The Revealers (17 page)

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Authors: Doug Wilhelm

BOOK: The Revealers
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When I came in the next morning I saw a note taped to my locker door. I had a quick jolt of hope that it was from Elliot or Catalina. But when I unfolded it, I recognized the handwriting.
Hi there, Smart Boy—
Guess you got outsmarted, huh?
Under that someone else had written:
Yeah—welcome back to loserland. You messed with the wrong people!
signed, your friends (NOT)
I stuffed it in my pocket and went to homeroom, the last place on earth I wanted to be.
The short letter we had written the day before had been photocopied and put at everyone's place on the black lab tables. Nothing was said about it. Nothing. People just read the words Mrs. Capelli had told us we had to say:
Dear Fellow Students,
A story that was published on SchoolStream a few days ago, by us, was not true. This story said that a student had asked someone else to write some of her work. There was no truth to this story at all.
We are sorry for this mistake. It was a very serious mistake, and we apologize for making it.
Sincerely,
Catalina Aarons
Elliot Gekewicz
Russell Trainor
Kids read it and put it down and looked at each other. People whispered. Then most of them folded the paper up and put it in their notebooks. Or they just left it there.
Next to me, Chris Kuppel leaned over and whispered, “What happened?”
I shrugged.
“Well?” he said. “What?”
I didn't say anything. The black tabletop looked almost like reptile skin. Like it had scales. Then with a click and a quick whine, the PA system came on.
“Good morning, boys and girls,” Mrs. Capelli said, like she always did. She read the morning announcements. Then she said, “Also today, boys and girls, we have a special announcement. Mr. Dallas would like to tell you about it. So I'm going to turn the microphone over to him.”
There was a shuffling sound, then a man cleared his voice. “Ah … thank you. Yes. Good morning. This is—ahm, well, this is not actually an announcement I would like to tell you about at all. But it's my responsibility to tell you.”
We could hear him take a deep breath.
“Owing to some … controversial use of the SchoolStream system, I am sorry to say that as of two weeks from
today, student use of the network will be restricted to the Library level of access. This will affect all students. This change—well, I'm sorry.” He cleared his throat. “This change will be permanent.”
There was a
thunk
as he shut off the microphone. In a few seconds there was a click and Mrs. Capelli came back on. She led us through the Pledge of Allegiance. But in our class the kids barely mumbled along. They were just staring at each other.
“Are they
serious?”
Big Chris whispered to me. There was a windstorm of whispering now, all over the room. A lot of people were turning to look at me, then turning away.
Chris held up our letter. He said, “These things are connected, aren't they?” I nodded.
“Well, geez, Russell, what
happened?”
I pulled the note from my locker out of my pocket. I unfolded it and pushed it over to him.
He read it. He squinted at it.
“I don't get it,” he said.
I shrugged. “We got set up.”
He looked at me, then back at the note. “By who?”
I shrugged again.
Chris started studying the note, peering really closely at it. He kept looking at it. Finally he handed it back. I put it away. Chris sat back and crossed his arms. He looked really bothered.
“Man,” he finally said. He shook his head. “That is just …
man”.
 
“I'd like to start today with a current-events discussion,” Ms. Hogeboom said in social studies, coming around to perch on the front of her desk.
She looked around the room. “Just the other day, some of you were suggesting that if Anne Frank had had access to
the Internet—if the world had been networked in those days, the way it is now—then maybe somehow she would have eluded her fate. I know you weren't sure about that, but it was definitely an interesting idea. Especially because you've had your own network in school this year.”
There was shuffling and murmuring. There were a lot of frowns.
“Okay? People? Now, we all heard the announcement this morning. I can tell you it was as unexpected to me as I think it was to you. But I guess you're going to go to a restricted-access setup. I wonder what you think about that.”
“We think it sucks,” said Jake Messner loudly.
“Uh … Jake?”
“It's supposed to be a network for learning, and they're shutting out the students,” he said. “What's
that
about?”
“Well … I can understand how you could see it that way,” she said.
“It's not the administration's fault,” Leah Sternberg piped up. “We had a meeting of the Student Council this morning.”
“So whose fault is it?” Jake said.
“I think that's pretty clear.”
“Not to me. Why don't you explain it to me?”
Leah sat up straight, hands folded on her desk. “A few students were abusing the system,” she said. “There were stories of violence and … abuse against students being spread on the network. At least one of them was definitely untrue. We all know about that.” She looked around for backup. I remembered how just a few days ago, Leah Sternberg was telling us how
The Revealer
was doing
so
much good for our school.
“A few students ruined it for everyone else,” she said.
Bethany was sitting up front. She slightly, just slightly, rippled her hair.
“Well … I'm not looking to rub salt into anyone's wounds,” Ms. Hogeboom said. “Maybe we shouldn't …”
“What if things aren't always the way they seem?”
Ms. Hogeboom looked puzzled. “Chris? What do you mean?”
Big Chris sat back. He rubbed his chin, and looked around.
“There are a couple of people in this class who know what I mean,” he said. “Isn't that right, Bethany?”
Bethany looked straight ahead.
Chris said, “You know … I think maybe Burke would know, too. You know what I mean, Burke?”
Burke Brown shot a fast, dark look at Big Chris. Chris nodded. “I saw something you wrote, man. I know your handwriting.” Chris smiled. He said, “I wonder what I might mean by that?”
I saw Burke sneak a look at Bethany. Then he saw me and glared back.
Ms. Hogeboom said, “Could we … could we please talk in terms that the whole class can follow?” She looked at Chris, at Burke, at Bethany. “Is this relevant to our discussion?”
Burke said, “No, 'cause it doesn't make any sense. Especially because some people don't know who their friends are. Or used to be.”
There was a lot of murmuring.
“All right,” Ms. Hogeboom said. “Why don't we …”
“I don't know what any of
that'
s about,” said Allison Kukovna, “but I think this is a total tragedy for the whole school. I don't understand why one mistake should ruin it for everybody.”
Elliot was looking down at his desk. Catalina's face had turned back to the mask. Neither of them looked at me.
“Well, that's life,” said Jon Blanchette, and he grinned.
“Yeah,” said a voice in the back. It was Turner.
“They've got us where they want us,” he said. “That sure is life.”
“Could this be the last comment before we move on?” Ms. Hogeboom said. “Turner, do you have a point to make?”
Turner shrugged. “This fake-story thing was an excuse to shut us off. Period. They never wanted us linked up to each other in the first place.”
People were looking at him with baffled expressions.
“Oh sure, they'd like us to stay plugged in—by ourselves,” Turner said. “But they don't want you
talking
to each other. They don't want you telling your stories. Oh sure, it's fine if it's on television. But not the
real
stories.”
“Well, this is interesting,” Ms. Hogeboom said.
“We're teenagers now, okay?” Turner said. “From now on they don't want to hear from us. You watch. If we do regular teenager things, and get in regular teenager trouble now and then, they'll
worry
about us. They love to do that. And they'll complain about us, of course. But if we start telling people the truth, if we say things they don't want people to hear, they will do everything they can to shut us up. They'll shut us out. They'll take us off the
network.”
Turner sat back, and shrugged. “Yeah. That's life all right.”
“But,” Ms. Hogeboom said, “the school invested thousands of dollars in this network.”
“Yeah,” said Jake, “until we started
using
it. So now we'll only be able to get stuff on the system that the school wants us to get.”
“Like homework assignments,” said Allison, nodding.
“And stuff from the library,” said Chris.
“Well. A lot of materials, actually,” Ms. Hogeboom said.
“Oh sure,” Jake said. “We just won't be able to talk to each other. What's
that
about?”
“Oh, come on—we talk to each other all the time,” said Leah Sternberg. “We are not like hiding in secret annexes. We have telephones, we have computers, we still have the Internet. We have plenty of choices.”
“But this one was a little too powerful,” Jake said.
“It was too connected,” Turner added from the back. “Look, they've got a brand-new CD-rewritable machine in the computer lab. You can put 640 megs of multimedia on a disk—words, pictures, sound, video, whatever you want. They
want
you to use that. Just as long as you stay plugged in by yourself. See, that's safe. It's like a glorified Game Boy.”
The class didn't say anything. Finally, Ms. Hogeboom said, “Well, I think that's a very challenging viewpoint. And I don't mean to cut things off, but I think that's a good place to stop. We still have twenty minutes, and I happen to have this twenty-minute historic film about Amsterdam and the legacy of Anne Frank. If someone could just get the lights—wait, let me plug this in. Okay. Lights?”
And then we had darkness, and the old, flickering black and white.
 
In the hall after class, Bethany and Burke were together. She whispered something to him. He looked up to see me.
“Hey, smart boy,” Burke said. “What you got to say now?”
I didn't say anything.
“Gee,” said Burke, “I don't see your tough-guy friend anywhere. Do I? Actually, I don't see your weenie friends either. Where'd all your friends go, smart boy?”
Bethany was behind him, smirking at me.
“Don't have much to say, huh?” Burke said. “Well, you know what? Neither do I. I just want to make sure you understand that you are right back where you belong, you and your friends.
If
they're still your friends.”
He stood in my way. “This is the natural order, kid,” he said. “You're on the bottom—and this time, you are going to stay there.”
He stepped away. Bethany started walking down the hall with him. He said something to her and she laughed.

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