The Ducks of San Sebastian

Chapter 10

Novel-Tea had been deemed too conspicuous of a location for Priya's grand reveal: people spoke freely there, as much of an indulgence as the boba. It was deemed that Pavilion Park was also too close to prying eyes, and so in a concession to how far Marco had journeyed those past few weeks, they met at Foghorn Park under a willow tree, Marco, Jessica, and Priya.

"The weather's so great today," Jessica remarked, unfolding a picnic blanket she had brought with her in a remarkable bit of foresight. "It reminds me a bit of a painting, I'm forgetting the name. With all the picnickers by the water."

"A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte," Priya said in her best French accent. "I saw it in Chicago once—at least I think it was Chicago."

"Wow, you're so artistic," Jessica said. "So anyway: what's the deal?"

"So I was on Wattpad the other day, as any high schooler does—"

"What were you doing on Wattpad?" Jessica laughed.

"Reading Minecraft YouTuber fanfic. But anyway, there was a book that was recommended to me on my front page, called Pale Embers, and that's not really a special name or anything, but the username was 'onewongmakesawriter' and her location was set as the Bay Area, and because I know that I am a puppet for the gods' amusement and everything is predestined, I thought that was interesting enough to click on. And I think it's best if I just read you some of this."

Priya began reading out loud in the most valley girl voice she could muster: "'Hi, my name is Mary Hsu (you can pronounce that like shoe or Sue if you want but it's a Chinese name, OK), and I am so excited because today is my first day of high school! So I woke up and went to my dresser and put on some clothes and looked at myself in the mirror. I was wearing skinny jeans and this cute blue shirt and I—'"

"Don't tell me..." Marco muttered.

"'—combed my hair because I wanted to look great for my first day of high school and make a good first impression! Then my friend Lisa called me (we have been friends for like so long you wouldn't believe) and I picked up the phone while putting on makeup and brushing my teeth. 'OMG Mary, my friend since kindergarten, I'm so excited for my first day of high school at Teller High School, the fanciest most competitive school in our district!' Lisa gushed vigorously.'" Priya paused after the dialogue tag, seemingly unsatisfied with her own attempt at gushing vigorously while reading the line.

"Yep," Priya said. "Any brainiacs in the room want to guess who wrote this?"

"This is private," Jessica protested. "We shouldn't be reading this. We've found her anonymous account on Wattpad, where she's probably just posting her own little stories in her corner of the internet as a way to blow off steam. It's unfair we're digging up her dirty laundry."

"It's not quite private," Priya said. "She has a lot of reads."

"How many?" Jessica asked. "A few hundred?"

"Thousand."

"A few thousand?"

"A few hundred thousand. And this goes on for a while too, it's at like eighty chapters right now. Still gets updated every few weeks."

"President Frank did say literature is important for a healthy body and a healthy mind," Marco quipped.

"If he saw how he was depicted in this—I mean, how 'Romeo' is depicted in this—he'd scream. Let me read on."

Priya continued, once again adopting her valley girl voice: "'His hazel orbs bored into me with the force of a thousand suns. "My name is Romeo," he purred deeply. "I would be most enthused if I could perambulate with you toward the assembly," he said in a sexy British accent (I like British accents) and held his hand toward me. I took it and Lisa screamed and fainted and Romeo and I walked toward the assembly.'"