Caged

10 - Box

Atlas gets up and quietly walks around the room, not attracting any attention in the bustling room.  He kneels down next to me at the end of the table as everyone around us talks about who is here and who is not.

“They’re going to shush us soon,” Atlas says, stern, affirmative.  “No one make a scene.  Velvet, you’re her roommate, right?  Have you seen Elena’s handwriting before?”

The words are caught in the back of my throat.  I’m breathing unnaturally, and I bet my heartbeat is unnatural as well.

I turn around, suddenly frantic.  I can feel the red flush in my cheeks.  This is embarrassing, but my body is acting on impulse, without telling my mind just what it thinks it is doing.

“I can’t lose her, Dalton,” I say.  “She’s the only friend I’ve ever had –– and that sounds so pathetic, but you saw me in Second School.  You know, Dalton, or you should –– we just have to get her.  We have to get her or––” My impulses kick in and I say the first thing that comes to my mind.  “Or I’m leaving –– in her place.”

“Slow down, Sydney Carton, you’re both staying,” Atlas says.

“Who’s Sydney Carton?”

“She’s younger than you think, Atlas.  She hasn’t read that book,” Dalton explains, then urges Atlas to continue while I try to ignore the slight annoyance in Dalton’s voice, almost like it was there just because I hadn’t read whatever book Atlas was referring to.

“Well if you’ve seen her signature or her name written down, you know how she writes her capital letters for her initials.  It’s something the Panel or the Advisers or someone will check, to make sure no one is lying.”  Atlas points at me.  “There’s where you come in.”

“I can do it,” Gray’s little voice pipes up from behind Atlas.  We all look at him, confused, but Gray just shakes his head.  “I’ve seen her handwriting before.  She wrote me directions through the Manor, just today.”

“They’ll know––”

Gray shakes his head again, and it makes me stop rambling.  “I can easily slip back into the crowd and initial her name, hopefully without anyone noticing.  I’m little, remember?”

“But you have little boy handwriting,” I say, and it slips out so fast I can’t stop it.  It makes Dalton laugh.

Gray puts on a fake look of hurt.  “Hey, I could have beautiful, calligraphic handwriting for all you know.”

Atlas runs his hand through Gray’s messy hair and pushes it all to the front, making him look even younger than he is.  “Okay, feisty, it’s your time to shine.”

As if on cue, Gaetan shushes us all loudly and sharply and orders us to begin initialing.  A mass crowd forms, but it’s smaller than I anticipated.  It makes me feel both excited and tense.  It’s thinning down, but I’m still in it.

I have a terrible gut feeling that this won’t work, and that Gray will be caught and thrown out of Testing just because I made a friend and want to keep her.  I want to vocalize this fear, but it’s too late.  Everyone is silent, and I’m afraid that the next one who talks will be asked to leave the Manor just to be made an example of.

A thought punches me in the gut –– Carissa.  She’s heard everything I just said, and Dalton, Atlas, and Gray’s Listeners heard them.  I don’t think Carissa would sell me down the river like that, but I’m not so sure about the rest.

Come on, Elena, I think, anxious and vexed.  You spend every waking minute socializing and surrounded by the group unless it actually counts.