Scripted by Maya Rock Page A

tomorrow, don’t change your mind about Mr. Black, okay?” She claps her hand over my shoulder, like we’re tracs getting pumped for a game.
    I nod. “I won’t. Fincher’s was awful yesterday. Five hours spent on a defective music box.”
    â€œBlack’s your ticket out. See you later.” She leaves, and I go inside, hoping to catch the Reals on the radio again. But the idea drops away when I see the green light from the Missivor. I approach my room cautiously, dreading hearing about another Patriot.
    Nettie Starling: Please go to the Center at 8 a.m. Saturday for a rescheduled Character Report, during which you will learn about the Initiative.
    The Initiative. I press the off button hard, pick up
The Player in the Attic,
and flip pages for the cameras. Not reading. I can’t concentrate. Lia had been pretty positive about the Initiative, but I still remember the graffiti scrawled on my math desk.

Chapter 6
    I carry a block of plastic-wrapped clay from the back of the room to the table Selwyn and I share for art, our first class on Monday. I end up taking a circuitous route, avoiding Rawls and Callen’s table but unable to resist casting a look back. Callen doesn’t see me—he’s concentrating on unwrapping the plastic. I can’t believe I told Lia I wouldn’t talk to him anymore. How long until she stops caring?
    My path takes me past Belle’s old seat, which she shared with Shar Corone, a shy hulk with massive shoulders and a soft voice. Belle’s stool is gone, and Shar has spread out all his materials to further the illusion that he’s always sat there alone. Selwyn and I sit near the front. I heave the block onto our table, and it lands with an enormous thump.
    â€œYay, what took you so long?” Selwyn smiles as she ties on her smock. She reclips the barrettes pulling her long black hair off her face and then gets down to business, grabbing the block of clay and stripping off the plastic wrap like it’s a present. She claws out a chunk and begins expertly rolling out coils for her bowl—before she decided on the cello, Selwyn considered an art-related apprenticeship.
    I eye the clay as if it’s an enemy, certain to defeat my attempts to control it.
    â€œNettie, get started,” Ms. Shade—our young art teacher with the Mohawk and single hoop earring—orders as she roams the room, snapping peppermint gum. “Clay won’t bite.”
    â€œOkay,” I say, clumsily tearing off a piece. Art perplexes me, because there’s never an end goal. Like when I built the radio, I knew I was making an object identical to the one in the book. What am I making now? Ms. Shade made an example bowl but insisted we “form our own interpretations of what a coil bowl should be.”
    I roll out a coil, but instead of coming out smooth and firm like Selwyn’s, mine remains lumpy and then, to my horror, the ends start to disintegrate. I survey the room—no one else’s is doing that. Ms. Shade comes over when she sees what’s happening and puts her hands around mine, guiding me to put more pressure on the clay.
    â€œYou have to control the clay, Belle—Nettie,” she catches herself, but it’s too late. Selwyn gasps, bringing her hand to her tiny lips, and Ms. Shade releases my hands and runs off to another table, mumbling, “Good luck.” The back of her neck is red. Even her shaved head is red. I didn’t realize heads could blush.
    â€œUm, I saw Lia,” Selwyn chirps, flicking long strands of escaped hair out of her face.
    â€œHow is she?”
    â€œShe told me what happened this weekend,” she whispers. Not quietly enough. Out of the corner of my eye, I see well-lipsticked Ayana Lemon and leggy Caren Trosser tilting toward us from across the aisle.
    â€œShhhh.” I motion to Selwyn to keep her voice down. “You mean the breakup?”
    â€œYeah. Last night she