Deprivation House (11 page)

“This is one of the stupidest, most irresponsible things I've ever seen.”

I put down the saw and glanced over my shoulder. Yeah, it was Veronica. Ripley, Olivia, and Wilson were clustered behind her.

“We'll have to talk about it later.” I leaned through the opening I'd created. I was relieved to see that the chunk of wood hadn't hurt anyone.

And the sound of the chainsaw must have revived Joe, James, and Bobby T. They were huddled as far away from the spot I'd gone in as possible.

“Can you guys walk?” I asked. “Can somebody get them some water?”

“I'll go,” Ripley said.

“Getting a little cooler air in here is already helping. The thermostat was jammed too,” Joe told me. He helped Bobby T over to the new “door.” Together we eased him out of the sauna.

“All I want is an ice-cold shower,” he said.

“Cool, not cold,” I said. “And first just sit for a while in the air-conditioning.”

“Are we going to have to call 911 again?” Veronica asked as James climbed through the hole. His legs were trembling.

“I don't think they have heatstroke. They're still sweating, which is good,” I answered. I got Joe out. “You okay?” I asked.

“Kind of nauseous. A headache. It's kind of like when I went on the Screaming Eagle coaster eleven
times in a row,” Joe said. Ripley handed him a bottle of water.

“Sip it,” I ordered. “You guys too,” I told James and Bobby T.

I never wanted to live through a day like that again. But I had to watch myself live it over and over. The next day a clip of me and the chainsaw was on a bunch of news shows. I figured Dad had been able to do damage control with Aunt Trudy and Mom. Otherwise they'd already have flown out here and dragged Joe and me home.

All fourteen of us spent the entire day watching anything on TV that mentioned the accident. No one was calling it anything but an accident, even though anyone who had looked at the door or the thermostat knew it wasn't one. I figured Veronica had managed to do some spin when she leaked the tapes.

She'd definitely gotten the door and thermostat out of sight fast. Mitch had practically dismantled the sauna before Joe and I could check it out for evidence.

We were still in the great room late that night—make that a quarter of the great room. Everyone seemed to want to stay close together. There hadn't been any real protests when Veronica had
announced that we were losing the use of most of the bathrooms. We'd only have two to share from now on. I bet if she'd tried to pull the plug on the TV, there would have been a riot.

Now we were watching
The Midnight Hour
. No one had gone to bed yet, not even Mary or Hal, and they usually crashed pretty early.

Bobby T kept only half an eye on the plasma. He kept checking the counter on his blog. “I'm getting so many hits,” he told us all. “I'm telling you, death sells. Even near death. And I had two near deaths in two days. Plus the death threats that we all got.”

He sounded way too happy. Maybe it's because he really needed money, like Olivia said. If he could get the option on his blog renewed and the movie made, he could get out of debt, whether he won the contest or not.

My spine went cold as I pictured my brother, James, and Bobby T passed out in the sauna.Could Bobby T have sabotaged the door and the thermo-stat? He could have rigged the door to jam when it closed. And he could have rigged the thermo-stat earlier in the day. Could he be desperate enough to risk his own life to get more hits on his blog?

“I'm trying to decide which clip got more play—Ripley's or Frank's,” Mikey said.

“Like we care,” James muttered.

“Actually, both were Bobby T clips,” Bobby T reminded everyone.

“I did a quick calculation,” Rosemary said. “Frank's
clip ran twenty-two percent more often.”

“Which is so unfair!” Ripley exclaimed. “I'm the celebrity. I've been in
People
magazine. I was a guest host on
The Scene.
”

“You've been in
Star
magazine a lot,” Brynn added.

Ripley glared at her. “I was in
Forest of Blood 4
.”

“Oh, right. That was you who got killed off right in the beginning,” said Mikey.

“If I give you a thousand dollars, will you just shut your mouth?” Ripley screamed at him. She whirled toward Brynn. “You too!”

I was seeing the PR problem now.

Ripley covered her face with her hands. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I'm really sorry. I'll leave now.”

“Don't go,” Brynn said. “So you had a hissy fit. It's okay. You're stressed. We're all stressed.”

“I'm stressed!” Kit howled. “I have had no caffeine since yesterday morning.”

“That's actually supposed to make you calmer,” put in Mary.

“I'm unique, okay?” Kit screeched.

“See?” Brynn said to Ripley. “Kit just had herself a full-on hissy too. It's no big.”

“But everyone is going to see mine.” Ripley shook her head. “You know they're going to use that on the show. That's the Ripley people want to see—
insane, spoiled Ripley. That five seconds will probably be on every commercial.”

She was probably right.

“Aw, poor little rich girl,” James snarked.

“Who has a piece of paper?” asked Brynn.

Hal tore a piece off the bottom of his current planet sketch and handed it to her. She wiggled her fingers, and he handed her the pen, too. Brynn curled her left hand around the paper and wrote something down. “Pass it to Rip,” she told me.

I made sure to read it without looking like I was reading it as I gave the note to Ripley. It's not a cool thing to do, but Joe and I needed to know everything that was going on in this place. Things were getting too dangerous to miss any clue.

The note said: “I bet Mitch could erase a few minutes of film. Oopsie!”

Ripley smiled when she read what Brynn had written. “Sorry again, everyone. I—”

“Brian's talking about the show in his monologue,” Kit cried.

Everyone's attention snapped back to the TV. “Nobody knows what this new show's about,” Brian, host of
The Midnight Hour
, was saying. “But I think it's finally happened. We're going to get to watch an actual death, live on TV. And as a bonus, it's going to be the death of an American teen. And
they all deserve it, don't they? It's not as if they're going to take care of us in our old age. Selfish monsters.”

Rosemary stood up.

“You going to bed?” Kit asked her.

Rosemary didn't answer. She walked over to the intercom by the door and pressed the talk button. “Veronica, I want the fifty thousand dollars. I want to leave here tonight.”

“Interesting. That's not the way I thought it would go,” Veronica immediately answered through the com. “I'll make out the check. You go pack up your things.”

“Rosemary, no!” Mikey exclaimed. “Don't leave.”

“He's right.” Rosemary jerked her head toward the plasma, where Brian was still doing his monologue. “Someone is going to die here. The attempts are coming very close together. Four out of the fourteen of us have already been affected.” She sucked in a deep breath. “That isn't a good percentage.”

“Rosemary—,” Wilson began.

James interrupted him. “She wants to go, she should go. Don't you understand the concept of competition? Less people, better chance of winning.”

“Rosemary, at least think about it a little more,” said Wilson.

“It's all I have been thinking about,” she answered. “I want to win. I want a million dollars. But I want to stay alive more. And leaving Deprivation House now is the best way to do that.”

“A
ll right, everyone. Are you ready to hear about your next competition?” Veronica asked. She stood in front of the fountain, dressed in a peach outfit. She had a toy poodle as an accessory. It was dyed to match her suit.

There were mumbles and grunts in response.

“Where's the enthusiasm?” Veronica exclaimed. The poodle yipped. “You're competing to win a million dollars, and all I see is sluggishness and lack of ambition.”

“I'm ready! Yeah!” James gave a fist pump. “I'm gonna stomp on the slugs! Yeah!”

Veronica closed her eyes briefly. “Thank you, James. Now, how many of you have ever had a pet?”

The majority of hands went up. Rosemary would have had the exact percentage calculated in a second.

“And how many of you swore that you'd take care of the pet in every way, but ended up letting Mommy or the maid do it?” Veronica asked.

Less hands, but still quite a few.

“Well, at Deprivation House, as you're finding out, you do your own chores,” she said. “Today you'll be washing the dog. With these.” She nodded to Mitch. He moved from person to person, passing out toothbrushes. “And only these. You're not allowed to use your fingers to scrub the beasties.”

“Whew, Mitch, you smell foul, my man,” Kit said as she got her toothbrush. “It's a preview of what we have to deal with, isn't it?”

“'Fraid so,” answered Mitch.

“What if one of us has a small dog phobia?” Mikey asked. “Not a phobia of small dogs. A small fear of dogs.”

Veronica smiled at him. “Then one of us won't have much of a chance of winning.”

“That's right,” James said smugly.

There were times I wished James was the perp, just so I could help put him away. But ATAC agents are trained to keep their emotions out of their missions, so I ignored those wishes.

“You'll find the dogs out behind the tennis
courts. Each dog's collar has one of your names on it. Whoever gets his or her dog cleanest in an hour wins.” She made shooing motions with her hands.

We all raced to the dogs. They were tied with long leashes to hitching posts that had been positioned all over the field. I ran to the closest “empty” pup—a floppy-eared hound dog. A stinky, floppy-eared hound dog. I didn't know what he'd been rolling in and I didn't want to know. Whatever it was seemed to involve chunks. I checked his collar. “This one's yours, Wilson,” I called.

Maybe that wasn't the best strategy. I was helping the competition. But Frank won't let me keep the money anyway. . . .

“Joe, this guy's yours!” I heard Ripley yell. She pointed to an extremely large—I was thinking 160 pounds large—extremely hairy Newfoundland. Oh, well. At least Newfies were known for their great temperament.

“You won't mind getting scrubbed with a toothbrush, will you, boy?” I asked when I reached him. I was glad to see that a hose, shampoo, and towel were sitting in a bucket next to the dog.

I studied Hairy—I had to call him something, and I thought Putrid might get us off on the wrong foot. What was the best way to approach this? I wondered if I should use the towel to get off at least
the top layer of . . . I really didn't want to look too close.

No, I decided. There was only one towel. I'd have to burn it if I touched Hairy with it right now, and then I wouldn't have anything to dry him off with later. “Here's the plan,” I told him. “First we rinse.”

I turned on the hose and started spraying Hairy down. Some of the chunks ran off his fur. A lot stayed stuck to him.

Hairy turned his head toward me and gave a low growl.

“What's the problem?” I asked him, still spraying him. “You guys are supposed to love water. Pull drowning sailors out of the ocean and all that. Are you telling me this is bothering you?”

Hairy gave me a don't-play-me stare. When his fur was saturated with water, which took awhile, because probably twenty of those 160 pounds had to be hair, I turned off the hose. “Okay, we're done with that. Now I'm going to give you a nice toothbrush massage. All the better dogs are having them. Look around, you'll see.”

I pointed to Ripley and an Afghan hound. Hairy didn't seem impressed. “Okay, it was a stupid thing to say,” I told him as I crouched down next to him. I popped the top of the soap and put dabs of it all the way down his back.