Adam Levin - The Instructions

I turned over the petition and wrote:

Remus,

To be on the Side of Damage is to be a defiance. So be a defiance. Spread the word by mouth during the passing-period. Return this note to me for safekeeping as soon as you’re done reading it — we are stealth here.

— Gurion ben-Judah Maccabee

I tossed it over the wall and then broke the face-forward rule again.

On the side of the Cage perpendicular to mine, Ronrico tossed a note to Eliyahu who passed it on to Vincie while Jelly tossed a second note to Mangey, who got it to Nakamook. Botha was still shuffling papers, but the teachers at the cluster — Mr. Powell and Ms. O’Connor — weren’t occupied, and Mr. Powell was looking right at my friends, and Ms. O’Connor was looking right at me, and neither of them were doing anything about the rules that were getting broken. Peculiar, I thought.

But then I thought: Is it?

I tried to remember the last time someone in the Cage got a step from one of the teachers at the cluster. Mine always came from Botha.

The note came back to me:

You can call me Chunkstyle if you want, Gurion. I mean it. It is good to have a nickname when your parents named you Remus. Before the Cage, I was Rabbit because of Uncle Remus, but that was always too obvious and I hadn’t discovered tuna yet. I hear you are in love with Eliza June Watermark. I know how it feels because it’s the same with me and Barbara Mingle, only she won’t even talk to me because I didn’t act like a gentleman. I don’t know what to do.

I wrote:

Your love for Barbara Mingle is only a smellyweak version. Anna Boshka is where it’s at. Open your eyes. She’s ten times prettier than Mingle and already fluent in two languages, plus not married. If you fall in love with her, she’ll let you cup her cheeks, I bet, and probably she’ll cup yours, too, if you want that. Find a ceramic dolphin that opens up to reveal another ceramic dolphin which opens up to reveal a third that contains a fourth and so on. Then buy the dolphin, give it to Boshka, and tell her you’ll quit eating tuna before she has to ask you, and make sure you do it before you kiss her. And get this note back to me.

I tossed it over the wall. I tried again to remember a time when a teacher at the cluster had handed out a step, and I couldn’t. Even if there was such a time, though — even if there were two or three or even ten such times — they were obviously exceptions; if they weren’t exceptions, I’d have had a much easier time remembering them.

But so why didn’t the teachers ever — or hardly ever — give us steps, then? According to the Cage Handbook, they were allowed to.

I got half a rush, thinking the teachers were on the Side of Damage, too, and they just didn’t know it.

But then I saw it couldn’t be true.

To be on the Side of Damage meant nothing if not to be against the Arrangement. You could not be against the Arrangement without being against the STEP System, and in classrooms outside of the Cage, where the teachers at the cluster spent most of their time, they all handed out steps left and right. I’d never been in a normal classroom at Aptakisic, but everyone else in the Cage had been, and for the most part it was the teachers at the cluster who’d sent them here.

But then why would the teachers act different inside the Cage?

I thought of a few possible reasons. It could have been they were scared of us — that they knew we were more dangerous than the students in their regular classrooms, and so thought it was too risky to make us angry; that maybe the reason they got so many of us sent to the Cage in the first place was so they wouldn’t have to be scared of us in their regular classrooms.

It could have been they thought we were hopeless — that even though they were pro — STEP System, they didn’t think Cage kids were good enough to benefit from the STEP System, and so we weren’t worth the time it would take to discipline us and fill out the paperwork.

Or maybe the paperwork part was right, but it had nothing to do with hopelessness; maybe they were just lazy and uncaring and knew that Botha would do their dirty work.

A benefit-of-the-doubt way to think of them was that they didn’t like the STEP System at all, that they only gave steps when in their classrooms because the Arrangement demanded that they do so, while inside the Cage the Arrangement allowed them to give steps but didn’t demand that they give steps and so they didn’t give steps. Maybe in their hearts, they were on our side. Maybe they weren’t so much fingers and robots of the Arrangement; maybe they were the Arrangement’s fiefs and draftees.

But then maybe they had nothing in their hearts. Or maybe their hearts were confused. I couldn’t see into their hearts with any more clarity than I could Slokum’s face.

Chunkstyle sent the note back over the wall.

Anna Boshka is ten times prettier, maybe even twelve times prettier, and I will try to fall in love with her eventually, but before I can move on I need Barbara Mingle to forgive me for my uncomely and inexplicable behavior that was untoward at her. I can’t wait to tell everyone to be a defiance. Thank you for the privilege. Down with the Arrangement!

I decided it didn’t matter what was in the teachers’ hearts. At least not yet. Whatever was in their hearts, they never once protected us from Botha. And they could have. Or at least they could have tried to. Even if they were fiefs and draftees, their toil and their soldiering was good for the Arrangement. That was what mattered.

Soon the end-of-class tone complained and Miss Pinge’s voice came through the speaker to introduce the announcement-maker. To be an announcement-maker, you had to have stayed below step 4 and gotten nothing lower than a C for the entire quarter prior to the one during which you’d do the announcement. Also, you had to write your own introduction.

Miss Pinge said, “Performing today’s announcements will be Tanya Taylor.” Then she read the introduction: “‘Tanya is in the eighth grade, and has made honor roll every quarter since she’s been at Aptakisic. Last year she won bronze at the State Science Fair, and this year she aims to bring home the gold. And don’t worry, Girls’ Varsity Volleyball — Tanya isn’t talking just about science. As team captain, she’s going to apply herself on the court, too. She wants to give a shout-out to the team, and as for the rest of you Indians, she wants you to know that this year will be a great year for Aptakisic. And in case any of the rest of the junior highs in the conference are listening, she wants to tell them that they’re gonna get served, and when Tanya says served, she means on the court. So bring your A-games, Rand Middle and Twin Groves and Longfellow Middle, bring your A-games Sandberg and Frost — bring your A-games all you want, but understand the curve’s getting blown by Ms. Taylor and company. Understand how even though it’s your A-game you’re bringing, you’re a C-student anyway because you’re coming into the house of Tanya, and even a ten-ton semi looks small when it’s parked in front of the Sears Tower, unless it’s packed with explosives, and it’s not! Go Indians!’ And here she is: Tanya Taylor.”

“Um, thank you, Miss Pinge,” said Tanya.

I had no idea who she was, but she didn’t sound like the person who had written her introduction. She sounded scared, and she kept mumbling and screwing up the punctuation of the announcements.

“Today’s big news. Is that tomorrow, at the pep-rally for the opening. Game of the basketball season Boystar and a special guest will. Perform a song off the new Boystar album Emotional Eyes and the performance will be filmed for use in the first Boystar video we’ll be dancing in our seats and—”