looks up like she’s hearing a faraway song. Karen Grossman shivers when she walks by. Emma pushes past Tasha, who falls in love with her immediately, and heads inside.

The halls of the school are deserted for lunch, and she snoops around a little: Awards cases and bulletin boards at first, then ducking into classrooms, desks and backpacks, even teachers' desks. Balanced delicately on a chair, Emma activates a recording device, hiding it in one class's ceiling projector. Hearing footsteps, Emma drops to the floor and composes herself. She steps out into the hall imperiously, colliding with friendly, sloppy Deborah Grossman. She’s Karen’s mother, and a frequent volunteer and substitute teacher. Much beloved. 

Ms. Grossman asks for her visitor pass and Emma says “Yes thank you!” but then just keeps walking, toward the offices. Ms. Grossman watches her clip-clop all the way to the corner and then disappear.

Dean Rogers is shuffling papers when she enters his office. He’s on the phone with his son Corey, who is seventeen and the best boy friend of Jennifer Standish, with whom he has managed a work-study program working together at a department store. Which Dean Rogers knows is a recipe for disaster but there’s nothing he can do. While they’ve been chatting, Corey and Jennifer have been putting makeup on an indulgent about it, not to say exuberant about it, Brian Anderson.

Emma stands composed in the doorway, bag in hand, insulted, when Dean Rogers finally notices her.

“You’re the Dean?” He nods, forgetting the phone cradled against his neck; he reels back when Emma enters like a shot. “Emma Brodie. I’ve noted several violations on campus you'll want to review…” 

“Sorry?” says Martin, and she nods.

“Indeed. I'll write a memo.” 

Emma sits primly, extending a sheaf of crisp documents from her small handbag: “My CV. More references than generally required. The one from the President of the State Board of Education is worth a…”

Agreeably enough, Dean Rogers flips through them, then snaps to it. “Sorry, what’s happening?”

He shifts, agitated and horny, and Emma places another recording device on the underside of his desk while he’s distracted.

“Who… Who are you?”

“Brodie. Emma Brodie. I've been here five minutes, Doctor. It has not changed in that time.”

Dean Rogers, whose first name is Martin, Dean Martin Rogers, shakes his head. “We're in financial crisis, our investments are a clusterfuck, if we don't incorporate the endowment goes into all sorts of…”

Emma produces another folder from her inexhaustible bag. “If you'll open this presentation to page six, you'll see that you can double the... If you'll open it to page six, Doctor…”

On the phone Corey clutches at Jennifer as she removes Brian’s makeup.

“But who are you?”

“You've a glut of sixth graders at present, correct?” 

Dean Martin admits it. “Upper School's relatively new. We're only just retaining them into Middle…”

“ — You'll be splitting the class? Needing a second sixth-grade teacher.”

She snatches her report back from out of his hands and nods curtly.

“I'll return to prepare once winter break has begun.”

Martin says he’ll call her if the situation arises, but he knows and Emma knows that it’s easier for him to just give in than to try and find a teacher this time of year. She’s definitely the most promising candidate, by design and by definition, and it’s over before he has a chance to call her references.

“Oh, and I’ll want my choice,” she says at the door.

“Your choice? Of what?”

“Children, of course! I plan to challenge them. Mercilessly.”

Martin chuckles but she’s more thoughtful than kidding around.

“Based on what?”

“Fortitude, I should imagine.”

***

Ashley’s mother is applying eyeliner as she drives through the dark. Ashley watches her in the mirror from the backseat, with Josh beside her and Daddy up front; all four in their cocktail best, Josh in a little bowtie.

“I met the strangest woman at work today,” says Mom. “I mean she was wonderful, honestly.”

Daddy laughs. “Fake job or real job?”

Mom catches his eye in the mirror, but grins. She works in the Mayor’s office, with Heath Oliver’s Dad.

“Well? She’s got me thinking my fake job could become my real job…”

Daddy muses, paying real attention. “If you were going to run, now’s the time. I’m going on sabbatical in the spring…”

Mom’s pleased that he’s taking it seriously. Mom’s not too hard to make happy, when she wants something. She just doesn’t seem to want much. Ashley wishes Brian were coming to this dinner, but he’s home with Jeremy.

“I’d like to see Miles Oliver’s face,” Daddy spits, and Weird Josh makes a disgusted sound. Mom doesn’t quite register his scorn, but she remembers there are kids present. “Anyway. We were looking at the incorporation stuff and she just…”

“—Where did this strange and wonderful woman come from?”

Mom smacks her lips, turning onto the Olivers’ street. “She was a consultant or something, that’s why she was in. But all the parts she liked were the parts I did the most work on, and she built on it, right there in front of me. It was nice. To not feel crazy.”

“Crazy? You’re not crazy. Nobody thinks you’re crazy.”

Mom snorts. “That’s not entirely true. But it’s not… I mean, men. Miles. Question everything you say. They have to vet it. And anything they agree with becomes part of them. Their idea. So you can’t ever get ahead of it. It was just nice to have this woman… See me.”

“There is not a person in this city, or this as-yet unincorporated township, who would not be better off in your hands than Miles’s.”

Josh makes his sound again, more nervous this time, and Ashley holds his hand to calm him.

“He’ll be here tonight,” Ashley explains. “Miles Oliver.”

Mom rolls her eyes but Daddy just chuckles. “But luckily Simon Carroll will be there. His biggest fan. Sometimes I think Miles is the only reason they even throw these parties…”

“—Salons, dear. ‘Parties’ are for the proletariat. This is a meeting of the minds!”

Daddy snorts and Ashley smiles; Josh is comforted.

“Miles Oliver,” Josh quietly murmurs, “Is a bastard.”

Daddy laughs, not even trying to stay cool, and Mom gives him a look in the mirror. 

“You’re not wrong. But let’s keep that in this car, okay? Last thing I need.”

“And if he gets his feelings hurt,” Daddy grumbles, “Simon will be there to suck him off. No babysitting tonight, okay?”

Mom sometimes brings work home with her, which in this case means taking care of Mr. Oliver like she’s his mommy, or his wife. Even with his wife standing there watching; it’s just natural.

“What is suck him off?”

The adults hum softly at that and Daddy turns on the radio. Josh and Ashley share a sidelong smirk. Sometimes it’s so easy.

***

In Brian’s bedroom Jeremy reads aloud. His glasses reflect the computer screen, giving him a dazed appearance. Sometimes it’s hard to get Jeremy to focus on something and then other times it’s like he can’t step away from it at all once he’s focused. He is pretty interesting.

“They had this army of the oppressed. These little boys Johnny and Luther, look at them. They led an army. They were putting in this pipeline, in the ‘90s, and the locals…”

Brian is winded; he asks him to start at the beginning. Jeremy is irritated. When he’s talking fast like this you’re either onboard or you’re left behind.

“I mean you can look it up. The point is that they did this for years, building their army. They claimed to have magic powers. They could fire a gun at the ground and kill a person, like thunder. They had a friend named the Black-Tongued King, who was also a little kid. They couldn’t be killed…”

Brian’s legitimately confused. “Is this... a... book you read?”

“No, my friend—it is real life! They really happened! Burma, in the Nineties…”

Brian, mispronouncing it, corrects him. “Myanmar.”

Jeremy finally turns from Brian’s desk to look at him: Shirtless and sweating out crunches on the floor. Jeremy goes silent, watching him. On the third rep, Brian winks, grinning. Jeremy rolls his eyes, but doesn’t look away as Brian keeps at it. 

“Myanmar,” Jeremy says.

***

On arrival at the Carrolls’ house, Ashley and Josh hang back by the car. The Andersons get themselves together, remembering the wine, and Josh is back on edge again.

“They’re gonna ask us questions…”

Ashley nods. “It’s just to make you show off, so then Tasha can show off better.”

“One time her Mom asked me about the Hutus and the Tutsis and I thought, That is fake. I was so mad. I found out later it was real, but… They’re still jerks. What if she makes us go up to her room?”

Ashley snorts at that. “We’re not doing that.”

“But what if she makes us?” Tasha Carroll has a way of making you.

“We’re not doing that. I can take my Mom’s phone to the bathroom and call the house and use the Old Lady voice.”

Josh is reassured. Everybody believes in the Old Lady voice because they’ve seen it work. Tasha opens the door to greet them, looking Shirley Temple insane and wearing blush.

“Oh my God,” Ashley says, but Tasha’s focused on her parents at first. When Josh and Ashley approach she smiles, authentically excited to see them. It’s the worst thing that could happen.

“Ashley! Joshua! Come in, come in!” she says, like a grownup, and they stare.

***

Miss Emma Brodie’s feet dangle over the Andersons’ car, from one of the Carroll’s live oaks. She carries her comically large parabolic microphone and huge over-the-ear headphones, both in a solid white, as well as a picnic basket which perches next to her on the branch. She can see into the parlor and dining room of the Carrolls’, and with the aid of a pair of opera glasses she can even make out their lips moving.

She’s not sure what she’s looking for, but she knows she’ll find it here. Ever since she arrived in town it’s been like a scent she can’t place, or a song playing almost too quietly to hear. Maddening.

In the parlor, Alice and Simon Carroll are desperate to make their salon happen, and they’ve started with vacation slides at cocktail hour.

“First thing,” Tasha’s Dad says, “No podcasts! Cold turkey. Highly recommended.”

His wife nods, hard. “Ugh, screentime. I swear I just get lost when you all talk about that...”

Emma grins as Heath’s mother winces for them, trying so hard; her husband rests a possessive hand on her knee.

“It just became routine,” Simon says. “Up with the sun, head out and find these guys, hit 'em with the tranks…”

“It was so nice to ... find nature again. Fresh air, helicopters... And you're helping, too? Gosh!”

Emma cranes her neck to see the far wall: A huge photo of two young stags, their antlers locked.

“It's part of maturing, it rubs the velvet off. Really primal.” 

“They have to fight,” Tasha’s mom says. “Can’t leave each other alone.”

***

“Josh Wong was 14, leading the Umbrella Revolution. Got a kid on City Council. But listen, Johnny and Luther, they had a full-on army. Just little boys, look — an army...”

Brian lifts, annoyed being ignored by Jeremy at the computer. Anything to derail him or he’ll be on this all night. 

“Come over here,” he says, and Jeremy quizzically turns. Brian drops to the floor: “Hold my feet.”

Jeremy finishes what he's reading and kneels, considering Brian's smile: Confident as ever. 

They’re quiet, and very close.

***

Ashley plays solitaire on the floor, Josh helping silently. Tasha's on the floor too, in the center of the Adults. Ashley’s Dad brings up Chicago finally and all the parents sort of jerk and stare at the kids, but Ashley and Josh are oblivious and Tasha could care less.

“That would never happen to us. And the public school's security is state-of-the-art…”
“I don't think it's something you can predict, it just happens. A response to the state of the…”
“True. But have we looked at the leadership? The support the…”

“I highly doubt those kids get anything in the way of support,” says Tasha’s Mom, and Samantha coughs.

“That's unfair. And would we really let them all go, just so we can draw some lines on a map?”

Ashley speaks up at that: “Which is all it is, really.”

Tasha jumps on that: “Well, Necie is your best friend. So of course you’re against it.”

“First of all she's not my best friend, I'm her best friend, which is completely different and you know that. And Jasper's the best student in our class, maybe the school. We can't…”

“—He's great, actually,” says Josh. “Jasper McNeely for Mayor!”

The Adults all laugh at that, except for Miles Oliver, who doesn’t really ever laugh. Emma mixes a cocktail from her picnic basket among the branches. Truman Miranda spots her as he’s walking past and before he can even finish asking what she’s doing, Emma has dropped into a menacing, dangerous stance. 

“Ladies don't belong up trees,” says Truman. He is 18 and plays chess most nights.

“Roving feral boys don't belong in expensive developments,” Emma says, looking up into her tree and back at the boy. His dark eyes and locks of curly hair give him a mystery she likes.

“What do you think they'd say if they knew there was some…”

“Hmm. Supposing I screamed, what would they say then, do you think?”

He's taken aback by her intensity, but doesn't back down. 

What they’re missing as they face off is Tasha's head on her outstretched arm, delivering a pretense of extemporaneous speech in a sickly-sweet, singsong tone.

“...Really more of a family! We support local businesses, help by showing. Leading by example.”

“Whose example?” Ashley’s Dad asks. “Who makes these rules? Parents? The whole town? Revolutions turn to the right…”

Simon Carroll laughs at that, but Samantha Oliver nods, to Miles' great annoyance: “Power does tend to accumulate.”

“Nobody here's suggesting an autocracy, as far as I know,” Simon begins, but Ashley’s Dad is in it now.

“Very small groups don't make you anxious? Invariably there are finance issues, conflicts of…”

Simon and Miles are getting upset, so Ashley jumps in.

“This is grownup stuff, and I might not be following it all…”

Her mom’s still talking. “The Mayor's office and the college are committed to this community. We won't leave any…”

“—Do go on, Ashley,” Miles says, sickly sweet, to cut her mom off. “Children's input is always welcome.” Tasha tries to interrupt, but Miles holds up a hand. “Love to hear what you've got to add, Tasha, but I think Ashley may be arriving at her point.”

Everybody’s looking at her now. She feels nervous and then she just turns it off.

Out in the tree, Emma and Truman are sharing the headphones, watching raptly. This is it. This is the reason Emma came tonight. Something is about to catch fire, and she needs to be here to see it. To breathe on it, she thinks. 

“It's easy to talk about people like they're ideas, or numbers. But we're not. Chicago isn't. It's scary, and ugly, but… It's useful, even if it's ugly. In Chicago, their parents loved them too. That didn't save them.” 

They're actually listening; Ashley's proud. “Everybody thinks they're better than the worst thing that can happen. So talk to us! Tell us what to do if it happens!”

“Yes,” says Samantha Oliver, who really is just the nicest of the moms. “Difficult conversations are the most important ones to have.”

“Count your assets,” Ashley continues. “We spend every day together, we can help each other. A helpline. Mentoring, peer mediation…”

“We could build that into student government easily,” says Ashley’s Mom. “Give student leaders a seat at the…”

“—Bring Middle School in!” says Samantha, getting excited. “They're more civic-minded than…”

Miles interrupts his wife: “Why not bring kindergarteners into it? Put them on the board, give them a vote.”

Ashley leans back, irritated and up past her bedtime. “Yeah. Okay.” The way she says it is angry and sarcastic enough that the room goes quiet.

“Inmates taking charge of the asylum,” Simon says, backing Miles up. “That always works.”

Ashley’s had it. “Are you an expert? Or did you hear something on NPR one time?”

Ashley's getting nervous, but the Adults don't mind: Her parents no-look clink their glasses, thoroughly engrossed.

“Making sure nobody's alone, giving us a voice. That's bigger than schoolboard, or who has the most money, or who's in charge of the kingdom. Who profits…”

They jump at the word; a worried Simon looks to Miles, who steps in finally: “—All right. We can all see where you're headed, Ashley…”

“Mr. Oliver? Excuse me but if you don't want to know what we think, why did you ask?”

Josh's hiccuping laugh echoes in the pin-drop silence. 

In the tree, Truman watches Emma pack up her headphones and cocktail set: The night is apparently over for her, and he’s disappointed—he’d rather stay and watch the show.

“Are you really done?”

Emma hops down onto the sidewalk and stalks away without a look back. 

“Oh, darling! Anything but.”

***

Jeremy holds onto a sweat-soaked Brian's feet, angry: “I don't know, monogamy? Honesty?”

Brian shakes his head. “Play by their rules. Or let anybody define... What we have.”

“Which is?” Jeremy lets go of Brian’s feet and leans back. “What enlightened sex utopia where it's chill for your girlfriend to go fuck a…”

Brian halts, looking into Jeremy's eyes intensely. For a second he has so much to say that no words will come out. It’s a rare feeling for Brian, and not one he relishes. Then they come.

“Hey. We can be whoever we want. We can do anything we want. Nobody's watching. We're free.”

***

Dinner's over, the energy is sour. Ashley's color is high.

“Pretty interesting how you're so focused on bullying, Ashley,” Tasha finally opens up. For a second Ashley’s honestly confused.

“God, do you mean Antarctica? Hate to break it to you, but everybody loved that.”

“—Do you see what she does? It's like this every day. Relentless.” Tasha starts crying. Fake but only at first. Then it becomes real, which is the most irritating part. You can’t come back from that.

“I can only speak for myself. But I've been at this school for six years, and I can tell you power does accumulate. And it is a bad thing, Mr. Anderson…”

“What is she even talking about,” mumbles Ashley’s Mom, who seems to have gotten drunk.

“We didn't want to bring it up tonight,” the hostess says apologetically. “We did speak with the Dean, and it seems there's been an incident. Nothing that can't be talked through! But there's a little exclusion going on, a little bit of targeted... I don't want to say harassment, but some children singled out...

“Yeah,” Ashley spits, “Some children doing all they can to isolate themselves, nonstop abuse of literally…”

“Isolate themselves!?” Tasha screams through her tears.

Ashley’s Mom is serious now, and pins Ashley to the wall with her eyes. What the hell is this about?

“I was the victim of bullying. As a highly sensitive person, I lashed out. I apologized to our teacher and Dean for my part in what happened. I had to write an essay. It was humiliating.”

Ashley’s quieter now, hoping to rescue this: “You lost control, Tasha.”

If she can just seem reasonable it’ll work out. She can’t stand the idea of her parents being disappointed in her. Bullying? Whatever is the opposite of bullying is what Ashley does.

“You decided you're the boss,” grunts Tasha. Ashley’s Mom nods.

“We don't leave people out, Ash...”

“—Oh right. Unless they’re in public school, right?”

Georgia recoils from her vicious tone, standing. Apparently Ashley’s been paying closer attention than they thought. 

“Great!” Ashley hisses. “Thanks for dinner!” she aims at Tasha’s poor boring mom, and drags Josh out the front door — past the still-paused stag video, past the shocked Carrolls and Olivers and Andersons, and past a suddenly exposed Truman Miranda, who is standing there when the door opens. The kids holler hellos as they pass, laughing wildly.

Georgia scoffs at Graham about their daughter; the three Carrolls are a triumphant unit. Samantha is bummed. Drunk, angry Miles stares at his fists.

***

Ashley and Josh breathe heavily in her front yard, cracking up. Finally resting. 

“Let's put a kindergartener on the uh, goddamn Supreme Court,” Ashley imitates the Mayor. 

“Nominate a toddler for President of the United States of America! Put a Highly Sensitive Person in charge of the Police Department!”

“ — Fuck highly sensitive people.” Ashley’s feeling particularly brave.

“And fuck Miles Oliver,” Josh agrees, and Ashley goes inside to get Jeremy. Josh is a little weird about doorways sometimes, or going into people’s houses — too many strange smells, is actually the issue, but Ashley doesn’t question it. She just pulls him into a bit of a bearhug and leaves him on the porch.

Upstairs, Brian and Jeremy nearly collide as they rise and try to swing up to break the silence. They breathe, absolutely still like that day in Geometry, eyes locked like teens hiding from a horror movie stalker. Ashley’s rat-tat-tat finally breaks the spell.

Brian's stuck with his shirt half-on over his head when she enters, Jeremy struggling into the desk chair. She sits  in the middle of whatever was happening and they’re grateful. 

“Adults don't know what they're doing and they're all on drugs,” Ashley admits, and sends Jeremy downstairs to get Josh. 

“And what did we learn, out there among the enemy?” 

“Not the enemy,” Ashley says. “Even if it's like they really want to be.”

Down on the street Jeremy starts running away from the house, leaving Josh in his dust.

“Where are your assets?” asks Brian, nodding at her to think hard. 

“...Everywhere! I need an army.”

“And spies!” Brian speaks into the silence.

Down the street Jeremy calms down, slowing enough for Josh to catch up. 

“No, like... To save anybody, we have to save everybody. At once.” 

So what first? What's most evil? Ashley doesn’t know.

“How can they be so wrong on something this obvious? These are most helpless people, that need the most protection!”

Josh reaches Jeremy, who sweeps him up in his arms. 

“Childhood is a political state,” Ashley says.

“Like a state of being? Or like the state of Virginia?”

She doesn’t really know what she means but it sounds good.

“I don’t know. But tonight was… As of right now, we're defenseless.”

***

So Karen Grossman is pissed, and for once her mother is scared. Normally Dr. Grossman treated her daughter’s “moods” like their life was a witty TV show about a mother and daughter who were such good friends that no conflict couldn’t be resolved with clever banter and a comforting hug. The fact that – for the first time since that awful day they’d been stuck inside the house together, when it rained and rained and everything smelled like musty wet wool, and everything was sickening and gross – her mother was screaming back only proved that Karen’s point was legitimate. That didn’t help at all. Karen hated nothing quite so much as seeing her mother at a loss.

The deal was complicated. Basically, Karen’s mother wasn’t very good with money, and once her brother Austin had left for college, Karen had kind of inherited responsibility for their household finances. She didn’t mind; she actually really enjoyed using and improving the spreadsheet Austin had left behind, the mid-month ritual of checks pre-completed and presented for signature, stamps licked or peeled off and affixed, balances checked online, the end-of-month walk to the landlord’s office (he lived and worked next door), Austin’s college payment plan, the long division of monies remaining per days of the month, grocery lists, prescriptions, holiday and birthday gifts, and taxes. Taxes were her favorite, and she’d helped Austin with them every February since she could remember.

What was at issue during today’s fight, as during all Karen’s fights with her mother – and Austin’s, before her – was what her brother called in his detailed budget the “discretionary and activities fund.” Karen knew that her lessons, all of them, were provisional at best, pending sufficient capital, and that each month’s final budget might demand any amount of gerrymandering across accounts in order to preserve their funding. She actually enjoyed the game – the last act in each month’s accounting – and the puzzle of it, although she disagreed strongly with the assumption that her lessons weren’t vitally important for the preservation, at least, of her sanity. Which in turn meant the preservation of her mother’s quality of life, because Karen was willing to admit – and not just as a rhetorical tactic – that a bored Karen was a pretty horrible concept.

So that was all great, but about once a month, Dr. Grossman would come up with a Crazy Idea, a Sudden Terror, or a New Enthusiasm. 

Past Crazy Ideas had included: low-fat, low-carbohydrate, vegetarian pre-prepared meals delivered twice-weekly to the home, to supplement their busy and health-conscious lifestyle (lots of Crazy Ideas had to do with being health-conscious), gourmet coffees from fair trade sources spanning the globe, and a website development project in support of her doctoral students’ indigenous narratives theses.

Sudden Terrors had ranged from the outdated pollutant-spewing engine of their ten-year-old hatchback, to the possibility of Dr. Grossman’s self-sabotage and fear of success (this was back under Austin’s regime), to a whole closet of ill-fitting and outdated fashions which would interact somehow chemically with the aforementioned aversion to success and the expanded Social Semiotics department’s influx of “Lacanian groupie whores,” thus denying Dr. Grossman tenure for the life of her academic career and forcing her to sell her hair and teeth for bread on which to survive, and no discretionary fund for pets, which was the saddest part, because Dr. Grossman really loved animals.

The Crazy Ideas resulting from these Sudden Fears included, respectively: a brief flirtation with a hybrid family car so objectively hideous that Austin and Karen had spontaneously burst into tears and clutched at each other’s hands, reflexively, even though he was a brusque high school junior at the time; the legendary Week of the Life Coach, which had effectively ended on a Friday in hurled recriminations and cookware, and the Life Coach himself (a kindly and very attractive young man, a part-time tennis instructor and college student who also Coached Lives on the side, who baked his own loaves of bread in a small white appliance, with ingredients like bay leaves, figs, and – only once – eggplant and asparagus, and who collected Hummell figurines) running away down the street with only one shoe on, sobbing uncontrollably (and memorably: Dr. Grossman still referred to him as The Crybaby); and a bill from an unfamiliar clothier based in Italy which totaled over one thousand American dollars and included a coupon, in Italian, for ten percent off the Grossmans’ next purchase over $400.

The most revelatory New Enthusiasms (most common of Dr. Grossman’s fiscal assaults) were a timeshare which smelled like fish guts and was located in Marina Del Rey, California, a “personal improvement” course which seemed entirely predicated upon sending nasty, sniping, point-by-point emails to everyone you’d ever met, done business with, or were related to, and, most recently, a collection of culturally-relevant and horrid day-glo Oaxacan sculptures of rabid bunnies, dogs having sex, and skeletons on bicycles whose hateful grins had interrupted Karen’s normally untroubled sleep like harbingers of assault by the undead until she finally emptied her great-grandmother’s antique china hutch and locked all the grim objets behind the glass with a pirate’s golden key, at midnight.

Standard procedure, as defined by Austin (who called it the “discretionary algorithm”) as the most likely way to head off budgetary annihilation, was made up of four distinct steps, as represented by the helpful acronym “S.A.V.E.”

Step one was sufficient maybe 30% of the time (although Karen, being naturally more socially gifted, and manipulative, than her brother, had improved on his design): “Shock” the subject through the presentation of cold, hard facts – anything from a Bowdlerized version of the budget spreadsheet (the original was password-protected) to pictures of former millionaire popstars and dotcommers later discovered in squalor.

Step two, “Appeal” (although Karen privately thought of this step as “ADD”) to more sensational, more frugal alternatives: a $600 engine overhaul, it had been successfully suggested, would not only provide more “power” and a quieter, more relaxing driving experience, lower emissions, and preserve Dr. Grossman’s on-campus liberal cache (“that delightful, brilliant, single mom that drives the Datsun”), but would also, in the long term, cost only a bit more than one percent of the total cost for the Prius. Step two had a recorded success rate of 50%.

Step three was “Victory at any price,” and involved black-ops countermeasures in order to undermine the purchase or commitment itself, in the event that Dr. Grossman proved intractable (“S”) or undistractable (“A”). Most memorable here were Austin’s campaign during the Week of the Life Coach, a truly masterful web of deception drawn in inference, implication, and verbal tics so fine and subtle that the actualities were  unmentionable in direct adult conversation but unstoppable in effect, such that Dr. Grossman was under an unshakeable conviction that Austin’s sexual naivete and curiosity had left him open to the The Crybaby’s impending predations, while The Crybaby himself struggled with the mistaken impression that he himself was under constant threat of Dr. Grossman’s own predations, and the resulting French farce created so much entropic sexual fear and tension that the inciting incident (something having to do with salt content and bloating, or adult-onset diabetes, or something) was simultaneously negligible and of towering importance at the time. The “V for Victory” last-ditch strategy accounted for the stoppage of approximately 90% of all unwise or unsupportable purchases.

For the remaining 10% of the Crazy Ideas, Sudden Terrors, and New Enthusiasms, the ones she was able to perpetrate in spite of her progeny’s attempts to “S.A.V.,” there was only damage control, in the form of step four, “Equalize and Compensate.” It was an admission of defeat, and made the job more difficult, but there was an honorable feeling that went with it, an ingenuity created by necessity. After locking up the demonic artworks, for example, Karen had labeled a cardboard box “Bubbeh’s China,” filled it with newspaper and a couple of bricks from the abandoned “backyard deck” Crazy Idea, stacked it against the back wall of the attic – this had required the help of Maya and Heath – under some heavy and awkward box springs, with the label clearly showing, and sold the china on eBay, more than doubly covering the cost of the Oaxacan monstrosities.

There was an inbuilt incentive corollary to step four, namely that any overages incurred in its pursuit reverted to the budgeting child (the “Family CEO”), designed to lessen the blow to the ego. Karen had used the proceeds from the Latin Incursion to establish a money-market fund in her own name, the quarterly statements from which she filed in a locked drawer, unopened, because the she didn’t want the temptation of knowing the balance if things got tough, which they regularly did.

Today, what was pissing Karen off was that Dr. Grossman was attempting some kind of coup in order to finance her new project, which was top secret. Karen had seen enough brochures around the house to know that it was probably a cruise or something, some kind of travel thing, and was solidly against, but she couldn’t get enough details out of her mother to get the leverage to veto. It was infuriating, because there was no way she could bring up the fact that she and Austin had been wholly in charge of the family’s finances, because the whole system depended on this fact never being discussed directly, and only referred to in terms of Dr. Grossman’s idea that it constituted a “safe environment for [her] children to learn about real-world economics,” but any time she wanted, she could come in and pull rank because she was the mother, and earned the money, and then spend it in the stupidest ways imaginable. This situation had only come up once before, in the Elliptical Trainer fray of Austin’s senior year, and neither he nor Karen had been able to work up a feasible discretionary algorithm if she played that particular card. She was playing it now, and it made Karen want to tear out all of her hair and then start on her mother’s.

It seemed to be romantic in nature, the travel literature, and Karen had supposed for a while that her mother was seeing someone from the college, a fellow professor. Which was interesting, and a positive as far as Karen was concerned, because she liked the idea of her mother dating. But to go about it this way, and spend family money…it seemed to be going a bit far. And each zero at the end of the package deal looked an awful lot like Tae Kwon Do, and guitar lessons, and iguana food, and watercolor class, and piano, and it made her sick.

But what hurt the most was that no matter how logical she was, or how functional her spreadsheet, or how much she and Austin could yell and rationalize and plan, no matter how much the timeshare smelled like dead things, no matter the heights and strengths of precedent and logic and mathematic precision, the fact was that her mother was the wage earner, and the head of the household, and the decision maker, at her own discretion. Whenever she felt like it. And suddenly, there was nobody there to speak for Karen. So she was silent, and she was pissed, and she was right. And Dr. Grossman was scared, but she was more right. And after three fights on the subject, Karen gave in, and called the office herself to cancel watercolor and piano lessons. She’d have more time for the Maguires this way, and was more motivated than ever to pursue it. She didn’t know when she might need Tae Kwon Do, so she kept that. Somehow she’d work the rest of it out, tomorrow.

***

Nobody trusts Necie McNeely. Everybody knows that. But only Tasha Carroll—thanks to being in pretty much the same position—understands how that means she needs to be a central figure in the group. Because she’s not worth trusting, and besides, knows very well nobody can trust her. 

Tasha believes she revels in it, because Tasha assumes everybody is like her. She’s always kind of admired Necie McNeely's abject nature, the way she is always getting sick and going to the nurse, or begging the teacher for help, or tattling on the other kids, or lying straight out to get what she wants, or to get people in trouble. Tasha figures she might have turned out a lot like Necie, if things were different.

The difference is mainly that Necie was stupid, and doesn’t really understand how much power being the class snitch gives her. There’s a power in being a big baby, because nobody wants to push her into a freakout. People are scared to death of her! Not as much as Tasha, of course, but the fear comes anyway from a different place. With Necie, it’s a fear of what she'll do. For Tasha, the fear is who she is. In both cases, however, it’s not something that already happened that is scary, but what might happen next. It’s not the commodity that matters, it’s the power.

It is the easiest thing in the world to look someone straight in the eyes and make them do something. Tasha has been doing it all her life. What she envies about Necie is the crafty way she uses other people to get things accomplished. She's seen the slanty gaze and the sullen, watery, secret grin Necie gives when one of her vengeance missions is pulled off. 

Tasha can never seem to remember that possibility, in the heat of the moment, and when in repose she decides she wants something done, can never seem to hold all the variables together in her mind long enough to set it in motion. It is so much cleaner to just demand or force, directly, than to involve other people in her plots. 

Tasha understands force, but not other people. Necie knows nothing about force, and knows everything about using people.

It would never occur to Tasha that Donnie is just as interesting a subject of study as his sister. She can’t see the way he manipulates the people around him, the way his strength and goodness often mask a judgmental and terrifying will. His manner of inaction and embarrassment is every bit as strong as his sister's, but invisible to Tasha. 

She sees only Necie, with her wrinkled forehead and cobwebbed hair and red eyes. Where there are three of them, she only sees two: she looks past the golden, possessive smile Donnie carries like a shield, right into the sweaty, sloppy hunger wielded by his sister, who carries it like a sword.

She doesn’t agree with the currency of Necie's power—guilt, shame, crying, whining, illness—because they all make you look so completely gross and weak. But she does understand this as a worthwhile strategy, every bit as powerful as her own. Maybe more, since they’re girls. She's never felt comfortable with people feeling sorry for her, or seeing her cry. It seems like audacity for Necie McNeely to use them so blithely. 

But if someone could do both, if someone had both ways of getting what they wanted, like tools in a toolbox, there wouldn't be a situation she couldn't get out of. 

And the next best thing would be an alliance of two people, working in concert. All you’d have to do is suck it up.

***

Ashley wants to learn more about secret codes; Jeremy told her this is called cryptography, and told her about famous cryptologists, like Turing, after whom Weird Josh will be naming himself. She thinks about becoming a cryptologist one day — it might be a good job for Heath too. They could be an international spy couple, breaking codes and sneaking across country borders, and they’d never get married but they’d have lots of kids, who would also be spies, if they turned out smart and fast.

She wonders what would happen if you had kids and they turned out to be the wrong ones. Like, if you are really into being smart, and how smart you are, like the Carrolls: Were they super lucky to have gotten Tasha, who is super sucky in many ways but probably the smartest girl in their grade? Or do you automatically have kids that are enough like you that it doesn’t ever happen? 

They kind of talked about this in school a while back, although it wasn’t really about having cool spy kids in any way: Nature and Nurture. Maybe that was what happened with Truman Miranda who lives alone; maybe he had parents like hers, or Heath’s, and they’d just gotten more and more disappointed as he turned out to be Truman and not somebody else.

It could really worry you if you thought about it, people getting the wrong parents and everything getting ugly. Her Mom is peculiar and hard to deal with sometimes, but they have a lot of things in common. Dad too. And Brian, even though he is having issues all over the place with them, it’s not like they’re the wrong parents for him. It’s just what happens with teenagers: They turn into the wrong kids for their parents. Probably the other way around, too, like, if Brian was somebody else’s Young Adult son, he’d have just as many issues with them, no matter who they were, because it’s the only way teenagers could ever want to leave home.

She doesn’t know a whole lot about Heath’s current issues, because he only really talks to Maya about that stuff, but she knows just a little bit, and it sounds like maybe he is secretly becoming a pissed-off teenager too early. Maybe that comes from having those two weird older sisters showing him the way. She wondered what having Brian as an older brother had done to her, and what she’d brought about in him, being his sister. It was interesting.

Karen and Trilby would seem to have some of those problems happening, too. At least, that seems to be the basis of their current truce—something about money, and being pissed at their parents. She’s just glad Karen and Trilby were getting along. She’d always thought that Karen didn’t like Trilby and just hid it, and figured this was because Trilby was famous, despite not being good at very many things, while Karen is not famous at all, even though she is fascinating and had all kinds of secret skills.

The Karen thing is also kind of annoying, though, because she knows what Karen isn’t saying: That she is horrified by Trilby’s entire family, and not just because they are poor—Karen is poor too—but because they are so loud, and they don’t communicate, don’t hash things out. She finds them very outgoing and this is ugly to her, which only makes sense if you know Karen. Not that Karen would ever say so, but once Ashley has this figured out, that Karen’s problem with Trilby is less about jealousy and being famous than it is about disliking the Taylors—which honestly, even Ashley finds them upsetting, as a group—she feels somehow better about it, because it makes Karen seem less small.

Really, the whole Trilby effect bugs her, because she thinks Trilby is kind of awesome, and nobody else really goes. They just can’t see past the whole TV thing to how Trilby is really interesting and a very nice person. But that’s been going on since Trilby’s huge family moved into the neighborhood, and she guesses that’s just Trilby’s cross to bear.

Even Heath doesn’t seem to get the awesomeness of Trilby, but every time she’s tried to bring it up he’d work the subject around to how she herself did not fully comprehend the specialness of Maya Gidley. She gets the impression that Maya feels this way as well, and possibly hates her for it, but there’s not much she can do about that. She knows Maya is talented, and both Heath and Donnie McNeely are devoted to her. More than they are to Ashley, anyway. But on the other hand, Heath and Maya are best friends in almost the same way that she is Trilby’s best friend, the only person who really gets her, so she couldn’t really get too weird about it. Who can explain best friends?

***

Ashley has developed a habit of dropping by Karen's house even when she knows Karen won’t be there, to see what Ms. Grossman is wearing that day. It is a lucky thing to be a child; everyone assumes you are stupid and can’t remember things like Karen Grossman's schedule. Even Ms. Grossman will reliably underestimate her, because she’s not Ms. Grossman's child, and therefore not quite as intelligent. Ms. Grossman never does anything so outlandish as to invite Ashley in, for tea or whatever, but she’s always kind and nice, and spends a few minutes chatting in the doorway like they’re friends, and she’s always perfectly put together.

Today Karen should be at soccer practice, which is a dangerous thought because it’s very close to sneaking. But if she just drops by and the conversation turns to the Manifesto, or the movement, that will be helping provide a supportive environment for a key person in the movement, and that is a good thing. Ms. Grossman’s input should be valued highly; she’ll be a good ally if Ashley can just figure out how to do it right. 

It is only raining a little bit, which is good, because Ashley likes looking her best during visits to the Grossmans, because she wants Ms. Grossman to love her. For Ashley, looking her best means a pink pinafore and hair ribbon, which makes her feel like an idiot underneath but an angel outside. If she looked different she could wear other stuff, but she is cursed with basic, blonde beauty. And anyway, everything else is either dirty or on Mom’s repairs table, dress-wise.

Brian likes the busier times of year, when Mom is distracted by work, but Ashley misses her. It’s a relief to have her out of the house more often, but Mom as a person you talk to and Mom as a force are two different things. When she thinks about her Mom, rather than Georgia Anderson her mother, it is a cool hand on a warm forehead. Drinking in the refreshing coolness, sometimes taking the hands in her own, applying them greedily. Mom the force is a chill marble, or porcelain.

Karen's Mom is not like that. She is a song in another language and the smell of cooking. Stylish bright clothing, understated makeup. Ms. Grossman isn’t as pretty as Mrs. Anderson but she cares more, so she carries it better. Mom dresses like a man, in Ashley’s opinion, but Mom says that’s the price you pay. Ms. Grossman could wear the same suit and still look like a woman, a mother, where Mom would look like a vice principal. A glamourous one with a fashionable half-there bun, pencils like chopsticks, but not on-purpose. Pencils in Ms. Grossman’s hair would look ridiculous; her stripe of gray, above her right eyebrow, would make Ashley's mother look deranged.

They have things in common. If you want a lecture, everything about a question or problem examined clearly and in order, there’s nothing as comforting as just sitting back and letting Mom’s words wash over you. Ashley’s Mom knows everything in the whole world, and she is always patiently waiting for you to ask her to explain them to you. In these moments her mother is a star, very beautiful and very distant. 

Ms. Grossman is not like that, she gives her kids space, but if you ask a question she’s thorough, it’s about making you understand. If Mom is a star then Ms. Grossman is a moon, shining down. There is no room for other women in Ashley’s life. The rest just blur together.

Ms. Grossman asked them once to put their bikes around on the side of the house, in such a way as though they were adults and she was asking a favor, so they always remember. Their yard isn’t very well-kept and there’s a patch of muddy earth along that side. Ashley is wearing her filthiest tennis shoes because they are the most comfortable. They are Mom’s mortal enemy, in terms of shoes, but every time she throws them out they sit right on top of the garbage until Ashley comes to fetch them home.

The Grossmans do not have a porch, and Ms. Grossman sometimes takes a while to get to the door, so Ashley heads to the back. The door’s open a little bit, and she can see rain dripping in through a crack in the mudroom roof. It looks like bad news as it puddles. The Grossman kitchen has wonderful black-and-white tiles, they get dusty, but Ms. Grossman loves them as much as Ashley does: They look like an old time diner, or a big dance floor somewhere amazing. Ashley steps inside to mop it up, so it doesn’t warp.

If somebody barged into Ashley’s house without knocking and getting an affirmative invitation, Mom would probably kill that person, or put them under an embargo—she would still remember it even when everybody is in college, she would mention it every time that person’s name came up, like with Tasha and the three pears (“three!”)—but the door’s ajar, and she’s rendering aid.

With the door shut behind her the noise of the rain goes away, and Ashley can hear more clearly inside the house. She stands entirely still, scared, not wanting to sneak this time but petrified, because what you can hear now is the sound of Karen Grossman cursing at her mother. And then the sound of Ms. Grossman cursing back. It is raining, there wouldn’t be soccer practice today.

They’re upstairs so she can’t hear words, but it doesn’t matter anyway. It is a kind of fight like she hasn’t ever heard in real life, even between adults. It is like a movie. Once again, she thinks as she mops up the puddle so quickly, sneaking has turned out poorly for Harriet Maguire.

Or what if this is what’s like, being Harriet? Maybe Harriet has to know things she doesn’t want to know, and will only sneak more and more. Maybe this is why teenagers are so awful.

Riding home she cries just a little bit because she can’t get the sound of her head, the Grossman women fighting. They sounded like they hated each other.

They sounded so much alike.

***

Ashley for whatever reason doesn’t want to see her mother, so she bikes over to Trilby's house, where it’s always okay to let yourself in. Nobody ever seems surprised to see her, probably because there are so many of them.

Trilby is in the den with three of her siblings, having a heated discussion with her older brother, Duncan Junior. Their heads are very close together, probably to drown out the noise of the two younger ones, the youngest twins probably, banging on the drum set in the corner. Trilby and Duncan Junior smile warmly and part, making space between them for her, when they notice her. Duncan Junior orders the twins out, with no result.

Duncan Junior is one of the more attractive boys in the family, and he smiles a lot. He was a year ahead of Brian in school, so they only overlapped a year, but Brian liked him a lot. Duncan Junior is going on his mission in three months, which Trilby says means he is home a lot and unsure what to do with himself.

“Tell her she's got to do this audition, Ashley. She's just being stubborn.”

“I'm not being stubborn, I’m being realistic. I said I’m not going to do it. I did a drug commercial already and the kids at school made sniffly noises at me all the time.”

“Trill, that was one commercial. It means a lot for the family.”

“Like anyone could have convinced me to do the diarrhea thing. This is like that.”

“Nobody seriously expected you to do that one. It was a joke. But this one is serious.”

“The sides say 'Girl, 10-12, long hair.'“

“So?”

“So I'm not even ten. I'm eleven. How come Delilah can't do it? Or Fiona?”

“Um, because Delilah is developed and can't pass for twelve, even. And because Fiona can barely remember her own name.” 

That part’s true. Their sister is an enormously talented sculptor, but carrying on a conversation with her is like watching laundry at a laundromat.

“Those kids are always so boring and sad and tired-looking. When I get older and I’m going out on auditions my whole reel can’t just be diseases. It's not any fun and I hate looking like a whiner. That’s not what I’m good at.”

“It's your contribution to the family, Trill.”

“I'll talk to Daddy about it.”

“This is Daddy's idea, Trill. You know that.”

“He wants me to be happy. You're just jealous because you can't do anything, so he ignores you.”

Duncan Junior leaves, because that was awful, and that’s how Taylors deal with awfulness. By pretending it didn’t happen. Trilby smiles tiredly up at Ashley, and agrees with Duncan Junior: “He’s right.”

Ashley has no response, though she also agrees. Their family is a complicated, orange machine.

 “Ashley? Do you mind if we go over to your house for a little while? I was about to call you.”

Somehow her house seems more appealing, now. Maybe she is getting over the Grossman weirdness. Maybe one day Harriet won’t blink an eye.

“Ever notice that the rain makes everybody crazy?”

“It's because you're stuck in one place and can't go out.”

***

Jennifer’s house is like this: A little confusing or embarrassing for people who don’t know the deal. The deal is that her birth father, who died, was Black. And her Mom is white. But the second husband, who raised Jennifer from very young, is also white. What this means is a lot of mistakes and people feeling really bad for misreading the situation, which is simply that a Black girl has two white parents and it’s much simpler than it looks.

Brian loves his girlfriend Jennifer Standish more than maybe anything. When he thinks about various sets of people hanging over the lava and only one choice to be made, she almost always ends up alive. He loves her dressing-up games, because they’re really just the same thing he figured out when he got hurt: Nothing bad happens when you turn into somebody else. She is the one who taught him that, although he can’t say the words right, and has never tried. 

He loves her obsession with the things she calls “weird” and “cool,” although he still can’t really define what goes where. He knows he’s both, for whatever reason, but giving her gifts is always a problem: Is it weird enough? Is it cool enough? Is it weird enough to be cool? Is it cool enough that it went through cool, too-cool/not-cool, and back out again at cool enough? 

Brian is scared to death that of all her people she can be, she might turn into the one that loves him just for being, like, a simple-minded man. He is so much more than that.

What he’s always loved, and loves more now that little Ashley has set all kinds of wheels turning in his head, is Jennifer’s complete certainty about things like the law, and politics, and systems of power. He doesn’t understand half her theories—to be honest, he can’t really manage to listen to half of them, and wanders off inside his head, nodding and grunting—but he knows the chances are favorable that he agrees. 

He loves how she never questions the complete bullshit she calls on stuff like cops and principals and presidents. She never gets in trouble for the things she does, but the talking is always there, and he loves the talking more than anything. More than anything the fact that she always, always gets away with it.

To Jennifer, questioning authority and being a superhero are pretty much the same thing. She says control is a crime, but she laughs when she says it. He loves how when they talk about college, and after college, she only wants to be president, dissident, or superhero—and she doesn’t say it like normal girls would say it: in order to surprise you, and make you ask questions, and be mysterious. When she says it she means it, and she believes it: one day she'll be a superhero or Vampire Slayer, if she doesn’t go to college. And if she does, she'll be a superhero in a more legislative sense. And if not those, she'll be Patty Hearst: It’s the way she rattles off these facts, one after the other, none taking full advantage of possibility; none seeming more likely than the next.

She talks about kyriarchy, and the body politic, and the proletariat, and all he would think is, “This is a special girl. This is not the girl I should be dating. She's too smart to date a jock, she's too smart to be dated by a jock, no matter how hot she is.” 

And now, after the accident, after his ankle got fucked up, all he can think is, “This is a special girl. This is not the kind of girl I should be dating. She's too interesting to date someone with no story of his own, no category, no thing that he's good at.” 

All Brian Anderson is good at being is himself: Loving Jennifer Standish, loving his sister Ashley, Jeremy, listening to them talk about things. Retreating to his room and considering what they had said.

He worries often about who he is, to her. She’s so many people, but it’s a choice. He’s so many people—linebacker, brain, hottie, storyteller, caretaker—but it’s not any choice, it is tactics developed on circumstance and necessity. He’s only ever who he has to be, and he doesn’t have much say in that. When there are so many people Jennifer could be, and he can see the pictures of Jennifers all over his room, in every corner, in Ashley's face and Karen Grossman's loving grin, in Tasha's power and Jeremy's whatever, in Corey and Jennifer's constant curiosity about the world and its qualities, in Truman's need to question and involve and document, how can he possibly compete? How can he keep her interest? She’s like everyone, and he is rapidly becoming nobody but Brian: high school student, ex-jock, proto-prude, body wasting away, big brother ... it seems like just a matter of time before she stops loving him.

Or else she never would, and he could be anybody, just like she could. Whether or not it was true, that she would stick by him, and make it real, the thought of being anybody, like Jennifer Standish somehow could, is sometimes the scariest thought of all.

***

Ashley doesn’t even get through her speech before Weird Josh has claimed the name Turing Maguire. She finds him under the big tree, writing in a big legal pad, in the language the Tyson boys created. She pretended to care and asked questions about the notebook for a few minutes—there’s a map of their private world, the words in their lexicon they use most often, technology and animal life that evolved there in response to specific geological and climatological pressures—and then launched into it, and suddenly he is right there with her, the end. 

She can’t really think of anything else to say to him, but that’s fine, because she can tell he’s itching to get back to it. 

But he’s also thinking about his brother Jeremy. Ashley—and Karen, who'd spoken with him days ago—have made it very clear that there are no teenagers involved, besides Brian Anderson obviously. But even looking Ashley in the eyes and agreeing to all of her rules, he can’t stop thinking about how Jeremy would find this so fascinating, and how impressed he’s about to be. 

It’s not even lying, exactly. By next week Brian and Jeremy will be best friends again, and he’ll be into it either way. And when things get really bad, they’ll want him on their side. Josh learned everything from Jeremy, and there’s plenty more Jeremy knows that Josh doesn’t even know about yet. 

Of course there is. He’s older.

***

This is the conversation that Karen had with her brother Austin, once she was able to reach him at school:

“I was at the Registrar's Office today and started talking to the admin there, okay, and he was like, my age, and out of nowhere he asked me if he sounded white.”

“Was he white?”

“No, Karen, he was black. But I could tell he really wanted me to say he sounded white, like, on the phone. What is that about?”

“Corey always asks Jennifer and Jennifer if he sounds straight. I think it's the same thing.”

“You know who doesn't? Mrs. Tyson.”

“How do you know Weird Josh's mom?”

“Don't call him Weird Josh, Karen.”

“How do you know Mrs. Tyson?”

“I was friends with Jeremy for awhile. He's got some crazy theories. Fun to listen to.”

“Ashley's brother and him are always fighting.”

“Yeah, right.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing. Have you been hanging out with Corey and Jennifer?”

“No, mostly Ashley and Brian. But Corey and Jennifer come over a lot. How well did you know them?”

“I didn't want to be one of those seniors that only hung out with younger kids, so I didn't get to know Corey and Jennifer real well. But I like them. It's good Brian has friends after the whole injury thing.”

“Do you think about us a whole lot?”

“Like, you and Mom? Sure.”

“No, like me and Ashley and Heath and, like, Brian and Jeremy and Jennifer.”

“No, not really. I don't really hang out too much. School is crazy. I've got a programming test next week that I've put about fifteen hours in on in the last few weeks.”

“What is it like there?”

“Texas doesn't have seasons so much, so that's weird. My allergies are insane. I look like Hugh Grant about half the time, all snorfling and like red eyes like a stoner. I thought I was going to completely freak out and turn into somebody else, like, some goth or something, and do rave drugs and like, I don't know. Have a girlfriend that cuts herself and be all completely different and smoke like cloves and have discussions of collective ownership of the means of production but so far it's just been school and videogames. I mean, some people have gone over to be these people that don't even make sense with new names and like, this girl who was all Christian last year has become this Wiccan and is calling herself like Dorcas or something. But I'm just me. So that's good. I'm still me.”

“I'm happy to be talking to you, Austin. Mom's going nutso.”

“What's going on?”

“She's screwing me on the budget. I think she's taking a cruise with somebody from work.”

“Thank God,” Austin says. “I could never get her to date.”

“I'm all for it, but it's wreaking havoc on my budget. I think she should start smaller.”

“Did you ever think she might have been seeing this person for awhile on the sly? She'd be like that, keeping it secret. She's weird like that. Like, she'll talk about the history of the orgasm but not about having dinner with some dude.”

“Everybody thinks their parents are having an affair,” Karen muses. “What is your programming stuff about?”

“I've written the program, it's an interface for a music program that will take your songs from anywhere and… You don't really so much care?”

“No, I just don't get it. But tell me what you're doing right now.”

“Debugging.”

“Like, making sure it works?”

“In this case, making sure it works the same way it acts like it works. Pretty much all I was doing while I was home. Testing.”

“I remember that. Rendering.”

“You were so cute. All, 'Have you finished debunking your programming?'“

“Debunking? What's that?”

“Well, debunking is like, like you said, like an urban myth or whatever, and you prove that it doesn't work.”

“Why didn't you ever correct me?”

“Because it was cute, Karen. You were always so funny and grown up.”

“Well, now I feel like an asshole, though.”

“Don't say asshole.”

“Okay, I feel like a jerk. Debunking. God.”

“Sorry. So the money stuff?”

“I still want my lessons, Austin.”

“So figure it out.”

“This is a massive, like, this is a hemorrhage. Of funds. I don't know. She's shifting things around faster than I can compensate. This is going to be more expensive than the Money Pit Mazda you got. It's catastrophic.”

“You can figure it out.”

“Write me a program. Tell me what I can do to get her out of this before it starts being a commitment.”

“She deserves to date.”

“Well, yeah. But does she deserve to date all the way to the Caribbean and back on my Tae Kwan Do lessons? That's really the issue.”

“Did you get my loan statement?”

“Yeah, I sent a check for your account. That lady? Demetria? At the student affairs place? You should drop by and give her a kiss or something. She was totally awesome with the flex account mixup. We were on the phone for like an hour. So you're eating for two now. You should bring her a Twix or a rotisserie chicken from the student union. She has three children under five.”

“I'm sure it's because she was on the phone with a little girl.”

“How old do you think I sound?”

***

All the kids are supposed to find a ride from the Upper School to public school, since there are so few of them. Jennifer and Jeremy and Brian ride together, of course. When they arrive she sees Eddie van Tenk, looking preppier than usual, hanging around outside so she decides to just leave. She takes her boys and gets out of there, saying that what is planned is too stupid to be a part of.

Standing next to Eddie is Alexis Butts, and the boys think that’s why Jennifer swerved and took off: That’s standard procedure for dealing with Alexis Butts. So they laugh and don’t think anything of it.

Here’s what everybody thinks about Alexis Butts, high school senior, in no particular order:

Jeremy and Brian have a running joke about “catching a coma” and how, if you see her coming, you should just immediately fall to the floor and have a coma right then. But probably she’d kneel down with her ubiquitous clipboard, and take your pulse, and talk at you until you woke up, ask you the year and the current president, and then make you sign her petition or give her five dollars for the Student Governing Board or a quote for the paper or whatever she wanted, and then run off and leave you there in a pile.

Ashley admires her, but thinks she might be better off if she learned to be a little bit more subtle.

Donnie and Necie don’t know who she is because the only teenagers they know go to their church, and so Alexis never came to their house.

Everybody’s parents think she is the plague, except for Samantha Oliver, who privately thinks Alexis would be a lot happier if she lost the weight.

Heath thinks Alexis is “hella boring,” but that’s just what Jana thought, so it doesn’t really count.

Trilby and Karen secretly think she’s the teenage version of Ashley’s Mom, but they’d never say that.

Jennifer is very honest in her feelings that Alexis is totally hot but very unmanageable. Sometimes when Alexis comes around with her clipboard Jennifer tells her to fuck off, which is mostly a joke because while there are very few things Alexis Butts does not know or cannot figure out, but fucking off is probably the main one.

Corey always likes to invite her out with them, because he likes when everybody acts all terrified like a slasher movie, even though she isn’t so bad. She never comes. He says she has a secret life of motorcycles and miniskirts and crazy lipstick and fistfights in dirty bars and diamond heists and sex with Europeans that smelled like licorice.

Nobody would ever even think to make fun of her name, because of what might happen next. Weird Josh calls her “Bloody Mary” for this reason, and sometimes you can catch him murmuring “Alexis Butts, Alexis Butts, Alexis Butts,” to himself as a joke.

Ashley, when things got really bad later, always regretted not including Alexis in the planning stages of the Maguires, because she was a born organizer. 

Today, Alexis is feeling left out of the planning stages of the stupid thing that’s about to happen, and that stings enough that she doesn’t even think about how stupid it is. She’s used to adults pretty much giving her carte blanche and there are about a million ways she could have made this work so much better. But instead Ms. Grossman is here, issuing orders and kidding around. Alexis likes Ms. Grossman but sometimes she makes her roll her eyes, and today is one of those times.

But you can’t ever let them see you sweat, so Alexis hugs her clipboard tight to her chest and starts wondering around looking at everybody, noticing who is nervous and who is just happy to be out of school. Who’s upset by what’s about to happen and who has no idea.

Jeremy once told Ashley that Alexis showed up to French III on the first day with a metal box, on which she’d decoupaged a bunch of pictures of the Eiffel Tower and glamorous ladies smoking and drinking complicated drinks, and inside this box there were index cards in five different pastel colors, with dividers between them that said, “Grammar/Grammaire,” “Phonetics/Phonétique,” “Nouns/Noms,” “Verbs/Verbes,” “Adjectives/Adjectifs,” and, best of all, “Culture/Culture.” 

And Ashley had thought at the time that Alexis was like a machine gun pointed right at school, and that one day she’d point herself at something that deserved it.

***

Truman Miranda is sitting with a fawn pretty close by, grazing, opposite the public high school. There’s something strange going on down there and he thinks about that Miss Emma Brodie and her spycraft — he could use a spyglass right about now. 

The fawn startles, fleeing, and Truman hides: As if thinking of her brought her into being, Emma passes through the brush with a pair of high-tech binoculars, taking in the chaos. Truman can’t see it but her left eye is kind of twitching as she watches the field, desperately searching. A hawk or maybe an eagle flies overhead, circling prey. She grumbles in the dirt, scrambling for a better vantage, and finally spots Ashley separating herself from the crowd. She pounds away, Louboutins in the underbrush.

How it works is you get a card that says a role to play—“MEDIC,” “COP,” “VICTIM,” “SHOOTER”—with bullet points on how to do it. They’ve got the local fire department and police on-hand to supervise, and rush in at the appointed time to save everybody. Because the class is unsupervised, everybody got to pick their roles: Tasha will be a perfect COP, Necie is going to make a great VICTIM, and so on.

Ashley wanted to be a MEDIC but one of the other teachers remembers her brother, and knows her to be a dependable person, so she and Heath are suddenly SHOOTERS. Snipers, to be specific, posted up on the hill across the intramural field from the parking lot, sighting down the barrels of their pretend rifles and feeling pretty gross about the whole thing. Once Josh and Donnie flush the survivors out of the school and into the parking lot, they’ll start SHOOTING.

Heath’s opinion of this is: That the entire administration should, and probably will, be fired.

They’ll come out a few at a time, some of them not taking it seriously and joking around, and some of them delighting in it. Some of them will spot you and scream, like it’s Halloween. And, based on the look on Heath’s face and the feeling in her own stomach, there will probably be some barfing.

Ashley’s opinion is: Now’s as good a time as any to figure out Chicago.

Jeremy Tyson says you can’t destroy anyone until you love them. Mom says you can’t love anyone until you understand them. So she needs to be the gunman. Why is she sad? Why is she angry? How did they go from being people to just being nothing? They look like ants, not people at all. Certainly not Children.

She tries to imagine Antarctica, happening right now to her. What if Heath secretly hated her, and Karen and Trilby suddenly stopped talking to her? What if Tasha was in charge of everybody, and the world was just Tasha, forever. Imagine that school is the chilly silence of a doctor’s office, waiting to get shots, and you can’t get out. Imagine the whole world is just you, outside the principal’s office, about to get the worst punishment of your life for something you didn’t do. Imagine getting hit every single day just for showing up, and nobody believes you. Imagine Adults just laughing in your face when you finally ask for help. Imagine Mom saying she never loved you at all, it was just a mean joke to make you look stupid.

Be Necie McNeely, that the sub tried to touch her bottom. Be Trilby Taylor, embarrassing herself on TV just to make her Dad happy. Be Brian, squeezing his hand thing while he watches old game tape, legs twitching. Be his friend Corey whose Dad drinks so much, Corey that is so gay. Be strange and beautiful Jeremy Tyson, be Weird Josh. 

Ashley’s blood goes cold thinking about what if she was Weird Josh. If everybody treated your talking like it was a busted fridge they can’t turn off. Imagine being that alone, that just because your brain works a certain way, you are born into Antarctica. 

Just left there, out on the ice, with no directions home.

The sky goes dark, suddenly, and the air gets cold. Ashley buttons her jacket. Down in the parking lot the Adults are standing around, bored, waiting for the Children to start dying. But there is one bright shape in the middle that is moving weird. Ashley squints down at it, then remembers the scope on her gun.

It’s a woman, with icy blonde hair in a severe bob. A little bit like Ashley’s Mom, if Mom was a supermodel with long legs and a white leather jacket that cost a million dollars, if Mom didn’t look like all the other Moms. Ashley nudges Heath and points down her scope at the lady, sticking out brighter than anything, but he just shrugs. He doesn’t see it.

The lady walks from a bright red sports car, a two-door coupe like Duncan Taylor likes, right up the Adults. Her arms are outstretched like she’s commanding them, and they all stare. The Vice Principal hurries over and they have a fast conversation before shaking hands. Then the woman takes her place with the rest of the Adults and the Children who are playing Adults.

“How long do you think this is going to take?”

“I hope it takes all day,” Heath laughs. “Once they figure out we don’t have a teacher it’s going to be worksheets all day. Maybe Music or Art, if we’re lucky.”

“In high school Brian says they let you watch movies and act like that’s school.”

“That sounds pretty good. Like you get to say what the movie meant and talk about it.”

He’s not wrong but it still sounds like cheating. Ashley gets bored and starts thinking about what if they never had a teacher again? Karen could probably trick the Principal into thinking there’s one, at least for a little while. But what if it was forever? Just doing their thing, for the rest of the year. They would have so much time to work.

“Ash.”

Heath doesn’t move, but she sees him watching: The lady in white is making her way over to them now, striding in her white leggings and boots, the strap of her expensive purse held in both hands over her stomach, like a priest. Like a tyrannosaur. 

They lady isn’t smiling, exactly, but there’s something bright in her eyes as she climbs the hill. Red, red lipstick and dark, dark eyes. Ashley can’t figure out how old she is. She looks as old as her Mom, maybe, but sometimes almost as young as Brian and Jennifer are. Somewhere in the middle, maybe.

A warm, honey-sweet, lightly accented voice floats up the hill to them, as the Adults begin to scramble down below: Something’s happening.

“Surely this is not a normal day for you? Assassinations before you’ve even had lunch.”

The woman doesn’t laugh, exactly, but makes an amused noise. Ashley feels Heath recoil from her, next to her; she can feel the heat off him now that it’s so cold. He doesn’t like this woman already, probably because of her laugh. Ashley tries to act more cautious than she feels, so he will feel safe.

“Are you a teacher?”

“I’ve been called worse, dear.”

Heath takes off, asking to switch places with Trilby before the woman’s even reached them. He doesn’t answer when she asks his name, and she doesn’t quite connect, reaching out with one white hand as he sails past. She draws the hand back, lazily, fingers pointing up, and smiles at Ashley genuinely.

“That one’s in a hurry.”

Ashley puts down her gun and stands up, brushing her hands off on her jacket.

“His name is Heath Oliver. That one.”

The woman stretches out that same hand toward Ashley. Her nails are bright red, red as anything, hard lacquered; she wears a diamond bracelet. After a few awkward seconds Ashley takes it; it is cold as marble. The woman’s eyes are bluer than the sky, and darker.

“I’m Ashley Anderson. And I’m not an assassin, I’m a SHOOTER.”

She hands the lady the card, with its hasty bullet points.

“Isn’t this dire. I see they’ve laminated them, that’s optimistic.”

“What do you mean, Miss?”

“This won’t ever happen again. Today will factor largely in more than a few lawsuits, I’d imagine.”

“That’s what Heath said, too.”

The woman takes up Heath’s position, leaving the gun where it lies. They stare out across the field together. The lady is not so tall, up close. She’s what Mom would call “willowy,” in a hateful tone that she thinks is feminist.

“And what do you say?”

“I say if we are going to stop bad things happening we need to figure out why and how.”

“Ah, so you approve of this little... dry run?”

“No. I think it’s horrible and beyond stupid. But people don’t like to think about this stuff so it’s good that they are thinking about it. Even if they’re wrong.”

The woman slides Ashley a look, apprising her.

“Fearless.”

Ashley shakes her head.

“Nobody is that, Miss. But maybe it’s a... Lately I’ve been thinking it’s best to do the hardest thing you can think of, even if it hurts. So the more people that decide to look at things, even when they hurt, the better off we all are. If you can do it, you should. It’s like a sacrifice.”

“You are a grim little thing.”

“But you agree. Don’t you, Miss.”

“You should learn to couch your thoughts in a more digestible form, young lady. Half of change is selling the change. Speaking as an Adult, I can tell you that you sound insane, and that makes us less likely to listen to you.”

“I believe in honesty, Miss. I’d rather be taken seriously.”

“There are a million ways to be honest, Miss Anderson. Not all of them involve frightening your prey.”

“Who’s Miss Anderson? My name’s Maguire.”

The woman tittered.

“Don’t be silly. I’m your new teacher, I have dossiers on all of you. I’ve been studying all month. In fact, we should have met a month ago. I was unfortunately detained.”

“Our teacher knew she was leaving for a month, and didn’t say anything?”

“Probably meant to protect you, sweetness.”

“Well, I feel like that’s stupid. That just makes me mad. Trilby Taylor randomly told her she loved her last week. How are you supposed to look at a Child and hear them say that, and just hug them, and leave? What if Trilby Taylor was emotionally fragile?”

“Is she?”

“No! Just embarrassing. But that’s not the point. The point is that she was lying. An Adult.”

“Then let me solemnly vow, Miss Maguire, that I will never lie to you.”

Ashley smiled, covering her mouth with a palm. It smelled like color markers and pumpkin spice.

“And I can absolutely promise I’ll never love you, Miss...?”

“Brodie. Miss Emma Brodie. And I’m sure you’re right.”

The lady picks up Heath’s gun and Ashley starts to feel exposed, up on the hillside. She wonders where Trilby is. The woman nods down the hill toward the school.

“I recognize some of them.”

“You said dossiers. You mean like our files? Did they have pictures in them?”

“I’m resourceful, Miss Anderson. I found a yearbook. You look essentially the same as you did last year. Once the teeth settle down and before puberty sets in.”

“My hair’s different.”

“True enough. Back before: That was Heath Oliver. Two older sisters.”

“You acted like you didn’t know him.”

“Always leave room for the other party to behave gracefully, Miss Anderson. How are his parents?”

“His Dad is not the most fun person. I like his Mom.”

“And Heath?”

Ashley looks at her suspiciously, and the woman titters again. Not at all her real laugh, that clinky rumble.

“Why did you ask about his parents?”

“So they’re fine, then. No big upsets. You find in these collegiate communities... Your classmates, are any of their parents not employed by the school?”

“Just the McNeelys, I think.”

The woman nods, like Ashley just proved her point. She doesn’t speak again for a while.

“Down here, these teachers. Any I should watch out for?”

They peer down their gunsights at the grownups, milling around.

“Just the parents. The teachers are nice. I mean they’re fine.”

“Teaching is the highest vocation, Miss Anderson. It should be treated as priesthood. And not the ivory tower, either. Not your professorial parents. I mean teaching youth.”

“Most of them seem sad. Divorced and sad. I think Miss Babcock drinks at lunch.”

“She sounds fun.”

The way Miss Brodie says it, it sounds like a curse. Or like an insult, like she’s saying Miss Babcock sounds like trash. Ashley doesn’t like it one bit.

“She’s the only one I can think of that acts like that, Miss Brodie. Like she cares about us or about teaching. Like it’s important.”

“The Music teacher. I’m sure she’ll make a difference for a lot of you. Enthusiasm can get you ever so far, Miss Anderson.”

“You’re not making a very good impression of yourself, Miss.”

“The impression I wish to create is one of conviction and steadfast honesty, Ashley. Is that not what you requested?”

“There’s a million ways to be honest, Miss Brodie. Somebody told me that one time.”

Miss Brodie rolled her eyes exquisitely, batting her lashes and taking a deep breath.

“I can see I’ll have to be too careful around you, Miss Anderson. You’ll keep me on my toes.”

“Are you really going to be our new teacher?”

“Are you preparing to lodge a protest?”

“No. I just think you should be less... It’s okay if you are mean to me, I think you’re funny. But some of the other Children won’t like it so much.”

“They’ll simply have to cope, won’t they?”

“No, I mean they won’t. Cope. If you want us to think teaching is priests then you need to make us care. And most of us won’t care if you are just mean. And then we won’t listen, because it makes you just like them.”

“Them?”

Ashley shakes her head and turns back to the field. Too much talking. This woman wants secrets. Like she wants to eat them.

“I assure you,” the woman says, with a little acid now, “I am nothing like ‘them.’ And be assured also that I’m looking forward to showing you just how wrong you are.”

Ashley likes that she’s making the lady angry, so she doesn’t look up.

“You always do. If you didn’t have Children to tell they’re wrong, how would you know when you’re right?”

Miss Brodie shrugs, theatrically, and concedes the point.

“I cannot promise I’ll never tell you you’re wrong, Miss Anderson. But I do hope you’ll listen when I do.”

Trilby’s coming up the hill now, for Heath’s gun. Ashley doesn’t really want her coming up but she can’t tell if it’s because she doesn’t want this woman to go at Trilby, or because she wants to keep talking. If one of the Children finds out she’s been talking to an Adult, it could get messed up. If she says the wrong things.

“This is Trilby Taylor coming up. She’s very talented. A unique girl.”

“Oh, I am looking forward to meeting her!”

Ashley looks her dead in the eye this time.

“And you better be nice to her, Miss Brodie. She’s the one that told our teacher she loved her.”

“Best to put a stop to that immediately. I don’t seek that kind of validation. And I hate to see anyone bend to...”

“Not what I meant. I mean she’s going to hate you, and you do not want her hating you. She’s a celebrity.”

“I think that I could stay up here all day just hearing your perspective, Ashley Anderson.”

“I just want to go inside. It’s cold and this is stupid and very creepy.”

“It is that.”

Trilby lingers on the hill, nervous about Ashley and the woman and their guns. She waves, tinily, and Ashley waves back, big. She gestures toward the lot, and Trilby turns, staring down without her gun. Nervously, she starts moving her hands in the gestures of her speeches: Light Brigade again? No, the one with the oysters. She does a thing with her hands when she’s the Walrus.

“...now if you're ready oysters dear we can begin to feed...” 

Ashley doesn’t want the lady to see Trilby being weird, if she’s going to be nasty to her, but the woman’s attention is caught by something else, just as the wind changes. The Adults start moving around, down on the lot, talking on walkies and generally getting antsy. They can’t wait.

“Wait, where were you coming from, that you were detained?”

“It isn’t an interesting story, or a short one. I’m here now. And it looks like you’re about to be very busy.”

“You have no idea, Miss...”

But the woman nudges her, pointing down the hill. When the double doors slam open, you can suddenly hear the alarms going off, and then outside too, in the parking lot. It sounds like a legitimate emergency. The Children are pouring out, screaming. Some cheering, some of them already crying and overwhelmed. The Adults stand back, and the rest of the class surges forward: MEDICS and COPS and all the rest.

Ashley sighs, and picks up her gun. 

PART TWO: THE CHILDREN’S CRUSADE



This is the maddest Heath Oliver ever got in his life, and it was a while back: His seventh birthday. 

When people ask him about what went wrong, that bright spring day, when all the bad things happen and nobody knows who to blame, and the reporters with their notebooks and recorders and cameras come and his stupid parents let them in, he will think of a lot of things to say, and he will say them.

But the first thing he’ll think, whenever they ask about Ashley, and Tasha, and what happened, is this, and he never ever says it: The maddest he ever got was his seventh birthday. It was the one betrayal that started it all. It is a small thing, but a big thing too.

The thing about Heath's birthday is that it is also known as December 25th. Everybody always says the same thing, "double the presents," and he's learned to keep his head down and nod both slyly and humbly, and never tell the truth. The truth is half the presents, because nobody can be expected to remember both at the same time. His sister Jana's birthday is in the exact middle of July, so really she wins more than anybody, but to him it’s worth it to keep quiet, and smile, and hope that one day he'll be repaid for such an egregious mistake.

On his seventh birthday, or really what’s known as the Eve of it, he'd crept downstairs to check his birthday presents. They always end up piled around the tree with the family Christmas presents, but at least his parents know to label them correctly: Which ones he gets for being born himself and which ones he gets for having Christmas. He long ago made a sort of deal with himself where he’s allowed to check out his birthday presents since it’s not part of Christmas, and therefore does not interfere with Christmas to know about them ahead of time. 

Even when there are no Christmas presents, when Santa hasn't come yet, his birthday presents—sad and lonely compared to the heaps of presents Jana would receive in six months, not that he cares—are always there. So it’s okay, because nobody cares about his birthday anyway, because all they see are the things Santa brings them. 

His mother, moaning over some reference tome all heavy and pre-scented with dust, his father groaning over some weird hygienic implement. Jana with her science experiments and toys, Sarah with her true young girl stories of North American frontier life. And Heath, with his Christmas presents in one pile, mysterious and hopeful, and his birthday presents in the other, the paper re-taped and almost unnoticeable, and less interesting than what other people had gotten.

On his seventh birthday, he'd come down to see Christmas in action. And he'd been so angry, because it was just a week ago that he'd begged to hear the truth, and as he remembers it was thrice denied:

"Just tell me. Just tell me he isn't real. Tell me so I can sleep." 

"If you don't believe in Santa Claus, he won't come."

"It's not that I want the presents. I could care less about the presents."

"Heath, just stop trying to ruin Christmas. With all your questions I can't hope to get 
the milk and cookies ready. Aren't you tired yet?"

"It's that I need you to look me in the eye and tell me the truth, so I can stop wondering. I am old enough."

"Sweetie. Would we ever lie to you?"

***

“You didn’t go far enough. You should have gone farther.”

Karen is excited about the Manifesto, to say the least.

“Your parents named you, didn’t they? So your first names are just as illegitimate as your last names. In fact, maybe they’re worse, because your parents didn’t choose your last name any more than you did, but your first and middle names are entirely their idea. I think maybe it would be a good idea if we took new names altogether.”

Ashley thinks about that, and about Anna, but of course calling herself Anna—even though it is the most beautiful name in the world—is the exact same thing.

“Karen, maybe we should all choose the same last name, to make clear our political intent.”

“That sounds good. What should our last name be?”

Brian agrees with Karen later, and tells them about the Molly Maguires, saying they should be named Maguire in deference to this earlier group of revolutionaries. Karen and Ashley are fine with that because Maguire is also the name of their favorite author. 

Karen wants to express her roots and take an old name like Devorah or Rachel. Brian wants a cool name like Brad or Alec or Sid to blur the lines between entertainment and information. 

Ashley has always wanted an old typing pool name like Jane or Helen or Myrtle or Judy or Nancy but she can’t think of anything meaningful to say about that, but finally she decides on Harriet, because of Harriet M. Welsh and because of Harriet Tubman, who was prone to narcolepsy throughout her life because of being clobbered on the head by a cast-iron skillet thrown by an arbitrary master but didn’t let the fact that sometimes she suddenly was asleep for awhile get in the way of changing things for people just like her.

By the end of the evening it is almost like a meeting and by the end of this meeting they are three: Harriet Maguire, Brando Maguire, and Judith Maguire. 

By the end of the week there are twelve Maguires, all told. And they have big plans. Some bigger than others.

***

They are using the school copier to make pamphlets of the Manifesto when Tasha Carroll tells Heath Oliver her latest brilliant idea, which is to take up smoking and drinking coffee. Heath snorts and calls her gross but she keeps going.

"I think it’s a legitimate point of inquiry."

"Why not start doing drugs? Or having sex? You’re eleven."

"So you think we’re somehow too young to do those things? That age somehow confers some magical ability to escape the consequences of dangerous self-destructive behavior."

"So it’s a political statement? You are kidding me right now."

"I’m never kidding, Heath. That’s exactly what I’m saying."

"And how does that help?"

"How does it help that they… Let me ask you a question. Why don’t we drink coffee?"

"I think Donnie McNeely drinks coffee."

"Those people are farmers, I don’t know what they do. Why don’t we, ourselves, drink coffee?"

"It’ll stunt our growth."

"But will it?"

"I don’t have access to that kind of information."

"Don’t you?"

"Fine, it doesn’t."

"But if you asked any kid why we don’t, that’s what they’ll tell you. Some adults, probably most adults, believe the same thing. And why?"

"Propaganda. Right? That’s what you’re talking about? A conspiracy."

"It’s because, Heath, they don’t want a bunch of hypercaffeinated nine-year-olds running around throwing cars and stuff."

"I don’t particularly want… Wait, what?"

"You know what I mean. Coffee would make us uncontrollable. Just like sugar."

"So why don’t they deny us sugar?"

"They’re working on it."

"Hey Tasha? How much do you weigh?"

"What?"

"Yeah no, sorry. But like, I weigh about 90 pounds."

"So?"

"So my Dad weighs like twice that."

"Still not getting you."

"And if he has more than say, four cups of coffee in one day, he becomes uncontrollable. But also physically ill. And shaky. And he can’t sleep. So that’s why he doesn’t have more than two cups of coffee."

"I’m so sure that they’re trying to protect us from upset tummies and caffeine-related tremors and insomnia. You’re very charitable toward them."

"No, but I think it’s a possibility."

"But then why the conspiracy? Why the lie? Why not just say ‘Coffee will jack you up if you drink too much of it’?"

"Because there’s still no reason for us to actually drink it. We’re not that tired. We have boundless energy."

"I want more."

"Okay, then how come cigarettes?"

"To prove the point that we’re onto you. Look, why are there laws that we can’t smoke cigarettes until we’re 18?"

"Because we can’t be trusted to make that kind of decision on our own? Because all the advertising would be like, leprechauns and rabbits and shit?"

"Okay. Once we’re 18, what’s the right decision to make?"

"Still don’t smoke."

"Can Adults be trusted to make that decision?"

"It’s a valid point but you should not personally be making the point on yourself."

"Necie and Donnie’s Mom smokes around them all the time. She has, always, even when we were little. Karen’s Mom accused us of bar-hopping after we went over there that one time."

"That’s disgusting."

"I’ll say."

"Why the hell were you guys at the McNeely’s?"

"Don’t be awful about them, Heath. Marx called people like them ‘Useful Idiots.’"

"Don’t be awful about them, Tasha."

"By your own logic, Necie and Donnie should be able to decide whether or not their Mom smokes, right? Until they turn 18, and then she can decide for herself?"

"That’s quite a jump."

"It seems probably to me that Necie and Donnie have second-hand smoked the equivalent of more cigarettes than anybody we know. And they’re hardly 18."

"Together they are."

"Together, they have an IQ of 130. That’s nearly genius!"

"Okay, what about drugs? Nobody’s allowed to use those."

"Well, but there’s two kinds of rules. Laws, and what your parents freak out about."

"There’s nothing automatically wrong with either of those kinds of laws."

"Agreed. But again, by the second kind of rules, we’re not allowed to use drugs."

"And that’s why we should?"

"Heath, you’re not listening. It’s not about the law, it’s not about degrees of responsibility. You don’t suddenly know not to smoke, or do drugs, or drive drunk, or have unsafe sex, just because you’re a certain age. You don’t get smarter on your birthday."

"I don’t really think the age limit on drinking is about us driving drunk. We can’t drive either. We should be the only ones allowed to drive. Or drink. One or the other."

"Now you’re speaking my language."

"No I’m not, Tasha. I am sounding crazy so you will hear how crazy you are. Ashley and I agree we should set the higher standard, and get the teenagers to go Straight Edge, to show we’re capable of making those kinds of decisions, and eradicate Adultist legislation for good."

"Ashley, huh? You think her family’s the go-to example for sexual responsibility?"

"What are you talking about?"

"God, Heath. Everybody knows her parents are cheating on each other."

"Does ‘Everybody’ know who with? Or that it’s even true?"

And that’s when Tasha realizes she has just messed up in a truly awesome way.

***

One thing Heath Oliver is very good at is what Jeremy Tyson calls the "Queen’s Gambit." This is where you give up something really good, to get something maybe not as good, but which you need more right now. If you can figure out the rest of your plan with your Queen gone, and it would still work, there’s nothing inherently dumb about sacrificing your Queen. His Mom calls this "Opportunity Cost."

Driving to tennis, Mrs. Oliver stops for snacks, because she knows he won’t gorge himself to the point of getting sick at practice, because he has a well-developed sense of consequence. In this way at least, he is smarter than a lot of the adults she knew.

Samantha Oliver has a love of cause and effect at odds with her subtly iconoclastic nature, and she had in fact grown up with the same precocity she now recognizes and admires in her son. Apart from the BLM thing—which was no great shakes, really, just hiding some dissidents in her college dorm, and feeding them from her meal plan, and eventually getting put on disciplinary notice for two semesters, although her parents had acted like she was having their mixed-race babies or something—she’s never gotten involved in anything really good. Or dangerous.

"I think something’s going on with Ashley’s mom. How do you know if people are being sneaky?"

Samantha nearly slams on the brakes and slaps his little face, that’s her first instinct, and she feels terrible about it even as she looks over into his innocent eyes and gives him her complacent grin.

"Sneaky? What do you mean? Is her job okay?"

The thing is she likes Georgia Anderson, always has. Exactly the kind of woman she’d want to be friends with—but her husband had gotten there first, gotten to know her in college, which means Georgia was Miles’s friend, first and always, and she could never seem to get in there. 

Of course now, it’s not a possibility, but she’s always been a little jealous, back when their friendship was above-board. Before she stopped coming up in conversation. Before she could no longer say, "Oh, how is Georgia?" or "Why don’t we have the Andersons over?"

Heath looks down at his hands.

"I’m not sure. That’s why I’m asking."

The rest of the conversation doesn’t mean anything, because Mrs. Oliver just wants out of it, and doesn’t know what to say, and because Heath has already seen what he needed to see. 

He wonders if Ashley knows her mother is Nina.

This is what it’s like when Tasha finds out about the Maguires: Kind of like Antarctica again.

For all her command of political science and subversion she can’t understand the group as anything more than a secret club from which she is being excluded for unacceptable reasons. She honestly thinks Karen and Ashley’s efforts, far from being politically motivated, are in fact personally and vindictively directed at herself, in retaliation for some imagined slight. 

At first Ashley’s natural inclination is to ignore the entire mess and go on with the work, but of course Tasha is dangerous, and could—and would—quite possibly put the whole of the proceedings to an end. Ashley makes the first of many compromises she will find herself making, and graciously explains the nature of their concerns.

Of course Tasha gets obnoxious immediately, and wants to codify their demands more rigidly and in even more florid language, wants to institute a complex and immutable system of what she calls “responsibility” but by which she means power within the group such that certain opinions will always outweigh others, wants immediately to put together a list of their classmates who will definitely be excluded, wants to get in on the ground level in case it went somewhere, wants to revamp and tighten up and rethink and ruin, wants to be called Molly Maguire.

Something of a problem, but Ashley is actually glad it’s happening before anyone else knows about the group. The near-universal hatred of Tasha notwithstanding, she does have power as a demagogue.  Tasha’s tendencies might appeal to the more base needs of the Children as a group, and thus her vision might win out. Ashley feels bad about this stance, which sort of makes it seem like she thinks she’s better than everyone else, which isn’t true. But she knows Tasha’s brand of justice is simply more of the same of what she wanted to halt.

In the end a few well-placed words from Brian seem to do the trick. Tasha responds to older men with the submission of a border collie, especially those in positions of anything like authority. If Tasha can convince herself the group is headed by Brian, who is sixteen years old and very good looking despite his injury, she’ll have no reason to rebel. Everything in its place.

***

It is one of the talking times, when Jennifer lies back on his bed and Brian can do whatever he wants, and she will just giggle, or gasp, or grab him furiously by the hair and raise him to her mouth, to kiss and bite. The times Brian loves best. It’s fucking hot, and he does it whenever she lets him. 

They play the same at her house, when his parents call, and he has to carry on a normal conversation while Jennifer and her devilish grin make the world stop moving, just to make him laugh and sigh and love her more and more.

He loves that game, the talking game. He will hand her a book, or point her to a website, and say, "There, start reading there, and no matter what, you can't stop." Just ask her a question, even if you’ve heard the speech, and off she'll go, and he'll be right there, doing his best to derail her. 

"The thing about crimefighting. The thing about crimefighting is ... some people are just born to it. Sometimes you can be born with justice inside, and it's got to get out. Sometimes there's no choice. You might want to be real, normal, have a job and a house and a ... and kids, and a dog named Richardson, but you can't ... you can't simply let things lie. Some things demand justice. As far back as ... as far back as people go, there are ... societies. Women, to start, Black Mushroom societies, and ... like Buffy, like these groups of women who would ... Jesus ... because there was no one to protect them, there were groups of people who ... like the Furies. That's how the Furies started, these women who would ... protect the lamb and the ... you know, the people who couldn't do it for themselves ... kids and shit and they would ... fuck ... these people were the first superheroes, these matriarchal vestiges who were normal women by day and then ... then by night, by night they would go and take revenge for what was ... you see it, in ‘Lucrece,’ and even in the … the Iliad, where abduction was classically a ... oh ... it wasn't just about women being taken away from men, it was a metaphor. Women had no power, even in societies that we think of as equal ... if a ... shit ... if a son were to kill his mother, right, like Orestes, and there were no one to ... fuck, yes ... if there were no one to come in and protect that other bloodline, the maternal blood ... you can trace things other ways, it's just last names that make us think that ... wow, I mean ... like ... I can't concentrate. They could be ... at night, they were free. They were doing ... work. Real work. God's work. God's work. I love you."

***

It is one of the talking times, where Brian just lies on his bed and listens, or tools around on the computer, while Jeremy just talks and talks and talks. Ashley doesn’t know what happened to make them hang out more, or stop the latest fight, but she doesn’t really care. 

A lot of this has to do with the way Jeremy smells. Part of it is their house, the smell of the Tyson house, and Weird Josh smelled like that too, but there is something else. She doesn’t know if it’s cologne or what, but it certainly doesn’t smell like the stuff Brian sprays all over the place before Jennifer comes over. It’s different. 

So that’s one thing she likes about Jeremy visiting. The other thing is how it makes Brian act: Even after Jeremy’s gone he is friendlier, and laughs at more things, and seems more interested in what other people have to say.

Which is weird, because Jeremy is less interesting when he talks than just about anybody on the Earth. He always has some big thing he needs to talk about, and it usually falls into one of three categories: Movies, video games he is playing, or video games he is inventing. Once when she asked Brian how he could possibly listen to anybody talk about such boring things for such a long time, he just smiled and said that’s how Jeremy knows you’re friends.

So no wonder Jeremy and his little brother Josh are such good friends, then, because Josh listens. They’re closer than the twins, the Tyson boys, and if Brian’s right, that’s why: Brian will ignore Jeremy half the time, she can see him doing it, and Jeremy just keeps talking—but when it’s Josh listening, it’s with his mouth wide open and his eyes staring, as Jeremy shows him more and more of the world.

Brian starts getting excited at some point, calling Jeremy "Rosenberg" and asking if anything happened with some girl named Beth that Ashley has never heard of. She imagines this Beth to have long, stringy, mouse-brown hair, and a tattered old lady jacket, and old-timey plastic glasses with cat points on the ends, and ugly shoes. She imagines this not out of malice, but because that’s probably Jeremy's ideal girlfriend. 

She'll know all about computer languages and have online role-playing characters of her own and maybe a weird accent, and probably take lots of artistic photographs. She’s almost ready to creep back down the hallway and change into her most Beth-like clothes when she hears Jeremy call Brian "Brando," and that’s when she figures something out. 

Ashley slides down the wall to listen from the telephone cubby in the hallway, which she's considered beneath her for a couple of years. But if they’re using Maguire names, it’s worth it.

Jeremy couldn't be less interested in talking about Beth, is the first thing that becomes clear. He has the tiny catch in his voice that means he’s having strong emotions about it—that was how the "Brando" had caught her attention, because he raised his voice when he said it. Jeremy never speaks above a deep, brown rumble, because he doesn’t care whether he has your attention or not. So Brian must have touched a nerve with this Beth stuff. 

Maybe they've broken up, and he'll need cheering up, and she can do little dances for him or something, and many years later when they are married he will say, in his beautiful, stammery voice, "I had to marry this woman. She took my broken heart and made it whole when I thought I could never love again." 

She presses her palm against the grin. It smells like pumpkin spice and colored markers.

"Nothing's going on with Beth, Brian. You know that."

"You've liked her since sixth grade, Jeremy. Something's got to ... you can't keep this up forever."

"No, you've been saying I liked her since the sixth grade. There's a difference. Besides, she pretty much hates me. You make her feel weird."

"I make her feel weird?"

"Whenever she's around you get this weird face like people when there's a camera around and you stare at me, and her, and me, and it's really disconcerting. It's like a minstrel show or something. That thing with the clowns."

"Jeremy, what are you talking about?"

"The ... those clowns, how there's the one that steals things and then the other one comes and there's the girl one and then the fat boss comes and ..."

"Punch and Judy?"

"No, the other thing. It's different every time? They make it up?"

"Tell me the name, Jeremy."

"I don't know, it's Italian, and they yell at the, like the people, and ask them and ... God damn it, Brian. You always do this. I don't want to talk about fucking Italian theatre."

"What do you want to talk about?"

"Fucking Monkey Island."

"See, Jeremy, I thought you wanted to talk about Beth."

"I need to go."

"Shut up. No you don't. I'm sorry. If it's too real or magical or whatever and you don't want to mess it up..."

"Fuck off, Anderson. The truth is I don't like Beth Wadley, I never liked Beth Wadley, and you know it, and you just do this to, I don't know, terrorize me, and it's not funny, because we haven't even hung out for like a month and you're just being a dick."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You shut up about Beth for like two years and then the second you started going out with Jennifer you started bugging me about it every day, and it's totally boring. Like we would go out on little double dates for fucking milkshakes and ... like I would even hang out with the team anyway."

"That's clearly not what it's about now..."

"Like I was your sad geek friend that couldn't ... Like I was a loose end you wanted to tie up."

"Jesus Christ, Jeremy. I don't want to ..."

"Fine. Cool it about the Beth stuff. Like I don't get enough of that from every fucking ..."

"Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Jeremy."

There comes the sound of Brian throwing himself to the bedroom floor to do curls. Twenty reps, alternating arms, before the big workout later this evening. It’s Wednesday, which means upper body.

"Tell me about Monkey Island."

"Whatever. We can talk about whatever. Ashley's thing."

"Tell me about Monkey Island, Jeremy. Please."

Ashley considers this, the general disruptions Jeremy and Brian's friendship usually causes. She decides she can handle it. Obviously they've talked about it—for all she knows, Josh was the one, and she can’t really fault his initiative. Like most boring people, Jeremy knows lots of useful stuff, and Brian is like his only friend besides his brother Weird Josh, and Corey and Jennifer, so she knows he can be trusted. She heads downstairs to call Heath and tell him about the new developments.

It’s kind of weird seeing other people being brought in, like it’s getting too big for her to hold onto. 

But so far everybody has done a great job getting the word out, without mixing up the messages or the spirit of what she’s planning. Even horrible old Tasha did well: Ashley thought momentarily she might kick a hole in the wall when she'd heard about Tasha talking to Necie McNeely, until Tasha told her how she'd gone about it, and she'd had to admit she was impressed. She hopes those two can cancel each other out.

Maybe teenagers—"Young Adults," rather—were a smart addition to the group after all. Most of Brian's cool, non-sports friends are pretty worthwhile. Maybe they could even function as independent cells, Brian's group and her own, and get twice the results. 

Heath will know, because Heath knows everybody's secrets, and understands Young Adults better than anybody. 

Maybe it won’t turn out too bad.

***

Necie is somehow at Karen’s house and Karen is starting to figure out that Necie has become — or has perhaps always been — kind of obsessional about Karen, in that way people can be about her. The way where they honestly think that there’s no real you, that real kind of person that goes to the bathroom and sometimes acts like a dickhead for no reason, nothing like that at all, behind or beyond what they see, where if they just watched you and asked enough questions, they’d get super-powered too. 

Karen has, of course, been on the receiving end of this sort of thing before, and has cultivated the appearance of being completely unaware of it. Necie will actually follow her from room to room in moods like this, and Karen had nearly trained her out of it until the Maguires started up, but now there’s really no excuse to avoid her. It’s a little like being food, followed by a starving person — she pictured Necie floating on smell lines, like a cartoon — like you were wearing some perfume they couldn’t stop wanting to smell.

There’s also another thing going on that Karen has noticed happening before, and finds totally fascinating, although she’s never talked to anybody about it and wouldn’t know how. Sometimes you can hate a person so much it makes them tiny and gross and horrible, and so pathetic that you feel too bad for hating them, and then it flips on you and you come to like, or love, the person. 

Karen figures this happens a lot, even if people don’t know it’s happening: Surely it is the only explanation, for example, for Ashley’s devotion to awful, screechy Trilby Taylor. Surely Ashley must have hated Trilby a little bit too much once, and it backfired. No other reason could suffice.

Considering that Necie is basically the same liability as Tasha — slit-eyed jealous of everyone around her, and with creepy meanness in her every word — she kind of wishes Necie had just forgone this step and gone directly to becoming Tasha, which would work out for everyone. A crappier version of Tasha that would tangle herself up in her bullshit, like a cat that won’t stop rubbing itself against your calves and doing irritating figure-eights under your feet.

Karen thinks about this stuff all the time, which makes her a real asset. Set her loose on the Young Adults and she’d really be cooking, but nobody knows that yet. They just think she’s pissed at her Mom all the time and that’s what makes her such a good Maguire. Which is not untrue and she has her reasons, but anyway she’d be great regardless. Even if she and her Mom were close as they used to be.

Anyway Heath and Ashley are currently discussing almost the same thing, Necie’s devotion to Tasha and Karen, and its possible outcomes for the group. Ashley doesn’t know it at this time, but she is being pretty sneaky here, trying to get Heath to admit he doesn’t really like Tasha. She knows it already, but with everything moving and quaking underneath their feet and more and more people joining the group all the time, and Jennifer’s news that they’re talking about it at other schools (high schools!), it is nice to know who her lieutenants are. 

If Tasha were to attempt a coup, Ashley will need to know, and Heath is kind of her right hand. He pays more attention than her, and knows more about secrets — he’d explained the thing with Maya and Donnie once to her, and she’d been impressed with his insights — and is more available than Karen. If Karen wanted, she could be in charge of the whole thing. But she’s not that into it. She has her own problems.

What they are not talking about, and never really will, is Nina. He mentioned having a huge fight with his Dad, and a separate fight on the same day with his Mom, but she sensed danger and obligingly left it alone, talking instead in a vague way about her frustration with her own parents. It felt nice, agreeing and not-agreeing about that stuff, talking in code and not directly about something that concerned the two of them more than anyone else on the Earth. Some things are too hot to touch directly, or they would burn you. She could see in Heath’s eyes that he might get weird enough about it to ruin almost anything in front of him.

So Heath is talking about Necie and acceptable risks and the same thing as ever, around and around, he can kind of get obsessed with it even though half the time he’s really talking about Tasha, but he seems scared to directly say how much she still scares him, and he’s getting more and more intense talking about promises and people that break promises and how Necie can never, ever be trusted, because she is so weak, and Tasha needs to know that she’s in charge of protecting them from Necie betraying them all and even more.

Ashley thinks this is getting out of hand and coming out of the blue even though they talk about this a lot, but this time is so rough because he’s getting really steamed about it, staring into space and talking, talking, and she catches his face in this certain angle, just for a second, where he looks exactly like Tasha. Like Tasha on that one day in Antarctica. 

But he calms down when he hears his voice echoing in the hallway, and grins adorably and sheepishly, that smile she loves most, like the beginning of a pretty song. But she still feels cold all over.

***

Jennifer "Octavia Maguire" Standish and her close friend Eddie Van Tenk sit in a car outside of town where nothing ever happens, and nothing is happening, because Jennifer is in charge, and fully clothed. 

This all started easily enough: Start a conversation with Eddie Van Tenk about something, anything, and see how long she could keep it going. Eddie Van Tenk is like this: Tall, dark, sexy as hell, goes to public school, and more than a little bit scary. Kind of like Batman, if Batman always kept trying to get you to do anal.

Eddie Van Tenk is the kind of guy that color-coded sex bracelets were invented about. What makes him sexy is how he usually seems disinterested, or actively hates you. Or is obviously fantasizing about you, but maybe more like cutting you up and less like getting a blow job. Any of those ways, you aren’t really the issue at all. He is very aggressive while somehow making it his movie, with him in the lead role, and you are like, this thing. 

She’s always liked the way boys’ faces go when they are imagining sex with you, even before any of them were all that clear on what sex constituted: Kind of stupid and intense and so inward-turning it’s like they aren’t even thinking about other people being around—seeing them go so quiet and still, like nobody had ever thought about sex except for them, so how could anybody tell? So of course this would make you want him, if you were a certain kind of person (a Danger Girl is how she thinks of it) but you can’t just walk up to him and ask him to hang out or have coffee or something, because he’d just look at you in that same way, that same hateful, gluttonous way, and you’d realize you’d been found out, and you want it too much.

So you have to somehow put it out there, make yourself available for whatever, without aiming it right at him, which is hard, and itself just makes him more desirable, which makes it harder still. Like this total spiral of watching yourself watching yourself and getting further and further away from remembering what you wanted in the first place because he is just there and not going anywhere and always looking at you like he’s  looking in the mirror.

She’d made sure he saw her with Brian—she had a little practice at this, after all—and basically completely ignored him and acted like he was gross. This had no effect. She’d tried to get herself into a position of accidental porno a couple of times—falling down in front of him with a short skirt on, or leaning across a table to talk trash with another girl, as if he so didn’t matter that it was no big deal if her tits were in his face—but basically every single thing inside of her forced her to abort immediately on that stuff. It won’t make him want her any more than he already does, which is a lot, and it just made her feel like stupid trash. But so then how to let him know that it’s okay? That he can make the approach?

It is not like she doesn’t love Brian. But their hanging out is mostly limited to his house, his car, watching TV, cuddling and making out in his bedroom, and occasionally hanging with Jeremy. All of which she loves, for real, and wouldn’t give up for anything. Jennifer and Brian have managed to create something really strong and special, and she knows how tremendously loyal he is — she loves him for that too. When she pictures her future, he’s in it.

But God. Eddie Van Tenk. You know?

So she’s sitting there talking about virginity, and how it’s silly because it’s basically an excuse to hand out blow jobs for free and still act like girls who’d been with their boyfriends were total whores for sleeping with them, even if they’d been together for years — and how it is all related to marriage, which is anyway a bullshit vestige of a time when women were property. And she looks over nearly expecting Brian’s attentive, slightly fuzzy face waiting to respond, but instead she gets the Eddie Van Tenk look that says, "It’s not that I’m bored, it’s just that we’re not that kind of pair."

"Tell me more about this Maguires? I heard a little bit about it at my school."

"They’re talking about it at your school? That’s so awesome. I’ll have to tell Ashley, she’ll flip."

"Well, like, so what’s going on? Is there going to be any protests? Revolutions? Are we partying with the next big massacre? I’ve already picked out my name."

"Really?"

"What sounds better, ‘Starkweather Maguire’ or ‘Baader-Meinhof Maguire?’"

"I tend to go with the non-serial killer."

"That’s that, then. So who’s in charge?"

"Ashley Anderson, mostly. And her brother."

"Brian? That fucking football player jock? Used to be?"

And if she just gives up and reaches for his dick at that point, could you really blame her?

***

When Mr. Tyson calls Jeremy to get the boys' Social Security information it is: incredibly awkward. It starts out bad, because already this is so typically Dad that Jeremy could bite through his tongue. Yes, he’s getting his tax info ready months ahead of time, and that’s admirable. His Dad’s very precise about these matters, about money and making the correct effort and showing your work and writing neatly and mowing his lawn himself. 

But on the other hand, you should be able to count on your Dad to have that kind of thing written down somewhere, like his wallet or something, instead of calling you up after you've been alive for sixteen years and asking you what your Social Security number is. Dad was not so precise about that kind of thing.

So Jeremy goes to get it, and Josh's, and Dad writes it down, and Jeremy thinks about how something like this has happened pretty much every year as far back as he can remember, and gets so steamed he pretty much forgets he’s on the phone until Dad clears his throat and asks what else is going on with Jeremy. Dad has no qualms asking about things like what grade Josh is in, or their mother's birthday, because it would never occur to him that this would be hurtful: He just needs the information. 

Jeremy has never really reflected on this, or else he would have calmed down about it pretty fast, because he’s exactly the same way with people — and besides, if anybody else forgot the exact date of his birthday every year he probably wouldn't even notice, which means it’s just a thing with Dad, which is dumb. But he hasn’t ever  thought about it, so it pisses him off every time.

It just seems so empty, having to talk to this pleasant man he doesn’t even really know, who doesn’t seem to have much to say to him, or really care one way or the other. It’s just gestures, and doing the thing that you thought you were supposed to do, and that’s the kind of thing Jeremy violently opposes. He knows his Dad loves him, and he feels something for his Dad that he assumes is love, and they have had fun together on occasion, but mostly it just seems awkward. Like making conversation with some weird uncle that lives in South America and you only see every five years. 

The idea that you’re supposed to be connected in some way. Like even if you didn't see him for fifteen years or talk to him and maybe he was dead, you could run into him in an airport or a supermarket and immediately recognize him and start talking like it had been no time at all. Like blood is magical.

His Dad’s a good man, even Mom agrees about that. He likes him. He knows they have a lot of things in common, and they can and sometimes do spend hours on the phone, but it’s in moments like this it all changes, and he just seems like a stranger on the other end of the phone. It seems wrong, that they could both feel so uncomfortable about something as normal as talking on the phone, considering they do it fairly regularly. But it has to come from somewhere, and Jeremy can’t figure out where. He doesn’t like it, but he hates feeling like he has to do it more. Like him and his Dad are forced to talk this empty talking until some bell in their heads rings and they can hang up without feeling like they’re doing something hurtful, or breaking the rules.

Which is about when he realizes that Dad has been talking for a while. All that time he’d been thinking about how they didn't really have anything to say, and his Dad had been saying something. Jeremy flips back through the conversation in his head to see if he can catch any of it, but it was all just a dull buzz.

Dad is talking in a weird, fast, gulpy tone, very unprofessional, which is weird because Dad always seems calm and rehearsed. Even when he ‘s caught off guard, like having to talk to the principal after the time Jeremy and Brian set fire to the band hall completely by accident — he'd given this speech, in the low, quiet voice that Jeremy inherited from him, and made the principal feel pretty bad about himself, and gotten Jeremy off the hook, and all with his magic words. That was about his favorite thing Jeremy's Dad ever did, taking that principal down a few for coming after Jeremy just because he was weird and quiet and too smart, with this amazing lecture that sounded like TV. Of course, on the ride home he'd gotten another one, just as hard to hear, and felt probably worse than the principal —  but it was still the most awesome thing Dad had ever done.

But what Dad’s doing now is about the least awesome thing he could ever do, and there will be no stopping him until he is done.

"... Because that would be cool, with me, I mean, your mother and I have talked about it before, and agreed that we just want you to be happy, and make sure that you're ... you know, you're safe ... I don't want you to think that because you're the first-born son that you have to carry any kind of ... well, I mean, I've never really thought too much of that kind of thing, you know, I almost let your mother hyphenate your names, when you boys were born, and we would have too, except that the Tyson name counts for something here in town, and ... well, anyhow, it's not a big deal, and I know you have such a capacity to love, I mean the way you protect Josh, and how he can ... well, it's clear that you have a really big heart, son, and I want you to know that you don't ever have to ... you should give that love to someone, anyone you can find that will love you back, because that's precious, and very rare, and you shouldn't cut yourself off from ... well, you've never really been one to follow the, um, rules, so I'm sure you're going to be my strong guy no matter what happens, no matter if it gets hard or ..."

He just keeps on like that for about million years, and Jeremy spends at least eight hundred thousand of them trying to convince himself Dad’s not talking about what he’s obviously talking about — and the other two hundred trying not to laugh out loud, and ignoring how much he has to pee, which is like a bitch, and loving his Dad so much because he is such a nice guy, is being such a nice guy, and being so embarrassed for him, because he is doing it for practically no reason.

Also for no reason is that, at the end of the horrible mess, when Dad’s all talked out, and he leaves a giant space in the air where Jeremy can fill it in with just one word, like a fourth-grade mash note ("Yes"/"No" -- "Pick One") and the whole thing could be over for good, and Dad could exhale, and Jeremy could laugh nervously and thank him for being so -- Vulnerable? Accepting? Unconditional? -- instead of doing any of this he stays quiet for a while, and when Dad mumbles, "Son?" he said, "Thank you." 

And he tells his Dad he loves him, and he hangs up the phone.

***

What Tasha doesn’t know is that hardly anybody calls her by the name she chose, Valerie Solanas Maguire. Mostly—after Brian said it and laughingly explained it during a pizza night with Karen—they call her Eileen Wuornos Maguire. 

What Tasha does know—after Brian explains the group better than Ashley or Karen have been able to—is that if she hadn't been invited, she would have destroyed it completely. That’s one thing Ashley was right about. And that, all by itself, is why she is a member of the group. Not because she is Ashley's best friend (that’s Trilby, although obviously Ashley wishes it were Karen), not because she is smart or fun or wise or particularly skilled at anything. Because she was scary.

That doesn’t bother her so much. She'd spent much of elementary school worrying about it, or pretending to be dumb, or nice, or whatever. It always comes down to being the best, and once she accepted that for herself, things got a lot easier. Being scary was a lot better than being weak, or soft. Or Necie McNeely. 

Tasha hates the way Ashley has so little control over herself that she can pretend to just be friends with Heath Oliver and never admit, even to herself, her giant crush on him. They work on their homework together all the time, whispering and giggling, and the way Ashley looks at him—it’s so obvious, but if you asked her about it, she would say she doesn’t know what you were talking about. And she wouldn't even be lying. 

At least Tasha knows she’s in love with Heath Oliver. At least she can keep it secret.

The truth is that she likes Ashley Anderson. A lot. She thinks Ashley is smart, and cool, and kind, and all these are qualities she admires. Heck, if forced to admit it, she even likes Karen Grossman. The only person she really hates is Trilby, and that’s just because she was on TV and thinks she’s so much cooler than everybody else. It makes Tasha some version of sad that Ashley doesn’t get this, and just buys it. At least Karen knows how silly it is; at least she doesn’t have to worry about Trilby taking over and making it into some kind of cult. Not with the way Ashley defers to Karen: That, you can count on.

And what that means is that her own position is safe. Karen would rather let her take over than let a Trilby Fanclub happen, she was sure of it. All she needs to do is bide her time, and start recruiting as many of their classmates as possible, and eventually the group will have a leader it could depend on. 

Ashley isn't strong enough to weather the storm. Tasha is. It’s that simple.

***

Donnie McNeely calls another three times before Maya gets home from art class. The class is pretty cool—mostly high school students—and she is happy to hold her own with them, although it makes her feel weird when they compliment her art. But then that always makes her feel weird, though, no matter who’s saying it. It is a messed-up position to be in, because on the one hand, she can’t help but do her best, because art is what she loves, but she always feels strange when people compliment it. And then she reacts wrong, which makes her feel rude and ungrateful. It’s rare that a person will say her art is good more than once.

Maya feels cruddy because she’s just home to change, and then off to hang out with Heath Oliver, but she knows her mother will find all of this scandalous. Mrs. Gidley knows the situation — which is that Donnie McNeely is in love with Maya and Maya finds the whole thing obscene — but can’t see her way to understanding the relationship with Heath. Mom thinks it’s a boy-girl thing, and that’s the really embarrassing part, more embarrassing than Donnie McNeely. 

But she can’t tell the real reason—that Heath's family is utterly screwed up and she’s the only person he can talk to about it—because she knows her stepmother well enough to know there would be phone calls and weird questions from that point forward. It’s the percentage, hardly countable, hardly noticeable, by which the Olivers have managed to exceed the success of the Gidleys that makes it an issue. For anyone else, the second Mrs. Gidley would not have cared—she is nice enough, and seems to love Maya—but she has this personal issue with the Olivers that Maya has never understood. So, she suffered in silence.

But Heath’s the only person she can talk to either. That’s the way they've always been. Maya can’t remember a time when she didn't have Heath around. He’s the only person she believes, about her art, or how pretty she is getting, or anything. He's always been there. But after his sister ran away he needed Maya more because he had lied to cover for her, and his parents—his horrible, scary, hateful father; his vaguely kind mother—had found out about it.

***

Days before his parents even find out about his part in Jana's disappearance, Heath approaches Donnie McNeely about joining the group. He knows Donnie would be a valuable asset to Ashley's plans, and desperately wanted him to be involved, because he feels so guilty about his relationship with Maya Gidley, and the problems it seems to be suddenly causing. 

Well, it hadn't happened suddenly, Donnie's love for Maya, but there came a point where none of them could really ignore it and remain friends, and then it was easier to just let it go, and let her take the lead in avoiding Donnie. But this Maguire thing, now that he understands it, is too important to leave out someone so important. He hopes Maya will understand. He knows she'd give in, eventually, if it were Heath asking — and that's how he knows he has to be the one to approach Donnie.

Donnie McNeely has white, white hair, and black, black eyes. He is utterly fascinating, because it’s so obvious that he’s keeping things under the surface. A lot of kids have secrets, but it’s only Donnie that keeps everything secret. Heath can’t look away from that. 

He doesn’t like him, exactly—hardly anybody does, except Maya, which is too bad because she doesn’t like him the way he likes her—but he’s interested in him. Well okay, Ashley likes him, but for specific reasons that aren’t annoying. If she liked him like she likes Jeremy Tyson, Heath would have hated him. But she just likes him because he’s exactly what he is, no more and no less. Like a comic book superhero: Truth and justice and liberty all the time. Heath finds it sickening but he knows why Ashley likes it, because she too wants to be just one thing all the time, and fails at it because her curiosity always gets the better of her. 

Heath has spent so long figuring out his parents' secrets, and eldest sister Sarah’s, and poor Jana's, that to find someone genuinely mysterious, in his small life, is something of an event. There’s certainly nothing hidden about Tasha, or Necie — even Weird Josh is only weird up to a point. Ashley is mysterious only insofar as she seems to get weird whenever he’s around, the same way she does Jeremy. The only thing approaching it, in their class, is Karen, but he just thinks that’s because she isn’t rich as the rest of them mostly are, and she’s a different religion. Of course, the teenagers are mysteries, but nothing very attractive. Donnie is very attractive, because he is a little bit creepy.

The day Heath asks him to join the group, it isn’t so much a decision. More of an impulse. These don’t occur to Heath very often; it happens rarely enough that when he does have a sudden thought, or desire, he makes it his business to act upon it immediately. He heads into the art room to look for Maya, with whom he is planning on writing and filming a movie over the weekend, and was surprised to find Donnie sitting alone at a table, mutely, staring at a handful of clay. The light is leaving; school is taking on that hollow, haunted light that feels like you woke up at the wrong time. Creeping closer, he can see the suggestion of a shape imposed; perhaps a rabbit, or a horse? A face? He can’t tell, and finds it frustrating. Art is not Donnie's thing, it’s Maya's.

But Donnie stares and stares, and hardly looks up when Heath approaches, because he’s so focused on this shapeless mound. They haven't really been friends since the day things were decided, and it only occurs to Heath now, looking at the frustration and passion on Donnie's face, to wonder why that should be. Surely they have a lot of things to share. They are the only normal boys in their class, even if Donnie is so normal it kind of wasn't. They should be men enough to overlook the whole Maya Gidley thing. 

But Donnie's disinterest, like his secrets, is impenetrable. Heath sits waiting, remembering as he did all the other times he's waited for Donnie to return from his strange reveries. How commanding they are. Donnie is utterly overtaken by problems, whenever they are presented, and it always seems he can’t pull himself out of it once he's decided something is his task.

What Heath doesn’t know—what nobody knows—is that Donnie only concentrates on puzzles and problems halfway, to focus on his own thoughts. To sit down and think about Maya, or Heath, or any of them, or his parents, or how hard it is for his sister all the time, is the hardest thing in the world, because he is filled so much up with love, or hate, or anger, or fear, that he can hardly keep still. 

But to concentrate on another issue entirely, something that can be solved with hands and figures, or symbols and facts, means he can look a little off-center at his own problems, to the left or right, and see them more clearly for it. Obviously he’s no good at art, and never will be. No amount of love would make the clay look how he wants it, so he could hand it to Maya in a week and say, “I made this for you because you are beautiful.” 

It’s clear he won’t ever make anything worthwhile. But that doesn’t stop him from staring at the clay, turning it this way and that in his mind, looking for the perfect solution, the correct sequence of movements and pressures to apply, that would force it into the form he holds so carefully in his mind.

What he is thinking about, while performing this mental structure, is one particular day, far in the future, when he will kiss Maya Gidley, whatever she wants, just kiss her, and take her in his arms, and she will be his forever, and Heath would be left on the side, on his knees, apologizing until his words run together like Tasha that day in Antarctica, for ever having touched something so pure and clear and perfect.

And that's precisely when Heath speaks, ruining Donnie's concentration for good.

***

When Jennifer says the word revolution Alexis Butts feels something like lightning go through her body, from the top of her head and out through her feet, like a flagpole. She has been waiting, as it turns out, her whole life for this.

Well, waiting for a couple of things. Revolution, and pop superstardom. She wants to be the first full-figured pop star that didn’t come from a celebrity factory in LA or Orlando — to arise fully formed from the ground and become ultrafamous for her voice and her general demeanor.

What she doesn’t know, but is a actually a sure thing, is: It’s going to happen, Alexis is going to hit the bigtime, and the Maguires will be sort of a big reason why. 

Ashley and Brian Anderson are going to make Alexis Butts very, very famous.

What she does know is that she is meant for something much, much bigger than this. She has stars in her eyes but she also has the attention to detail and towering work ethic to make it happen. She imagines Madonna in particular as her role model in this respect — somebody who didn’t even really have talent except for being a star, fighting so hard, just so unbelievably hard, that her willpower got her to the highest heights. She’s read a book or two, Alexis, and knows the story like the back of her hand.

She also knows that you have to actually sing in front of people in order to become famous for singing. That part, she hasn’t quite accomplished. But she doesn’t think it’ll be that hard, when she does. She loves to sing, she knows she’s good at it. She has no qualms about public speaking, so there’s no chance she’ll be the type to get stage fright. It’s just a matter of time.

Alexis thinks: Jennifer is astonishingly beautiful, especially to be so nice. She thinks Jeremy is more interesting than most people do, although she detects a darkness there that someone else might find really off-putting. Brian, she thinks is beautiful and pretty nice, too. Ideally they would be together, but he’s not that nice. She doesn’t really think he’s noticed her at all, except to be slightly aggravated at her presence, like most people are, when she comes bearing her clipboard.

Because that’s the real Alexis, not the pop star: The girl with a thousand responsibilities, who stays on top of all of them. Student government and Palestine and funds for the arts here in town. She is known in grownup circles, even, for her philanthropy — people have trouble saying no to her. It’s because she doesn’t really accept that possibility going in. 

Why would you accept defeat from the start? Much better to just cover your bases, be smart about it.

When Brian starts pulling away, it’ll be Alexis that notices first, because she keeps her eye on him. Even more than Jeremy, she sometimes worries about his moods. She’ll be sitting in her car, a car she bought herself with money she got at a job she got herself, and watching him run track, and only realize she’s being creepy when he breaks out of a loop and runs headlong at her car to ask what she’s doing. 

She’ll pretend she’s just there getting high — by this time she’ll be getting high every now and then — and not that she was stopped dead by Brian Anderson in short-shorts and a tank-top running track. They’ll make awkward small talk and neither of them will bring up the Maguires or anything like that. It’ll be sort of bittersweet because she’ll know by the end of the conversation that he’s gone and he’s not coming back. 

***

Emma Brodie has a devil of a time getting Brian Anderson to her house on New Year’s Eve, but Georgia eventually offers his moving services with only the slightest of prodding. An invented trip out of town on the first that means she needs to get everything into her classroom before leaving. Final touches on her heavy furniture back home, once they’re done with that, so long as he doesn’t have anywhere else to be. Paintings to hang. A glass of wine to relax them after working so hard. Trouble with the circuit breaker necessitating artfully placed candles in the living room. 

("I’ve gotten the bedroom all set up myself, I certainly didn’t want any movers in there. Although I suppose they’ve seen it all. Just imagine what they’ve seen…") 

Slipping into "something more comfortable," and laughing at the shared joke, as though everything were proceeding normally, as though simply making the reference and laughing about it ironically doesn’t add to the effect. No TV once they are seated, again due to an electrical issue she doesn’t feel like tackling, so they sit in the living room by candlelight, on New Year’s Eve, drinking wine in a silence that quickly grows bigger than the room in which they sit.

"Brian, your sister is really something. I mean that."

"Agreed. She’s brilliant. I can’t tell you how impressive she’s been this last year. Really involved, really passionate about … things. Idealistic. She’s a planner. She always gives a hundred and one. She’s," he pauses, deliciously, embarrassed and proud, "She’s kind of my hero."

"I think that’s the most lovely thing I’ve ever heard. It takes a strong man to say something like that. I applaud you."

Brain chuckles. "Well, don’t repeat it, but it’s true. When I think of what I was like at her age … couldn’t even tie my shoes, and here she is …"

"Here she is what?"

"…She just really cares, is all. And she’s good at it, Miss Brodie. Passionate. She’ll be President one day. For real. It’s neat to watch her growing. Watch her passion."

"Ah, passion. Passion is important. One might say it’s the only thing that matters. Seeing what you want and going after it. Being able to admit your desires."

He looks at her suddenly, whipping his head around: "What do you mean?"

"We spend so much time denying ourselves what we want. Denying even the fact that we want these things. Because we’re afraid of what people will think, or that we won’t get them. Because of the rules we live by, that we never seem to examine for utility. Passion is bravery. It’s passion that drives us beyond those common fears. That reminds us that anything we want, can be."

"But like, nothing’s that simple."

"That’s the language of fear, my dear. Of course nothing is that simple. Nothing is simple. But it’s passion that breaks down the walls, that allows us to make a plan and execute it, in order to get what we want. What we sometimes desperately need, if only we could admit it."

"I totally know what you mean. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, actually. Being able to articulate what you want. It always makes it easier to get it."

"Certainly. After all, I don’t imagine spending your evening at that school, or here in my dusty old new house, would have been your first choice."

"I don’t mind. I’m happy to help. Ash is head over heels for you, Miss Brodie. And you’re not even her teacher yet."

"Your family has been more than kind. I’ve been discussing the college with your mother, and she seems to think that I can teach some night classes."

Such poor form, mentioning his mother. Amateur. "… A lovely woman, especially at her age," she finished, lamely.

"I’m going to community college, starting next term, to pick up some early credits. Maybe you’ll be my teacher! That would be crazy."

"I’d love to teach you, Brian."

He smiles at the floor and takes a drink, thereby completely missing her subtle readjustment of décolletage. Of the flowing gown, into which she changed, before the wine.

"Well, after all, Brian. How old is your sister? Eleven?"

"Twelve next week."

"And you’re seventeen? Well, that’s a small difference in the scheme of things. When she’s thirty-five, you’ll be forty. Practically the same age..."

"How old are you, Miss Brodie?"

Exactly.

"Call me Emma. We’re friends, aren’t we? Although I would caution you against asking such things of most women, until you’re good friends. They do not generally appreciate it, especially if they’re older. I myself am twenty-eight."

Thirty-four, actually. It says so right on Emma Brodie’s passport: Thirty-four.

"I would have said twenty-four."

She laughs, and it sounded like a bell.

"Let’s split the difference."

"I heard you moved here from Europe."

"It’s true. I miss it terribly, but at least I have my things here to remind me."

She waves a hand languorously, indicating the splendor, the abundance of her home. The rich promises it whispers. Lushness. Delight. Now, ask. Ask now.

"Why did you move back?"

She sighs.

"That is a tale, I’m afraid. I’ve only recently begun the arduous task of disengaging myself from the disrepute that has dogged me seemingly all my years. There’s always something, isn’t there? Some reason for tongues to wag. The taste of scandal is almost an addiction for the bourgeois, don’t you find? Delicious."

"People like to talk, that’s for sure. After I quit the team I had almost, like, no friends. It was awful. Everybody wanted a piece of me. Going from quarterback to … nothing. Nobody. It was hard."

She clucks.

"My dear, I completely understand. Fame is so fleeting. But yes, I imagine it was a lot like that. We seem to have a lot in common."

"Yeah, like all of a sudden you’re just nobody, and it’s weird. All that stuff just stopped mattering, like, in one second. I didn’t care who was first string or second string, who everybody was dating or … whatever. Any of that stuff. And it was like, it hurt, but I realized that I could be anybody that I wanted. I had given so much energy into being what I was, like some kind of myth or something, you know? And then when that was gone, I realized how tired I was. And I could just be me."

"And who is that?"

He grins. "Just Brian, you know? There were all these other things I suddenly realized I was good at."

"Intriguing."

"Well, I mean, ‘good at.’ You know. I had a lot of time on my hands. My grades got a lot better, and I had more time for my friends. My real ones, I mean."

"Like Jennifer."

"Sure. And Jeremy."

"I imagine that was quite a release."

"You have no idea."

She stretches, and sighs again. Heaves, if she’s being honest, but after all she makes it a point to avoid honesty at all costs. Too common. Case in point:

"I have not told a living soul of my reasons for returning to America, Brian. So I must request that you keep it in strictest confidence. Can I trust you?"

She cocks her head, as though she’s asked the question of herself. As though daring herself.

"Of course you can."

"There was … a young man. Not much older than you, actually. I had no idea how young he was, because he was dishonest with me. I hate dishonesty. I think of myself as a tolerant woman, Brian, but I cannot abide dishonesty."

"Me neither."

"I can sense that about you. You’re very strong, I think. And you’re interesting, which sets you apart. Never lose that, your honesty. You’ll become much less interesting."

"You’re very interesting, Miss Brodie. But I’m sure you know that."

She laughs again, gaily. "Well, thank you. That’s quite a compliment."

"Were you … was there prosecution?"

"Oh, no. We were very discreet. Lovers must be, I believe. It is too precious to let other people in. Like this house, this evening, sitting here with you: we’re all alone, and I would never wish for anyone else to intrude. That’s how lovers should conduct themselves. No, the tragedy was in my discovery of his dishonesty. If he had been clear with me, I wouldn’t have cared, I’m not so narrow-minded as to think that such a small difference in years can really matter, if your desire is real. In fact, science supports such liaisons: the human male reaches his sexual prime at around your age, while the female doesn’t reach her full sexual power—does not find the power of her passion fully flowered—until she’s something closer to mine. So in many ways it was ideal, and the relationship was … explosive. In many ways, a perfect match. But he lied, and I left. I’m sure he’s over me by now, silly old thing that I am."

"You’re not old. You’re really cool!"

"Well, darling. Thank you. I sometimes need to be told."

"You were talking earlier, about desire?"

"The most powerful, wonderful force in the world."

"Sometimes it seems like it’s really hard, like too hard, to figure out what it is that you really want."

"The problem lies in your syntax, Brian. You must think of desire, of passion, as a need, never a want. Desire informs us, inspires us, with need. It is need, denied, that kills us. To call it simple ‘want’ is to disrespect the principle, and then it’s no wonder you can’t locate it."

"Well, sometimes it’s hard for me to figure out what I … need. Like, my girlfriend Jennifer, she’s so awesome, you know? And like, eighty percent of what I want—need—eighty percent of what I need, she has. And it works really well. But sometimes I feel like there’s other stuff I, like, need, and I feel like sometimes it’s just me getting confused, or whatever, in the moment, because it goes away, but other times it’s like, I can’t think of anything I could possible w… need less. And you can’t ever be completely honest, no matter how much you value it. So you’re just alone. You know what I mean?"

"I do. I think your problem is that you’re so comfortable denying your desire that you can’t even recognize it at times. When you feel these other needs, these other passions, are you … do you find that you are … more or less in a state of excitement?"

"I don’t want to be vulgar."

"Vulgar is a hateful word. If it’s honest, it’s real. There’s nothing to fear. After all, it is only the two of us here tonight."

"I’m horny when I think about this stuff, yeah."

"Just as I suspected. Brian, you must learn to trust those feelings. They are more true than anything you want during the everyday. Those are magical times, when our desires present themselves. We must ever respond." She moves closer to him on the couch.

"But it’s like, killer complicated, and maybe ruins everything, you know? How can that be right?"

"Right and wrong are the lies we tell ourselves in fear. How can you need something wrong? Needs are what they are, and our duty is to respond."

"I guess so. It’s just like, sometimes you start thinking things that will just never fly."

"You desire things beyond your reach?"

"Kind of. More like the trouble it would cause is just …"

"That’s just an obstacle."

"But how do you do it? How do you get there? How do you just, like, say it? How do you find the right words?"

"Often, words are not necessary. Especially in matters of romance."

His face twists; he looks more like Ashley for a moment than she’s yet seen.

"Romance. I’m not talking about romance, for Christ’s sake. It’s just like, there’s these things that sneak in when I’m, you know, alone. Physical things. I’ve got Jennifer for fucking romance."

She refills his glass, bending ever closer. Her mouth is precise. "You learn to read the signs, Brian. Words fall away. We’re just bodies. Bodies understand desire better than our silly minds. Silly words."

"But if you’re wrong, then like, that’s it. You turn into some kind of creep, or a pervert … there will be rumors, or like, talking shit, and you’ll always be that guy."

"Fear is weakness, Brian. You must dedicate yourself to desire, to passion. Words are so ugly, little noises we make with our mouths. And mouths are so much better at other things."

He breathes heavily for a moment, closes his eyes. She puts a hand on his thigh, feels the edge of her hand brush against what is suddenly there.

"It’s just like, you want the other person to say it’s okay. Even if it’s only once. And that’s not fair, because what if they’re waiting for you to say it too, and why should it just be their problem?"

"No words, Brian."

He looks at her steadily, sexy and intent. "You’re right. It wouldn’t work any other way."

And then he stands up.

"Thanks for the wine, Miss Brodie. I’m sure I’ll see you soon."

***

Donnie and Maya are right: They need symbols and pictures before they can get to the propaganda part. Something to show what they are, in a way nobody can dispute or have a problem with, while they’re getting started. Later on, there would be posters, leaflets: The Manifesto, various slogans. Jeremy has already opened an account with a print-on-demand service that will put anything you want on a shirt, or a coffee mug, or a Frisbee, and sell it to you at cost.

The idea of tossing around a Frisbee that said "Childhood Is A Political State" is pretty much the coolest thing Jeremy has brought to the table — but then, now is not really his time. He’s good for action, and power, and strategy. So it’s a nice thought, and she’s excited about what Jennifer and Corey are calling "art damage," things like bumper stickers and other self-adhesive things they can print with their slogans, even the Manifesto itself, and plaster the town with those too.

In the meantime, there are the symbols, which were coming along really well. There’s a gift, an art to that, which she’s never even thought about until Donnie showed her some of them, and said there were lots more coming. They are designed for ease and quickness, in the case of graffiti. She likes that they are compelling, like a real logo — like advertisements for Child Power. Like Childhood could be a corporation or something. 

The main one is a >, a greater-than symbol, with a line underneath it and a big vertical line through the center of it. It means that our assumption is stupid, that what came before is not always better. That Adults and their opinions are not automatically right. 

It looks kind of like a crop circle thing. Truman calls it a “sigil” and says it has magic powers and will take over people’s minds even if they don’t know about the Maguires yet. He and Jennifer and Brian and Corey have already tagged it several places around town, including other school districts. You could tell which was which: Jennifer’s were forest green, Brian’s were nautical blue, and Corey’s were fire-engine red, like his hair last semester. 

The guys laughed at Jennifer because she’d gone to about eighteen different stores to find the perfect, weird shade, but it’s nice. It doesn’t look like any green spray paint Ashley’s ever seen, and that’s a good thing. 

Truman’s are gold, which had worried her when she heard about it, but she finally sees one driving in the rich part of town, Heath’s neighborhood, and is relieved to find it is not cruddy-looking. She makes an excited noise when she recognizes it, and quickly clamps down, strangling it, and her Mom thinks she’s choking or something. 

Every time she sees one she’ll secretly check if any Adults noticed it, not sure whether she wants that yet or not, but it’s like their eyes just drift by. She figured this was because Adults trained themselves to ignore it — the only people who do graffiti are kids, or skaters, or otherwise criminals. She wonders if anybody else that does graffiti is a normal person like her, with an agenda in mind like theirs. She loves that idea, people communicating with each other out in plain sight like that — whenever a Maguire saw one of their symbols painted on something, it would be like a giant glowing neon sign, while anybody else would just ignore it, thinking it was more noise. Just part of the ugly litter and trash of the streets. 

***

Heath Oliver is kind of pissed off. His mother looked him right in the eye and lied. It’s Santa Claus all over again. It makes him feel a crazy desire to destroy things that is very out of character, but he enjoys all the same. He knocks his tennis balls out of the court, every single one to come at him, and when the instructor starts getting pissed it’s all he can do to keep from giggling right in the dude’s face.

Heath loves his tennis instructor with a crazed devotion, and depended on him for approval and correction of his game, but somehow this makes it better. It’s weird. 

Also weird is the ride back home with Mom, because he refuses to talk to her, and can tell she’s getting panicked, and keeps bringing up stuff no Mom has any right to know about, like the video game she’d bought him last week, asking about specific bad guys and levels and stuff like that. Asking his opinion of pop stars about whom he couldn’t care less. All kinds of meaningless, non-Mom-like chitchat, less and less coherent, until she’s telling him about stuff at work, anything to get a response, and nearly in tears by the time they get home. 

He can’t look at her face; she’s too sad and confused. He keeps thinking how it must be for her, like some mean-spirited alien took over his body while he was at tennis, like he turned in the space of an hour into a teenager. 

What he doesn’t know is that this has a precedent, on two occasions in fact, and she’d never been able to get back in: The morning after a slumber party, in Jana’s case, and the aftermath of a particularly violent movie for young people, in the case of Sarah.

He beats it upstairs the second they get home, leaving her mid-anecdote, so she continues to tell herself the story, standing alone in the kitchen, her keys in her hand. And once the story is over she goes immediately to the cupboard over the sink, and fills up the watering can, and puts on a sun hat even though the sun is low in the sky, and walks the perimeter, watering plants and humming loudly to herself.

Even once Dad comes home, the crazy feeling hasn’t gone away. Heath is stuck thinking of himself somehow possessed by that alien, acting like a different person in as many ways as he can help. He starts thinking about things he could do to confuse them more, and almost sets fire to something — he’s not feeling particularly original, which is one of the problems — but at the last moment he calms himself down a tiny bit, and waits until he knows Dad will be in the den or the fireside area in the master bedroom, with a scotch and a sandwich and guitar player magazines, and he can attack.

Heath creeps down the hall, sort of delighted at this point by the way he feels, like he’s on fire with tiny spikes and flames coming out all over his skin, and he’s about to blast down the French doors of the den when he hears a peculiar conversation, and by reflex drops to his knees just against the wall outside, the better to hear.

"I most certainly will keep calling you that ridiculous name. Until Harry can get everything into my name he says she’ll get it all. At least this way I’ll walk away with equity, but that means not giving her anything she can use…"

"I know, by God. I’m leaving regardless. Your life is yours to do with..."

"Jesus Christ, Nina. I’m not ruining anything. You can keep living the way you are, that’s your call. But I want out one way or the other. I just can’t see how you could prefer to keep seeing a married man over one that…"

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean, exactly? What would it, take away the fucking thrill?"

"Yes, I do. You know I do. Although I take this to mean you don’t feel the same way about it."

"Well, that’s all I’m saying, Georgie. Come away with me. We make more money than either of them. We can clean up the mess and still make out just fine. I just want to do it sooner rather than later. I just want to be with you."

Which is really just enough of that. Heath knocks down that door with all the fire he has in him, strides across the den, and sits down purposefully in the best chair, his Dad’s leather chair, the one he’s not allowed to sit in.

At that same exact moment, Mr. Oliver stammers a second and then delivers a thrillingly volatile reprimand to the J. Crew inbound customer service operator who is suddenly on the other end of the line, promising to revisit the complaint at a later date, when his family isn’t demanding his attention.

Heath smiles sweetly, feeling full of steam, full of hot air like a balloon. The area under his ears, at the back of his jaw, aches — he’s been clenching his teeth since tennis. He relaxes the jaw, and then reaches over for a sip of Dad’s scotch.

Which is, on reflection, how he blows his advantage, really.

***

They’ve given Emma time on campus, to familiarize herself with its rhythms and routine, the landmarks in its day and in its architecture, so her assumption of duty might be as seamless as possible. Emma spends the first couple of days prowling about the periphery, making final decisions as to the group she’ll be requesting, and the mornings making her own house ready. 

Most of the children seem to have formal connections to the Anderson girl, who is at the center of what she’s decided to investigate. All the children in the group—teenagers included, from what she’s seen—show a dedication of purpose that thrills her heart. They remind her of what is so seductive about teaching the young: They are truly the fastest ships in the fleet, if simply provided with a rudder.

The little Tyson boy is clearly a member of whatever’s going on: Obviously oppressed in some way, probably by his peers. “Weird” Josh is off-putting in many ways, but there is a brilliance behind those shadowed eyes that was very interesting indeed. She watches him a few minutes before making the approach: Sitting alone as usual, playing in the dirt. It’s a methodical and impressive directness that dictates his movements, that makes him so interesting. 

That, and the fact that he is alone.

"Hello, boy."

"Hi."

He doesn’t really look up, but she can tell he recognizes her.

"What are you doing?"

"I like to keep my hands busy."

Even up close, Emma can’t really understand the point. He seems to have dug holes of mathematically identical size, and is now dropping identical stones into them in a complicated sequence, jumping from hole to hole seemingly without reason — although she knows there must be one. 

"Have your friends deserted you?"

He looks up at her appraisingly, shading his eyes in an innocent way that makes her heart melt.

"Not deserted exactly."

"But you’ll be left out, later…?"

Left out of what? He looks up shrewdly. He knows she’s testing. Smart child.

"Left out? I guess so. I don’t mind."

"But what about Ashley?"

"Anderson?"

"Won’t she need you?"

"Lady, I’m not sure what you mean."

Clearly he does.

"Well. I’ve had a look at your scores, Joshua."

"Did they give you my whole file, or just my academic stuff?"

Interesting. "I don’t find that the rest of the file is very telling. You can only really meet someone by meeting them, don’t you find?"

"I guess so. Makes sense."

She can tell he approves.

"Have you ever been tested for dyslexia?"

"Why?"

"Your reading scores are borderline, while in person you’re well spoken and obviously highly intelligent. Normally that indicates a learning disorder of some kind."

Josh says nothing. She takes a breath and just goes for it.

"I was dyslexic. Am, I guess. It never really bothered me."

"Why’s that?"

"Well, I suppose, it’s because I know very well how intelligent I am. I don’t need reading scores or anyone else to tell me. I just need to compare myself to those around me to see that I am exceptional. Surely you can understand that?"

"I … yeah."

"So if the problem is just words on paper, I can try to overcome it, and I would be a fool not to have done so, but it doesn’t have anything to do with me, or the power of my mind, where it counts. It’s just a physical obstacle, like a speed bump or a locked door, around which I can use my intelligence to find ways. There’s no part of that to take personally, really."

He grins up at her. "I like that."

"So, Joshua. Are you really dyslexic?"

"No. Are you?"

She smiles at him wickedly, and he smiles right back.

***

That same afternoon, Emma chooses Necie — one of the thornier twists in the whole maze. Whilst she thinks it best to get the entire group—what members of it she can identify in this one week’s reprieve—under her wing, she doesn’t exactly relish the thought of spending any more time with this rubbishy, ugly little girl than necessary. 

Still, she can be sounded for information whether or not she ever makes it into Emma’s class, and unless she misses her guess, the McNeely girl will be most helpful whether she knows it or not.

"Hello, sweetheart. I love that dress. It’s so pretty you could wear it to church."

"You’re the new teacher, Miss Brodie. I heard you came here from Europe and that you used to teach at a girls’ school."

"That is true. I’m originally from America, however."

"Why’d you leave the school over there?"

"What is your name?"

"Necie JoeEllen McNeely."

"Well, Necie, I think that’s a question one would usually reserve until you’ve made better friends with a person. You must think ahead! Why, I could have been the victim of a cruel plot, or persecuted for my beliefs, or fired for criticizing my superiors. Or I might have quit after uncovering abuse of the girls, and later given an anonymous tip to the authorities. Or I might have moved to Europe for love, originally, returning to America in my sorrow after my husband tragically died, leaving me penniless. Or I might have moved there in the grip of amnesia, one day coming to my senses and returning to America immediately, only to find, to my horror, that my family had moved away and left no forwarding address."

The girl’s eyes—one of which is swollen, and slightly occluded with what seems to be an incipient case of conjunctivitis, or common pinkeye—are bugging out stupidly.

"Now, Miss McNeely, do you think I’d like to talk about that with you today? Having just met you? Don’t you think those painful memories might be better off unmentioned for now? Isn’t it a tad bit rude—or at the least, inconsiderate—to ask me about them straightaway?"

"Well, did any of those things happen?"

"That’s not the point, little girl."

"I didn’t mean to be nosy…"

The horrid creature contorts her face to cry, and Emma claps her hands, loudly, to distract.

"Of course not, my dear. After all, how can we be friends if we do not learn more about each other? It’s 
healthy, and considered quite polite, to ask questions of a new acquaintance. It shows interest and makes the other person feel important."

Necie digests this information dully.

"… For example, you might ask my first name, or favorite color, or what books I’ve enjoyed recently, or what games I like to play. Or where I lived when I was a little girl just like you."

"What is … your favorite color?"

"White. It contains all the colors in the visible spectrum, as I’m sure you know."

"Spectrum?"

"Imagine a rainbow, Necie McNeely."

She closes her eyes obediently. So bloody tiresome.

"Rainbows are an optical illusion, created by water molecules in the sky splitting light into the many colors we see in the beautiful world all around us." Necie opens her eyes. "If you could put those colors, that light, back together, all blended back into one color, you’d have white. Thus, to me, it represents clarity and purpose. Strength, if you like."

"My favorite color is yellow."

"Well, isn’t that interesting."

"I like that idea, though. Everything combined into one color. It’s like our Lord."

"I … Beg your pardon?"

"All our spirits, when we are released from the prison of flesh, will be reunited in Heaven, and there will be no strife, and the lion will lie down with the lamb, in eternal paradise."

"Yes, a bit like that. You’re a clever girl."

"I’d like to make our earth as close to Heaven as possible. No strife."

"And how do you propose that we bring this earthly paradise about?"

"It takes hard work, and dedication. You have to be willing to take risks."

"Risks? You must be very brave."

"I’m not brave. I’m just a helper."

"Whose?"

Necie gets a suspicious look in her piggish eyes.

“Just generally?"

"You’re a servant of our Lord?"

"We must find ways to make the Word manifest in the world around us. Soldiers of faith."

"One cannot bring about an earthly peace alone, though. Can one?"

Necie struggles. "It’s easier with help. Some of the kids are braver than I am. I shrink back from the Lord’s work sometimes. I try, though."

"I’m sure that you do. Whom, would you say, are the bravest of your compatriots?"

"Oh, my brother Donnie is the bravest. And Heath Oliver. And even Josh is dedicated to the cause."

"No girls?"

"Tasha is not afraid of Adults."

"Sometimes we must brave the disapproval, even punishment, of those older than us, if we truly know that we’re right."

"That’s what Ashley says."

Emma smiles, and places a hand against Necie’s cheek. She leans into it like a spaniel.

***

After washing her hands and using a little salt and Perrier from the car to remove Necie’s smudges from her skirt, Emma locates Trilby Taylor, sitting in the school office.

"You’re Trilby Taylor, right? I’ve seen you on TV."

"Hi. You’re Emma Brodie."

"That’s right. I was wondering … I need a little help. A favor, if you will."

"What’s up? Aren’t you going to be teaching us?"

"I hope to get a class together next week, yes."

"Have you lived here long?"

"Not terribly. Is that your art? Singing?"

"I prefer acting, but they don’t have a place for me in the videos."

"And Maya Gidley? She’s involved, isn’t she?"

"Of course. She’s the best artist."

"It’s often the most oppressed among us that have the most to express. Art seems to arise from pain, to grow behind its infinite progress like flowers behind the spread of fertilizer."

"You mean because she’s Black?"

"Until we all learn to transcend the limitations of race and gender, there will always be great art. Makes 
one wonder …"

"Don’t you mean the self-imposed limitations? Racism and prejudice and …"

"Yes, of course. There’s nothing material about those superficial differences; they don’t matter. They contribute to identity only through the meaning we all give them."

"Like Maya would be different if there weren’t racism?"

"Exactly. I wonder if she’d be such a good artist."

"Really?"

"Just now, I mean. Not as a serious line of inquiry, of course. People are not experiments. But it does give one pause. Pain, the pain humans deal to each other, is horrible, and should be addressed. But the strength it can give … we are all forged, Trilby."

The girl nods. "In the crucible of time."

"That’s lovely, Miss Taylor. Is that a quote?"

"…I can’t remember."

***

Emma is forced to wait until the next day to approach Donnie, as he’d been on a camping trip or other scouting activity, for which he’d gained special permission from his teachers and the principal. 

He has been representing the whole region in something or another, she can’t seem to remember from one moment to the next. Box car building or fire-making or knot-tying, something. Whatever it was, Jamboree or Jubilee or what have you, it seems to be held at an awkward time during the year, but that is the least of her concerns with that particular institution.

"Hello, young man."

He considers her from his desk, where he’s stayed after school to work on the lessons he missed.

"Hello, ma’am. You’re the new teacher?"

"That’s right. I was hoping to find out if you’d be interested in joining the class I’ll be teaching for the remainder of the year."

"Do you know where they’ll be putting Necie?"

"That is entirely your decision, young man."

He looks at her owlishly. "What do you mean?"

"If you’d like, I can take you both. Although …" she trails off.

"Although what, ma’am?"

"I wonder if it wouldn’t lend your sister some strength, to spend a few months on her own, in another class."

"Leave Necie behind?" He snorts.

"Surely she’s capable of it. Perhaps it’s your protective impulses that …"

"Ma’am, I appreciate that you’re concerned but Necie and me, we’ve always been together. She’s my responsibility."

"Donnie, is it? Don’t you think …"

"And I’m hers, too. We watch out for each other."

"You’re very kind to say so."

"Well, I thank you for the compliment, but if it’s all the same to you, maybe we’ll just stay where we are."

"You drive a hard bargain, Mr. McNeely. I’ll be happy to request you both."

"May I please ask why you’re so interested in us?"

"Donnie, you’re a remarkable student. Your actions in and out of class show you to be a young man of considerable strength and inner fortitude. Your file is a glowing account, uniformly positive, stretching back to kindergarten. There’s not a teacher in this school who doesn’t have a personal anecdote of your helpfulness to them personally, or your compassion and kindness with the other students. You’re the kind of young man who will most likely grow into a leader one day. Why wouldn’t I want you in my class?"

"And Necie?"

"I’ll make sure to request her, Donnie."

***

The question, in the end, is whether Ashley is sure, hers, because without her, the whole enterprise becomes moot. None, even children, can serve two masters. 

Whatever the aim of this group—which she is pleasantly surprised to learn is apparently much more intense than she’d imagined, possibly edging into civil disobedience if she’s lucky—they are clearly on their way to developing some of the most important qualities the next generation should have. They are capable of keeping secrets, of staying focused, of bringing about change … Everything she found lacking in the children overseas. 

Emma wonders whether the Anderson girl is truly as important to the whole venture as she imagines; surely no eleven-year-old girl could be so manipulative, so wise, as to corral what seems to be a conspiracy whose ranks include in excess of six youngsters, operating under the noses of their parents. To say nothing of the teenagers, whose part in all this she can scarcely imagine.

She approaches Maya Gidley the next day to find out whether Ashley really is the cornerstone.

"I do love your art, child. If I get to be your teacher, do you think you could make something special, just for me?"

"If I make something for you, will you let me be in your class?"

Emma blinks. "You know about the new class?"

"You’ve been recruiting for days, and this is the first time we’ve spoken."

"I’ve had you chosen for a while, actually. If you’re interested."

"Heath Oliver’s in your class, right?"

"You have a crush on Heath?"

"God no. He’s like … my sister. He’s my best friend. I don’t want to be split up."

"I’ve come to ask you to join the class, if you will."

"Well, like…what took you so long?"

"Would it mean more if I’d come to you first?"

“No,” Maya sighs. “But I’ve been stressed out about it all week, so… I’m sorry, Yes."

"I’m sorry to have upset you. I suppose I’ve not been as circumspect as I might. That word means subtle."

"Sneaky."

"Ashley Anderson called me sneaky,” Miss Brodie admits. “I think it’s funny."

"Ashley doesn’t."

Emma purses her red lips in a parody of sadness which Maya takes for the real thing: "Doesn’t Ashley like me? I think she’s a very special girl."

Maya sighs again. "She likes you just fine, Miss. We’re all planning on…"

"We?"

"All of us. Friends of Ashley, I mean. That group of friends, our group. Us."

"You and Karen Grossman and Trilby Taylor …"

"And Heath and the twins and …"

"Josh and Tasha, if she comes back after winter break."

"That’s … nine? That’s all of you?"

"We’re a pretty close-knit group."

"I’d noticed."

"Had you?" Maya suddenly gives Emma a look so piercing she nearly jumps, overjoyed. She’d no intuition she’d enjoy this girl so much. Such will!

"Well. You’re all very exceptional, in your own ways. I am looking for children that will test me, challenge my skills as a teacher. I want to grow and learn as much as you children do."

Maya still seems suspicious, but she can tell the girl admires this stance: "There aren’t a lot of teachers like that."

"No, Miss Gidley. There are not."

"So you’ve talked to Heath?"

"I haven’t spoken to him, but he’s already on the list. See here? Right next to your name."

"All right."

 "You mentioned Tasha … Tasha Carroll, right?"

"She’s not on your list? You’d better put her on your list."

"Had I?"

Maya rolls her eyes at herself. "Close-knit group, Miss Brodie. It’ll go more smoothly, if she’s … there."

"I think I understand, Miss Gidley. I appreciate your input."

"Have you talked to Ashley?"

"Only at the public school assembly. She’s a lot of fun."

"I guess. You might run that list by her. See if there’s anybody she’d like to … add."

"Good idea. She does seem to know everyone quite well."

"Everyone she cares to know, yeah."

"Oh, are you not friends? But I thought that …"

"We’re fine. We’re friends. I just … she’s …"

"A leader?"

"I guess."

"I’m very excited. We’re going to have a lot of fun together, Maya. It’s quite an adventure on which we’ll be embarking, together. And it all starts next week!"

Maya smiles at her indulgently. "That sounds … really great, Miss Brodie. I’m looking forward to it."

Maya counts to five hundred after Emma Brodie leaves, and then sprints straight to Jennifer’s house, forgetting her coat and art supplies at school. The YA’s need to know about this. Especially if she’s already gotten to Ashley.

***

The countermovement begins in earnest the day that Maya comes to Jeremy’s house to warn him about Miss Brodie. Whatever he’s been cooking up with Josh and Brian pales in comparison to this new Adult enemy, and Jeremy agrees with Maya that Ashley may well be compromised by it.

“We don’t need our heroes to be perfect, because nobody’s perfect. But that doesn’t mean we don’t watch out for her,” Jeremy says, which Maya finds reasonable enough.

Jeremy and Maya have not really ever had a conversation before, being unaffiliated with anybody in common. Maya doesn’t usually come to Ashley’s house, and nobody comes to Weird Josh’s house, which are the two places Jeremy mostly goes. Where he goes when he’s not at those two places, nobody is curious about yet.

Jennifer has met Miss Emma Brodie once or twice but mostly the Young Adults haven’t crossed her path. Truman keeps running into her but he hasn’t mentioned this. Alexis would first be impressed and then very unimpressed by her, if they met. Mostly Maya thinks of the Young Adults as being too sophisticated and worldly to fall for Emma’s bullshit. She’s wrong, but that’s what she thinks.

Jeremy doesn’t tell Maya very much about his own private thoughts, or the people he’s been in contact with, because he doesn’t exactly trust any of the Children — but also, to be fair, because he doesn’t want to test Maya’s loyalty to Ashley any more than has already happened. He loves Ashley and he wants her to have her movement, he’s just not sure she’s doing everything right.

Maya doesn’t know any of that but she does know one thing: Jeremy’s house is a weird place that smells like Josh and it’s a little too dark for her personally to feel great about being there. Maya’s house is all glass, practically, so you can always see the sunlight. But the Tysons keep it dark, for their mother’s sensitive eyes among other reasons, and Maya’s not the first to notice this.

When Josh finds out Maya was at their house he’s a little bit miffed that she didn’t stick around to say hello to him, even if they’re not especially friends. In magical pretend-type games they are both Knights, along with Donnie if he’s playing with them on the rare occasion that he does, and Josh kind of assumed that this gave them a kind of brotherhood of sorts. But of course to Maya it’s only natural that she would be a Knight — and she simply doesn’t find Josh that interesting, just weird.

Really it’s best that they didn’t cross paths today, though, because he would have stuck up for Miss Brodie, in his inscrutable way. He doesn’t like Miss Brodie particularly but he does feel that connection to her, and to her cold passion — which is remarkably like what Ashley would say, if she could put her feelings into words about Miss Brodie.

If Ashley could talk about Miss Brodie — the way she inspires Ashley to walk and talk in a new way, and think of her friends and Parents in a new way, and the Young Adults; the way she seems to believe in Ashley more fiercely than anyone ever has or could — she couldn’t say she particularly likes her either, but for Ashley that is so beside the point that it would be ridiculous to bring up. 

One does not simply like or dislike something like Miss Emma Brodie, one watches and keeps oneself safe. “You must never run from anything immortal,” as the saying goes, and “Aslan is not a tame lion.” And somewhere in between those two is where Ashley finds herself these days: Between Narnia and The Last Unicorn, where nothing is safe but everything is magic.

***

The Maguires are going to have their first meeting in an old schoolhouse outside of town which rumored to be haunted, but only at night. The original furniture was all taken or destroyed a long time ago, and it doesn’t really resemble a school anymore on the inside, but there is a definite smell and feel of history in the single room. 

The wooden floor is scarred and creaking, and there are burn marks on the walls, but various transients and Children have at times dragged old chairs and blankets and other castoffs in, and it won’t take that much straightening to make it presentable. Plus he has more of a relationship with the local people experiencing homelesness, whom he thinks of as living outdoors, which is something he aspires to.

It was Jennifer technically who approached Truman about the Schoolhouse. She’s been out there a few times with, yes, Eddie, not that it matters. But she and the rest of the Young Adults think of the forest as Truman’s domain. He’s a little uncanny and a little bit strange and he spends more time in the woods than he does in town, just going around looking at things and picking up strange trash or objects, antlers and sticks and river-washed stones, for all of his artistic ideas.

So Jennifer came to Truman and asked him to give her an idea about where the Maguires could meet, knowing that he would say the Schoolhouse, because it’s already so magical. And if he applies his touch to it, his magic touch that makes everything feel special and interesting, it’ll be like a magic little world.

A whole world, just for Children and Young Adults. Surrounded by forest. An ugly, filthy heaven. Truman couldn’t be more excited.

Also excited: Miss Emma Frost, who follows him to the schoolhouse at a safe distance. She watches through her spyglass as he drags carpets out, beats them, returns them to the clean-swept floor. She watches as he hangs the lights outside, from the roof to the trees, lighting up the whole area. He’s always been good at creating a scene.

Truman had turned an entire city block-sized part of the forest one year into a magical fairyland with lots of tiny little houses built into the bottom of trees and tiny Christmas lights everywhere on solar power. This was entirely for Corey Martin’s benefit but nobody knows that, least of all and especially not Corey. Truman privately thinks of the Young Adults as Children, anybody that still goes to high school is a kid to him, and that includes Corey. So treating him differently, just because he feels differently about Corey than the other Young Adults, is a sticky concept. Truman doesn’t know that being eighteen is not that different from being seventeen, because to him it was a rough river to cross.

Truman Miranda feels Emma’s eyes on him, but that’s nothing new. There is a lot that goes on in the forest and not all of it is safe, he knows that. But the way Truman sees it, this is the best way to make sure the Schoolhouse stays safe: Lighting it up, making it look lived in. He imagines he’ll sleep out here sometimes, even. He imagines it as a home, not just for him but for everyone.

***

Jennifer spots a boy walking down the street, so purposefully that for a moment she thinks it was the dirty little McNeely boy, the one so in love with Maya Gidley. She doesn’t know the McNeelys, except through Ashley, although she knows almost the rest of Ashley’s class due to being the best babysitter in town. It isn’t Donnie, though. 

It’s Heath Oliver. Which is weird: Heath has classes, and tennis lessons, and his Mom only works outside the home on charity stuff. Jennifer pulls over and paces him, but he won’t turn around — just keeps walking, with his chest out and his fists clenched. Clearly not going anywhere in particular — this street is just office supply places and beauty shops, all the way down to the canal — but his back is tense, and his feet make an audible thud on the pavement.

It’s like a movie, and she catches herself just watching it happen: The way the light is fading out, and the whole world is that dusky orange where the comes from everywhere but the sky, that late afternoon feeling where it’s not really evening yet — just that khaki kind of flat, like the opposite of morning. She stops in the middle of the intersection and watches the movie of Heath being so hard and real and broken down.

Little kids carry everything in their shoulders. It’s pretty scary, like Edward Scissorhands scraping along the walls. Heath is like the best kid she knows, why would he be so angry? 

Finally she guns it ahead of him and sticks her head out the window. She remembers the cigarette and flicks it against the building, for some reason bothered by him seeing her smoking. She doesn’t particularly want anybody to see her smoking, but especially not a little kid, and most especially not him. He’d probably start crying.

"Where are you going, Heath? What about the meeting?"

"Che. Maguire names. Smoking is stupid. What meeting?"

"Maguires. At the haunted schoolhouse. Didn’t Ashley call you?"

It seems ridiculous. He’s like her second-in-command, from what Jennifer’s seen.

"I haven’t been home in a while."

"What? Get in."

He seems to give it thought, but she can tell he’s just trying to finish thinking about whatever he was just thinking about, since he’s going to be smiling the second he gets in the car. She’s been babysitting him since he was two.

"What about your parents? If she called, they’ll know you’re not with them."

"Fuck them, first of all."

"Heath! Jesus!"

"First of all. And second of all, she’s calling the kids’ line. But I’m pretty sure they know I’m out. And also: Che."

"Well, you want to head over there?"

"I guess we have to."

"Heath, what happened?"

"Che. My father is sleeping with someone."

"Oh, Heath."

"A woman."

She doesn’t know what to say because she doesn’t want to give anything away. There’s something ugly, a glint, in his eyes, that says he’s trying to freak her out.

And anybody else, it might work on, but she doesn’t want him to know the worst part if he doesn’t already. Which is her game, the thing she’s best at: The girl most likely to laugh her way through a torture session and make it back to home base. Girl with a countermission.

"Her name is Nina. Do you know anybody named Nina?"

She stares at the road.

"Nope. Do you?"

"It’s a fake name."

"What do you mean?"

The modulation in the voice, the true questioning, the question she absolutely doesn’t know the answer to. He’s either bluffing or he’s not, but she won’t to give in. She doesn’t want to be part of him losing anything.

"You know what I mean."

"I’m not sure it’s my business, Heath. Or yours, either. To be honest."

"Che. And to be honest, it’s your future mother-in-law. Nina."

"You fought about this? With your parents? My parents would destroy me if I brought something like that up."

"Did you hear what I said? Georgia Anderson. Ashley’s Mom. Brian’s Mom."

"Heath, honey."

"No, fuck that. Be real."

"I’m kind of hungry. Are you hungry? We’ll have to eat before we get there, I don’t have enough cash on me to bring stuff for everybody. Or I guess I could get sandwich stuff. What time is it? No, let’s just drive through somewhere and forget everybody else."

"Let me out of this car, Octavia Maguire. You’re talking to me like a little kid."

Shit.

"You’re right. Sorry. I just don’t want you to…you’re really, really freaked out right now, and…"

"I am not ‘freaked out.’ I am pissed off."

"Let’s talk about it. How long have you known?"

"Long time."

"You’ve known for a long time. And so how come you’re freak…pissed about it now?"

"They won’t talk to me about it."

"It’s not okay for you to ask."

"Why not?"

"Because…because it’s something happening between the two of them, adult stuff, sex stuff, and you’re not…it wouldn’t be okay for anybody to talk to them about it. Not me, not anybody."

"But it’s not just happening to the two of them. It’s Ashley’s Mom, Jennifer. How would you like to wake up one day and Brian’s your brother?"

"That’s what you’re upset about? Oh, Heath. That’s really sweet."

"That’s not what I’m upset about. I have no idea whether I’m going to marry Ashley Anderson. Christ. I’m just saying, this changes your whole family. Mine, I mean. And hers."

"You haven’t talked to her about it."

"Hell, no. Don’t tell Brian, either. I’m going to fix it."

"Heath, come on, that’s sweet, but that’s kind of a big job."

"Stop calling me sweet! God damn it! You don’t even know when you’re being condescending. Tasha’s right."

"Tasha Carroll is never right. Neither are her horrible parents. And I’m sorry if I’m being condescending, but I just don’t think it’s very realistic of you to think that anybody can fix it. Not just you. Anybody."

"I know everything about them. I know all their secrets. I can scare them. I’ve got copies of Dad’s business records now that you wouldn’t…"

"I don’t want to hear about that, either. Heath, this is crazy. You can’t go off on some terror mission to blackmail your own father, not…there’s more important stuff going on. Crucial stuff, like the Maguires. Why not use all this energy in a positive way, and let them figure it out for themselves?"

"Because they are fucking everything up. They’re not allowed."

"How long have you been mad about this?"

"Forever."

"What happens when you try to talk to them about it?"

"What do you think?"

"Meltdown, and being sent to your room, I imagine. Grounding out the ass."

"Yeah. So I just walked out."

"You’re a little old to run away."

"Jana wasn’t. But besides, I’m not running away. Maybe that’s what they’ll think, but I know I’m going back. I just needed a little bit of time. I wanted them to get scared and wonder where I was."

"After Jana left, things were better? Because they were upset together?"

"Is Psych 101 an AP elective, or can anybody take it?"

"You know what I mean."

"It wasn’t that. He was still screwing around. It was just…after Sarah left, we all had stuff to do. Our own stuff. I wasn’t a baby anymore, and Jana was always out doing stuff. And I didn’t like it. Sarah was so dorky and trying to make us do things, like, as a family, and we went through with it, but once she left…"

Jennifer laughed. Sarah Anderson was incredibly dorky.

"And so then when Jana left, we all at least had something to talk about. But now it’s not like that, and it’s only been a little while, like a month or two, and Sarah’s going crazy too, and so it’s just like we’re all roommates, but not even like that, because I could handle that I think, but they pick the weirdest times to bug me about stuff, like they remember they’re parents all of a sudden."

Jennifer nods. This part she’s seen in action, both at her house and his. He appreciates it.

"Like, if you have to take out the garbage, and you forget five times, or they just do it, and but then they freak out on the fifth time, and it seems weird and crazy, but it’s like they just remembered I’m here. When Jana was here, she would at least make them talk. Now we all stay in different parts of the house, and I’m always outside doing other stuff, and…I thought it was my fault, because I wasn’t dedicated to forcing us all to be together like Sarah, or trying to bug them all the time and make drama like Jana, so it was up to me to hold it all together, and I wasn’t doing it right."

"And now you’ve figured out that it had nothing to do with you. It was this Nina thing, or whatever."

"Exactly. And there was no way for me to know that, so I just felt like an asshole for no reason, when really it was them being assholes. And making me feel like it was my fault."

Jennifer drives for a while, at a loss. She gets what he’s saying, and he’s basically right, which is kind of scary to think about. Mostly, though, she’s not interested in getting pulled into a conversation about cheating—she lives in fear that somebody might ask her about the rearview mirror Eddie broke, and the chances of that were pretty slim—so she just tries to send him vibes of comfort, or something.

Handing Heath his little hamburger she’s surprised at how wild-eyed he still is, even though he smiles sweetly at her and takes it from her hands like a kid. Which is what he is, and she needs to remember that.

"When was the last time you slept, Heath?"

"Che. Talking about this makes me feel a little better, because you know what I mean. But also, it makes me sad, because it makes it real, because you already knew. Sarah and Jana already knew too. But even though, just talking about it makes it more real. I’d rather be sad than angry. If it’s this big. You know how sometimes it gets really late, and you can’t sleep, so you do like jumping jacks or pushups or situps and stuff so you’ll get tired?"

"And then you feel even more awake?"

"Yeah. I should remember to do that earlier. In the evening. Maybe that would help."

Little kids don’t get tired the same way as teenagers or adults. When older people get tired, they look like shit. Eyebags and grumpy mouths. Little kids get flushed, and glassy-eyed, and look like they had fevers. When he was younger, Heath would get a really pronounced shake, in his hands and feet, when he was exhausted. She remembers it because he was the only one of them that ever did that.

"Maybe that’s a good idea."

Then they’re arriving at the Schoolhouse, lit from within, surrounded by Children and Young Adults, and neither one of them has ever seen anything more beautiful.

***

Here’s everybody that is at the Schoolhouse that first meeting, which nobody writes down because they’re not allowed to write anything down, but is the kind of thing Corey can weirdly remember: 

Donnie and Necie McNeely, who are on their way to Youth Group and so have not technically lied about where they are going. 

Karen Grossman, who is not interested in following the rules right now and so she has come without a care for whether her Mom knows where she is or not.

Trilby Taylor, who can get away from her house any time she likes just by fading into the crowd.

Maya Gidley, who went from not being that interested to now being fully invested and probably right up there with Heath in terms of overall dedication. And with her, Heath, with that sort of dazed look in his eyes but a hundred times more calm than he was when he showed up.

And of course Ashley and Josh, who are there with Brian and Jeremy.

Also on the teen side: Eddie van Tenk, Jennifer and Corey and Truman. That’s enough for now. Lots of public school kids are interested in the group and possibly starting their own chapters, but they haven’t been invited yet. It’s just the Young Adults who can be trusted (and Eddie).

Eddie’s house is a mystery but he’s really scary and that doesn’t bode well for his home life. And Truman is of course always there, and maybe possibly is living at the Schoolhouse but nobody feels comfortable asking if that’s true. Plus some of the Young Adults swear they have been to Truman’s loft apartment, which Ashley would like to see one day: What if a Child or Young Adult had a place to call their own, not just a Schoolhouse to hang out in but a real house, to live in? What would it look like?

Ashley knows it’s not true but she has fun imagining Truman’s house with lots of slides and a ball pit. But knowing Truman, and she’s more correct than she knows, she imagines a pristine hollow box with cement floors and exposed ductwork and industrial style everything, like a factory for making dreams. 

Jennifer’s house she’s been to a million times, of course, for babysitting, and vice versa. Heath’s house is its own palace but she doesn’t like to visit it. Jason and Jeremy’s house smells like them, which is to say wonderful. 

Ashley suddenly doesn’t want to talk, now that everybody’s looking at her, and she thinks about what Miss Brodie would say. “Stare them down, darling.” So she tries that, tries to quash her fear down, but it’s no good. They’re simply looking at her too much, in this place they built just for her dream to come true in. So she looks helplessly at the Young Adults, hating it even as she’s doing it. And Truman is so ready to step in that the words come bursting out.

"The educational system in America has always been jury-rigged and ugly, a thing of barely stitched-together pieces of conflicting ideologies and control strategies, ways to teach us ABC and 123 while helping us forget the truth about ourselves, the incredible and unique powers that each us was born with. Every step forward in education has been accompanied by another shift toward mechanization and the creation of robot factories that serve to indoctrinate us in the false values of our parents."

Alexis privately agrees with Truman, but she’s spent so much time formulating her own opinions on the subject that to have someone explaining them in the most basic terms is insufferably boring. So she watches everybody else. Ashley and Jennifer were both listening raptly to Truman, unblinking; Corey stared at him like a man dying of thirst.

"When the Polish immigrants of the 1930’s and 1940’s went looking for English and literacy lessons, so that they could get jobs, their employers themselves offered to teach them. Their learning materials consisted of Dick and Jane stories: See Dick working in the factory. Dick always arrives to work on time. Dick starts working when the bell rings. Dick pays attention to detail. Dick never drops his products. Dick goes to the bathroom at the proper time. Dick is never sick. Dick comes to the factory every day happy, and healthy, and ready to work.

"That’s all school is, or has ever been. Our instructions are implicit in our language, in the words we speak and the values they teach us. And they own us by this, by what they’ve given us. The school is a munitions factory, cog factory, an assembly line turning out flesh and blood pieces in the machine. And we go along willingly, so that we won’t have to be afraid, alone, weak."

Alexis knows Trilby is drinking all of this in, Trilby with her memorizing and never understanding. Trilby whose flesh is the meat and wine of her parents’ need. Or even Tasha. Especially Tasha, so ready to enter the world of the Grownups she spends every second punishing everybody else for being Children. And where the hell was she, anyway?

“Remember, remember to always follow the money. Our country has an economy. That economy has needs. It is neither good nor bad, it neither loves nor hates. But it hungers. And by following the path of its hunger, you can see what school is for. But school also is a business, has its part in that economy. And the school’s hungers and the hungers of our economy meet, overlap, converge in the sickest of all possible ways: they feed it their children, they appease those beasts with our bodies and our minds. Any business naturally moves toward efficiency, streamlines costs, eliminates human concerns. So it is with schools: each year they find new ways to subsidize themselves, to save money, to pass the profit on to another, higher master. But it is us, Children, who are the variables in that equation."

Eddie Van Tenk and Brian look at each other with a bitter and tacit understanding that belies and somehow neutralizes the tension she always sees between them. She watches Jeremy watch them for awhile, and Corey watching Jeremy watch them before looking back to Truman, who is on a roll and who anyway knows what he’s talking about — he’s the only one of them, Children or Young Adult, to have ever escaped the system.

"And what interferes with the efficient running of the school’s machine? Attitude problems. Learning problems, the slower kids. Students who question authority. Students who fight. Students who don’t give in to the violence of their teachers, the mental and spiritual oppression that bad teachers do, that can never be undone. Students who fuck it up, who hurt the system, who don’t go peacefully from classroom to classroom. Students who reject subjects that don’t enhance their lifestyle. Students, in fact, who know who they are already. Individuals will never have a place in that system, because that system is predicated on telling us who we are. Taking on that task for itself. It’s those kids, Children, that minority of a minority that stands strong in the face of their attempts to flatten and mold and turn us into machines. That’s what fucks up the business."

Heath looks up and to the side, temples flushed, and Alexis is glad. As angry as he seems to be these days, she can tell he’s never thought about this, from the outside like this. She tries to remember being young enough to find these things so powerful and insightful. She remembers the joy, but not the curious unlocking of the mind when something true happens in your head. It’s been a long time. 

She always thinks about how, if you could just remember how you got through some stupid ten-year-old drama, some emotional end-of-the-world scenario, the exact words in your head at each step, the navigation of your mind from start to finish, that you could just do it for a kid — explain to them how you felt a little at a time, how you got there. 

She thinks Truman might be pretty good at something like that, but she always just gets to her conclusion and then immediately forgets how she’d found her way there. Like a beautiful, clear dream, the kind where you wake up with joy, or tears, or feeling sexy and beautiful, and can feel it slipping, slipping slowly away, one detail at a time, until all you have is the thing, the joy or the horniness, the end result, to take with you into your day.

"And what do they do with these irritants, these monsters, these slow students, these Children who say No? They throw them in ‘special classes,’ into all-purpose containment populations where they won’t learn, won’t change, won’t be given the help that they need to realize their potential, to rot until they reach the age of majority, and then the school just spits them out. Because the American education is not about knowledge, not about learning. It’s about ‘teaching’ us just enough that we can live with their lies, broken-backed, humbled, just like our parents, our ‘successful’ parents, and then getting rid of us, putting us out into the world with just enough knowledge to be useful, but not enough to be dangerous."

That part, Alexis had never thought about. She’s happy to see Jennifer leaning forward, lips slightly parted. Speaking of people you might think would never, ever get it. She likes Jennifer, totally, but she seems to be always just a little too willful in her shallowness, her silliness, like it’s on purpose. She remembers a thing Jennifer said once—the exact moment she decided she really liked Jennifer, actually—about how if you were too perfect, if you had too many things going for you, if you were pretty and smart and fun in equal amounts, nobody would like you, so sometimes if you thought people were feeling too weird about you, if you could tell it was putting people off, you had to do something, or be something, that was a little dumb, or embarrassing, or silly, so that they knew they could trust you. That you weren’t sitting in your own head judging them. She’d taken pains to point out that she wasn’t talking about herself, only hypothetically, because she wasn’t like that.

But then she’d said something about how, since she was really pretty—Alexis loved that, too, the completely value-neutral way she accepted this, in a way Alexis knew she herself never would, if she were as pretty as Jennifer—the hardest thing in the world was making friends with ugly people, because they always thought that that was what it was always about, so they’d always think you were laughing at them for being snaggle-toothed or fat or whatever, and you’d have to do something weird, or stupid, or say something embarrassing, prise them out of the fortress with a story of how much you loved picking scabs or popping zits or one time when you’d farted in class, some small sacrifice of your own image, to let them in. How that’s the only way you can get inside them and make them really like you.

Alexis thinks personally that it’s more of a level-playing field situation, that by giving them something to laugh at you about, they wouldn’t care so much about the judging and making fun of them that you were probably still doing, at least as far as they believed. But she knows that’s unkind, and loves about Jennifer that such an ugly transaction, of resentment and hate deferred, to make room for the friendship, would never occur to her, and further, that it wouldn’t make sense to Jennifer if you said it.

"You know who goes to college? The rich. The white. You can talk about adversity, you can talk about reparation, but the higher education system is run by rich white people, for rich white people. The children of rich white people are educated at the schools their parents attended, in the operation and the maintenance and the secrets of that hungering machine. In the cheat codes that will give them access to the mainframe: the words of law, the words of medicine, the words of money, the words of politics. The words that dictate our daily lives and our futures, like magic spells, that’s what higher education is. Real learning, not what they give us in high school. Not what’s worth merely handing out for free. Corey spoke earlier about including college in the Manifesto, saying that education is the right of everyone in our country. And I agree with his wish, but I disagree with the sentiment: education is not our right. High school, elementary, these are God-given, they are ours by right, because they suit the system. But college? What benefit to the machine can there be in giving everyone equal access to the cheat codes? In a system that runs on concentration of wealth, in the fewest people having the most money, what possible incentive is there to give us all those words, those spells, those codes? None. Quite the opposite. That’s why elementary school and high school are test-based, focusing on the lowest common denominator, on the most barren souls, those Children who are open to that paltry knowledge, on getting them to the next level in their indoctrination. Because to give us something to look forward to, to teach us the beauty of our own lives, our art and our magic and ourselves, would mean its own death. So we live terrified, so insistent on performing well, on getting the answers right, on doing what the system demands of us, in opposition to our souls’ innermost wishes.”

She can tell he’s winding up for a humdinger; the room holds its breath.

"Against the very most basic natural function of the human soul: To become itself."

A tear comes to Alexis’s eye at that last bit, surprising her, and she hides her face a moment from the company, having shocked herself out of her reverie. She’s been really emotional ever since the mock shooting debacle, and can’t explain some of the feelings she’s been having. Every so often one of the little kids will say something, or make some gorgeous movement, and she finds herself yawning hard, nearly crying. That delicate innocence, crying out to her body, to be protected, to be loved, to be seen like art, calling to her own innocence, in the voice of Children.

Or she’ll be making her Alexis Butts clipboard catch-a-coma way down the corridor in school, so used to the tunnel-vision of unpopularity, and be suddenly shaken out of her verbs, or SOHCAHTOA, or whatever she does in her head when she has to walk down the hall — by Jennifer patting her ass and giggling at her shocked expression, or Brian saying hello to her in front of everyone, or Corey walking her to class. 

When the cold and hot tingles run up her arms, or out from her navel, or across her scalp, that shiver in her skin and catch in her breath, that dizzy spiral of her heartbeat that says: It’s happening. They love you. You’re one of them now, the best group in the school, the terrorist chic clique that always dresses right and tells everybody else what to do, tells school itself to fuck off, like they are doing now. The other, better side of the football and student council people, the Homecoming people you always assumed were the most and best, who’d gotten ugly and uncool in the light of this new, beautiful society, that you’ve somehow become a part of. Without even trying! 

Without doing anything at all beyond making the decision to connect and asking them once to meet with you, without assuming that they’d never notice if you slipped in quietly, became background, without making the decision to have faith that they, the damaged, the angry, the firework intelligentsia, would have to accept you, because you were just a black duckling for them now but they’d see soon enough that you were just like them, letting that hope ride on your shoulders until you could open your mouth and speak, say hello, nothing beyond doing just that, the plan formulated and happening, like alchemy, nothing more than getting Taoist on their asses and refusing to be hated for one second longer, nothing more than thinking their posturing and joking was endlessly fascinating, only to find out that it was, you’d done nothing at all out of the ordinary or beyond the pale, you could see now.

"But who gives us these fears? They do. They say that without the learning that school can give us, without that piece of paper, we will end up weak, and poor, and hungry. And if the alternative to physical torment is the loss of your soul, if the alternative is a life free of worry or anxiety, living on the opiate of the ideal American life they’ve sold us, is it any wonder we accept the lie so readily? Follow the money. They appeal to our basic self-interest, to the instinctual, Mazslow-pyramid needs of all primates: shelter, food, socialization. They will always win, through fear and withholding what we truly need until we forget that we ever wanted it."

In point of fact you’d done nothing beyond wishing for your loneliness to end, quietly and to yourself in the dead of night, when Mom had gone and Dad was laughing and hooting at the TV, piling up beers and shouting at her incoherently to come out, come out, have some fun with Dad, watch wrestling, stop reading books and hurting her eyes, stop being boring, just come out and keep him company because Mom was gone and he had no friends and could barely read, and how underneath that was resentment so powerful it could knock you over, his jealousy, the backhanded compliments and hints and suggestions on how far she might go if she just paid attention to the world around her, those moments indeed when she’d stare out of the window and pray for him to die, for them both to die, crazy Mom and stupid Dad, just to take away their pain, and the loneliness of being the only person in history horrible enough to make such a wish, the loneliness of being the only person in school with a mother in the nuthouse, the booby hatch, Crazytown, and a Dad of such diminished mental faculties as to be almost retarded, according to their social worker, who spoke to her like an Adult and her father like a Child, all this and more found their reward in the hallway sparks on her skin and in her chest, saying: 

This is you now. 

This is you. You’re a rockstar. This is when life finally begins.

***

Then things begin to go rapidly downhill as Truman sits, worn out from his oratory, and Eddie decides he needs to step up and talk too.

"And they educate us in the fear of what happens in the absence of faith, in the absence of God, if you step away from the rules of your church or if you dare to question them, or God, or your leaders, you’ll be lost forever. You’ll die and go to Hell. Hell! The ultimate punishment. Flesh eternally burning. The worst thing they can think of. There are actually some people that say the worst punishment of Hell is that you can see all the fun they’re having in Heaven, but you can’t join in. What kind of sick fuck comes up with something like that? How small does your spirit, your love of fellow men, really have to be, to tell other people that they’ll be spending eternity watching you have fun and that they’re not allowed to play? That’s fucking … with all due respect to the Children, that’s so grade school. That’s so nyah-nyah. I could never believe in a God that operates like that. ‘I’m not touching you, I’m not touching you.’ I’ve never met a religious person that didn’t make their God look like a fucking thug. And what’s that say about God? So I say we use it. I say we use this propensity for belief, for promoting ritual and blind faith over rational progress. We give them a dream of freedom, and they’ll work out the details. We’ll use faith to bring faith down."

At that, Donnie had to speak up.

"So which is it, Baader-Meinhof? Because it seems to me that you’re just as interested in treating everyone like an idiot, but just for your own purposes instead."

He turned to the group.

"I know you all think of me and Necie as religion nuts, but I don’t think it’s that simple. Yes, when you talk about this stuff you’re talking about our family, and other families in our congregation. Yes, you’re expecting me to be offended, and I am offended. But don’t you think for a second that my religious beliefs blind me to the horrors committed in my Lord’s name every day. You think being so much better and smarter than us gives you a clearer picture of things? Think again. Think about when somebody in my church says something racist, or shoots an abortionist, or supports a hateful candidate. To you, they’re just hillbilly cartoons, like me and Necie. But to us, they’re like family. We take fellowship with them, do you understand what that means? I’ve got a bird’s-eye view, a darn magnifying glass view, on hypocrisy. And so do you, for Pete’s sake. You’re in a glass house there."

"Donnie, I’m not talking about you. Or your family. Or your church. I’m talking about the idea of religion, and its place within the movement. Don’t get defensive."

"I just don’t think it’s as cut and dried as that. I’m not the only one here with religious beliefs. We’ve just learned to shut up about it, for the most part. Let the world wear us down, make it a private thing. And I’m okay with that, actually. I’m not very evangelical. But you act like everybody here thinks and believes the same thing as you, and you know it’s not true. So that means you’re trying to get a reaction, because I know you don’t think you’re going to change our minds. If it were just me, I’d probably stay quiet, because it’s your business, but the fact is that a lot of us believe in one thing or another, and that gives us strength. Strength that the movement needs. Let’s try to remember where our real enemy is."

"And where is it, Donnie? Since nobody can figure out what the hell you two are doing here anyway."

"Hey!" barked Brian. "Not okay, dude."

"Sorry. But I can’t be the only one confused by that. Why are you guys even here? Not to downplay your contributions, because you’re right, you’re a huge part of the group, but … you seem to respect Adults, and all the stuff that goes with that, so what makes you want to be involved?"

"I don’t see anything in the Manifesto about religion. Or art, for that matter, or the state of American education, or censorship, or any of it. I see rules about the conduct of Children and Adults. I thought the Maguires were about protecting Children, and their beliefs. Why can’t that include mine?"

"Because your beliefs directly contradict what we’re about!"

"Your beliefs only exist in opposition to mine, Eddie. Without Christianity to attack what do you even believe? Just in that."

Karen and Corey both snort. 

"And your beliefs are about destroying everyone who’s not like you."

"That’s not true," Donnie pleads.

"Corey, are you comfortable having religion be a part of the movement?"

"Leave me out of it," said Corey, but they could tell he was upset.

"Not a part of the movement," said Donnie. "Separate from the movement. I don’t see why it should be a part of it at all, whether we’re deciding to destroy it or looking for ways it’s destroying us. What does that have to do with Adults and Children?"

"You sure kept quiet when Truman was talking."

"He wasn’t going out of his way to offend me." 

There is an unspoken "…dick" at the end of that sentence that he’s very proud of having kept under control. Donnie hates vulgar language even more than Necie pretends to, but he doesn’t make a show of wincing when other people use it, like she does.

Jeremy stands up. Brian watches him stand and walk over to stand by Eddie, his mouth firm and finished, and Jeremy’s deep rumble stole across the silence: "I agree with Eddie." 

"That’s not surprising. Look, I’m not trying to start a fight here. I just don’t see why this has to be such an important issue. It’s a wedge between Children and …"

"Me too. God is just Santa Claus with a bigger house." Heath, out of nowhere. That one hurt.

Alexis stands up and comes over to stand by Donnie. "I’m kind of with Donnie on this one. I mean, I just don’t see why we always have to get so abstract. I’m more comfortable with solving real problems."

Jennifer clears her throat. "Maybe we should just clear this up for good, huh?"

Jeremy and Brian immediately close ranks with Truman and Eddie, shoulders touching, and Heath stands by them. Jennifer darts her gaze at Alexis and then heads over to stand with the guys. It’s turning into something that could get to be really ugly if they’re not smart about what happens next. 

One by one, Maya, Trilby and Ashley join Donnie’s group, staring guiltily at the floor. Karen quickly follows, and Donnie did a headcount. Five and five, since nobody knows where Tasha is, and Josh is obviously with Jeremy...

But then he isn’t, he’s heading toward Donnie with a shy grin, and it’s five and six instead. Ashley tables the issue then, and they all get ready to go home, because nobody feels like talking. Least of all Donnie.

But then Weird Josh clears his throat and says something fucked up. 

***

"The roots of this go so much deeper than even you’re willing to admit. Just say what you really mean, what we all really want: for things to change. And for that, we’d have to change. Change so much that they’d never recognize us. Beauty always looks terrible to the people left behind. We have to become monsters. We have to refuse to do art, or any schoolwork at all, so they can’t judge us anymore based on our performance. We’ll just stop performing. At home, too, we’ll refuse to eat, or sleep, just the music all the way up, and scream, and dance on the furniture, on the tabletops and their marriage beds, and we’ll just laugh and shout when they try to tell us to stop it. 

"Or we could refuse to come home altogether, they’d have to hear us then, we could just live on the streets, wild. Steal everything we want so that money stops mattering and nobody will be poor white trash anymore and they can’t tell us who’s good and who’s bad, or what laws or companies deserve our trust. We’ll destroy marriage. Hell, we should outlaw sex with people of the same race, so people will get over that too. Make a law that you should have to have sex with a person of the same sex at least once, so they can’t point any fingers.

"We’re all sitting around talking, and I can tell you’re getting tired of it, but everybody’s too scared to say the truth: that the dominant paradigm is too strong. They’ll always have the power, and anything we do, however well-meaning and eloquent and politically sound, will never have an effect. We have to be drastic. We have to think globally and concentrate on winning converts to the cause. And then, here’s what we do:

"Kill our parents, and the policemen when they come. Kill any politicians over the age of twenty so they’ll change the voting age. Burn all the churches. Burn down the school. All the schools. Burn down the community college, and the television stations, and the airport. We have to destroy everything they ever gave us. It’s how they own us. We have to give ourselves completely to the blood and rage, the fire of Holy Disobedience, and never rest until we’ve changed the world, and made it the kind of place we don’t hate living in."

It’s like it takes ten minutes, even though he doesn’t talk very long. It’s like he was in Antarctica. The worst part is his measured, calm tone, which belies the crazy talk, and makes it seem—even worse—as though he’s been thinking about this stuff for awhile, and has it all planned out. As if he thinks these ideas are helpful in some way, instead of making him seem like the original school shooting, like a massacre waiting to happen.

Heath and Brian both look like they’ve been punched in the nuts. Ashley and Maya and Karen seem almost unsurprised, although Donnie and Necie both look like they were about to cry. Tasha and Trilby just look silently over at each other, as though vindicated beyond their wildest dreams. That’s really ugly. Josh just stands there, exposed, breathing hard, his eyes tired and angry, staring at the floor. Donnie and Heath both stand up.

"I think you should be thrown out of the Maguires, Tyson," said Donnie, in his measured, deep tone. "I think you’re evil, and you’re trying to destroy us."

Heath smiles apologetically at Ashley, who is only just now beginning to breathe again.

"Josh, I think …"

It’s when Brian catches his eye—a particularly tight-eyed What The Fuck that hits him like a laser—that Jeremy finally gets his feet underneath him, and he’s across the room before Heath can finish his sentence. His sneakers squeak on that old floor, echoing like the basketball court at school, those ghostly, high, lonely squeals that bounce off the walls when you’re cutting through the gym after school and the lights are out.

He hits Josh with a closed fist, with a man’s strength behind it, and Josh falls to the floor, his head making that horrible melon sound and his hands flailing up at his attacker. Jennifer sucks in her breath with a crack, like a scream that broke in half. Truman grunts, or groans, or almost barks, like an angry dog, and Jennifer and Alexis reflexively grab his wrists to hold him back.

Josh, as though embarrassed, stares unmoving at their shoes, lined up in his range of vision. A few hot tears well in his eyes, and finally drip onto the floor. A little blood shows at the side of his mouth, which hangs slack, lips slightly parted. Nobody speaks, nobody even breathes. 

Everybody wills him to stand up, fight back, wishes desperately for somebody to talk and wake them all up, that Josh and Jeremy would start to laugh, move, scream, cry, do something. Because nobody has ever seen a dead body before and they didn’t want to be seeing one now.

PART THREE: HOLY DISOBEDIENCE



Brian doesn’t spot Jeremy all day on Monday until after the last bell, when everybody runs around. Jeremy turns and walks the other way and there’s no point in asking anybody else if Jeremy’s avoiding them too, because Jeremy avoids everybody all the time anyway — the only person he really ever wants to deal with is Brian, so if he doesn’t want to talk to Brian then he just doesn’t want to talk.

But is it because he feels weird about Josh? The whole thing, that was really messed up, but... Josh was fine, or at least hasn’t gotten weirder, and so what is the sum total of all that stuff anyway? Does he think maybe he’s out of the Maguires for what he did? Did he go to Antarctica on his own?

There’s a way where it was actually kind of helpful, because everybody felt sorry for Josh after it happened, after he stood up and toddled around, confused, concussed, and everybody forgot the scary stuff he was saying. So in a way Brian is happy Jeremy did something, even if it wasn’t like the optimal thing that you could do in that circumstance.

Kind of like when you’re with a girl, and you aren’t sure if she wants to make out, and all you want is a blow job, with probably a 60/40 of getting one, if you can just figure out the best sequence of words. The secret code of getting her to that point of wanting to make out, and then it gets easy real fast. 

Like back when he was Ashley’s age and needed a ride somewhere, if you asked one way (“I need a ride to the mall to buy a new videogame”) then the answer would be totally no, but if you asked another way (like, “I’m really sorry to bug you but I just remembered I need to get something for school tomorrow and I was wondering if we could go to the mall and I could just run in, and if you want me to pick up anything for you…”), in some way that put their own self-interest to the fore, you were totally assured of success.

But with sex, or girls, or with Jeremy, he can never figure out the words. The magic spell that will get things accomplished. Jeremy never does anything he wants, he is totally stubborn and obstinate, and it’s because he knows Brian will always, always give in, and it’s useless to try. Not to mention the fact that Jeremy never really wants anything anyway, so when he puts his foot down it starts being about figuring out what Jeremy actually wants.

Like now: Is he avoiding Brian because he’s having some kind of weird thing about what happened at the meeting? Or because he’s having some weird thing about Jennifer again? Or because of some other weird deal that Brian may or may not ever figure out? All Brian wants is for things to go back to normal, or at least the way they have been recently. Not a huge request. But somehow, the set of Jeremy’s face as he turned 180 degrees around and disappeared around a corner means it’ll be a bigger deal than it needs to be.

Why can’t you just say, “It’s no big deal. I know you feel fucked up about what happened but I’d like to at least talk about it, because we’re still friends and everything.” What’s so hard about that? Nothing. But still, it’s just not the right set of words. The correct sequence.

***

Solstice. Shortest day of the year. What we’ve learned since the last turn of the seasons, which was the Fall Equinox, which was when Ashley and Heath told Josh about the Maguires, even though Jeremy already knew about it: It’s okay to think as you like, but you have to behave like everybody else and keep it shut if you’re not sure. 

Even if they’re all acting scared and stupid because they don’t want to offend anybody, even though the point of their movement is totally offensive, in terms of the dominant paradigm. Even though they know you’re right.

Even though if you think about it that way, it makes you want to fucking flip out worse than Tasha that time, because it just makes you feel more caught and stupid and like a little kid than before, because it turns out that outside the box of what Adults make you do, what they let you think, there’s yet another box of what the Children and the Young Adults, the Maguires, let you think and say. When you thought it was just open sky and outside that, space, and outside that, God.

Even Jeremy. Even Jeremy. Especially Jeremy. Finally, outside all the boxes: still and always, already, Jeremy. The oldest.

The boys will turn on him, of course, after that moment at the meeting. Even that sacrifice, that blood, won’t be enough for them. Donnie and Heath are just playing at being what they think men are. 

Heath is locked into a burning rage Josh himself can’t imagine having to live through, it’s obvious. And not an intellectual one, either, a real live living hell of anger is what’s up with Heath. His personality coming apart before your eyes, if you pay attention. Even thinking himself there, Josh can’t imagine actually having to contain it. 

And Donnie McNeely, well. Donnie McNeely is special. Donnie McNeely is exactly what he is, isn’t he? Just the same as what he seems. And wasn’t Josh pointing that whole speech at Donnie, like a gun? If you think about it? Maybe even worse than stupid Eddie van Tenk? Wasn’t it everything that Donnie hates and fears, in one minute-long assault?

That sucks, kind of. Because Donnie is awesome. Donnie is conformity, to such a degree it’s subversive. Through normal and out the other side. Donnie is nationalism and duty and war. Manhood the way they all used to see it. Manhood through a Child’s eyes. 

Donnie had come up to him before the meeting and asked him about faith and belief, something about how the Young Adults seemed to be willing to put everything aside in favor of just revolution for the sake of revolution, and it had kind of pissed off Josh at the time, because he felt like that was the point, not to mention how Jeremy was clearly the main one being attacked there, which was unacceptable. 

But the really sucky thing was how later on he felt like he agreed with Donnie about it, to some extent: that if you could be characterized as having “beliefs”—and Donnie was right, that word is starting to have some pretty ugly connotations, the way the Young Adults use it in meetings—he does in fact believe in some things, the things he was raised on, that seem to be on their way out of the Maguires, in favor of just pissing people off for fun: Doubt. Questioning. Holy Disobedience. Truth.

Josh thinks probably Truman will be most willing to forgive him. The Young Women are out — staring, horrible, until Jeremy picked him up off the floor, disgusted and scared and pitying. Jeremy he’s not really sure because they’re both in the same amount of trouble with the Maguires: What Josh said, what Jeremy did next. The other ones, Eddie and them, secretly agree with Josh, at least rationally, but they aren’t related to him like Brian and Jeremy. So that leaves Truman, who is at least smart.

Jeremy has started talking about getting a 3-D printer and Josh has already designed the perfect first try: A childishly sketched-out ghost gun Jeremy bought off the dark web. You can make yourself a weapon.

***

Tasha may or may not be going to public school after winter break. Stories conflict. 

Maya and Karen are hanging out with Trilby Taylor, as a kind of experiment. They have each felt, after a few months of spending time together on the Maguires, that they’d maybe messed up by only being friends with Ashley Anderson separately, assuming they had no real reason to be friends with each other. It just seems stupid now. 

Of course they’ve played together for a long time, even Trilby seems like she’d been around forever, but there are certain territories that had to be respected: Trilby and Karen are Ashley’s best friends, and that’s it. Maya was too busy with Heath, and dealing with Donnie, to really care until lately — but that’s gotten so weird she decided that what she needs are normal friends. Meaning girls.

Duncan Taylor answers the door as usual, singing some song and doing a little jig, like he’s so excited to see them, and lets them in. He gives a silent nod to Karen, and she nods back like a woman, like a grownup, which is interesting — but then everything goes insane because it’s the Taylor house, so she just forgets about it.

Hanging out is pretty boring, because Trilby is pretty boring, but her house is interesting. Maya is introduced to about sixteen of her siblings, feeling bad in advance for her inevitable failure at remembering their names later, and wonders if she’d been introduced to these particular Taylors before. 

Karen falls easily into the Taylor rhythm, talking to a couple of the older ones who are home for the holidays about school and financial aid stuff. It’s pretty cool; she seemed to know a lot. Of course, the Taylors are nearly as poor as Ms. Grossman, so they’re all well-versed on financial aid and stuff. It is nice to see the older Young Adults responding to Karen that way, because it makes her so clearly happy. Even Trilby is so funny with Karen, talking about how they are in charge of the money, like they’re more the parents than their parents are. 

Maya has always been obsessed with Karen Grossman, just like everybody else, but with a little extra because she is Jewish, which is sometimes kind of like being Black. At least, that’s what her parents have said, although she can’t really see how: Nobody can really tell you’re Jewish unless you tell them. But Black is just there, making everything take twice as long, people editing every sentence that comes out of their mouth for no reason, just to make sure they are being cool. It’s one of the reasons she likes Ms. Grossman and Duncan Taylor better than most of the other parents, because they just look at her like a little girl, and talk to her like anybody else. They don’t go overboard being nice.

It’s different for her parents. Well, for everybody’s parents. Dr. King and all that. She’s seen the leftovers of that, like the McNeelys and that part of town, but they’re either way douchebags, so it doesn’t bother her. But even being the only Black kid in about a thousand miles, she doesn’t really think about it that much, or feel weird about it, until somebody’s parents or—sometimes—one of the Children says something weird or off or does something to cause a little skip in the conversation, like a scratched record, and then she’s reminded. 

Like when her cousins would to visit, and their mothers look around her room, at her stuff, with these weird pursed lips, like she isn’t Black enough. Like she has to be just like them to count. And so if white people are giving you weird looks, and Black people are giving you weird looks … The way she sees it, she is screwed either way, so she might as well just do whatever she wants and not worry about it so much. In the future nobody would care. She can wait for that.

Trilby says something about Jewish stuff. Not a question, more like a statement, and Maya feels rather than seeing the sudden stiffness in Karen’s back, and she wonders if maybe being the only Jewish kid in their class—and the only Jewish family Maya knows of—is something Karen hasn’t figured out yet. 

Even as Trilby stutters an explanation, some garbled thing about how Maya’s such a good artist because it’s so hard being Black, some ridiculous overthought speech, something her parents probably said, Maya just ignores it and wonders how she’d explain the thing she’d figured out, if it turns out Karen doesn’t understand it yet. She wonders if Karen would be offended by the comparison.

***

Trilby Taylor is pissed as hell and thinking about saying so.

She’s gone to each of her hundred siblings, the Sistren they call it, and each one of them said the same thing: Give in. It’s Duncan. You are one thing, one real thing, to each of us, and if a person doesn’t do the thing they are, then they are nothing.

Seems like every week brings a new thing to be, a new ad or opening or possible referral, and every week Daddy gets that same look in his eyes, the Crazy Eyes look they all abhor, and then you aren’t you anymore, but the thing you’re paid to be. The brand new Trilby, and how the money will come. If their family only had that to deal with, if it was only about the money, that would be bad enough. But it isn’t just the money, it’s also Duncan, because Duncan needs her to do it. He needs her to be famous. 

(The deal is that at home he’s Daddy, and everywhere else he is Duncan. It’s Duncan she hates.)

The neighborhood kids, Josh and Tasha and Ash and Karen, they all want to pretend all the time. They make up these crazy, stupid stories with potions and fairies and magic and assassins and the Matrix and witches and lobbyists. She always goes along, because she likes having friends, but the fact is that the unplanned nature of their play ticks her off more than anything. If they could just sit down and plan it all out, take an hour to write down what they want to happen, step by step, a storyboard of their lives together, she’d be more comfortable. She could play any role — there is always more Trilby to have happening. But no, they are so flagrant and silly and obsessive, their games.

The story never ends, the princess is never saved, because they spend so much time screwing around that by the end of the story, their half-fleshed ideas have never progressed as far as they wanted. The person languishing, the person hurting, the person being kept in the witch’s tower, is never saved, because of dinnertime, or TV shows or whatever, and it never seems to bother anybody except her. The next day it just starts over again, informed by whatever dumb cartoon they saw that day, tiny monsters erupting out of magical demon balls or magical talismans activating, everybody a superstar, each one of them the secret princess, the secret king waiting to take the throne — and it never happens. And that bothers nobody but her. 

You have to think like a director. You have to think about your placement in the shot, hitting your mark, giving reactions to the other people even when you didn’t have lines. You can’t just wait for your part of the scene, you have to be there, acting, the whole time. And part of thinking like a director, too, is: Figuring out you’re going to get to the end before the day is over, before you lose the light, because your child actors start getting wispy and vague because they are hungry or exhausted or hate the entire process and are fed up. You need an ending in mind. Jeremy Tyson has said something like that, too, more than once: “Endgame is everything.”

It’s the cut-off endings of their stories, the deferred endings, the easy democracy of who gets to be the magical prince or princess locked in a tower or magic sleep each afternoon, the spotlight that passes each day one to the next with no hurt feelings, that drives her crazy but doesn’t bother any of them for more than a second.

How could you explain that to a person, to a kid her age or younger? “Your method of play is weak to me because there’s no resolution, nobody doing their best for anything, because the next day it’s somebody else’s turn at bat.” How on earth could you say something like that? Either they wouldn’t get it, like Necie or Tasha, or they’d get it and sigh like you were being an asshole, like Ashley and Karen would. She knows they would.

Even at home this lack of resolution, of attention paid to endings, this lack of follow-through, is a problem. From what Daddy or Duncan would say, she never loses out at an audition, never gets passed over for a part, because those things stop existing the second they don’t pan out. She wants endings to those stories too, but Daddy is always so much more interested in the new thing, the new Trilby, and the thing after that. Her life is constellated in a lack of resolution, a thousand opportunities to pretend and none of them with a nice THE END at the end, nothing to tell her she’s free, that she can snap back like a rubber band to being herself. 

To find out who that is.

If Trilby had a wish it would be that: One single ending. Because as it is, and as long and far back as she can remember, it has been just like this. On to the next thing, the new stage of the game, all things lost and left behind, like a sweater trailing an infinite number of stragglers and loose ends. And if Duncan Taylor ever noticed them, ever saw the fringe of left-behind lives, he’d snip them off with the sewing scissors he keeps in his man-bag, in the kit with the thimble and the needle-threader that looks like a Roman coin, and the nasty lint brush that peels away whenever it gets too full of cat and dog and red Taylor Sistren hair. But of course he never sees them, because he lives in the future.

But Trilby lives in the present. And a thousand abandoned presents past, and feels them trailing behind her, waiting to be lived out. Waiting to carve one real life from the acres of flint she dances across, living parts of lives one at a time and never returning to them. And each of them represented by a dollar sign in Daddy’s accounting software, with a number next to it, and more often than not, that number is zero. Which meant a life not only abandoned, but worthless.

It’s lonely, and it has been going on for so long that she figured the other Children would be bored if she ever wanted to talk about it. Or worse, think she was being immodest, or ungrateful. Brian, Ashley’s big brother, might understand—her own family is worthless because they are all living out different versions of this stuff, some more useful than others. Even though everybody sees their family as this amazing Weasley circus full of glory and talent, the fact is that she’s the most marketable, and when they’re home alone, when it’s Daddy time and not Duncan’s, they are all pretty honest about it. 

But Ashley’s brother never finished lots of lives: the life of Brian and Jeremy, the life of Brian and football, the life of Brian and Jennifer, the life of Brian and subversion. All cut short by the need to burst through to the next stage of Brian, and a million threads left behind. That feeling of being trapped by history that never happens. The thousand expectations that die on the vine, the thousand paths a body with a soul inside can travel.

Because that’s what it is: Her body, and what her body can do. Memorize. Pretend to feel. Remember a story, a life, so completely it takes over your body and you are possessed by it for the duration. Brian would get that. Brian knows what happens when you devour and memorize and desire something so strongly that you feel full and sick with words, and those words become a part of you. Brian would know what she meant, if she said that.

The other kids, old and young, make fun of Alexis sometimes, but at least Alexis knows what it’s to walk through every day pretending those million past lives never happened, that this new life isn’t just paramount but the only thing that has ever existed. Alexis calls it Ireland, those lives forced on you — you leave it in Ireland at the end of the day or you’d keel over from being all those people at once. It’s evidently a reference to somebody named Jonathan Swift that she is too young to memorize just yet, but who wrote Gulliver’s Travels, which story Trilby likes a lot. Alexis says he wrote a story about kids that’s really about Ireland, and she’s tried to explain that meaning of the story, but Trilby only realized Alexis was awesome when she said that it was really true about kids too: 

We exist for our parents to eat.

***

The way the north wall hits the tilted ceiling just so, at this angle that seems to mean something, to evoke something. Like a Rothko painting, but instead of colors it’s math. Angles. Degrees. She did expressionism this last semester, relieved to know she wasn’t crazy for feeling things at seeing certain angles, colors, and just somehow knowing she’s not the only one to feel this curve and that meeting of orange and blue at a 36 degree angle in her gut, like a door opening, like the creaking of a hinge, that she isn’t the only one to feel that meeting of colors in exactly the same way.

Truman Miranda says it’s just like notes of music: The same way anyone can hear a piece of music and recognize that it’s sad or pissed or young, you can see a meeting of reddish-orange and greenish-blue at a 36 degree angle or whatever and know that it’s telling you the same feeling as when you wake up in the morning and you’ve had a bad dream but you’re still lying in bed and you suddenly realize that the dream isn’t real and you’re being an idiot. That sense of relief, colored with intensity and—not pain, exactly, but the memory of pain. The memory of dream-pain. Not-real on top of not-real, but a real memory still, and fading fast, and the rest of your brain blowing it off, but underneath it all this sense of comfort, of something big having floated by that you somehow escaped because here in the real world, that terrible pain you suffered in the dream wasn’t real … all captured in this one angle. The intensity of blue holding up the sexy, angry—but somehow dreamy—orange, like the ground holding up the sky. Meeting you, falling, and catching you beneath it. Caught in the arms of that angle, looking up at what you almost remember feeling, in the arms of that blue that goes deep as the ocean.

Or trapped, sometimes, too. The angle too tight and crushed like steel against your gut, like hot tears rubbing against the dry backside of your eyeballs, in a red that is only implied within that orange.

And it’s knowing there are people, artists and art lovers, in this world who’ve felt this same exact feeling in their gut and when they looked at this particular part of this particular painting. Like this secret language, a better language, that communicates feelings in a way that words barely could, about things so specific and silly and once-in-a-lifetime and middle-of-the-bed-before-the-sun-comes-up that you yourself can barely remember it until you saw this painting and then feel it, in your body, that made her understand that she wasn’t crazy, and art isn’t crazy, it’s just like music: Communicating in better words than language.

But the angle of the north wall and the ceiling, that’s not the same at all. That’s an angle that tells of being caught, how the popcorn of the ceiling meets the smoothness of the drywall, how it’s subtly warmer because the ceiling doesn’t catch the red of her bedspread in the same way — so under a flashlight they’d be the same color, but from her bed when it is this particular time in the afternoon the entire world seems trapped in the shades of color between those two planes, two different whites meeting, one red and one blue in such a subtle shading you couldn’t see it with a mechanical eye, that only a spectroscope or something could detect. That mechanical body part, or the heart of you. 

She hates the baby already, and this too is written in the angle of the north wall meeting the ceiling, bumpy popcorn against the smooth drywall, fake paint veins running down, meeting like rivulets and splitting again, the kind of texture you know will be cool to the touch. 

Times like this she flips back to thinking she’s crazy, that no such powerful meaning is contained in these angles, these veins, that if she were to try to portray this in her own art, popcorn and drywall at that weird attic angle, she’d be too inward, too selfish, her art wouldn’t speak. The yellow wallpaper of her crazy fucking brain, where if you talk about it you’ll be marked somehow, crazy from the words and forward. Like Josh Tyson.

She isn’t an artist at all, because she could never convey it completely. What it feels like, the sound of bars slamming closed, the baby and the popcorn and the smooth, cool veins of drywall. It would just be a painting. That there’s no way to mix the colors just right, off-white and off-white again with a different tone, meeting at such an angle as to truly indicate how terrible things have gotten.

And if there is no way to say it in art, there is no way of saying it, because art comes in when words fail, and nobody could understand just how ugly the baby situation had come at her. Like a cannonball, like a basketball-sized bullet. When the whole house seems too small for her privacy, and her room the last stupid bastion in a fight for independence, how the Jennifer of the house had been crowded out long ago and she feels like a squatter in her own room — her room, her room since she was herself a baby. How she’d felt crowded in her own skin, and made do, when it was just her, just Jennifer alone. And now she’d be sharing that claustrophobic lack of air with the baby. 

There is no way to tell that, in words or art. No explaining how drastic it makes her feel.

All you have is your space, she’s said that lots of times before. “A room of one’s own,” she’d said loftily: That in times when boys get to be crazy or adults get to be too crazy, at least you have your own body, your own art, your own territory. That when everything is taken from you, at least you had that: Your you. The you of you. 

And if that’s taken away? If you fought for shitty ground and kept it safe, with posters on the walls and music playing and your art all around you, and even though it’s untidy it’s yours, a safe place, if that is taken, who are you? Where are you? If even dumb things like watching TV after your parents go to bed were taken away by this baby, what exactly are you standing on? Nothing. This is how anorexia happens. 

This is how all the bad things girls do to themselves happens. Bad ideas about sex or food or getting weird tattoos or being mean all the way down. Because they take away the space you need. She’s given such lectures about this, about being strong and not thinking that just fucking up your territory was as good as having it back, and now here she is, thinking the most fucked up thoughts imaginable, doing stupid girl shit to herself, cuts and bruises and burns and bones, just to have it back. And the walls are closing in—literally, not like in books, they are literally getting closer, the space of Jennifer getting smaller the more she thinks about it—and her territory is shrinking and there is nothing she can do about it. Nothing she’d try, anyway. It is out of her hands.

Out there is a white mom and a white dad and they’re about to have a white baby. That’s the thought you aren’t supposed to think but it’s all she can think about. Just how it’s going to look. Families come in all different shapes and sizes and configurations, she’s been made aware of that aggressively for her entire life, but this one’s going to hurt. It’s going to be weird, and it’s going to hurt.

***

In an informal meeting one early morning, with the state of the Maguires still wildly in flux, Ashley and Maya find themselves in an argument, because Karen and Donnie are all about making things happen, like today, and Maya and Ashley both know they aren’t anywhere close to doing anything really radical, like Karen wanted, or anything really important, like Donnie wanted. They keep bringing up Jennifer and Trilby, how they are both currently getting screwed, but like, what are they supposed to do? 

Everybody knows what Duncan Taylor is like—Donnie and Maya snicker, Karen makes them cut it out—and she doesn’t see how anything they said could possibly cool Duncan down once he’s excited about something. And the other Children don’t know, but Corey’s mild-mannered Dean Dad can get scary, and Brian and Jennifer think he might hit Corey, so she doesn’t want to push on that either. She can’t say that because it’s embarrassing, and they don’t have the firepower to fix it yet. They can’t fix Dean Martin until they could be sure he wouldn’t do anything else afterwards.

She’s never thought about that part, the Mr. Martin part, and wonders if that’s why Corey is so interested in the group, despite never really paying much attention to Ashley before now. But then, all of the Young Adults were like that, before the Maguires. She smiles about that sometimes, when it occurs to her.

She knows she’s more gun-shy than anybody else in the group—which is gratifying in its own way, that she’s somehow inspired such excitement that it outstrips her own, and maybe that means she can rest now and then—but Maya backing her up is really awesome, and she can tell Maya will come away with more respect for her after the fight, which fizzled out quickly once she and Maya asked Karen and Donnie, point blank, for some examples of what exactly they have in mind, and of course they’d fallen silent.

Miss Brodie is no help at all, being basically incommunicado during the long winter break. There’s not really a good way for them to talk about things during the break without it seeming really weird, but Ashley spends the first week of Break thinking she’s going to do it somehow — that Ashley will be walking down the street on her way to somebody’s house and that Jaguar will come purring up beside her and she’ll open the door and give Ashley some Turkish Delight.

***

It took Alexis a while to convince Jennifer she actually enjoys doing her nails for her—it’as just so weird that somebody would actually want to do that, when it is such a hassle. But she’s figured out Alexis just really likes doing it: The precision of it, the craftsmanship of a perfectly applied topcoat. The intimacy of hands, touching, that means you’re friends.

Of all the things going on, all the changes this year — the movement and the fighting, Brian and Eddie, all the ways Jennifer is suddenly off-kilter and becoming new people like every hour — even all that pales in comparison to the utter strangeness of being friends with Alexis Butts. Of course it makes total sense now, she and Alexis are better suited technically than almost anybody, even if that’s hard to admit. Even if she’s letting her other popular friends slide in the process, which is a thing she’s always done: Drift apart from people.

But to compare it with the Legend of Alexis Butts, the way she still looks to everybody else, everybody that isn’t a Maguire, sometimes jumps into her mind and she looks at Alexis for a second with obsolete eyes, and sees her still the way she used to: Like a strange, fast, round insect. It is a nice feeling, to do that and then go back to seeing her as just Alexis, her friend, back and forth. See those idiosyncrasies she’s gotten so used to jump out in stark relief, making Alexis beautiful and strange again.

Like watching Brian the other night, before it got bad: Discussing education, art, censorship, so angry and joyful. So different from the boy she’s felt herself pulling along behind her for what seems like a hundred years. To see him jumping ahead every day, changing so fast, becoming like her ideal boyfriend what seems like overnight. So driven and knowledgeable. She can just flip it back, squint a little, and there’s good old Brian, zooming out the door for practice with a sloppy kiss on her cheek, book bag out in the middle of the carpet, shoes everywhere, Jeremy in tow. It’s interesting.

Alexis catches something in her face, a momentary move to the interior, and gives her a look. Alexis hates feelings in theory, but she’s good with them in practice. Other people’s, anyway. Herself, she doesn’t seem terribly bothered by them. Like at all.

“What’s up.”

“Brian and Jeremy. I was thinking of Brian and ...”

“—You looked sad.”

“Yeah. Jeremy … makes me sad.”

***

That same day there are three visitors to the Carroll household. None of them could know it, but they all basically get the same treatment from Tasha’s parents. And if they’d come a week earlier or a week later, they’d get the same response, because Tasha’s parents treat all Children the same way. Nobody later could have testified that all three of them went to check on Tasha, because Children so rarely visit the Carroll house, because the only thing worse than Tasha is her parents.

When Maya comes the Carrolls are very gracious, because her parents are important. Standing there side by side, having just arisen from the fireside or something, where they were no doubt reading the classics in their original language, or looking over their ancestral scrolls or whatever the heck they wanted you to think, they still looked a little owlish, blinking as if arising from a deep, intellectual quagmire just for you. They tell her that Tasha’s definitely going to public school, and that she’s not currently at the house, which is kind of a relief. Which to be honest is two reliefs.

After Maya leaves they talk about her, so attractive and well-spoken, how encouraging it is that a Black family do so well, and be so warmly accepted into the neighborhood, which is after all the benefit of equal access to education, as they’d worked so hard for in their college years. They congratulate themselves on a job well-done and promise themselves that they’d have the Gidleys over soon. But having the opportunity to explain their own reasons for taking Tasha out of school emboldens them.

When Necie comes the Carrolls are maybe a little less gracious, but gave the same basic speech, interrupted by their distraction at her ratty, second-hand clothes, an imagined smudge of something on her eleven-year-old cheek, the cobwebs in her hair she always forgets to brush out, the way children like that might just use your hose or play in your yard without asking, the way they make things unsettled and ugly by their very appearance. 

They do not mention inviting her parents over at any point, either to each other or to Necie, who they dismiss without having ever really addressed her. They do note that from all accounts Donnie seems to be doing just fine, so at least one of them might be successful, if she and her parents don’t drag him down, which assuredly is most likely, and he’ll end up with a GED, dead or in the Army by twenty.

When Josh comes the Carrolls are nice enough, because they know him, and think his intelligence is something to be proud of, at least, even though he’s so terribly off-putting, socially. Not at all like Tasha, with her ability to speak to Adults and Children alike without stammering or using non-words like “like” or “uh” to fill in the blanks when they go thoughtless and common and stupid. They are kind to him because they know their daughter was kind enough to be friends with him, and they can see why. 

Such a caring heart their daughter has, not like some of these families that would just leave a child like that out to dry, without ever experiencing normal socialization — just look how that Jeremy had turned out, so strange, and scary in his trenchcoats, always hanging around with thuggish Brian Anderson and that crowd of misfits—at least, they comfort themselves, Josh has had Tasha in his life, as a positive influence.

***

Brian today is thinking about something that Truman said: you always have to know when to leave. He’d been shocked to find that Truman’s constant disappearing act was not a function of his flakiness, but something that Truman consciously worked on. Knowing when to leave. 

Truman understands mystery, that’s one thing. Brian has tried to cultivate that—to be both mysterious and the very essence of strength and masculinity seems like the obvious ultimate—but today the question is really, does everybody, every guy (every girl, actually, too, and for some reason that seemed even more likely to be true) do this same thing? And is this because there are no viable alternatives, is it just the way things were, for adults? A series of faces? Were there possibly people in this world who actually were the ideal, and walked the halls secure in their own realness? 

Eric Johnson, he’d think. Eric Johnson never thought about masculinity, or strength, or power, or lying, because Eric Johnson was born to be a jock like that, walking around with his chest puffed out. On the other hand, people made as much fun of Eric Johnson for that shit as they do Corey’s insane gayness. The real question is, do they make Corey amounts (or Eric amounts) of fun of Brian? He thinks not, which he has that going for him at least.

Not that he has to worry about the same exact shit as Corey, because it isn’t about sexuality for him, just about propaganda, but it is the same basic deal. And he approves, and loves Corey for it, no matter the sniggering that goes on behind his back. Or even more: Because of it, because he knows Corey must know that he’ll never be accepted as a real boy, even if he pretended that’s exactly what he is.

Frankly, he prefers Corey better, because Corey is more like a girl: He will just fawn over you and bring you drinks and stuff, and it’s not demeaning or whatever when he does it, it’s just the way he is. Brian could drop all the gruff football stuff, like with Jeremy, and just treat Corey like a girl, which makes Corey shiver with delight like a fucking cocker spaniel, and go to outrageous lengths to please him, because he is hot, and because he is the only real live boy that would give him the time of day.

Corey interprets this as having a real live chance with him one day, and every now and then Corey will lean on that button, get egregious with it, entendres untwining into, basically, offers with just the slightest dusting of plausible deniability. Brian doesn’t so much mind that at all.

The thing about guys like Corey, he knows from fable and extrapolation, is that they’d go down on you in a second if you gave them the go-ahead, and unless they get all confused about what that means, they’d keep quiet about it and not get weird. It would be a win-win. Guys who’d been in Scouts with Corey swear up and down that they’d woken up—more than one guy, understand—to find Corey sucking their dicks, and nobody seemed to mind. The stories are all really cagey, like, nobody ever tells the story himself, but he could be sitting there while the story is being told and not get involved in the story, or debunking the story. Just sit there with a WTF eyebrow, not speaking, because everybody knows it’s true, and none of them were innocent.

So there’s that, and a few close calls, alone in his room, where he’s admitted—at that precise moment only, more horny than he could deal with, pushing the moment away, sitting on his hands watching porn and daring himself moment after moment not to unzip and get to it, pushing himself further and further into the delirium of not moving, just watching the computer screen and straining against his jeans, pushing himself with football practice willpower to let it go, not give in, the Zen of sexuality that Jennifer sometimes demands as a game, here but not there, this but not that, but playing it solitaire, not doing the easiest and best thing in the world because it is somehow important that he overcome this base thing, and fall into the widening black hole of his own body, to push the limits of what he can’t and can control—he’d openly and laughingly admitted, in his own mind, that a willing and able Corey on the other side of his dick would not be at all unwelcome. 

The guys all agreed, in the final analysis, that waking up to a blow job, regardless of the source, is a plus and not a minus, and in moments like this, without a single word in his head, just sitting and staring and trying not to make a noise, sitting in the hot, red, wet center of it, feeling like the bomb was coming, like he would explode, like he could fuck an army, produce, animals, a hole in the drywall, anything, people against their will, anything to relieve the pressure, the overwhelming crisis of the moment, he’d come up against the thought that it was all just so laughable, that he could possibly give the thumbs-down to Corey, if he were there. 

If you could just come up with the right sequence of words to bring it to account, if you could somehow give the right signal where he wouldn’t think you were going to prom together or something, like he probably would, if you did it right. If you knew the right time to leave. Honestly, when something demanded like that, you’d not turn down any assistance, no matter the category whence it came, and it seemed almost hysterical that he spent so much time blowing it off and laughing about it and making jokes about it with the guys, because here in his room, alone, body on fire, sitting on his hands still, or trying to—sometimes the hands moved of their own accord, up and across, down and against—it all just seemed so silly, so frightened, so fearful and stupid and puffed-up, like he was Eric Johnson or something, some kind of no-way guy who everyone assumes shoved things up his ass regularly because he’s so repetitive about how not okay all that stuff was.

And although he usually comes right about now, hands forgotten and in control, and put aside those ideas that seemed so likely a few seconds before, and forget he’d had them, or only vaguely remember how distinctly not-horrified he’d been by them, he’d admit in some very dark, secret room of himself that it was just too easy, and available, like a lottery scratch-off or the porn on his computer, or the fact that he himself was always ready to hand when it was time to jack off, which was like all the time, just like that, the thought is available, because it was offered and there’s nothing wrong with it in those minutes, a transaction and nothing more, nothing having to do with his heart or his brain or some kind of gay love affair, just flesh doing what it did, no difference between that and rubbing one out yourself, not really. So he’d sometimes imagine Corey there, doing whatever he wanted.

***

Something about Corey, Alexis is saying something about Corey dropping Donnie off at home and Mr. McNeely coming out to meet him, and Corey doing his usual thing, which in this case of course means convincing Mr. McNeely that he is some kind of child molester, because God forbid Corey ever get anything right on the first try, or ever just say anything the normal way, and apparently he said something about how "cute" Necie and/or Donnie were, which makes total sense if you know him and besides was probably in a list of twenty adjectives, but of course, it was the one that stuck. 

So Mr. McNeely got really freaked out and Corey did the right thing, for once, which is to refuse to leave until Alexis gets there so she can vet him, since it had been Alexis dropping the twins off the majority of the time and had even gotten invited in a few times.

Once Alexis and Ashley show up, the McNeelys change their tune real fast, although it is still clearly pretty awkward. They invite all three of them into their house, which Ashley has always kind of been terrified about happening, and on the inside, sometimes something Miss Brodie has said, or what she thinks she’d say, will pop into her head, and this time it is, "Now I know what a hovel looks like." 

Which is unkind, and Ashley doesn’t really mean it, but it’s not like she even laughs at the joke, just hears herself think it. She'll probably always have Miss Brodie's voice inside, making jokes like that, for the rest of her life.

The house is small, of course. There are only two bedrooms, which was funny because the McNeelys had a couple of older children, but like way older, so they'd probably been in high school or something when the twins were born. Mrs. McNeely can tell she’s wondering about that somehow, and explains that they put the crib in the pantry. The walls are this weird fake wood she’s never seen before, like a pale, yellowish-brown walnut color, and all their furniture is rough, like wooly, with big orange and blue flowers on it, and the soft parts of the couch, like the front of the arms, have carved wood up them, and don’t look very comfortable. There’s a fishing pole and a tackle box near the kitchen, propped against the wall out of nowhere.

The walls are covered in pictures, bad pictures, of people with stupid hair and hick teeth and Coke-bottle glasses. One little boy who looked kind of r-word—maybe it’s the glasses—lying on his stomach, with a cowboy hat and that grayish backdrop like when they do pictures at the grocery store, no glass in the frame, staring out at you, probably seven or eight. A couple of fat old people, the lady one with a chain from the front of her cat's eye-shaped glasses on each side, sneaking away into the back behind her helmet of hair. A woman with enormous feathered wings and an overbite, wearing a lot of turquoise. People with blue eyeshadow and shirts that had bright squares of color in offset patterns. All the pictures have that washed-out, kind of sick look, like they've been in the sun too long.

Every surface seems covered in tiny pieces of crap, like ceramic bells with birds on top of them, or cake pedestals, or those little kids with the giant eyes praying. There is Jesus everywhere you looked, staring at you with those eyes of his. Plastic Jesus and wooden Jesus and pictures of Jesus and statues of Jesus. 

In one corner is a pedestal thing with a huge Bible, open to some random page, and there is no TV. Anywhere. Stacked where a TV would normally go, there are TV-trays, plastic, with gold-colored plastic legs and laminated with weird fibers underneath the plastic, with holiday scenes. But no TV. Why would you have TV trays and no TV? 

All their other furniture, which there is a lot of, hutches and curio cabinets and a long, heavy-looking credenza with those same scratchy-looking curtains inside the doors, and a real record player inside one of the cabinets that you can see, just peeking out. There is a bookcase which stretches up to the ceiling, which is low, and it is also filled with the knick-knacks. There are no books.

Alexis and Corey are being boring, making conversation, and Donnie is doing "chores," so she’s pretty free to wander. Any time the McNeelys catch her eye she just points to whatever she’s staring at and says how beautiful it is, so they don’t really pay attention to her.

In the kitchen there is a lot of crocheted stuff, like potholders and stuff, and a macramé plant holder that is orange and brown and hung from an elaborate gold-painted hook. There are lots of funny triangular dish towels with holes knitted into the top corner to hang from places, and some of them have stuff like kittens playing. There is a clock made of some kind of shiny wood, like a cross-section of an oak tree, with clock hands in the middle of it. 

There are lots more unfortunate pictures on the refrigerator — which is green! — and some of Necie's bad drawings, and a big magnet that says, "This Ain't Burger King—You Can't Have It Your Way!" and another one that says, "If You Can't Stand The Heat … Stay Out Of The Kitchen!!!!" Ashley wonders if Mrs. McNeely ever looks over, like when she’s cooking, and just laughs and laughs.

Also everywhere there are calendars and notices and newsletters and flyers about church stuff, all the dates for all of Necie's crap and a few things for Donnie, circled in red with lots of exclamation points. On the bar, between the kitchen and the tiny dining table, there are three framed photographs all in a group, with a strange calendar shaped like a Toblerone bar that you tear pages off every month, that said, "A Gift To You From Matheson Insurance." 

The middle portrait is a little bigger, and it is Mr. and Mrs. McNeely with two teenagers and two fat babies on their laps, looking exhausted even in the picture. It’s interesting, because you can see how they all look alike, when you look at them like this. Like how the older son and Necie take more after the Mom, with her big eyes and silly smile, and the older daughter and Donnie are more Germanic or whatever, like their Dad, with those beautiful cheekbones and light, light hair, those strong jaws and the lights in their dark, dark eyes. Donnie's older sister is maybe better looking than Donnie himself, and Ashley tries to imagine how she'd look now.

The picture on the right is of Necie, looking pretty cute, with a smile and a bow in her hair. She should wear pink more often, Ashley thinks, even if the lace dickey is kind of a problem. She forgot how cute Necie was back when she had braces. The left one is of Donnie, of course, making the exact same smile, and you can almost see how they’re related for once, except he looks smarter, and his hair looks cleaner, and he has a cleft in his chin. Ashley tries to consider what Necie would look like if she had that white-blonde hair and those dark eyes, but in her mind it just makes her face look way too red. Too bad, because Donnie is one of the most beautiful people Ashley has ever seen in life, and Necie… Well, it’s strange. Everything, almost, is just a little bit off. Like, maybe if she looked even less like Donnie, she would be cuter. There have been a couple of times Necie was pretty presentable. Ashley wishes she had given her more positive reinforcement.

In the hallway there is more Jesus, and some pictures of people wearing military uniforms. There aren’t any crucifixes, she noticed. Just crosses with Jesus on them. Is just a regular cross not their kind of religion? There are lots of things with sayings on them, like, that story about the guy walking on the beach and there are footsteps, and then there are no footsteps, or whatever, that means Jesus is watching you. And another one with the Ten Commandments, and another one that looks handmade—probably by Necie, knowing her—about "For he so beloveth the world that he gaveth his ownly son" and has grimy fingerprints on it. 

Ashley nearly goes running for Donnie then, just to hug him, but he wouldn't understand, and just thinking about his reaction makes her feel like a total asshole, so she creeps back into the living room and sits uneasily down between the Young Adults. But she still feels that strange love for them.

"Oh, yes, we were just saying how important a strong religious foundation is for our young people. Corey here is actually very involved in his family's church group."

If it were anybody else telling such outrageous lies, she would have laughed, but this is just what Alexis does. She doesn’t even think Alexis knows she’s lying. It’s awesome, though, because everybody else will always just fall into line. Ashley pokes Corey.

"That's right. I enjoy helping with our … Christmas Pageant, of course. And the … um. The Sunday School. I like to teach … Sunday School."

Then he stands up and does something astonishing.

"And Ruth said, entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee. For whither thou goest, I will go, and where thou lodgest, I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me."

It is Corey, so he waves his hands around and prisses it up, and he’s very dramatic with each sentence, but the McNeelys eat it right up, and clap afterwards like he just wrote it himself. Apparently they are used to stuff like this. Alexis looks over at her and it’s like she smiles, but without moving her face. Just her nostrils.

Ashley smiles beatifically at the McNeelys, feeling like it’s her turn to do something nice if even Corey has managed to impress them. Considering they were probably going to shoot him half an hour ago, this is a pretty big accomplishment, and she doesn’t want to let the team down.

"We're all so happy that the Twins are in our class this semester. There was that shuffle, you know, and I was so worried that we'd get separated."

"Well, you know, they just love you," says Mrs. McNeely. Mr. McNeely nods, silently. It’s weird.

"It's always Ashley Anderson this and Ashley Anderson that. Almost every day, there's some new story about Ashley. How smart and pretty and nice you are. It's so nice to have you here in our house and really get to have fellowship with somebody who's such a celebrity in our family. I hope you'll come again."

Ashley starts to blush. Mr. McNeely clears his throat. "It's all true, you know."

"Well, isn't that flattering," Ashley says, making sure it’s not Miss Brodie’s voice when she says it.

Donnie McNeely! Loves her!

"I’d hope so. Necie's no slouch either, you know."

Well she could just die.

***

Everybody is lonely because it is winter break and it feels like everybody else is hanging out without you. But at least it is the end of winter break, and this feeling won’t last forever. They may even get the Maguires back together once everybody is forced back into contact by school. That would be nice.

Brian gets bored and goes looking for Jennifer, whose phone seems off more than on these days. But then she tends to just leave it places, her car or your house, or it runs out of juice somewhere inconvenient and the last thing she wants is to talk about it, or get a lecture about taking care of it. He’s invested in staying out of those discussions because it always turns into some kind of thing where he is trying to control and keep tabs on her and—she loves to point out—if she were having this huge, glamorous love affair with some international man of mystery and bursting financial portfolios, it still wouldn’t be okay for him to keep tabs on her, because trust is everything in love, and if you try to hold a butterfly in your hand it will die every time. 

Brian always forgets until later the very salient point that, barring the concept of him being an insane chauvinist who thought they were married or something, the fact that he worried about it at all would seem to indicate some lack in their relationship, or at the least something to discuss. She’s smarter than him and he does not usually hate that, but not being heard is the worst feeling he can imagine.

So first he goes to Corey’s house, but the Dean is really weird to him, like always, because he has these fears that Corey is having sex with everybody, because he talks about sex constantly even though he has, as far as Brian knows, never even kissed another person. At Jennifer’s her Parents aren’t weird so much as concerned, because if Brian doesn’t know where she is then who would? So then Brian, afraid of the inevitable result of thinking about any of this too hard, went where he always went: Jeremy’s house.

It was going to be awkward because he still didn’t know the right words to reach Jeremy but sometimes you could just pretend nothing happened and Jeremy would gratefully go along with it. Or maybe not gratefully, maybe just naturally, due to him being a robot. Whatever reason, it’s a relief when you are allowed to not be fighting with someone, especially someone who takes up the majority of your time.

Brian has come to join Jeremy in Antarctica. He’s going over the wall and even though nobody has out-and-out said that Jeremy can’t come back to the Maguires everybody is pretty much agreed that he did the worst thing you can do to a Child, and proved their entire point, and whether or not Josh forgave him the rest of them couldn’t. Not philosophically, not claiming to believe what they believe.

If Brian were a stronger person he would probably just intercede with Ashley on Jeremy’s behalf and put her furious little mind to work on his redemption. But that would involve looking his baby sister in the eye and saying, on some level, that hitting your sibling is okay — and he’d rather just go directly to Antarctica if that’s the only option. It’s hard to imagine what Ashley would even do, if Jeremy’s forgiveness were put on her tiny little shoulders.

***

Where Jennifer is: With Eddie, in fact. And for once they are actually talking, about everything going on, but it doesn’t work great because they spent so much time together not talking — so now that they have the Maguires in common, they are having to learn a whole new language again, and it’s rough because inside both their heads they are kind of pissed at how easy things suddenly aren’t, and because politics aside, they are still who they’d started off being: A boy, and a girl, kissing.

So she begs off, trying to give the impression that she’s totally interested in what he’s saying but just really busy, and she can tell he’s disappointed but she knows better than he does that this isn’t really about the free interchange of concepts and political ideas as much as the fact that they didn’t get around to messing around at all, and really that’s Eddie’s problem, because she already has a boyfriend. 

The tone is cold and tight, and she likes the feeling of slipping out of his car in a short skirt, already off to her next thing, and him sitting there, finally just a boy like any other boy who doesn’t know girls know what they’re doing the majority of the time. Which she’s noticed before, and not just in Eddie, but in most boys: The secret belief that girls are just a little stupid. Like being smart is a trick they can perform and not who they are. It feels good to walk away, knowing he’ll chalk it up to girl craziness instead of what it actually is, boredom and waning and distinct interest in doing something else. 

It isn’t flattering, but he’s the one left with a boner, not her, so who won really? 

Jennifer’s parents are assholes as usual, and Maya’s parents are so creepy-perfect they offer little candies and ask her to wait in the parlor. She eventually worms her way out of there, and it’s only then that she thinks of calling Brian. Normally she can’t bear to have Brian in her mind too soon after a session with Eddie—or vice versa—but the way she is picturing him now, is as her best friend, not her boyfriend. She has the kind of exhaustion that only someone like Brian, his voice and arms and disinterest in bugging her and asking her lots of questions, could satisfy. But she can’t find him.

That’s when she makes up her mind that she is going to ghost Eddie van Tenk, who is no longer thrilling, because now that there’s the Maguires just being alive is thrilling enough.

***

Before winter break Ashley and Miss Brodie went around and around on keeping Necie or not. It was couched still in those weird terms of Ashley’s “social group” and Miss Brodie spent a lot of time talking about social graces and the value of networking, but it was so obvious Miss Brodie was talking about the Maguires. Ashley felt it might just be easier to talk about it openly, but if Miss Brodie were going to help her out anyway, and give good advice, there was no reason to push it. God knew what she thought it was about; she sometimes went on crazy talks about fascism and stuff, weird European speeches about being your best, Goethe, Nietzsche and all that Eddie Van Tenk stuff, so whatever. Let her think whatever fuzzy thoughts she wanted, as long as she helped with the dynamics and getting it done.

She hasn’t really thought about it since, but in these conversations—Miss Brodie couldn’t be more obvious about her feelings for Necie, like how she didn’t want her in spring term but had to take her with Donnie, whom she loved, which is creepy and frankly none of Ashley’s business, even though anybody on our Earth would obviously say the same thing—she’d come to some conclusions about Necie McNeely, and they were the kind of thing she couldn’t talk about with anybody, even Truman or Brian, because what they were undeniably was: Bitchy. And now she is thinking about it again.

Basically, the Maguires are about saving Children, all Children, and that means saving the least among them. The ones that aren’t smart enough or fast enough, the ones that don’t know self-defense, the ones that don’t have anybody to go to, the ones with no way out. That’s the point of the Maguires: Not the best among us, not Donnie or Heath or Karen Grossman, or even Tasha, but nasty, ugly, stupid, sniveling, weak, racist, worthless kids like Necie. Which is the worst thing, because according to the Manifesto, Children who suck that bad are in need of the Maguires in the worst way, which is that they have the worst Parents.

And from there it just gets worse. If you think far enough along to see it that way, that means Donnie also has the worst Parents, and somehow Heath had the best Parents. But then Tasha’s were pretty bad either way, and those things were sometimes true, but not true all of the time. Because sometimes, having the worst Parents was the best thing for you, or so Truman says. Like depending on who you were, having a horrible Childhood is what made you beautiful, and other times, it’s what made you awful. 

And there’s no way to tell! Like Donnie and Necie. Obviously they have the same Parents, and there isn’t even an age gap like with her and Brian, because they were twins. And yet we don’t just magically turn out this way or that way, there have to be reasons for that. Which means you have to just... know which is best, somehow. And then you’re not just making decisions about Children, but about Parents, and all it becomes then is judging.

Which Miss Brodie seems to find easier than anything, judging, but even she is stymied by the Necie and Donnie thing. Ashley brought up a Jennifer Standish idea about how maybe they are treated differently because one is a boy and the other one’s just a girl, but Miss Brodie tish-toshed and said that even thinking about that meant that it was okay and that you should—not ignore it, but like, not let it affect your thought processes. Or something. Anyway, Miss Brodie is not so much a feminist, she said, as someone who refuses to acknowledge gender in terms of power. Everybody has to fight to get the power they wield, and you can never measure how hard somebody works against somebody else’s work, because you might start to rely on that, or feel badly about it, or use it as an excuse, instead of doing everything you could. 

“Everything that rises must converge,” she says. Like all the time.

It is really unpleasant to think about this stuff, and runs counter to everything she thought about the Maguires, but when she’s with Miss Brodie it’s like she can’t not think about it, because ugly stuff like this is all Miss Brodie seems to understand. She only talks in terms of one person being up and one person being down, and you’d better be the person who is up or you’ll always be down. And while that makes a lot of sense, if you think about Necie and the shittier Children, it doesn’t really work absolutely. The categorical imperative, Truman calls that: Where you only let things happen that would be okay if they happened to you. But it’s hard to think about that with Miss Brodie, because the other side of things is also so obvious and true and hard to ignore.

Basically, if Heath’s sister is right and every problem and issue that spreads like a virus, like wildfire—like the religion stuff, or the resentment of each other that the Young Adults and Children sometimes felt, both of which feed directly into the current problem of Jeremy—can be traced to one toxic, bad person. Somebody that always has problems or drama or trauma or stupidity, if pain surrounds that person like a fog, like Pigpen, then all you can do was cut it out. And Necie McNeely is a total Pigpen, especially with Tasha out of the picture. So talking to Miss Brodie, it seems so obvious, and that, the back and forth of that, is so hard to hold in her head.

Ashley hates Necie McNeely. When she thinks about Necie all she sees is a big black blotch that smells like daycare and pee, cigarette smoke, like somebody’s grandmother’s car, little gross stains and spots on her hand-me-down Strawberry Shortcake sweatshirts, her ugly shoes, her little homilies, that look in her eye like her face was carved from wood, nothing coming out or going in. Everything terrifying about the poor kids, everything scary about the homeless, the complete desperation and savageness of Necie’s need. She can’t even picture Necie’s face if she tries, half the time. Just anger and nastiness and an urgent need to slap her.

And this is the part that’s hardest to hold in her mind unless she is alone, and working hard on it: 

Somehow, this means Necie is the one thing she needs to protect.

***

By the end of the first week of Spring term Tasha’s doing brilliantly. 

At her old school, they still have a few more days off, which kind of rankles, but whatever. It just gives her more time to organize — especially with the newly dumped Eddie van Tenk raring to be her number two, with all the energy and passion he can bring to a project like this. A project like what they already did with Ashley, but much better in all the ways that count.

She’s made so many friends already, figured out their rages and weak spots, and she’s pleasantly surprised to find children in public schools are just as angry as the ones in private, and even easier to lie to. It won’t be hard at all to start a new group, and actually get things done.

She finishes her last letter, writing with her left hand, sticks it in its envelope, no return address, and puts all six in another, fatter envelope, which she addresses to her penpal in California, with instructions to mail them immediately, and then sits back. She’s pretty sure her group will be the best, but this is good insurance. 

She pulls out the secret file from between her mattress and the box spring, and checks them off: One, two, three, four, five, six. That’s everybody for now.

***

On her last meeting with Miss Brodie before winter break Ashley actually made an excuse to leave, because Miss Brodie was tiring her out. And besides, once Miss Brodie started asking questions about Brian and the Young Adults she would rarely stop. Just these vague questions that would start to pop up and before you knew it you’d be telling stories from when Brian was a Child and Miss Brodie would be all interested and it was just exhausting, because Ashley knew that this was about figuring out the Young Adults’ connection to the Maguires, so she just felt battered. Sneaked. And that’s mostly what she’s been thinking about all winter break, but it will be nice to get back to classes and see everybody again. Including Miss Brodie.

Dear Mrs. Oliver,
Your husband is having an affair with Ashley Anderson’s mother, and has been for at least a year. And everybody knows about it.

Signed,
A Concerned Citizen

“Listen, dude, I’m glad. You’re here. I missed you, or whatever. It’s been boring and …”

“Yeah. Things have been crazy. Mom’s really cracking down.”

“I know, man. Look she gave me last time, I was like, I didn’t burn down your carport, lady, I’m just here to hang out. What’s that about?”

“Still haven’t figured it out. She’s being weird with Corey, too.”

“So you’ve been hanging out a lot with Corey?”

Dear Mr. Anderson,
Your wife is having an affair with Heath Oliver’s father, and has been for at least a year. And everybody knows about it and they’re covering it up.

Signed,
A Concerned Citizen

Jeremy’s car is in the driveway, which is awesome. Brian and Jeremy were so much cooler with no parents—the Andersons were at some dress-up function for being Mayor that meant Daddy would come home silly and Mom would come home flushed and ready for all comers, wanting to talk and talk and talk, which Ashley is kind of in the mood for—because they’ll just be themselves, loud or dorky or whatever, and sometimes do crazy stuff like go swimming at night or ride things down the stairs. Even when they don’t let her hang out, it is still much cooler. 

She likes them getting along. She likes having Jeremy nearby. She likes pretending the four of them are a little family, even if that’s weird. Even if it makes Brian and Jeremy her Dads and Josh her little brother. That’s what it feels like anyway, most of the time, and Brian and Jeremy would agree. It’s when the four of them were happiest, in a world with no grownups and just each other.

Truman on a glass of wine had said something interesting about Corey and Jeremy, actually, that Corey could be in love with Jeremy forever—he’d looked at her without blinking through this whole speech, like he was expecting some reaction, and she’d kept herself from giving one—and they could do stuff, hang out, even make out, and it wouldn’t matter, because Jeremy wasn’t sexual. Just asexual, and if he ever did it with a girl, it would be because she wanted it and was willing to put up with his bullshit, and not because he’d be the one pushing. He’d made it sound like this made Jeremy lame in some way, but it made total sense. She’d even wanted to be that girl once, ignoring the many problems of Jeremy in order to finally be married.

Dear Karen:
Your mother is a lesbian and she is having gay sex with Josh Tyson’s Mom. Everybody knows about it, and makes fun of you all the time because you think you’re so cool, but even Maya and Trilby think you’re not good at anything, just a show off.

Signed,
Your Secret Friend

P.S. Your brother is probably gay too.
 
“Dude, I’m bored. I’m fucking bored. We should go out and get some chicks or something.”

“Yeah, that sounds likely. Good scenario.”

“No, I’m serious, dude. I’ve had like a four-hour boner.”

“Where’s Jennifer?”

“Running around with those guys, like usual. I’m going nuts.”

“Everything’s on again and off again. Next week you’ll be hanging out with her every second. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“Yeah, like, we’re always fighting and stuff, you and me. And it always works out. I think you can only spend a certain amount of time with any one person before you just naturally go nuts.”

“Maybe we should hang out less, then.”

“Maybe it’s because of stuff that you’re letting build up and it just gets to be too loud.”

“Like what?”

“Like…anything. I don’t know. Tiny things that annoy you, or whatever.”

“I think I’m honest with you.”

“What if you could be totally honest with somebody? Like honestly tell them everything, like your sickest thought or whatever, and you’d know that they’d be okay with it? Like there’s nobody watching?”

“I do feel like that with you, Brian.”

“Yeah.”

“Anyway. Why’re you bored? I’m totally on like the main station and I haven’t died once. We can do it two-player if I’m bugging you. I’m totally going to win by the end of the night anyway.”

“I don’t want to play video games. I don’t want to do anything. I just feel like I’m crazy. Like, rrrrgahhh! Jeremy! You know?”

“I guess.”

“Let’s watch some porn.”

“Why?”

Ashley doesn’t mind when Brian watches porn these days, because he never does anything private, just considers it, the porn, like a doctor or a farmer or something, sitting on his hands, and eventually he’ll get up and close the door. It’s kind of comforting, actually. It means sex isn’t this huge monster that devours you, or makes you act all crazy in love. It’s just something you can do. 

Porn is interesting because it’s like Truman says: Those people aren’t having real sex. They aren’t really there.

Dear Jeremy:
Your mother is a lesbian and she is having an affair with Karen Grossman’s Mom. Everybody knows about it except you.

Signed,
Your Secret Admirer

 “Dude, you want to sneak a bottle of wine? Or some tequila. We could do shots. Let’s do tequila shots and go skinnydipping.”

“We’ve got school tomorrow, ‘Dude.’ And tequila makes me sick. Like, just the smell…”

“Whatever, wine then. And fuck school. Like it’ll matter. I’m going to do pushups unless you think of something.”

“Um, okay.”

“Jeremy, have you ever heard of the Prisoner’s Dilemma?”

“That guy from The A-Team?”

“No, like, Martin was talking about it. And Miss Brodie—you know Ashley’s new teacher?”

“Josh’s, too.”

“That’s good.”

“He thinks she’s a closet Satanist.”

“Heh. No, but like, the thing is, it’s like symbolic logic or Kafka or something, right, and like, if you’re ever caught by enemies and your guy is in the other room and you don’t have your stories straight …”

“Always have your story set ahead of time, Brian. I keep telling you, the endgame is everything.”

“Sure, just in case, but like, what if you didn’t, and the whole thing was that they’d kill you or the other person, unless you had the same story. So you have to think, is the other person going to sell me out? Is the other person going to take advantage of it just in case, and not get killed?”

Dear Mr. Tyson:
Your son Jeremy is secretly a homosexual and is having a gay affair with several classmates, including Brian Anderson and Corey Martin, where they have gay sex.

Signed,
A Concerned Citizen

“I’m familiar. It’s like the Turing Test. If you can’t see into the other room you have to figure out whether the person is a person or a computer. Or like Room 101.”

“Yeah! Like that. And so like the moral proof or whatever about that is that you have to take the chance, because it works out better. Like if there’s four options, the only one that will save everybody is the one where you choose the person, where you don’t fuck them over. That the best option is the one where everybody wins, so you have to assume the other person has your back.”

“Stop doing pushups. I’m not sure you’re giving me the whole story. Is this moral or logical?”

“More like, real life. I just think it’s interesting, because I think it’s like how we all are. You’re never sure if you can trust the person. That they want the thing that you want, or that they care about the same things as you, or trust you back, or whatever. So like, if you follow the proof, you just have to naturally assume…”

“Put your shirt back on.”

 “Scared? Or just jealous.”

“Brando.”

“You are. Look at me, Jeremy. You’re scared of my…you’re jealous. Little Man Tate’s jealous. We can tone you up. You can start coming to the gym with me. I’m joining the campus one for summer term, and I can bring a guest.”

“I’m perfectly fine.”

“But what about the ladies? Look at me.”

“The ladies?”

“Or Corey, if that’s...”

“I think I’m going to go.”

“Yeah. She was right. It’s not going to work. Words.”

“Who was right?”

“Put that shit on pause for one second and fucking look at me. God. I’m totally having like a …”

“Jesus, Brando. You really are freaking out. Look at you, you’re shaking. I think maybe you really should have that drink. Or like some Adderall or something.”

“Nope.”

And then things get very fast, Brian moves very fast, and then there is breathing, and then they are having sex, or something like it, and it isn’t like porn at all, because it is weird-looking and fumbling, growly and urgent, it doesn’t look smooth or practiced or camera-ready — just like they are both there, all of a sudden. 

Dear Brian:
Your girlfriend has been having an affair with Eddie Van Tenk since you got thrown off the team and everybody laughs at you behind your back.

They also say that you are having a gay love affair with Jeremy Tyson and that you are in love.

Signed,
A Friend

And now they’re not in Antarctica at all. It’s somewhere warmer, where things move fast.

***

Truman and Corey have started a thing nobody else knows about where they go hang out in the woods, alone, and just talk about things, the two of them. Sometimes there is kissing but Corey never knows if there is going to be kissing when he goes out there, so he tries not to get his hopes up. Either way it’s fun to be with Truman, specifically to have Truman to himself with all his wonderful thoughts and surprises and sweetness. Truman who knows everything about the world.

Truman who has such a look of delight on his face when he finds himself kissing Corey again, on the mouth — like “what fun!” but when they’re not kissing, is serious and listens to Corey, without that grin. Really thinking about it and respecting him, which is something new for Corey to experience.

Truman is like a woods creature himself, which Corey loves best about him. He even smells like moss and pine trees, and Corey imagines him feeding the forest creatures from his own hands, living in some kind of little cave or hobbit hole. He is perfectly competent in all things survival, even for an Adult.

Is Truman gay? A solid question that Corey does not have the answer to. But neither maybe does Truman, who has never shown an interest in being with anybody as far as Corey can tell. Corey has decided to be cool this time, be cool, not push it, see what happens instead of falling into a Corey fog of pining after him forever and ever. It’s hard but he is doing it.

They don’t go to the Schoolhouse usually. Corey assumes but does not know for sure this is because people might be there, and likewise does not know whether Truman values their time together as much as Corey does, or doesn’t want to answer questions, or maybe — and Corey makes a conscious effort to not think this — he is feeling weird about the kissing.

That’s what makes this particular day late in winter break so interesting, because after the kissing Corey and Truman have come to the Schoolhouse to see if anybody else is there, because they miss the Maguires and had this inkling that other people might, too. Corey wonders if maybe people haven’t been going there all break and that’s why nobody is around to hang out. He is half right.

Because who is there is not the Maguires, but some other group that he doesn’t recognize and Truman squints at until finally tapping Corey’s shoulder and pointing. Corey sights down along his arm, resting a cheek on his shoulder, and that’s when he spots Tasha Carroll, who is sitting there in Ashley’s place, and next to her Eddie van Tenk, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why. Like fake Ashley and fake Brian, sitting there in front of a bunch of fake Maguires. Just like it’s their thing.

***

All three of the surprising things that Alexis does today happen in the car.

Ashley is feeling a certain lonely way ever since Brian stopped hanging out or talking about the Maguires with her, but luckily there is Alexis. Jennifer doesn’t really have time to hang out with an eleven-year-old generally, but Alexis sure does. She doesn’t ever want to go home.

Is it weird for a teen and a tween to hang out? Maguires evidence would say it isn’t, but Ashley wonders if Alexis ever feels like it is. Mostly she doesn’t care, because it’s like hanging out with Miss Emma Brodie but without that sour cold feeling in your stomach afterward.

Alexis is talking about anything, because she doesn’t really know what the hell she thinks she’s doing but knows it’s important for some reason, and she isn’t really listening to herself, because she’s wondering why it is that everything these days happens in her car.

"You know what I mean? Like how cars are supposedly where all the sex happens in high school, I think it's the same thing — everything that really happens right now is someplace that isn't here and isn't there. Your whole life is in the spaces between stuff. Like at school you do something, and at home you have to do stuff, but in the car, Truman's house is kind of the same way, you get to do your actual living. I don't even know what I did in my car before I decided this. It's like Jennifer says, if you let yourself get stuck in one place you're screwed because the whole reality of a thing conspires to keep you in one shape, and in the car you can take whatever shape you want. Like Schrödinger's Cat. And so perversely, that's the only place you're ever actually alive. I think Jennifer's right about a lot of stuff, considering how ditzy she seems. Or she used to, before we were friends. I just love her, don't you?"

Ashley smiles, weary. Alexis is doing a thing she's only ever seen Corey do, which is go nuts right in front of you. She is really happy to hear her at all, though. There had been a long while where she felt weird about Alexis, like she was just too strong, like a big Godzilla that could organize you to death and never really love you, or see you as anything other than something to organize. This had lasted until the precise moment that Corey told her that Alexis wasn't her Mom, and she needed to get that clear and stop being weird about Alexis when it was Nina that was the problem, and then she just laughed, because if Corey could figure it out, how obvious could it be?

"She thinks a lot about beauty, you know, like, how you look. Your insides versus your outsides. And it made me think—how scared, how confused, how weird, must it be for boys, you know? We're trained to see our bodies as the opposition. When our bodies betray us, we're not surprised. I think that's why guys are such big babies when they get sick, it's like gravity turning upside down because they think their bodies are their friends. Not that it doesn't fuck up girls, too, but it's interesting.

"Anyway, so my plan is to always be in my car, like in my head, and just float and adapt and be cool instead of being so hardcore, like at school especially, I used to be really confused why people didn't like me, or thought I was scary. But that's a valuable skill, Ashley. To have that scary person in me that doesn't give a damn about that stuff, or playing games like that, or being treated like crap, and it's so, so good to know I can call on her, but at the same time have options and can just … it's so easy in high school—I bet this is the same for you—to just take people's opinion of you as the literal truth, just assume they're right, but the thing is, they never are, because there's always more of you, some other … not personality, because that sounds... But so you have to accept that other people are like that too."

She does, after all. Why is Alexis better than Emma? How come Alexis can say the same things as Emma, even mean the same as Emma, without it tasting like black pepper and cilantro? Ashley thinks this is a pretty important issue, but one of those you can’t hold in your head long enough to figure out. She wants to be like a combination of Jennifer and Alexis when she grows up, but that’s not it either.

Ashley reaches over and holds Alexis’s hand finally, smiling up at her like the sweetest little girl you’ve ever seen, and she finally shuts up and drives the rest of the way in silence, holding her hand, and when they get to the hospital and they let the two of them up—Alexis lies that Ashley is thirteen, and she’s somehow the best liar to Adults that Ashley had ever seen—they just sit with Alexis's mother for awhile. Alexis's mother is very calm and very normal-seeming, but the smell is weird and horrible, and the place is so depressing and ugly, that it makes Ashley love Alexis like a sister. More than Jennifer, more than Jeremy, she gets Alexis now better than anybody. 

And on the way home, they hold hands again, and when Alexis drops her off she just kisses her cheek and whispers, "Thanks, Ashley," and in case they both start crying—because how could you not?—she goes straight upstairs immediately, to cry there by herself. And if Alexis is thinking of ever feeling bad about taking a Child to somewhere so horrible, she needs to figure out a way to make sure she knows it’s actually okay, because they are friends, and Ashley can handle it.

***

Emma makes her way to the door, at the address she was given, and stands a moment before ringing. While she’s liked Truman and sees him somewhat as a worthy adversary, she cannot allow this to make even the slightest dent in her determination. The boy in the loft at #23 Loyola has been a player since the beginning, and association with the Martin boy aside seems to have his ducks firmly in a row. 

Emma finally decides not to ring at all, and knocks instead upon the door the way she'd heard Ashley do: That distinctive rap-rap-rap of a young girl bent on success.

It proves just as helpful as she assumed, and the boy comes running. Yelling, "Maguires Forever! The stone's in the midst of all! Such terrible —"

He comes up short. "Oh. You."

She cocks an eyebrow, just the slightest irritation, and he ushers her in, beaming fakely as he shoves aside a few cat-clogged sweaters and obsolete textbooks.

"I've been wondering when we'd talk. Everybody's been very …"

"I imagine it's a topic that's brought much activity to the table. Especially of late."

"Uh …"

"I know your movement is at a standstill. My aim is to correct this problem. The Children should be allowed to continue their work interrupted—they're pure, unlike us. They shouldn't have to pay for our indiscretions."

He can hear the capital “C” in Children, and perks up. "Yeah?"

They sit, and Truman produces a bottled water without being asked. His coffee table seems to be an unfinished door, set upon concrete blocks. Much like the rest of what Mr. Miranda would call his furniture. She clears away a sketchpad and the detritus of an evening spent with beer and television. Emma pointedly ignores the large glass ashtray filled with half-smoked joints; he obligingly clears them from view. So tiresome, the games of youth.

"I … things have been moving slowly, yes. I assumed everybody was busy…"

"Now is not the time for distraction, Mr. Miranda. Now is the time for action."

"I don't really feel that it's my place to bug Ashley about…"

"We cannot sacrifice ourselves to the fantasy of 'place,' Mr. Miranda. There are times—regrettable, but true—it becomes necessary to sacrifice our feelings, our sense of propriety, for the greater good. Now, of all times, when the line of propriety has been crossed, their very ability to understand. You Young Adults have been very naughty, and it is the Children that pay the price for your mistakes."

"With all due respect, Miss Brodie, I don't see how."

"Are you then above high school, Mr. Miranda? I was given to understand…"

"Miss Brodie, I haven't been in high school ever. I'm not obligated by my age to be a part of any kind of shitty scenario that you seem to think …"

"Calm yourself, and do call me Emma. Don't you think I know your situation? Don't you think I know the tenuous ways in which you make your living?"

"The fuck?" She can tell by the sudden crack in his voice: She’s correct. The poor boy.

"Grants from the government? University art degrees bestowed without a high school diploma? I know how you must make your living. I imagine it's difficult at best, and I wish to make it known that I am in complete …"

"Okay, nobody knows what I …"

"Aren't we all whores, Mr. Miranda? Artists, wives, good Christian homemakers? Don't we all give up a piece of …"

"You've really got the wrong …"

"I'm sure I don't. I am very thorough, Mr. Miranda. And I think you'd be foolish to imagine that your fellows don't avoid the subject purely out of respect for you, and the life you've managed to …"

"You know what? I've never said this before, but I'm saying it now: I think it would be better if you left right now. This isn't how we become friends. This isn't how you get me."

"Get you?"

"Isn't that what you're doing? We aren't going to be buddies, or friends, or partners, or anything else you've got going, just because you know what I …"

"Mr. Miranda. If you think I've come here in anything but the most steadfast of …"

"I think you've come here because you're fucking creepy, and the last thing I do is to tell Ashley exactly what a fucking…"

"That's more than enough, Mr. Miranda. I'll speak now. For one thing, you protest too much. You sound like Brian Anderson, with your 'This isn't how it happens' and your 'this isn’t how you get me.' I'm not here to 'get' you, that's petulant adolescent paranoia speaking. I'm after bigger fish, and you and I share a certain…"

"You think there's some kind of brotherhood or sisterhood or some bullshit? With your whole 'aren't we all whores' bullshit you've got cooking? That's stupid. You're stupid, Emma. I want the kids to succeed as much as anyone …"

"Ah, there it is. 'The Kids.' You don't even believe in the movement, do you? You want them to take the risks so that you can reap the glory. You want to step out of the shadows at the last second and look like some kind of second-rate Andy Warhol, with your art and your …"

"I'm sorry, didn't you come here asking for my help?"

"I came here asking for a soldier, and all I have found is a little boy too ashamed to admit what he is."

"Which is what?"

"A schoolboy whore. Too afraid to admit what he is, too scared to be half the man that …"

"Who? Who the fuck can you compare me to?"

"To whom can I not compare you? Shall I compare you to a Jeremy Tyson, on his way to MIT fully paid? Or shall I compare you to Brian Anderson, who's displayed adaptability to the degree that even losing a full collegiate sports ride has barely fazed him? Or Alexis? Even with a retarded father and a nuthatch mother she's still managed to outpace every single …"

"I am an artist! How dare you define me by some …"

"Arbitrary measure of success? I'm afraid none of your compatriots has shown quite the aptitude for uselessness or prostitution that you have. It's really quite impressive, in one of your age, that you should so easily give away …"

"Bitch, I could sell drugs for all you know."

"Truman, you and I both know that isn't the case. Don’t get silly."

"That never touches them. Not Jeremy, not Alexis, not Jennifer. I'm smarter than that. I do what I have to … you couldn't possibly know…"

He doesn’t mention Corey Martin. That intrigues.

"Firstly, I didn't deduce it entirely by myself. One doesn't jump to these assumptions in a vacuum. Don't underestimate your compatriots that way. And secondly, I don't want you to be ashamed. Your shame means nothing to me. I need you to understand, above all…"

"…That we're both whores? You've mentioned that. The difference is that you're talking about something I do, but being a whore is what you are."

"I'm sure I don't understand the distinction, nor the reference."

"You go on and on about how me and the other Young Adults are ruining everything with sex, right? That's your big thing. But if you think we can't see what you're up to…"

"It would be dangerous for you to consider this line of inquiry further."

"Oh, come on, Emma. We're both whores, right? We're equals? We're just trying to help? So surely it shouldn't fuck anything up if I were to tell people, for example, that you and Brian Anderson…"

"Again. I implore you to stay out of things you don't understand, and concentrate on those you do: your skills, your artistic genius, the fire in your belly that forces you to consider that which is most precious, that which is most …"

"Spare me. I may be a whore, but I'm not a slut. Couldn’t you have picked someone who was less…"

"Again, I beg you to leave things alone that do not concern you. I've warned you now twice, Mr. Miranda. Don't present yourself as a threat to …"

"To what? To the movement? You're the personification of the worst perversion of the movement imaginable. You're what's gone wrong, not Jennifer and Eddie. If it weren't for you, Brian and Jeremy would have …"

"Thank you for the water, Truman. I appreciate your having received me."

"Go suck a dick, Miss Brodie."

"I'd advise you of the same, if you wish to keep this lovely apartment."

"Yeah, I'll take care of it. Just stay the fuck out of Ashley's way, and everybody. You're no help to her. Not to any of us. You're just a sad old woman with a sad old agenda, clinging to us like a sick fucking…"

"That kind of language is uncalled for, considering the obvious lack of respect you hold for the Maguires and all that they …"

"You are what the Maguires stand against, lady. You are what's wrong. You are the heart of what's wrong, and you are what we will destroy. Without your help. Without your meddling, without your molestation bullshit. Without any of it, we will take you down, and everyone like you. The Maguires do not exist for you to co-opt us. We exist to make you useless."

"That's the most insightful thing you've said yet, Mr. Miranda."

"Likewise. And it's Tristan Tzara Maguire, bitch."

"Call me Emma. And say hello to your parents, Tristan."

She lets herself out then, slipping into the luxurious leather embrace of her automobile, and picks up her phone. At least he’ll feel he’s gone down fighting for the cause. 

A gift, really.

***

The second thing Alexis does in her car that is surprising is: Burst into singing along with the song that’s playing on the speakers. Her voice is a little nervous at first and she won’t look Ashley in the eye, but Ashley can tell she has real talent. As she settles into her song and really starts belting, Ashley realizes they’ve turned onto the road that leads to the Schoolhouse, which is equal parts exciting and worrisome to think about. But for now she can just listen to Alexis sing her heart out.

When they round the corner Alexis is busting into some runs and Ashley is realizing that this is not just a fun thing for Alexis, not just a hobby, but her big secret: Alexis is, first and foremost, a singer. And nobody knows this, possibly, except for Ashley. But then Alexis stops singing and does the third thing today, which is a maneuver that Ashley and Alexis have only seen in television shows about cops: She pulls up on the parking brake and turns the wheel hard to the left, screeching in a circle until they are pointed back the way they just came, and then flooring it.

Why did she do this? Because there are bad kids at the Schoolhouse and they are setting things on fire, and Eddie van Tenk is there, and Tasha. And the bad kids are very efficiently ruining everything that Truman and the Maguires have built, scribbling over it like a mistake in art class, like it never happened. And Ashley starts to feel like kind of it didn’t. Not really.

When Alexis gets Ashley back to her house and Ashley asks her to come in, Alexis is still shaking. Ashley thinks she’s too freaked out to come inside, but Ashley is too freaked out to go inside by herself or be by herself, so Alexis eventually parks the car at a little bit of a crazy angle to the sidewalk and they get out and gingerly, silently make their way up the drive. Like if they talk it will break a spell, or somehow the bad kids will hear them even from that far away.

Ashley has felt for a long time kind of like the Maguires weren’t really hers anymore and it made her feel numb but now she feels cold all over. The way they were just trashing it and feeling so good about themselves. She feels a little bit like Miss Brodie, like she wants to devastate them. 

Instead she calls Heath and tells him the Maguires are over, that bad kids have taken over and she wants to start a new group. The Easter Rebellion. And nobody will know about it except them, to start with.

***

It makes for quite a picture, at the least. Sometimes that is all one has. And the picture is this: A woman in her late twenties, wearing a waifish white sheath dress and Roberto Cavalli jacket that would not have looked out of place in the highest echelons of European society, with a black fur wrap and small black clutch on a gold chain under one arm, lit by blue and red neon light, her car beeping its security at her across an unpaved parking lot, the sun just barely down, the last of the spring light trapped by the low clouds illuminating everything like a dream, a flock of crows flying across the frame from right to left, no sound but the muffled jukebox classic rock echoing from inside the filthy dive bar, and three-inch strappy heels, stabbing into the rocks and sand with a soft crunch-crunch, like walking in dry snow, with the blacked-out windows of the place—"Sweeney's"—growing ever closer, the boy's white-trash fixup even further out into the grassy field than she herself parked.

The sound of billiards, laughter, drunkenness, cliché, her eyes blackened almost all the way around, a night look, dramatic, otherworldly, fashionable, exotic, unreachable. Her hair barely moving, a curl down one cheek like Marilyn Monroe. A tiny dot drawn in. Sometimes you have to be the archetype for people to take you seriously; by being a movie star, she is less likely to be attacked, or sold into slavery, or drugged and made to perform before a camera, or whatever urban legend horror fantasy one is meant to have bubbling up inside, making this approach.

She’ll give the boy one chance. There is no hazard pay, given that this is charity. She won’t head into this den of the economically depressed twice. When she is commander in chief of her own personal army, she'll raze these places down, whip the men with scorpions. "On the edge of town" is not the same as "nonexistent," however, is it? These hypocrisies are, after all, the very sort of thing the Children hate most. Pretending places like this do not exist, and in so doing giving them such power that they can hypnotize, take a boy like this Eddie Van Tenk and turn him into a slavering idiot.

As though stripping is anything special. As though it is something to hate, as though it isn’t a show for the men to do, as much as the women. As though it means anything at all. Theoretically, there is no issue she can discern with sex work qua the work—she had, of course, given it much thought, once, in another life—but to make of oneself a pack mule for these desires… It would be different if the men actually wanted them, were to actually desire these objects of their performance for each other. But they don’t. A woman on the runway, on the pole, is beautiful only so long as she stays up there. Beautiful and safe. It’s a pedestal, the same exact thing as dressing like Marilyn Monroe and swaying into a strip club: It provides the fourth wall necessary for these men to perform their sexuality, their very gender, for each other. And the women, of course, bearing the brunt. Being a stripper, save the inordinate and impressive revenue it provides, is no different from being the victim of gay bashing, she thinks. Either way, one provides a chance for the men to perform masculinity, rightness, their sexuality for each other. These men. These hideous, sweating men, with no idea who they are. 

If you don’t even know what you want, how can you begin to know who you are?

Inside, it is much better. Inside, she is nothing, a doll, a creature, another thing to spend money on and wiggle eyebrows at while one nudges one's compatriots lasciviously. This would be… Exhilarating. One so rarely gets to really make an impression.

She strides across the bar, before the stage, before the pole, before the young lady—her eyes confused, her teeth less than they should be, mind blank, tits enormous—and does not once stop or look away, her gaze pulling the girl inexorably and without effort toward her quarry, toward the boy in the corner, the boy whose only failure is that he hasn’t been pretending to be a man quite as long as these others. A song by Nirvana, the most fitting of all, begins as she makes her way across the room: "I'm not the only one/Appreciate your concern…" 

Emma’s life is the movie; they are living in it.

One silly balding fellow in a motorcycle jacket, with what looked like a misshapen eagle tattooed down one side of his neck, sticks out his tongue lasciviously. He turns to the boy Eddie, with whom he is playing billiards, and says something vile. Eddie doesn’t reply, in fact ignores the eagle-tattooed man altogether, and simply smiles at her. He is beautiful, isn't he?

Emma makes a sudden, sharp movement with her head toward the door, toward the fading light, after he's gotten his fill of looking, and his eyes grow wide. She watches him look around, watches him realize everyone is watching, watches the fake swagger and the winks he tosses about, hears him say—just a bit too loud, just a bit too forcefully—"Later, fags," before he crosses the bar and joins her.

For this? For this, Jennifer ruined the world? Silly girl. His hair is greasy, lank, his eyebrows too heavy, his brightly blue eyes too at odds with the angry set of his mouth. This Eddie Van Tenk is nothing but a boy, of course, with nothing like the maturity of Brian, or even Jeremy Tyson. He is just angry, and smart, his leather jacket pose set aside in the company of his brethren in poverty, the agent provocateur stance cast aside as easily as his literacy. He is class warfare in the form of a man, education sparring with dull-minded idiocy; he is the worst kind of socialist: The kind that feels he's owed something.

For this, and not for Brian. Not for Jennifer, or Jeremy, or the Maguires, or Ashley. For the fact that he gives a bad name to revolution. For the fact that he is willfully ignorant, that he plays the "bad boy" without the knowledge to back it up. Not in coldness but born of necessity, he will be destroyed. And it will begin now. 

A broken heart will make him more useful than a thousand silly coffee-shop Marx readings. And smarter than a million teenage rebels just like him.

***

Tasha and her new friends buy paint, and steal a big easel and white butcher paper from Art, and call the teenagers, and head on over to the schoolhouse that evening. Everything goes really efficiently, even without Eddie there, and by the end of the night the walls are white and there’as a lock on the door, and all the windows, boarded over, have been reinforced. 

Tasha is the last to leave—Gary Turnblat, one of the teenagers at her new school, stayed behind to drive—and the last thing she does before locking up is put ten sheets of butcher paper, covering the walls facing the door, and this is what the first one said:



REGULATORS? 
DESTRUCTORS? 
KING MOB? 
BAADER-MEINHOF GRUPPE? 
THE HOFFMANS?
DISTORTION LENS?
FACTOR 16?


The second one said this:



SCHOOL
EMANCIPATION
RELIGION
DRUGS
THE POLICE
BABYSITTERS
GAME/MOVIE RATINGS
MARRIAGE
COMMERCIALS/ADS
CREDIT & DEBT
CENSORSHIP
FILE SHARING
RIAA
MPAA
CAPITALISM
THE SUPREME COURT
POVERTY
THE WORLD BANK 
& TRADE ORGANIZATION
THE UNITED NATIONS


The third one looked like this:

PROPAGANDA
COOKBOOK
FEAR
VIOLENCE

The rest of them said this, in Tasha's tiny, perfect handwriting:

A fear is haunting our country—the fear of age equality. All the powers of the America have entered into an alliance to expunge this fear: President and preacher, Scalia and Valenti, Homeland Security and the Secret Service. 

Where is the party in opposition that has not been derided and obliterated by its opponents in power? Where is the opposition that has not hurled back the reproach of youth, against the older and more entrenched power structure, as well as against its reactionary adversaries?

Two things result from this fact:

The power of children, economically and violently, is already acknowledged by all Adultist powers to be itself a power.

It is high time that Children should openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the spectre of communism with a manifesto of the party itself.

To this end, Children of various backgrounds have assembled here and sketched the following manifesto, to be published far and wide, globally, on the internet and in paper form, as a call to action:

The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones. The most basic of these is the institutionalized abuse and oppression of Children.

In the time of this writing, the culture possesses this distinctive feature: a simplification of class antagonisms, using language and crude methods of control to split the country into two great hostile camps, two great classes facing each other. These are Adultists and Children.

The Adult class, historically, has played a most revolutionary part—the Baby Boomers changed the world with their strength and belief. This belief has calcified into self-righteousness and fear. This strength has bent itself to control that which it once sought to liberate.

The Adult class, having now the upper hand, has put an end to all spirit of questioning, all progress, all belief in the future. The Adult class has pitilessly torn asunder the open context of communication which was the highlight of the 1960's, and has now become self-obsessed, consumption-obsessed money laundering. The Adult class has become obsolete, and knowing this fact, has ruined the world its Children will inherit. It has drowned in ecstasies of religious lip service, of chivalrous sexism, of philistine sentimentalism, and the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, guarding it viciously, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms has set up that single, unconscionable freedom—Free Trade on the backs of Children the world over.

The Adult class cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. These responsibilities devolve to Children, as the arbiters of culture and the vehicles of production, who carry the burden of consumption.

In one word, the relationship of Adult to Child has become no longer compatible with the already developed productive forces; becoming, instead, fetters of guilt and projected shame. Modern society, with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange always narrowing itself to fewer and fewer markets, plays out the accumulation of wealth in terms of the manipulation and brainwashing of Children. For several decades past, the history of industry and commerce, of family and tradition, is but the history of revolt of the Adults against the necessity of Children, the resentment and cutting of corners that results from the burden of misunderstood responsibility—but it is the Children who pay the price.

Here and there Children are victorious, but only for a time. The real fruit of their battles lies both in the immediate result and in the ever-expanding union of Children, united by technology and fellow feeling. In times when this class struggle nears the decisive hour, the progress of dissolution going on within the ruling class, in fact within the whole range of old society, assumes such a violent, glaring character, that a small section of the oppressed people must do more than merely agree that things must change, and take an active, even violent stand. Of all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today, Children alone represent a genuinely revolutionary class.

The other classes—minority, feminist, anarchist, artist—decay and finally disappear in the face of the modern lobbyist environment. All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interest of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense and future majority, in the interest of the immense and future majority. Children, the lowest stratum of our present society, cannot stir, cannot raise itself up, without the whole superincumbent strata of official society being sprung into the air.

Though not in substance, yet in form, the struggle of Children with the bourgeoisie is at first a national struggle. The Children of each country must, of course, first of all settle matters with its own Adults, by any means necessary.

The essential conditions for the existence and for the sway of the bourgeois class is the formation and augmentation of traditional means of control and punishment. The condition for this control and discipline is fear. Fear rests exclusively on the a priori idea that Adults are correct in their assumptions, and on fear of physical reprisal. The advance of modern industry, in whose continuing interest and slavish devotion Adults must control each other and their own Children, rests on violence and the promise of violence, and on the assumption that there will be no reprisal in kind. The aim of the revolution is to bring about equality for all humankind, and does not neglect the abuse and control of its abusers and controllers in this aim.

The revolution is distinguished from the Adultist bourgeoisie by these only:

In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality or age.

In the various stages of development which the struggle of Children against the ruling class has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole.

Children, therefore, are on the one hand practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others and will one day subsume it more inexorably than any other oppressed class; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the oppressed class the advantage of clearly understanding the lines of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement.

The immediate aim of the Children is the same as that of all other proletarian parties: Formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat.

The theory of the Children may be summed up in the single sentence: 

Abolition of Children as private property.

We Children have been reproached daily with the desire of abolishing personal rights of expression and choice as the fruit of a human's precious natural rights, which rights are the groundwork of all personal freedom, activity and independence.

Hard-won, self-acquired, self-earned rights! Do you mean the rights of petty attack and of the small-minded bigot, a form of rights that preceded the new Adult bourgeois? The Children will use political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital and devices of control from the Adultist bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of abuse and control in the hands of their oppressors, and so to increase total productive and vital forces as rapidly as possible.

Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of Adults, and on the conditions of Adult progress; by means of measures, therefore, which appear unmutual and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionizing the mode of production. These measures will, of course, be different in different countries. Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be generally applicable.

Abolition of Adult control in the household, and all financial restraints used to control Children and dissuade them from chosen courses of action.
Abolition of all filial ties.
Confiscation of any property deemed necessary in order to accomplish the aims of the revolution.
Centralization of all durable and theoretical capital for the good of the revolution.
Equal obligation of all Children to work, both in order to create usable capital, and in service to the revolution—to include the establishment of a well-armed militia in order to decentralize the threat of violence.
Education for all Children in self-defense, use of weapons, and common strategies for acquiring capital and self-sufficiency, including but not limited to: deterrent acts, conventional and creative acts of terrorism, ideological and polemic agitation, and counterprogramming.


In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all, without regard to age or class.

In short, Children everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things.

In all these movements, they bring to the front, as the leading question in each, the question of rights and free choice, no matter what its degree of development at the time.

Finally, they labor everywhere for the union and agreement of the people and government of all countries.

Children must disdain to conceal their views and aims, openly declaring that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at the Children's Revolution. Children and Adults alike have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.

CHILDREN OF ALL CITIES, STATES AND COUNTRIES: UNITE.

***


Corey’s relationship with his Dad falls apart and becomes untenable while he’s on the phone with Jennifer, who has the house to herself — her parents are out, probably celebrating the new baby in some way or buying it expensive gifts or getting somehow even more pregnant — when Dean Martin finds condoms in Corey’s room and his hypothetical gayness becomes real-life gayness.

This is something that has always struck Jennifer as strange — if you think about it for even one second, you realize that what we are talking about most of the time is sex. When a Dad jokes about polishing his gun before his daughter’s first date: We’re talking about sex. When people get married or go on their honeymoon or have an affair or are dating: We’re talking about sex. But when it’s straight people we have a hundred million ways of talking around it — so many that we don’t think twice about people’s wedding night in front of kids, even though that is about sex.

And after millennia of developing these ways to buffer and make it safe, she figures, that just makes it worse when somebody is gay, because instead of all that safe filler talk and silly jokes it’s just: Sex. That’s all grownups can think about when it’s gay people, because we’re still just at the beginning of thinking about gay people as normal people — not just straight people who do this one thing sometimes.

If you tell a little kid that some princes are looking for a princess and others are looking for a prince, they don’t ask further questions. They get it. Adults have a harder time because they are not always one hundred percent sure about their own stuff (the older you get the more Stuff you have, which is another reason the Maguires should reign supreme), which is to say non-queer Adults are not one hundred percent able to think about gayness without their brains getting at least a little bit fuzzy.

Corey does not make it easy because Corey talks about sex all the time anyway, but she knows that’s just because he is insecure and terrified about it and it’s still very hypothetical for him, himself. But not for his Dad, not anymore, because now Corey has gone from Child to Young Adult or possibly even Adult, just for having condoms. A thing that is ridiculous for Corey to have, not scary for him to have.

Anyway Dean Martin has gone from being very tolerant of his son whatever happens or whoever he turns out to be. Which is a lot different from being tolerant of the whatever happens happening in his house. The latter he has some issues with, which have caused him to overreact in a manner that Corey categorizes as “a little scary” and which, considering everybody already thinks Dean Martin hits Corey, does not do much to calm Jennifer’s nerves. 

She thinks about going over there just to be a witness to whatever is happening between Corey and his father, because she knows he would do that for her if her parents ever got scary. (They don’t really ever get scary, because they are too busy being selfish.) But then she stops thinking about Corey and apologizes and hangs up the phone at a very bad time in Corey’s night because she hears something.

Jennifer Standish wants to be a Vampire Slayer when she grows up. She will say that to you with a straight face at Young Adult age of seventeen, that’s how serious she takes it. So on the one hand there’s her excitement that she might actually be about to have her mettle tested, and on the other there is the fear that whatever is about to happen is going to prove harder than she can deal with. Or it’s nothing, and she’s just a silly teenage girl — the one thing she tries under no circumstances to ever be.

She thinks about calling Alexis Butts, simply because Alexis would talk to an intruder like one Adult to another, and freak him out. But she doesn’t want to put Alexis Butts in danger. She hopes that her parents are on their way home and is freaked out enough that she kind of can’t remember where they went or what time they’ll be back or what time it even is. The armoire in the living room looks suddenly shadowy and inhabited.

Jennifer turns on every light in the entire house, which is a lot of lights because it’s a lot of house, and thinks about where she can hide if she needs to hide. The Standish house, which her biological father would have hated a whole lot, is mostly glass and steel, and she realizes that the way windows work, she’s blinding herself to what’s outside. But the alternative — sitting in the dark while slightly less-dark shapes menace her and waiting to die — isn’t great either.

She kind of always thought she’d be the brave Final Girl in the movie, if things ever got movie-level bad. She’d be the one who walks out onto the porch with her finger up her nose, daring the monster to come and get her. But it turns out she is not exactly that girl, tonight. Later she will be exactly that girl, when things get bad, but for now she is content to sit in the middle of the living room in utter pin-drop silence with the lights up bright. 

Which she realizes is kind of a dare to the whoever keeps bumping and thumping around out there, but also seems like the best option. Especially if she is just freaking herself out, which is probably what’s happening.

***

Ashley is finally getting to work on her novel again, after what seems like years. The little girl has come back to her stronghold without the old man—that was just too messy. She's left him in the woods with some food, and he seems happy about it so she doesn’t feel too bad about it. It’s too weird to think about bringing him back—his brain is just too different and she knew he'd get weird and controlling. His age makes him special, and the fact that he’s the only one left makes him crazy, and those two things will not mix well, when all the girl wants to do is keep everybody together.

You have to be nice to your characters, or else it’s the same thing as being mean to your kids. You can’t just go pretending they’re only a part of you, and no better, because their existence depends on pretending that isn’t true, no matter what.

The thing is that, with Nina and everything, she feels like a stepdaughter. Like somehow she was taking away from Mrs. Oliver — from Heath's quiet, gardening Mom — just by like existing, being Nina's daughter, she is somehow responsible for hurting Mrs. Oliver. And she loves Heath too much for that, but there is nothing she can do, can barely put the feeling into words except that it’s gross. 

But it’s like Emma says, you never acknowledge an enemy, or a problem, because it grants them the privilege of existence. Just keep driving. Alexis said almost the same thing once, but nicer and more confusing, about how if you let yourself fight, or get into a fight, you were letting somebody else define who you were, or something. Some kind of Truman thing she only half understood. And she can’t ask Alexis to re-explain it to her, because Alexis only gets like that sometimes.

Her Mom brings up a letter and she almost throws it away without looking at it, but it’s from Truman Miranda, at the hospital where Alexis’s Mom lives. She shivers and gets scared because of all the horrible things she's imagined since he turned up missing.

Dear Ashley,

They found me, kid. I have to say, they're helping me a lot. I was on a real disaster train: drugs, violence, fighting against like most stuff I was afraid of failing at. Because of the selfdestructive stuff all the time. But I'm learning better, so hopefully we'll see when I'm good enough to return. Writing you makes me happy, as you're a good kid. Fast as you can, name as many capitals as possible! I am just kidding. You can name more than me before the buzzer even buzzes.

They said you guys can come visit before I come back, so—I hope that that's true. I think it's why I went so nuts. I'm just a lonely person. Not like you. They're always saying that I couldn't do anything really well or really important, as long as I just stayed by myself and read depressing books or whatever. Between you and me, that's the reason I drew those lines around myself because I don't find it easy to trust anybody, my friends or any other person. Not myself.

Of everybody we know, I'm the sorriest for getting the boys involved in stuff that's not cool. I'm sorry to Brian, and to you, Heath and the other kids. I'm not healthy and I turned Jeremy and the other teens and you kids into freaks. Stay clean! And don't stray away from what's right or from what you know. 

Miss Brodie is a good teacher. She helped me, she really did. And I'm grateful for this, and for getting back to what's really important to me. I'm taking classes, and called some colleges yesterday with my peer group. Now my parents are proud, but I'm on my way to showing purpose and determination so they'll just trust me again. 

That trust keeps you strong. Ask Alexis, she taught me that. She'll always be there to help you figure out stuff. The biggest part is that most kids don't have what we do: Friends. And parents. Love: that's the only thing you can count on.

Love,
Truman 

1-2-3-4-FIVE. GO! (Private joke)

So apparently his parents are dosing him with massive drugs, because the letter makes no sense at all—and that "private joke" nonsense. Well, maybe it’s best that he’s somewhere safe. Miss Brodie said the kid was dangerous, didn't she? Maybe they really are helping him. Ashley hopes so.

***

The reason Eddie van Tenk is hanging around outside Jennifer Standish’s house being a creep is threefold. First of all, he wants to brag to her about Miss Emma Brodie, whom he has totally fingered. 

Second he wants to scare the shit out of her for ghosting him, because she knows exactly why she did it — she thinks she can do better with Brian Anderson in the long run, back in their lame Maguires, and because Brian is a jock and rich, and this is simply what girls are like. 

Eddie kind of felt out of his depth the whole time he was hooking up with Jennifer because she was so hot and popular, but looking back it makes sense that she wouldn’t ever have dated him for real. Just met him in the woods like a dirty secret. She was smart enough to keep Brian in play until she was done cheating on him, which is also how girls are.

But that’s the ironic thing because the third reason is something he saw at the redecorated Schoolhouse tonight, which is now being called the Bunker for reasons Eddie’s not hugely clear on.

The Young Adults joining the movement now under Tasha are less Young and more Adults than they were before, and they seem to talk about guns a lot more than even Jeremy Tyson, who is laser focused on guns these days. 

So these men who have come from in some cases multiple states away have set up a sort of campground around the Bunker, with all their tactical gear and whisper-light mesh tents and canvas rucksacks, and mostly the Children are terrified of them, which is fine because they belong specifically in the Bunker, the Schoolhouse proper — they shouldn’t be out in the woods just in general.

And tonight Eddie was picking his way between the tents to get to the Schoolhouse when he heard voices that he recognized, and it was Brian Anderson and Jeremy Tyson and they were jerking off together. Not kissing but not facing away from each other either, and quite possibly touching each other as part of it. And Eddie stood there and watched this happen, and then hated himself for that too. For seeing it at all, and for being stuck to the spot by it.

And then what happened is Eddie picked his way back to his car through the tents of muttering, snoring men in the dark and went straight to Jennifer Standish’s house to freak her out or maybe kill her, he’s not sure. But Eddie is not the kind of person who would think about the connections between all these things (the ghosting, Emma Brodie, the scary stinking men and now the jerking off) and how they drove him directly to attack this one person who has generally treated him pretty well. 

Who, in fact, the last time she saw him really seemed to see him, and hear him, and respect his opinions. That doesn’t matter. Because what happens more than that is the circling thoughts about women and how women are, which is by nature something called hypergamous, which means looking for multiple partners. Because their genetic code is there telling them to breed, breed, breed and only with the best men — the strongest jaws, the most money, the broadest shoulders. The most Brian ones.

Which is the part that really kills him, and makes him so angry he could kill someone smaller or weaker than himself, which is: Not only has Brian Anderson been cuckolded by Eddie — and possibly more than once if you believe the rumors about Brian and Miss Brodie — but now he is additionally jacking off with his best friend, which is about as far as you can get from being the ideal mate for a woman.

There’s a lot Eddie doesn’t understand but he’s been on the internet his entire life and now he is surrounded by men with lots of bones to pick. Some of them specialize in women and understanding women and why they are the way they are. Some of them are more interested in looking handsome, or how being strong will make you respected even if you are a Lone Wolf in society. It just depends on your mindset.

Some of them, all they care about is guns: Making sure you have enough, making sure they work right. Stuff like that.

***

Jennifer has graduated from bright lights to big sounds, dancing to the living room speakers with a vengeance. Perhaps this is a weird response to her impending murder but it’s calming her down and that’s all you can really ask for. The bumps continue, on all sides of the house, but so far she has yet to catch the perp. Vampire Slayers don’t dance, she thinks, but that’s not exactly true either. To catch the murderer she’ll need to turn off all the lights, and that’s not something she’s prepared to do.

She figures it’s Eddie of course. The rational part of her mind knows the likely culprit is probably the psychopath she recently and unceremoniously dumped. But underneath that is the fear that it’s not Eddie. And underneath that is the fear that it is Eddie, but that he is actually here to kill her. She thinks of a thousand horror movies in which it would be Brian, or Brian and Jeremy acting in concert — more likely than she would have thought possible a year ago — but of course it’s Eddie. It has to be.

That’s when Jennifer hears a door slam, upstairs, and realizes that either way the climax of the movie is coming so she better be prepared. She wishes she hadn’t talked herself out of calling Alexis a half hour ago when she knew it was the right idea. She wishes she knew where Dad keeps his gun or guns. She wishes she were the kind of person who could go to the kitchen and pull a knife out of the knife block and go wave it in this person’s face, but as it turns out she is not that kind of person. She is the kind of person who is so frozen she can’t even dance, and the music is too loud and the lights are too bright and if she turns down the music she’ll hear his footsteps and then she’ll die of fear. So she’s stuck.

***

When the boy finally breaks a window and makes his way into the house’s upper level, Emma decides that’s quite enough. 

It’s been diverting watching the girl slowly lose her cool, and certainly restorative given the girl’s lack of interest in Emma’s charms — and she certainly doesn’t think Eddie will really do anything to hurt Jennifer. He probably thinks he will, they probably both do, but Eddie’s too much of a sleazy little coward for that. She knows that now.

Emma wonders what Jennifer did to set him off — even if it was nothing, and most likely it was nothing — and how consequential it must have seemed to her when she did it. 

Cut him off, she’d bet on it. Nothing drives a young white man to madness faster than not getting the last word. Good for her.

Emma unfurls herself like an umbrella, up to her towering 5’6”, and softly shuts the car door behind her. She thinks about leaving the engine running. But honestly, her chances of getting this situation concluded and being unseen are pretty low — she can pretend she’s here to plead her case, not that Jennifer really would be interested. And not that there’s anything to ask for, now that Eddie and that beastly little Tasha Carroll have turned the Maguires into just another white supremacy honeytrap.

But when Ashley Anderson and the other Children rise from the ashes they’ll need allies. And this time, clearly, the Young Adults will not be taking the lead. This means approaching them in earnest, on their own terms, and if that means rescuing Jennifer Standish from her ex-fling — and Emma’s — then so be it. She’s seen and done much, much worse.

She rings the doorbell respectfully enough, concealing her little gun in her coat just in case things are more thrilling than expected, and is greeted at the door by a wide-eyed, grateful Jennifer whom she sees only barely restrain herself from going in for a hug. She cannot imagine a hug from Jennifer Standish, and frankly would be surprised if Jennifer could handle the idea either.

“You seem to be in something of a situation, dear.”

Jennifer nods, eyes darting to the staircase behind her, up into the loft space where Eddie is now lurking.

“Miss Brodie, I don’t know what you’re doing here and I am bothered by it, but listen — we have to get out of here. There’s somebody upstairs.”

Emma flashes her gun at Jennifer, quietly, and the girl goes even more high-strung. She places a lightly restraining hand on Jennifer’s wrist.

“Darling. There are several ways this falls out. Now, you and I both know who is upstairs, do we not? We have deduced the identity of your burglar?”

Jennifer nods, swallowing bile. Admitting it.

“And do you really think he’s going to do anything?”

Jennifer shakes her head, annoyed.

“Now. I can proceed into the house and remove Eddie from the equation — this is a stand-your-ground state. And you will never need worry about him bothering you again. Or, I can head upstairs and scare the piss out of the little monster, which means revealing my face and emasculating him, which will probably double the effect of whatever’s sent him round the bend.”

Jennifer considers. “What’s the third option, Emma? Assuming you don’t want to kill or radicalize him. I still think we should just leave.”

Emma laughs. That’s not an option, for a few reasons Jennifer doesn’t need to know. “The third option is that we investigate him together, act afraid, and let him think he’s won against us both.”

Jennifer scowls a little bit, but can’t help thinking about this one.

“Honestly, this is preferable to me on many levels. As much as it galls me to give in to a bully, I fear the trajectory of Eddie van Tenk leads into some very sticky places. Would you believe I hold black belts in several martial arts?”

Jennifer thinks about this, and realizes that it doesn’t matter. Nothing Emma says really matters, because whether or not she’s lying or telling the truth, you’re never really going to know for sure.

“I can easily believe that, Emma.”

“I’m a petite woman. Pound for pound, I could not face off against Mr. van Tenk. But it’s not about strength, Miss Standish. It’s about leverage. And letting him have his victory tonight means leverage. It means he must find something else to do with his rage, it means putting us both in his rearview mirror, and it means finding out what he’s truly capable of. And if he turns out to be more ferocious than I believe him to be, I can take care of that, too. He won’t hurt either of us, Miss Standish, and I know you believe me when I say so.”

And she does. She’s loathe to take the idea of killing Eddie completely off the table, of course, but she knows that’s all it will take.

“You’re saying to get the power we have to make him feel like he has the power. Even if it feels gross.”

“If I teach you nothing else, Miss Standish, I dearly hope you’ll remember this.”


***

Mrs. Butts is about twenty times happier to see Corey than either of the girls, maybe because he’s getting pretty sexy in spite of his prissiness, or maybe just because he and Alexis look a little alike, but she just can’t get enough of him. Just keeps touching his face, and he just smiles back and looks just about ready to climb into her arms. Ashley wonders if she likes him so much because he is so spazzy and physical like her, like they just automatically touch each other, like little kids—maybe he’s more attractive than Ashley or Alexis because they are more aloof, and she’s scared.

They have a long, nice conversation, about what she's been up to all week, and stuff they've done, and how she remembers Ashley and everything. The way that Alexis acted, she wasn’t sure, but Mrs. Butts is mostly entirely normal, and super nice. Very smart, and quick and clever, and a couple of times she says things and they sit there for a second and then start laughing because she’s so far ahead of them. Ashley can tell Alexis’s Mom is making an effort to hold it together, and that’s kind of sad, because from Ashley's direction this is the easiest thing in the world: Having a harmless chat with three kids who intensely wanted you to be happy. She could see that being kind of stressful, though, too.

Once it’s just too much, and Mrs. Butts is having a really tough time, apologizing for saying stuff that isn’t even weird, or making offended faces she doesn’t really feel, or just seeming pissed and then trying to be happy, resulting in a freaky amount of happiness, Ashley and Alexis look over at each other and then at Corey and Mrs. Butts. She can tell Mrs. Butts knows what they’ere thinking, and she’s relieved. She’s sad for them to go, and makes Corey promise to bring them both back soon, and they hug her, and Alexis is much happier, bouncier, than the last time they visited. It makes Ashley feel good.

Truman, not so much. He is drugged up to his eyeballs, and jumps up so fast when he sees her that the puzzle he’s working on clashes to the floor, and he gets really embarrassed. He doesn’t act crazy like somebody in a movie, just like somebody stoned. He kisses Alexis and Ashley on the cheek, and Corey right on the mouth, which makes him and Corey both laugh.

They chat for a while, not exactly with him but more like at him, and then he gets really intense and he’s like, "Did you get my letter? Did you understand my letter?"

Ashley smiles and swallows.

"Truman, I was happy to get the letter, but I don't think … I really hope that they're helping you here. Because you're great. But I don't know if I really understood it. In terms of the Maguires, I mean."

He starts waggling his fingers at her, like he’s counting.

"Truman get don't that because … No. I the think they're… Was letter I helping … Happy but really you but … To I hope here … Nothing. I thought you were the smart one. Fuck. One, two, three, four, FIVE. Go."

She just looks at Alexis, who shrugs and looks like she’s regretting whatever Adult magic she cast to get them in to see him in the first place.

"It's not a real story if the princess goes down with the castle. You can't tell the story if everybody thinks the princess is also the dragon. That's what's happening. Why didn't you read the letter, Ashley? Didn't you want to be a spy with me?"

He’s getting upset so they leave.

***

Brian and Jeremy haven’t been home for a couple of days but the Adults are so upset about Adult stuff they don’t really even notice that their beds go unslept-in. When Brian comes home finally he’s different. His eyes look different and even his smell is a little bit different.

At Josh’s house, he reports, it is the same: Jeremy is back and acting very strange. The assumption among the Children, the former Maguires, is that they’ve been spending time with Eddie van Tenk, but nobody really knows why they think that. Probably because they’re used to thinking about Schoolhouse all the time and now they have to think about it in a sad way, and Tasha and Eddie are involved in that sadness. Nobody in the Maguires knows it’s called the Bunker now.

***

On Monday night Eddie is attacked at the Schoolhouse by someone bearing a poorly drawn eagle tattoo on his hand, who calls him “faggot” as he’s punching him. The assembled men don’t do much but watch until it becomes clear that Eddie is close to death, and then they pull him off. They load Eddie into a pickup truck and leave him in the hospital driveway, and fade away into the night.

***

Josh and Maya get curious about the Schoolhouse and go creeping through the woods one afternoon, all by themselves. They’re not friends usually but in this case they’re the only ones who don’t feel afraid to go, because they could easily just say they’re trying to join Tasha’s group and the Young Adults would believe them. They are spies, double agents. They are unprepared for what they find.

A hundred yards away from the encampment, they watch grown men doing pushups and drinking beer and realize that the Maguires are over forever and that what Eddie and Tasha have done is monstrous. They don’t see Brian or Jeremy there because they are already back home. They don’t see Eddie because he is in the hospital, unconscious. And they don’t see Tasha because she is playing sick today, because without those three Young Adults it would just be her with the Adults, and not even Tasha has the confidence for that.

A perky throat clears itself behind them: It’s Emma Brodie, who seems to have spread a picnic out on her very quiet car’s hood: A basket, a satin throw, and two plates with teacups. She smiles at the Children but does not invite them to join her.

“Good afternoon, Children.”

Josh and Maya nod her way, still not sure what to think about Miss Brodie. Josh knows not to trust her because that’s what Jeremy said, and Maya has never liked her, but she’s certainly interesting.

“Good afternoon, Miss Brodie. Having some tea?”

Her musical laugh is just quiet enough it doesn’t reach the clearing where the men are going about their business.

“In a sense, Children. Would you like to watch? I’m about to do a magic trick. See those men down there? They’re up to some pretty bad things, and have worse things on their minds. I don’t like to see them here, in the forest. Do you? I wish they’d just go away.”

Emma pulls something like a glass bottle of water from her basket, and shakes a handkerchief from her left wrist cuff, wetting it with the bottle. Then she ties a knot in the wet handkerchief, pushing it deep inside the bottle’s neck. An ugly but good smell reaches the Children, like a gas station, and she very carefully washes her hands with another bottle of water before producing a large Zippo lighter — pristinely chrome, no design to deter from its curves and lines — and lighting the handkerchief with it.

It blooms like a flower.


PART FOUR: COVENTRY



Emma / Ashley in the belly of the whale
Emma rescues Necie
Emma / Jeremy	full Pepe
Emma / Jennifer full Buffy
Emma / Brian	full Bernie Bro
Emma / Eddie	full school shooter
Ashley takes Emma off the board
Ashley and Josh’s a last-ditch attempt at peace
Alexis call
Ashley — the night of
Brian and Jeremy the night of
Kids — what everybody is doing that AM
YA — what everybody is doing that AM
Emma and Truman reconnect / Ashley that morning


"Miss Taylor! How are we this afternoon?" 

She sounds weird. Trilby gets nervous immediately. "Miss Brodie?"

"No, silly! It's Tasha! I haven't seen you in a million years! How's it going?"

"Erm. …Fine, Tasha? And … you?"

"Couldn't be better. Listen, I was just talking to Ashley the other day, about you, and I thought I should call and check in."

"You were talking about me with Ashley?"

"Yeah, just generally, you know, seeing how everybody is doing. I've been so busy I just don't have time to play anymore."

"Yeah, nobody really does. How is your new school?"

"Just smashing. I've got all kinds of friends now. It's a blast."

"A blast?"

"Yeah. Listen, how's your Dad? Oh, I saw you on that car commercial the other day. You were fantastic!"

"Thanks. My Dad? He's fine, I guess."

"We've just been so worried about him, you know."

"Why's that?"

"Well, Ashley said something about some trouble or something, because of how he's … you know, like they might be getting a divorce. I guess it's not true, which is a relief. Well, I didn't really believe it anyway. Oh, did you hear about Heath's parents?"

"No. Wait, what?"

"Trilby, I'm actually calling to invite you over to my house—I'm starting a group at the new school and I could really use your input. You know, get the word out there."

"What did Ashley say about my …"

"Well, maybe she was just kidding, I don't know. You know how she is."

"No, Tasha, I really don’t."

"Well, I guess if you were looking to be negative, you could say that the whole Maguire thing has kind of gone to her head. She cracks jokes about people all the time. She's not too mean, but you know how she is. Just thinks she's better, her and Karen, and everybody else is just like her little puppets or whatever."

"Tasha, what exactly did she say about Duncan?"

"I don't even really remember. Anyway, I've been talking to people and we think it's a really good idea to start a second cell of the Maguires, to get more people involved, and maybe make up for Ashley … kind of thinking she runs everything. And of course I thought of you, because you're so talented."

"Thanks. Listen, Tasha?"

"I'm in kind of a hurry, Trilby. We can catch up more later, okay? My house, tomorrow night. Bring a covered dish or chips or whatever. It's casual."

"Tasha?"

"You'll really love the new group, I think. They all want to meet my famous friend!"

Huh.

"I'll be there."


The first thing Ashley does is check the kitchen floor. She hasn't been back to Karen's since that one really bad, rainy day, back at the beginning of things, so the first thing she does when they get to Karen's is go around in the back. She can say she it’s to keep from getting the whole house wet.

The call had been weird. She was sitting in her bedroom with Heath, watching him read a book while pretending to work on her novel. When she'd answered, there was a hesitation before Karen declared herself. She'd—haltingly, formally—asked if Ashley could come over, even though it was still somewhat misty and wet out, and when Ashley had asked if she could bring Heath, there'd been a strange silence and she'd thought the phone was dead. After a few seconds of dead air, Karen had come back on the line to tell her that that would be fine. It was creepy.

The flooring is warped and ugly, just like she thought it would be. She wonders what would have happened, if she'd been brave enough to call out when she heard Karen and her mother fighting that afternoon. Before Miss Brodie there’s no way she could have done that. But now? 

It really reflects poorly on Karen, doesn’t it? Her breeding and that stuff? It’s obvious you shouldn't just respect Adults because of who they are, and she’s old enough now to know that there must be real problems with Ms. Grossman if they fight that bad. But still, to raise your voice like that…

She'd mentioned this on the way over, and Heath had just given her that alarming look he had lately, what Josh called the "crazy eye," that strange mixture of anger and delirium that you never knew whether it was pointed at you or what. It was almost getting comforting, to look over and see Heath staring with that crazy look, like he could protect you or go nuts for you or whatever. It had become more disconcerting to see him flip back to normal, cute Heath—like there was some fearsome beast below the surface, that you'd rather see head on. Like when you got brave enough to turn on the light and check the closet for real, instead of just lying in bed like a baby, sheets pulled over your head.

She stands on the now-ugly checkerboard linoleum, looking around at the kitchen and pantry that were once so familiar, and for the first time notices how small and shabby the house really is. The presence of Ms. Grossman, and Karen herself, has always filled it with such bright light, such music, that you are really distracted. But now she can see how obvious it is, how poor the Grossmans must really be. It makes her feel bad for Karen, because she’s such a talented, smart person. She can do anything! Meanwhile there’s Ashley's giant house, and she can barely do anything. It makes her want to work all the harder, to make the most of what she's been given, and she knows Heath feels the same, because he figured it out first, and just didn't explain it right: How feeling guilty about being rich is silly, because you can turn it into wanting to work really hard, using those resources to make a bigger, better difference.

Miss Brodie calls them "wellies," her boots. She has a weird name for everything. "Jumper" and "boot" and "aluminium." Even though they used to remind her of like Jeremy's horrible Monty Python tapes, now they seem really glamorous, and she says them all the time in place of the real words. Sometimes she'll actually do it, and not just pretend, and then when people look at her like she’s crazy, she just laughs it off. So then other people started saying the crazy Brodie words for everything, too. It’s like a secret language. She'd mentioned it to Miss Brodie and Miss Brodie laughed, that musical, high laugh, and told her to ask Corey about the Picadilly Palare, if she wanted to learn more funny words like that. But like Corey even has time to talk to her lately.

She takes off her wellies, looks at Heath intensely until he does the same, and then decides to take off her shoes, too. The floors are so dusty all over the house it doesn’t seem fair to add to the trouble, and Mom is used to Ashley having filthy socks. Or at least to complaining about it.

She wanders out into the kitchen proper, and stares at all the little spice gardens and half-chopped things, and wonders if Ms. Grossman will make them dinner. That would be a nice surprise, be like old times. Even with Heath there, it would be just like stepping into a time machine back to last summer. Ashley could cry just thinking about it. She takes off her mackintosh and takes another step inside. 

She hates that she can’t ignore the feeling prompting her to listen, listen silently, for the sound of screaming voices. Like the Grossmans aren’t awesome and wonderful people, but just some after-school movie where all the people did was beat each other, or get pregnant, or be disabled and get married, or turn gay, or whatever. She remembers loving them so much, wishing she could move into this house, like it was a movie she was so close to just walking through the screen and joining, like it was her secret family and Nina and Brian and everybody were just a mistake. 

Why can’t you just turn off the whole picture, sometimes, and see just the movie part of people, instead of having it like a Magic Eye picture where you have to see the whole thing at once? Like when Brian had taken her to the 3-D movie feature and got a headache and just watched it with one eye: Why can’t you just forget sometimes? 

It’s always so warm at the Grossmans, that’s one thing she loves, because they don’t have marble and stone everywhere like her house, cold and echoey. Like the word "hearth." She'd always loved the word "hearth," because it reminded her of Karen's house. But now she has to take off her sweater anyway.

Heath finally calls out "Hello? Karen?" and she wonders if he thinks she’s weird,  creeping around in this kitchen like some goblin when everybody is obviously on the second floor. The first storey, Miss Brodie would say, which Ashley likes too. Like Karen's bedroom is the real story, and they’re just climbing around in the guts of it, like the outline of her novel. She wants back into the first storey. She smiles at him and steps confidently toward the staircase, removing her mittens.

"Ashley? Heath? Come up here!"

It’s Tasha's voice.

Ashley's first instinct is to run away. Just hearing that voice could give her a panic attack. And what the hell is Tasha even doing here? She and Karen hate each other, Karen’s made that clear lots of times. Why is Karen hanging out with Tasha? It’s creepy. When Tasha changed schools and they all went into Miss Brodie's class, Karen and Heath were the most relieved out of any of them. Even more than Trilby and Necie, Heath was happy. He even did a little dance with Karen when they found out, and only stopped when Donnie and Josh looked at them funny. Ashley throws her hoodie back and looks over at Heath, who is doing the crazy eyes double hard.

He reaches out for her hand to start pulling her away, and she just laughs.

"Heath, Karen's here. It's okay."

"She probably killed them. I heard that she has some kind of disorder where she goes into freaky rages and breaks things. At the mall! I heard she sells stuff on the black market. I heard that she's starting a cult."

It’s always "cult this" and "cult that" these days, she's noticed.

"She's not a member of a cult, Heath."

"Coven, then."

"She's not a member of any coven, Heath. She's our friend. She's our friend that we miss."

The look on her face as she says this cracks him up.

"Okay, Anderson. But if she's got a knife up there I'm leaving your ass in a lurch."

"Deal."

But she keeps her hand in his, because she’s scared too. She likes how they can hold hands any old time now and it doesn’t mean romance. It just means they don’t have anybody else. Like that poem of Trilby's: "Cities wrenching, ease scorning, statutes mocking, feebleness chasing/Fulfilling our foray." And he knows it too, she can tell by the look on his face. Like if you were in a storm and holding onto somebody so you don’t get swept away. Like now.

"Karen?"

Karen calls back down, laughing. "I'm up here! God! We made cupcakes and my Mom's at the store getting stuff for dinner. Come on?"

They look at each other.

"Well, Lucy? Shall we?"

"Come on, Peter. Let's shall."

And up the stairs they go, without boots, without shoes, without raincoats, without sweaters, without hoods, in their socks, their hands empty.




"I saw Tasha Carroll. She randomly showed up at Karen's house and requested a meeting. It was very West Wing."

"Ashley, my dear. I know you found her troublesome, but you know that I admire her spirit. Whereas you are a diamond that must be polished until it can shine, she is a raging fire, that needs only the shaping and containment of a park ranger, deadlands and sandbags, to make her a weapon of our cause."

"Yeah? She's got her own. That's why she wanted to meet. She's started a whole other cell of Maguires at her new school. And she's got two or three different high schools involved."

Miss Brodie bites her lip, hard, but doesn’t really look surprised.

"Miss Anderson, surely you see how wonderful this is. See it as … your mission spreading, your word spreading throughout the city. Think of when it jumps to other towns, other schools, think of your influence growing…"

"Yeah. That's what she said. But Miss Brodie, I can't even … I don't even know. I can't control the group I've got now, and the Schoolhouse is gone, and all of a sudden I'm supposed to be in charge of these people … and Tasha, I mean, Tasha isn't exactly going to do what I say…she’s always had a really wrong impression of what it's all about."

"Use it, Miss Anderson. You have it within you to control this outbreak. In fact, it's required of you. It's been handed to you, this responsibility. They can be useful to your cause. Think about it, take a moment or two, because this is another example of your loser's attitude and what it can cost you. You don't want Tasha telling everyone it was her idea, do you?"

"That's the sick part. Apparently people already knew about the Maguires, so she's been telling them that we're like partners. That she's …"

"Your apostle?"

"Miss Brodie!"

"Well," she laughs, gorgeously, "You can't blame her. You've always been reluctant to see how much you've accomplished. Perhaps this is a good lesson. Even Miss Carroll knows how valuable your name has become."

"One blown up Schoolhouse and some graffiti. That's the… Sum of my accomplishments."

"You've been working for months, Ashley. You know it makes me angry to hear you denigrate your work like that."

And it does. Almost frighteningly. Sometimes it’s like Miss Brodie holds all her anger and her pride for her, like the box on Nina's bedside table that holds Grandma's pearls. One day they'll be hers, but until then, she knows Mom will take care of them. Miss Brodie is the guardian of all those ugly feelings, of being right and being better. It doesn’t hurt Miss Brodie to feel those things because she does that anyway, and clearly she’s fine with it. It’s not like Ashley’s grateful for this, but it’s interesting. Like she’s just a little girl and all this Maguires stuff, all the things she still needs to do, Miss Brodie held onto like jewels. Like the shiny sunlight of the future.

Miss Brodie holds onto her belief in the group, in the future, in the fact that change could happen; when the idea gets too big and too scary, or simply too silly, she knows Miss Brodie can believe in it harder than her. And sometimes, that makes her more valuable than anyone, Heath or Brian or anybody. Especially Heath and Brian, since they are both losing their minds and turning into different people every day almost. Ashley and Jennifer just get more and more like themselves, and Brian and Heath just get crazier. But with Emma, and Truman and Alexis, reminding her who she is — and who she loves, which is Brian and Heath, now more than ever — it’s not so confusing. Sometimes it’s all that keeps her from packing a bag and running away forever.


Necie can’t remember the last time she was frightened. Not truly. She gets worried a lot, because a lot of times she knows she’ll get in trouble for something, with a Grownup or with another kid, or if she has to deal with somebody, or whatever. Talking to Grownups is hard. But she's not ever had to do something she didn't have to do, not like this. You can always get out of anything, if you want to, and it certainly makes things easier.

Like if you’re scared of the older girls and decide you don’t want to go on the camping trip, just say you’re sick. Or if you didn't do your homework, you can just cry or whatever. Most of the time she isn’t even telling a white lie, because most of the time she is actually sick, or at least poorly. Her mother says it’s a weak constitution, and twins are always like that: One is strong and one is sickly, even when they've just been born. She can’t help if she’s like that: It’s part of her burden as a child of God. She just has to do the best that she could.

Miss Brodie is about the only Adult mean enough to be mean about it, but she’s so worldly anyway, with her car and her clothes and all that stuff, that you can’t really blame her. Pastor says a true warrior of God can smell sin on people, so you’ll know who most needs your ministry, but she never really knew what that meant until she met Miss Brodie. Miss Brodie smells more like sin than anybody she's ever met. 

Sin smells like roses, sometimes, and other times it smells of lavender.

But to force herself to do something scary? Never. It feels awful. It feels like diarrhea. Even though she knows they'll be nice to her, even though Tasha was so sweet on the phone, asking about her church activities and Sunday school. She really seemed to take an interest, and then out of nowhere she asked Necie to come to her house that very afternoon.

Donnie’s off with Josh Tyson, so he can’t come, which is just as well. She gets the feeling he doesn’t much care for Tasha Carroll, and would have just gotten suspicious. She doesn’t care for Tasha either, but it seemed like a shame to turn down the invitation. Especially since she's never been asked to anyone's house before, not like this. Not like just to visit a friend. She's had fellowship with lots of kids, and her family is always having other families over or going somewhere for potluck dinner, but she's never just headed out the door like this. Feeling pretty and happy and popular like this.

Which is kind of a sin, but not in this instance, because she’s going there to do the Lord's work. At least, that's what Tasha said.

Having to change their secret location is actually good practice, Donnie says. Any revolutionary group has to be able to pick up sticks at a moment's notice, just like any other military outpost. You can’t get attached to a single location or else you'll get tripped up.

Donnie seems moderately stressed out, even for Donnie, which makes him less great to be around. He’s distracted and a little moody. Even Josh can’t seem to make him smile or take much of an interest. He’s playing with one of Josh's models, a robot he built out of a kit that you could turn into a spaceship or a car or something, something stupid that only boys could like. Ashley thinks about how probably Donnie doesn’t have a whole lot of toys, and she almost hugs him for a second before she wrinkles her nose at herself. Donnie isn’t Heath, for Pete's sake.

"Where is Heath? Heath and Karen should be here at least."

Donnie looks at her from beneath his tight-knit brow.

"Maya too. We've lost all our personnel."

Oh, Lord. Not this again. Not the Donnie-and-Maya Show.

"Maya's doing family stuff tonight. They're not hanging out. She called right before you got here."

He seems relieved. So stupid.

"But I bet she'll  be around later on tonight. When do you have to go home?"

"I don't know. Normally Necie comes looking for me by now."

"Maybe she's busy."

"I guess so."

He flops back onto the floor.

"Let's brainstorm, you guys. Location, location, location. What's the most strategic place we can make camp?"

"Make camp?"

"You know, like, what's most convenient, where the Adults won't come look for us."

"The Schoolhouse was like the best. I can't even think of a single…"

"Maybe Truman’s house,” says Donnie, who doesn’t know that Truman’s gone. “Maybe we should ask a couple of Young Adults so they won't think we're trying to…"

"Yeah. Munchkin invasion."

Ashley smiles over at Josh. The way he says stuff was always so funny. So Josh.

"I'll call Alexis."

She tries to think about how to bring up Miss Brodie for this part and Donnie makes a spitting sound.

"Donnie, don't be that way. She's been really helpful. And at this point we don’t have..."

"Ashley, I don't want to fight."

"No, you're always doing that. Making these sneaky comments and stuff and then saying you don't want to fight. You don't like her, and that's fine, but if you …"

"You have to go with your gut, Anderson."

"He's right, Ashley. She's too complicated. Scary." Josh flips over onto his back to regard them.

"Josh—both of you—just stop it, okay? I can handle Miss Brodie. Emma."

"We're not saying that, Ashley. We just don't … why even have her around?"

She can feel herself getting mad.

"Miss Brodie really understands. The big picture. Frankly, we could use more people like that on our side."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, sometimes, you have to be a Grownup about things and not just worry about not liking the person. You have to look at what they can do for you."

"Ashley, that's awful."

"Not like that! Just like … there's all kinds of people in this world, and sometimes you have to look past certain things. Or else you never get anywhere."

"Nope."

"What do you mean, 'Nope'?"

"Just that, Ash. I'm talking about … toxic people. You have toxic people in your life, people that cause trouble, you cut 'em out. Not worth it. It's never worth it. They spread disaster."

"And Miss Brodie is one of these?"

"That's what I'm saying."

"What is the proof of that, your gut?"

"Just about. I don't trust her."

"Who said anything about trust?"

"Just admitting we exist! Telling her about the Maguires is trusting her, Ashley."

"It's all so black and white, isn't it, Donnie? It's so easy. Right and wrong, bad and good. Saved and …"

"Are you calling me…"

"Sorry. I just … maybe it's just complicated, or…"

"You're calling me simple. Like you're … like you're like an Adult now. You're turning into…"

Josh finally stands up. "Into a bitch, dude."

"Josh, don't you dare …"

"No! I mean, you're right. It's complicated. And all he's doing is pushing you and asking you questions you don't wanna hear. I don't mean that you're a bitch."

"Thank you."

"Miss Brodie's a bitch, though."

"Josh, come on. Don't talk like that …"

Josh laughs. "God's not here, Donnie. He doesn't mind."

Donnie stands and quietly begins to gather his things.

"Listen, no. I … this isn't how it's supposed to go. Just sit down and we'll figure it out. We're just fighting because we're upset and we've been hanging out too much. Just chill out, Donnie. Josh, cut it out."

"Sorry, Donnie."

"Thanks. Now let's figure out who we're going to talk to. We have to focus on getting back into the movement. We have to get with the program. We have to start thinking about who to leave out."

They look excited and relieved, but all she feels is bored. It’s like talking to babies.


The restaurant is so shiny. Brass everywhere, dark wood and padded seats, cloth napkins. It’s silly but all Jeremy can think of is that movie The Great Gatsby, how it looked like you had cataracts, like Monet in that poem. Like there was Vaseline all over everything. Nobody likes that movie except for him, and he can’t tell you why. But Daisy was so pretty in it, so perfect. Just like she looked in the book, in his head. Vague but real, like a handkerchief on the wind, or a shopping bag. It was there, you could touch it, but you wanted to just let it float because it was beautiful. That’s Daisy.

Miss Emma Brodie sat across from him, her doctor's bag sitting on the tablecloth next to her like an obedient black dog, considering him curiously.

"Of course, I'm well acquainted with your younger brother."

"He's great."

"But Mr. Tyson, I'm afraid I didn't bring you here to talk about your brother."

"You're his teacher."

She is gorgeous and terrifying. Not like a pretty girl is terrifying, but like a shark is terrifying. All angles and glints, porcelain and chrome. Red, red lipstick on a white, white face, curls like razors.

"That's true. However, I like to think of myself as a very good instructor, which means sometimes involving myself a bit more closely in the lives of my students. No doubt lesser minds of my generation would consider it unseemly, but after all, the lesser minds of my generation seem to have a real problem considering anything beyond themselves. Don't you find?"

"I find it's endemic."

"Whatever do you mean?"

"I mean, Miss Brodie, that there has never been a man or woman who acted without an agenda. Just because I can't see your endgame yet doesn't mean you are buying me dinner for your own satisfaction."

"Ah."

Her eyes widen and her lips curl slightly, like she’s looking at the dessert cart. Like she’s about to make a high, fake breathy noise, and point one perfect claw.

"Jeremy, I'll be absolutely truthful with you, because I do agree with that sentiment. Are you familiar with the Pleasure Principle?"

Jeremy smirks, kicking his legs under the table. "Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me."

She laughs, but her knuckles go white around her napkin. They brought in a falconer and his hawk one year, when he was Josh's age, and he'd gotten focused on its feet — how they clutched and shifted at the glove, moving all the time, keeping balance.

"Aren't you?"

"That's the kind of talk that could get us both absolutely murdered, Mr. Tyson, in the Puritanical environment of our day. I am certainly not trying to seduce you. The Pleasure Principal is an invention, or shall I say discovery, of Dr. Sigmund Freud. It states …"

"If we are to take it as a truth that knows no exceptions that every living thing dies for internal reasons, and becomes organic once again, then we shall be compelled to say that the aim of all life is death."

"That's not exactly what I was talking about, Mr. Tyson."

"A belligerent state permits itself every such misdeed, every such act of violence, as would disgrace the individual."

She grins. "Children are completely egoistic; they feel their needs intensely and strive ruthlessly to satisfy them. You're familiar with the quote?"

"Is that what you're talking about when you talk about the Pleasure Principal?"

"I feel that it contains the germ of truth. I feel that it does not go far enough. In fact, I believe that no person—as you've said—truly acts counter to his self-interest. At any point."

"What about activist groups? Martyrs?"

"Most selfish of all, are they not? Having identified with concerns and worries so large a single body cannot hold them, they self-destruct. Nothing but ego games."

"That's gloomy."

"In fact no, Mr. Tyson. Your brother tells me you find nothing so beautiful as the glorious art in determinism."

"Like fractals …"

"But we are skipping merrily away from the point. You say that I am here on the terms of my self-interest, and you are right. But that you felt the need to point it out tells me your feelings on the subject are ambiguous. That it was a point worth making, to you."

"Perhaps I was just trying to clarify terms."

"I'll accept that. In plain terms, then: I have brought you here tonight, to have this wonderful meal together, so that we could discuss your friends."

"My… You're an elementary school teacher, Miss Brodie. I don't see …"

"You and Brian and Jennifer, certainly, but the rest of your little group as well, have a powerful influence on my students. Not a day has gone past since start of term that I haven't heard at least one particularly astonishing political or philosophical observation dropping from their mouths like silver. And while I can admit that these children are very unique, special indeed, I cannot help but wonder about your involvement with them."

"We don't talk to them like little kids, for starters. They can handle complex thoughts. It's shielding them from the full toolbox that keeps them docile."

"I completely agree, Mr. Tyson. Your brother Joshua shows a marked acuity for the finer points of logic and ontology. And I am not in the position to judge, even I should have the inclination: The sin of Eden was denial of information. Information, it has been said, wants to be free. Yes?"

So she’s a hacker now too? Jeremy doesn’t buy it. She’s a chameleon, a snake shedding constant skin. If he professed a love for musical theatre at this very moment, she'd access her mainframe somehow and start belting out show tunes. He's never seen before how helpful cynicism can be.

"I suppose that it does. But what information could you need? You've already managed to figure out that the Children are listening in on our conversations."

"My dear young man, it's gone beyond that, and you know it. And Ashley Anderson is at the heart of it."

His own heart skips a moment, and he ducks his head, faking a coughing fit and sipping at his water.

"Make no mistake, I support your aims, such as I am aware of them. 'What a distressing contrast there is, between the radiant intelligence of the child and the feeble mentality of the average adult.' The Children of the next generation are all that stands between my own and redemption. I have no fear they will point the way for us. And Ashley's group may just be the think tank I can use to take us there. My interest lies in keeping that relationship—the fecund ideas that your circle of friends regularly plant in my class of students—alive and healthy. The Children are a fabulous petri dish, but we cannot fool ourselves: the matter on which they operate is a product of your own genius."

She lowers her eyes.

"…And that of your friends."

He butters a piece of bread and considers her blankly. There are too many variables: If she’s a real Adult, she’s only using him for information to shut the Maguires down. The war has already begun. And if she’s something else, she’s ten times more terrifying. Adults do not engage this way. She is a terrorist.

"If youth but knew; if age only could."

Miss Brodie rears back and laughed.

"But in this case, youth does. And age most definitely wishes. Please, Mr. Tyson: Let me help you. I have so little… so many lost chances, so much for which I must atone. This is my last chance. Don't leave me in the cold when I have so much to offer you."

"Who else among the Young Adults have you contacted?"

"You were the first. I don't think I am leaving anyone out when I present you with this list."

She pulls a sturdy piece of stationary from the doctor's bag, a pearl-white card only barely tinged in pink, monogram at the top, and clears her throat.

"Jeremy Tyson. Brian Anderson. Jennifer Standish. Corey Rogers. Truman Miranda. Eddie Van Tenk. Alexis Butts."

"I assume you've now placed all your cards on the table?"

"I should hope so, Mr. Tyson. I only wish to help."

"What else do you know?"

"In perfect honesty … this is all I have. I'm curious to learn more."

"Miss Brodie, if you… I'm glad that you approached me first. If you jump into that list, I'm afraid the effects …"

"I'm well aware. It's why I'm speaking to you first. You show a maturity that is rare, even among your compatriots."

"There are certain things going on right now. Things that make any kind of development in the group itself … it's complicated."

"No doubt. Tell me more."

"Earn it. You're playing on the real field right now."

"Things are not what they seem, among your older contingent. Fears, sex, trouble … they are coming into play. You've lost control."

"I am not the one to ask. My hands are clean."

"That is hardly true, Mr. Tyson."

"What the fuck do you mean?"

"Hmm. What is known clinically as ‘repression’ is no more than a failure of translation. How does that strike you?"

His hands grip at each other below the table.

"A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity. And you still haven't told me your actual interest."

"Haven't I?"

"My self-confidence is not so weak that I am prepared to believe that your interest is purely …"

"Midwifery."

"Exactly. What's your in?"

"I am old, Mr. Tyson."

"No you're not. And ladies don't stoop to fishing for compliments. If you were really hardcore you wouldn't try that shit."

"I am old, Mr. Tyson. The time for my glory is past. But I do believe that what you have here is special. And I'd like to see my name in the history books."

"You're telling me you honestly believe …"

"I have worked my entire life toward notoriety. I want to see a better world. I want you to take me there."

"How do you think you can even help?"

"Money, information. A voice. Anonymity. I can provide… Well. Think of me as a double agent."

"I already do."


Brian is thinking about Emma Brodie. He doesn’t do this as much as you might think, but he does it enough, and at the strangest times. It’s like remembering you got something for Christmas, some new game or something, and after having forgotten about it for a few minutes or hours, all of a sudden it jumps into your mind and you can just think about it for a little bit: About how it’s yours, just yours, and you have the option at any time of going and getting it and playing with it. Or when you realize your favorite show is going to come on in ten minutes, and you hadn't thought about it all day. 

One time in Homeroom Corey sat up, straight as an arrow, with an enormous smile on his face, and when Brian poked him in the arm and asked what was up, Corey said, "I just remembered it’s my birthday!" It’s like that.

But sometimes it’s annoying, like a flashback in a movie, because he'll think of her—the smell of her, the sight of her naked—and have to think about that for a second, and if he’s busy doing something else, he imagines it looks like he’s having a stroke. Like right now, driving Weird Josh home, and Weird Josh saying something he doesn’t understand, and he can’t even figure out a way to pretend he was listening, so he has to just be like, "Say that again, I flaked." Which is a shitty thing to do to anybody, but especially Josh, because nobody ever listens to him, because he is weird.

"I said, do you know who Guy Fawkes is?"

"Like in Harry Potter?"

"No, like in history."

"Remember, remember the fifth of November?"

"Exactly."

"That's all I know."

"Yeah. He was this guy, and he tried to blow up Parliament, because he didn't agree with their ideas, but he … failed."

"He gets a holiday? He's lame!"

"Well, but it's more like he was the first …"

"Plus, why would they even throw him a holiday? Sounds like a bad guy. Like having Ted Kaczynski Day. Unabomberween. Timothy McVeighmas."

"Well, see, that's kind of the thing. I think he's more important as like, the first time a thing happened. In the media. Like the detonation at Trinity. I don't know why they threw him a holiday. Maybe because they don't have Halloween. But I do think it's cool, because he was a hero."

"He tried to blow up Parliament."

"Yeah, but he was saying 'No,' you know? Trying to screw up the system."

"But it's horrible! People and …"

"No, it was at night."

"So even if you think he's like the guardian angel of revolutions or whatever, he failed, right?"

"If heroes ever really succeed, they can't have followers. Because the fight keeps going."

"Huh."

"So Guy Fawkes, he's like this hugely important figure, like Columbus or something. A pioneer of blowing things up because the system is wrong."

"And you … is this for a report, or …"

"Not exactly."

"Then what? Is this a Maguire thing? These agent provocateur ideas didn't exactly make you the most popular kid in school last time. Blowing shit up is kind of … Advanced Placement."

"Exactly. No, just like—like you said. The guardian angel. Like we are continuing his work, by doing what we're doing. Taking apart ourselves, our families, the rules about Children and Adults, the system. School, church, stock market. The work of Holy Disobedience."

"I'm down with that."

"I thought you would be."





Jennifer and Corey pick up Maya Gidley and Donnie McNeely at the school and bring them over to the Tyson house, supposedly to talk about how to get things working again, but really just to hang out because they miss the Maguires. Nobody really knows where Josh is, which is interesting because normally you don’t really see Jeremy without Josh, or vice versa, if there are Children and Young Adults together in the same place.

One thing they all manage to agree on is that Miss Brodie is a freakshow. Like Jennifer says, never trust a supermodel because cameras steal your soul, and Miss Brodie acts more like the living mummy truth of that than anybody. Even Corey, who thinks she’s awesome, knows she’s only awesome in a TV way, and even Donnie can nearly see that perspective. Jeremy is tight-lipped on the subject, but nobody wants to push it with him because of the weirdness of him and Brian. Jennifer takes care not to mention what most everybody has accepted, that Brian and Emma are engaged in some kind of gross affair, because she does not want Jeremy to get hurt or feel left out. Which is a funny way to feel about your ex-boyfriend’s best friend, but makes the most sense.

Corey’s trying to explain the goodness of Miss Brodie in a way even Donnie might understand, how she is really just fake all the way down, and wasn't actually a supervillain or soap opera star like she pretends to be, and how he loves her because she proves the elasticity of persona, or some shit. Jeremy is totally into this idea, and of course it never occurred to him since he doesn’t make a practice of thinking about other people very often, because they are like aliens to him. Donnie is willing to be nice because he likes Corey, but Jennifer can tell he’s boring the younger ones. Eventually even Corey realizes how sludgy he’s getting, and starts to wind down, getting quieter and more spacy. Jennifer has realized they are all starving, and she’s waiting for a gap in the monologue to suggest burgers and shakes, when something not at all boring starts happening downstairs.

It starts out with just a rumble, a kind of panicked hiss that grows steadily into a yell, and then to a scream, and then you can actually hear words.

"No, you're fucking talking about ten years of tenure-track research down the tubes, Jordan, not a fucking 'case of professional ethics.' I don't fucking care if there's a paper trail or not, I've had friends in the department for fucking … the Board? Deborah's on the Board, goddammit.”

It’s interesting. Mrs. Tyson never does anything interesting.

"No, I don't fucking care about that, actually. That little pissant's been up my ass since he came on, all 'Professor Tyson, can I help you' and 'Professor Tyson, can I cite this paper from fucking grad school when I was a fucking fetus' and 'Oh, I'd kill to spend my sabbatical in Egypt, you're so lucky' bullshit. I trusted that little faggot, and now you're telling me I'm at risk for …”

Corey jumps at the f-word and everybody starts to feel very weird.

"I won't stand for this. Those figures are mine. His bullshit interpretations of fucking cultural anthro that was out of date fucking ten fucking years ago, with my name on it? That's a fucking disaster. That's a tenure-killing disaster, Jordan. Surely there's something in the bylaws that I can … well, I'll ask Deborah. God knows she has no reason to love that little shit-eater.”

"No. NO! There's no gray area here, there's fucking Dean Simmons with his cock up that little bastard's ass, and I cannot wait to see his face when I … Fuck that, Jordan. This is my career we're talking about. He cannot get away with … I don't care who he's fucking, Jordan! Cocksucking is not a valid concentration of study!”

"No, I will not! Those are the facts! Like you couldn't just smell it on him the second he turned up in the department with those fucking pocket squares and thousand dollar faggot shoes and wearing fucking perfume. This is the kind of thing we're talking about. Did you see him presenting at Cincinnati? Fucking lisping his way through fucking Lévi-Thtrauth like he was wearing a dress? Fuck that. He's a fucking drag queen and he's ruining the department, my department, with this bullshit! He's not playing fucking fair, and it's not even just gossip that he's butt-buddies with Simmons, it's the obvious truth. Prancing around at the mixer and playing the fucking piano with that goddamned scarf on. What the fuck kind of professional…”

Jeremy just looks at the floor like this is new to him. A new way for his Mom to talk. Jennifer wonders if that’s true or if he’s just acting like she is blowing his mind.

"Listen, I'm going to call Deborah Grossman and she is going to have his ass-eating head off if he goes forward with this. I should have fucking gone with journalism. I was promised! Fucking faggot Simmons looked me right in the fucking eye and said that position was mine. Mine, Jordan! I didn't spend ten years living like a fucking monkey in some dauber hut so this pillow-biting faggot could come along and turn the department into his fucking knitting circle. That's bullshit, Jordan! It's fucking bullshit! It's that pretty-boy Lacan shit from the English department all over again. The university is overrun with faggots and fucking Derrida bullshit and this is not the last time it's going to happen, it's going to be efficiency experts and Sodomy 101 by next term, I swear to God, and I am not going to be sacrificed to the …”

The person on the other end of the line, this Jordan, clearly wants out of this conversation now. You can’t hear the words but you can hear their tone.

"Offensive? Offensive? You know who's fucking offended? Single mothers in academia who don't want to play the fucking ass-licking game like this inbred fucking … I knew this would happen, when Simmons and I were at school and he did that fellowship at Brown I said to Carrie, I said, 'One day he's going to see an ass he can't pass up, and on that day, Anthropology will die.' Fucking ethnography and whatever soft-science bullshit that occurs to you when you're barebacking some doctoral candidate in the third floor bathroom at fucking Wynn Library South. There's a reason we didn't go into fucking sociology, Jordan.”

Donnie looks pretty much like he is going to die at this point, so it’s a bit of a relief all around when she hangs up.

"Fine. This isn't over. Thanks."

There is the surprisingly loud crash of a phone being roughly handled, and then Mrs. Tyson starts sobbing loudly, and everybody leaves except for Jeremy, and Corey gives him a little hug before they leave, looking over Jeremy's shoulder at Jennifer like WTF. And when they are gone, Jeremy picks up the phone and calls Brian, and says to come over immediately, and not to say a word when he arrives. And Brian knows what he means.


Emma takes Ashley out of class the next morning, under the guise of scheduling a private study session. The Children of Miss Brodie's class are to undertake a special test for special skills, and she finds it diverting to remove Ashley from the class as though she were most in need of extra help. The look on Necie McNeely's face as they make their retreat is answer enough, mirthfully and woefully proud and misconceived, her turn to her brother as though he would be similarly convinced as wrong and painful to watch as his response.

"Ashley. I've spoken with Jeremy Tyson. I thought it only fair that I inform you."

"What are you talking about, Miss Brodie? He's just my brother's friend."

A gap in the sentence, as though the girl is swallowing something dreadful but unavoidable.

"Something is happening with the Young Adults, Ashley, and it's affecting your work. You've completely left off training your classmates, you've abandoned your cause. Everyone can see it, my dear. The lights have gone out of your eyes. And I cannot for the life of me figure what has happened."

"It's not really a big deal."

"Perhaps not in the context of our wider world, but something has happened to shut down operations, and I need to know what that is so that I can address it."

"It's stupid. Jennifer cheated on Brian with …"

"Eddie Van Tenk? As I am aware."

"But now everybody knows, and Jeremy's being weird …"

"Agreed."

"… And the boys aren't talking to the girls, and the girls aren't talking to the boys. Even in our grade, it's all messed up. Jennifer and Heath won't even answer the phone if I call, because they think it's Brian on the Caller ID, and Heath won't talk to me because he thinks I'm going to side with the boys…"

"Aren't you?"

"Why would I do that?"

"Well, he's your brother."

Ashley twists away from that. 

"He's a big boy, Miss Anderson. And his hands aren't exactly clean."

"… I think we'd better get back to class," Ashley rumbles.

"This is important, little girl. If you lose them now …"

"Then what? Things stay the same? Guess what. The Maguires never meant anything. None of it means anything. Everybody's too weak and strange. I can't control them, they're too worried about sex and God and a bunch of crap that has nothing to do with it. The last meetings we've had, it's all been about religion and dating and picking sides and no matter what I do, nobody will listen anymore. It's useless."

"No effort is useless, if expended in the cause of justice."

"Miss Brodie, are you high? I'm telling you there's no …"

"Miss Anderson. The mere fact that I am your friend does not excuse you from common decency. Not because I am your elder, but because we are friends, I must demand from you a higher level of respect than that. I would never address you in such a …"

"I know, I'm sorry. I'm sorry! It's just really frustrating. I try to talk to them and get them to get over it and they just look at me like some kind of little girl who doesn't really get any of it. Like I'm just pretending or like I think I'm so special and …"

"Miss Anderson, Ashley: You are special. You're the most special, innovative, powerful little girl I've ever met. And I will not abide this retreat in the face of adversity. You're smart enough to figure out this puzzle. Feeling sorry for herself is perhaps the most unattractive thing a young woman can possibly do. I will offer what aid I can, given that you're still determined to keep me in the dark on so many of the details, but you must give this goal one hundred percent of your attention, and your will. Nothing else will rate anyone's interest."

"Miss Brodie, I …"

"Including mine, Miss Anderson. Figure it out. If you can fight past this momentary selfishness and produce a series of questions, I will do my best to help you find the answers."

"I can do that, Miss Brodie, but …"

"Have it on my desk by the end of the day, Ashley. Or I'll leave you in the wake of what you've created. And mark my words, it will destroy you. You've gone too far to give up now. You'll end up discredited as some kind of junior malcontent, and that's not the half of the damage your reputation will sustain if you give up now. This could affect your life from this point forward, and negatively impact your future earning potential. Reputation, Miss Anderson, is all we have. And yours is perilously close to being irreparably damaged unless you continue to fight. Your aim is true, Miss Anderson. All else is maya."

"Huh?"

"Don't say 'Huh,' you sound like that beastly little Necie. 'Maya' in this case means 'worldly illusion.' Hasn't Mr. Tyson taught you anything of comparative religion?"

"Josh? What does …"

"Silly little thing. I mean Jeremy. You've completely lost focus. I suggest you take a day off and reread that little Manifesto of yours. I'll even write a note. You're in danger here, my dear. The fire in your belly has gone out."

"No it has not. It hasn't, Miss Brodie! I'm just … tired, and there are so many of them, and they all have this gross sex stuff going on, and I can't remember who's on what side or what it all means… It's like doing math!"

"You've always been good at math, Ashley."

"That I have."

"Good girl. Back to class, now! Clop-clop!"



"Boot and rally."

"Wellies?"

"No, it means like, you know when Grownups get drunk?"

"Grownups rarely get drunk, Donnie. Young Adults get drunk."

"Whatever. It's a whole thing, biologically speaking, where you throw up and then you feel better."

"I hate throwing up."

"Me too. Sometimes when I'm sick, I cry just thinking about how I'm going to throw up. The last time I was sick I remember I just stood there in the bathroom and leaned on the door and cried because I was going to throw up."

"…That's really sad."

"Well, I was sick so I was acting crazy, but I remember it. It was sad, you're right."

"It's not like that. I think once you grow up or become a Young Adult or whatever you get used to throwing up."

"That's the worst thing I've heard yet. I didn't want to grow up before …"

"I'm making a point."

"Sorry, Mr. McNeely. Miss Anderson, quiet down. Mr. McNeely's making a point."

Ashley giggles. "Then stop talking, Maya, and let him do it."

"I will, Ashley, if you'll call me Miss Gidley, as proper young women and young gentlemen should."

"I will, Miss Gidley, as soon as one stops interrupting Mr. McNeely. One feels that what Mr. McNeely has to say is fairly important, and none of us should interrupt the diamond brilliance of his mind long enough to think anything, lest one miss one second of the …"

They fall all over each other on the couch, and part of Ashley can’t help but feel gratified to be laughing with Maya like this. Lord knows she hates Miss Brodie, and maybe even for the right reasons, but it has made for some tense moments.

Having laughed themselves quiet, they look up at Donnie, who is standing there for all the world like they insulted his country. Like he can’t see how important it is for the two of them to be laughing about Miss Brodie, like he doesn’t get anything about how it works, about how it’s only okay for Ashley to be friends with Miss Brodie outside of class if they can still make fun of her when they’re alone. 

And the weird part is that Ashley knows he does, he understands that kind of thing probably better than she did, just by nature, so why was he acting weird? Just because he needs to say the thing he needs to say? It’s such a boy thing about Donnie, the way he gets like a Dad sometimes when he can’t say or do the thing he wants to say or do — if the moment isn’t exactly what he thought it was going to be. Staring at him, hands on hips, waiting for him to speak, they start laughing again.

"It's when you throw up… Are you listening?"

"Go—Gosh, Donnie. Of course we're listening. Tell us about Adults vomiting some more, that'll be totally fun."

They collapse in giggles.

"Forget it."

He grabs his jacket off Ashley's floor and starts putting his shoes back on.

"Donnie, no. Donnie, we were just kidding. Don't be mad. Look, we'll even …"

She almost says something about Necie, but bites her tongue just in time. Necie is doing some kind of church thing, which is the only reason she wasn't there. It turns out church is useful for something after all.

"See? Sitting. Quiet. One hand in the air, like Miss Babcock. Tell us your thing."

"It's not even that big a deal, I just thought it was a good way to say it …"

"Just tell us. I want to know."

"Now it seems like this big huge deal and I don't …"

"Donnie: It's just the three of us. Nobody else. Nobody here thinks you're stupid. Don't act like we're in school. This is a Maguire meeting, even if it's just three of us. Say what you were going to say."

"I feel all stupid and…"

She knows what he means now, so she can’t start laughing, but he is still making such a thing out of it. Trilby puts on her dramatic shows at all times of the day and that’s annoying, but at least she doesn’t feel like she needs to earn it or whatever. One way Trilby is actually better than a boy.

"I promise you that we care what you're saying. It's important, or else you wouldn't say it. We know how you are. Just say it, please. You're very smart."

He lookesdown.

"Fine. I was just saying that this whole thing where nobody is talking to anybody else is like when Grownups get sick and drink too much. It's a boot and rally. It's … like, sometimes secret bad stuff, or stuff you can't talk about, happens, and then you can't do anything until… like, you were saying before about how you knew you were going to throw up?"

This is already her longest conversation ever about throwup and there isn’t even a point yet. But it’s Donnie, so there will be one.

"Yeah."

"But the thing you can't remember when you're sick, or when you're crying about the throwup, is that you're going to feel better afterwards. So maybe that's what this is. Like, it's so sad and all the Young Adults are not talking to each other, but maybe once it's over we can … start talking again and start focusing on what the whole thing is really about. Maybe … No, not 'maybe.' That's what this is. Everybody fighting and all the bullcrap, it's just a boot and rally. And now we can rally for real and get back to it."

"Donnie, that's like the grossest thing I've ever heard."

She and Maya start giggling again.

"Well, I know. I just couldn't think of how else to …"

She nods, and she can tell Maya gets it, too.

"I think you're right, though."

Maya stands up, beside him. Ashley considers them from upside down. It is good to see them being normal and fighting on the Maguire side, and not even being a little bit weird about him being in love with her. Even if it’s just for a little while.

"Ashley, though. We wanted to talk to you about something."

"'Something'? Do I have halitosis or something? Are you telling me I have a not-so-fresh feeling?" She laughs but it sounds hollow because she knows what’s coming.

"It's Miss Brodie."

"I already know what you're going to say, and you're right but you're also wrong. She's not the best, but she's not the problem. She's just a person who gives us advice."

Maya shakes her head.

“She doesn't give 'us' advice, Ash. She gives you advice. And …"

Ashley looks to Donnie.

"You know she doesn't like Necie."

She rolls her eyes because the one thing you can’t say is "nobody does," but then what else are you supposed to say?

"And she doesn't like Josh, Ashley," continues Maya, "and she's so weird and creepy and keeps asking questions about the whole …"

"Are you afraid she knows about the Maguires? Because I thought you knew. She knows all about it. She knows everything. Before I even know, she knows it. I haven't even barely told her anything, and she already knows it. And all the Young Adults love her, and I think she's really helpful, and she says stuff that nobody says …"

"We just wonder if you know … like, if you really think she's …"

"She said you would do this."

They look at each other.

"Not you two in particular—she thinks both of you are great—but just that people would get scared and think she was making the decisions. She's not, she's just trying to help …"

"But maybe," stutters Donnie, "Maybe she's not the best person to be …"

"I've been through this, Donnie. I've thought about this. All through it. It's like all I think about. Yeah, she's mean and she says cruddy stuff, but a lot of the time she says really awesome stuff that I wouldn't think about. Stuff Brian wouldn't even think about, and it helps. She's helping me figure out the whole…"

Maya shakes her head.

"Ash, you can figure it out on your own."

Ashley takes a deep breath and slowly lets it out.

"She's not an influence on me. She never changed my mind about anything. All she's doing is helping."

"I hope you're right."

"What do you even mean, Donnie?"

"I don't want you to be sad if she turns out to be …"

"What, not perfect? Not a secretly cool Adult? If she turns out normal? I'm counting on it. It's why I like her. All the things she's right about, she's right about, and all the things she's right about, she explains so much and it's like I can see how a Grownup could think that. I like her. She's like if Tasha grew up, and wasn't horrible all the time."

Donnie explodes.

"Have you seen her with Necie? She's worse than Tasha. She's worse than …"

"Yeah, she's a bitch to Necie."

He flinches at the word.

"Sorry. She's really awful to Necie. But see, I've been talking to her about it. It goes both ways."

Maya frowns.

"It does! She thinks I'm... She thinks we're all really smart and like we could make a difference in the world! She thinks the Maguires are real! Not even the Young Adults really think that! It's so obvious!"

"Jeremy does."

What can you say to that?

"Jeremy. What about Jeremy? Fuck Jeremy. He's not helping."

Maya and Donnie look at each other again.

"Stop it. I know he's like … and I know that everybody's saying that he's a … but it's not true! None of it's true. That's just the Adults trying to mess with us! Everything is fine. Donnie's right, it's just a … what is it?"

"Boot and rally."

"It's just a boot and rally and we'll be done with it before you can say anything. Everything's going back to normal and Miss Brodie is helping so we can be back to normal. I can't do this if you guys are thinking I'm wrong all the time or I can't trust my… I mean, I'm trying as hard as I can!"

Maya rushes forward.

"No, Ash, that's not what we're…"

"Come on! I am freaking out! All the time! I am a freak all the time, now, because I can't stop thinking about how I'm going to stop everybody from acting weird and get the Young Adults to talk to each other again, and nobody's helping, and I'm so tired all the time, and Brian won't even… Everybody's acting weird and it's like you guys just want to pretend that the Maguires never even happened and I'm just thinking, thinking, thinking, all the time, about how I can help it and fix it and make it work again, and then the one person, the one person who actually sees the problem and how to fix it, you guys want to tell me that I'm just being a little kid and letting her do whatever and I'm sorry, but that's bullshit, and it really hurts my feelings, because you guys don't know… not even Heath or Karen knows what it's like to… to have this whole world, this explosion, going on all the time, and nobody cares, and it burns, and I can't control anything that's going on and she's right about all of it, no matter what I think she ends up right about it, and nobody can even see it, and I just want to rest, but if I even try to rest I've got bullshit like this coming at me, and you guys… she totally likes you, she really does, she told me, she thinks you're so smart and good-looking and good leaders and I don't know what else, really good, and she loves you, she told me she loves you, and you just keep trying to … what am I supposed to do?"

Donnie clears his throat; Maya sees tears in his eyes.

"I need the world to be better, Ashley."

"It's not enough," she chokes, but inside she is realizing something unexpected, which is that she is in love with Donnie McNeely. Not just crushing or thinking he is cute, like poor Heath, but that she will actually love him for her whole, entire life. And she will.

"Help me."

That’s the last part they really understand, because that’s the point at which Ashley kind of freaks out. And Maya holds her there on the bed, and Donnie stares awkwardly and then sits on her other side, and they hold onto her while she cries, silently, and then after she is done crying, they hold her, just sitting, and when she falls asleep, they hold her, and when she snores they look at each other, and lay her down upon that bed.

And they walk downstairs, and thank Mrs. Anderson for a lovely time, and say Ashley’s tired and just taking a nap, and she says goodbye and sends them on their way with Newtons, as Mothers do, and when they are gone she thinks about how lucky Ashley really is, to have friends like that.

And that’s what Ashley is dreaming of too, even though she won’t remember that later. She just sleeps all afternoon and all evening and all night, and wakes up the next morning feeling like she can move again. Like she isn’t drowning.




At the next Baader-Hoffman meeting, Necie tells Tasha about the situation at her house when Corey showed up, and how weird it had gotten. Necie has a funny way of telling a story like you'd think she was actually there, even when she wasn't, so her strange account—her Father threatening to punch Corey, Corey bursting into tears—got the rest of the kids into quite an uproar. 

There are now several gay kids in the group, angry and smart, their black-dyed hair blunt cut and savage, and Tasha has already earmarked them as definite resources for the kind of actions required by this sort of bloody business. Watching Necie's face is almost disgusting, but also nice, because she looks at  Tasha now like she looks at their teachers: Like her eyes are watching God.

Eddie has explained that you have to make people feel cultivated, special, important—that it’s important to have some kind of heroism in her bearing, and that was how you got it. "Never complain, never explain," he says. Explanations make people feel resentful, because they didn't get it for themselves, so you have to just nudge, nudge, nudge until they figure it out themselves. That’s the hardest thing she's ever done, it almost physically hurts, but he is right and she loves him for it.

Nobody knows where Eddie is and nobody’s old enough to think about checking the hospitals for him, but that’s where he is. Tasha just figures he’s off doing Baader Meinhof work somewhere and left her in charge.

One of the big kids, the one that looks like Karen's older brother Austin, immediately takes the stage.

"That shit is unacceptable. We have to do something!"

Necie gets shifty, and looks over at Tasha. She has perhaps rubbed the wrong lamp this time. But she just got so excited telling her story! Everybody was staring and listening like she was important!

"We're not going to do anything. The families of members are protected. For the time being. But we'll keep it in mind. Let's think about other stuff we can do, though, to combat homophobia."

And so comes a rousing round-table about the subject, most targeting obvious symptoms like their football teams and various Proms. She thinks ruining Prom is a great idea and it definitely gets the biggest reception. The concept of somehow disrupting each Prom in town is very exciting for almost everyone present, and they love the idea of striking in a new way each time, so that later Prom committees won’t figure it out in time.

It’s still just theatre, though. She winks at some of the older kids and says they’re tabling the discussion and should all head home to brainstorm. Once Necie is safely on her way with one of the older girls, Tasha stands dramatically in the doorframe.

"Okay, what are we doing to them?"




Of course Dr. Mrs. Tyson was not impressed. He came home alone at lunch, to check his email and see if there'd been any response from the Shadowy Supplier guy, and she was standing in the kitchen with the letters balled up in one fist.

"And the fuck of this would be?"

"I don't understand the syntax."

"I assume you left this out? Where anybody could see them?"

"Anybody who? It's just you and me."

"What about Josh?"

"What do you think Josh doesn't know? He's been taking sneaking lessons from Heath Oliver."

"That's not the point."

"You're right. Here's the point. Those letters are right. I am gay. And you are a lesbian. And now we both know it."

"Why does that even matter?"

"Martin Donnelly was over here the other day. When you were on the phone with Jordan Cross. He heard all those horrible things you said. About that guy at school."

"I was just angry …"

"It was hurtful."

"In my own house, you get to tell me how I get angry? I don't think so. I'm still the parent here."

"That would carry a lot more weight if you weren't a total hypocrite."

"What the fuck does that mean?"

"You're sleeping with Deborah Grossman. Austin and Karen's Mom."

"So?"

"So A) you've been sneaking around, which is dishonest, and B) you're totally homophobic."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Pillow-biter. Barebacking doctoral candidates. Ass-licking."

"Stop it, Jeremy."

"Pretty-boy faggots. Knitting circles. Sodomy. An ass you can't pass up."

"God damn it, Jeremy, I was just blowing off steam …"

"You're looking at it. Me. Here. When you say that stuff, you're talking about me."

"Jesus fucking Christ, Jeremy. I'm not … I'm your mother."

"And you're talking about yourself. That's the part I don't get."

"It was utterly divorced from any kind of …"

"The personal is political, Mother."

"Don't quote …"

"Are you fucking kidding me with this? What you really mean is 'don't throw my words back in my face.' You've left me and Josh to raise ourselves …"

"You have no concept what that even fucking means."

"Yeah, you've done a bang-up job."

"Like I would ever …"

"Because you're so open-minded? What do you think it would do to Josh if he heard something like that? Or me? Do you know how that made me feel? And Martin Donnelly looked like he would fucking vomit."

She picked apart the letters.

"With whom apparently you're having a torrid affair …"

"That part's not true."

"Oh, but you've been fucking star fucking teacher-fucking quarterback Brian Anderson and that little drag queen Corey Rogers, then? Don't you fucking flinch. You're the one that started this. Don't act like you're too cool to talk about it now. Walk into this room and start interrogating me about my love life…"

"Yes. Both of them."

"Your father is going to fucking …"

"Dad already knows."

That was the worst bit, the way her face went right then. He almost wanted to take it all back, explain that it was just theoretical, a pose to bring her out and express it, so that she could just be okay and stop being so angry all the time. To bring down that house of self-satisfied denial to its foundations. Plastique.

"Oh, and apparently he's just so cool, finding out his eldest son's a fucking … he didn't tell me? You didn't tell me?"

"Well, clearly you'd take it really well."

"Fine. You can live with him for the rest of senior year."

"I—what? What do you mean? Where would that be coming from?"

"No, I mean it. You can just go live with him and just have a gay old time. He's the cool Dad, right, I'm just the mean old bitch who …"

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about you just managed to make this whole house go crazy in five minutes, hitting me with all kinds of bombs and just … nothing makes sense, I came home humming, okay, and thinking about your birthday, and you just spring all this on me, and your Dad is just high-fiving you about this, and … like my job's not crazy enough, I've got you undermining and … what does Josh know? Why the hell does Josh know about any of this?"

Bingo.


The next day, Tasha was walking to school when she heard the familiar purr of Miss Brodie's Jaguar pulling up alongside her. Without even smiling or waving, she ran around and hopped in the passenger seat, soaking up the warmth.

"Miss Carroll. How are you this morning?"

"Good. I was wondering if I'd see you again."

"I've got a week or two."

"Things are going really excellently right now, Miss Brodie. Did you hear about what happened with Corey Rogers?"

Miss Brodie's perfect eyebrows raised.

"Mr. and Mrs. McNeely totally tried to gay-bash him and like get him thrown in jail. So we're doing a deterrent action, like you said."

"How intriguing. I'm intrigued."

"Well, we're going to brickbat their living room window and write HATE CRIME on their garage door. Or the side of their trailer or whatever; I've never been to their house."

"That's it?"



Alexis looked over at Ashley.

"Hey, Ashley? You know that place we went to?"

Her mother's hospital. She nodded.

"Somebody told me that Truman's there. And I was thinking …"

Corey perked up.

"You know where they put him?"

"I think so. They couldn't actually, legally tell me he was there, but I got the feeling."

Ashley nodded again.

"Are you sure, kiddo? I know it's hard there."

"I want to see him, and also go see … we should go visit."

"It's okay. It doesn't have to be a secret."

Alexis turned to Corey, in the back seat.

"My mother was institutionalized two years ago."

"Oh, honey."

"Yeah, also? My Dad's like technically retarded. We found that out when they sent the social worker over. My Mom got a little nuts and we talked her into checking in."

"Alexis."

"Trust me, it's fine."

"But, like … where did you …"

"My mother was very smart. I inherited that. Cross your fingers it's all I inherited. Paranoid schizophrenia with clinical suicidal depression is a hassle, trust me."

"Thank you for telling me this, I …"

"I'm telling you because we are friends. You were my first friend, actually. You and Jennifer. Maybe ever. So I'm telling you for that reason. But also, because it honestly doesn't matter. I'm obviously going to be successful, so I can take care of both of them, and they're not anything but what God made, and I love them. I might find it a bit more embarrassing if it were me that's retarded, but like, that's obviously not the case. And my Dad's really neat. You'll meet him. In the meantime, though, I'm telling you this because I'm asking if you'd like to go visit my Mom. And we do have to visit her, before we go see if we can find Truman. They'll get suspicious if we don’t."

"You already took Ashley there?"

They smiled at each other.

"Yeah. It was neat. So that's the deal. We can go see Truman, whom I know you love very much, but it will mean doing a few things you've never done before, and if you think it's too weird, we can take him a note from you or whatever, and just drop you off first. It's strictly no pressure, but I don't want you to feel dragged."

The major difference, Ashley thought, between Corey and herself was that Corey actually had to think about it for a second.

"I'm down. Of course I'm down. It has to do with you, therefore it's not weird."

Ashley spoke up.

"It smells really weird. Like, worse than a regular hospital. And there are people in the hallways that are not cool."

"She's right. It's kind of scary. Part of the reason I took Ashley last time is because I didn't think I could do it again. And she got me through it."

That felt good.

"No, no. Seriously. I know you think I'm going to spazz out or … I might cry. I fully admit that. But I might cry if you took me to Shakee's, so …"

Ashley laughed.

"You're sweet, Corey. Brave boy."

"Being 'brave' doesn’t mean anything. I was thinking about it. Like, those wet drama girls that always talk about how 'brave' I am? That just means I'm less than human. My 'bravery' gets to be theirs."

"Um," said Alexis.

"No, I mean thanks. I just wanted to remember to tell you about that. Thank you for saying I am brave. I don't feel very brave. I feel ridiculous because all I can think about is, 'Is this outfit really appropriate for a hospital,' like, 'will I stand out too much?'"

"Have you ever once asked that in your life?"



It was totally like the dumbest movie in the entire universe. Maya had to like speak certain code words before Tasha would let her into the schoolhouse, and when she came in it was all shrouded in darkness so she couldn't see anybody's face, and Tasha had this flashlight that she shined in her eyeballs and asked all kind of pretentious questions. Like the only way for Tasha to become even more obnoxious was with an army behind her. Made up of similar idiots.

"Why are you here?"

"I want to join the Baader-Hoffmans."

"Why not stay with the Maguires?"

"Necie said you were doing God's work."

Somebody sniggered.

"Why not stay in the Maguires, Maya?"

"We don't do anything but talk in circles about prejudice and 'what is race' and stuff like that, and I get enough of that from my parents' friends."

"How can you prove your loyalty?"

"Is this like The Skulls?"

"How can you prove your loyalty?"

"I'm here, Tasha."

"Do you believe in the fire of Holy Disobedience?"

"Do you believe in Freemasonry? What the hell are you talking about?"

"Do you believe in disruption, destruction, the unlocking of doors?"

"Yes, sometimes, and definitely."

"Do you believe that you are being oppressed by the system at large?"

"Are you making up these questions as you go?"

"No. Do you believe that you are being oppressed by the system at large?"

"Sure."

"Do you believe in disruption of that system in order to …"

"Yes."

"Do you believe in the doctrine of Abomination?"

"Huh?"

"Do you believe that all freedom comes at the risk of apparent and temporary horror?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Seeing a Black person drinking from a White water fountain would have turned stomachs in Selma."

"Gotcha. Sure, I guess."

"Do you believe in the future world past all Abomination, in the beauty of freedom?"

"…Did you say that right?"

Tasha flicked her flashlight to the paper she held.

"Yes."

"Can you repeat the question?"

"Do you believe in a future world past all Abomination, in the beauty of freedom?"

"Oh, right. Absolutely."

"How can you prove your loyalty?"

"What have you got?"

"There is a deterrent action planned for tonight. A well-known hate criminal will be punished before the community."

"Okay…"

"You will accompany our agents to the site. You will not take part in the action, but you will be a witness."

"Great. These agents, will they have faces?"

"You will bear witness to a punishable offense. An illegal action. Are you prepared to be involved in this? You will be implicated in this action."

"Fine. At night?"

"That's right."

"What are we doing?"

"The McNeelys."


He finally worked up the nerve to visit Emma after a week. Not surprisingly, she seemed to be moving out of the house. What else was she supposed to do?

"I'll never teach again, of course. I'm thinking of taking up life coaching."

"You'd be good at that, Emma."

She made a very specific face, signaling a certain humble thanks and a bad taste in the mouth.

"Emma?"

"Yes Brian. Don't let's be coy. You knew this couldn't last. Don't be dramatic with me now."

"No, not that. I just thought: what about Ashley?"

"Ashley hates me, Brian. Your little friends saw to that. She won't even say goodbye to me."

"I'm sorry. That must hurt your feelings."

"I have no doubt she'll be fine. That little girl will move mountains, Brian. I'm just sorry I won't get a front-row seat."

"Where will you go?"

"Wherever the wind takes me, I suppose. Life is a grand adventure."

"Are you leaving town right away?"

"I have certain financial ends to tie up, and some people left to whom I'd like to make my goodbyes. If they'll see me."

"I'm sorry it went like this. I love you, Emma."

She laughed, and closed a box with a click.

"No, you don't. Brian, don't be insincere with me now. After what we've shared."

"You're right. But I'm fond of you."

"And I you. You have a real strength which I very much admire."

"Likewise."

"Brian, I don't mean to be rude, but I am staying at a somewhat disreputable motel and I hate to arrive there after dark."

"Don't you have a gun?"

"It hasn't got any bullets, Brian. I'm not quite the gangster's moll you'd have yourself believe."

"What's your real name?"

"Brian."

"Give me something. I … you owe me something. A little piece of something."

"I have given my career—quite literally, my life—for you, Brian. I rather think that debt is paid."

"I slept with Jeremy. More than once. You always wondered."

"He told me himself."

"I—what?"

"You see, you have nothing to offer. None of us ever does. We build castles on sand. Remember what we have shared, Brian. That's enough for keepsake."

He kissed her forehead.

"I didn't think this would go so well."

"We're grownups, Brian. Of the highest quality. We don't have to engage in bourgeois histrionics every time we say goodbye. Life is a collection of goodbyes."

"I wonder if I'll ever see you again."

"I'd like that. Such a laugh, to meet again quite by accident, and have a drink. It's a date, Brian Anderson."

"Brando."

"You're a good boy."


"Josh, tell the truth. Do you know who Fawkes is?"

"I thought you did."

"I just get the notes. But I've had a feeling for awhile …"

"No idea."

"Do you think he get us the stuff he says he can?"

"No doubt. I have it on very good authority."

"How will it be?"

"Glory and fire. Explosions. Something they won't ignore."

"I'm worried."

"There is no fear in this dojo."

"Whatever."

"You're the last person I'd expect to be afraid."

"I'm not. I'm just … worried. It's a big step."

"One big step for us, one giant step for the world. You know what Fawkes says. The Abomination. Things only look horrible from one direction: if you're in the past and it's in the future. Once you get there, you can't remember how you lived without it. Nothing is ugly in time. The world just keeps expanding and you can't really know anything until you consider it from outside."

"I just hope our shocks are strong enough for going over the bump."

“I just hope our shock is strong enough to break it open."



It was cold and creepy and stupid, and Tasha was an idiot, and these people were idiots, and Maya was an idiot just like them for being involved, but honestly, she saw spray-paint cans in the hatchback when she was getting in, and it wasn't like her house hadn't gotten spray-painted before, so that was not that big a deal. More hot-air Tasha crap, all "This deterrent action will be illegal and hardcore" and that bullshit so what? They could toilet paper the McNeelys' trailer and vandalize it? So lame. It would be kind of sad, because everybody liked Donnie, but she'd found his account of the Corey thing to be a little more troubling than he himself seemed to find it. Like Corey didn't get the stinkeye from all kinds of people all the time for being gay, imagine being thought of as a child molester. How horrible. Probably that was like his worst fear.

So she sat in the car and watched them spray-paint the side of their house (HATE CRIME), and all she could think about was Donnie having to paint over that. Not that his parents would make him; he wouldn’t even ask. He'd just do it, probably before they even saw it, which was kind of what was awesome about Donnie, but in a mood like this, it was also kind of irritating. So much stupid energy wasted so that what? So a bunch of kids that didn't even know the Twins could feel like they'd gotten one over on some hicks? How was that about cultural change? How was that about affected anybody's actual mind? She'd rather be on a poster.

The three Young Adults came heading back toward the car, and she sat up straight and buckled herself in and tried not to roll her eyes, but they didn't get in. Instead, they got into the trunk for a shopping bag, and she watched in the rear-view mirror as they pulled out a quick-burning starter log and carried it to the front of the house. One of them opened all the car doors, which made it even colder, then got in and started the car, which made it warmer, but she still couldn't actually believe what was happening, even as feeling returned to her fingertips. One of the teenagers hoisted the log into the air, and the other one lit it with a cigarette lighter, and then they immediately threw it through the McNeelys' living room window. A big heavy log. Which was on fire. Into their living room.



Alexis was explaining about Truman's need to document, convert everything into narrative, that he needed it to be a story, instead of just pain. That he was already turning this into some kind of movie in his head, like he always did. At the elevators, they spotted Emma. Ashley had been wondering how she would react, and it was weird, because she wasn't that angry, even though Emma had kind of screwed things up as far as Brian and that whole thing. But she almost felt like smiling at her.

"Miss Brodie."

"Oh, hello, Miss Anderson. I didn't see you there."

Such a lie.

"Are you here visiting relatives?"

She didn't mean it bitchy—she was standing next to Alexis, so it couldn't be a joke—but Emma got really weird.

"No, actually. I'm here to visit Truman Miranda. Such a kind soul. Shame he got nicked."

"I guess the Adults will always disappoint you in the end."

Miss Brodie cocked her head and thought for a moment. Ashley could feel Corey's hand on her shoulder.

"Keep that in mind, Miss Anderson. Anger gives you strength."

"That's like your whole thing, though, isn't it. 'Anger gives you strength.' Or like, 'I'm ruining everything because I love you.' You're like a dentist from hell."

She laughed.

"Your descriptive powers serve you so well, Ashley. Use them!"

"Is that all you've got? Who was that guy with Alexander the Great?"

"Aristotle," whispered Alexis.

"Yeah, like you were gonna be the fucking Aristotle. Except you fucked the wrong Anderson."

The words, as usual, felt really weird in her mouth, but she knew they would work.

"Oh, Ashley," she murmured. "Don't tell me you're one of these who …"

"I don't care, Miss Brodie. I just want you gone. Are you leaving town?"

"I have a few things left to do."

"You know what we can do. What we're capable of. Make it quick."

"The only reason I haven't shut you down is because I still do support your aims."

"If you even understood our aims, none of this would have happened. You know, I went to Necie McNeely's house today. And I couldn't get your sick, cold voice out of my head, cracking jokes. And those are nice people, Miss Brodie. There's no other word for them. You talk about people fulfilling their needs and doing what it takes, but the fact is you wouldn't exist if you didn't have people like the McNeely's to make fun of."

"Miss Anderson, please. As though they contribute to the world."

"That's not the point of people, Emma."

"… So I assume you'll just be carrying on as usual? Doing nothing, as you've been doing all along?"

"Repairing the damage you did, you pervert."

Corey said Oh snap, quietly and under his breath.

"Well, I see we've fallen to name-calling. Which means this conversation is over, my dear. We both deserve better."

"You're right about that."

"One last? You and your friends didn't invent 'Antarctica.' In Europe the girls called that 'being sent to Coventry.' And have done, for hundreds of years."

"Why don't you skip Coventry and just go to hell, Emma?"

Emma laughed, and caressed her cheek.

"I'll miss you, Miss Anderson. When your fate comes for you, and it will, I hope that you'll face it bravely. I'll be proud of you, and of myself, and on that day, I shall know grace."

She boarded the elevator.

Ashley strode to the front desk.

"There's a woman on her way to Truman Miranda's room. She's not a parent or family member. Actually, she's been sexually abusing him. You don't want her in that room."

As they walked out, Alexis squeezed her shoulder.

"You did good, Ash. That was good work. Nice work making her mad and staying calm. Even if she didn't show it. I could tell."

"Why do people have to let you down?"

"Just a reminder not to give them the option, I guess."

"That's really sad," said Corey, but Ashley shook her head.

"No, she's right. You can like people without depending on them."

But of course Corey wouldn't get that.



"Wow, that was fun. I feel really … subversive. A lot of civil unrest. I feel, personally, like I've really hit a home run against homophobia. Problem solved. Can you drop me off at home? I don't live too far away."

"No."

"Is it too far out of your way? Because it's kind of important. My parents are going to …"

The Young Adult that was driving handed her a cellphone.

"Call home and tell them you're on your way."

"Wouldn't it just be easier to …"

"Tasha wanted to see you afterwards."

"Hmm. Well, can I just call her and tell her what a great time I had, the holy fire of disobedience and whatever, and then you can just …"

"We're not stupid, kid. Just sit back."

"Fabulous."

Tasha had practically tied her up, back at the frigid schoolhouse, and told her that they'd be watching her, and then they listened on the police scanner until they heard that some cops had arrived on the scene and that everybody was fine, the fire hadn't spread, just a case of vandalism, and then they let her go.

Maya was almost frozen when she finally got home, and so upset that she couldn't even speak, just motioned upstairs and mimed taking a warm bath. Her parents smiled, and told her she shouldn't stay out so late on a school night, but that they appreciated her calling, and that they'd saved some dinner for her in case she hadn't had a chance to eat, and that they were going to turn in after a while, because they had a lot of work to do in the morning, and that they loved her very much, and she did her best to smile at them, and waved goodnight, and went upstairs, and freaked out.


This is the message that Ashley came home to: Maya's warm, even voice on the speaker, punctuated with sobs:

"Ashley, Tasha has gone insane. She totally tried to blow up the McNeely's house today. I was there. Don't tell anybody. I was the spy in her group for the Easter Rebellion and I didn't know how to stop them and I just watched it and they … Ashley, Donnie and Necie are okay, I heard it on the police radio scanner that everybody was fine. It was so … Ashley, we have to stop this. It's getting too scary. There's like twenty or thirty of them and they act like a cult, I couldn't see their faces, they took over the X-Factory, and Eddie is in there with them, and Necie and Trilby and they … it was so loud, Ashley, and they were so scary and mean to me, they wouldn't take me home and I had to walk. Where are you? I don't know … I'm calling Heath and Karen and we're going to figure this out. Please find us when you can."

Ashley looked at Alexis and Alexis put her arms around her, and she shook, silently, staring at the wall.



"That was weird. That was too much. I know we had to do something, and we had to make it big so Maya wouldn't go talking trash about it, but …"

"Tasha. Holy Disobedience."

"Yeah, right, I just … what about, like, Necie's schoolwork from second grade, and Donnie's baseball trophies and … I didn't think it would actually be on fire, Eddie. That's messed up."

"They don't know the McNeelys, Tasha. It was just some new Adultist fucker to be angry at. That's what we want."

"I know. I know that."

"Don't let the fact that you're … personally involved with them distract you from what they did. What they did was good. It was a good thing. Fawkes will say so."

She looked at him for a while.

"Do you know who Fawkes is, Eddie?"

"I really don't, kiddo. I would tell you if I did, just to calm you down. It's better we don't know, though. Better nobody knows. If a person's human he can be killed. This way everybody wins: they get to believe in something, and we get to use their belief. All the rituals and sacrifices and cloak and dagger shit. It's what you wanted, right?"

Tasha looked like she was going to cry. It was weird.

"It's going to be fine. You have to break the eggs to make … whatever. This is just the Abomination. This is what it looks like. Nobody got hurt. This is just the birth pains you're feeling."

She crawled into Eddie's lap and he was very nice about it, even holding her hand for awhile. She fell asleep there.






I.

Martin Donnelly was suspended after he accidentally insulted one of the Trustees at the high school during a schmooze session. He had almost gotten the Maguires a standing room reservation at the community center, with full access to the facilities, including the pool and copier machine, and then made a dumb and overly familiar joke about the showers. Then it was over, and the Adults were more suspicious than ever, and Martin was pretty much taken off the board.

II.

Tasha Carroll came to Ashley after they let her out of the hospital, which was the day after Eddie was attacked, because she'd only sustained a slight concussion. Having to watch what they did to him soured her on violence, and she knew Ashley would need to know what was happening in the region.
It wasn't only the Baader-Hoffmans. Recent reports from far-flung agents placed the number of Maguires and Baader-Hoffmans and offshoots at several hundred. Most of them had never even heard of Ashley. Most of them were angry. Lots of them were nuts.

III.

Ashley visited Eddie Van Tenk in the hospital the day after Tasha was allowed back into the Maguires as an advisor. She promised him that the rest of them would take care of him, and that there would be vengeance for what had happened. She didn't like saying it any more than she liked meaning it, but there was no more justice than sense in what the men had done.

On the hospital blanket, wrapped in clean white bandages, was Eddie's left wrist. When he saw her staring at it, the space where his hand had been, the hand he'd used to touch Jennifer, and Emma, and Alexis, he slipped it underneath the sheets and smiled brightly through the haze of drugs. He told her he would give her any help he could, but he didn't have any advice anymore, and then he pretended to fall asleep, and then he really fell asleep, and when he woke up it was nighttime, and he was alone, and all of it had still happened, and he cried.

IV.

Necie McNeely was unanimously elected as the Baader-Hoffmans' new leader after her attack. All Eddie could really tell her was that the original leader is always better, that you get lost in her shadow, and that she had to account for that by being stronger. She wasn't feeling strong at all.

She found the group nearly impossible to control, and after the first meeting she resigned, as Tasha had done before, and returned to the Maguires. The Easter Rebellion didn't even argue about letting them both return. Trilby hugged Tasha and they both cried. Tasha sat at Martin's feet and did not speak. She looked empty. Necie didn't really acknowledge any of the Young Adult boys, and mostly sat in the laps of Jennifer, Alexis and Jennifer, sucking her thumb. Maya nearly cried every time she looked at her, but everybody was trying to be cool.

V.

School uniforms were the hot topic. Individuality v. the deletion of class distinctions. Nobody could muster any kind of spirit about it, and the rule was passed, in both high school and the elementary. Necie and Donnie McNeely's church group bought their uniforms. Necie thought her stiff white shirt with the Peter Pan collar and the pleated tartan wool skirt were the most beautiful things she'd ever seen, and she wore them everywhere, even on the weekends.

VI.

Corey and Martin were at the mall food court when they spotted Emma Brodie and Duncan Taylor, their arms full of shopping bags and parcels. They ducked around a corner, but she found them, and told them that they might as well recognize they were in love, and stop being little fools about it, and then she took Duncan by the hand and led him away. They were the last people to ever see her, as far as anyone could tell.

VII.

The heads of each of the offshoot groups in the state were all contacted at the same time by an email from a person calling him- or herself "Fawkes," detailing an action which would take place on the morning of the twentieth at the high school where Brian and the rest of them went. It was an all-points request for help, very vague but with an unmistakable implication, and it ended with the letters BYOG, and the slogan: "For the fire of Holy Disobedience."

Almost one hundred of them actually sent an RSVP, but Fawkes had already deleted the email account. 



VIII.

Jeremy Tyson and Brian Anderson learned about guns.

IX.

Jennifer Standish interrupted herself in the middle of a speech about the groundless identity, looked over at Brian and just stopped herself mid-sentence, because there were worse things sometimes than staying one thing all the time.
"The first rule of war is to never them see you sweat," she said, and smiled. But she meant it.

X.

Emma Brodie got really abusive with Duncan Taylor one night after they'd had too much to drink. He said something stupid about how his wife would probably think they were having an affair, so she tied him up and slapped and whipped him until she could get him to admit that he was homosexual. She didn't tape his eyes open but she did have gay porn playing on a continuous loop. At one point he lost consciousness and shit himself. At the end of it, he took a shower, kissed her goodbye, and went home to leave his wife. They both knew they'd never see each other again, but he was grateful to her for the rest of his life. Sometimes when your madness intersects with someone else's, you become beautiful.

XI.

Alexis tried three more times to reach Ashley, and was rebuffed each time. Ashley was convinced if they didn't conquer the Baader-Hoffmans, they'd all be killed. She had stopped sleeping almost altogether and looked like a little dead girl. Her parents were busy getting a divorce and barely noticed. But every time Alexis tried to tell her they could just abdicate the fight, just go back to being normal, that fighting and violence are the opposite of the end of anything, she just looked at her in that way she had, and looked away, her hands picking at each other. When she looked at you like that she looked almost exactly like Emma Brodie. 

XIII.

Necie released a statement of her support for Ashley, which meant all the offshoots and other cells finally knew who Ashley was. Every day she received emails in an account Alexis had created for her, from people, Children and Young Adults and even Adults about actions they had taken in her name. She never answered them or showed them to anybody, but she checked the account every day. A lot of them were nice. Some of them she deleted immediately, without reading the whole thing, afraid that if she died, someone would see them.

XIV.

Alexis and Martin organized a meeting, a huge meeting, of the Maguires and the Baader-Hoffmans and the other cells, outside the schoolhouse. Eddie and Necie and Tasha couldn't go back there, but everybody else was in attendance. They all kind of looked the same, even her friends.
Martin told her that even though it sucked, she had to think of ways to use the cells' self-interest to her favor. That she couldn't heal the rifts without telling people what they wanted to hear. He said that really intensely, that you had to tell people what they wanted to hear without giving up any ground. Just remember, you're still you. You can still fix this. It was like something Emma would say.
Ashley was dressed like an Olsen twin and hid at the very back of the crowd, but eventually somebody noticed her, and everyone got a little crazy. She tried to make a speech like Martin said, about the pacifist aims of their organization, about ways that they could use this weird fire and energy to create a better environment for Children and Adults alike, but their faces turned to wolves' faces, and they surged forward.

XV.

Josh jumped before her, seeming so much larger than he was. Maya and Karen locked ranks before her, and Jennifer pulled out a switchblade. It was the only time Ashley wanted Eddie around, instead of just finding him scary.

Brian and Jeremy picked her up, one under each arm, and looked at each other weirdly for a second, because she was so light. Alexis drove the three of them away, to her house. Driving away, the people surged after the car, then turned—coughing dust—to the schoolhouse, and began to destroy it one piece at a time. It didn't take very long.

Ashley would never remember finally meeting Alexis's father, even though he said more than once she was the prettiest little girl he'd ever seen. Alexis told her Dad that there were bad guys out there, and that he shouldn't let anybody in the house. And he didn't.

XVI.

In Jeremy's arms she let herself just play pretend—that he was a prince, her lover, that he was saving her from monsters and dragons, and she laid her head in the line of his neck, and almost fell asleep, all the way to Alexis's house, and again sitting on Alexis's bed, as they discussed what had happened in quiet voices. She could feel the rumble of him talking all through her body, like she was a piano, or the soundbox of a guitar. He smelled like bonfire smoke, and the firing range.

XVII.

Donnie tried to explain about how they should pretend to agree with the other cells, just long enough to figure out what they were all getting so excited about, and make them stop it, and then worry about how to stop them for good. He said if you're a mirror, nobody can hurt you, because if they disagree with you, that means they're stupid, and if they agree with you, then you both win.

XVIII.

Ashley was on the edge of sleep when she figured something out. She excused herself and went into Alexis's bathroom. There was a purple lightbulb, and the shower curtain was a Mercator projection, and all of her stuff smelled really pretty and nice, and kind of astringent. Not like a hospital, but like one of those makeup and beauty stores in the mall that was so brightly lit and so clean. She pulled Truman's letter out of her pocket, and started counting letters. She used an eye pencil to circle the right ones. At one point she wanted to slap herself, or scratch a line down her cheek with her fingernails. She knew who Fawkes was now. She got really tired, and laid down on the bathroom carpet for just a while.

XIX.

Karen Grossman went through a phase in the second grade where all she wanted to think about was feral children. Wolf girls and Kaspar Hauser, Tarzan and Mowgli and The Emerald Forest, the Bamberg Boy, The Wild Boy of Halmeln, the Lithuanian bear-boys, Hans of Liege and Victor of Aveyron. Amala and Kamala and Romulus and Remus and all the rest. When she got to Alexis's house it was all she could talk about, this neverending, crazy speech, everything she could remember about it, and once she'd started repeating herself she just laughed, and then started crying. Necie held her hand.

XX.

Jennifer found Ashley in Alexis's bathroom and did not call out, didn't say anything at all, just scooped her up in her arms, slipped off her shoes, and laid down in the bathtub, cradling her to her warm body, and they both fell asleep there, with a towel for a blanket.

XXI.

Alexis and Maya and Martin had the hardest time of all getting off their adrenaline rush. Alexis started making lists. Martin started making calls. Maya started making art. It was not pretty, but it was beautiful.

XXII.

Corey officially renounced any commitment or ties to anyone but himself and Ashley. He told Martin, and Eddie, and Jeremy and Brian that they could go to hell as far as he was concerned, because it was clear that Ashley was all that mattered, and once the situation was resolved, he and Martin could officially start dating. Martin rolled his eyes, but he nodded, and they looked into each other's eyes for a very long time.

XXIII.

Somewhere else, Deborah Grossman and Dr. Tyson were curled up in bed, reading by the light of two separate lamps, having received a note that Jeremy and Josh were spending the night with their father. It was the coldest night of the month and they were very cozy, and very happy, and very warm. They were the first to get called about the fire at the old schoolhouse, because Dr. Tyson owned the property it was built on.

XIV.

Ashley and Jennifer woke up at almost the same time, and smiled at each other, and then began the awkward business of getting out of the tub without stepping on each other. When they entered the bedroom, she led Jennifer over to the bed so that she could sit between Alexis and Jennifer, insulated. Everybody looked really worried because she hadn't talked now in several hours, just stared and looked broken and tired. The last word she'd said was "peace."

XXV.

When Jennifer finally arrived, Ashley cleared her throat, and everyone got quiet, because it was her show now in a way it hadn't been. Maya had spoken eloquently about the dangers of visibility from here on out, and they'd discussed ways of getting her out of town for a while. Donnie stood at attention, at the door, paying attention but with a tilt to his head that meant he was listening for unwanted visitors. He was getting good at knowing when people were on his property. It was like a sixth sense.

Ashley croaked, "Jeremy," and he looked at her warmly, in the soft light.

"You're Fawkes. This is your fault. I could have died. What the hell do you think you're doing?"

He looked sad, and a little like he'd been punched.

"I'm sorry, Ashley."

Everyone was shocked.

"I'm sorry, Ashley, but this isn't about you anymore. Stay safe."

He walked to the door. Nobody could move. Ashley just looked away from him, disgusted with herself. Her hero, his arms around her, his smell still in her hair. She'd thought she was walking into it with open eyes, knowing what he was. But she didn't really know what he was at all.

Nobody would look him in the eye.

"Okay, then. I guess have some things to take care of."

He stepped through the door into the hallway, and cleared his throat.

Josh and Brian stood, and followed him.

Jennifer chuckled, but not because of anything funny. Brian turned.

"Don't come to school tomorrow, Jen. Tell everybody."

She nodded, her hand tight around Ashley's wrist.

















EPILOGUE: 
WHEN THE ODE TO JOY 
STARTS PLAYING
I.

On the morning of April twentieth, Brian Anderson came downstairs early, wearing a turtleneck, and made enough coffee for his parents, when they woke. It was unseasonably cold that morning. Brian was thinking big thoughts: Brando, the glory of culture, how it gets inside you like a virus, or a vaccine. About the moment of orgasm. When the masks fall down and you don't care what your face looks like, and how for that moment everyone is beautiful.

Jeremy said, "Superman doesn't exist without the accident of our sun, but he doesn't exist as a hero without supervillains. Without disaster, apocalypse, Abomination, acts of God, he's just a guy pretending to be human. Without a problem, he can't be a solution. Can you imagine that? Just being another regular person? Everyone should have something to push against."
"Aren't there enough bad guys in the world without embracing evil as a technicality? Can't you trust them to do the work for you?"
"Look around, Brian. Someone's gotta be strong enough to push it further. Someone has to destroy the world, or else it's just low-level evil, dispersed randomly throughout the system, like a bad smell you've gotten used to. The heat death of virtue."
"That's your plan?"
"We need heroes, Brando."
"Can't you be one?"
"Tell me the difference. Tell me everyone doesn't deserve the right to be a hero."

His Mom came downstairs and thanked him for the coffee. She looked tiny in her bathrobe, her usually perfect hair sloping to one side. She wasn't wearing her wedding ring.
"I love cold mornings like this."
"It's weird, isn't it? So late in the year? Like A Midsummer Night's Dream. Even the weather's gone crazy."

II.

Karen Grossman pressed the snooze button for the first time in her life, then the second and the third. She rolled over and over, so many times, unable to find a comfortable position, refusing to get out of bed.

Their eyes, at the schoolhouse. The blankness. That wasn't a symptom, it wasn't a coincidence. Ashley was right. Something dreadful was wrong with Children. She thought about packing a bag and running away, right then, disappearing like Truman and coming back in a few weeks when everyone had been punished. She might have, if she'd been able to get out of bed.


III.

Jeremy—and he knew this was weird—finished up his Alexander the Great essay that morning, and emailed it to the teacher, and then picked up the phone.

The news didn't say anything about school being cancelled. He prayed for ice, snow, sleet, but none came.

IV.

Down the hall she heard her mother sighing, as she did every morning upon waking. Such a cute sound, like a baby when it wakes and yawns and stretches. She loved her mother more at that second than she ever had before.
"I'm too sick to go to school, Mom."
"Me too, Karen. It's okay."
They sat on the couch and watched videos all morning, and had hot soup for lunch, and didn't see the news all day.

V.

Tasha Carroll wouldn't let her Dad turn on the radio, on the way to school. She wanted silence. They drove by the high school and she shivered, and her hand crept into her father's without her even noticing. Her Dad looked down, and glanced at Tasha's impassive face, and nearly started crying—it was so nice to see his daughter acting like a child, for once, instead of an intense little sergeant. She could be so sweet, and smart. So vulnerable. With such a good heart. He gave her hand a squeeze, and grinned at her, and Tasha grinned back.

VI.

Eddie Van Tenk woke up unable to move, terrified of looking over at the clock and seeing what time it was. He stayed in that position well into the afternoon, high on pain medications, and was marked as non-responsive and withdrawn by every nurse who touched his chart. The last one offered to wheel him down to the lobby for a few minutes outside of the room, even though he was on watch for clotting complications due to a hereditary blood disorder he'd never even known about until his hospital stay.

"I'm feeling rebellious," the nurse grinned, and Eddie smiled back at him weakly.

II.

When Maya Gidley's parents awoke, it was to a beautifully-presented breakfast, on two trays, which their daughter brought to them on a squeaky old antique bar cart. There were rosemary needles sprinkled across the scrambled eggs, and butter and cinnamon on top of the grits. Both stacks of pancakes had a perfect, thinly-sliced strawberry fanned out across the top. She'd had to make three batches before she was satisfied with them, their color, the uniformity of shape. Before the sun had come out, she'd run into the garden with frozen bare feet to pick crocuses, and floated them in small ramekins of water on the trays. Champagne and orange juice chilled in an ice bucket on the bedside table, and she ordered them to stay in bed. Nobody was leaving the house that day, she told them—too cold. They laughed and pulled her into the bed, placing her between them. She was already sleeping there, sweaty, in her socks and pajamas, before they'd even opened the champagne. They traded sections of the paper over her, and every so often one would catch the other's eye, and smile down at their strange, lovely daughter, and they'd laugh quietly.

VIII.

Josh Tyson had the radio on from five until it was time to go. He stared out the window, watching the light turn first white, then gray, then blue, and he watched the sun come out from behind the neighbor's live oaks, and when he heard the family knocking around, he knew he should move, get dressed, get ready, but it took a long time get it together.

He was thinking about how much planning it would take for God to make an angel that would fight back. He'd been a religious kick for awhile. If Lucifer rebelled, then Lucifer had free will. But why would God just let that slide? What if he'd set up the whole thing from the get-go? What if God was still in charge? What if God were playing the whole field, if he was in charge of everything, and set Satan loose on his Children for his own purposes: then who could you trust?

Finally his Mom called up to him and he knew it was starting. Next to his bedroom door there were three duffle bags. They were small ones, gym bags, but still quite heavy. He clomped down the stairs, one tiny shoulder bowing down and the other raised high, unbalanced, and his hair was a mess.

IX.

Donnie's Dad woke him up before the sun, in the chill, to help him scrape the car windows and run the engine while the car warmed up. You could see your breath like steam in the house. They drove to the 24-hour Home Depot to buy heating oil, and Dad again mourned the fact that he hadn't completed the fireplace. It would be so much nicer that way, with the cold, cold wind coming through the living room and straight back to the master bedroom. Necie caught cold so easily. They hurried back to warm the place up as quickly as possible.
X.

Jennifer Standish woke up with the baby in the bed with her, where she'd curled up with him in the middle of the night after she'd awakened, cold, blankets kicked off the bed entirely, and her first thought had been worry, that it was too cold for him.

They'd named him Ben. He looked like a Ben. His wide, strong, square face. His quiet smile. His clutching hands. She burrowed underneath the blankets again, curled her body around him like a snail's shell, like a kangaroo's pouch. Like a shield. She dreamed of Truman, and Alexis, and woke with tears on her face when the alarm sounded again.

XI.

Duncan Taylor woke on the couch, and before even properly awakened, he'd crept quietly into his wife's bedroom across the hall. He nearly tripped over his suitcases by the door, and shut his eyes up tight as his foot came down loudly on the floor. Nobody stirred.

Her wavy red hair was spread out like a fan on the pillow, her features at rest like an angel's. Her breasts rose and fell slowly, and her eyelids twitched almost imperceptibly. Her stomach growled and she smiled a bit, in her dream, and he watched her reach across the bed, to nothing. Her hand rested limp on his spot, disappointed and alone, and then as he watched, she wriggled and settled herself in the middle of the bed, as though she'd slept there alone her entire life, and then fall deeper still into her slumber. She was still the strong one.

XII.

Mrs. Tyson woke up alone and cold, and thought first of Josh and then of Jeremy, and then the last few weeks came rushing back, and she reminded herself to be stone. Sometimes tough love was the most important thing, no matter if it made you wish you were dead. She'd ask him to move out this very afternoon. The second finals were done, he'd need to find a summer job. Get his head out of the clouds, spend some time with the rest of us working mortals for a while. Anything but abstraction.

XIII.

Trilby Taylor was still on her Ireland kick and woke up with a library book's sharp corner poking her cheek. There was never a famine in Ireland: just a manufactured supply decrease, to enhance the English destruction of Irish culture. And they were too demoralized to respond appropriately: by cutting off English access to their land and resources. That wasn't in the book, it wasn't a quote. Just an idea she had. If somebody's eating you alive, you can't just sit there, can you? Not even in satire. You had to cut it off, stop farming. Stop performing. And then they'd get it. That's what the Irish should have done, just pretended they didn't know what farming was, just stayed out of sight as often as possible and wait until the system fell apart. She'd be a movie star one day; she'd take care of them then.
Her Dad was moving out all of a sudden. That was interesting. It took his eye off her, for once, and the whole family was in such an uproar that nobody remembered to ask her where their next meal was coming from. They were like the red-shifting universe right now, getting bigger and bigger and farther and farther apart, and she was just Ireland: a territory unto itself, forgotten in the shuffle, as everyone decided who they were going to be next.

XIV.

Martin Donnelly was sick of inaction. He'd slept that night deeply and well, a skill he'd always had, and he woke up fierce.
"Gurrmmmah."
"Corey, get up and get over here."
"What time is it?"
"Time to stop the Teddy Bear's Picnic."
"You heard what they said. We're not supposed to go."
"We have to stop them."
"Martin …"
"Corey, it's not a question."
"This isn't a movie. You're not Jennifer."
"I don't care. And yeah. And we're going."
"Martin, I won't have you dying. We're supposed to be dating after today."
"Then I'm calling the cops."
"Yeah, do that. Do you think anybody else is going to school?"
"Start calling them, just in case."

XV.

Emma Brodie looked at television in her hotel room all morning, waiting, in the soft light, and when the sun was high she cheered as it began to happen. The fellow she'd met last night in the lobby bar groaned and rolled over. She smiled and rolled her eyes, emptied his wallet, grabbed her bags, and disappeared. She had rich brown hair matching that in an old, old passport, and between the pages of her Veblen there were pictures of them all: Ashley and Brian, Eddie and Duncan. The Children and the Young Adults. Everyone she'd loved. In her lapel she wore a white rose.

Playing chess with Truman she wears a veil over one side of her face, in white. He is a good chess player, even now. When he asks why she won’t leave him alone she wipes a tear from her cheek.

“Because you’re my favorite,” she says, and she means it.

“But you’ll leave Ashley alone, then?”

“Oh, Truman. I’m not done with her yet.”

He nods and sacrifices his queen.

XVI.

Mrs. Oliver woke up sick, and barely made it to the bathroom before she started puking. She'd felt this five times before, so she knew what was to come. Her first impulse was to call her daughter Janna, but she called Sheila instead, and by the time she answered, Mrs. Oliver was already crying.

XVII.

Heath Oliver climbed into bed with his father, after turning off the alarm clock, and tried to sleep there, next to his father's massive warmth, but every time he closed his eyes, he saw the riot at the schoolhouse, and shivered. Even when his father, half-awake, covered him with an arm and pulled him into his chest, he never did more than doze.

XVIII.

Corey Rogers called Ashley first, but the phone was busy. Nobody seemed to be answering. It was as if the whole town had gone to sleep, like in a fairy tale. After he'd tried every number he knew twice—even calling Jeremy's house—and only managed to get ahold of Jennifer, who laughed bitterly when he asked if she was going to school, he fell back asleep, with the phone still in his hand.

XIX.

Jennifer Standish's plan was to get there before anybody else, find a way into the building, and then hide somehow, and avert the whole disaster. She had an outfit picked, and her mp3 player, and a bag full of theatre weaponry, and 911 dialled into her phone, just waiting for her to press "send."

"There is no Sophia. There is only Buffy. There is no Jennifer. There is only Buffy."

She took off her bracelets—too jangly—and changed into her dance shoes, for traction, and repeated her mantra until it didn't even make sense any more.

"I'm coming for you, motherfucker."

XX.

Mr. Tyson was composing a letter to his favorite uncle, who lived in the city. He was a somewhat well-known theatre producer, now in his seventies, whose sexuality was an open secret in the family. He knew it would kill Jeremy if he actually invited the guy down and sprung him on the kid, who hadn't seen him since he was younger than Josh, but he thought it couldn't hurt to get some tips.

The problem was getting inside Jeremy's head. It always had been.

XXI.

Necie McNeely woke to the feeling of an oncoming ear infection, moaned, and then offered it up to God, perched at her bedside, on her knees on the cold, cold floor. After prayer, she sat at her desk—a big old metal one her father had found at a yard sale, which she always felt guilty for not using. He'd been so proud.

She pulled her diary from beneath her mattress, where it had sat empty since Christmas, and she began to write about yesterday, and all the days before.

XXII.

Mrs. Anderson looked in the mirror, called herself Nina. Spit out toothpaste and saliva. Watched it crawl down the glass, entranced. After a few minutes of staring, she wrapped herself in her bathrobe and stepped into the hall. She smelled coffee and crept downstairs slowly, in case it was her husband in the kitchen. Her feet were cold.

It was just Brian. She thanked him for being so thoughtful, and left out any comment on how uncharacteristic his charity had become, what a nice little boy he'd once been. She sipped her coffee as they chatted, and they both went back upstairs to dress for the day. She smiled, softer, tired, watching Ashley sleep, still in yesterday's clothes, and decided she was done being Nina for good. There was enough here; it had always been enough, here. There was no sense in resenting her husband for the circumstances outside his control, after all. They desperately needed therapy.

XXIII.

Truman palmed the drugs when they came, because it was time to write another letter, and this one wasn't going to be in code, because they'd really slacked off on reading and censoring his mail, and this was important:

I've spent so much time trying to educate you, build you up, change you into being more like me. That's the one thing Brodie was right about—that I wanted you for a protégée, some little kid I could look at and say, "I did that. I made her special."

That was wrong, and sick, and everything that you're trying to solve. I can't believe it took this crap to make me see that. You deserve better.

So I'm asking you to ignore everything I ever said to you, and concentrate on this:

You were right. About all of it. Trust that. All the talk of spectacles and revolution means nothing: you have to save everybody at the same time. Just stick to it, because in the end, all you have is yourself.

That's not a bad thing, it's a gorgeous thing, but everyone in the world is going to tell you it's wrong. It's because they want stuff from you. That's all.

If you aren't true to yourself, if you let them compromise you, your lies will always find you. Evidence of this is currently everywhere around me, you know what I mean?

I love you, just as you are, Ashley Anderson. You are strong and smart and lovely, and a really, really good person. Don't argue the point—you're in no position to judge. You have to be a superhero, you have to have a gigantic heart, to even conceive of a plan like yours. Just for trying you deserve a medal.

The fact that you'll succeed means you deserve something even better than a medal.

Truman

The thing Truman never got to find out was that rescuing him, busting him out with Jennifer, all secret-agent style, was Phase II: the very next thing that was supposed to happen. Just knowing that might have saved him, in the end.

XXIV.

Alexis called Ashley from the airport.
"I'm on a red-eye to LA. Well. Is it a red-eye if it's at seven? When do the eyes stop being red?"
"What the fuck do you mean? I need you here."
"You really don't. You have the option of checking out too."
"No I don't. Are you kidding? You can't do this to me, Alexis. I need you."
"You don't need anybody but yourself."
"But what about doing the right thing? What about the …"
"It doesn't matter. None of it matters. You're letting it ruin you."
"This is a war, Alexis."
"War is irrelevant, Ashley. Please, this is why I called, so please listen. Stay home today."
"Absolutely not. This is my fault. Whatever happens today, it's on my head."
"You're not in charge of anybody but Ashley."
"This is in my honor. This is like my fucking debutante ball, Alexis."
"What did I tell you? Letting them tell you who you are, letting them get you into a fight, letting them tell you what you're responsible for … that's what's evil, Ashley. That's the betrayal. What they're planning, it's just … and do you honestly think they're going to pull it off? Ten bucks says they won't even try it."
"Oh, they'll try it."
"They'll fail. Just deny them your involvement. They're counting on you being there. Don't give in to that. Just stay home. Call the cops and stay home."
"Alexis …"
"Look. Who are you? Are you a martyr? Are you a soldier? No. You're a little girl. You're a kid, so you don't know better."
"Alexis?"
"That's the only time I've ever said that. So listen up: you're about peace. They're not. They've got a reason to do something they were already spoiling to do. The evil is all in them. None of this touches you."
"I gave them a reason."
"They would've found one. Like Jeremy Tyson's not fucked up enough to …"
"Don't, Alexis. This isn't his fault. If you're going to blame anybody, blame me. Blame me, for involving him, or Josh, or Eddie Van Tenk. Or Tasha Carroll. I made those choices."
"Those are the only choices you made, Ash. The rest is up to them."
"I have to go, Alexis."
"Ashley, no! You're going to get fucking killed!"
"You said they weren't going to pull it off. So I should be fine. I'll take care of it."
"Ashley, please …"
"I love you, Alexis. We'll talk soon, okay?"
"Ashley, don't pull that shit with me. Don't talk to me like I'm Jennifer."
"Why are you going to LA?"
"To bloom."
"What about your family?"
"Cross-apply."
"Huh?"
"They're not my responsibility, any more than what these kids're doing is yours."
"Whose are they, then?"
"Their own. That's all we've got. Isn't that the point?"
"Yeah, but that doesn't mean we can just…"
"It's about realizing that there's no difference between you and them. Why would you fight yourself? That's all this is: one hand crushing the other. Don't get pulled in … Look, you're the one who helped me figure it out, Ash. I'm sorry if it doesn't make sense to you."
"Helped you …?"
"They're calling my flight. I'm going to call you again when I get to LA, and you'd better answer the phone, okay? Or else I'll worry."
"Goodbye, Alexis. I love you."
"Oh, baby. Just …"
"I think I loved you most of all, in the end. Isn't that funny?"
"Funny's not the word. Ashley, I'll … I'll call your parents."
"Already unplugged. They don't need the stress. This is the only working phone in the house. Just don't make me … you're making me really nervous. I was cool before …"
"Scared, huh? You should be. I'll call you in a couple of hours."
"Fine."
She handed the phone to the metal detector guy, walked through, and when he handed it back, the line was dead.
Walking down the concourse, she felt them looking, and she smiled. It was a movie and in her head she heard loud choruses, jubilant, and the sun making everything almost too bright to look at. Including Alexis. In the middle of all this fear and drama it was possible to feel a bit of grace. If you were brave enough.

XXV.

The problem was that she'd been too visible, too obvious. So she would become invisible, formless, adaptable, and in the end she'd be able to take their guns and bombs and turn them into something beautiful and quiet and heroic, and nobody would get hurt, because she'd get there in time, talk them down, show Jeremy her face and Josh her hands and Brian her smile, and they'd call it off, and end it right there.

There was comfort, if nothing was certain. It meant nobody was watching. If you stopped counting on things being the way they were supposed to be. If you stopped thinking there were rules, and expecting people to follow them. It was nice. Everybody on their own, thinking thoughts and doing things, and no need to yell about how unfair everything was all the time. The truth was, that was true whether or not you knew it. Ashley picked up her bag, its new heaviness unfamiliar, clanking iron muffled by the sweater in which it was wrapped.

And the sun was coming up outside her front door, in all the cold of the wind and the freezing air. But where it touched her face it was warm enough.





Ashley	we see who escaped and everybody reconvenes /Fawkes is revealed


XIV.

Alexis and Martin organized a meeting, a huge meeting, of the Maguires and the Baader-Hoffmans and the other cells, outside the schoolhouse. Eddie and Necie and Tasha couldn't go back there, but everybody else was in attendance. They all kind of looked the same, even her friends.
Martin told her that even though it sucked, she had to think of ways to use the cells' self-interest to her favor. That she couldn't heal the rifts without telling people what they wanted to hear. He said that really intensely, that you had to tell people what they wanted to hear without giving up any ground. Just remember, you're still you. You can still fix this. It was like something Emma would say.
Ashley was dressed like an Olsen twin and hid at the very back of the crowd, but eventually somebody noticed her, and everyone got a little crazy. She tried to make a speech like Martin said, about the pacifist aims of their organization, about ways that they could use this weird fire and energy to create a better environment for Children and Adults alike, but their faces turned to wolves' faces, and they surged forward.

XV.

Josh jumped before her, seeming so much larger than he was. Maya and Karen locked ranks before her, and Jennifer pulled out a switchblade. It was the only time Ashley wanted Eddie around, instead of just finding him scary.
Brian and Jeremy picked her up, one under each arm, and looked at each other weirdly for a second, because she was so light. Alexis drove the three of them away, to her house. Driving away, the people surged after the car, then turned—coughing dust—to the schoolhouse, and began to destroy it one piece at a time. It didn't take very long.
Ashley would never remember finally meeting Alexis's father, even though he said more than once she was the prettiest little girl he'd ever seen. Alexis told her Dad that there were bad guys out there, and that he shouldn't let anybody in the house. And he didn't.

In Jeremy's arms she let herself just play pretend—that he was a prince, her lover, that he was saving her from monsters and dragons, and she laid her head in the line of his neck, and almost fell asleep, all the way to Alexis's house, and again sitting on Alexis's bed, as they discussed what had happened in quiet voices. She could feel the rumble of him talking all through her body, like she was a piano, or the soundbox of a guitar. He smelled like bonfire smoke, and the firing range.

XVII.

Donnie tried to explain about how they should pretend to agree with the other cells, just long enough to figure out what they were all getting so excited about, and make them stop it, and then worry about how to stop them for good. He said if you're a mirror, nobody can hurt you, because if they disagree with you, that means they're stupid, and if they agree with you, then you both win.

XVIII.

Ashley was on the edge of sleep when she figured something out. She excused herself and went into Alexis's bathroom. There was a purple lightbulb, and the shower curtain was a Mercator projection, and all of her stuff smelled really pretty and nice, and kind of astringent. Not like a hospital, but like one of those makeup and beauty stores in the mall that was so brightly lit and so clean. She pulled Truman's letter out of her pocket, and started counting letters. She used an eye pencil to circle the right ones. At one point she wanted to slap herself, or scratch a line down her cheek with her fingernails. She knew who Fawkes was now. She got really tired, and laid down on the bathroom carpet for just a while.

XIX.

Karen Grossman went through a phase in the second grade where all she wanted to think about was feral children. Wolf girls and Kaspar Hauser, Tarzan and Mowgli and The Emerald Forest, the Bamberg Boy, The Wild Boy of Halmeln, the Lithuanian bear-boys, Hans of Liege and Victor of Aveyron. Amala and Kamala and Romulus and Remus and all the rest. When she got to Alexis's house it was all she could talk about, this neverending, crazy speech, everything she could remember about it, and once she'd started repeating herself she just laughed, and then started crying. Necie held her hand.

XX.

Jennifer found Ashley in Alexis's bathroom and did not call out, didn't say anything at all, just scooped her up in her arms, slipped off her shoes, and laid down in the bathtub, cradling her to her warm body, and they both fell asleep there, with a towel for a blanket.

XXI.

Alexis and Maya and Martin had the hardest time of all getting off their adrenaline rush. Alexis started making lists. Martin started making calls. Maya started making art. It was not pretty, but it was beautiful.

XXII.

Corey officially renounced any commitment or ties to anyone but himself and Ashley. He told Martin, and Eddie, and Jeremy and Brian that they could go to hell as far as he was concerned, because it was clear that Ashley was all that mattered, and once the situation was resolved, he and Martin could officially start dating. Martin rolled his eyes, but he nodded, and they looked into each other's eyes for a very long time.

XXIII.

Somewhere else, Deborah Grossman and Dr. Tyson were curled up in bed, reading by the light of two separate lamps, having received a note that Jeremy and Josh were spending the night with their father. It was the coldest night of the month and they were very cozy, and very happy, and very warm. They were the first to get called about the fire at the old schoolhouse, because Dr. Tyson owned the property it was built on.

XIV.

Ashley and Jennifer woke up at almost the same time, and smiled at each other, and then began the awkward business of getting out of the tub without stepping on each other. When they entered the bedroom, she led Jennifer over to the bed so that she could sit between Alexis and Jennifer, insulated. Everybody looked really worried because she hadn't talked now in several hours, just stared and looked broken and tired. The last word she'd said was "peace."

XXV.

When Jennifer finally arrived, Ashley cleared her throat, and everyone got quiet, because it was her show now in a way it hadn't been. Maya had spoken eloquently about the dangers of visibility from here on out, and they'd discussed ways of getting her out of town for a while. Donnie stood at attention, at the door, paying attention but with a tilt to his head that meant he was listening for unwanted visitors. He was getting good at knowing when people were on his property. It was like a sixth sense.

Ashley croaked, "Jeremy," and he looked at her warmly, in the soft light.

"You're Fawkes. This is your fault. I could have died. What the hell do you think you're doing?"

He looked sad, and a little like he'd been punched.

"I'm sorry, Ashley."

Everyone was shocked.

"I'm sorry, Ashley, but this isn't about you anymore. Stay safe."

He walked to the door. Nobody could move. Ashley just looked away from him, disgusted with herself. Her hero, his arms around her, his smell still in her hair. She'd thought she was walking into it with open eyes, knowing what he was. But she didn't really know what he was at all.

Nobody would look him in the eye.

"Okay, then. I guess have some things to take care of."

He stepped through the door into the hallway, and cleared his throat.

Josh and Brian stood, and followed him.

Jennifer chuckled, but not because of anything funny. Brian turned.

"Don't come to school tomorrow, Jen. Tell everybody."

She nodded, her hand tight around Ashley's wrist.





XVI.


Emma sets up her place in part four, which is to help from behind the scenes
Jeremy	full Pepe
Ashley takes Emma off the board
Jennifer full Buffy
Brian	full Bernie Bro
Ashley and Alexis talking about just leaving
Emma / Eddie	full school shooter
Ashley and Josh as a last-ditch attempt at peace
Alexis call
Ashley — the night of
Brian and Jeremy the night of

On the morning of April twentieth, Brian Anderson came downstairs early, wearing a turtleneck, and made enough coffee for his parents, when they woke. It was unseasonably cold that morning. Brian was thinking big thoughts: Brando, the glory of culture, how it gets inside you like a virus, or a vaccine. About the moment of orgasm. When the masks fall down and you don't care what your face looks like, and how for that moment everyone is beautiful.

Jeremy said, "Superman doesn't exist without the accident of our sun, but he doesn't exist as a hero without supervillains. Without disaster, apocalypse, Abomination, acts of God, he's just a guy pretending to be human. Without a problem, he can't be a solution. Can you imagine that? Just being another regular person? Everyone should have something to push against."
"Aren't there enough bad guys in the world without embracing evil as a technicality? Can't you trust them to do the work for you?"
"Look around, Brian. Someone's gotta be strong enough to push it further. Someone has to destroy the world, or else it's just low-level evil, dispersed randomly throughout the system, like a bad smell you've gotten used to. The heat death of virtue."
"That's your plan?"
"We need heroes, Brando."
"Can't you be one?"
"Tell me the difference. Tell me everyone doesn't deserve the right to be a hero."

His Mom came downstairs and thanked him for the coffee. She looked tiny in her bathrobe, her usually perfect hair sloping to one side. She wasn't wearing her wedding ring.
"I love cold mornings like this."
"It's weird, isn't it? So late in the year? Like A Midsummer Night's Dream. Even the weather's gone crazy."
II.

Karen Grossman pressed the snooze button for the first time in her life, then the second and the third. She rolled over and over, so many times, unable to find a comfortable position, refusing to get out of bed.
Their eyes, at the schoolhouse. The blankness. That wasn't a symptom, it wasn't a coincidence. Ashley was right. Something dreadful was wrong with Children. She thought about packing a bag and running away, right then, disappearing like Truman and coming back in a few weeks when everyone had been punished. She might have, if she'd been able to get out of bed.


III.

Jeremy—and he knew this was weird—finished up his Alexander the Great essay that morning, and emailed it to the teacher, and then picked up the phone.
The news didn't say anything about school being cancelled. He prayed for ice, snow, sleet, but none came.

IV.

Down the hall she heard her mother sighing, as she did every morning upon waking. Such a cute sound, like a baby when it wakes and yawns and stretches. She loved her mother more at that second than she ever had before.
"I'm too sick to go to school, Mom."
"Me too, Karen. It's okay."
They sat on the couch and watched videos all morning, and had hot soup for lunch, and didn't see the news all day.

V.

Tasha Carroll wouldn't let her Dad turn on the radio, on the way to school. She wanted silence. They drove by the high school and she shivered, and her hand crept into her father's without her even noticing. Her Dad looked down, and glanced at Tasha's impassive face, and nearly started crying—it was so nice to see his daughter acting like a child, for once, instead of an intense little sergeant. She could be so sweet, and smart. So vulnerable. With such a good heart. He gave her hand a squeeze, and grinned at her, and Tasha grinned back.

VI.

Eddie Van Tenk woke up unable to move, terrified of looking over at the clock and seeing what time it was. He stayed in that position well into the afternoon, high on pain medications, and was marked as non-responsive and withdrawn by every nurse who touched his chart. The last one offered to wheel him down to the lobby for a few minutes outside of the room, even though he was on watch for clotting complications due to a hereditary blood disorder he'd never even known about until his hospital stay.
"I'm feeling rebellious," the nurse grinned, and Eddie smiled back at him weakly.



VII.

When Maya Gidley's parents awoke, it was to a beautifully-presented breakfast, on two trays, which their daughter brought to them on a squeaky old antique bar cart. There were rosemary needles sprinkled across the scrambled eggs, and butter and cinnamon on top of the grits. Both stacks of pancakes had a perfect, thinly-sliced strawberry fanned out across the top. She'd had to make three batches before she was satisfied with them, their color, the uniformity of shape. Before the sun had come out, she'd run into the garden with frozen bare feet to pick crocuses, and floated them in small ramekins of water on the trays. Champagne and orange juice chilled in an ice bucket on the bedside table, and she ordered them to stay in bed. Nobody was leaving the house that day, she told them—too cold. They laughed and pulled her into the bed, placing her between them. She was already sleeping there, sweaty, in her socks and pajamas, before they'd even opened the champagne. They traded sections of the paper over her, and every so often one would catch the other's eye, and smile down at their strange, lovely daughter, and they'd laugh quietly.

VIII.

Josh Tyson had the radio on from five until it was time to go. He stared out the window, watching the light turn first white, then gray, then blue, and he watched the sun come out from behind the neighbor's live oaks, and when he heard the family knocking around, he knew he should move, get dressed, get ready, but it took a long time get it together.
He was thinking about how much planning it would take for God to make an angel that would fight back. He'd been a religious kick for awhile. If Lucifer rebelled, then Lucifer had free will. But why would God just let that slide? What if he'd set up the whole thing from the get-go? What if God was still in charge? What if God were playing the whole field, if he was in charge of everything, and set Satan loose on his Children for his own purposes: then who could you trust?
Finally his Mom called up to him and he knew it was starting. Next to his bedroom door there were three duffle bags. They were small ones, gym bags, but still quite heavy. He clomped down the stairs, one tiny shoulder bowing down and the other raised high, unbalanced, and his hair was a mess.

IX.

Donnie's Dad woke him up before the sun, in the chill, to help him scrape the car windows and run the engine while the car warmed up. You could see your breath like steam in the house. They drove to the 24-hour Home Depot to buy heating oil, and Dad again mourned the fact that he hadn't completed the fireplace. It would be so much nicer that way, with the cold, cold wind coming through the living room and straight back to the master bedroom. Necie caught cold so easily. They hurried back to warm the place up as quickly as possible.
X.

Jennifer Standish woke up with the baby in the bed with her, where she'd curled up with him in the middle of the night after she'd awakened, cold, blankets kicked off the bed entirely, and her first thought had been worry, that it was too cold for him.
They'd named him Ben. He looked like a Ben. His wide, strong, square face. His quiet smile. His clutching hands. She burrowed underneath the blankets again, curled her body around him like a snail's shell, like a kangaroo's pouch. Like a shield. She dreamed of Truman, and Alexis, and woke with tears on her face when the alarm sounded again.

XI.

Duncan Taylor woke on the couch, and before even properly awakened, he'd crept quietly into his wife's bedroom across the hall. He nearly tripped over his suitcases by the door, and shut his eyes up tight as his foot came down loudly on the floor. Nobody stirred.
Her wavy red hair was spread out like a fan on the pillow, her features at rest like an angel's. Her breasts rose and fell slowly, and her eyelids twitched almost imperceptibly. Her stomach growled and she smiled a bit, in her dream, and he watched her reach across the bed, to nothing. Her hand rested limp on his spot, disappointed and alone, and then as he watched, she wriggled and settled herself in the middle of the bed, as though she'd slept there alone her entire life, and then fall deeper still into her slumber. She was still the strong one.

XII.

Mrs. Tyson woke up alone and cold, and thought first of Josh and then of Jeremy, and then the last few weeks came rushing back, and she reminded herself to be stone. Sometimes tough love was the most important thing, no matter if it made you wish you were dead. She'd ask him to move out this very afternoon. The second finals were done, he'd need to find a summer job. Get his head out of the clouds, spend some time with the rest of us working mortals for a while. Anything but abstraction.

XIII.

Trilby Taylor was still on her Ireland kick and woke up with a library book's sharp corner poking her cheek. There was never a famine in Ireland: just a manufactured supply decrease, to enhance the English destruction of Irish culture. And they were too demoralized to respond appropriately: by cutting off English access to their land and resources. That wasn't in the book, it wasn't a quote. Just an idea she had. If somebody's eating you alive, you can't just sit there, can you? Not even in satire. You had to cut it off, stop farming. Stop performing. And then they'd get it. That's what the Irish should have done, just pretended they didn't know what farming was, just stayed out of sight as often as possible and wait until the system fell apart. She'd be a movie star one day; she'd take care of them then.
Her Dad was moving out all of a sudden. That was interesting. It took his eye off her, for once, and the whole family was in such an uproar that nobody remembered to ask her where their next meal was coming from. They were like the red-shifting universe right now, getting bigger and bigger and farther and farther apart, and she was just Ireland: a territory unto itself, forgotten in the shuffle, as everyone decided who they were going to be next.

XIV.

Martin Donnelly was sick of inaction. He'd slept that night deeply and well, a skill he'd always had, and he woke up fierce.
"Gurrmmmah."
"Corey, get up and get over here."
"What time is it?"
"Time to stop the Teddy Bear's Picnic."
"You heard what they said. We're not supposed to go."
"We have to stop them."
"Martin …"
"Corey, it's not a question."
"This isn't a movie. You're not Jennifer."
"I don't care. And yeah. And we're going."
"Martin, I won't have you dying. We're supposed to be dating after today."
"Then I'm calling the cops."
"Yeah, do that. Do you think anybody else is going to school?"
"Start calling them, just in case."



XV.

Emma Brodie looked at television in her hotel room all morning, waiting, in the soft light, and when the sun was high she cheered as it began to happen. The fellow she'd met last night in the lobby bar groaned and rolled over. She smiled and rolled her eyes, emptied his wallet, grabbed her bags, and disappeared. She had rich brown hair matching that in an old, old passport, and between the pages of her Veblen there were pictures of them all: Ashley and Brian, Eddie and Duncan. The Children and the Young Adults. Everyone she'd loved. In her lapel she wore a white rose.

XVI.

Mrs. Oliver woke up sick, and barely made it to the bathroom before she started puking. She'd felt this five times before, so she knew what was to come. Her first impulse was to call her daughter Janna, but she called Sheila instead, and by the time she answered, Mrs. Oliver was already crying.

XVII.

Heath Oliver climbed into bed with his father, after turning off the alarm clock, and tried to sleep there, next to his father's massive warmth, but every time he closed his eyes, he saw the riot at the schoolhouse, and shivered. Even when his father, half-awake, covered him with an arm and pulled him into his chest, he never did more than doze.

XVIII.

Corey Rogers called Ashley first, but the phone was busy. Nobody seemed to be answering. It was as if the whole town had gone to sleep, like in a fairy tale. After he'd tried every number he knew twice—even calling Jeremy's house—and only managed to get ahold of Jennifer, who laughed bitterly when he asked if she was going to school, he fell back asleep, with the phone still in his hand.

XIX.

Jennifer Standish's plan was to get there before anybody else, find a way into the building, and then hide somehow, and avert the whole disaster. She had an outfit picked, and her mp3 player, and a bag full of theatre weaponry, and 911 dialled into her phone, just waiting for her to press "send."
"There is no Sophia. There is only Buffy. There is no Jennifer. There is only Buffy."
She took off her bracelets—too jangly—and changed into her dance shoes, for traction, and repeated her mantra until it didn't even make sense any more.

"I'm coming for you, motherfucker."

XX.

Mr. Tyson was composing a letter to his favorite uncle, who lived in the city. He was a somewhat well-known theatre producer, now in his seventies, whose sexuality was an open secret in the family. He knew it would kill Jeremy if he actually invited the guy down and sprung him on the kid, who hadn't seen him since he was younger than Josh, but he thought it couldn't hurt to get some tips.
The problem was getting inside Jeremy's head. It always had been.

XXI.

Necie McNeely woke to the feeling of an oncoming ear infection, moaned, and then offered it up to God, perched at her bedside, on her knees on the cold, cold floor. After prayer, she sat at her desk—a big old metal one her father had found at a yard sale, which she always felt guilty for not using. He'd been so proud.
She pulled her diary from beneath her mattress, where it had sat empty since Christmas, and she began to write about yesterday, and all the days before.

XXII.

Mrs. Anderson looked in the mirror, called herself Nina. Spit out toothpaste and saliva. Watched it crawl down the glass, entranced. After a few minutes of staring, she wrapped herself in her bathrobe and stepped into the hall. She smelled coffee and crept downstairs slowly, in case it was her husband in the kitchen. Her feet were cold.
It was just Brian. She thanked him for being so thoughtful, and left out any comment on how uncharacteristic his charity had become, what a nice little boy he'd once been. She sipped her coffee as they chatted, and they both went back upstairs to dress for the day. She smiled, softer, tired, watching Ashley sleep, still in yesterday's clothes, and decided she was done being Nina for good. There was enough here; it had always been enough, here. There was no sense in resenting her husband for the circumstances outside his control, after all. They desperately needed therapy.

XXIII.

Truman palmed the drugs when they came, because it was time to write another letter, and this one wasn't going to be in code, because they'd really slacked off on reading and censoring his mail, and this was important:

I've spent so much time trying to educate you, build you up, change you into being more like me. That's the one thing Brodie was right about—that I wanted you for a protégée, some little kid I could look at and say, "I did that. I made her special."
That was wrong, and sick, and everything that you're trying to solve. I can't believe it took this crap to make me see that. You deserve better.
So I'm asking you to ignore everything I ever said to you, and concentrate on this:
You were right. About all of it. Trust that. All the talk of spectacles and revolution means nothing: you have to save everybody at the same time. Just stick to it, because in the end, all you have is yourself.
That's not a bad thing, it's a gorgeous thing, but everyone in the world is going to tell you it's wrong. It's because they want stuff from you. That's all.
If you aren't true to yourself, if you let them compromise you, your lies will always find you. Evidence of this is currently everywhere around me, you know what I mean?
I love you, just as you are, Ashley Anderson. You are strong and smart and lovely, and a really, really good person. Don't argue the point—you're in no position to judge. You have to be a superhero, you have to have a gigantic heart, to even conceive of a plan like yours. Just for trying you deserve a medal.
The fact that you'll succeed means you deserve something even better than a medal.

Truman

The thing Truman never got to find out was that rescuing him, busting him out with Jennifer, all secret-agent style, was Phase II: the very next thing that was supposed to happen. Just knowing that might have saved him, in the end.

XXIV.

Alexis called Ashley from the airport.
"I'm on a red-eye to LA. Well. Is it a red-eye if it's at seven? When do the eyes stop being red?"
"What the fuck do you mean? I need you here."
"You really don't. You have the option of checking out too."
"No I don't. Are you kidding? You can't do this to me, Alexis. I need you."
"You don't need anybody but yourself."
"But what about doing the right thing? What about the …"
"It doesn't matter. None of it matters. You're letting it ruin you."
"This is a war, Alexis."
"War is irrelevant, Ashley. Please, this is why I called, so please listen. Stay home today."
"Absolutely not. This is my fault. Whatever happens today, it's on my head."
"You're not in charge of anybody but Ashley."
"This is in my honor. This is like my fucking debutante ball, Alexis."
"What did I tell you? Letting them tell you who you are, letting them get you into a fight, letting them tell you what you're responsible for … that's what's evil, Ashley. That's the betrayal. What they're planning, it's just … and do you honestly think they're going to pull it off? Ten bucks says they won't even try it."
"Oh, they'll try it."
"They'll fail. Just deny them your involvement. They're counting on you being there. Don't give in to that. Just stay home. Call the cops and stay home."
"Alexis …"
"Look. Who are you? Are you a martyr? Are you a soldier? No. You're a little girl. You're a kid, so you don't know better."
"Alexis?"
"That's the only time I've ever said that. So listen up: you're about peace. They're not. They've got a reason to do something they were already spoiling to do. The evil is all in them. None of this touches you."
"I gave them a reason."
"They would've found one. Like Jeremy Tyson's not fucked up enough to …"
"Don't, Alexis. This isn't his fault. If you're going to blame anybody, blame me. Blame me, for involving him, or Josh, or Eddie Van Tenk. Or Tasha Carroll. I made those choices."
"Those are the only choices you made, Ash. The rest is up to them."
"I have to go, Alexis."
"Ashley, no! You're going to get fucking killed!"
"You said they weren't going to pull it off. So I should be fine. I'll take care of it."
"Ashley, please …"
"I love you, Alexis. We'll talk soon, okay?"
"Ashley, don't pull that shit with me. Don't talk to me like I'm Jennifer."
"Why are you going to LA?"
"To bloom."
"What about your family?"
"Cross-apply."
"Huh?"
"They're not my responsibility, any more than what these kids're doing is yours."
"Whose are they, then?"
"Their own. That's all we've got. Isn't that the point?"
"Yeah, but that doesn't mean we can just…"
"It's about realizing that there's no difference between you and them. Why would you fight yourself? That's all this is: one hand crushing the other. Don't get pulled in … Look, you're the one who helped me figure it out, Ash. I'm sorry if it doesn't make sense to you."
"Helped you …?"
"They're calling my flight. I'm going to call you again when I get to LA, and you'd better answer the phone, okay? Or else I'll worry."
"Goodbye, Alexis. I love you."
"Oh, baby. Just …"
"I think I loved you most of all, in the end. Isn't that funny?"
"Funny's not the word. Ashley, I'll … I'll call your parents."
"Already unplugged. They don't need the stress. This is the only working phone in the house. Just don't make me … you're making me really nervous. I was cool before …"
"Scared, huh? You should be. I'll call you in a couple of hours."
"Fine."
She handed the phone to the metal detector guy, walked through, and when he handed it back, the line was dead.
Walking down the concourse, she felt them looking, and she smiled. It was a movie and in her head she heard loud choruses, jubilant, and the sun making everything almost too bright to look at. Including Alexis. In the middle of all this fear and drama it was possible to feel a bit of grace. If you were brave enough.

XXV.

The problem was that she'd been too visible, too obvious. So she would become invisible, formless, adaptable, and in the end she'd be able to take their guns and bombs and turn them into something beautiful and quiet and heroic, and nobody would get hurt, because she'd get there in time, talk them down, show Jeremy her face and Josh her hands and Brian her smile, and they'd call it off, and end it right there.
There was comfort, if nothing was certain. It meant nobody was watching. If you stopped counting on things being the way they were supposed to be. If you stopped thinking there were rules, and expecting people to follow them. It was nice. Everybody on their own, thinking thoughts and doing things, and no need to yell about how unfair everything was all the time. The truth was, that was true whether or not you knew it. Ashley picked up her bag, its new heaviness unfamiliar, clanking iron muffled by the sweater in which it was wrapped.

And the sun was coming up outside her front door, in all the cold of the wind and the freezing air. But where it touched her face it was warm enough.


NOTES ON QEA

ARC WORKSHEETS

Each character and each relationship between every character has an arc: 3-3-1-3-3. 
Define those first, then build the episodes from that, then move all notes into the overall structure.

Episode 1: Ashley—the movement begins and we meet the Children; Tasha’s house
Episode 2: Brian—the complications among the Young Adults; Karen’s house
Episode 3: Heath/Jennifer—the Schoolhouse, the coven(s), Heath breaks 

Episode 4: Karen—exploring all the connections they are making; the talent and art show
Episode 5: Jasper/Josh—Neverland; ends with Jeremy and Corey in bed; the Mother Revolution
Episode 6: Alexis—her day; also follows Eddie’s sexual misadventures and beating with Emma

Episode 7: Emma—circular as she infiltrates; ends where it begins; infinite origins and fates past #13

Episode 8: Necie/Corey—Ashley deals with the McNeelys; ends with her abduction
Episode 9: Truman—all up to showdown with Emma/disappearance; Schoolhouse lost (Jennifer peels out)
Episode 10: Maya—relationship with her mom; the propaganda fight over Necie; double-agent

Episode 11: Ben saves Ashley & they go after Emma, everything explodes; the Eddie orgy; Volcano Girls
Episode 12: Jeremy—everything leading up to the last moment; the night of
Episode 13: Ashley—a whole morning in one hour as we revisit and say goodbye to everyone

CHARACTER ARCS

THE CHILDREN

Ashley is, of course, our lead. Specific and a hard-left liberal, she’s skeptical about Adults and YAs but very naïve. She thinks that she can save the world, and she’s willing to do it. “Of course they think you’re just a little girl—that’s your clever disguise!”
Episodes 1-3: The movement begins and grows, watched over by Emma Poppins and grown by Brian.
Episodes 4-6: Ashley is grateful for Emma’s counsel, and Truman’s, as things get so busy
Midpoint: Ashley is completely under Emma’s spell, going cold and hard, isolating herself and her circle.
Episodes 8-10: Ashley secretly works against Emma until Truman’s hospital, when she steps up and shows herself, to take Emma off the board (and becomes her target).
Episodes 11-13: Routed in retaking the movement, then destroyed by the Fawkes reveal on Halloween. As the only two-time narrator, we have the chance to compare Ashley Before & After, in the way she talks and reads the narration at the end. To the extent that it needs narrating. The last line stays, I know that.

Tasha is our false prophet, who steals Ashley’s sunshine from go. Calormene Tash, Donald Trump.
Episodes 1-3: An outsider desperate to be included, and begrudgingly is. Immediately an issue of course.
Episodes 4-6: The realization that Emma does not think she is wonderful sends Tasha over the edge.
Midpoint: After Necie’s abduction, Tasha and Eddie formally rededicate the movement.
Episodes 8-10: Tasha is the star of the show, brilliantly deploying misinformation etc. as a dictator.
Episodes 11-13: Tasha gripped by guilt over what’s happening, but the Children leave her in Antarctica.

Maya is the one falling through the cracks of intersectionality—overlooked by authorities and not quite a part of Ashley’s vision. Her relationship with Jasper is a beacon of hope so it has to fall apart (his parents, of course)—she is more than happy to use this to Easter’s benefit, turning double-agent, but like BLM up against Bernie she never quiets down or stops working on the “good” guys
Episodes 1-3: An unquiet member of the chorus, she takes advantage of her cultural capital because she has to. Twice as good for half as much. She’s annoyed by her father’s passivity and unknowingly cowed by her mom’s narcissism—she is her mother’s autobiography, even in fantasy sequences.
Episodes 4-6: As part of Jasper’s developing maturity, she is the person he is going towards, away from Josh. Something makes her kiss him at Wonderland and Jasper immediately and stupidly wants to make it official—she’s maybe still ambivalent, but something with her parents makes her give the okay.
Midpoint: Our first real interaction with the McNeelys, through Maya’s eyes, is unbelievably ugly.
Episodes 8-10: Maya’s non-intervention is a problem, because she doesn’t meet purity tests based on her past protests.
Episodes 11-13: Maya takes one for the team, going undercover and saving the day almost

Trilby is one we lose. Her real name is Susannah by the way. Once her father moves out, she is absorbed into him, joining with Tasha and using her manipulative skills to be her surrogate and speechwriter.
Episodes 1-3: The sweetest among the Maguires, she is the breadwinner for the family, able to compartmentalize and perform—a skill Ashley must learn rather than simply use, unlike Tasha who never can.
Episodes 4-6: Tasha’s jealous bullying and pressure at home mean she will crack; Ashley isn’t paying attention because she’s so dependable and good-natured
Midpoint: When Emma activates her father’s homosexuality, she moves in with him and gets caught in the middle.
Episodes 8-10: Once Ashley gets rid of Emma, Trilby is caught by the danger and sticks with the bad kids, doing Tasha’s bidding—even when her hero, Karen, tries to get her to switch since she no longer can.
Episodes 11-13: One of the goals in the last assault The Night Before is about getting Trilby to safety.

Heath is our white privilege sweetie—the only son and only child at home, well-adjusted and kind but with a powerful sense of fairness that only doubles down despite all evidence that fairness is a fantasy. His break comes early, with news of his father’s adultery, but threats of military school keep him home.
Episodes 1-3: Ashley’s crush to begin with; in love with Karen and wants to prove he is mature. He goes out of his mind from their parents’ adultery, and the secret drives a wedge between them; defacto leadership of the movement and the only worthwhile boy.
Episodes 4-6: Heath recovers slowly, between the military school threat and generally finding his own level; innocently irks Maya as the voice of that entitled confusion, but eventually grasps it.
Midpoint: We see Heath’s intuition come up—it was buried under the pressure of being Heath—he is the best-case scenario for what may happen to Brian, and we pin our hopes on that due to their similarities. He’s the Brian, not Jasper; there is no YA Jasper besides Eddie van Tenk. He is bitten by his puppy and injures it, then keeps that a secret from everyone, nursing it back to health.
Episodes 8-10: Aide-de-camp and technically part of the Teen Girl alliance and coven; the YA women understand him and are teaching him the correct vocabulary; he is the Ashley to their Truman
Episodes 11-13: Heath is useful, they finally realize; he can be Good Boy with cops and whatever; he and they guard his integrity as a sacred tool they can use as a scalpel to move Adults when necessary.

Karen is the supertalented, over-hobbied kid that Ashley and Trilby are obsessed with. She is the coolest of the Children, gets along with the Young Adults better than anyone, and she’s a problem-solver.
Episodes 1-3: We see the stresses in her perfect household early, but she maintains.
Episodes 4-6: A cold war with her mother reiterates that Children will never really have choices.
Midpoint: She takes it too far with her mother, ruining her burgeoning relationship, and comes off the board. Retires to a sort of consigliere and voice of caution, since she has been so burned she’s empty.
Episodes 8-10: When Deborah rushes into Emma’s power vacuum, Karen is left high and dry—she’s been planning to run away and live with older brother Austin or Truman, but is stymied
Episodes 11-13: Karen functions as a sort of watch officer and messenger, but can’t be active in any of the movements. She’s neutralized throughout, and can only focus on her art and hobbies; less conscientious objector than powerless refugee. The price of big action.

Necie is the most tragic person who has ever lived. Sniveling, loves nurses and lunch ladies, lies all the time, depends on twin brother Jasper for literally everything, does not mind screwing people over to get what she wants. A line-cutter and last-cookie-eater who will run crying to the teacher the second anybody looks at her funny. She is the thing that Ashley hates most, and must save. She is also Ashley’s most devoted fan: Her symbiosis with Jasper is already so complete that the only place the sheer amount of love within her, which is infinite and powerful, goes directly into blind Ashley worship, ever since they were just toddlers—and she’s the one person Ashley doesn’t even fake it with. She just goes dead-eyed and silent. 
Episodes 1-3: We get the taste of Ashley’s contempt for her, and her corresponding adoration, early on. Nobody ever talks about it, it’s too embarrassing, but Tasha knows it’s a way to get under Ashley’s skin.
Episodes 4-6: Necie is Emma’s key to getting inside Ashley’s heart: The first time she sees that blank coldness in Ashley’s reaction, she knows just how to push. It isn’t about isolating Necie, of course, that’s just a benefit since Emma hates her too: It’s about isolating Ashley, showing her how to become cold
Midpoint: Her only big thing here is that she sides with their parents about Maya, which puts her on the outs with the Maguires and breaks Jasper’s heart. 
Episodes 8-10: Necie’s episode starts this second half, so that’s when Ashley changes her mind about her—leading however tenuously to her abduction and assault, which motivate the second half of the season, but which Ashley doesn’t need to feel burdened by. She’s shellshocked—and ripe for Tasha and Eddie (who we know was sexualized early; he’s oddly tender with her in a way that could read as threatening but we find out is just compassion) to use as Trilby’s sockpuppet/prop 
Episodes 11-13: With Corey’s help, now a de facto McNeely – and for reasons he never specifies because he doesn’t have to—Necie becomes stronger and more wonderful, a beacon of honesty. The Trilby that Trilby cannot be; her opposite. Her devotion to Ashley, like Jasper’s, never wavers—but that’s neither good nor bad, and could very well have contributed to what happened. She is the most famous survivor of the ending massacre, and offers the wisdom and kindest words—if we see any aftermath at all, that’s her. Not glorying in the attention but begging people to change, and knowing it’s futile.

Jasper is GI Joe, Scouting, good ol’ boy, Boy America. Quiet dignity and beauty; in the novel he has a shock of white-blond hair. His home is red-state central, and the McNeelys are the only family we know that’s like that—even Eddie’s family is middle-class; although Alexis is severely repulsed by them. But in the battleground of that house, and all that goes down there, Jasper has the unique position of loving both sides and just being crushed by the conflict, instead of picking a side. He’s that FNL essay, as a kid—and when he is sad, we are all very sad. Downside, he’s dismissive of women outside his narrow understanding of gender: He is barely on the same planet as Karen, for example, and doesn’t think much of flighty Jennifer either. He judges all female persons by his sister’s example, and there’s no getting around that.
Episodes 1-3: Quietly and firmly in love with Maya, he worships Brian and Jeremy, and forms the Children version of their “Rope” love story with Josh. They’re inseparable, despite disagreeing with literally everything, and Jasper’s not shy about saying when Josh is being offensive—but he defends him at all costs. He might have once been as obsessed with Ashley as Necie is, but part of his nobility is that he is affable with everyone, and certainly respects Ashley for her skills and abilities… But he will never, we think, love her the way she secretly realizes she is in love with him. 
Episodes 4-6: Her attempt to connect with him goes from secret crush to a serious need to understand him and his family, and at that point she has his attention. Where Heath is the golden boy everybody believes, Jasper gets things done with his nobility and simplicity and plain-spoken honesty. Adults are as intimidated by him as they are horrified by his sister. Needless to say, he never has to come to her defense, since nobody would dare in his presence; it’s the reason he’s the first person to say plainly that Emma is bullshit, which takes everybody a while to sink in.
Midpoint: The Maya shit breaks his world apart, of course; that’s one reason Ashley and Corey make the McNeely Visit in the first place, to check on the boy she has a secret crush on.
Episodes 8-10: He is most changed by the McNeely Visit, much warmer toward Ashley and Corey; from there on out he is as attached to Corey, against all expectations, the mini-me to Corey as Josh is to Jeremy. We would have expected Brian, since all the boys are in love with him, but not Jasper anymore: Brian and Jeremy have their son, Josh, and Jasper has his Corey—whom he advocates for when they decide to let Corey move in after the attack/his own abuse comes out. if this were Lord of the Flies he would be the Simon, and once allied with Corey that’s exactly what they make each other. This is a little awkward fit with the witchcraft stuff, of course, but Jasper can accept things that sound right to him—he doesn’t hold onto opinions or anything—so it’s easily dealt with. His growth, ultimately, is less about changing his mind and more about opening his eyes—the rhetoric of the bad kids, the stuff with Necie, doesn’t compute, so he has to reevaluate. He also admits to Corey, by the end of this act, how frustrating he finds his sister. This is the only time he mentions anything within a mile of that, and it’s one of the ways we key into how close they are.
Episodes 11-13: He is the only person with the same skillset as Josh, and moves up to Ashley’s second in command in the last act. He can predict their moves and responses, and although it’s his idea he has real trouble with letting Maya play double agent. This relationship is stellar in the last act, as they quickly come to an agreement and go back to what they were always doing: Being best friends who love each other. He’ll do anything for her, but no longer because of romance or any boy-girl crap: It’s because he has gotten a sense of other people’s subjective experience; the ultimate expression of his quiet censure whenever Heath is insensitive or Josh is weird—he husbands the other children like a farmer, or a sheepdog. Gently and without stopping. In the end, he’s the best chance at anyone’s survival, and that cannot come down to being ignored or anything like that. He is what he seems to be and nobody questions that.

Weird Josh is the external measure of his brother Jeremy, and the counterpart to Jasper. Where Jeremy goes, Josh follows, and leaves Jasper behind when the tension snapsEpisodes 1-3: Ashley is as unexpectedly fond of him as Brian is of Alexis, because in both cases they’re so high above them that nothing they do matters, almost. He has a wry sense of humor that only Ashley understands, which makes him fond of her. It is very clear that Josh has no interest in other Children—he only seeks their company because his brother is busy and he’s a Roomba with no clear map—but where he is physically aware of Jasper, responding to him like a man and his horse, he is mentally very aware of Ashley, focusing on her when he focuses at all. He also is more conscious than he lets on about how much he gets under Jasper’s skin—but less out of nastiness or pique and more that it’s soothing to be given limits by his best friend, since he has no other measure of normality or civil human discourse. And in fact, that’s why he loves Jasper so much: Jasper naturally knows the things Josh naturally cannot, thanks to his psycho/biological quirks. We don’t get a diagnosis and we don’t want to demonize kids on the spectrum anyway, but definitely he is looking for other people to meet the needs he can’t meet for himself. A buzzing, strange little insect of a boy, not cute about it or performative—just a weird kid, an alien; he has access to superhigh vocabulary about a lot of subjects, and finds fascinating things that we’d rather kids not talk about, like his brother’s sexuality and other stuff grownups do.
Episodes 4-6: While he pals around with Jasper for most of the first half, we start getting signs that something is up pretty early on—the way he and Jeremy are together when they’re alone isn’t just different, it’s strange. Absent selfish father, autistic and self-absorbed mother; Jeremy has basically raised him from an early age. They have their own languages, secrets, shorthand, hiding places, cryptography. Josh loves maps, digging in the dirt, and trying on his brother’s revolutionary rhetoric. . At Wonderland, Josh is content to stay at Brian and Jeremy’s feet, letting their talk and love flow over him; Jasper is left to his own devices, bored out of his skull by Jeremy’s entire act. 
Midpoint:  A lot of the avalanche comes from Josh’s dedication to making Jeremy and Brian acknowledge that they are in love, which may or may not be true—Brian is bisexual, Jeremy asexual—but was never going to work out the way he wants it to, which is pretty suburban after all. What he can’t know is that Jennifer’s thrown that in his face before, or especially that Emma is pushing these same buttons in their secret sex sessions—his unrelenting Doozer-like attention to this relationship is building Jeremy toward one thing, and Brian the other way, and the feedback loop as Jeremy scrambles is a huge reason it all goes down the way it does: He is speaking, in a way, for their unconscious as it tries to figure out this attachment and attraction. And the whole time we’ve got Emma in there, the invisible factor.
Episodes 8-10: Josh is the bellwether, above all, once we realize Adults aren’t the enemy. He has no theory of mind, and doesn’t think to hide his activities or the growing sociopathic arrogance he’s picking up from his brother. Ashley’s mistake is thinking that she has him on lock—that he would ever work against her, since she’s been protecting him for so long. She thinks they have an understanding, but an understanding with him is impossible, because he is unknowable. While some of the kids think of themselves as tiny adults, Josh thinks of the world as a vast simulacrum for his own delectation—everyone is robots to him, and when he floats this to Jasper, that’s the last straw. 
Episodes 11-13: Bullied by the Teens in Eddie/Jeremy’s group and completely cut off from the Children, Josh threatens to go into his own kind of catatonia—Adults even take notice, asking the helpless leadership of the Children to somehow repair him and his socialization—but he strikes out on his own, taking things further than Jeremy actually could, and boxing his brother into the nightmare that is coming. When Jeremy and Brian finally break off officially and are shunned by Ashley and the group, Josh discovers joy: Now it will just be the three of them, forever and ever. My 2 dads. That’s his last thought—we don’t see it but the implication should be that he is the first to die.





YOUNG ADULTS

Brian is about identity: Five different versions of a boy becoming a man. 
Episodes 1-3: When we meet him Brian is at the end of a long convalescence. His old identity is gone, but he’s still recovering spiritually and not interested in finding himself. His main focus is Jennifer and Jeremy, and everything else has just subsided for him. He’s in a period of mourning. Brian brings a lot of the quarterback with him, male privilege that he assumes rather than embodies. He is still something of a golden boy, but feels invisible nonetheless. Brian and Ashley discover each other, in a feedback loop of delight and recognition, that bonds them against their parents—now he has three friends, not two. He wants to be open and supportive of Jeremy’s feelings toward him, which may or may not exist but are certainly flattering and titillating; he jumps on any sign of jealousy or conflict, desperately trying to connect with Jeremy in this way, and flailing blindly in it. Depressed, cocooned with Jennifer and Jeremy.
Episodes 4-6: Jennifer’s cheating, when it comes out, doesn’t change much. He is willing to let her go—focusing all that feeling into anger toward Eddie instead, making it about him. Electioneering, surrogate, equal to adults; heartbreak over Jennifer but moving toward Emma
Midpoint: Sex with Emma changes everything— doesn't reify his sexuality but dissociates it—he levels up; he can now, like Jennifer, take on different personae without ego getting in the way. He wants to be a sex doll, a glamour thing.
Episodes 8-10: without Jeremy for this brief time he can be anything but nothing feeds him
Episodes 11-13: commits to Fawkes entirely; Jennifer takes on this mythic Five Guys status within the toxic male alt-right movement

Jennifer is the actress and babysitter whose home life is more and more an expression of the outer world
Act I: Cheating girlfriend, favorite babysitter, baby witch
Act II: Most dependable & at home, Antigone
Midpoint: Signals revolt against Emma; break with Corey at first; magical ritual binding to baby
Act III: Buffy, spiritual and physical protection; all about the baby; turns out she’s the Zoe of all this
Act IV: Final break with Eddie & full dedication to Ashley/baby; discovers the Five Guys post and diagnoses it as a break, but it also wounds her enough that she’s basically off the board.

Jeremy is our Pepe. Forty degrees of transformation from soft liberal with libertarian leanings, to 4channer within that circle, to irony lulz troll and shock jock, to organizer/connected with adult militia types, to ideologue and manifesto writer; to direct action.
Episodes 1-3: soft liberal with libertarian leanings
Episodes 4-6: 4channer within that circle, to irony lulz troll/shock jock
Midpoint: Thanks to Emma—and “Fawkes” mirroring him and Eddie—connected with adult militia types
Episodes 8-10: ideologue, manifesto writer, rants and private madness; without Brian, flows to Tasha; double agent
Episodes 11-13: Finally activated, shocked by unmasking but unashamed. His last 24 hours are a poem.

Truman is the YA off the authority grid, Peter Pan to Emma’s Captain Hook, evasive via Gemini ways, masc-presenting; the angel on Ashley’s shoulder and answer to Corey’s prayers.
Episodes 1-3: Not shy but doesn’t call attention—first presents as an artist with a certain wisdom, of unknown origin; uncanny like he’s going to be the opposite of Emma; the one everybody puts their grownup stances on because he sells it so well.
Episodes 4-6: Ashley’s best advisor, a living demonstration of her principles, and Wonderland is a safehouse—a refuge from the Schoolhouse if necessary. Turns out that he is what Brian was supposed to be, in the Tyson/Anderson parallel.
Midpoint: Truman and Corey finally stop screwing around and find each other.
Episodes 8-10: As we’ve seen him do before, there is definitely a trigger point for Truman at which point he says “That’s enough.” And it always works—until this showdown with Emma, when she easily takes him off the board. When next we see him, he’s a babbling idiot, but gives her coded information leading to the final act when nothing is hidden.
Episodes 11-13: Alexis puts on her grownup act to get him released, and he is smuggled away—but without the Schoolhouse or Wonderland available, and Corey living with the McNeelys, there is nowhere to put him. He vanishes so he won’t be a burden, and we see him watching over Corey from a distance later on, clearly with his shit together and possibly preparing to rescue him.

Alexis rubs everybody the wrong way: She’s a busybody, an imperfect façade that everyone can see through. Near perfectly put together, plus-sized, with coke-bottle glasses that throw everything off, and secretly a voice like Amy Winehouse. She’s awkward and painfully administrative, and all the teens hate her. Corey can predict her every holiday-hanna move, hilariously, and that’s our introduction to her.
Episodes 1-3: She is the class joke, and seems to have no idea. They say she’s Ashley’s darkest timeline; she is the Barb. One thing we notice early on is the way she cuts Gordian knots, like Truman: She is the burn off what doesn’t work girl, and once she can make that clear she is a bit admired by the girls and gays—she’s kind of a Razor.
Episodes 4-6: In a support role, she blossoms, and wins everyone’s grudging respect, but she’s still the Barb… Until the talent show. Boys aren’t all over her or anything, after that, but there’s a sense that they “get” her now, and they go easier on her as a group. She takes to Emma’s leadership so well it’s a red herring.
Midpoint: After a particularly harsh dressing-down from Emma, we see Alexis trying to conform to those instructions, and fear we’ve lost her forever. Definitely an Emma-bot, and to the savvier teens and even Children, that’s an early danger sign.
Episodes 8-10: Once we see her real life—her dad is mentally retarded, they live in squalor, he may be placed in a home—everything changes. She and Eddie aren’t just tied together by their opposing places in the structure of the group/story, but something more. She gets him, Beauty and the Beast style, and we begin to have hope for him. Once Emma comes after her home life, though, Alexis becomes her fiercest adversary: Adults knowing better than YAs, like her and Truman who Emma targets, was the whole point.
Episodes 11-13: In the season’s final act, Alexis is the voice of “just walk away.” After saving Truman, she urges Ashley to cut her losses, Renly style, and on That Morning we see her boarding a plane to Hollywood and we know she’s going to be a big star.

Corey is our femme gay kid, self-consciously shallow and feminized as protective coloration—in reality he’s a total STEM nerd, but the question is whether the world would let him be that—whose story ends up being about none of that stuff, but about his Munsters connection with the McNeelys. The threat of military school hangs in the air, becomes a possibility in the Midpoint—and ends up being what he wants well down the line.
Episodes 1-3: Part of a pair with Jennifer; mean to Alexis; huge crush on Jeremy; one of Ashley’s early choices for lieutenant because she can see his potential—she’s too young for his sexuality to be his defining characteristic, and that’s a lesson Brian is very happy to learn.
Episodes 4-6: Fighting his attraction to Truman and focusing on the movement and the coven; sides with Jennifer during the Eddie fallout but in private is mean to her about it.
Midpoint: Getting over himself and connecting with Truman turns him into a new man overnight, as he explores outside the narrow confines of the legacy/stereotype he’s been handed.
Episodes 8-10: Corey’s big act, as he’s not only instrumental in the McNeely Visit but the hero of what happens next. Thrown out after being caught with Truman, he is brought home by Jasper to care for Necie, and Corey/Jasper become the perfect Jeremy/Josh, Ashley/Emma team. They work against both sides, trying to bring about peace and disengage Necie from her infamy—through which Corey does rescue her—and they’re the ones that have created the Easter Rebellion as a contingency. They are a resource because they’re the experts on Jeremy and Josh, although nobody knows right away that that’s why they are so useful/clutch/key.
Episodes 11-13: Like Chris, Corey’s feeling a little overprotected by the end of things, and ready to prove himself. He does get into a physical confrontation and he does hate it, but smiles through the blood just like Chris does after the bullying. Morning of, Corey has a sit-straight-up revelation/intuition about one or more of the boys—perhaps a psychic bond with Jeremy reestablishing itself; whatever it is, it’s very liminal and magical and reroutes his already explicit plans.

Eddie is a big trick. He begins as a Batman/James Dean figure, the Young Turk equivalent of Emma and “clearly” the monster at the end of the book—set in opposition to golden Brian, etc. And while he doesn’t turn out to be great or sweet, the whole thing is revealed as a pose—we thought he was Judd Nelson but he’s Emilio Estevez/maybe even Molly Ringwald: The opposite of Alexis, not Brian or Emma.
Episodes 1-3: We only know him through Jennifer, and he’s very “on” with her—this is how we find out the news of the movement is spreading, as he tries to impress Jennifer by telling her about it.
Episodes 4-6: Now part of the group, disseminating the leadership’s news to the useful idiots and bad allies, building up just enough power to conquer the Schoolhouse—and fuck Emma. We definitely see in his interactions and reactions that he was sexualized early, and he doesn’t seem to be kidding about his come-ons to Corey either.
Midpoint: Getting beat up in that biker bar is a turning point for him; especially shocking as we’ve seen him (timeline permitting?) do any number of magic charisma tricks on similar Adults in the past. The violence is in him now, and Emma is just… beyond the point. They are no longer useful to each other.
Episodes 8-10: His relationship with Fawkes is directly opposite his relationship with Jeremy, as they build each other up and even get into intimacies with each other—they’re so, so lonely and this is when we find out that they’re practically dating their worst enemy. (Somebody like Truman or Corey can make a joke about two bots talking to each other, fighting, etc., as a clue to what’s happening before we see it for ourselves.) For Jeremy this dependence comes during the Brian breakup, but for Eddie it’s a door cracking on his loneliness that he won’t be able to close—so when Jeremy starts drifting, this pushes Eddie even further, to impress him/bring him back.
Episodes 11-13: Once Jeremy and Eddie can see each other through the masks, it’s all over: There is no space for feedback or interference, just a “vase or two faces” situation—and Brian needs in. Eddie and Jeremy can act independently, so we don’t need a whole thing about their relationship—they are similarly curt and playacting, so minimal communication is necessary. It’s just easier now that there is no Fawkes and they’re just like, telepathically linked (cf. Carrie spying on Brody and falling in love that way).





ADULTS

Emma is the spirit of Revolution; Lucifer, Eve & Sophia. She has always been with us and she will never die; she’s the Reversed Tarot Trump of Grace, that picks us up and knocks us down—the Kali side of creation/destruction.
Do not all charms fly / At the mere touch of cold philosophy?
There was an awful rainbow once in heaven: / We know her woof, her texture; she is given
In the dull catalogue of common things. / Philosophy will clip an Angel's wings,
Conquer all mysteries by rule and line, / Empty the haunted air, and gnomèd mine—
Unweave a rainbow, as it erewhile made / The tender-person'd Lamia melt into a shade.
Episodes 1-3: Imminently reasonable, Emma appears out of nowhere and insinuates herself into this community, starting with Ashley and moving to her whole class. She definitely causes first-impressions in the Adults, but her attractiveness is a false-positive that throws all of that off, just as she would want.
Episodes 4-6: We start to see darkness in her bright rhetoric, both in class and one on one; the bigger move in this act is the way she annexes the Teens, beginning with and symbolized by Brian.
Midpoint: The Emmasode! She has no transformations, just revelations. It all goes down.
Episodes 8-10: We do sometimes have moments where she is like, why are you not grateful, did I not give you all you wanted, Jareth Goblin King-style, but mostly her thing here is setting up schemes to neutralize threats to come about all at the same time, like Order 66: Alexis, Truman, and so on.
Episodes 11-13: Once neutralized/magically banished by Ashley, Emma retreats from all ongoing interactions—but she continues to watch, and her love for Ashley never wavers. The voiceover of the last line (“…it was warm enough”) remains, but it’s Emma watching her with pride before back to Ashley as she walks toward us (echoing the first episode ending) and then past us, leaving us in pure white.

Ashley’s mom is a grants writer and PhD with a trunk full of unsold novels too gendered for her to respect; she is cheating on her husband and something of a bulldog at work. Not a funny person but a particularly recognizable one, which makes it funny. She is the one with the unbelievably dumb “liberal” offerings, in any circumstance—the Ryan Murphy, stereotypical kind. Always five steps behind in her concerns, because all she is really doing is Gen X concern trolling, not actually/actively paying attention. “Violence is never justified” after the violence has begun, for e.g.
Episodes 1-3: Ashley and eventually Brian are very much monitors of her mood—not because she is cruel or even authoritative, but just because her mood defines the house. Her affair is not common knowledge until Midpoint, because it causes so much central strife for Heath and Karen, a good deal of static around Ashley protecting Brian, a secret between Ashley and Jeremy, and so on.
Episodes 4-6: Here she is more the innocent bystander, not connecting the chaos back to herself; but as we learn about everyone else’s families we also ride along with her to work more frequently. There is a whole back-channel that the kids and YAs don’t know about, and we do—she’s the most default person so she carries it.
Midpoint: Tries to lay down the hammer at home, speeding up certain evolutions; interacting with Brian’s sexuality in a way that isn’t just tone-deaf but harmful; pushing things along with the other families—wherever Emma is ostracized by the parents, perhaps around this point, she is a leader in it.
Episodes 8-10: Her secret non-progressive opinions come out, and complexify; perhaps her husband is more offended by this than the affair.
Episodes 11-13: A tragic figure by the end, comforted and protected by Ashley because she is blind and deaf and has no ability to live in the world.

Ashley’s dad, a Poli Sci professor, is an “unschooling,” “ungame,” “transactional analysis” type of parent. He definitely supports and urges them on with their projects, but has no interest in the product or progress of them. His selfishness/self-absorption is masked with laissez faire demonstrations of respecting their agency; think about the Eric Anderson setup where it’s more virtuous to do nothing, and how doggedly he sticks to those narratives.
Episodes 1-3: Mostly we just see him bored, Gen X ADD, if his attention is demanded for more than short bursts. He’s more authentically interested in their children than his wife, but guileless in the way he shows his disinterest.
Episodes 4-6: We see his dedication to being oblivious pushed to the limits as more and more people learn about the affair.
Midpoint: not directly under Emma’s influence, we see him try to step out and fuck it up—again, the sort of soft while liberal male thing that only understands 0 or 60 mph, friend zone or rape, no in-between: that whispers “please” until bored and then screams “bitch” and goes home to masturbate. (And again we see in this his do-nothing virtue narrative: Not risking anything by whispering please, then getting to be “right” and the victim by flipping the switch; victims can justify anything.)
Episodes 8-10: The turning point for Mr. Anderson is the violent “Rebel” apron sequence. The point is to update that speech to the current day, which is less about performing masculinity and more about the fact that outsourcing it is just as much a modeled behavior: You feel like you were brought up without images of masculinity but that means I was brought up with images of images—the total Gen X thing of never growing up or being more than a Skywalker.
Episodes 11-13: His single man apartment (which we don’t see him decide to rent, but learn about by seeing him moving in) by happenstance is neighboring Emma’s—we know what she is now but he doesn’t, and makes small talk which irritates her no end because everything is blowing up.

Karen’s mom Deborah (?) is single mom par excellence, thinks of herself as Lorelei Gilmore crossed with an earth mother shaman/guide. In the world but not of it, and leans on her children far too much. When pushed, she takes control violently and we see this over and over again. She speaks for that “my self-care is at your expense” zero-sum of the adults. Pretense at being revolutionary, doubling down on Mr. Anderson’s theories of childrearing. Deeply lonely. In love with the idea of creating an army of empowered feminist young women, and persists in this delusion to the last second of the series.
Episodes 1-3: The relationship between Karen and her mother defines them both, but we mostly see Karen’s side of it as she scrambles to compensate.
Episodes 4-6: At work, we know that she’s innocent of the adultery stuff, and happy to see her building a relationship with a woman over time, considering her own sexuality and finding peace.
Midpoint: When Karen sinks the relationship, she reacts out of vengeance coded as course correction, sending Karen into a very deep hole of depression that she doesn’t recognize or acknowledge.
Episodes 8-10: Briefly the replacement for Emma, her smothering anti-Emma policies are roundly rejected by the children, which breaks her heart and just confirms her theories that their generation is lost. Desperation to reconnect with Karen despite/overriding Karen’s clearly defined rules of détente.
Episodes 11-13: The only adult to escape from all that drama unscathed, she has not learned her lesson—Cecily Strong character all about her own persistence in the face of adversity; completely unaware of what her daughter is going through, and too-little too-late opening communication and trying all these textbook strategies that just seem nuts by this point.

Trilby’s mom is the sad Dorothy that just wants to go home to Kansas. Because of the number of kids they have, she can’t work outside the home—she is a gifted professional, perhaps architect—which puts her at the mercy of Trilby’s career. Feels blocked from Trilby in particular by the cult of personality surrounding her husband, and so spends a lot of time alone.
Episodes 1-3: the neighborhood joke, married to a gay dude and surrounded by gingers
Episodes 4-6: stymied in all attempts to pursue her own career but beginning to show irritation with all of it, a new and weird look on her. Really, really wants to be a good Mormon wife and show off her family.
Midpoint: shellshocked by her husband leaving, battens down to be a mama bear with no tools to do so. Possibly Emma works this angle too, telling her to leave the gaggle to their own devices and work on herself, like oxygen mask (she’s never been on a plane but she’s not a rube, as Emma implies).
Episodes 8-10: Her Vesta Rose awakening, as she leaves the kids alone one time just to see what happens, and then immediately shuts that down when Necie gets taken—perhaps permanently.
Episodes 11-13: Takes an interior design job that leads to a random artist management possibility that she angles to get back into Trilby’s industry as a momager—seems likely that this will work although we never see for sure; likewise, it seems probable that getting her back in line as a momager will save her life, as she is hardened by all of this to the point of overruling Trilby’s disinterest and pulling it all back to square one. I’m not soft like your father; women can’t be. And you need to know this, to swim with the fishes, and to become a (pioneer LDS ideal) woman.

Trilby’s dad is a delight, everyone’s favorite parent from the Children to the Adults. 
Episodes 1-3: Less of a neighborhood joke than his wife, because even if he’s gay he is the most fun to be around. Center of a cult of his children, who all adore him; kind of a Big Love deal where we see him making daddy pronouncements that are dumb but accepted at face value because he is the patriarch. Our first sign he really is gay comes with a strange, discordant moment with Corey that freaks him out.
Episodes 4-6: Very sad battle of wills between father and daughter, as he is unable to overcome her denial—she’s the Golden Goose, and once she figures that out it’s all over. Even worse as the other kids start looking at him as a failed manager/breadwinner—was it all just the emperor’s new clothes all along? Husband, father and man were all illusions he was maintaining and without her he’s got nothing at all.
Midpoint: While he is clearly looking to reify his heterosexuality, he’s easy pickings—but then Emma reprograms him on the neurological level, giving him Reichian freedom to know himself. And like Brian will, he finally goes to the slightly younger choirmate he’s been gazing at all this time—implication is that he finally fucks him but it doesn’t matter if we see it. Can’t be too similar to Brian’s thing.
Episodes 8-10: Living alone, taking apart his love of his daughter versus her utility, talking it out with someone else—perhaps Corey, as this is when he would come knocking after his longtime crush: After Truman is gone, when Corey is looking for anything besides Jeremy, and looking to metaphorically “win” over an adult. He resists, just barely; compulsive sexual behavior the second Corey’s gone.
Episodes 11-13: That was basically it for him, as he’s achieved his transformation. He may be a mass person or a voice for other debates, but no longer focal. His conflict when we leave him is about whether he wants a stable relationship as a wife replacement, or because he is truly in love with this guy, or it’s the virgin effect, or what. He pulls together the lessons from Emma, Corey and Trilby and constructs an ethos of self-agency, others’ sovereignty, and avoiding prior restraint for anything as rare as love. It’s not a perfect solution or fit, but nothing is—and getting okay with that is key to finally rescuing him from/growing out of all the fundamentalist, essentialist, over-simplification that defined his life and marriage. He is finally neither Trilby nor Svengali, but singing his own tune and story.

Jennifer’s mom is all about loving the millionaire: The ways we trade uncertainty for our own cages. It’s not abusive or even bad, it’s just being conscious of the purchase price of every single thing. She came from poverty and would do anything to keep her lifestyle—her point is always that he’s great, a best-case scenario, so just know how easy this life is, when she’d fight a lot harder for a lot less. Let her rest. 
Episodes 1-3: She is a big fan of Jennifer; bemused by her always, but appreciative. Incredibly reasonable, gives great advice… And yet weirdly silent about the baby plan, which is a shock to Jennifer. She’s also pregnant, which factors into every interaction she has outside the house. We also get to see their private life as a couple, and how much he worships her: There’s nothing bad in there, he’s just selfish.
Episodes 4-6: Self-consciously and deliberately stays out of the war between Jennifer and her husband, telling them both separately to cool it—for her nerves, if nothing else. She lends a unique voice to a lot of the parental and school debates, being who she is and grateful for all of it, but smooth enough that she’s neither “annoying” nor overlooked. A powerful weapon everyone should acquire.
Midpoint: Her reaction to having the baby is weird—almost like the opposite of PPD, she becomes absent and fun—she and her worshipful husband have a second chance at youth now; picture it like Snow White’s or Cinderella’s stepmom, having finally won the hand of the King. She’s not nasty but she is protective of this life she has created.
Episodes 8-10: Absent-minded mothering reminds Jennifer of her own young childhood, when she was either the center of the universe or didn’t exist; pick up and put down like a bunny at a birthday party. When Jennifer sees this pattern developing around the baby, she gets possessive and we see threats of a possible war for the baby…
Episodes 11-13: But of course selfishness wins. It’s not even a victory, she just gets a second chance at her own childhood, and Mom’s more than happy to be talked into it. Sees it eventually as good parenting, even: Like buying Jennifer a pet.

Jennifer’s stepdad is a red herring: From the start we think he’s the embodiment of evil, the Caleb Nichol, but in fact he’s just a “rich” “dork” in love with the most beautiful woman in the world. What we know but nobody else does is that he’s in serious financial peril, and a lot of his seemingly random or crazy decisions are based upon preserving the façade because he cannot lose her.
Episodes 1-3: the surprise in act one is how tuned in he is to Jennifer—he doesn’t fawn like his wife, but he definitely respects and admires her as a person, and if they’d met just a few years earlier he’d be her dad for real. we’re set up for a fall, then, when the baby stuff starts.
Episodes 4-6: it takes a while for us to figure out why he’s like this, but the financial burden and the power dynamic are both so much more complex than we believed that it’s a hard reset on him.
Midpoint: He is swept up in the post-partum mania, willing to take anything as evidence that Jennifer is onboard and that his plan is working.
Episodes 8-10: One beautiful upshot of the second-adolescence is his increased confidence and virility, which DOES bring in the big account or whatever—he’s no longer afraid for his life or marriage, but the situation as it exists means nothing really changes. If anything, he’s even happier with things now that there’s no second layer of lying about it. And Jennifer is fully, fully invested in it so she’s civil again. He sides with Jennifer about the baby during Mom’s fleeting case of guilt, because there’s no downside to that.
Episodes 11-13: He probably is the one to verbalize that the baby is like a pet, although in such a way that it doesn’t require his wife to be like WTF. Maybe postcoitally or champagne drunk, so she can laugh and then be like “omg no.” but really that’s how it is.

Heath’s mom is a great deal like Ashley and her own mom, but the SAHM version. Tennis lessons, overcomplicated care packages for Janna and Sheila, etc. always using him to get information, about his sisters or the other families or whatever—but she’s not rapacious or a gossip, usually, just a curious and bright person. She sees Heath as her chance to do it right—not just after Janna, but men in general.
Episodes 1-3: The only SAHM, she tends to Heath like a master gardener. We only see her secret hardness when it has to do with her husband, whom she prefers to think of as a force to indulge and secretly not that smart—or when she feels insecure about the Mommy Wars, which is not a topic like it is with BLL but definitely her own propaganda and best feeling of virtue. Basic-ass gender in this family.
Episodes 4-6: What her husband has always tried to do is set it up as a war between the sexes—he and Heath are surrounded by women, and have to stick up for themselves. This is at odds with her own territorialism over Heath as her ultimate project, and she’s so dazzled by the mysterious schism between them that she never stops to ask why it’s happening—just grateful and willing to use it.
Midpoint: As the SAHM she feels it’s her God-given right to be in charge of everything when the parents start getting involved. Not so much force of will as demonstrated sneakiness and manipulation to stay on top—but she’s not a control freak, just attentive and attuned on a different level to what’s happening.
Episodes 8-10: As the movement takes up Heath’s time, and he rebels against her various activities, we flirt with the idea of him using the adultery as a weapon to shut her down. How it eventually comes out, though, is that he’s never able to weaponize it—it’s just a breakdown in their relationship, and she treats him like an upset girlfriend, alternately distant and cosseting. The injured puppy is an ongoing secret aspect of this, and when she finds it hurt she shifts into overdrive about him being a serial killer, but compartmentalizes like she does everything. The possibility of him having picked up some hidden brutality from her husband makes her feel like an abused wife in an unsafe situation, but Heath just wants them to reconcile so much that he openly lies and manipulates them, Parent Trap-like.
Episodes 11-13: Her last thing is that somehow she ends up on the outside of all the parents, completely cut off from their world—her worst nightmare finally has come true, and she just laughs about it at this point. She’s happy with her family and her life, and the equilibrium is restored. Why push?

Heath’s dad is caught in a masculinity. Vain, the hot dad; his attraction to Ashley’s mom is a straight transaction—she loves the trophy of his love in a way his wife doesn’t care about anymore. He needs to be the beautiful object. He is/they are also the vector for examining the thing about how men are magnanimous while women are nurturing, and how it’s actually the same powerful feeling. Very basic gender here, but without the added McNeely stuff.
Episodes 1-3: We see him only as a golden god that mesmerizes everyone, until the showdown with Heath. After that point the only plan is to cut him out of every moment and interaction.
Episodes 4-6: Heath’s rebellion spreads to his mother, which helps solidify their marriage at the same time events and Heath are working up to bringing them all down.
Midpoint: Heath’s dad knows when he’s beat, and he doesn’t even push with all of his wife’s initiatives and debates. The puppy is his idea, approached from a masculine/socializing perspective.
Episodes 8-10: For the first time in his life, Heath’s Dad must deal with the absence of love—and it pushes every resentful, entitled, nasty button he’s got. Truly childish, ala Trump, as it unravels.
Episodes 11-13: When his wife flies to close to the sun, he’s there to catch her and all is forgiven because that’s how and who they are. She won’t ever worship him the way he wants, but the fantasy of being “the Celeste & Perry” of the community is a powerful drug—they’ll be fine.

Tasha’s mom and dad are culture vultures, continental hipsters, empty-headed. They hold salons and make their daughter perform for their friends—so addicted to her as their greatest project (and one creative act) that they literally cannot see what a little asshole she is.
Episodes 1-3: Our first sort of experience of the McNeely effect, as we don’t see Tasha’s home life until after the flashback to her scariest form—the way she loves the attention is not just character-defining for a repulsed Ashley, but something to which we’ll return when she becomes a demagogue, of course.
Episodes 4-6: Everything is viewed in terms of what is being done to, taken from, or otherwise victimizing Tasha. She isn’t even the one pulling strings on the adult level—they just want what’s best for her, and have zero shame or compunctions about forcing the issue.
Midpoint: At some point in her inflation, as she becomes just as arrogant with them as anybody else, they have to push back—but the conflagration that results is so legitimately terrifying that they are cowed, and the power and dynamic in the house shifts permanently.
Episodes 8-10: Still afraid of being sent to the cornfield, they provide resources for Tasha’s movement, which they’re only hearing about second-hand and have no real interest or knowledge of its content.
Episodes 11-13: Perhaps her comeuppance and their control have to do with her embarrassing them? I like the idea of them turning on her not for any healthy reason or anything rooted in her character, or how they created it/her, but in fact the threat to their perceived/delusional social dominance. They act to protect that, not to save lives or stop the world from ending, and it’s hilarious.

Necie’s mom and dad are gun-toting, gender-reveal-party-having, cryptomisogynist conservatives without even the guile to hide their very simple bigotry. Their worldview is self-healing and a little bit about prosperity gospel, but mostly they’re what they pretend to be. They created Necie, sure; they also created Jasper, and that seeming contradiction is what captures Corey’s attention. They’re one of the founding families, but never converted that into social capital—little farm on a billion acres (which includes mostly Grey Gardens forest like AHS Roanoke, and is the location of the Schoolhouse) outside town, resentful about taxation and sending kids to the school just out of resentful pique. In a room full of Ravenclaws, a Hufflepuff looks like a Slytherin—that’s the thing Ashley and Corey have to understand.
Episodes 1-3: The pressure is on Jasper because Necie is a lost cause; as a girl, she always was. She is just a broken part of Jasper and so he is expected to care for her. They tend to her billion wounds, of course, but don’t listen to why or what it means. There is nothing out of place in their world, why would they? It is true that Corey’s ancestors screwed the McNeelys over in some way, but that’s just local color—plotwise it’s a red herring, the only reason for pointing it out is to show a connection from the jump.
Episodes 4-6: We pick up on some of their subtler/unknowing messaging, gender and race specifically; we also see them in context of the parents, which is that they are utterly ignored—their voices do not register. It’s not even contempt it’s just nonexistence, ala Ashley going blank with Necie. But we also see the Jasper upsides—he’s the same way at home as anywhere else, and has just as much credibility.
Midpoint: The racist stuff should feel like a real reveal, a gotcha where you’re like what stereotypes, that’s disappointing. But the point is not their economic uncertainty—it’s the pressure it puts on Jasper.
Episodes 8-10: The Visit—their point in being here. Mom is nervous about Ashley being smarter than her/putting her down somehow, and very into feeding Corey; Dad is distrustful and mean to Corey at first, but flips over first too. Jasper knows how to triangulate it, but it’s all Corey’s performance that does it. After the Incident, they switch positions: Mom shuts down, cold toward Necie in a way that’s hard to look at, and Dad just completely undone and helpless as suddenly the parent. Jasper brings Corey home as a Jasper Decree, but within moments the Dad is onboard, and looks at him as a son within an episode. Mom definitely uses Corey as a proxy and guide to create a new kind of intimacy with Necie—putting her foot in it with him, of course, all the time, but in a loving auntie way—and eventually discovering Necie for the first time as a person and not just a part of her body or Jasper’s. What makes Corey such a good person in the family is not just his Mercutio position, gender- and age-wise, but the fact that he does not put up with Necie’s shit, and she adores him for it instantly. He is her five-minute Mary Poppins or Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle—well, Nanny McPhee is the real reference here. Jasper is grateful too, of course, since it’s something he could see but never bear to take up. So he seriously just says “thank you” and Corey acknowledges with a nod before they go back to whatever they are doing.
Episodes 11-13: Mom and Necie’s honest connection, once Necie’s strong enough to make one with anybody but Corey, completely transforms the mom both in our perception and inside her own self. If Necie’s this strong, she can be too. By the end, we can imagine the McNeelys in the front row at Corey’s West Point graduation—Mr. McNeely explicitly says this, in fact.

Alexis’s dad is more about Alexis, of course; we don’t see her home life EVER until her episode. But looking back, the seeds are there.
Episodes 1-3: She is notably twitchy about references to brain injury, mental retardation, elder and child abuse, PTSD, and so on—the mirage we see is that she has an abusive army vet dad, and no mom.
Episodes 4-6: She’s relieved when nobody shows up for her at the talent show, and juuuuust integrated enough that the other children and teens support her in that way; again, the assumption is that she’s being abused—and too, in her Schoolhouse talk and Wonderland scenes and so forth, she is on edge about that stuff. Like the bus driver story: She was there and it broke her, nobody remembers this; but it’s not because of abuse, it’s because there is nobody driving her bus.
Midpoint: Alexis is only just becoming a person to us, but her transformation/revolution are the tough love from Emma, which is worded in such a way that it’s both about womanhood and about not trusting adults to save you. Emma doesn’t know she’s speaking to both parts of the girl, or that going so hard on it will both change Alexis and push her permanently away—it’s Alexis to whom Emma describes Necie as “retarded,” which she means to indicate she is hip and down but in fact signals that she is a monster.
Episodes 8-10: The second-most important Act III thing, besides Necie, is our episode with Alexis. He is out of sight for much of the story, but when they do finally interact he is just very needy and particular, and she is overly competent to deal with it. A sexless marriage, almost, or like he’s a child you can lock your door to keep out when you’ve had enough. All three episodes here we have that threat that he will be taken from her, and once Emma finds out how strongly she’s offended Alexis, he finally is. 
Episodes 11-13: Alexis offers her home as the new Wonderland for the Easter Rebellion, in the actual wake of the second Schoolhouse calamity—just tells everyone to cut and run and meet up at her house. Which, nobody knows her address; a reminder of who they’ve been to each other. But once there she is a gracious hostess; it’s shabby-chic and not her whole style at all, which weirds them out, but eventually they figure out and stay silent about what her deal is. And of course she’s the Ode to Joy person in the end—we don’t find out what happened with her dad explicitly, but we know it’s what should have happened in the first place, so it’s fine.



QEA RELATIONSHIP ARCS

Ashley and Tasha
Episodes 1-3: Ashley tries to keep Tasha out of it and show mercy at the same time.
Episodes 4-6: Tasha is the greatest symbol of Ashley’s coldness and how far she’s willing to go.
Midpoint: Tasha will not take the power shift gracefully—she’s cruel, which makes it far worse.
Episodes 8-10: The shadow games between the two factions are a chess game Ashley has to play.
Episodes 11-13: It becomes a rescue mission to get Tasha out, despite the rest of them abandoning her.

Ashley and Maya 
Episodes 1-3: Maya’s role, by Ashley’s internal rubric, is support and graphic/agitprop. Not a decider.
Episodes 4-6: Emma posits Maya as a liability, especially once Ashley has determined that her importance to Jasper is her main qualifier.
Midpoint: depending on timeline, this is either about the McNeelys—in which case it’s not about Maya getting screwed over but Jasper being hurt by it—or about Maya’s gender, or both.
Episodes 8-10: Chris’s trans intersectionality and male signifiers make him a lot more valuable—we’re in Ashley’s coldest period—than Maya’s blackness ever did. So his opinions are weighted higher, but that reads as insincere to everyone involved.
Episodes 11-13: Ashley “gets” Chris finally when she sees how hard it is for him to go back in the dress, inspiring her to sacrifice more if necessary because he is so brave.

Ashley and Trilby
Episodes 1-3: Ashley begins the story more admiring of Trilby than annoyed by her, and they have the longest relationship—but it’s all tied up with everybody loving her dad, so there’s no real connection. Because of Trilby’s “fame,” Ashley has always had to consider her as a sidekick—and, as the victim of Tasha’s jealousy, the purest expression of Ashley’s protection/justice impulses.
Episodes 4-6: Because of her dad and her job, Trilby is a bit more of a power player with the Teens, which irks Ashley but not so much that’s she’s not guilty about that.
Midpoint: Trilby gets lost in the political shuffle, unthinkingly dismissed or left out of the mission.
Episodes 8-10: Savannah’s betrayal hurts Ashley the most, because she’s such a valuable commodity.
Episodes 11-13: If it’s possible to use Savannah to enlist her father’s help, Ashley will do it.

Ashley and Heath
Episodes 1-3: Easy friendship and great leadership dynamic. Seemingly the central relationship at first.
Episodes 4-6: A little complicated by Ashley modeling on the Teens and realizing her feelings—then pretty much destroyed by the secrets. She doesn’t hold a grudge, but it is all so nasty and tainted now.
Midpoint: No longer sees Heath that way; he’s becoming something of a loose end as he decompensates, although she is brought to a higher compassion for him once she sees how little his propaganda was based on
Episodes 8-10: They find their way back to each other when everything falls apart—they’re both at the same level of not trusting teens/adults, and he’s the only one who can understand her disappointment
Episodes 11-13: They can act independently now, like Jeremy and Eddie; emotional and operational shorthand. What she, and we, want to know is whether he is safe and survives. And we won’t.

Ashley and Karen is about feet of clay; Karen is the Ashley as Ashley is to Necie, and knows it.
Episodes 1-3: But the disillusionment starts incredibly early, with the Karen’s House sequence. She wants Karen to be a part of their unit and so does Karen, even after they see the downsides.
Episodes 4-6: Karen is a useful lieutenant for her skills, autonomy and access—all of which is about to evaporate, of course. But for now Ashley bets on her.
Midpoint: Karen being taken off the board is a point in Emma’s favor, helping push Ashley into the cold.
Episodes 8-10: Karen allying against Ashley doesn’t make any sense, and eventually they talk that out—but Karen’s not a huge asset, so she can do whatever she wants
Episodes 11-13: Ashley re-meets Karen in a way—we see and remember the strength and neatness of Karen again, something Ashley had forgotten over the course of things. It doesn’t necessarily matter but it’s important for Ashley to reconsider and respect Karen in a wholly different, new way.

Ashley and Necie
A key arc. Necie and Ashley are a nature/nurture pattern of twinsies—loving Necie is the transmutating transcendence of opposites that brings Ashley back in from the cold, but also there is a point at which their sub/dom dynamic switches.
Episodes 1-3: Simply part of the basket of deplorables to start—she doesn’t even want her as a warm body, she just wants her not to exist. Necie is the Antarctica that Ashley could never admit she’s creating; the love here is very strong from Necie and this is the only time we see it in this story.
Episodes 4-6: If Necie feels any empowerment at this time, it’s a goad to Ashley, who sees things coming apart already—the point wasn’t for the Necies of the world to go off half-cocked, but to conform
Midpoint: Ashley isn’t present for the Maya thing, but only views it afterward through the lens of Jasper’s pain, not Necie’s. What I wonder is what Necie’s feeling about all this is—I can see her being mean to Jasper about it, sensing her opening—and that plays directly into the second half, as Tasha becomes her new Ashley. Necie embodies the Tashlan/Shift/Puzzle/Jewel/Napoleon level of metaphor. The useful idiot who finds power in being a figurehead.
Episodes 8-10: Ashley begins to fall in love with Necie without realizing or wanting it, but her consciousness of this shift is the key to her salvation. And then once it’s happened, it’s what juices her to the finish line—the ultimate abuse of power, which emotionally (but not explicitly) jars her understanding of what Emma has been doing to her, which is on some minor levels similar.
Episodes 11-13: There is a resolution here that we desperately want, for them to reconcile and Necie to come back from the brink—but when she does, it’s with a serious feet-of-clay feeling for her former hero. It is unfixable—and that’s totally okay.

Ashley and Jasper
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: He is the only person with the same skillset as Josh, and moves up to Ashley’s second in command in the last act. He can predict their moves and responses, and although it’s his idea he has real trouble with letting Maya play double agent. They’ve both gotten a sense of other people’s subjective experience; the ultimate expression of his quiet censure whenever Heath is insensitive or Josh is weird—he husbands the other children like a farmer, or a sheepdog, and Ashley must let him. He is what he seems to be and nobody questions that.


Ashley and Josh
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 

Ashley and Brian
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 

Ashley and Jeremy
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 

Ashley and Jennifer
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 

Ashley and Truman
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 

Ashley and Alexis
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 

Ashley and Corey
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 

Ashley and Eddie
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 

Ashley and Emma
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 

Ashley and Ashley’s mom
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 

Ashley and Ashley’s dad
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 

Ashley and Karen’s mom
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 

Ashley and Trilby’s mom 
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 

Ashley and Trilby’s dad
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 

Ashley and Jennifer’s mom 
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 

Ashley and Jennifer’s stepdad
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 

Ashley and Heath’s mom 
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 

Ashley and Heath’s dad
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Ashley and Tasha’s mom and dad
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Ashley and Necie’s mom and dad
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Ashley and Alexis’s dad
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Tasha and Maya
Episodes 1-3: Maya is technically the one that invites Tasha, not Heath; her ambiguity is crucial
Episodes 4-6: Maya is the voice for letting Tasha do whatever; presages NPR-liberal storyline with Jasper
Midpoint: Maya’s dismissal of Tasha and her movement could have become partial sympathy
Episodes 8-10: We have to believe that Maya’s loyalties are in question when she switches sides
Episodes 11-13: Maya leads the charge on just leaving Tasha to her hell once she gets burned
Tasha and Trilby
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Tasha and Heath
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Tasha and Karen
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Tasha and Necie
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Tasha and Jasper
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Tasha and Josh
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Tasha and Brian
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Tasha and Jeremy
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Tasha and Jennifer
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Tasha and Truman
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Tasha and Alexis
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Tasha and Corey
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Tasha and Eddie
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Tasha and Emma
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Tasha and Ashley’s mom
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Tasha and Ashley’s dad
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Tasha and Karen’s mom
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Tasha and Trilby’s mom 
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Tasha and Trilby’s dad
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Tasha and Jennifer’s mom 
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Tasha and Jennifer’s stepdad
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Tasha and Heath’s mom 
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Tasha and Heath’s dad
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Tasha and Tasha’s mom and dad
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Tasha and Necie’s mom and dad
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Tasha and Alexis’s dad
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Maya and Trilby
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Maya and Heath
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Maya and Karen
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Maya and Necie
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Maya and Jasper
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Maya and Josh
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Maya and Brian
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Maya and Jeremy
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Maya and Jennifer
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Maya and Truman
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Maya and Alexis
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Maya and Corey
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Maya and Eddie
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Maya and Emma
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Maya and Ashley’s mom
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Maya and Ashley’s dad
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Maya and Karen’s mom
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Maya and Trilby’s mom 
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Maya and Trilby’s dad
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Maya and Jennifer’s mom 
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Maya and Jennifer’s stepdad
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Maya and Heath’s mom 
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Maya and Heath’s dad
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Maya and Tasha’s mom and dad
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Maya and Necie’s mom and dad
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Maya and Alexis’s dad
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Trilby and Heath
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Trilby and Karen
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Trilby and Necie
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Trilby and Jasper
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Trilby and Josh
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Trilby and Brian
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Trilby and Jeremy
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Trilby and Jennifer
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Trilby and Truman
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Trilby and Alexis
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Trilby and Corey
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Trilby and Eddie
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Trilby and Emma
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Trilby and Ashley’s mom
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Trilby and Ashley’s dad
Episodes 1-3: 
Episodes 4-6: 
Midpoint: 
Episodes 8-10: 
Episodes 11-13: 
Trilby and Karen’s mom

 
Trilby and Trilby’s mom 

 
Trilby and Trilby’s dad

 
Trilby and Jennifer’s mom 

 
Trilby and Jennifer’s stepdad

 
Trilby and Heath’s mom 

 
Trilby and Heath’s dad

 
Trilby and Tasha’s mom and dad

 
Trilby and Necie’s mom and dad

 
Trilby and Alexis’s dad

 
Heath and Karen

 
Heath and Necie

 
Heath and Jasper

 
Heath and Josh

 
Heath and Brian

 
Heath and Jeremy

 
Heath and Jennifer

 
Heath and Truman

 
Heath and Alexis

 
Heath and Corey

 
Heath and Eddie

 
Heath and Emma

 
Heath and Ashley’s mom

 
Heath and Ashley’s dad

 
Heath and Karen’s mom

 
Heath and Trilby’s mom 

 
Heath and Trilby’s dad

 
Heath and Jennifer’s mom 

 
Heath and Jennifer’s stepdad

 
Heath and Heath’s mom 

 
Heath and Heath’s dad

 
Heath and Tasha’s mom and dad

 
Heath and Necie’s mom and dad

 
Heath and Alexis’s dad

 
Karen and Necie

 
Karen and Jasper

 
Karen and Josh

 
Karen and Brian

 
Karen and Jeremy

 
Karen and Jennifer

 
Karen and Truman

 
Karen and Alexis

 
Karen and Corey

 
Karen and Eddie

 
Karen and Emma

 
Karen and Ashley’s mom

 
Karen and Ashley’s dad

 
Karen and Karen’s mom

 
Karen and Trilby’s mom 

 
Karen and Trilby’s dad

 
Karen and Jennifer’s mom 

 
Karen and Jennifer’s stepdad

 
Karen and Heath’s mom 

 
Karen and Heath’s dad

 
Karen and Tasha’s mom and dad

 
Karen and Necie’s mom and dad

 
Karen and Alexis’s dad

 
Necie and Jasper

 
Necie and Josh

 
Necie and Brian

 
Necie and Jeremy

 
Necie and Jennifer

 
Necie and Truman

 
Necie and Alexis

 
Necie and Corey

 
Necie and Eddie

 
Necie and Emma

 
Necie and Ashley’s mom

 
Necie and Ashley’s dad

 
Necie and Karen’s mom

 
Necie and Trilby’s mom 

 
Necie and Trilby’s dad

 
Necie and Jennifer’s mom 

 
Necie and Jennifer’s stepdad

 
Necie and Heath’s mom 

 
Necie and Heath’s dad

 
Necie and Tasha’s mom and dad

 
Necie and Necie’s mom and dad

 
Necie and Alexis’s dad

 
Jasper and Josh

 
Jasper and Brian

 
Jasper and Jeremy

 
Jasper and Jennifer

 
Jasper and Truman

 
Jasper and Alexis

 
Jasper and Corey

 
Jasper and Eddie

 
Jasper and Emma

 
Jasper and Ashley’s mom

 
Jasper and Ashley’s dad

 
Jasper and Karen’s mom

 
Jasper and Trilby’s mom 

 
Jasper and Trilby’s dad

 
Jasper and Jennifer’s mom 

 
Jasper and Jennifer’s stepdad

 
Jasper and Heath’s mom 

 
Jasper and Heath’s dad

 
Jasper and Tasha’s mom and dad

 
Jasper and Necie’s mom and dad

 
Jasper and Alexis’s dad

 
Josh and Brian

 
Josh and Jeremy

 
Josh and Jennifer

 
Josh and Truman

 
Josh and Alexis

 
Josh and Corey

 
Josh and Eddie

 
Josh and Emma

 
Josh and Ashley’s mom

 
Josh and Ashley’s dad

 
Josh and Karen’s mom

 
Josh and Trilby’s mom 

 
Josh and Trilby’s dad

 
Josh and Jennifer’s mom 

 
Josh and Jennifer’s stepdad

 
Josh and Heath’s mom 

 
Josh and Heath’s dad

 
Josh and Tasha’s mom and dad: They start out feeling like he’s a good thing, based on the sense they’ve gotten of his intellectual stock; in person, he is very off-putting—he’s enough like them that it’s scary, but blunt enough that he’s offensive

 
Josh and Necie’s mom and dad

 
Josh and Alexis’s dad

 
Brian and Jeremy

 
Brian and Jennifer

 
Brian and Truman

 
Brian and Alexis

 
Brian and Corey
Episodes 1-3: one of our first clues to Corey’s competence isn’t just that reassures/redirects Brian, but that Brian accepts it without question
Episodes 4-6: Wonderland, whenever that is—the “truth or truth” scene. Brian is the angel of their relationship.
Midpoint: The twist in their relationship is based on that mutual respect—Brian resists Corey’s advice and worry, it feels like control. Tries to turn the tables, acts like a boy.
Episodes 8-10: Brian’s attempts to manipulate Corey—besides the whole Jeremy breakup scenario—occasion the thing about boys and how nice gay guys are still first and foremost guys.
Episodes 11-13: Corey believes Brian can be turned even when Ashley doesn’t; he is the Simon now.

 
Brian and Eddie

 
Brian and Emma

 
Jeremy and Jennifer

 
Jeremy and Truman

 
Jeremy and Alexis

 
Jeremy and Corey

 
Jeremy and Eddie

 
Jeremy and Emma

Brian and Ashley’s mom

 
Brian and Ashley’s dad

 
Brian and Karen’s mom

 
Brian and Trilby’s mom 

 
Brian and Trilby’s dad

 
Brian and Jennifer’s mom 

 
Brian and Jennifer’s stepdad

 
Brian and Heath’s mom 

 
Brian and Heath’s dad

 
Brian and Tasha’s mom and dad

 
Brian and Necie’s mom and dad

 
Brian and Alexis’s dad

 


 
Jeremy and Ashley’s mom

 
Jeremy and Ashley’s dad

 
Jeremy and Karen’s mom

 
Jeremy and Trilby’s mom 

 
Jeremy and Trilby’s dad

 
Jeremy and Jennifer’s mom 

 
Jeremy and Jennifer’s stepdad

 
Jeremy and Heath’s mom 

 
Jeremy and Heath’s dad

 
Jeremy and Tasha’s mom and dad

 
Jeremy and Necie’s mom and dad

 
Jeremy and Alexis’s dad

 
Jennifer and Truman

 
Jennifer and Alexis

 
Jennifer and Corey

 
Jennifer and Eddie

 
Jennifer and Emma

 
Jennifer and Ashley’s mom

 
Jennifer and Ashley’s dad

 
Jennifer and Karen’s mom

 
Jennifer and Trilby’s mom 

 
Jennifer and Trilby’s dad

 
Jennifer and Jennifer’s mom 

 
Jennifer and Jennifer’s stepdad

 
Jennifer and Heath’s mom 

 
Jennifer and Heath’s dad

 
Jennifer and Tasha’s mom and dad

 
Jennifer and Necie’s mom and dad

 
Jennifer and Alexis’s dad

 
Truman and Alexis

 
Truman and Corey

 
Truman and Eddie

 
Truman and Emma

 
Truman and Ashley’s mom

 
Truman and Ashley’s dad

 
Truman and Karen’s mom

 
Truman and Trilby’s mom 

 
Truman and Trilby’s dad

 
Truman and Jennifer’s mom 

 
Truman and Jennifer’s stepdad

 
Truman and Heath’s mom 

 
Truman and Heath’s dad

 
Truman and Tasha’s mom and dad

 
Truman and Necie’s mom and dad

 
Truman and Alexis’s dad

 
Alexis and Corey

 
Alexis and Eddie

 
Alexis and Emma

 
Alexis and Ashley’s mom

 
Alexis and Ashley’s dad

 
Alexis and Karen’s mom

 
Alexis and Trilby’s mom 

 
Alexis and Trilby’s dad

 
Alexis and Jennifer’s mom 

 
Alexis and Jennifer’s stepdad

 
Alexis and Heath’s mom 

 
Alexis and Heath’s dad

 
Alexis and Tasha’s mom and dad

 
Alexis and Necie’s mom and dad

 
Alexis and Alexis’s dad

 
Corey and Eddie

 
Corey and Emma

 
Corey and Ashley’s mom

 
Corey and Ashley’s dad

 
Corey and Karen’s mom

 
Corey and Trilby’s mom 

 
Corey and Trilby’s dad

 
Corey and Jennifer’s mom 

 
Corey and Jennifer’s stepdad

 
Corey and Heath’s mom 

 
Corey and Heath’s dad

 
Corey and Tasha’s mom and dad

 
Corey and Necie’s mom and dad

 
Corey and Alexis’s dad

 
Eddie and Emma

 
Eddie and Ashley’s mom

 
Eddie and Ashley’s dad

 
Eddie and Karen’s mom

 
Eddie and Trilby’s mom 

 
Eddie and Trilby’s dad

 
Eddie and Jennifer’s mom 

 
Eddie and Jennifer’s stepdad

 
Eddie and Heath’s mom 

 
Eddie and Heath’s dad

 
Eddie and Tasha’s mom and dad

 
Eddie and Necie’s mom and dad

 
Eddie and Alexis’s dad

 
Emma and Ashley’s mom

 
Emma and Ashley’s dad

 
Emma and Karen’s mom

 
Emma and Trilby’s mom 

 
Emma and Trilby’s dad

 
Emma and Jennifer’s mom 

 
Emma and Jennifer’s stepdad

 
Emma and Heath’s mom 

 
Emma and Heath’s dad

 
Emma and Tasha’s mom and dad

 
Emma and Necie’s mom and dad

 
Emma and Alexis’s dad

 
Ashley’s mom and Ashley’s dad

 
Ashley’s mom and Karen’s mom

 
Ashley’s mom and Trilby’s mom 

 
Ashley’s mom and Trilby’s dad

 
Ashley’s mom and Jennifer’s mom 

 
Ashley’s mom and Jennifer’s stepdad

 
Ashley’s mom and Heath’s mom 

 
Ashley’s mom and Heath’s dad

 
Ashley’s mom and Tasha’s mom and dad

 
Ashley’s mom and Necie’s mom and dad

 
Ashley’s mom and Alexis’s dad

 
Ashley’s dad and Karen’s mom

 
Ashley’s dad and Trilby’s mom 

 
Ashley’s dad and Trilby’s dad

 
Ashley’s dad and Jennifer’s mom 

 
Ashley’s dad and Jennifer’s stepdad

 
Ashley’s dad and Heath’s mom 

 
Ashley’s dad and Heath’s dad

 
Ashley’s dad and Tasha’s mom and dad

 
Ashley’s dad and Necie’s mom and dad

 
Ashley’s dad and Alexis’s dad

 
Karen’s mom and Trilby’s mom 

 
Karen’s mom and Trilby’s dad

 
Karen’s mom and Jennifer’s mom 

 
Karen’s mom and Jennifer’s stepdad

 
Karen’s mom and Heath’s mom 

 
Karen’s mom and Heath’s dad

 
Karen’s mom and Tasha’s mom and dad

 
Karen’s mom and Necie’s mom and dad

 
Karen’s mom and Alexis’s dad

 
Trilby’s mom and Trilby’s dad

 
Trilby’s mom and Jennifer’s mom 

 
Trilby’s mom and Jennifer’s stepdad

 
Trilby’s mom and Heath’s mom 

 
Trilby’s mom and Heath’s dad

 
Trilby’s mom and Tasha’s mom and dad

 
Trilby’s mom and Necie’s mom and dad

 
Trilby’s mom and Alexis’s dad

 
Trilby’s dad and Jennifer’s mom 

 
Trilby’s dad and Jennifer’s stepdad

 
Trilby’s dad and Heath’s mom 

 
Trilby’s dad and Heath’s dad

 
Trilby’s dad and Tasha’s mom and dad

 
Trilby’s dad and Necie’s mom and dad

 
Trilby’s dad and Alexis’s dad

 
Jennifer’s mom and Jennifer’s stepdad

 
Jennifer’s mom and Heath’s mom 

 
Jennifer’s mom and Heath’s dad

 
Jennifer’s mom and Tasha’s mom and dad

 
Jennifer’s mom and Necie’s mom and dad

 
Jennifer’s mom and Alexis’s dad

 
Jennifer’s stepdad and Heath’s mom 

 
Jennifer’s stepdad and Heath’s dad

 
Jennifer’s stepdad and Tasha’s mom and dad

 
Jennifer’s stepdad and Necie’s mom and dad

 
Jennifer’s stepdad and Alexis’s dad

 
Heath’s mom and Heath’s dad

 
Heath’s mom and Tasha’s mom and dad

 
Heath’s mom and Necie’s mom and dad

 
Heath’s mom and Alexis’s dad

 

Heath’s dad and Tasha’s mom and dad

 
Heath’s dad and Necie’s mom and dad

 
Heath’s dad and Alexis’s dad

 
Tasha’s mom and dad and Necie’s mom and dad

 
Tasha’s mom and dad and Alexis’s dad

 
Necie’s mom and dad and Alexis’s dad



Further notes

Now go by acts, rearranging pages and special attention to flips.
Page design phase is a go. That means a checklist:

overall effect and tone of page
humor in scene
what we learn here
what is fantastic in 4/8 & 8/8
Getting everything across in slug, action, dialogue -- 7 lines means 4 total for action, dialogue or both.
How each eighth lend themselves in real-time to synthesize beats to grant more eighths to a single thought -- now is the time to slow or speed up time within page. Understand there is no way to fuck? this up.
What is it about 8/8 that is true flip. Imaginary ellipse.
Proportions of character, location, theme in each page
What is on this page that heightens interest in not just next page but whole episode and series
Variations between every scene in length, location, action to dialogue ratio, tone (by character / relationship)
What is unspoken here, past and future and internally
How does each element contribute to gestalt-- how is this scene as written completely fresh and never before seen?
How does reading the scene completely create the feeling of watching it
Most important is rising action, unique movement of energy, running toward or from—anything that will give the scene a dynamic sense
Scenes over moments

All of these specs are problems to be solved, not obstacles.

meditative process for each page: musical cues, character voice, all on page nothing in head, revolutionary content and effect, purest intent. What bells is it ringing? What color, magical element, trump card is it? Who are these people right now in this moment?


101-1 Ashley wants Karen to be a part of their unit and so does Karen; we can see them actively working on their relationship, as they always have – the world wants them to be enemies and they refuse. Karen is the Ashley as Ashley is to Necie, and knows it, but the disillusionment isn’t until 102 so we need to see Ashley adoring her up front.
101-1 Georgia: Not a funny person but a particularly recognizable one, which makes it funny. Often produces the unbelievably dumb “liberal” offerings—the Ryan Murphy, stereotypical kind. Always five steps behind in her concerns, because all she is really doing is Gen X concern trolling, not actually/actively paying attention. “Violence is never justified” after the violence has begun, for e.g.—a real Julianne Nicholson type. Ashley and eventually Brian are very much monitors of her mood—not because she is cruel or even authoritative, but just because her mood defines the house.
101-1 Graham is present but only by obligation—he is hypervigilant about his wife even though they ignore each other, and they’re both more into their own shit than their kids: “Ask you and ask you” is, it turns out, the way he plays off his disinterest.  Graham’s outside life at least once an episode: Interacting with other parents and other professors, to tell us more about them and about himself; the different personae we take on in different contexts. His plotlines and interactions provide background on the kids’ stories, both through parallels and through directly commenting on current events, through that very dim lens.
101-1 Maya got her period on her twelfth birthday, November 1. She is the oldest.
101-1 Miles/Georgia: incorporation scheme, like Cornell. It is about ultimate power -- governance tied to money. Conflicts of interest. We know better. Deborah giving it a pass because of her own interests. Part of takedown is Georgia realizing she doesn't have to hold her nose, that the office is bigger than Miles. So it's got to sound good, compassionate. "Everybody" benefits. McNeelys burned. Burning public school kids -- how ideology is formed by financial interests. They become the enemy, the people outside the college world, and the children take that on. At first seems like Emma is in favor but only to get Georgia acting like a team player -- assembling pieces all season. Trickle down sentiments to poor people being bad, public school kids being subhuman; racist stuff rising in 108-110. Ashley: Scala “Mondays” is fine for lighthouse, but longer piano so we get distracted by the time the vocal comes in—and maybe a faster tempo, closer to the original without feeling “pops.” But really the music box version of “Possum Kingdom” is even more deranging. Ashley rests her hand on Josh whenever possible, like a dog that needs gentling. Corey does the same with Jeremy but more subtly.
101-1 The comedy comes from Tasha’s tenacity and Ashley’s accidentally obnoxious way of talking about his sister—and the way they all talk about Maya and Heath. Necie loves Ashley, who loves Karen, and secretly loves Heath and Jasper, who love Maya.
101-1 Where is the lunch shaming? “Nobody trusted Necie McNeely. Everybody knew that. But only Tasha understood her.”






Chapter One: Harriet, through Chapter Four: Hedwig

ACT ONE, Page One
1/8: Sound, then sight, of tide. Trilby reciting “The Walrus & The Carpenter”
2/8: Ash climbing a lighthouse, under a sky artificial but perfect, a too-low blanket of stars coming out.
3/8: Children sitting, standing, running about, playing games in the sand and surf.
4/8: Josh with telescope, feet dangling from ridiculous height. She approaches his back.
5/8: Closer in on the children playing in the sand and surf: Princess dresses; Maya as a brave knight.
6/8: Josh looking at us through the telescope (ala VI), then takes it away; broken-tooth grin. US flag.
7/8: They look out over the scene below, her hand on his back; Tasha is starting shit. 
8/8: Ashley closes her eyes for patience; tide for a moment of silence before it becomes a street curb.

Page Two
1/8: Looking at the storm with Josh becomes Ashley standing (ala VI), playing in the dirt, on the curb.
2/8: Wider shot of the Children playing in yard; Trilby off being ignored.
3/8: Establish Ashley as lead. Specific, hard-left liberal, skeptical about Adults and YAs but very naïve.
4/8: Establish Tasha as a bossy menace—telling Trilby to come be the witch if Maya won’t.
5/8: Ashley voiceover about Weird Josh just being weird; stepping to protect him. Does Maya want to?
6/8: Maya shuts down, it becomes a standoff; Teens offered as arbiters as Trilby finishes poem.
7/8: The Children are getting nervous—VO Tasha would be a good witch, but she powers the game.
8/8: Maybe we don’t need a king—we don’t need a witch at all…

Page Three
1/8: Ashley voiceover about 5/11; Emma naked in a public bathroom changing her haircolor 
2/8: VO, Laptop balanced on the edge of a grimy sink, pulling on her underwear after rinsing
3/8: VO, luxe towel she pulls from a bag, tags still on, dries her hair—smiles like she’s just caught herself
4/8: Then uncanny: gets intense at reflection, practices several smiles; Under the Skin situation?
5/8: VO, closeup on Emma opening mouth, as if to counter or silence what’s Ashley’s saying
6/8: Emma smiles and says a strange phrase into the mirror (“Who are you?” maybe)
7/8: The camera slips down below her eyes, the second time she says it in a different accent
8/8: The third and winning accent—delivered without anything above the décolletage showing

Page Four
1/8: Red gloss manicure reaches to laptop; a local news stream tells us about this town, innocuous.
2/8: New sharp scissors from the shopping bag; snipping tags off Chanel-classic but OTT outfit
3/8: She stepped out of her old form—white/gold Dress on floor tossed in bin, followed by a Sia wig
4/8: Dressing: Her colors now are blinding white and deepest black, with Louboutin-red touches
5/8: Bored, she flips to a massacre in Ukraine; looks herself in the eye as she pulls new shoes on
6/8: A window running some datamining software; dossiers pop open on Jennifer, Truman, Georgia
7/8: A ding quiets the news; opens social windows on Teens/faculty, not Children yet; smoke drifting
8/8: Check vs Georgia, perfect matte lip, smile, leaves—just as fire alarm; removing all trace of her

Page Five 

1/8: Brian’s environment, astronaut theme, health/lifestyle conscious. Her rat-tat-tat, he smiles a little.
2/8: He pulls her to him like “I will save you”—VO punctures, but also explains. “Pretty Good Year” guy.
3/8: Snapshot moments of the people she’s describing—Jeremy and Josh, Corey, Alexis Butts.
4/8: Brian a little darker: Jeremy’s been talking about this too; he doesn’t like where it leads
5/8: Antarctica flashback—first the way she iced Tasha out… then in realtime Miss Babcock’s Favorites
6/8: Then the full M-I-C-K-E-Y scene… (“Which is why we need a new music teacher.”)
7/8: He jumps up and starts pacing, talking it out with her… She didn’t know what it meant but
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Page Six

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4/8: Jennifer saves everybody as Brian narrates, and Ashley is like this checks out, VO Jennifer


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Mom’s drinking wine watching about the school shooting and hissing into her phone about it, since Dad’s the one who’s out of the house for once. We see references to Guy Fawkes on the TV and possible involvement of adult terrorists, as Ashley and Brian converse about just that possibility—Brian floats the idea early on that adults are to blame for the shootings—not just institutionally but operationally, like the Purge—and then we move to them upstairs. As Ashley comes around with “Childhood is a political state” we get Brian’s full attention and respect, and Ashley’s pride about that—and the end of the scene is their conspiratorial looks as the parents attempt to parent and are ignored. They’re already on fire with revolution. The comedy here lies in Ashley’s perceptive takes on Adults and Teens, and Emma’s intensity. Remember that the key to all scripts is great dialogue and a fresh first ten—less about describing the vision and more about showing it through sparkling dialogue and surprises.

END OF ACT ONE
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ACT TWO

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Scene 1: Emma doing good and investigating, fake nice to Necie and so our first take on Necie is pity. This is the first time we see the clipping of adults’ heads, because it’s the first time we’ve seen an adult and child together—and the flip lies in the fact that Necie is gross, so Emma’s contempt walking away is a powerful thing. The comedy here is Necie’s abjectness and the nastiness of Emma. Necie touching her pristine retro-mod Chanel suit is also a problem. Always watchful Jasper, with American flag iconography always near him in the shot, sees what’s happening but doesn’t get there before Emma’s gone.


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Scene 2: Jennifer/Eddie “Shane.” Jennifer is natural hair & Afrocentric/black-girl magic-identified. Eddie’s car is a major environment, moving forward—this is just a basic Bad Boy scene, all about Jennifer’s power and the way Ashley describes her in narration. The comedy here lies in Ashley’s perceptive takes on Adults and Teens, and in Jennifer’s wisdom about Eddie—she buys his act, which we maybe don’t, but still finds him a funny weirdo. Jennifer refers to herself the first pancake and Eddie is competitive about whose home life is harder. Sex and romance roles, role-play and patterns as expressed on all three levels, showing how fixation develops. Playing at being adults never stops or goes away, and that is socially a source of a lot of eroticism if you can admit it. We will find out what parts of Jennifer’s philosophy come from her mother; we also get a sense of Eddie’s sexual history in the way he approaches it, which is very off. In the background, Emma creeps. She cuts a striking, noticeable figure, but that’s part of her thing—we will begin to react to her silhouette and things shaped like it, once we are trying to hide from her. We can tell jenn is going to bolt, but something happens and she decides not to yet

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Scene 3: Louboutins in the undergrowth. The white flash. Emma knows Jennifer's name when she approaches. Special project—this is a hint about the Bacchantes but she does it wrong. Off on wrong foot. Guy appears, keyword that says he's bad, she dismisses Jen without looking, unfolding a rain poncho from her clutch. The flip is that it turns into a rape situation—she gets the guy to assault her, with a heartbeat on the soundtrack that we’ll come to associate with the white flash of her… And smiles through her fake tears repeating her protests and cries until they are an uncanny threat, slits his throat, fixes her hair: Emma is just a natural force, a spirit of war and revolution and justice. 


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Scene 4: Jeremy/Brian—just baseline relationship, no big red flags; they are funny together, hilarious to watch without narration, their way of peaceful interacting. This is where we learn how recent their history actually is, and a bit about Brian’s identity crisis. Ashley hangs back and Brian invites her to join, and that’s the flip—so only one page for their whole relationship. We have to LOVE Jeremy, before his Fall—here that takes the form of him being cool with Ashley and her loving him, with full trust. And a crush. She doesn’t see their fatherly pride, which will make more sense when Josh is around—but there’s a romance to the way they co-parent her, versus the equality of before. Sex and romance roles, role-play and patterns as expressed on all three levels, showing how fixation develops. Playing at being adults never stops or goes away, and that is socially a source of a lot of eroticism if you can admit it. Good & caring dads, too -- woke, half-queer NPR dads, reconstructed, unable to register the messages they're passing on to their sons and daughters. Sexual objects, conscious of that. Jeremy is all about her book and Brian’s like what’s that so she explains the premise. Voiceover carries over to next scene.

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Scene 5: Emma passes up Trilby, then Maya, and then Karen to focus in on Ashley; very Mary Poppins, weather etc., and the deep magic of the clipped face—the flip is between the two girls, and her almost immediate discounting of Karen. The comedy lies in getting to know Trilby and her many layers of bullshit, in Maya just wanting to get back with Heath and work on their art, and in Karen’s Jennifer-esque lack of interest in what Emma’s selling, and in the bizarre urgency of Emma’s search: She is definitely looking for something and she will know when she’s found it.

END OF ACT TWO

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ACT THREE

Scene 1: Ashley at school, meeting with the cool kids like Karen and Maya/Heath, loving her secrets in a comedic but not buffoonish way—until the flip, which is a lunch shaming for Jasper. Heath takes his duties and Ashley jumps in too. Adults clipped neck up. We meet Jasper (American flag iconography as functional not symbolic) and watch Necie from as far away as possible. There is no one bad guy on the lunch shaming—the same lunch lady forcing Jasper to bus tables is the one hugging Necie. It’s institutional so who would start shit with the lunch lady? Tasha would!

Scene 2: Mom at work, seeing into that world of the school and meeting parents without knowing who their kids necessarily are. Woefully misunderstanding what is going on, at home and abroad; somebody asks about Brian’s football career and she lies about it a few different ways. The flip is that she is having an affair—not just lying about dumb stuff but about everything. It’s important to make this environment pop and be interesting and funny, because it’s basically the c-story in a given episode. Giving these people life, without sacrificing the satire. Like they think it’s because of videogames, for example; limiting screentime, really getting in there and communicating—the way people talk about their ideal-parent selves as though offering unasked-for advice. She spots Emma, the only time in this act, and reacts with an instinctive jerk. Something magical about her and cold. Sex and romance roles, role-play and patterns as expressed on all three levels, showing how fixation develops. Playing at being adults never stops or goes away, and that is socially a source of a lot of eroticism if you can admit it. Good & caring dads, too -- woke, half-queer NPR dads, reconstructed, unable to register the messages they're passing on to their sons and daughters. Sexual objects, conscious of that. They’re not all Heath’s dad types—and in this town, they’re the majority. Some indication of the incorrect idea that Emma is Eve, offering the apple—or even a Milton figure, that she is revolution incarnate—but the only witch for now is Jennifer, there are no covens. This is under discussion in a class she passes by/eavesdrops on at college, as Ashley’s Mom is noticing/recoiling from her.

Scene 3: Ashley at school, still trying to get around Necie and Tasha to get to Jasper and Karen. Tasha is onto her already, and Jasper is still feeling funny about lunch. He is confident, not prideful, but he’s already a pretty quiet guy, and Ashley has no idea how to be chill with him. The flip is when Karen eventually steps in, which Ashley loves and hates. The comedy comes from Tasha’s tenacity and Ashley’s accidentally obnoxious way of talking about his sister—and the way they all talk about Maya and Heath. By now we should know that Necie loves Ashley, who loves Karen, and secretly loves Heath and Jasper, who love Maya.

Scene 4: Corey’s crush on Brian and/or Jeremy, through conversation with Jeremy so we can see how he interacts with other people—no hint that they have or will be hooking up, except the way their hands keep touching. The flip comes when Jeremy and Corey sneak away to the Chapel so that Jeremy can play the piano for him, and Ashley narrates about how Corey and Jennifer are best friends, and that Corey’s the only person Jeremy likes besides Josh/Brian/Ashley. What we know now, and it’s not even a big deal, is that Corey loves Jeremy and they both love Brian, who loves Jennifer, who is cheating with Eddie, who goes to another school. The comedy comes from these relationships—first that Corey is brilliant and weird, and “gets” Jeremy in a way nobody else does, and also that Jeremy loves him back—has accepted him as a part of himself. Corey has the American flag iconography as functional not symbolic, too, but more in scheme and less in pattern, for now.

Scene 5: Cutely exasperated when Brian asks if she’s gotten around to discussing with Heath, and a complicated scenario in order to get him on the phone so they can be “alone.” Jennifer can suggest the landline trick—cracking Brian up because they were so young when they did that, well before Jeremy was a factor in their lives, in fact. Quarterback/cheerleader stuff—a very important note to underscore, since we are just seeing them together for the first time, so they have to have that same kind of co-parenting/”we’re dating” performative vibe. Sex and romance roles, role-play and patterns as expressed on all three levels, showing how fixation develops. Playing at being adults never stops or goes away, and that is socially a source of a lot of eroticism if you can admit it. We make the point first by allusion, then in an outright fight, that Adults put themselves in cages by choice, but that's not an option for the Children. (Everyone is subject to kyriarchy, I'm talking about Celeste from BLL here.) Where the change lies is in the Young Adults who are moving from one realm to the other. The fact that they all look at this as the same thing in different forms is a huge part of the problem: There’s actual difference in agency. The flip is the phone calls, which ends on a big twist that changes everything—Ashley’s unknowing uncovering of her mother’s affair, which Heath takes a few weeks to confirm, but does involve the phone call stuff.

ACT FOUR

Scene 1: In a bodycon red dress, Emma’s scarier side—rebuffed by anonymous dirtbag kid who is our Truman—she says it's got to be a college town because they think brilliance will save them, he blows her off since he’s not going to Ash’s school and thinks she’s a fool, and she downgrades him from Mercutio to street rat—something liminal, possibly with gay/sex work undertones—she’s written him off (not that she is right, at this point). But she does steal his info for later on, as is her wont. The flip comes when he blows her off like she’s not an adult, and the tenor of everything changes—They are fire and ice. Equals in every way. She is red and white, holly and ice; he is green and blue, hills and sky.

Scene 2: Ashley and the horrors of Tasha’s house—a heightened reality, heads clipped/uselessly tight closeups—the neverending culture vulture wine party going on there, and what Tasha is like around adults. They talk shit about the McNeelys and Ashley both fights back on Jasper and curries favor about Necie. Ashley loves being there and how stupid they are and what a fool Tasha is making of them—but the flip is when the parents interrogate her and she doesn’t have anything, and Tasha preens. The power Tasha has over her in this situation; the cultural capital. Sex and romance roles, role-play and patterns as expressed on all three levels, showing how fixation develops. Playing at being adults never stops or goes away, and that is socially a source of a lot of eroticism if you can admit it. We get a sense of Ashley’s relationship with her good & caring dad—woke, half-queer NPR dad, reconstructed, unable to register the messages they're passing on to their sons and daughters. Sexual objects, conscious of that. Nervous about his wife but not monitoring her—just bonding over how horrible this all is. Maya and her family are very dark, but flat-ironed and white-presenting (Jametria stuff) Tasha’s Parents are culture vultures, continental hipsters, empty-headed. They hold salons and make their daughter perform for their friends—so addicted to her as their greatest project (and one creative act) that they literally cannot see what a little asshole she is. This is also our first sort of experience of the McNeely effect, as we don’t see Tasha’s home life until after the flashback to her scariest form—the way she loves the attention is not just character-defining for a repulsed Ashley, but something to which we’ll return when she becomes a demagogue, of course. Jennifer’s Mom is white and married a millionaire; came from poverty. They’re both mutual big fans of Jennifer; bemused always, but appreciative, incredibly reasonable, gives great advice; the stepfather is notably tuned in he is to Jennifer—he doesn’t fawn like his wife, but he definitely respects and admires her as a person—if they’d met just a few years earlier he’d be her father for real. They’re pregnant, which factors into every interaction outside the house.  Heath’s Dad is caught in a masculinity. Vain, the hot dad; his attraction to Ashley’s mom is a straight transaction—she loves the trophy of his love in a way his wife doesn’t care about anymore. He needs to be the beautiful object. He is/they are also the vector for examining the thing about how men are magnanimous while women are nurturing, and how it’s actually the same powerful feeling. Heath’s Mom is a great deal like Ashley and her own mom, but the SAHM version. Tennis lessons, overcomplicated care packages for Janna and Sheila, etc. always using him to get information, about his sisters or the other families or whatever—but she’s not rapacious or a gossip, usually, just a curious and bright person. She sees Heath as her chance to do it right—not just after Janna, but men in general. She tends to Heath like a master gardener. These are by and large good, caring, post-FTBU&M dads: Woke, half-queer NPR dads, aware that they are sexual objects; reconstructed, unable to register the messages they're passing on to their sons and daughters.

Scene 3: At the college where the parents work, Heath’s dad hits on Emma—still in the red, but now with a sheer wrap—in a semi-sexual harassment way, and the flip, when she takes a shocking revenge. It needs to be a generic enough assault that we get how she is not reacting to the patriarchy and has no time for fools, but specific enough that her revenge is nastily sweet—this is the memory that will get us through a lot as she does the more despicable things. Keeping that Jean Brodie balance, without going into camp—the Tricia Helfer ability to do awful things and still have us rooting for her. We’re 35 minutes in and it’s time to go Lorne Malvo—to see how far she is willing to go, how uncanny and consequence-free insane she can be. Heath’s dad is weird around Ashley’s mom, so we have their affair on the radar, but don’t necessarily connect Heath to him yet, since the Dad is a force on the show in his own right. We get the heartbeat and poncho with Heath’s Dad but doesn’t hurt him—does a NLP game on him, dirty old man, stupid little boy. Louboutins in the undergrowth, lol. Once he’s submitted to her, she walks away, dressed to kill, and her accoster seems to think this means he was owed something. Sex and romance roles, role-play and patterns as expressed on all three levels, showing how fixation develops—this goes into the next bit, this sense of being owed. Maybe even transitional dialogue: “You owe me.”

Scene 4: Josh and Jeremy at their house: Three phases of the Pepe, from sweetly ignorant to ironically hateful to dangerous—Antarctica is this toxicity and the refuge from it. Here, Jeremy is just trying to figure it all out with his Bernie Bro “see both sides” libertarian autistic mind, which accidentally aligns with Brian’s bisexual openness—but the point is more that Josh is basically his son, and Ashley will narrate that (along with their dad stuff), and to us we see Jeremy’s emergent focus on masculinity and its deconstruction, his alien searches for how to be a human. This is about their crazy house—the Tyson House is spectacular, a steampunk/Matrix heightened world slowly transforming into Marxist typewriters and Gitanes—and Ashley narrating their lives for us; the flip is that Jeremy’s questions are innocent and sweet and caring, until they suddenly are not; how Josh is the one egging him on into the darkness, as we’ll see with Jasper later and understand more. Their colors are black and green, Matrix style.

Scene 5: Brian is having a funny Ferris Bueller/Dunces problem in the main office (that touches lightly on his identity crisis/faded glory; that way adults have of knowing you before you know them) and the flip is when Emma arrives in that red dress to sign her contract and powers through it for him, taking up his cause and brutally bullying the admin, earning his eternal gratitude (and her enmity—as well as that of volunteer mom Deborah, who is too smart to involve herself but comes close). He’s like who are you? New teacher, and your new best friend or whatever—and we know they are going to fuck. (He comes close to saying “I don’t usually fuck my best friend” or something there, awkward and teenish, but swallows half of it and she pretends she missed it. Irony being, not yet you don’t.) Sex and romance roles, role-play and patterns as expressed on all three levels, showing how fixation develops. Playing at being adults never stops or goes away, and that is socially a source of a lot of eroticism if you can admit it—here we see an echo in the way Mr. Anderson treats his beloved wife, that Brian is mimicking his father, who is a little vain and passive but certainly horny and worshipful.
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ACT FIVE

Scene 1: Jennifer and Jeremy are now on board, so Josh is in the circle—Ashley’s talking recruiting, and admits the whole Necie story/flashback to Jennifer as an ongoing issue. Ashley admitting to Jennifer about Necie McNeely’s song and dance – I don’t hate her, she’s Jasper’s sister! But she loves me so much. Last year she did this little number… What do you mean? Laughing. Like a song that reminded her of me. There were dance moves, and she sang. In music class… Omg! And I survived? But I’ll never be the same. Josh helpfully interjects himself, weirdly and a little awfully, but he has no idea and neither does Jeremy; this is where Jennifer starts joking about Alexis, and flashes back to the bullying with Corey a while back. (“Class President” song is Alexis totally—that black-aping way gay men and white girls have of selling their own propaganda, or so we think until we see her home life and how amazing she actually is.) This is our big introduction to Alexis. Jennifer playing with Ashley’s hair—Ashley forces her into a maternal role when they are together. Jeremy lecturing Josh on “Natural Born Killers” and how it’s not boring, it’s postmodern, and Josh is like “that’s everything now, what are you talking about” this is the key scene of the entire thing in certain ways – portraying NBK and Fight Club (maybe Matrix too?) as worn-out moments that no longer apply. We get Jennifer by her verbal support of Josh’s response, Jeremy’s rage from the way he handles being resisted, Brian’s feelings toward Jeremy and their son Josh by how he is conciliatory, and we see how Josh’s weirdness is not disordered or a count against his brilliance—he’s another Ashley or Heath, but it’s in a place he can’t access because he’s on the spectrum essentially. This idea brought to you by “Fade into You” if you want to revisit. This is also the humor, because what’s going on outside and next are not funny: Meanwhile Jeremy shit-talking women after Eddie is hypothetically an issue, and Brian thinking about fighting Eddie (The three phases of the Pepe, from sweetly ignorant to ironically hateful to dangerous—Antarctica is this toxicity and the refuge from it. Here, Jeremy is just trying to figure it out with his Bernie Bro “see both sides” libertarian autistic mind)—but the flip is, we see what a fight between the boys looks like, since Brian is feeling pre-guilty about Emma. Sex and romance roles, role-play and patterns as expressed on all three levels, showing how fixation develops. Playing at being adults never stops or goes away, and that is socially a source of a lot of eroticism if you can admit it—here we know that it’s his mother who is having the affair, and perhaps this is his way of getting revenge on her. Jeremy goads and pushes and sets manipulative traps that Brian’s not smart enough to avoid, and eventually he just calmly asks Jeremy, like an autist, to take Josh home now. Jennifer is “queer” in the sense that she is not actually queer—do that scene of the bona fides but instead of saying what’s real, which is that it’s a cheap holiday in someone else’s torture, that it’s ultimately not worth talking about because nobody else can determine that outside your body, but by the same token you only employ it when you’re trying to control a conversation. But Brian is protective of it because it makes sense to him—he thinks everyone is bisexual secretly. We also know exactly the firmness and affection with which Jennifer treats Jeremy—largely nonverbal, but comforting; she could know or not know that he is her enemy in certain ways, she’ll never tell.

Scene 2: Once the boys are gone, Ashley is cold as hell about Necie, and Brian says something. The negativity is getting to him and he’s very honest about what that is: It’s not her, or Jeremy, or the parents, but all of it, and he can’t see a future when they do this. Jennifer takes her leave during all this, making sure that everybody is okay and that she honestly just does have to leave. But the flip is when Ashley apologizes and he cries—we see his sensitivity and Ashley tells us about his astronaut thing and how his dad started it when he was a high-strung kid. But to her, this is about the pressure he is under and not his actual identity, or the sex stuff that’s going on over her head. The way Ashley deals with Necie tells us something about her and the way Brian checks her coldness tells us something about him more than it does her, because she agrees (rather than submitting): That was a real apology and she will treat Necie differently from now on.

Scene 3: Back to comedy. Brian and Ashley dealing with parents at dinner, remember mom is acting weird, and talking about the mock shooting; we see him through Ashley’s eyes with them, and he’s dreadfully young, very “PGY.” Ashley and Brian versus their parents; what Ashley’s house is like; the Dorothy hypothesis; first they relate to Brian with their regular faces and pressure him in that way they have, expositing his injury and so on; then the flip when Ashley comes in, they all become invisible voices. Discussion of a strange woman at work—dad mentions heath’s dad specifically and mom ignores him. The kids are desperate to get out of there. The comedy here is the disconnect with their parents, and the crudeness of their sociology. Dad is great, they both are, but we already know a lot more than we did.

Scene 4: The Manifesto is complete, and ready to go out. Deep breaths. Ashley narrates over Brian reading it aloud, it’s not perfectly written or legible but it is theirs, and dinner has them feeling very band of brothers all of a sudden. We're keeping the Maguire and later codenames -- THE MAGUIRES, THE MAGUIRE BAND, THE BAD MAGUIRES, CODENAME MAGUIRE possible working titles? -- and buy it in the pilot with cringing satire of comparing themselves to Malcolm X. The flip is when Ashley takes out her markers and makes a list of people to invite, and Brian tells her to leave no trace. Deliver by hand, never write what you can say and never say what you can indicate, and so on. She doesn’t love this but sees the wisdom. He reminds her spies are invisible; she says they’re not spies and he says as long as we’re under their roof we are.

Scene 5: Emma’s apartment is sniper-clean, because she isn’t human, as she readies for the day. It was a public restroom before, but now she has a job. Just one dufflebag and the illusion of wealth. The flip is that we look at the empty room for a page while radio code-talking happens, cold war style, then she changes to the news—then flip: Emma walks out into the room in a way that makes it clear this is where she lives, or that she has just assumed human form, but that either way she is a psycho; we spend the next page watching her get ready: barely there red bra and panties, gun on the thigh; the least tailored shift dress we’ve seen on her, just dropped over like she’s priest—and then the severely constructed white jacket, like she’s going to war.

ACT SIX

Jeremy progression: Need to BELONG/GET REVENGE
101 Video games—loneliness and gamification/addiction; 102 Nerd/gamer culture—homogenous demo; “not your shield”; rape/Anne Frank ghost stories; 103 Libertarian atheism—first big crossover with Bernie: People need to listen
Brian progression: Need to BE HEARD/OBEYED
101 Learning shallow things about current events makes you feel smart. 102 Weird Twitter—your heroes’ cleverness and seeming insights channel your responses and thought-formulation into those specific mindsets. 103 Maguires/Socialism makes you feel smarter than everybody—first overlap with Jeremy about being right. People need to listen.

Before 104: Shape these up into real scene-by-scene outlines—no boilerplate notes copy/pasted: 
True blueprints for the design of every page in the script—written in eighths, of seven lines each.
Create each page around this principle and design beats in eighths, of seven lines each.


Chapter Two: Brando

Act One

Scene 1: Superhumanoids cover of “March of the Pigs” and an extreme blur, a riot of colored light in blues and greens, clarifies into boots walking toward us. It’s not John Woo or The Matrix, no slow-mo—a different visual of this phenomenon. Head-on (neck-down) and side shots of Brian walking through the confetti of destruction as he makes his way through the halls of a high school, twirling a gun like a baseball bat. An anti-Lemonade, bombs exploding all around. People crab walking back in fear, like “Hush”—driving them like the Red Bull. Voiceover here about what’s happening, as he reaches a door (describing how “at this point the fantasy gets a little fuzzy…”) and throws it open in a flash of white sunlight…
And while his voice explains that at this point he somehow becomes the hero and saves everyone, we see him on his back. Eyes closed, but clearly awake and happy, not masturbating. His face for a beat and he opens his eyes on flashes of Emma Brodie, grasping around the room for sudden wank material, traveling the photographs like a timeline: Jennifer’s theatre pictures and everyday costumes. And as he talks about this last year, we see mixed into that more of their couples costumes—Griffith Observatory bad kids, Luke and Leia, ending on a “Romeo + Juliet” picture (with angel wings) at which point he closes his eyes—timed to the most repetitive/driving part of the song.
When we return for the main event, it’s to Corey’s dead body, which shifts, clearly not dead, and then opens his eyes on the sexual scene to which we’ve transitioned: Jennifer going down on Brian, who has locked eyes with Jeremy. That goes for some establishing amount of beats, and then split screen to Jeremy masturbating to it in the dream, and poor Brian fervently masturbating in real life. Slight segue into astronaut snippets from later emotion, then suddenly another Emma flash as he comes. That face like looking into the infinite—not a hardcore or brutal face nor a sneezy one, but overawed in the fade to white timed to climax of song. Credits fade in, song fades out.
Fade back down onto Brian, still awed but going slack-jawed, and then he comes back to himself once more, sniffs a few times that drippy orgasm nose, and returns to his body. 

Scene 2: Brian’s cleanup afterward, internal world, thought processes as he dresses; pics of Jen; he wouldn’t care if she cheated; intrigued by his little sister’s movement, and wants to begin recruiting immediately; Brian is about identity: Five different versions of a boy becoming a man. When we meet him Brian is at the end of a long convalescence. His old identity is gone, but he’s still recovering spiritually and not interested in finding himself. His main focus is Lisa and Jeremy, and everything else has just subsided for him. He’s in a period of mourning. Brian brings a lot of the quarterback with him, male privilege that he assumes rather than embodies. He is still something of a golden boy, but feels invisible nonetheless. Brian and Ashley discover each other, in a feedback loop of delight and recognition, that bonds them against their parents—now he has three friends, not two. He wants to be open and supportive of Jeremy’s feelings toward him, which may or may not exist but are certainly flattering and titillating; he jumps on any sign of jealousy or conflict, desperately trying to connect with Jeremy in this way, flailing blindly in it. Depressed, cocooned with Lisa and Jeremy.  Pretty Good Year. Brian’s admission that he doesn’t care whether Jennifer’s cheating shows it defused and there is no big breakup coming, Jeremy’s narrative is incorrect and so is his impulse to get performative about it but Brian won’t openly contradict him, and—in pursuit of this idea that he is inventing the world to be perfect, goes into his poly leanings too—the point is that he’s alt-left and Jeremy is alt-right and they meet; same on Chaos Magick (boys) vs Wicca (girls) vs Corey/Maya magic—not as a “thing” but there for the Invisibles. Now we get to be alone with him for a minute—look around his room, the clock is around 3PM, the various past selves it reveals beyond just the Jennifer stuff… Lots of NASA but zero American flags or iconography. The humor here is that he is a ridiculous person but way more introspective than we think—he’s on the threshold of revelation which is when we make our most painfully earnest Dan Humphrey realizations (which he then undercuts in monologue, flipping back and forth between dork and quarterback.) Brian’s injury has flipped the household dynamic and made her the golden child and there is enough of a kidding/not-kidding air around that to show that it’s important. But looking at her as a revolutionary he sees her with new eyes. He realizes that he wants to see his sister, and decides to find her… a monologue that plays into

Scene 3: Ashley trudges while Brian talks, not FOR her but just generally/about Movement. Two memories of Deborah trying to be the Gilmore Girls & Ashley loving it: First a hilarious and fun creative thing, Ashley’s sense of being included, in fits and starts, then the flip to the army of young women idea—which lights Ashley up inside from the jump We see both sides of Deborah: Single mom par excellence, thinks of herself as Lorelei Gilmore crossed with an earth mother shaman/guide. In the world but not of it, and leans on her children far too much. When pushed, she takes control violently and we see this over and over again. She speaks for that “my self-care is at your expense” zero-sum of the adults. Deeply lonely; an Amy Brenneman type in love with creating an army of empowered feminist young women, and persists in this delusion to the end. Karen is Ashley’s Ashley and they both know it—but the disillusionment starts here. She wants Karen to be a part of their unit and so does Karen, even after they see the downsides. We can see them actively working on their relationship, as they always have – the world wants them to be enemies and they refuse. 

Scene 4: Downstairs with mom and try to talk, they joke about “constituents”—but we get the first seed of that Bernie Bro disappointment—that if Mom would just listen to them she could save them (her character as always is Renata-funny)—and the hint that something happened earlier with dad. Ashley’s meeting with all her constituents joke hangs a lantern on it and excuses her absence from this episode so far, while also showing their affection for her and her ways, which buys us more cred on that end too. Like Clarke on the 100 – that social proof of adults in private—and sets out the episode for us plainly: Ashley’s day running around town, Brian’s day of the same, leading toward Tasha’s house. Brian monitoring their mother’s mood, because she sets the tone; irritated by golden child twist kidding-not-kidding. Calls everyone he knows looking for Ashley; we see what they’re doing instead of picking up. Humorous 2-second shots of them each doing something weird and typical/character-revealing… Except Jeremy, who is meeting with Emma—he stubs out a cigarette and they don’t look at each other, almost like lovers, and she gets in her car to go find Ashley with a firm look of resigned dislike on both faces. Some indication of the incorrect idea that Emma is Eve, offering the apple—or even a Milton figure, that she is revolution incarnate—but the only witch for now is Jennifer, there are no covens. This is under discussion in a class she passes by/eavesdrops on at college, as Ashley’s Mom is noticing/recoiling from her. Back to Brian: Lonely and restless, it is made clear that this is Brian’s episode, his whole episode, and his quest has begun: Go find Ashley. Make it go faster, make it happen, save the world. His question is about how do you know who you are and Emma’s answer is that if you try to list everything about yourself and it’s finite you will fail, or something like that.

Scene 5: The Incident. Must get across how foundational this is—the Volcano Girls are a lie, basically, or at least destroyed by exactly what Ashley’s fighting to end. So who turns up? We see both sides of Deborah: Single mom par excellence, thinks of herself as Lorelei Gilmore crossed with an earth mother shaman/guide. In the world but not of it, and leans on her children far too much. When pushed, she takes control violently and we see this over and over again. She speaks for that “my self-care is at your expense” zero-sum of the adults. Deeply lonely; an Amy Brenneman type in love with creating an army of empowered feminist young women, and persists in this delusion to the end. She also says this about Austin: “The overarching theme is the dissolvable self—Austin’s identity crisis is indecipherable from his changing identity, and that’s a trap for men in particular.” Anything said about Austin applies to Brian; the only difference is, Austin chose just like Janna. The flip: From Emma’s car as she comes around the block slowly, engine purring, looking for Ashley. Emma waves her in, out of the rain, and Ashley seems dubious for a second—we think she’s onto her—but then she waves happily and bounds toward us. A cut so sudden it seems like she might be murdered!

Act Two

Scene 1: Emma and Ashley process the event—the point is that they sounded the same, and in this two-shot we see the irony that Emma and Ashley are dressed so alike—and Ashley thinks that Emma wants her to say about how the world keeps trying to push her and Karen apart because who run this mother and Emma is just like, that’s stupid. Emma knows everyone’s names. Attending to the business of the material world, such as she must.
The flip: Birthday talk becomes explicit planning; Emma has a plan for the special class but doesn’t bring it up yet except in the vaguest most hypothetical terms, Ashley doesn’t pick up on it. Emma knows everyone’s names. Attending to the business of the material world, such as she must. And look: in a fairytale this is the Call to Adventure. So use those formal ways of speaking to get that across. Like she is signing a deal. Totally neck-down for just this part.
The flip: Impatient Emma presents upset, so Ashley offers Brian by accident; Emma goes still as a snake, Ashley isn’t looking but we sure are.

Scene 2: Jennifer and Eddie, getting into their mutual fetishization; again with his early sexualization but also her realization that he is a fraud. Eddie is a big trick. He begins as a Batman/James Dean figure, the Young Turk equivalent of Emma and “clearly” the monster at the end of the book—set in opposition to golden Brian, etc. And while he doesn’t turn out to be great or sweet, the whole thing is revealed as a pose—we thought he was Judd Nelson but he’s Emilio Estevez/maybe even Molly Ringwald: The opposite of Alexis, not Brian or Emma. Jennifer and Eddie doing their thing and she is getting bored with him—she is trying to negotiate him back into being his cartoon self and he’s not having it. Jennifer is funny on purpose and Eddie is funny without knowing it. Set him up so his shit is tragic. He ends on Brian’s same question, sort of stupidly rhetorical…

Scene 3: It is 4pm when Ashley arrives at Trilby’s house and experiences it—keep the high comedy/absurd here. Ashley begins the story more admiring of Trilby than annoyed by her, and they have the longest relationship—but it’s all tied up with everybody loving her dad, so there’s no real connection. Because of Trilby’s “fame,” Ashley has always had to consider her as a sidekick—and, as the victim of Tasha’s jealousy, the purest expression of Ashley’s protection/justice impulses. Making Trilby’s visibility a power is the way Ashley can deal with it (cf Karen, to whom she submits)
The flip: Ashley is party to Trilby’s conversation with her brother about her career, which is funny because of the way Trilby approaches it. She’s the sweetest one but also completely a diva/theatre kid, so when she talks turkey there is a funny disconnect because she is a professional (and the funniness of it is also an indictment on the basic level of what this show is about) The sweetest among the Maguires, Trilby’s the breadwinner for the family, able to compartmentalize and perform—a skill Ashley must learn rather than simply use, unlike Tasha who never can.
The flip: Her dad arrives and the whole thing goes pear-shaped—we see his charisma and also faking it—observing how he swallows Trilby up specifically. Trilby’s Mom is here seen only from the outside—a Jeanne Tripplehorn, surrounded by her husband’s kid, perfectly put together but the neighborhood joke, very LDS. Trilby’s Dad is a legitimate delight. Good LDS dad, good dad period, but not shut down or performative man. Doing his best. Neck-down only when he addresses her, which he barely does. Center of a cult of his children who worship him; Big Love daddy pronouncements that are dumb but accepted at face value from the patriarch. We fade out audio on him delighting his children, missing the particulars as the crowd grows to contain the whole brood, as Brian talks about how he’s one of those people you meet and feel like you have just known them your whole life…

Scene 4: …which is something he is actually saying, Brian and Jeremy smoking out and just being brothers, a slight reminder of how new and instant their relationship is/was—how you just know; again the “they won’t listen”—and mention of something with dad that he refuses to discuss with Jeremy (indicating it relates to him—but Jeremy’s too autistic to know that)—each thinks Corey is in love with the other one and they are both greedy for it, too, whether for ownership or romance or conquest or competition, all are equally likely—and valid, frankly; Brian privately thinks it’s Jeremy’s best course of action but also weirdly jealous of it. Jeremy is shapeshifting too, not just as a Pepe but sexually and philosophically. Jeremy is still more reactive than he will be; trying to chart a course that will keep him at Brian’s side, preferably alone. He does not have an agenda to take over, like Tasha does—but he does want to know what’s in it for him.
The flip: Jeremy starts going a little Five Guys and Brian contradicts himself by allowing/soft-cosigning. We didn’t know Jeremy had these Jughead feelings about Jennifer but it informs their relationship—and here we see how Brian gets off on it/allows it, in quarterback/locker room mode… but he does change subject to his main question, about how do you know who you are…

Scene 5: …to which Jennifer knows the exactly magic answer, though she doesn’t know it’s exactly how Brian feels—Emma’s answer that if you try to list everything about yourself and it’s finite you will fail, or something like that. It is her personae shifting ability that Brian needs now and seizes when it’s too late, so she should explain it now. Being nothing, being everything; compares herself to Corey or Alexis in how everything is drag; even Jeremy; their parents are all accumulations of selves. Jennifer tries to tell Brian this all the time, and now she tries it on Eddie, but he’s dull-eyed in response and she gives up, sighing the makeup convo, which is the same answer, before abruptly kissing his cheek and exiting the vehicle forever. So good! Good job!

Act Three

Scene 1: Ashley to Maya’s house and the awkwardness of just the two of them—points of overlap, people to talk about; Maya acting grownup in a way that actually works. Ashley overlooks Maya but she’s involved because of Jasper—and very impressed with her sense of space, design, things she doesn’t have words for—is this your art? I knew you did art at school but my goodness! Something about “Twice as good” -- Getting Maya excited to talk about form and space and typography…
The flip: And then Maya’s parents get home at 5pm—they like Ashley but are subtly hardcore about Maya’s studies and excellence, in a way Ashley wouldn’t understand (the “twice as good” painting behind their looming heads, in the second shot where we see them neck up); she is her mother’s autobiography. The flip: …on which Ashley vibes that she needs to leave, which disappoints Maya—and in something of a code, she tells Ashley in front of her parents that’s she interested but cautious

Scene 2: Brian at Trilby’s house looking for Ashley and relating to them differently—brother is still on the team; he tries a soft recruit and the brother isn’t getting it, which is frustrating. The BB impatience. But the little ones climb all over them while they talk, like a pair of Gullivers. The flip: Trilby’s dad loves/identifies with Brian—has a quiet, lonely moment from his teen coldness and this is ambiguous as far as crush or what, but really he just gets that Brian has a life he never will and that he wants to somehow be both Brian’s father and Brian himself. The dads are all sex objects but this guy is exempt from that feeling—it’s really just his life. This is a second chance to underscore how great dad is—and Brian being ever so chill with him does a lot to pin them both down honestly. Trilby’s Dad has a particularly great take on his question, but it nosedives suddenly—sharp disappointment for Brian—when they come up against his Mormon gender programming. For him, it’s Brian that is the white flash. And that too is an answer but it doesn’t help anything—plus radical honesty is more important.

Scene 3: Emma heads toward the McNeelys’ as Brian explains their backstory and we see the world changing around her as she goes into their world—but why is she going there? The flip: Necie innocently comes out to meet her and she is disgusted; Emma knows everyone’s names. Attending to the business of the material world, such as she must. Just clearly only looking for Jasper and asking for him, but when he sees her (from his angle, her head cut off, Necie touching a giant torso) she feels danger and runs—announces the new class and that one or both of them may be joining. Important that she did not mention this to Ashley

Scene 4: Brian arrives at Maya’s house and the interaction/way he treats her is an early clue that the YAs are onto his gender stuff—he half-recruits her there too, just out of compassion; she’s like stow it
The flip: He drives all over, looking for we think Jennifer; goes past Karen’s house, where Karen is on the porch being sad with a guitar; monologue not entirely on-topic—maybe something about Jasper’s family just in passing, that it’s Romeo and Juliet in real life; that Maya too is the answer to his question but he doesn’t quite realize that yet—but something he says gives Maya an answer and some comfort, crooked eyebrow but later we’ll see her gratitude (not yet though, he’s not being magic teen boy right now) but it’s about his modern-masculine search for identity and how you have to figure out how to be a man, talking to himself

Scene 5: Now driving aimlessly looking for Ashley and listening to “Venus as a Boy” right before this, as a place-setting—everything cuts to silence, in the sunset, as he kills the car and just watches Corey dancing, without music he can hear—fierce, athletic, masculine, firey dancing—should feel unexplained, pagan, like the joyful forest run in “Leftovers”—a very De Palma moment in which we are watching him watch and be so peaceful… He smiles just barely, one time, when Corey tries to tear off his shirt and gets his head stuck in it for a moment—but the point is that Brian’s not even thinking that hard or anything, just like, meditating on this strange, beautiful, sardonic creature that he almost/sometimes believes might be in love with him.

Act Four

Scene 1: Ashley arrives on Heath’s doormat, we meet his SAHM; Brian’s BB impatience monologue comes through in the way she and Ashley can’t connect, echoes of dialogue to make sure—trying first of all to just have a relationship with Heath at all, but SAHM for multiple reasons can’t leave it alone and feels weird about bugging them, but Nina’s child is in her doorway and she is losing it. Neck down. The flip: Weird Dad energy, which we know why and Heath hates but Ashley misses again—she needs a big loan from the girl zone haha; Neck down; he rushes them inside when light reflects off Emma’s windshield—not really registering it but hilariously jumpy anyway; perhaps he thinks it’s Nina going nuts finally. The flip: Jennifer arrives and Ashley is finally calm—Emma did not do that, SAHM did not do that; Jennifer catches the white flash on the way in but doesn’t connect to Ashley or the Children, barely registers it; What’s cute about Ashley’s narration is how she misses stuff. What’s good about Brian’s is that he is a lot more honest with us than he is with others or himself. He has a disarming, self-effacing narration that is a lot braver introspectively than we see onscreen. Heath comes alive under Brian’s voiceover about how Jennifer is the favorite babysitter…

Scene 2: Chewing on something, hemming and hawing and looking at pics of her again (maybe gay panic, we think) his valediction of her as babysitter segues too naturally into finally calling her up—this is him being brave, but also missing his friend—and because of his parents, he’s protective of her as a symbol of his own mother, of course—that’s why Emma is such a great revenge fuck. The flip: The white flash as he reaches her and says he’s coming over but he doesn’t move quite yet. Evoke Astronaut stuff; the quietness of space. That same glimpse of the infinite as when he came, and when he was watching Corey, but now it’s just him, at peace for the moment. Brian’s narration is a lot more honest with us than with others or himself. He has a disarming, self-effacing narration that is a lot braver introspectively than we see onscreen. He has reconnected: She’s his Aeryn Sun, his air and sun, and the astronaut can breathe. 

Scene 3: A party-line, Bye Bye Birdie situation in which Maya and Heath are not attending the party, she doesn’t want to leave her house (or really, be her mother’s biography—or really-really, be the invisible black girl)—we see how she has the relationship with him that Ashley wants and sometimes thinks she has, and how their family roles and role models present here, Ashley and Heath are still seemingly the central relationship. From the outside we see the places they are still naïve and the way Heath deals with Ashley’s naivetes: he flirts with acting like his father but adores her too much to truly overrule or dismiss. We see their bedrooms, which dwarf them. Heath doesn’t want to be around his parents. 

Scene 4: This is the biggest one—the first time we see how Josh and Jasper operate. After some introductory banter, they have a battle of wills about how Jasper needs to attend (Josh feels unheard), lots of American flag iconography here and just a glimpse of Jasper’s immaculate room—the Tyson is insane and we get to see a new part of it every time—plus remember Josh and Jasper are both using the other as codependent sibling replacements, which explains like everything respectively. And Tasha does the same with Karen about attending last-minute; we get to see Tasha playing grownup and Karen being a total Liz Phair with her, but also how she is fine with Tasha and she’s right to be, because Necie and Tasha are only monsters to Ashley. This one is weirdly the funniest of the three, despite being the least funny characters—again because they get so much projection from Ash usually. Also see the Ashley/Karen thing from Karen’s perspective, now that Emma has slightly ruined it.

Scene 5: Brian arrives at Heath’s at sundown to get Ashley ready for the party; “get them to listen” like for him it is a state visit to enemy territory—feels like she’s the golden child now, jokes about it sourly; Ashley and Heath are still seemingly the central relationship. From the outside we see the places they are still naïve and the way Heath deals with Ashley’s naivetes: he flirts with acting like his father but adores her too much to truly overrule or dismiss. Ashley gets in car and he hesitates to follow, hoping she’ll still be there … And she is. She speaks before he turns around—she is fearless now. The flip: Brian laughs when a wary Jennifer asks conversationally if he’s invited, and she realizes they’re cool for now—but he leaves anyway, noncommittally, leaving her wanting a little more for once—and not really on purpose (and echo this at the birthday party, when Dad reacts to Golden God’s goading by making Mom beg for it.). Disappears into a flash of white.

Act Five

Scene 1: Tasha’s birthday cocktail hour starts promptly at 7. Some neat way of arranging everyone, a time lapse perhaps—going neck-down here, so we focus on their clothes and coats to show their personalities. Ashley monitoring their mother’s mood, because she sets the tone. The flip: Ashley seated next to Josh for the dinner, watching him with adults as they slowly sour on him. She’s patronizing and he doesn’t process it normally—just as a distraction. Emma is surveilling this party from a hidden location. Ashley’s mom is a bulldog; hyperliberal nonsense demands, the nightmare version of PC. Always five steps behind because all she is really doing is Gen X concern trolling, not actively paying attention: “Violence is never justified” after the violence has begun. We see Tasha’s rise to power implicit from the beginning. We confirm that the parents mostly know each other through work, per Emma’s comment to Truman. Something that reminds us of Emma saying it's a college town, they think brilliance will save them. Performing for each other/Emma, Adults imagine themselves as quick-witted, principled Big Chillers. Discussion that it’s still a parochial day school and how even atheist liberals can accept religion. Off-base discussion of shooting and what the problem is—liberal fuzzy cloud of Gen X concern trolling—and Ashley just keeping her lip zipped for now. Josh and Adults: They start out feeling like he’s a good thing, based on the sense they’ve gotten of his intellectual stock; in person, he is very off-putting—he’s enough like them that it’s scary, but blunt enough that he’s offensive. This is especially harrowing because of the neck-down situation.

Scene 2: Heath and Jennifer hang out alone and he accidentally gets into her own cheating, a sharp note (he wants to hurt her but he is also trying to work out whether his dad’s cheating), but Brian shows back up, breaking the spell—Jennifer wondering if he is actually fucking with her, and why he would do that if he loves her so much—Heath is nonverbal conciliatory (a theme with him—pushing too far and retreating—that will be his downfall). What’s cute about Ashley’s narration is how she misses stuff. What’s good about Brian’s is that he is a lot more honest with us than he is with others or himself. He has a disarming, self-effacing narration that is a lot braver introspectively than we see onscreen: Brian takes them both by the hand, rather than putting Heath in the middle, to show his apology for any distance—he wants to play house. It’s all he ever wants to do.

Scene 3: Maya’s parents at the party—how they deal with Ashley, Karen and Josh—Emma surveilling: this sets the scene they all are performing, in a way, so frame the dining room like a proscenium, glaring out into the night; they couldn’t see her if they tried—but we pierce that out into the woods beyond the property line to find her making notes in a little pristine notebook, legs dangling in a pith-helmet way Maya’s parents set up the “Help I'm Alive” idea Truman will draw out, about Ashley being a power broker or lobbyist rather than a demagogue or policy maker. The flip: Heath’s parents—competitive, angry they didn’t bring; creates drama above Ash’s paygrade— Dad getting weird at party is clearly subconscious—Heath’s Dad just gets off on power with him. Dad echoes Brian by leaving noncommittally, leaving her wanting a little more for once, and making Golden God look crude and drunk by comparison. Ashley is proud of him for that…
Meanwhile Brian flashback to the Talk that he had with his dad earlier we did not know about, that reframes everything he’s done today— Ashley’s Dad: Mostly we see him bored, Gen X ADD, if his attention is demanded for more than short bursts. He’s more authentically interested in their children than his wife, but guileless in the way he shows his disinterest. They adore him but don’t respect him—trying to help his son come out of the closet and being like “everybody Is a little gay”/”I know that, Dad” and Brian just crying and holding his little father because he’s so sweet.

Scene 4: So there’s a visually inventive Scream/prank moment with Jeremy when he arrives, killing the mood and memory—and we also see 2 important things, the way Jeremy sees Jennifer and the way she sees him, that firm affection (and this: Ashley treats Jeremy and Jennifer as family, civil and overlooked. They’re what makes Ashley sad about teens, like Brian. Terribly similar. She is just finding him, and they already have him. She feels implicated in their love triangle and a lot of the things she misses are about this situation, in the first act of the season—picks up on weird feelings and vibes and doesn’t know what it’s about. The source of her “teens are weird” vault she puts things in for when she’s older.) These are the three things: His modern-masculine search for identity, his political aims as realized in his sister, and his Bernie bro need to be heard.  Brian gets an answer at every location—but it’s just another question
The flip: Tasha’s parents start a pile-on about Alexis which is fine, even if they segue off making fun of Ashley—but then they go after the McNeelys, and Josh has to pull Ashley back, quietly. (Ashley is entirely protective of Josh, without even thinking about it. She gives him the credit, benefit of the doubt, and extension-of-self protection she owes Necie, and he is not even cognizant, much less grateful for it. He’s fond of her but doesn’t see how tuned in she is to his comforts—so this is a powerful moment that shows how upset she is—and Tasha does not miss it either) The cruelty to Alexis is something we have to stay with because of her arc, but lightly—and with the understanding that nothing fazes her, she’s got her own shit going on, or so they think.

Scene 5: Jeremy/Brian and Jennifer/Heath are being quiet together (looking ridiculous, wearing animal masks or other costumery; something indicating hijinks when we greet them in repose but she can also rip off) when the phone rings. It’s from Corey and Jennifer rushes to him, Brian’s happy to help because he loves Corey (One thing, he narrates, is that he is a little nervous around Corey [beat, because it’s not about him being gay] like he's going to belch or fart.) Jeremy is still more reactive than he will be; trying to chart a course that will keep him at Brian’s side, preferably alone. He does not have an agenda to take over, like Tasha does—but he does want to know what’s in it for him. Brian segues into mention of the group, but Heath seems nervous—in fact, he doesn’t want any Andersons in the house and asks guilelessly if Brian will leave before his parents come home, since they’re going to text before they do so he will be safe. Brian’s confused but not disappointed to avoid the Golden God—he flicks eyes to a portrait that says more than a monologue could. This quiet moment between Ashley’s two closest men, and all the fears and burdens they have in common.

Act Six

Scene 1: Jennifer and Corey have their favorite hiding spot, and it’s getting smaller as they get bigger. It is a full-on outdoor fort, with Christmas lights and cushions, watertight and completely light-tight from the outside. She reaches into blackness and opens it into light, witchcrafty. Silence and then small talk about literally anything else, and finally she asks what dad did this time. Jennifer and Corey are a unit but not a trope: Their connection, their first person. Set up the Truman/Corey Huckleberry Finn thing—that Corey thinks this is so trashy and makes him trash and that Jennifer will judge him that way. We don’t know this is about Truman of course, but it’s there.
The flip: eventually that talk turns to Eddie, but Corey’s clearly lost the light. Jennifer is concerned and cannot crack him. Plant another seed for Emma’s secondary plans for the Volcano Girls/Bacchants?

Scene 2: Quick and brutal, as Ashley’s superiority is technically real but Tasha shows her powers at last, turning the Adults against Ashley with a cruel joke. Ashley stares, cut to
The flip: Short flashback to Necie’s performance, oddly; back out and Tasha can tell that she’s beaten/broken Ashley—nobody notices, Mom and Dad laughing about the sex talk to get past their own awkwardness—and so Josh calls for exfiltration, in a hilarious Josh way. Ashley can barely be irritated by him taking care of her but it is a reality check.

Scene 3: Emma (drinking a martini—her mysterious hardcase in the tree with her could be a picnic bar, possibly) watches Brian and Jeremy arrive to get Josh and Ashley; Brian’s code-switching with parents; Tasha smirks when Ashley says happy birthday, immediately calling Karen; Jeremy shows theory of mind by asking Ashley, through addressing Josh, if Tasha was being mean to him/them/her
The flip: his political aims as realized in his sister, and his Bernie bro need to be heard—getting worked up, Brian zooms past their house to a park nearby (Jeremy first freezes up, wanting to stay at Brian’s side, preferably alone, and then gets embarrassingly Hell Yeah when he realizes: Brian’s treating them all to a grownup hang; the foursome playing house. It’s nice and quiet and conspiratorial, a feeling we’ll come to know very well. A white flash that is not Emma—just something white. Brian and Josh is its own whole thing that codifies into their Trinity—here, Ashley and Jeremy share a gaze or giggle when Brian and Josh do something identically, because they’re both the same way underneath—take away Brian’s entitlement and Josh’s autism, and they are just Virgos.

Scene 4: Brian is about radical honesty right now; no limits and no regrets. He wants it all right now. To get to the end, and with that Bernie Bro twist of how people should just do what he/they say and it would be fine. Eventually Jennifer calls Jeremy—Jeremy ignores until it’s obvious, because this is his most happy place—to come for Corey because she doesn’t know what else to do; Even here, he gets an answer that just leads to the next question—Brian & Jeremy nod and break. Brian’s hand on Ashley’s back to signal that he’s taking her home, no need to actually show it. And this is the monologue that sounds both generic and portentous—but feels like an episode-closer, like that expansive Meredith/wonder years monologue you think is about the lessons we have learned and so on—and floats over them as they nod and break, fade black and back up, touch Ashley, fade black and back up, them walking into darkness, fade black a double beat and back up on…

Scene 5: Emma at home doing something weird when Brian appears at her door and she says the thing he keeps coming back to in his monologue—almost like a Manchurian codeword or passphrase—and his relief is so complete it is horny. Emma’s answer that if you try to list everything about yourself and it’s finite you will fail, or something like that: Jennifer’s personae shifting ability that Brian needs now and seizes when it’s too late—but here it’s also permission, if he can hear it. And he can. Reverse angle from a surveillance distances as she stands there with the door open, waiting for him to move inside without being invited. Eventually he does, and we hold on the closed door a moment before cut to black. March of the Pigs again (cover or real version? Depends on how dated it sounds—maybe a better remix or remaster or something) Emma knows everyone’s names. Attending to the business of the material world, such as she must: What we can see of her house is no longer sniper-life but sensuous, enveloping, soft, incense-smelling and indulgent without being racist or otherwise topical. He’s looking for Ashley but really he’s looking for somebody to tell him he’s Holden Caulfield, he’s got it figured out, or that Ashley would tell him he’s going to be okay and everything is going to be okay and it starts now—but he just figured it out in monologue, so when she says it it’s not just the answer he needs and the permission/goad in terms of content, but also right on time.

END

?
Jeremy progression: Need to BELONG/GET REVENGE
101 Video games—loneliness and gamification/addiction; 102 Nerd/gamer culture—homogenous demo; “not your shield”; rape/Anne Frank ghost stories; 103 Libertarian atheism—first big crossover with Bernie: People need to listen
Brian progression: Need to BE HEARD/OBEYED
101 Learning shallow things about current events makes you feel smart. 102 Weird Twitter—your heroes’ cleverness and seeming insights channel your responses and thought-formulation into those specific mindsets. 103 Maguires/Socialism makes you feel smarter than everybody—first overlap with Jeremy about being right. People need to listen.

Before 104: Shape these up into real scene-by-scene outlines—no boilerplate notes copy/pasted: 
True blueprints for the design of every page in the script—written in eighths, of seven lines each.
Create each page around this principle and design beats in eighths, of seven lines each.

Chapter Three: Octavia

Act One

Scene 1: Heath’s Christmas fantasy—In monologue, Jennifer explains Heath, his birthday and Santa. Christmas fantasy opener, including hunting down Santa Claus and catching him—but then what? Jennifer telling Heath’s Santa Claus story lends pathos to her own stuff, as a repeating theme Jennifer as first pancake comes to the fore—we think she is somehow narrating Heath at first. Adults clipped neck-up as often as possible in scenes with Children, ala floating Young Pope. What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? What is the overarching theme of this episode in particular? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result?
The flip: Jennifer’s House—drinking coffee alone, thinking about house and presents and the baby
Jennifer alone, house too small for baby; Jennifer’s a fan of her stepfather—we should be, too. What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? What is the journey of this character over the arc of the episode? How are they telling their own story? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result? Jennifer’s Aquarius chameleon powers are tested in this episode. Go back through every scene to see how she wills herself into shapes, and must do so even now, at her lowest point. She has a routine that we must be able to recognize visually—turning into someone else. Acts like it’s a joke but it’s not. (And the more she uses it, and the more open she is about her witchcraft, the more we believe she will actually Buffy everybody in the finale.) Jennifer figured out it was worthless to just be herself, because herself had been decided a long time ago…. When you go into a store and have to buy tampons…

Scene 2: Jasper’s Christmas—Not in mailbox, it wouldn’t be, but he can’t go back inside—weeks waiting. Adults clipped neck-up as often as possible in scenes with Children, ala floating Young Pope. References: Reflecting Skin, with the brothers and the flag; Scout Finch; Days of Heaven What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result? Necie wants to be invited to every party but her family is embarrassed to take her; Tasha thinks she’s messing with Ashley but really she’s just fucking with their lives. Noble Jasper’s caretaking during this very consumerist season, protecting parents and sister both. The McNeelys had an older boy who died and they don’t talk about it. Jasper saved up his money and bought his sister something really great—and it hasn’t come. During the Santa Claus story that ties it all together, we see him uncharacteristically stressed out by the fact that it hasn’t arrived, and Necie’s terrible about it. 
The flip: Heath’s Christmas fantasy—when it gets dark, we see him watching his father carefully. Adults clipped neck-up as often as possible in scenes with Children, ala floating Young Pope. Lots going on in the background at all times—Eddie dealing with arms dealers, Necie getting abducted.  What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result?


Scene 4: Christmas—the quintet, happily at Andersons, fitting together.  Let’s really dig into Jennifer and Jeremy this week—his many faces toward her, and her way of searching his face like a grandmother about to pinch or tousle. She loves Jeremy and doesn’t know why, why anybody would, least of all Brian, who lost his arrogance but not his vanity, which is his hottest quality, because boys are already the worst etc. I love that “withheld judgment” vibe so much and the visual of it, him the stringy white padawan and her this powerful force of beauty… It’s like she is allowing him to exist, staring him down, thinking about kissing him maybe, or asking if Brian’s ever fucked him. He is her crystal ball. Jennifer wishes Heath were there. Heath’s growing awareness drives a bit of a wedge between him and Ashley while he works it up to consciousness—his apologies will be heartfelt, and release something for her. Ashley and Brian’s Christmas gifts are startlingly practical but the parents don’t notice. Jennifer and Jeremy got Ashley gifts too, which are characteristic and funny. Ashley very sweet with Jeremy/Jennifer on Christmas; it’s their first authentic straight-across connection. She doesn’t have a crush on him anymore but she does like him now. Both Brian and Jeremy are living in their heads right now—Bernie Bro and alt-right autistic. Jeremy is reaching the end of the “soft liberal with libertarian leanings” part of his Pepe cycle, getting more ironic about some of this stuff; at Neverland he and Eddie hit it off briefly but it’s a bad fit. Lots going on in the background at all times—Eddie dealing with arms dealers, Necie getting abducted.  Brian is high on fucking an Adult—it’s revenge on everybody, it’s empowering, it’s comforting, and she’s magical. It brings back a lot of his swagger, his posing—Jennifer hates that—but must admit that he’s somebody she recognizes and thought was gone. Not entirely a bad thing; he has finished mourning, as she describes it. Are they dating? Not especially but they are in each other’s lives, just like Corey and Jer. Are the Young Adults believably self-conscious, rebellious and cruel? What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? What are the Children seeing more clearly than anyone else? What are they missing? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result? Jennifer arrives first, with food; Jeremy arrives bearing gifts but no Josh (he opted out in a weird funny way). Happy family.
The flip: The quintet discusses recruiting, pros/cons, next steps. Brian gives different messages about that, and the Children, than Emma will. Corey tries to placate Jenn about Alexis and she rolls her eyes, mostly amused—it’s not like she’s Tasha, Ashley says, and they all laugh. Both Brian and Jeremy are living in their heads right now—Bernie Bro and alt-right autistic. Just as Jeremy is a blooming Pepe, Brian is a sort of Bernie Bro/Ron Paul type, doubling down on his own wisdom—the Movement destroys him because of that heartbreak; he wants it all right now. To get to the end—with that particular Bernie Bro rage that if “people” would just do what he/they say, Utopia could begin. So if they don’t fall in line, they’re acting against the future and their own interests, and nothing at all can possibly justify that. Minority opinions and existences are not just dismissed but actively silenced, because they are a derail of his one-size-fits-all solution. He and Jeremy unite over “free speech” but it means two different things to them: For Brian it’s about being silenced for the first time in his life, and for Jeremy it’s about saying the worst things without consequences, just to feel what it’s like when the world burns. Lots going on in the background at all times—Eddie dealing with arms dealers, Necie getting abducted.  Are the Young Adults believably self-conscious, rebellious and cruel? What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? What are the Children seeing more clearly than anyone else? What are they missing? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result? Jennifer’s Aquarius chameleon powers are tested in this episode. Go back through every scene to see how she wills herself into shapes, and must do so even now, at her lowest point. She has a routine that we must be able to recognize visually—turning into someone else. Acts like it’s a joke but it’s not. (And the more she uses it, and the more open she is about her witchcraft, the more we believe she will actually Buffy everybody in the finale.) she shows it to Jeremy and Ashley this time, this way of being someone else. It’s a turnon for Brian but he hates that.

Scene 5: Jasper’s Christmas—he admits defeat and Necie cries until he starts crying from shame. Adults clipped neck-up as often as possible in scenes with Children, ala floating Young Pope. References: Reflecting Skin, with the brothers and the flag; Scout Finch; Days of Heaven. What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? What are the Children seeing more clearly than anyone else? What are they missing? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result?
The flip: Emma with a package in her carseat plants fireflies and bugs in the Schoolhouse, then dances. Miss Emma as Mary Poppins/weather spirit. Neck-down only when doing her darkest magics. References: Reflecting Skin, with the brothers and the flag; Scout Finch; Days of Heaven. American flag iconography as functional not symbolic; Santa theme. What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result? The Schoolhouse is dusty and spare for Emma; the kids will have been working all day in Six.

Act Two

Scene 1: The entire Jennifer/Heath thing, parents are at a Holiday brunch about the party tonight. QEA DIALOGUE  At the party they were talking about how they all met. I liked it, I liked hearing about it. The good kind of drinking where they hug each other. They’ve all known each other forever, they all work at the college. They grew up here mostly. Where’ the founding families! Well, not all of us, but yeah. So when did we meet? It wasn’t the furst time he’d asked. Well. I was about five or si when you were born. We’d just moved into my dad’s house  next door… Where did you live before that? He wasn’t my dad for very long before that What? You know that my mom was married to somebody else before my dad. He was my first dad. And he died. Did you cry? I was just like two. I was sick anyway so I don’t remember much besides hospitals Do you remember him at all? Yeah. I mean I have pictures, and sometimes mom will tell me about him if she feels like I need to know or hear about him or… [roots] So you moved in next door Right And I got born Right Did you meet me that day? No, it was a little while after. You were came from the hospital, though, I remember that Was I there for a long time? Like necie mcneely? No, not like that. A normal amount of time. Did you know that ashley’s dad was married to another lady and she died too? I didn’t know that… how did I not know that? Does brian know that? I don’t know. Was she his first mom? No, brian is definitely his father’s son. You can tell from looking Heath wantedto say something or ask something but then he didn’t. sometimes heath would ask a question that seems so perfectly calculated to hurt that you could go crazy trying to figure it out. But I kept sking and asking and finally they said it was okay for me to come over. I was just a new kind next door, they didn’t know who I was. And janna and Sheila….well, we weren’t friends at first. It was tough Sheila is tough. But I can’t believe janna didn’t love you right away Almost right away.  And what did you think of me? I thought I wanted to hold you! I had never seen a baby up close and I thought you were so perfect He gleams. And finally after I kept showing up every day and wanting to hang out, they let me hold you, and you looked at me and smiled and laughed and that was it. We were best buddies forever. And when I would cry, you could hear me. Sometimes yeah. And now we have our spycraft. But not when I was a baby. Heath laughed. Baby heath, shooting up flares. No but I could hear you. Sometimes I could just feel it, almost. When you needed me. When I get married it’s going to get complicated. Who are you going to marry? Maya or Ashley probably. Which is whatever. I want to marry karen but she says she’s going to marry a rock star. Or jesus whenhe comes back. Heath laughed because karne was jewish but talked about jesus more than even the mcneely twins. I would not put it past her.  So what will we do? When it’s time to get married? Are you going to marry brian? Then I would have to marry ashley and we can all live in a house together. A big treehouse And what about Jeremy and josh? Heath snickered. They can live in the basement. They would like that. Down in the basement doing experiments. Jennifer laughed, too. He was not wrong. What if I don’t marry brian, then? Well, maybe I will be a big strong man by them and we can marry each other. And then we will both be okay no matter what. That doesn’t sound like the worst idea I’ve ever heard, but let’s save it for a nother day. Okay, he said, mostly kidding about his glumness. He put his head back in her lap and they sat in the still, quiet air for awhile, with her hand in his hair the perfect way. He sat up like a shot. “What about Corey?” You want me to marry Corey? Or will you marry Corey Heath laughed. She thought for a moment that his father had a piece of him, but he settled down.  I don’t think corey would marry me. I’m not smart enough. Or weird enough.. That time jeiffer really did crack up. Okay so we won’t marry Corey. How about alexis Butts? Heath curled himself in her lap like a pyppy Whoever marries alexis butts is signing up for a whole thing. Beat But she could come live in our house – I know she’d take care of everything. And maya could do art, and you could do acting, and Jeremy and josh could do their experienets downstairs. Or maybe corey and Jeremy will finally get married like brian always says. Jennifer fervently wanted to get that show underway, but couldn’t tell heath that. Little pitchers idea. What about when the baby is born? Can I come over to your house and see it? All the times you want. I promise. Okay. I think that I will love it so much. So much? Unison: almost too much., they say, linking their pinkies. I love you almost too much.  There haad been a time when that was the law of the land—heath’s mom and dda felt like he and Jennifer were too close and it was interrupting his bonding with them. But what nobody wanted to hear was that the problem with heath bonding with his parents wasn’t Jennifer—it was them. And carrying their burden on that had meant some rough times over the years. But eventually they all settled into their roles, and SAHM full time, and then the pressure was off. Just being close to him ws the goal, whether or not Jennifer was there—and on that, she could totally compromise. She would do the same, to keep him close. To protect him from the wolves, but mostly just to be near to him. One day, she knew—it happens to all boys—somebody tells them no, just one time is all it takes, and then they become angry. She didn’t know how to fix it, but she did know it was true. And while everybody else deserved to burn for it, heath was the exception. He really was that special. Who do you think ashley will marry? He clicked his tongue Maybe Josh. I think she should marry jasper. Why, so he will leave Maya alone? No, just because I think she loves him. Whichw ws very interesting. Maybe you can marry karen and SHE will be the rocks tar. Tht sounds the most likely out of an of these plans so far. After that he was quiet. She pulled his thumb gently from his mouth the second she knew it was ssafe, and dozed. Lot of work to do –the world wasn’t going to save itself. Get your rest while you can.   But you know a man can marry a man if they love each other Yeah of course. It’s just corey. He would never marry me. Hethinks I’m like brian Meaning what? Like, not smart enough. Or weird enough. I don’t know buddy, brian’s pretty weird. Ell, yeah. But you know what I mean.  I absolutely do know what you mean. 
The flip: When did you become my sister? So when did you become my siter? Well that’s a whole other story. It ws the big tornado The one that skipped the mcneely farm but ruined  the ones on either side Yeah, that’s the one Why does that happen? Is that normal? Nothingabout the mcneelys is normal… iemean um, it does happen. You never know when a tornado will hit, or what it wil spare…… segue into some pointed other scene as they talk. Mabe More about the mean questions—she looked at her skin, against his, and wondered if he was being dense or just honestly hadn’t considered it. He’d known her parents as her parents his whole life. That Josh Tyson slyness in his eyes—even Jeremy, really. When there was the possibility of him asking a mean question, her policy was to stop drop and roll. Defuse it, direct his attention elsewhere. But something in her always wanted to deter him when he did it. Hurt his feelings enough that he wouldn’t be tempted to try it again. It would be better for the world, if he didn’t end up like his father—a man who needed to be told no a thousand times a day just to keep him safe and sane—but she couldn’t ever get herself to do it. So, change the subject and hope that just growing up with her as another sister would take the poison out of him. That and a little black girl magic she could teach him, like corey, when he was old enough. Those were her tools, s she saw it. References: Reflecting Skin, with the brothers and the flag; Scout Finch; Days of Heaven. American flag iconography as functional not symbolic; Santa theme. What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result? The long conversation with Heath, which you can find elsewhere, and is bookended at the end of the episode. Jennifer babysits many children but Heath is hers; she has a bajillion feelings about his parents. Heath is her Josh, the Ashley to her Brian. They have a secret code, going back years. Their spycraft. Part of the reason Jenn can’t connect with Josh is that all little boys are just shittier versions of Heath to her—except Josh, who is a smaller Jeremy, her most complicated relationship. Are the Young Adults believably self-conscious, rebellious and cruel? How do other characters’ beats play into the shape of these episode-specific arcs and themes? What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? What are the Children seeing more clearly than anyone else? What are they missing? What is Jennifer’s journey here? How is she telling their own story? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result, in every act of every episode? And the lantern in the window, which will take on more and more meaning just like the hidden faces of the Adults and the Teenagers as they grow up and their hearts die or whatever. Jennifer’s Aquarius chameleon powers are tested in this episode. Go back through every scene to see how she wills herself into shapes, and must do so even now, at her lowest point. She has a routine that we must be able to recognize visually—turning into someone else. Acts like it’s a joke but it’s not. (And the more she uses it, and the more open she is about her witchcraft, the more we believe she will actually Buffy everybody in the finale.)

Scene 2: Brian/Corey on actively recruiting and just generally being bros for once. Jeremy is reaching the end of the “soft liberal with libertarian leanings” part of his Pepe cycle, getting more ironic about some of this stuff—and they’ve both noticed. Corey is self-consciously shallow and feminized as protective coloration; in reality a total STEM nerd. The flip: Ash doesn’t want teens but Jennifer said Eddie knows about it so it’s out there, it’s happening. References: Reflecting Skin, with the brothers and the flag; Scout Finch; Days of Heaven. American flag iconography as functional not symbolic; Santa theme. What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result? They talk about Alexis, who they both secretly like, in ironic terms: She rubs everybody the wrong way: She’s a busybody, an imperfect façade everyone can see through. Near perfectly put together, plus-sized, with coke-bottle glasses that throw everything off. She’s awkward and painfully administrative, and all the teens hate her. Corey can predict every Holiday-Hanna move, hilariously—she is the class joke, and seems to have no idea; they talk about her being above it all like that’s their excuse. She’s Ashley’s darkest timeline; she is the Barb. They talk about her like this beloved Mary Cherry force so we will too. They are notably physically comfortable with each other considering he’s the gay BFF of his GF. Eddie tried to impress Jennifer, he’s very “on” with her, about this movement he heard is starting—of course, she shuts that down immediately and he thinks it’s about rejecting him. YAs mention Alexis’s lonely Libra birthday recently as though it’s karma, since she’s the Mary Cherry—but showing it underlines the drama/reality, since it’s not maudlin or ironic—just a lonely thing; essentially being an orphan. Which we don’t pick up on in the split-second, repeated flashback to her blowing out a candle alone. Are the Young Adults believably self-conscious, rebellious and cruel? How do other characters’ beats play into the shape of these episode-specific arcs and themes? What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? What are the Children seeing more clearly than anyone else? What are they missing? What is Jennifer’s journey here? How is she telling their own story? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result, in every act of every episode?

Scene 3: Ashley recruiting and everything going great until Tasha goes for some Trilby drama. The flip: The biggest fight, the trash containment one; emergency mtg. References: Reflecting Skin, with the brothers and the flag; Scout Finch; Days of Heaven. American flag iconography as functional not symbolic; Santa theme. What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result? Adults clipped neck-up as often as possible in scenes with Children, ala floating Young Pope. Miss Emma as Mary Poppins/weather spirit. Neck-down only when doing her darkest magics. Are the Young Adults believably self-conscious, rebellious and cruel? How do other characters’ beats play into the shape of these episode-specific arcs and themes? What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? What are the Children seeing more clearly than anyone else? What are they missing? What is Jennifer’s journey here? How is she telling their own story? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result, in every act of every episode?

Scene 4: Jennifer and Corey avoiding the whole planning committee, in hiding; jokes about Alexis. A wonderful surprise—Jeremy’s secret friend. Everybody together now, they swing by to rescue the very stressed out Ashley on their way to meet Jeremy’s secret friend. The flip: We meet Truman and see Neverneverland; we learn about the Schoolhouse & McNeelys—Jennifer explains the Founding Family thing now, including the fact that Corey’s people screwed the McNeelys over. References: Reflecting Skin, with the brothers and the flag; Scout Finch; Days of Heaven. American flag iconography as functional not symbolic; Santa theme. What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result? Brian and Truman do some light alpha jockeying but Brian sees he’s in love with Jeremy. Neverland sadly is not until next week—but that’s better because daylight Neverland is not the coolest place on earth, because Truman’s life is sad in a lot of ways. So we see it as this naked space. Jeremy proud to introduce Core 4 to Truman; we get that Truman digs him but not the crush—because that’s Corey’s whole arc, discovering Truman is gay after a lot of disappointments and self-drama. Jeremy/Truman Joking for now, passcodes and countersigns to get into Neverland; Jennifer happens to be looking at Corey when he sees Truman for the first time. Oh boy. The McNeelys are one of the founding families, but never converted that into social capital—little farm on a billion acres (which includes mostly Grey Gardens forest like AHS Roanoke, and is the location of the Schoolhouse) outside town, resentful about taxation and sending kids to the school just out of resentful pique. In a room full of Ravenclaws, a Hufflepuff looks like a Slytherin—that’s the thing Ashley and Corey have to understand. Corey’s ancestors screwed the McNeelys over but that’s just local color—a red herring; the only reason for pointing it out is to show a connection from the jump. Truman is Peter Pan to Emma’s Captain Hook, evasive via Gemini ways, masc-presenting. Truman is an artist with a certain wisdom, of unknown origin and even age. We have to be clear on the McNeelys’ place in this town because the Schoolhouse is on their acres. Jennifer observes Jeremy throughout; he is her crystal ball. Are the Young Adults believably self-conscious, rebellious and cruel? How do other characters’ beats play into the shape of these episode-specific arcs and themes? What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? What are the Children seeing more clearly than anyone else? What are they missing? What is Jennifer’s journey here? How is she telling their own story? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result, in every act of every episode? Jennifer’s Aquarius chameleon powers are tested in this episode. Go back through every scene to see how she wills herself into shapes, and must do so even now, at her lowest point. She has a routine that we must be able to recognize visually—turning into someone else. Acts like it’s a joke but it’s not. (And the more she uses it, and the more open she is about her witchcraft, the more we believe she will actually Buffy everybody in the finale.)

Scene 5: Ashley and Emma play at ladies with gloves until Emma gets bored and demands news. The flip: Ashley reports on her recruitment to Emma, who promises bullshit to come re: McNeelys. References: Reflecting Skin, with the brothers and the flag; Scout Finch; Days of Heaven. American flag iconography as functional not symbolic; Santa theme. What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result? Adults clipped neck-up as often as possible in scenes with Children, ala floating Young Pope. Miss Emma as Mary Poppins/weather spirit. Neck-down only when doing her darkest magics. Are the Young Adults believably self-conscious, rebellious and cruel? How do other characters’ beats play into the shape of these episode-specific arcs and themes? What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? What are the Children seeing more clearly than anyone else? What are they missing? What is Jennifer’s journey here? How is she telling their own story? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result, in every act of every episode?

Act Three

Scene 1: Josh & Jasper. That conversation finally—and I don’t know if Ashley can overhear it? References: Reflecting Skin, with the brothers and the flag; Scout Finch; Days of Heaven. American flag iconography as functional not symbolic; Santa theme. What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result? Adults clipped neck-up as often as possible in scenes with Children, ala floating Young Pope. Miss Emma as Mary Poppins/weather spirit. Neck-down only when doing her darkest magics. Are the Young Adults believably self-conscious, rebellious and cruel? How do other characters’ beats play into the shape of these episode-specific arcs and themes? What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? What are the Children seeing more clearly than anyone else? What are they missing? What is Jennifer’s journey here? How is she telling their own story? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result, in every act of every episode? As Josh and Jasper are replacing their siblings and also living out Josh’s two dads’ relationship, think about how that would play out here, particularly: Brian & Jeremy unite over “free speech” but it means two different things to them: For Brian it’s about being silenced for the first time in his life, and for Jeremy it’s about saying the worst things without consequences, just to feel what it’s like when the world burns.
“But if there was a war, and you had to go, what would you want to do?” asked Josh. “Chaplain? I can shoot a gun all right,” mumbled Donnie… Not even Josh knew, now, as much as she did about Donnie. That made her sicker than anything.
The flip: Necie wants to go and Josh doesn’t, so Jasper has no reason to go; but especially Christmas guilt-- Day after Christmas, nothing. Eventually even Necie stops asking, distracted by the holiday parties. A whole week of hope and shame about the hope. References: Reflecting Skin, with the brothers and the flag; Scout Finch; Days of Heaven. American flag iconography as functional not symbolic; Santa theme. What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result? Adults clipped neck-up as often as possible in scenes with Children, ala floating Young Pope. Miss Emma as Mary Poppins/weather spirit. Neck-down only when doing her darkest magics. Are the Young Adults believably self-conscious, rebellious and cruel? How do other characters’ beats play into the shape of these episode-specific arcs and themes? What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? What are the Children seeing more clearly than anyone else? What are they missing? What is Jennifer’s journey here? How is she telling their own story? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result, in every act of every episode?

Scene 2: Pre-party: Duncan is the traditional Santa Claus of the school and beloved by all; her Mom is a workhorse as usual. Corey walks in on Trilby’s Dad changing into his costume and they have a strange, discordant moment. Emma clocks it. References: Reflecting Skin, with the brothers and the flag; Scout Finch; Days of Heaven. American flag iconography as functional not symbolic; Santa theme. What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result? Adults clipped neck-up as often as possible in scenes with Children, ala floating Young Pope. Miss Emma as Mary Poppins/weather spirit. Neck-down only when doing her darkest magics. Are the Young Adults believably self-conscious, rebellious and cruel? How do other characters’ beats play into the shape of these episode-specific arcs and themes? What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? What are the Children seeing more clearly than anyone else? What are they missing? What is Jennifer’s journey here? How is she telling their own story? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result, in every act of every episode? How does this change Corey’s walk, like Brian’s from fucking Emma? What is the power here really? Perhaps Brian can joke about age of consent and earn a sharp look for himself.
The flip: Recruiting Finalized (Young Adults)—what conversations are left, and formal signing Manifesto. Karen and her mom fighting at home about how this is utter hypocrisy; what sucks here is that Deborah was authentically excited and Karen ruined it, partially out of money troubles as we’ll see—“I’ve been you” is Deborah’s answer for everything, as Jennifer explains—and she tells Karen to stay home if she wants to stay pure; Karen is like, no I’m coming, and maybe has fucked up badly. References: Reflecting Skin, with the brothers and the flag; Scout Finch; Days of Heaven. American flag iconography as functional not symbolic; Santa theme. What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result? Adults clipped neck-up as often as possible in scenes with Children, ala floating Young Pope. Miss Emma as Mary Poppins/weather spirit. Neck-down only when doing her darkest magics. Are the Young Adults believably self-conscious, rebellious and cruel? How do other characters’ beats play into the shape of these episode-specific arcs and themes? What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? What are the Children seeing more clearly than anyone else? What are they missing? What is Jennifer’s journey here? How is she telling their own story? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result, in every act of every episode?

Scene 3: Party Prep; Heath can’t handle Ashley today because of secrets; sticks with Maya all night. Ashley is not present for Heath’s breakdown because his breakdown is about her. She’s busy anyway. Georgia gets her ass turned out by Alexis in party mode and never notices it’s happening. we see Ashley helping her mother preparing for the school holiday party, how they interact; Mom gets frustrated enough that she curses, and after a beat she and Ashley just laugh. It’s how Alexis deals with her that captures Ashley’s notice. References: Reflecting Skin, with the brothers and the flag; Scout Finch; Days of Heaven. American flag iconography as functional not symbolic; Santa theme. What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result? Adults clipped neck-up as often as possible in scenes with Children, ala floating Young Pope. Miss Emma as Mary Poppins/weather spirit. Neck-down only when doing her darkest magics. Are the Young Adults believably self-conscious, rebellious and cruel? How do other characters’ beats play into the shape of these episode-specific arcs and themes? What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? What are the Children seeing more clearly than anyone else? What are they missing? What is Jennifer’s journey here? How is she telling their own story? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result, in every act of every episode? How does watching Alexis school her mother change Ashley’s walk?
The flip: Jennifer’s House—the baby plan. Should feel unrealistic, unbelievable—she’ll explain later. Jennifer’s Aquarius chameleon powers are tested in this episode. Go back through every scene to see how she wills herself into shapes, and must do so even now, at her lowest point. She has a routine that we must be able to recognize visually—turning into someone else. Acts like it’s a joke but it’s not. (And the more she uses it, and the more open she is about her witchcraft, the more we believe she will actually Buffy everybody in the finale.) She tries it and it doesn’t work—it’s awful to watch. References: Reflecting Skin, with the brothers and the flag; Scout Finch; Days of Heaven. American flag iconography as functional not symbolic; Santa theme. What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result? Adults clipped neck-up as often as possible in scenes with Children, ala floating Young Pope. Miss Emma as Mary Poppins/weather spirit. Neck-down only when doing her darkest magics. Are the Young Adults believably self-conscious, rebellious and cruel? How do other characters’ beats play into the shape of these episode-specific arcs and themes? What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? What are the Children seeing more clearly than anyone else? What are they missing? What is Jennifer’s journey here? How is she telling their own story? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result, in every act of every episode? 

Scene 4: Party Prep—Emma clocks Ashley making friends with Alexis, and Ashley tries to limit the splash damage from the earlier fight, showing off her diplomatic skills. Something in the holiday signifiers that could double as Emma being demonic—fireplace or something. References: Reflecting Skin, with the brothers and the flag; Scout Finch; Days of Heaven. American flag iconography as functional not symbolic; Santa theme. What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result? Adults clipped neck-up as often as possible in scenes with Children, ala floating Young Pope. Miss Emma as Mary Poppins/weather spirit. Neck-down only when doing her darkest magics. Are the Young Adults believably self-conscious, rebellious and cruel? How do other characters’ beats play into the shape of these episode-specific arcs and themes? What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? What are the Children seeing more clearly than anyone else? What are they missing? What is Jennifer’s journey here? How is she telling their own story? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result, in every act of every episode?
The flip: Recruiting Finalized (Children)—what conversations are left, and formal signing Manifesto. References: Reflecting Skin, with the brothers and the flag; Scout Finch; Days of Heaven. American flag iconography as functional not symbolic; Santa theme. What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result? Adults clipped neck-up as often as possible in scenes with Children, ala floating Young Pope. Miss Emma as Mary Poppins/weather spirit. Neck-down only when doing her darkest magics. Are the Young Adults believably self-conscious, rebellious and cruel? How do other characters’ beats play into the shape of these episode-specific arcs and themes? What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? What are the Children seeing more clearly than anyone else? What are they missing? What is Jennifer’s journey here? How is she telling their own story? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result, in every act of every episode? How does signing the Manifesto and taking on a secret name change the way each Child walks?

Scene 5: Party Prep: Deborah has something to prove, as a single mom and being Jewish, when it comes to the holidays. Here we see her lazily give in and give in before feeling pushed and taking violent control. Karen thinks her love of holiday parties is selling out and hypocritical, which pushes her over the edge. Multiple parents and teachers refer to the stress of all this as though they didn’t sign on for it. Tasha’s parents acting lazy and dumb, like Simon and Alex from NYC, but offer suggestions and nitpicks, which bonds Ash and Alex giggling. Feeling “run over,” Deborah throws down and takes control; it’s awkward and the room clears toward the end of the act. References: Reflecting Skin, with the brothers and the flag; Scout Finch; Days of Heaven. American flag iconography as functional not symbolic; Santa theme. What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result? Adults clipped neck-up as often as possible in scenes with Children, ala floating Young Pope. Miss Emma as Mary Poppins/weather spirit. Neck-down only when doing her darkest magics. Are the Young Adults believably self-conscious, rebellious and cruel? How do other characters’ beats play into the shape of these episode-specific arcs and themes? What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? What are the Children seeing more clearly than anyone else? What are they missing? What is Jennifer’s journey here? How is she telling their own story? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result, in every act of every episode? Chastened, Alexis and Ashley work until people start showing up; Alexis is about to vanish… When Emma appears. She’s real! It’s really happening! Even for Jennifer, the Adults are neck-down right now. We see the Lillywhites in public and they are not the worst—we just know something awkward. Karen catches Ashley being disgusted by Deborah and there’s no way to explain why she doesn’t love her anymore—but it’s a problem for Karen, whose Gilmore Girls thing is all she has.
The flip: References: Reflecting Skin, with the brothers and the flag; Scout Finch; Days of Heaven. American flag iconography as functional not symbolic; Santa theme. What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result? Adults clipped neck-up as often as possible in scenes with Children, ala floating Young Pope. Miss Emma as Mary Poppins/weather spirit. Neck-down only when doing her darkest magics. Are the Young Adults believably self-conscious, rebellious and cruel? How do other characters’ beats play into the shape of these episode-specific arcs and themes? What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? What are the Children seeing more clearly than anyone else? What are they missing? What is Jennifer’s journey here? How is she telling their own story? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result, in every act of every episode? Sundown Jasper is searching for Necie’s gift; while being mean to Alexis in some way and in the context of the epic pageantry of the party, Emma offers Ashley Turkish Delight—chilling! Emma appears, mean to Alexis, Turkish Delight. Jennifer arrives, sad; can’t be bothered with Manifesto right now, like it’s for kids. Jennifer arrives between parents, all three stern—clearly it’s gotten bad but she shakes head; Alexis kindly interrupts her interrogation and announces the doors are opening—all the parents, Children and Teenagers now in the same location “…wondering what to do.”

Act Four

Scene 1: Dads on Emma (Ashley/Josh), Trilby’s Dad is head of the planning committee, Dad’s a fan; asking about the night’s festivities Emma and the Dads is stupid but not idiotic, and the Children exchange glances. Something in the holiday signifiers that could double as Emma being demonic—fireplace or something. Might be the last time Jennifer’s white parents are pregnant in public; playing it for all they can. Even the Golden God is a little scared/worshipful of Jennifer’s Dad and that’s how we know he is richest. References: Reflecting Skin, with the brothers and the flag; Scout Finch; Days of Heaven. American flag iconography as functional not symbolic; Santa theme. What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result? Adults clipped neck-up as often as possible in scenes with Children, ala floating Young Pope. Miss Emma as Mary Poppins/weather spirit. Neck-down only when doing her darkest magics. Are the Young Adults believably self-conscious, rebellious and cruel? How do other characters’ beats play into the shape of these episode-specific arcs and themes? What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? What are the Children seeing more clearly than anyone else? What are they missing? What is Jennifer’s journey here? How is she telling their own story? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result, in every act of every episode? Santa monologue? 
The flip: Flashback to a few minutes ago—Corey got scared by Brian so excitedly telling him Truman is coming, because stop making me indulge a sick fantasy when I already have too many of those… And walks in on Duncan, naked, ginger bush and dad-dick, the whole thing—Emma clocked it (she was leading Brian on a white-flash chase) This party is also Emma’s introduction to the parents, since she’ll be joining faculty after the break. She definitely causes first-impressions in the Adults, but her attractiveness is a false-positive that throws all of that off, just as she would want. Trilby’s Dad is also joining the team as the new music teacher—a possible financial move, we wonder. References: Reflecting Skin, with the brothers and the flag; Scout Finch; Days of Heaven. American flag iconography as functional not symbolic; Santa theme. What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result? Adults clipped neck-up as often as possible in scenes with Children, ala floating Young Pope. Miss Emma as Mary Poppins/weather spirit. Neck-down only when doing her darkest magics. Are the Young Adults believably self-conscious, rebellious and cruel? How do other characters’ beats play into the shape of these episode-specific arcs and themes? What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? What are the Children seeing more clearly than anyone else? What are they missing? What is Jennifer’s journey here? How is she telling their own story? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result, in every act of every episode? Santa monologue?

Scene 2: Moms’ takes on Emma (Heath/Maya) See Maya through cracks of intersectionality—overlooked by authorities, not quite part of Ashley’s vision. They made Maya wear a dress to the holiday party; gritting teeth as everyone tells her how pretty she looks, and just like her mother.  Emma and Ashley having whispering little meetings; Mom looks askance but doesn’t care. the false positive of her hotness emboldens the women to be friendly and not cliché. funny shot: Ashley/Brian, Jennifer/Heath hanging against the wall watching Adults, being disillusioned. Santa enters, things formalize: Corey steps in when Trilby balks at playing Shirley Temple; Duncan and Emma clock this too. References: Reflecting Skin, with the brothers and the flag; Scout Finch; Days of Heaven. American flag iconography as functional not symbolic; Santa theme. What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result? Adults clipped neck-up as often as possible in scenes with Children, ala floating Young Pope. Miss Emma as Mary Poppins/weather spirit. Neck-down only when doing her darkest magics. Are the Young Adults believably self-conscious, rebellious and cruel? How do other characters’ beats play into the shape of these episode-specific arcs and themes? What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? What are the Children seeing more clearly than anyone else? What are they missing? What is Jennifer’s journey here? How is she telling their own story? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result, in every act of every episode? The flip: uncomfortable Corey takes off with Jeremy/Brian offers Emma the tour; Ashley with Josh; Sad and bored Jennifer can’t look at her parents, and wanders away; very disappointed Truman goes exploring the school. He loses track of Corey at the school party & assumes the worst—as he too has a crush on Jeremy, so the worst is even worse than we think—but even then, we get it only just barely. Jeremy arrives with Truman in tow, carelessly stashes him with Brian and disappears with Corey. References: Reflecting Skin, with the brothers and the flag; Scout Finch; Days of Heaven. American flag iconography as functional not symbolic; Santa theme. What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result? Adults clipped neck-up as often as possible in scenes with Children, ala floating Young Pope. Miss Emma as Mary Poppins/weather spirit. Neck-down only when doing her darkest magics. Are the Young Adults believably self-conscious, rebellious and cruel? How do other characters’ beats play into the shape of these episode-specific arcs and themes? What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? What are the Children seeing more clearly than anyone else? What are they missing? What is Jennifer’s journey here? How is she telling their own story? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result, in every act of every episode? Santa monologue?

Scene 3: Brian/Emma almost caught by Truman, who gets spooked. Adults clipped neck-up as often as possible in scenes with Children, ala floating Young Pope. Miss Emma as Mary Poppins/weather spirit. Neck-down only when doing her darkest magics. Are the Young Adults believably self-conscious, rebellious and cruel? Brian arrives and offers to show Emma around campus, putting Jeremy off with Josh; Obviously they fuck and almost get caught--Did you think it was your girlfriend? No, Jeremy. Later she tells him she has no idea about the Movement but did catch Corey spying on Duncan, naked. Santa Clause fantasies. Brian admits that Duncan is a good-looking guy for a dad and jokes about inappropriate relationships/age of content, she gets magically, intensely scary for a moment.
The flip: Alexis finds Jennifer in a state in the bathroom; Jennifer confides in Alexis about what is going on and Alexis is once again highly competent; Jennifer reveals to Alexis that she was born sick and probably can’t have kids of her own, which only sucks because she likes kids a lot—not something that everybody has in common. So it’s sad but doable, and now she’ll probably be a teen mom anyway because her parents are narcissists—and by the way, her dad is going bankrupt but if anybody knows that they’ll stop sucking his dick and she’ll be even more left out. References: Reflecting Skin, with the brothers and the flag; Scout Finch; Days of Heaven. American flag iconography as functional not symbolic; Santa theme. What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result? How do other characters’ beats play into the shape of these episode-specific arcs and themes? What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? What are the Children seeing more clearly than anyone else? What are they missing? What is Jennifer’s journey here? How is she telling their own story? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result, in every act of every episode? Santa monologue?

Scene 4: Brian finds Truman leaving, can’t figure out what the problem is, but then he’s like, come with me—whether Truman loves Jeremy or Corey, he couldn’t tell you and it wouldn’t occur to him that they are mutually exclusive, but he knows a disappointment when he sees it—and this one’s tough because he does crush on both boys, one forever and one just today, so it’s a legit thing to be stressed about, especially when nobody seems to believe you are actually gay (he will explain all of this in 104 or 105). Emma clocks it, doesn’t love it for at least two reasons, but must play the Adult game and be a teacher. 
The flip: Jennifer in bathroom sees a new side of Alexis as the party’s winding down. Alexis can’t believe she feels left out but knows not to say that, it would reveal too much; while doing her magic trick to become someone else in the mirror, Jennifer processes kindness, stops at the door to recruit her. References: Reflecting Skin, with the brothers and the flag; Scout Finch; Days of Heaven. American flag iconography as functional not symbolic; Santa theme. What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result? Adults clipped neck-up as often as possible in scenes with Children, ala floating Young Pope. Miss Emma as Mary Poppins/weather spirit. Neck-down only when doing her darkest magics. Are the Young Adults believably self-conscious, rebellious and cruel? How do other characters’ beats play into the shape of these episode-specific arcs and themes? What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? What are the Children seeing more clearly than anyone else? What are they missing? What is Jennifer’s journey here? How is she telling their own story? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result, in every act of every episode? Santa monologue?

Scene 5A: Slowly and with much hesitation and creepiness—the lights are mostly off, the place is mostly empty… Heath finally gets his visual confirmation. Scene 5B: Brian leads Truman through the darkness, chuckling, to spy on Jeremy/Corey in the Chapel. Jeremy playing “Moonlight Sonata” for Corey in the dark Chapel—their hands touch but that’s it, and Brian and Truman can’t see that part. We go back and forth between these two things, and end here, with them smiling and this song (or some other song) telling us a thing about Jeremy we didn’t know. Truman and Brian smile like proud papas; Brian has no idea about Corey although he seems to have clocked Truman’s feelings about Jeremy (whom he believes to be in love with him). References: Reflecting Skin, with the brothers and the flag; Scout Finch; Days of Heaven. American flag iconography as functional not symbolic; Santa theme. What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result? Adults clipped neck-up as often as possible in scenes with Children, ala floating Young Pope. Miss Emma as Mary Poppins/weather spirit. Neck-down only when doing her darkest magics. Are the Young Adults believably self-conscious, rebellious and cruel? How do other characters’ beats play into the shape of these episode-specific arcs and themes? What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? What are the Children seeing more clearly than anyone else? What are they missing? What is Jennifer’s journey here? How is she telling their own story? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result, in every act of every episode? Santa monologue?

Act Five

Scene 1: Emma drives to a high bridge and drops a package from a great height, several times.
The flip: Jennifer comes at them with everything she’s got, streaming it to Corey, hoping she can get them to say she’s a live-in nanny or at least the first pancake. No need to hear her screaming, just the visual of this man protecting his pregnant wife—and Jennifer’s Santa/monologue is back to applying to them both: References: Reflecting Skin, with the brothers and the flag; Scout Finch; Days of Heaven. American flag iconography as functional not symbolic; Santa theme. What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result? Adults clipped neck-up as often as possible in scenes with Children, ala floating Young Pope. Miss Emma as Mary Poppins/weather spirit. Neck-down only when doing her darkest magics. Are the Young Adults believably self-conscious, rebellious and cruel? How do other characters’ beats play into the shape of these episode-specific arcs and themes? What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? What are the Children seeing more clearly than anyone else? What are they missing? What is Jennifer’s journey here? How is she telling their own story? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result, in every act of every episode? Santa monologue?

Scene 2: Heath wakes up the next morning just absolutely over everything; no more Christmas ever; he does their spycraft, that lantern in the window, and thinks about being destructive in his father’s office but nothing is big or bad enough 
The flip: Corey/Jeremy blowjob phone call (“it’s been a while”—both ironic and accurate, the whole thing is a pissing match with the universe, seeing if words mean anything at all, as Jennifer voices over perhaps—that he is in this form of kek and going to a sort of PUA see what works place), coming off Corey’s worry over Jennifer—she’s your friend, Jeremy protests, and Corey says no: She’s a Maguire. References: Reflecting Skin, with the brothers and the flag; Scout Finch; Days of Heaven. American flag iconography as functional not symbolic; Santa theme. What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result? Adults clipped neck-up as often as possible in scenes with Children, ala floating Young Pope. Miss Emma as Mary Poppins/weather spirit. Neck-down only when doing her darkest magics. Are the Young Adults believably self-conscious, rebellious and cruel? How do other characters’ beats play into the shape of these episode-specific arcs and themes? What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? What are the Children seeing more clearly than anyone else? What are they missing? What is Jennifer’s journey here? How is she telling their own story? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result, in every act of every episode? Santa monologue?

Scene 3: Jennifer accepts the unacceptable and becomes someone else, with the tricks we see her use
The flip: Emma drives a different car and costume to Jasper’s house, planting his Christmas gift. References: Reflecting Skin, with the brothers and the flag; Scout Finch; Days of Heaven. American flag iconography as functional not symbolic; Santa theme. What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result? Adults clipped neck-up as often as possible in scenes with Children, ala floating Young Pope. Miss Emma as Mary Poppins/weather spirit. Neck-down only when doing her darkest magics. Are the Young Adults believably self-conscious, rebellious and cruel? How do other characters’ beats play into the shape of these episode-specific arcs and themes? What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? What are the Children seeing more clearly than anyone else? What are they missing? What is Jennifer’s journey here? How is she telling their own story? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result, in every act of every episode? Santa monologue?

Scene 4: The Golden God finds Heath drinking his best scotch, he pours it out, et cetera; Heath gets subversive, daring his father to fuck him up—scotch and cigars, swear words
The flip: It gets pretty bad, from outside. Jennifer meanwhile is just looking for a way out—but then she sees the lantern and tells Corey not worry about it—drives like she’s running away, but then hilariously jerks to a stop after a few yards, and leaves the car running at a crazy angle next door. References: Reflecting Skin, with the brothers and the flag; Scout Finch; Days of Heaven. American flag iconography as functional not symbolic; Santa theme. What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result? Adults clipped neck-up as often as possible in scenes with Children, ala floating Young Pope. Miss Emma as Mary Poppins/weather spirit. Neck-down only when doing her darkest magics. Are the Young Adults believably self-conscious, rebellious and cruel? How do other characters’ beats play into the shape of these episode-specific arcs and themes? What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? What are the Children seeing more clearly than anyone else? What are they missing? What is Jennifer’s journey here? How is she telling their own story? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result, in every act of every episode? Santa monologue?

Scene 5: Heath’s Mom comes running at the sounds, but then Godfathers the door when threatened. This can’t be happening for a third time, Jennifer intones—he’s still so young, and so good.
The flip: Jennifer arrives out of nowhere and physically scoops him up in her arms and runs, and inside the house SAHM goes ham on Golden God with her nails, as we hear Jennifer peeling out. References: Reflecting Skin, with the brothers and the flag; Scout Finch; Days of Heaven. American flag iconography as functional not symbolic; Santa theme. What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result? Adults clipped neck-up as often as possible in scenes with Children, ala floating Young Pope. Miss Emma as Mary Poppins/weather spirit. Neck-down only when doing her darkest magics. Are the Young Adults believably self-conscious, rebellious and cruel? How do other characters’ beats play into the shape of these episode-specific arcs and themes? What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? What are the Children seeing more clearly than anyone else? What are they missing? What is Jennifer’s journey here? How is she telling their own story? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result, in every act of every episode? Santa monologue?

Act Six

Scene 1: Emma makes Ashley make a literal list of her most special friends; they fight about that. Ashley is like, I have to bounce and where I’m going is a secret, which Emma indulges because she knows where she’s going. Meanwhile Karen and Tasha hang up the phone and she adds a checkmark to a name. References: Reflecting Skin, with the brothers and the flag; Scout Finch; Days of Heaven. American flag iconography as functional not symbolic; Santa theme. What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result? Adults clipped neck-up as often as possible in scenes with Children, ala floating Young Pope. Miss Emma as Mary Poppins/weather spirit. Neck-down only when doing her darkest magics. Are the Young Adults believably self-conscious, rebellious and cruel? How do other characters’ beats play into the shape of these episode-specific arcs and themes? What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? What are the Children seeing more clearly than anyone else? What are they missing? What is Jennifer’s journey here? How is she telling their own story? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result, in every act of every episode? Santa monologue?
The flip: Jennifer driving—Heath is not about her kidnapper jokes, he is about the mean questions. Heath is upset and feverish, wild eyed. she feeds him and he is like a little baby right now, sucking his thumb again. References: Reflecting Skin, with the brothers and the flag; Scout Finch; Days of Heaven. American flag iconography as functional not symbolic; Santa theme. What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result? Adults clipped neck-up as often as possible in scenes with Children, ala floating Young Pope. Miss Emma as Mary Poppins/weather spirit. Neck-down only when doing her darkest magics. Are the Young Adults believably self-conscious, rebellious and cruel? How do other characters’ beats play into the shape of these episode-specific arcs and themes? What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? What are the Children seeing more clearly than anyone else? What are they missing? What is Jennifer’s journey here? How is she telling their own story? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result, in every act of every episode? Santa monologue?

Scene 2: Jasper’s package; Necie doesn’t care, his proud smile doesn’t falter—it was delivered to the neighboring farm and they were out of town. It’s objectively good, but Necie takes him so much for granted we have to watch her ignore it—and his proud smile not breaking. References: Reflecting Skin, with the brothers and the flag; Scout Finch; Days of Heaven. American flag iconography as functional not symbolic; Santa theme. What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result? Adults clipped neck-up as often as possible in scenes with Children, ala floating Young Pope. Miss Emma as Mary Poppins/weather spirit. Neck-down only when doing her darkest magics. Are the Young Adults believably self-conscious, rebellious and cruel? How do other characters’ beats play into the shape of these episode-specific arcs and themes? What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? What are the Children seeing more clearly than anyone else? What are they missing? What is Jennifer’s journey here? How is she telling their own story? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result, in every act of every episode? Santa monologue?
The flip: Jennifer driving—Heath treading the edge, enraged; the white flash; her own memories of this. References: Reflecting Skin, with the brothers and the flag; Scout Finch; Days of Heaven. American flag iconography as functional not symbolic; Santa theme. What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result? Adults clipped neck-up as often as possible in scenes with Children, ala floating Young Pope. Miss Emma as Mary Poppins/weather spirit. Neck-down only when doing her darkest magics. Are the Young Adults believably self-conscious, rebellious and cruel? How do other characters’ beats play into the shape of these episode-specific arcs and themes? What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? What are the Children seeing more clearly than anyone else? What are they missing? What is Jennifer’s journey here? How is she telling their own story? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result, in every act of every episode? Santa monologue?

Scene 3: Eddie talks to Fawkes and Brian fucks Emma, maybe other stuff but basically everybody has to be at the Schoolhouse by now—maybe that is what’s up, actually; some child labor that we don’t know what it is. Or Maya painting a mural and Trilby dances past with glitter or paint dust? It should be a rainbow like India, whatever is happening. Maybe outside and not inside. People arriving with smiles and supplies and packages but the object of their creation tantalizing out of sight while the sun’s out. This is good because we have to believe it’s a church before it can be defiled. References: Reflecting Skin, with the brothers and the flag; Scout Finch; Days of Heaven. American flag iconography as functional not symbolic; Santa theme. What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result? Adults clipped neck-up as often as possible in scenes with Children, ala floating Young Pope. Miss Emma as Mary Poppins/weather spirit. Neck-down only when doing her darkest magics. Are the Young Adults believably self-conscious, rebellious and cruel? How do other characters’ beats play into the shape of these episode-specific arcs and themes? What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? What are the Children seeing more clearly than anyone else? What are they missing? What is Jennifer’s journey here? How is she telling their own story? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result, in every act of every episode? Santa monologue?
The flip: Jennifer driving—silent at a stoplight; the beautiful homeless man; the coiled viper in your mind or heart—and his own mom, how do you know. What did they do wrong, who hurt him and how badly did it need to be before it counted? References: Reflecting Skin, with the brothers and the flag; Scout Finch; Days of Heaven. American flag iconography as functional not symbolic; Santa theme. What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result? Adults clipped neck-up as often as possible in scenes with Children, ala floating Young Pope. Miss Emma as Mary Poppins/weather spirit. Neck-down only when doing her darkest magics. Are the Young Adults believably self-conscious, rebellious and cruel? How do other characters’ beats play into the shape of these episode-specific arcs and themes? What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? What are the Children seeing more clearly than anyone else? What are they missing? What is Jennifer’s journey here? How is she telling their own story? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result, in every act of every episode? Santa monologue?

Scene 4: Brian watching his Dad cry; surprised to find he’s suddenly disgusted by him for getting cucked References: Reflecting Skin, with the brothers and the flag; Scout Finch; Days of Heaven. American flag iconography as functional not symbolic; Santa theme. What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result? Adults clipped neck-up as often as possible in scenes with Children, ala floating Young Pope. Miss Emma as Mary Poppins/weather spirit. Neck-down only when doing her darkest magics. Are the Young Adults believably self-conscious, rebellious and cruel? How do other characters’ beats play into the shape of these episode-specific arcs and themes? What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? What are the Children seeing more clearly than anyone else? What are they missing? What is Jennifer’s journey here? How is she telling their own story? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result, in every act of every episode? Santa monologue?The flip: Jennifer driving—the sweet Heath again, distracted by others’ needs; have to go home eventually. Heath’s quiet apology is devastating. References: Reflecting Skin, with the brothers and the flag; Scout Finch; Days of Heaven. American flag iconography as functional not symbolic; Santa theme. What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result? Adults clipped neck-up as often as possible in scenes with Children, ala floating Young Pope. Miss Emma as Mary Poppins/weather spirit. Neck-down only when doing her darkest magics. Are the Young Adults believably self-conscious, rebellious and cruel? How do other characters’ beats play into the shape of these episode-specific arcs and themes? What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? What are the Children seeing more clearly than anyone else? What are they missing? What is Jennifer’s journey here? How is she telling their own story? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result, in every act of every episode? Santa monologue?

Scene 5: A memorable sequence as they drive up—it was New Year’s Day, it was Day one of a new year—and the reveal of the Schoolhouse, this filthy Heaven, in all its glory and the fireflies… The Schoolhouse revealed. Including Emma’s fireflies and recording devices, of course. Schoolhouse here is a “fairy photos” tumbledown Green Gables, one with nature. Really make it unbelievably magical: The reveal is an episode-ending spot of extra magic. “This dirty Heaven.” References: Reflecting Skin, with the brothers and the flag; Scout Finch; Days of Heaven. American flag iconography as functional not symbolic; Santa theme. What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result? Adults clipped neck-up as often as possible in scenes with Children, ala floating Young Pope. Miss Emma as Mary Poppins/weather spirit. Neck-down only when doing her darkest magics. Are the Young Adults believably self-conscious, rebellious and cruel? How do other characters’ beats play into the shape of these episode-specific arcs and themes? What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? What are the Children seeing more clearly than anyone else? What are they missing? What is Jennifer’s journey here? How is she telling their own story? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result, in every act of every episode? Santa monologue?
The flip: And the real ending, which is all the Maguires waiting there for them to begin—including late surprises like Alexis, Eddie, Truman—and how they take him into their arms. Heath is home. References: Reflecting Skin, with the brothers and the flag; Scout Finch; Days of Heaven. American flag iconography as functional not symbolic; Santa theme. What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result? Adults clipped neck-up as often as possible in scenes with Children, ala floating Young Pope. Miss Emma as Mary Poppins/weather spirit. Neck-down only when doing her darkest magics. Are the Young Adults believably self-conscious, rebellious and cruel? How do other characters’ beats play into the shape of these episode-specific arcs and themes? What are the background clues in each scene pointing toward further developments and secrets? What are the Children seeing more clearly than anyone else? What are they missing? What is Jennifer’s journey here? How is she telling their own story? Where is the comedy? Where is the visual inventiveness? Who is observing whom, and what is the result, in every act of every episode? How do we detour or reverse or set fire to the Santa monologue with this last moment and monologue?

END


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Chapter Four: Hedwig.

Act One

Page 1: Brian showing us his bus story and how Jennifer took over and kept everybody safe—at some point it shifts from film to video and we see that they are filming in the Schoolhouse. Story specifically highlights Jennifer’s leadership abilities and gives Ashley something to shoot for. Lots of things going on in the background of this one, peak TV-clue games in every Maguire/boys scene. Remember that there’s a time jump—you can make anything be true just by saying it. One time chance! 

Page 2: comes out of bus fantasy and leads into Karen’s life. This should be about concrete details and roles, with just hints of personality and hidden things going on in the background—the scary stuff is much later. Tour is for new kids—we are following along with an unknown teenage girl from public school. Give us the basics and let the rest unfold naturally.  More emphasis on the Children, operations, and the mission statement. The thing about how it takes six weeks to form a habit; continually unfolding details of new status quo.  Radical transparency—they use codenames but that’s the only nod to privacy. Teens hate this!  Trilby’s too famous so she has to stay IRL.  Maya/Heath as Prom couple—Jasper hates that he’s not a skilled artist (other ways) and can’t serve her. Brian/Jennifer are more like field agents when it comes to her actual policy and work. Jennifer is Queen, Corey the Deanna Troi, Trilby Chief of Staff/Communications, Tasha’s the Bailiff. Necie tends the generator lovingly as a pet; Heath administrates global actions. Maya and Karen do the fundraising, design, branding and voice, and political strategy (PAC is next). Everyone is exasperated but protective of Alexis Butts, when the newer kids don’t get her. Jasper’s developing maturity bringing him toward Maya and away from Josh. Jasper primes the scene here out of desperation—he will be getting his kiss at Neverneverland.

Page 3: Per narration, we are focusing directly on Karen, in charge and glamorous status quo, doing the work of four women: Running Schoolhouse, her own home, her business and attending fifth grade. Karen is killing it on the Maguires—fall apart without her. For now Ashley bets on Karen the most, even more than Trilby, who is kind of her donkey. What it is like at Karen’s house financially. Karen’s life is finally revealed and we come to understand why the incident happened. Hedy Lamarr, born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler. Jan/Feb—through Valentine’s Day; Tu B'Shevat: Jewish Arbor Day; late January/early February—Karen being a good Jew and entrancing the other kids incl the Twins; Tasha and Ashley both a little whatever. We learn about Karen’s backstory with money/her mother, and spend some time with them. The teamwork with Deborah during tree-planting and really just living in her wonderfulness. Lots of things going on in the background of this one, peak tv-clue games in every Maguire/boys scene. Remember that there’s a time jump—you can make anything be true just by saying it. One time chance!

Page 4 comes out of Karen’s life and leads into the Dean Martin meeting—specifically about her role, her conversations, public/private school stuff, and anything we can see through her eyes.  More emphasis on Young Adults and future plans. Maguire family/church/Movement well-practiced and full of unknown faces now.  Eddie/Corey do the most to keep morale up and spend the most time with the kids.  A Quaker meeting in which they are all quiet for a weird amount of time and then Ashley talks.  Alexis is highly stylized to the outsiders and on edge about Adults. Like the bus driver story: She was there and it broke her, nobody remembers this; but it’s not because of abuse--it’s because there is nobody driving her bus.  Requests for help, comfort, weird sex stuff flooding in. Brian monitors and delivers a report each day. We see a thriving media center—each gives according to their skills, and takes according to need. Airgapped—all communications from remote locations; Josh and Jeremy do all the computer stuff. No phones, cameras or other recording equipment—all footage must be approved.
Alexis in a support role, she blossoms, and wins everyone’s grudging respect, but she’s still the Barb.

Page 5: Dean Martin morning: Duncan, Emma, Deborah after six-weeks; school business, Special Class; Emma charms Deborah and Duncan despite all four of them having very different ideas about education. Martin has Silicon Valley ideas about education, Emma indulges him; Georgia loves it. There’s not really anybody pushing back on this—it’s his school, whatever. Martin uses Corey anecdotally when it comes to tech, but otherwise they’re pretty closed off. Through Emma’s eyes, perhaps: Necie is obsessed with going to public school because that’s all of her youth group friends saluting flag; Jeremy is protecting her from this disappointment by fighting for her to stay in the school/special class. We see the seeds of Corey’s conflict with his father Martin during these talks. Dean Martin (!) is also Head of Upper, and must deal with the Board; Academic Parents don’t respect. Emma as Teacher, opportunity for humor—not loving Special Class but must work in secret against Ash. Lots of things going on in the background of this one, peak tv-clue games in every Maguire/boys scene. Remember that there’s a time jump—you can make anything be true just by saying it. One time chance! Emma begins setting up YA’s to pull the trigger in 108: Probing around Alexis, Jennifer, Corey, Truman even in this meeting. Other Maguire conversations, not for Schoolhouse: Necie mainly feels empowered to complain about the school and talk about Church more.  We see the seeds of Corey/Dad conflict in the Dean Martin convo. Public school threat also comes up during the tour; Corey is part of Necie conversations and supports Jasper about it.

Page 6 comes out of Dean Martin and into Emma’s office/Carrolls/hints of an affair—focus is on Ashley and her relationships. Necie, Maya, Karen—and Trilby, as this is where the media training bits go. Heath is the only person who knows about the affair and tries to shut Tasha up about it; Ashley keeping Tasha out of sight: Making a good-faith effort here, but hampered by her bizarre elitism. Ashley hates going on video but they can get her to do it. Corey Act I: Flirty Eddie makes Corey feel aggressed. Help I'm Alive—public speaking, for Ashley, is painful like karaoke—too naked. She's better in the shadows, a real politico. For Truman this is a hardwired difference in people, but must be overcome, because power is its own radioactivity, its own opiate. The backroom person falls to corruption and arrogance and addiction, the demagogue falls to ego and half-truth and rhetoric, the policy maker lives above the fray of realpolitik and human cost, becoming a sociopath -- or worse, a capitalist -- the lobbyist is consumed by hatred for those he serves AND those he services, and so on. You can't be everything but you can try; use spiritual muscle confusion to keep from getting bedsores. She values his philosophical advice more than Trilby’s practical advice. Trilby is Ashley’s media coach, essentially; they’ve developed a shorthand that’s beautiful to watch. Dad/job makes Trilby a power player with the Teens, which irks Ashley a bit, and she’s guilty. We need a scene (not a moment) about their relationship—it’s an important relationship, they’ve known each other the longest and Ashley is very complicated about her. It makes sense that it would take this long to come up, but we need to go there. Perhaps Emma can nudge it a little. Trilby teaches a nervous Ashley how to compartmentalize and perform. Trilby mentions pressure at home and Ashley barely acknowledges because she’s so dependable and good-natured; someone asks if Tasha is treating her okay.

Page 7: Josh visits mailbox, then: Introducing Emma’s classroom—it’s like Dead Poet’s Society, unlike any other classroom in the school It’s also where all her meetings and assignations take place—no office—like a parallel world. Not for the first time, the Carrolls corner Emma about Tasha—first they didn’t want her in Special Class and now they feel like she’s missing out on something—but Emma magically charms them enough they share the affair rumors about Georgia, she tells them gossip is vile and makes a run for it. Everything viewed in terms of what’s being done to, taken from, or otherwise victimizing Tasha.

Page 8/9: First selfish act leads to Austin call/Janna call; Heath being mean to his dad as intro, while Karen is discovering, and then 2 conversations (sequentially) Janna and Austin both mention the fast change/six-week thing: Austin talks freshman year -- montage future friends/enemies but not obviously. while Janna is the Julia Wicker real-world/dropout voice about adulthood: That the Golden Age is over fast and by definition you cannot see it until it’s too late. Janna talks about SAHM's secret history; contrast Deborah's secret now but also compassion for their private lives -- Janna likes SAHM now but won't come home. Won't say it's because of dad because it isn't him either. Heath’s liferaft call with Jana, deciding to protect her; flashback to the time he visited her apartment.

Page 10: Emma finds Deborah in an affair, but with female TA Mirah and very wholesome; thinky face

Act Two

Page 1-2: Through Ashley’s eyes, not narration, Karen has been breaking out last six weeks—fear about high profile. Emma makes clear to us in conversation with Ashley that She’s coming after Karen this week because she needs to disrupt the movement, which threatens to become self-sustaining and complacent: Ashley/Maguires are doing too good of a job and Karen is the key to that. Ashley leans on Truman more than Emma, that’s part of it—Emma doesn’t love this, via surveillance. Revealed here at flip. It’s clear Ashley thinks Emma is too interested—must hold her at bay without freaking her out. Unaware that she’s monitoring it and knows more than Ashley about what’s going on; Ashley’s lying to her is rebellion. Emma is impatient for Ashley to finally tell her & get directly involved but Ashley prefers a consigliere. Emma hates being lied to, which is what this is, but must work against Ashley in secret. 

Page 3-4: Alexis has become Emma’s bitch, resetting her popularity again—they are both so highly stylized it’s intense just to see it; Emma spying on Ash/Truman, Truman teaches Ashley chess; he and Alexis are becoming her closest advisors, which we know because (Emma?) says “they are becoming your closest advisors” Tasha is chill because she thinks that Emma finds her wonderful like all adults, and she keeps embarrassing herself like Dwight Schrute without knowing it. She has taken to Emma’s leadership so well off-screen it’s a red herring. Alexis Butts as Mary Cherry force. Lots of things going on in the background of this one, peak tv-clue games in every Maguire/boys scene. Emma setting up YA’s to pull the trigger in 108: Probing around Alexis, Jennifer, Corey, Truman 

Page 5-6: Second Camera twist: A second tour, not for public knowledge. The real shit and insane shit, and the darker atmosphere. There are public school kids; they love Jasper and Eddie the most. Some are very damaged. The mosquito tone thing—tiny print in plain sight—something with nail polish?  Chemistry lifehacks, real strategies. Lot going on in the background; Fawkes, etc. but still realistic.
The flip: A sign that says it has been X days since the last school shooting. Eddie fully part of the group, disseminating the leadership’s news to the useful idiots and bad allies, building up just enough power to conquer the Schoolhouse—and fuck Emma. (And get a beej from Corey specifically) Eddie acquired an old schoolbus and painted it black; shuttle to the Schoolhouse from “youth center.” The Adults don’t know (or notice) where they go after school. 

Page 7-8: Deborah and the TA talking about taking Karen on this trip & how she’ll love her; Karen discovers that she’s lost funds for her own hobbies, feels trapped by this mystery/arbitrary move; their house is getting subjectively shabbier at every juncture, even within scenes; falling down around them. It’s unalloyed nice to see her building this relationship, considering her own sexuality and finding peace. Maybe Emma doing something weird in background. We see how Reynard is the feminist army that Deborah needed, and her disappointment in women and general dedication to economic freedom for women talking about SAHM like it’s advice. Something about not needing a man for anything -- she's a fish without a bicycle. As Georgia was adopted, Deborah has a history of being disappointed by women -- it's one reason she wants to be a good mother. Economic freedom—Karen’s favorite thing about her mother maybe, that independence in theory.

Page 9: The Jasper side of Necie’s public school obsession—protecting her from this disappointment by fighting for her to stay in the school/special class. Josh pulls this out of him in one of their talks. Necie is Emma’s key to getting Ashley: The first time she sees that blank coldness in Ashley’s reaction, she knows just how to push. It isn’t about isolating Necie--that’s just a benefit, since Emma hates her--it’s about isolating Ashley, showing her how to become cold. Jasper/Josh this week is about their love of Brian/Schoolhouse/distrust of public kids. We also see why Josh loves Jasper so much: Jasper naturally knows the things Josh biologically cannot and we see him explain it—this must happen in 104, before 105. Josh visits mailbox. Corey has supported Jasper about Necie in this respect and he wants to add Corey to the list of good men but Josh finds that too complicated to process. (takes Jasper’s word for it.)

Page 10: Emma seemingly endangers Deborah’s relationship to ramp up the pressure/entropy. Very heightened, Green Kirtle shit. Masterclass in subtlety—but Reynard’s not going to give it up that easy. She’s very much in normal love with Deborah and wants to get with her family and believes truly that D wants the same. This is in a heightened Emma way where we see her create two different personae with these lesbians. Emma engineers a situation in which Deborah's romance looks more precarious than she seems: Emma causing a problem so that she can come in and fix it.

Act Three

Page 1-2: Emma unloads harshly on Alexis, transitioning into her appearance; Karen offered lucrative Demosthenes/Rookie job, excited but trying to be real; We see Alexis trying to conform to those instructions, and fear we’ve lost her forever. This is about not having a mother—give it a little time before ripping the bandaid off.

Page 3-4: Karen goes to Trilby, not Ashley, who says always bet on yourself even if you believe in Ashley Maya and Jasper are closer than ever and she is definitely giving him the green light. Corey arc here too.

Page 5-6: Ashley is not a fan of Alexis moment and also takes some time off, pushing Emma to go further. Deborah and Georgia being like “we just gotta get a trans kid” and overlooking one of them altogether—we know this is Chris but Chris probably doesn’t, so it’s a very soft joke about them being oblivious. Emma pushes Deborah to take care of herself; the other heightened seduction; causing a problem to solve it. Real aim is entropy in household and pressure on Maguires. Emma inspires her to this new self-care as a way of neutralizing Karen/squeezing the Maguires. Emma wants Deborah to take an interest in Karen's activities to raise the threat level but Deborah convinces herself her romance is on the line and she needs to do something dramatic and crashes Karen's life instead, just as… So her emotional reaction to scarcity is not just from her childhood, it's also political—the problem is that it's through the lens of her personal needs, wants, narcissism. And that's how Emma gets in: Isn't it time for you to take care of yourself for once? 

Page 7-8: Karen learns of this Disney trip, which seems not to involve her at all (it’s a surprise)—this is the proof that her mother is having an affair, embezzles it dead, then decides on more desperate action. Heath is Emma on her shoulder for this—he’s angry at parents but also maybe scapegoating like Nina. Check in with PS girl, who has a weird run-in with Jeremy that will be turning her off completely; Josh visits mailbox.

Page 9-10: Alexis tells Emma to fuck off, impressing everyone and scaring the bejesus out of herself; we see Emma’s teeth. This ripples through the YA’s impressing Jennifer and confusing Corey—this is when Emma decides that they and the Volcano Girls are a lost cause. Corey sees Alexis go Cuckoo on Emma and he’s torn. Emma realizes Alexis’s potential but gets the Cuckoo response when she tries to mentor her. The flip is the fallout: This colors her perception of the way Alexis and Jennifer and Corey are interacting. Emma gives up on finding an Ashley among YAs and goes back to focusing completely on Ashley. The YAs are a lost cause—she can only use the more troubled teens. This comes up in conversation among the Adults: Emma says something surprising about how the Teens are a lost cause or something. Alexis and Jennifer have a small row with Corey because he still loves Emma, he is immune to her. Emma sees the Volcano Girls building, and wants to turn them into Bacchants. Emma hates the tapes of Ashley and Truman, steps up Deborah’s paranoia and connects to Maguires. Emma actually loves Alexis telling her to fuck off—she just doesn’t like the effect it has on the YAs and would have on the Children, so she needs to be neutralized some other way. And Emma is alone and low, tearing shit up and going just crazy! It’s magical! 

Act Four

Pages 1-2: When Alexis tells Emma to fuck off, Corey loves both sides of it, he’s torn. The flip is the fallout: This colors her perception of the way Alexis and Jennifer and Corey are interacting.  Emma sees the Volcano Girls building, and wants to turn them into Bacchants. The YAs are a lost cause—she can only use the more troubled teens.  Alexis and Jennifer upset with Corey because he still loves Emma, he is immune to her. Jennifer sneaks into Heath’s room and they wake up together; opposite of usual placement. Capricorn Heath’s birthday and Aquarius Jennifer’s birthday are both close to the cusp/each other.

Page 3-4: it is impressed upon Karen that she must show mercy here but there’s just no way out; Emma as a problem is discussed by the YAs—she can hear them. Brian/Corey trust thing goes here, to give us hope: One of our first clues to Corey’s competence isn’t just that reassures/redirects Brian, but that Brian accepts it without question. Jennifer/Corey both believe that Truman is straight/into Jennifer: Jeremy chooses to be silent on this. Jennifer is doing a power play and doesn’t even know it. Corey explicitly focusing on Maguires to avoid Truman; Let Truman always be the one to clock what’s going on with Jeremy—he and Brian are fusing together but this is about the observational power of desire. Corey avoiding Truman hurts Truman’s feelings. Truman is now Ashley’s best advisor, a living demonstration of her principles Turns out Truman is what Brian was supposed to be, and not the boy Emma at all. Ashley becoming Emma here is rolling with punches and trying not to be disappointed in people but getting burned on it over and over. Every diplomatic success contains a fall, starting with Karen mess 104 and laziness, with the themes (this is real; holding onto each other; talent show; 107 crash). Ashley becoming Emma through to 107—this week is about holding it all together and letting Karen fall.


Page 5-6: Feeling hounded by Truman, Corey goes to his dad for love advice, useless; Corey gets first look at Dean problems, school same Ponzi scheme/bad investment as Lillywhite. The deal is that Corey can do literally whatever he wants as long as it doesn’t make waves—Martin’s time is eaten up by the School and he’s pretty absent in general—which is why the infrequent spates of abuse don’t register for either of them.

Page 7-8: Emma a bit deflated—she is chill with Special Class even with Necie stuff—Emma specifically says that teens can’t be trusted/specifically advises Deborah to get on it. Page 8: Schoolhouse—all integrated, from Children/YA and DS/PS. Jennifer and Corey both believe that Truman is straight and possibly into Jennifer; B/J stay quiet. Brian/Jeremy—seeds of that M2D thing with Josh next week; visually like Kings with their two Princes.

Page 9-10: Josh visits mailbox; Karen emails HR, thinking it’s a man. Flip: Georgia on ethics board scapegoats (Emma involved)—to be fair, Georgia is an innocent bystander, not connecting the chaos back to herself—she is acting out of guilt and shame, but has no idea this is literally about her.

Act Five

Page 1-2: More Rookie arrangements/conferences; Karen sees this as a peace offering; self-sufficiency.

Page 3-4: Heath’s tennis meltdown—surprisingly, this opens up SAHM and they pick sides against GG. To SAHM: GG is a force to be indulged and not that smart. Her description of him feeling magnanimous indeed; overly patronizing to the McNeelys (and their whole history, which is part of but not redundant with, the Corey and Founding Families stuff). Heath’s Maguire name? Heath still refusing to talk to father—playing with fire/SAHM; tennis sequence this week. SAHM: What GG has always tried to do is set it up as a war between the sexes—he and Heath are surrounded by women, and have to stick up for themselves. This is at odds with her own territorialism over Heath as her ultimate project, and she’s so dazzled by the mysterious schism between them that she never even stops to ask why it’s happening—just grateful and willing to use it. GG: Heath’s rebellion spreads to his mother, which helps solidify their marriage at the same time events and Heath are working up to bringing them all down.

Page 5-6: Brian and Jeremy mindmeld. Brian is an astronaut—his sensitivity is the reason he cuts off, not insensitivity.  Brian’s progress so far: Need to BE HEARD/OBEYED.  Jeremy and Brian are woke and right about everything, and people need to listen.  This week, privately he’s defining Good by pure bleeding-edge newborn progressivism; the Silicon Valley autism thinking—Jeremy does what he can to turn this to being its 105 form, just by asking questions: Discovering that the problem lies within your own party; exclusively anti-liberal, straw men and bullying nerdy liberals/public figures, ignoring women about ignoring women; the stupid complaints they’ve been getting on the phones, ala twitter complaints—this is Brian’s MAIN DEAL in 105, and detonates in 106, since the tragedy of Alexis loving him is so good. 
Flip: Brian is being patronizingly open and supportive of Jeremy’s feelings toward him, which may or may not exist but are certainly flattering and titillating; really it’s that he wants to jump on any sign of jealousy or conflict, desperately trying to connect with Jeremy in this way, and flailing blindly in it. But perceptive Jeremy is onto him—not to mention his side deal with Emma we still know nothing about and maybe never will, until they turn on each other. Josh comes in from checking the mail and then just silently working on his weird kid things as Jeremy turns it back to his pet topic of the day. Jeremys progression so far: Need to BELONG/GET REVENGE.  Jeremy’s loneliness and gamification/addiction and allegiance with homogenous nerd/gamer culture (we see him trolling with stuff like “not your shield” and we see that to him rape and Anne Frank are just ghost stories) has become clear-minded, autistic Libertarian atheism that lines up with Brian perfectly, which is how he can overlook the poison inherent in it. But this week what he’s excited about is essentially the concept of Anonymous—the power of this, of groups and of anonymity equally—Brian and Jeremy daring to wonder if Ashley knows what she’s doing, and Jeremy’s picking up every word.


Page 7-8: Emma gives Eddie the what for when he tries to menace her and he apologizes Eddie red-herring crudeness toward Emma in attempt to bond with other young men but doing it all wrong because of his stuff, reverting to flirting with Corey. Corey avoiding Truman hurts Truman’s feelings. Let Truman always be the one to clock what’s going on with Jeremy—he and Brian are fusing together but this is about the observational power of desire. After Eddie messes up being crude toward Emma to bond with other young men, he reverts to nonstop flirting and gender play with Corey. He eventually gives in now that Jeremy’s unavailable—this thing of finding out how easy it is to get laid, that Eddie isn’t kidding.

Page 9-10: Deborah is fired and loses Reynard in the process; now she’s just a day school teacher. Mrs. Lillywhite: Self-consciously stays out of the war between Jennifer and her husband, telling them both separately to cool it—for her nerves, if nothing else. Mr. Lillywhite: it takes a while for us to figure out why he’s like this, but the financial burden and the power dynamic are both so much more complex than we believed that it’s a hard reset on him. We see Deborah’s focus is still on connecting with/controlling daughter—important this is her first move and after being fired—confronts Ashley directly, and Ashley lets Karen take the fall without discussing it.

Act Six

Page 1-2: Deborah doesn’t understand Rookie or how it differs from Maguires, and not interested in hearing: Only interrogating—involves herself in negotiations, embarrassing like with Quent. Both of them escalating in terms of their own enthusiasm, closing loops on what they expect or project. Her site could be self-sustaining, by equal parts talent and drive, coincidence, and privilege of opportunity. This indie site is Deborah’s ultimate victim. Deborah’s unseemly interest in the Maguires is her ongoing desire to create a feminist Army. She judges Heath’s mother—her main motivator is the Pill/economic freedom, also her justification for making her children do the books. Karen goes Teen Vogue, getting/giving scoops ala Demosthenes. Tavi becomes Darcie Wilder. Point blank asking about Maguires or you can kiss the contract goodbye—it was going to fund the next phase of Maguires. Duncan: Trilby’s the Golden Goose, and once she figures that out it’s all over—this links to Rookie, so comes late. Once cornered with discovery, even if Karen wanted to spare Deborah she can't, Emma has her on the scent. Attempts at reconciliation between Grossmans results in scorched earth. The pain of guilt, lost trust, the one-sided narcissism and self-care stuff, her life and mission. We think they're going to reconcile but Deborah drops the hammer—Karen sacrifices to save the Maguires. Karen leaves Movement at the end of the hour rather than give them up—she’ll be back later. This scene, once things can’t be taken back, plays opposite the Incident: The unfixable heartbreak.

BJJ VI Page 3-4: dealing with parents under monologue explaining their family more completely. Jocks v nerds is so obsolete -- the show should say this so it doesn't come off underinformed. Not like defensive, just like "that's the narrative you associate with 1999 and this isn't that." 
Flip: The way Josh and Jeremy are together when they’re alone isn’t just different, it’s strange.  Absent selfish father, autistic and self-absorbed mother; Jeremy basically raised him from an early age. Josh finds fascinating many things that we’d rather kids not talk about, like his brother’s sexuality. Tyson house sex talk. Monologue: They have their own languages, secrets, shorthand, hiding places, cryptography. Josh loves maps, digging in the dirt, and trying on his brother’s revolutionary rhetoric. 
Corey does also try to reconnect with Jeremy but after his episode, he’s not in there

Page 5-6: When Karen won’t give up the info, Deborah’s crackdown on both Rookie (intervening) and Maguires (surveilling) is purely arbitrary; it could have saved them. (Rookie team is like whew close one) Much darker Deborah is now at the School fulltime moving forward, better to watch Karen. We think she is Emma’s creature but will come to learn that’s not the case. Josh finally receives his gun.

Page 7-8: The teenage girl admits that she can’t handle Jeremy, meaning all of it, but he is embittered—this just confirms his bias.  We see the first potential for Ashley’s Sister Longlegs/Dark Phoenix moment, alone like Emma, but she pulls it together. Necie gets to sit with Ashley like UnREAL cigarette; eats it up. Surprisingly not shitty.

Page 9-10: Scary Eddie and Emma—you thought she would lose but she wins again! Final dramatic images include the secret movement within—in the after-hours with Jeremy. Schoolhouse After Hours/older Public School kids/Eddie/Anonymous—not drug orgy, just speakeasy. And Corey is there, sucking his dick, because having a superpower is exciting and he just found his.

END.