Lauren Oliver - Panic

But it was too late. Matt’s voice came whispering back, and she kept climbing.

No one knows who invented Panic, or when it first began.

There are different theories. Some blame the shuttering of the paper factory, which overnight placed 40 percent of the adult population of Carp, New York, on unemployment. Mike Dickinson, who infamously got arrested for dealing on the very same night he was named prom king, and now changes brake pads at the Jiffy Lube on Route 22, likes to take credit; that’s why he still goes to Opening Jump, four years after graduating.

None of these stories is correct, however. Panic began as so many things do in Carp, a poor town of twelve thousand people in the middle of nowhere: because it was summer, and there was nothing else to do.

The rules are simple. The day after graduation is Opening Jump, and the game goes all through summer. After the final challenge, the winner takes the pot.

Everyone at Carp High pays into the pot, no exceptions. Fees are a dollar a day, for every day that school is in session, from September through June. People who refuse to pony up the cash receive reminders that go from gentle to persuasive: vandalized locker, shattered windows, shattered face.

It’s only fair. Anyone who wants to play has a chance to win. That’s another rule: all seniors, but only seniors, are eligible, and must announce their intention to compete by participating in the Jump, the first of the challenges. Sometimes as many as forty kids enter.

There is only ever one winner.

Two judges plan the game, name the challenges, deliver instructions, award and deduct points. They are selected by the judges of the previous year, in strict secrecy. No one, in the whole history of Panic, has ever confessed to being one.

There have been suspicions, of course—rumors and speculation. Carp is a small town, and judges get paid. How did Myra Campbell, who always stole extra lunch from the school cafeteria because there was no food at home, suddenly afford her used Honda? She said an uncle had died. But no one had ever heard of Myra’s uncle—no one, really, had ever thought about Myra, until she came rolling in with the windows down, smoking a cigarette, with the sun so bright on the windshield, it almost completely obscured the smile on her face.

Two judges, picked in secret, sworn to secrecy, working together. It must be this way. Otherwise they’d be subject to bribes, and possibly to threats. That’s why there are two—to make sure that things stay balanced, to reduce the possibility that one will cheat, and give out information, leak hints.

If the players know what to expect, then they can prepare. And that isn’t fair at all.

It’s partly the unexpectedness, the never-knowing, that starts to get to them, and weeds them out, one by one.

The pot usually amounts to just over $50,000, after fees are deducted and the judges—whoever they are—take their cut. Four years ago, Tommy O’Hare took his winnings, bought two items out of hock, one of them a lemon-yellow Ford, drove straight to Vegas, and bet it all on black.

The next year, Lauren Davis bought herself new teeth and a new pair of tits and moved to New York City. She returned to Carp two Christmases later, stayed just long enough to show off a new purse and an even newer nose, and then blew back to the city. Rumors floated back: she was dating the ex-producer of some reality TV weight-loss show; she was becoming a Victoria’s Secret model, though no one has ever seen her in a catalog. (And many of the boys have looked.)

Conrad Spurlock went into the manufacture of methamphetamines—his father’s line of business—and poured the money into a new shed on Mallory Road, after their last place burned straight to the ground. But Sean McManus used the money to go to college; he’s thinking of becoming a doctor.

In seven years of playing, there have been three deaths—four including Tommy O’Hare, who shot himself with the second thing he’d bought at the pawn shop, after his number came up red.

You see? Even the winner of Panic is afraid of something .

So: back to the day after graduation, the opening day of Panic, the day of the Jump.

Rewind back to the beach, but pause a few hours before Heather stood on the ridge, suddenly petrified, afraid to jump.

Turn the camera slightly. We’re not quite there. Almost, though.

dodge

NO ONE ON THE BEACH WAS CHEERING FOR DODGE Mason—no one would cheer for him either, no matter how far he got.

It didn’t matter. All that mattered was the win.

And Dodge had a secret—he knew something about Panic, knew more about it, probably, than any of the other people on the beach.

Actually, he had two secrets.

Dodge liked secrets. They fueled him, gave him a sense of power. When he was little, he’d even fantasized that he had his own secret world, a private place of shadows, where he could curl up and hide. Even now—on Dayna’s bad days, when the pain came roaring back and she started to cry, when his mom hosed the place down with Febreze and invited over her newest Piece of Shit date, and late at night Dodge could hear the bed frame hitting the wall, like a punch in the stomach every time—he thought about sinking into that dark space, cool and private.

Everyone at school thought Dodge was a pussy. He knew that. He looked like a pussy. He’d always been tall and skinny—angles and corners, his mom said, just like his father. As far as he knew, the angles—and the dark skin—were the only things he had in common with his dad, a Dominican roofer his mom had been with for one hot second back in Miami. Dodge could never even remember his name. Roberto. Or Rodrigo. Some shit like that.

Back when they’d first gotten stuck in Carp (that’s how he always thought about it—getting stuck —he, Dayna, and his mom were just like empty plastic bags skipping across the country on fitful bits of wind, occasionally getting snagged around a telephone pole or under the tires of some semi, pinned in place for a bit), he’d been beat up three times: once by Greg O’Hare, then by Zev Keller, and then by Greg O’Hare again , just to make sure that Dodge knew the rules. And Dodge hadn’t swung back, not once.

He’d had worse before.

And that was Dodge’s second secret, and the source of his power.

He wasn’t afraid. He just didn’t care.

And that was very, very different.

The sky was streaked with red and purple and orange. It reminded Dodge of an enormous bruise, or a picture taken of the inside of a body. It was still an hour or so before sunset and before the pot, and then the Jump, would be announced.

Dodge cracked a beer. His first and only. He didn’t want to be buzzed, and didn’t need to be either. But it had been a hot day, and he’d come straight from Home Depot, and he was thirsty.

The crowd had only just started to assemble. Periodically, Dodge heard the muffled slamming of a car door, a shout of greeting from the woods, the distant blare of music. Whippoorwill Road was a quarter mile away; kids were just starting to emerge from the path, fighting their way through the thick underbrush, swatting away hanging moss and creeper vines, carting coolers and blankets and bottles and iPod speakers, staking out patches of sand.

School was done—for good, forever. He took a deep breath. Of all the places he had lived—Chicago, DC, Dallas, Richmond, Ohio, Rhode Island, Oklahoma, New Orleans—New York smelled the best. Like growth and change, things turning over and becoming other things.

Ray Hanrahan and his friends had arrived first. That was unsurprising. Even though competitors weren’t officially announced until the moment of the Jump, Ray had been bragging for months that he was going to take home the pot, just like his brother had two years earlier.