"He's right," Phoebe said. "I read something that said the documentation on the living impaired is very poor because so many of our laws were put into question all at once. There was a bill calling for the mandatory registration ..."
"The Undead Citizens Act," Angela said. "One of the first of many fear-inspired bills to be shot down in Congress. Senator Mallory from Idaho introduced it by comparing differently biotic people to illegal immigrants."
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"Many ...parents ... do not want anyone to know ...their child ...has died," Evan said. "My parents ...kept my death ...out of the paper."
"No health care, ha-ha," Karen said. "I can't even get a library card."
"You're making a joke," Angela said, "but this really is a serious issue. You can't legally leave the country. You can't vote or drive."
"They want ... to draft ...us ...though," Tayshawn said.
"That's true. There's legislation that calls for the mandatory conscription of all differently biotic persons within three weeks of their traditional death."
"How can they do that?" Phoebe asked. "Some of them are only thirteen years old and we're thinking of sending them into war? That doesn't make any sense."
"It makes great sense," Tommy said, "if one wants to get rid ...of us."
"I'm not sure the government wants to wait around for their shadow organization to take us all out," Karen said. "I guess it would ... be quicker to have us all registered and shipped to the Middle East."
Adam looked at her. "Why do you think it is a government organization?"
"Who else would have the funding or the need? If the undead rights movement succeeds, if Proposition 77 passes, it will mean that the government will be spending a considerable amount of tax dollars to ...deal ...with building the
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infrastructure. It is probably more ...cost effective ... to buy some black suits and flamethrowers."
"Do you feel that you can help in any way? Or is the situation completely beyond control?" Angela asked.
Tommy spoke first. "I think ... we need to continue ... to remind people ... we are here. We need to challenge the perceptions ... of the living."
"We need to get us some guns," Tayshawn said.
Adam wondered if he was the only one to notice the sudden lack of pauses in Tayshawn's speech.
"Let's take a break," Angela suggested.
When class was dismissed and they started heading down the long gray corridor and out to the portico, where the foundation van--the blue foundation van, Phoebe noted--awaited them, she decided she would cast a spell to break up the cloud of disillusionment.
"Hey, Tommy." Phoebe bumped into him with her shoulder.
He looked at her.
"Yes," she said.
It took him a moment to figure out what she meant, but once he had it, he gave her a wide smile, and she leaned into him with her shoulder again before skipping ahead of him down the hall.
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***
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
P HOEBE BROKE HER BIG NEWS at the dinner table, which even she would admit, in retrospect, had not been the wisest thing to do.
"I'm going to go to homecoming this year," she said. "I'm going to go with Tommy Williams."
Her mother was beaming, but only because she didn't see her husband's reaction. He'd just lifted a spoonful of his wife's French onion soup--one of his favorites--to his lips, and was about to slurp it down. Then he lowered the spoon.
"Tommy Williams?" he said. "Isn't that the dead kid?" Her mom gasped.
"They're called differently biotic now, Dad," Phoebe said, unable to keep from raising her voice.
"I don't care what they are called, you aren't going to any dance with a dead kid."
"What?"
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"Honey," Mom said, "is this true? You want to go to a dance with a differently biotic boy?"
"What does it matter what...what biotic he is?"
"For God's sake, Phoebe, being friends is fine; a little weird, maybe, but fine," her father said. "But going out on a date ? What is that? Why can't you go out with the Ramirez kid or someone? Or Adam?"
"Because Tommy asked me!"
"Really, Phoebe?" her mom said again. "A differently biotic boy?"
"I knew that something was up when you asked me to take you to the football game," her father said.
"Nothing is up . Tommy is just a ..."
"But I figured I'd go along with it..."
"... a friend, we're friends ..."
"... because I hoped that you were finally developing some normal, healthy interests."
"Normal, healthy interests?" she said, her voice shrill even to her own ears.
"Yeah," her dad said, glowering. "Like in boys! Living boys!"
Phoebe looked at her dad, slapped the table, and got up.
"You just sit right down, young lady," he said. Instead she got up and stomped off to her room.
She shut her door--barely managing to keep from slamming it, because that was what they would expect her to do. She turned her stereo on full blast and fell onto her bed.
Her mom came in a while later.
"Hi, Phee," she said, knocking on the door as she opened it.
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"Hi," Phoebe said, trying not to sniffle. Her mom sat down next to her on the bed and smoothed out her bedspread.
"Your dad doesn't mean to be a bully," she said. "It just happens sometimes."
"I know," Phoebe said, starting to cry again. "It's a lot to take in. But we really are just friends."
"That's good, dear."
They were quiet a moment, and Phoebe closed her eyes and let her mother run her fingernails through her hair.
"My hair was never this black, or as shiny. You know that Dad just wants the best for you. We both do."
"I know, Mom."
"So you know why we would be concerned by you going to a dance with a ...with a differently biotic. Is that the term?"
"I guess so," Phoebe said. "But really, it's just a dance." She sat up and tried to read her mother's expression.
"Phoebe," her mom began, "high school is a very special time. A very special time, but a very short time. You get a few good years, the last really protected years of your life. Pretty soon you'll be off to college, and then to a career, and who knows what."
Phoebe thought about Colette and the others, and she wondered how much of anyone's time really was protected. But she remained silent and let her mother build up to whatever point she was trying to make.
"Phoebe, can you imagine going through the scrapbook twenty years from now, and looking back on what is supposed to be the best time of your life? Can you imagine sifting through
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prom pictures and yearbooks, and there you are, standing with a dead boy in a tuxedo? Is that really what you want?"
Phoebe's eyes welled up again. She felt as though she'd been slapped. Almost as if she were watching the exchange between her and her mother, and she knew that deep down, this would be the moment she remembered--her parents reaction to one of the first things that really mattered to her.
"Do you understand what I'm saying, Phoebe?" her mom said. "Is that what you really want for a memory?"
Phoebe closed her eyes and waited a long moment before opening them.
"Mom," she said, "I understand what you are saying."
"I knew you would, honey."
Phoebe breathed deeply. "But I think you need some understanding, too. The best times of your life that you are talking about--Tommy and the other kids don't get to have those times, do you see? Those times were taken from them. What will they have for memories? Getting rocks thrown at them by school kids? Spending prom night hiding out because they were afraid somebody might drag them into a field and set them on fire?"
"So this is an act of charity?"
"No. No, it is an act of friendship . I keep trying to tell you and Dad that, but you aren't listening."
"Phoebe," her da
d said from the doorway. "It isn't just that. Do you remember the crowd from the football game? What do you think they'll do if they catch wind that a living impaired kid is taking a real live girl to a school dance? Then it won't be just him that is getting pelted with rocks. It'll be you."
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"Dad ...."
"Listen to me for a minute, Phoebe. Do you know what it would do to your mother and me if something happened to you? You saw those people. They were nuts. Do you know what it would do to us if you got hurt?"
Phoebe sat up on her bed. At once her tears seemed to dry up.
"I could get hurt," she said.
Her dad folded his arms and leaned against her doorway.
"I could get hurt a thousand ways. They could throw rocks. The bus could crash. Someone could dump a bucket of pig's blood over my head, and I could make the school explode with my telepathetic powers."
"Phoebe ..."
"Wait, Dad. Wait. What if I did get hurt? What if I was killed; what if I died?"
"Don't get hysterical, Phoebe."
"I'm just asking the question. What if I died? I don't think Colette's parents figured they would have to think that one through, either."
Her parents looked uncomfortable.
"Well?" Phoebe said. "Would you want me to come back?"
"Of course we would," they said as one.
Phoebe hadn't been sure of the answer, but now that she had it she was glad she'd asked.
"Tommy's mom wanted him to come back, too. And he did, and that's the way the world is now. We can pretend, but we can't really hide it. And you can pretend that you can protect
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me so every decision I'm going to make in life is going to be free from consequence, but you can't. Every action has consequences. I could go to the dance, and the worst that could happen is that Tommy could feel normal for a little while. Maybe I'll even have fun. Or maybe I'll get yelled at and shunned and have to sneak out the back. But you know what? I'd rather live with the consequences of my choice than live with the consequences of fear. Your fear."
Her dad sighed. "Nice speech."
Phoebe's eyes narrowed.
"No, I'm serious," her dad said. "That's probably the speech I should have given you instead of acting like an idiot." "Dad."
"You're a responsible kid, Pheebs. You're okay. We've always been able to trust you not to do anything stupid. Maybe I wish you had different tastes in clothes and music, but it hasn't seemed to hurt you." He paused to run a hand through his thick, dark hair. "Do you think you'll be putting other kids in danger, though?"
"We'll be quiet about it, Dad," she said. "No one else needs to know until we get there. If there's trouble, I'll leave. I'll even call you if you want."
"This ...boy, he can't drive, can he?"
"He's renting a limousine."
"Uh-huh."
She knew he was smart enough to sense another story lurking beneath her reply, but he was also smart enough to decide they'd had enough combat for one night.
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"Can we think about it?" he said. She smiled. "You will anyway."
He hugged her. She felt brittle, as though the wrong word from either of her parents could shatter her into a million pieces. Her parents seemed to sense what she was feeling as they got up to leave the room.
"We saved you some soup," her mother said.
"I'm not hungry," Phoebe said, trying to inject her words with enough perkiness that they would believe her. "Is it okay if I give Adam a call?"
The dead kid was singing, Pete thought. Unbelievable.
Pete was crouching behind a shed with Stavis and Morgan Harris at the edge of the dead kid's property, and the dead kid was singing as he worked, his high voice flat and inflectionless as he belted out the words.
" 'Wouldn't it be ... nice ... if we could wake up,'" he sang, pausing to run a pale hand through his red hair. Pete laughed, watching him move the Weedwacker around the front gutter, just at the edge of where a ring of tulips lay wilted and browning, snuffed out by the early October chill.
"Can you believe this freakin' kid?" Pete said, watching him swing the whirring cord into one of the tulips, kicking up a confetti of shriveled petals. He didn't bother to whisper, even though Stavis and Morgan both looked like they wished they were somewhere else.
Pete hefted a heavy maul, its blade dull from years of hacking cordwood and years of disuse.
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It had taken the dead kid twelve pulls to get the Weedwacker started, and it was almost painful to watch his jerky undead limbs trying to coax the machine to life.
Ha-ha, Pete thought.
Pete had been planning this one for weeks. He'd noticed that the Talbots' cars weren't in the driveway when he got home from practice on two consecutive Thursdays, and the pattern held true today, the third Thursday. He'd watched the dead kid doing yard work on those other days as well; first it was picking up sticks that had blown down, or raking leaves, but the kid always ended with the Weedwacker. He loved that thing. Pete wondered if he could feel the machine vibrating through his dead fingertips.
The Talbots lived at the end of a cul-de-sac in Oakvale Heights, the nicer of the two main housing developments in Oakvale. The woods behind their house had trails that eventually led to the lake, and Pete imagined a nest of filthy zombies somewhere in the dark heart of the woods out there. He dreamed about them, and when he awoke, he fantasized about setting the whole forest on fire.
A noise like laughter escaped the dead kid's throat as he missed one of the high notes by a mile and passed the Weedwacker along the base of an oak tree.
Pete ran toward him, lifting the heavy maul over his head.
Adam reached out to catch the spinning disk.
"You told them at dinner ?" he said. "Phoebe, that is just classic."
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"I know," she said. "Impeccable timing, as usual."
She was wearing a heavy black hoodie, which was big enough to fit Adam, with drooping sleeves that hung down to her extended fingertips. Adam had told her she looked like the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.
"What did they do? Did they freak?"
"What do you think?" she replied as the Frisbee bounced off her knuckles. "Made Dad practically cough soup through his nose. French onion soup, no less."
"Now there's an image. Your mom's?"
"Yep."
"That's a shame," he said. "Your mom makes good soup."
He watched her retrieve the disk off the turf. She was sucking her knuckle, which had split open when the Frisbee hit her hand.
"Yes, she does."
"So where does that leave you? They going to let you go?"
She nodded, whipping the disk at him with her special backspin toss. He nabbed it without incident.
"Yeah. I got a big speech about how they were concerned and blahdey-blah, and I thought Mom understood, but I think she's actually worried I'll want to put prom pictures of me and a dead kid on the mantel. Plus, I think she implied she was worried I was a lesbian."
"Ouch," he said, tossing it back. "Are you?"
"Yep, that's me," she said.
He put the next one high over her head just so he could see her run, the long sleeves of her hoodie grazing the Astro
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Turf as she sprinted across the field.
"They had some good points, though," she said, her breathing labored. "I hadn't even thought that maybe some people would get all crazy about me going with him."
"Segregation redux," he said. "They're right; I'd keep it quiet if I were you."
"Did you just say redux ?"
"I've been studying up," he said. "I heard chicks were into big vocabularies, and I don't have a date for the dance yet." "What about Whatsername?"
"What about her?" he said. "So, are you ever going to tell me if you are serious about the dead kid, or what?"
"Please," she replied, snagging one of his loopy hook throws, "don't go down that road again. I'll let you k
now as soon as I do, okay?"
"Okay."
"We're friends," she said. "I really admire him. He's working hard to help other differently biotic people, you know?"
Adam did. When Tommy spoke in the DB studies class he transformed into this sort of undead charismatic leader. And the students, living and not living, hung on his every word. It was hard not to admire him.
"You think I'm a freak, don't you?" Phoebe asked.
"Naw," he said, wondering how much his answer meant to her. The Frisbee bounced off his palm, a rare miss. "Truth is, if I had any real guts, I'd be asking Karen."
He couldn't see her expression in the shadow of her hood, but he hoped it made her happy and relieved.
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"She's pretty hot," he said.
Phoebe laughed and offered to buy them some milk shakes at the Honeybee Dairy, which seemed oddly perfect on such a chilly night. They passed a pair of police cars speeding the other way toward the Heights, lights flashing and sirens blasting--a sight that was rare in their quiet town.
Adam figured it probably didn't mean anything good, but for the moment he was just glad that he could be with Phoebe and pretend that their time together was something more than it really was.
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***
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
P HOEBE HAD TIME FOR INTRO-spection on the bus ride to school the next morning. With
Adam taking the truck, Margi wedged all the way in the backseat of the bus with her eyes closed and her headphones on, and Tommy sitting with Colette instead of her, she was alone.
She put on her own headphones and cued up an older album by the Gathering, wondering why Tommy seemed to be ignoring her. Was he regretting inviting her to homecoming?
There were other kids on the bus, but they tended to avoid Margi and her as much as they avoided their differently biotic classmates. Pockets of students toward the back, freshmen for the most part, were hacking around and cracking zombie jokes.
"What do you call a zombie in a hot tub?" she heard one say.
Phoebe watched a paper airplane sail toward the front of the bus, banking past the seat where Tommy and Colette sat.
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Tommy turned around, his normally blank expression transformed into a mask of hate. Phoebe sat up in her seat, and the hecklers fell silent, remaining that way until the bus rolled up to the curb outside Oakvale High. No one moved from their seats until Colette and Tommy exited the bus.