Trent Reedy - Divided We Fall

“Ouch!” I said. “Keep talking, Wells. Just remember our bet.”

Becca stopped walking, her eyes wide. “What bet?”

“You remember when we were in, like, third grade, at your brother’s graduation, and you had to explain to me what the valedictorian was?”

“I do remember that. You kept pronouncing it valley doctorian.” She narrowed her eyes and pressed her lips together. “Hmm. And I think I was your ‘girlfriend’” — she flashed air quotes with her fingers — “for that whole weekend.”

“Oh yeah!” I said, remembering. “You dumped me the following Monday.” I grabbed Becca’s arm. “But don’t try to get off topic. At that graduation, you said you were going to be our valedictorian, and I bet you a hundred dollars that you wouldn’t be.”

“Hey, cut me some slack.” She gave me a little push, and we went on toward class again. “I was in third grade!”

“A bet’s a bet. What are you ranked, sixth in the class?”

She gazed at the floor for a moment. “Eighth.” Then she fixed me with that look that said she had an idea. “I seem to remember you were a pretty fast runner back then.”

“I’m still a fast runner!”

She shrugged. “You said if I was ever a faster runner than you, you’d kiss me.”

I laughed, though my cheeks felt a little hot. I knew where she was going with this. “You cut me some slack. I was in third grade!”

“I seem to remember beating your time in the open eight hundred in track last year, so, um…” She stepped close to me. “A bet’s a bet.”

I didn’t know what to do. I looked at Becca, with her green eyes and the sprinkling of a few freckles on her nose, her red-brown hair and the purple butterfly hair clip she always wore. A tingle shivered up my spine.

Her lips passed less than an inch from mine as she leaned forward to whisper in my ear. “You owe me.”

Then she hurried into Mr. Shiratori’s room. I followed her into class, trying to fight back the disappointment at being faked out like that, trying to fight back the guilt over that spark of disappointment.

Mr. Shiratori paced the room and tapped his stick on the floor. Step, step, tap. Step, step, tap. “We’ve finished our study of Article One of the Constitution. Your test on this material will be on Wednesday.” He stopped for a moment and finally looked up at us. “In case any of you were interested.”

He went back to tap-walking. Sweeney looked at me like, What’s he doing? I shrugged.

Mr. Shiratori drew in a long breath. “Your homework for the weekend probably didn’t require much writing. Four or five short paragraphs at the most. But it did require a lot of thinking. What was your assignment for the weekend?”

Oh crap. The assignment. I’d forgotten all about it. I slid down in my seat a little.

JoBell raised her hand, as usual.

“Someone besides Ms. Linder for a change,” Mr. Shiratori said. “How about Ms. Monohan?”

Samantha sat up straight in her chair the way she did whenever she answered a question. “We were supposed to write a paragraph for each section of Article One that had significant… relevance… to… circumstances… being reported in the news.”

“Thank you, Ms. Monohan, for that well-memorized verbatim reply,” said Mr. Shiratori. “I’ve been thinking…” He loved dramatic pauses. “… about what is fair.” He looked right at me, and I knew I was doomed. “I think after the events of this last Friday night, some of you might have been a little shaken, and you might need more time to write and revise your essays. Also, in your papers, I want you to imagine how some of the things happening today might develop in the future, and how those events could become relevant to issues regarding Article One. So I expect this assignment in my inbox before we take the test Wednesday, whether or not you are in school that day. No late work when you can easily wire it in on your comm.”

I sighed with relief and sat up a little. One more chance. That was good, since my grade in this class was already not so hot.

“ATTENTION. PRIORITY MESSAGE.” A deep robotic voice blasted out of my comm. “ATTENTION. PRIORITY MESSAGE…”

I jumped up in my seat, scrambling for the mute switch. I swear I had switched off the sound when I got to school. I checked it. It was shut off. How was it still making noise?

Mr. Shiratori pointed the Stick of Power at me. “Mr. Wright. You just bought yourself a detention.”

“It’s not even Hank! I turned the sound off! It’s off right now!” I said. Normally I wouldn’t dream of giving Mr. Shiratori back talk, but this wasn’t fair. The screen read:

“ATTENTION. PRIORITY MESSAGE. ATTENTION. PRIORITY MESSAGE…”

“You’re testing my patience, Mr. Wright.”

“Mr. Shiratori. It’s the… Army calling. I think I need to take this one.”

I kept my eyes locked on him and tried to ignore the stares from everyone else. The hardness went out of Mr. Shiratori’s face. “Oh. Well, then. Go ahead. Why don’t you step out into the hallway, Mr. Wright?”

When I was alone, I tapped to accept the call.

“Hello, sir. This is PFC Wright.”

“Private First Class Daniel Wright.” The voice somehow threw extra emphasis on each individual word, almost as if it were spitting them. “By order of the president of the United States of America, you are hereby requested and required to report for active duty service at Fairchild Air Force Base no later than zero eight hundred hours Wednesday, September 29, for an initial period of service not to exceed seven hundred and thirty days.”

I backed up until my back pressed into the lockers and slid down the cool metal until I sat on the floor. Now the Army was calling me in the middle of class to try to trick me into giving myself up? This couldn’t be happening.

“Private Wright, are you there?”

I licked my lips. “Yes, sir.”

“Your official orders will be in your inbox later today. You’ll need those orders as proof that you’re on active duty. Report to the main gate at Fairchild Air Base, and the personnel there will direct you to your duty station. Uniform is MCU. Do you have any questions?”

“Sir, I can’t serve. I was involved in… I started… the shootings at Boise. There’s a warrant for my arrest.”

“I know who you are, Private Wright. You think they have a lieutenant colonel calling every single member of the Idaho National Guard? No. I have a gymnasium full of lieutenants here calling Idaho Guardsmen and ordering them to active duty. I’m instructed to inform you that the soldiers involved in the Boise incident will receive a full pardon upon completion of their active duty service. All you have to do is come and serve your country, and then you won’t be caught in the middle of this circus anymore. If there are no further questions, I have other calls to make. If there’s a glitch and your orders don’t come through by this time tomorrow, call me back at this number. You’re expected on duty by zero eight hundred hours Wednesday. Richingham, out.”

The call ended. A pardon? They were finally giving up on punishing us for Boise? Could it be that simple? Could I trust them? Even if I could, it would still mean as much as two years of full-time Army life. JoBell and me had enough problems without a big separation to deal with. And how would Mom cope with me being gone for so long? I put my head back against the lockers.