Cecelia Ahern - Flawed

Dad is the head of a twenty-four-hour TV station, News 24, and our neighbor and other dinner guest Bob Tinder is the editor of the Daily News newspaper, which are both owned by Crevan Media, so the three of them mix business with pleasure. The Tinders are always late. I don’t know how Bob manages to stick to publication deadlines when he can never make it to dinner on time. It’s the same every year. We’ve had an hour of drinks already in the parlor and hope that moving to the dining room will somehow magically hurry them up. We’re now sitting here with three empty chairs, their daughter, Colleen, who’s in my class, being the third guest.

“We should start,” Bosco says suddenly, looking up from his phone, ending the casual chat and sitting up more formally.

“The dinner is okay,” Mom says, taking her newly filled glass of wine from Dad. “I allowed for a little delay.” She smiles.

“We should start,” Bosco says again.

“Are you in a rush?” Art asks, looking quizzically at Bosco, who suddenly seems fidgety. “The trouble with being punctual is that there’s nobody there to see it,” Art says, and everyone laughs. “As I should know, waiting for this girl all the time.” He gives my foot a light tap under the table.

“No,” I disagree. “Punctual is ‘acting or arriving exactly at the time appointed.’ You’re not punctual; you’re always ridiculously early.”

“The early bird catches the worm,” Art defends himself.

“But the second mouse gets the cheese,” I reply, and Art sticks his tongue out at me.

My little brother, Ewan, giggles. Juniper rolls her eyes.

Bosco, seemingly frustrated by our conversation, interrupts and repeats, “Summer, Cutter, we should start the meal now.”

The way he says it makes us all stop laughing immediately and turn to look at him. It was an order.

“Dad,” Art says in surprise, with an awkward half laugh. “What are you, the food police?”

Bosco doesn’t break his stare with Mom. This has an odd effect on everybody at the table, causes a tense atmosphere, the kind you sense in the air just before the thunder rolls. Heavy, humid, headache-inducing.

“You don’t think we should wait for Bob and Angelina?” Dad asks.

“And Colleen,” I add, and Juniper rolls her eyes again. She hates that I pick on every little detail, but I can’t help it.

“No, I don’t think so,” he says simply, firmly, not adding any more.

“Okay,” Mom says, standing and making her way to the kitchen, all calm and placid as if nothing happened at all, which tells me that, underneath, her legs are paddling wildly.

I look at Art in confusion and know that he feels the tension, too, because I can sense a new joke forming in his mouth, the thing that he does when he feels awkward or scared or uncomfortable. I see how his lip has started to curl at the thought of his punch line, but I never get to hear what he has to say because then we hear the sirens.

THREE

THE SIRENS RING out, long, low, warning. The sound makes me jump in my seat, startled, and it sends my heart beating wildly, every inch of me sensing danger. It is a sound I have known my entire life, a sound you never want directed at you. The Guild calls it the alert signal, three- to five-minute continuous sirens that ring out from the Guild vans, and though I never lived through any war, it gives me a sense of how people must have felt then before being attacked. In the middle of any normal moment, it can invade your happy thoughts. The sirens sound close to home and they feel sinister. We all momentarily freeze at the table, then Juniper, being Juniper, who speaks before thinking and is clumsy in her actions, jumps up first, bumps the table, and sends the glasses wobbling. Red wine splashes onto the white linen like blobs of blood. She doesn’t bother to apologize or clean it, she just runs straight out of the room. Dad is close behind her.

Mom looks completely startled, frozen in time. Drained of all color, she looks at Bosco, and I think she’s going to faint. She doesn’t even try to stop Ewan from running out the door.

The sirens get louder; they're coming closer. Art jumps up, then so do I; and I follow him down the hall and outside to where they’ve all gathered in a tight huddle in the front yard. The same is happening in each yard around us. Old Mr. and Mrs. Miller in the yard to our right hold each other tightly, looking terrified, waiting to see whose house the sirens will stop outside of. Directly across the road, Bob Tinder opens his door and steps outside. He sees Dad, and they look at each other. There’s something there, but I don’t quite understand it. At first, I think Dad is angry with Bob, but then Bob’s face holds the same stare. I can’t read them. I don’t know what’s going on. It’s a waiting game. Who will it be?

Art grips my hand tightly, squeezes it for reassurance, and tries to give me one of his winning smiles, but it’s wobbly, and too quick, and only carries the opposite effect. The sirens are almost on top of us now, the sound in our ears, in our heads. The vans turn onto our road. Two black vans with bright red F symbols branding their sides, letting everybody know who they are. The Whistleblowers are the army of the Guild, sent out to protect society from the Flawed. They are not our official police; they are responsible for taking into custody those who are morally and ethically Flawed. Criminals go to prison; they have nothing to do with the Flawed court system.

The emergency lights on the roofs of the vans spin around, rotating their red lights, so bright they almost light up the dusk sky, sending out a warning beacon to all. Clusters of families celebrating Earth Day cling to one another, hoping it’s not them, hoping one of theirs won’t be plucked from them. Not their family, not their home, not tonight. The two vans stop in the middle of the road, directly outside our house, and I feel my body start to shake. The sirens stop.

“No,” I whisper.

“They can’t take us,” Art whispers to me, and his face is so sure, so certain, that I believe him. Of course they can’t take us, we have Judge Crevan sitting in our home for dinner. We are practically untouchable. This helps my fear somewhat, but then anxiety turns to the poor, unfortunate person they are targeting. This surprises me, because I’ve always believed that the Flawed are wrong, that the Whistleblowers are on my side, protecting me. But because it is happening on my street, at my front door, that changes. It makes me feel it’s us against them. This illogical, dangerous thinking makes me shudder.

The van doors slide open, and the whistles sound as four uniformed Whistleblowers leap out, wearing their signature red vests over black combat boots and shirts. They blow their whistles as they move, which has the effect of numbing my mind and stopping me from being able to form a single thought. In my head is just panic. Perhaps that’s the intention. The Whistleblowers run, and I stand frozen.

FOUR

BUT THEY DON’T run to us; they go in the opposite direction, to the Tinders’ house.

“No, no, no,” Dad says, and I can hear the surge of anger in his voice.

“Oh my God,” Juniper whispers.

I look at Art in shock, waiting for his reaction, and he stares ahead intently, his jaw working overtime. And then I notice Mom and Bosco still haven’t joined us outside.

I let go of Art’s hand and rush back to the door. “Mom, Bosco, quick! It’s the Tinders!”

As Mom races down the corridor, hair from her chignon comes loose and falls across her face. Dad acknowledges her and shares a look that means something to the two of them, his fists opening and closing by his side. There is no sign of Bosco joining us.