After (Parallel Series, Book 4) Page 6

  He released my hand, and I walked into Mr. Cunningham’s office.

  “Please close the door and sit down, Morgan,” he said.

  I did as instructed and waited to see what he would say.

  His chair creaked as he leaned back. “What is your last name?”

  I briefly considered making something up, but decided that would be dumb as he’d be able to figure out the truth soon enough. “Campbell.”

  He leaned forward and typed into his computer—I assumed he was looking up my file—then he smiled at me. It wasn’t exactly the type of fake smile I’d gotten used to at Camp Willowmoss, but it was close.

  “It would appear that you’re a good student, Morgan.”

  I wasn’t sure if that was a question, so I didn’t respond.

  “You seemed quite passionate about what you said at the assembly today.”

  He was right about that, and I nodded. Then I heard Mrs. Reynolds’ voice in my mind. I can’t hear the rocks rattling in your head, Morgan. Speak up. “Yes,” I said.

  He nodded, like he was thinking this through. “I can appreciate your point of view, but what I’m concerned about is the execution.”

  He didn’t seem upset with me, and I felt myself relax. “What do you mean?”

  Resting his chin on his steepled fingers, he said, “When we have a guest speaker at our school it is inconsiderate to put that person on the spot, as you did with Mrs. Bennett today.”

  This man has no clue. No clue as to where this government control could lead. “But what if what she’s saying is wrong? Why can’t I say something?” The idea of remaining silent during that assembly had been out of the question for me.

  Mr. Cunningham’s lips pressed into a straight line. “There is a time and a place for everything. During a school assembly is not the time to share your point of view.”

  Though I wanted to protest, I knew it would get me nowhere, so I kept my mouth shut.

  “In the future, Ms. Campbell, you will keep your opinions to yourself. Am I clear?”

  “You just mean during assemblies, right?”

  He gazed at me a moment. “I mean during assemblies and any time that those opinions will disrupt a school-sponsored event.”

  “So as long as my opinion agrees with the speaker then it’s fine if I say something?” I knew I was getting close to being disrespectful, but I couldn’t help myself. What he was suggesting was ludicrous. Keep my opinions to myself if I disagreed? I thought I’d left that kind of thinking behind in Billy’s world.

  He smiled, and now it matched the fake smiles I was used to. “Perhaps it would be best if you kept all of your opinions to yourself.” He paused. “You may be excused.”

  Holding back any further remarks, I left his office. When I reached the front of the school building I saw Billy sitting on a low concrete wall talking to Rochelle.

  “Hey,” I said to them.

  “We just missed our bus,” Billy said.

  “I already told him I could take you guys home,” Rochelle said.

  I smiled. “That would be great.”

  “How did it go?” Billy asked.

  “Are you in trouble?” Rochelle asked.

  I shook my head. “No, I’m not in trouble. He basically told me to keep my mouth shut next time.”

  Billy frowned. “Next time? Is she coming back?”

  “Who?” Rochelle asked. “That woman who wants to take away our junk food?”

  Billy nodded. “Yeah, her.” He looked at me as if I would know the answer.

  “I don’t know if she’s coming back, but Cunningham said I should never state my opinion at school-sponsored activities.”

  “What?” Rochelle laughed, like she’d never heard something so ridiculous.

  “I know,” I said. “It’s stupid. I guess he doesn’t want me to rock the boat.”

  “Of course he doesn’t,” she said. “He’s the principal. He wants everything here to go smoothly and quietly.”

  “What are you going to do?” Billy asked. “About these new food rules, I mean.”

  A feeling of helplessness settled over me. “I don’t know. What can I do?”

  They both looked at me with expressions that showed they had no idea either.

  “Probably a lot of people think this is a good idea,” Billy said.

  Rochelle frowned. “Even though I was complaining about them taking away our junk food, I know I could be eating healthier.” She hesitated. “Maybe it’s not such a bad thing?”

  If I hadn’t just gotten back from a world where it was illegal to be overweight, and experienced what I had, I might have agreed with her. But I’d seen what could happen when the government overreached, and I couldn’t help but worry that this could be the first step in that direction. I just didn’t know how to convince anyone of it without telling them what had happened to me—and that was sure to get me locked up. Feeling dejected, I said, “I think I’m ready to go home.”

  “Okay,” Rochelle said.

  The three of us walked to her car and before long we arrived at my house.

  “Do you want to work on homework together?” Billy asked me.

  Knowing he was the only one I could really talk to about my concerns, I smiled. “Yeah. That would be great.” I looked at Rochelle, feeling slightly guilty that I didn’t want to invite her to come with us. “Thanks for the ride.”

  She smiled in a way that said she knew I wanted to be alone with Billy. She was right, except it wasn’t for the reasons she might have thought. “See ya,” she said to us.

  Billy and I climbed out of her car, then waved as she pulled away from the curb.

  Chapter 13

  Billy

  I watched Morgan’s friend—I guess she was my friend now too—as she drove away. “I wonder what she would think if she knew where I’m really from,” I said as I turned to Morgan with a smile.

  Morgan’s eyes widened. “You wouldn’t dare tell her, would you?”

  I laughed at her obvious shock. “Probably not.”

  “What do you mean, ‘Probably not’. It should be definitely not.” Her eyebrows rose. “Don’t you remember how crazy you thought I was when I told you the truth about where I was from?”

  “Yeah, but maybe that’s because you weren’t convincing enough.”

  “Oh yeah? How could I have been more convincing?”

  I smiled at her. “I don’t know. Maybe if you’d had some sort of evidence.”

  She gently shoved me. “Like that was possible.”

  “Hey,” I said. “At least I have the power bars Nick sent with us. The ones that don’t exist in this world.”

  “That’s true, but I still think it would be a bad idea to tell anyone the truth. I mean, we told my parents, and my dad flat-out said he didn’t believe us. Mom said she did, but I don’t think she’s completely convinced.”

  I gazed at the street where Rochelle had dropped us off, then looked back at Morgan. “Maybe it doesn’t even matter. I mean, I’m here now, and this is where I’m going to stay, so maybe it would be better if I focused on that rather than where I came from.” Even as I thought it, a whisper of doubt floated through my mind that I didn’t belong here, that I would never quite fit in, that I hadn’t been raised in this world and that I would never truly understand it, or the people in it.

  “As long as we don’t forget how things were there,” Morgan said. “I mean, how else can we prevent that from becoming our reality?”

  Pushing aside my doubts, I focused on Morgan’s concerns, because I knew she was right. As much as I wanted to forget all the bad things that had happened to me, I knew it would be a mistake to pretend like they hadn’t. Especially if that knowledge could improve this world—or at least prevent it from becoming like mine. “Yeah, you’re right.”

  The assembly came to mind and I recalled the sick feeling I’d had when Holly had explained how our leaders knew better than we did about what we should eat. That sentiment is what I’d hear
d all my life, and the idea that this world was now beginning to teach that made my stomach churn.

  “I guess we should go inside,” Morgan said.

  I followed her into her house, and after she told her mom she was home, we sat on the floor by the coffee table and took out our books. I liked this routine that we’d started. Go to her place after school—maybe to Tasco’s house once in a while—sit together while we did our homework, and enjoy being together. I found it so easy to be with her. She knew me better than anyone and I didn’t feel the need to explain myself to her—she accepted me for who I was.

  “Morgan,” Amy said as she bounded into the living room with a poster board in her hands.

  “What’s up?” Morgan said.

  She smiled. “I just wanted to show you the poster I made for that contest.”

  “Okay,” Morgan said.

  Amy held up a large poster. Across the top in bright letters it said A Healthy Me Is A Healthy World. When I read the words my body went rigid, and for a moment I found it hard to draw a breath. Where had she come up with that? Then I knew. Morgan had told her. But why? Why would she want that in the contest? What was she thinking?

  Under the slogan Amy had drawn a globe with trees and plants growing on it. On one side of the globe a person was eating produce, and on the other a person was running on a track.

  “That looks great,” Morgan said, although I heard the hitch in her voice, like she was just as freaked out as I was.

  “Do you think I could win?” Amy asked, clearly excited about her creation.

  “Of course,” Morgan said. “You did a fantastic job.”

  Amy beamed. “Thanks. I’m going to submit it right now.”

  The moment she was out of the room I turned to Morgan, but she’d suddenly become engrossed in her math assignment. Stunned, and anxious for an explanation, I tapped Morgan on the shoulder. After a moment’s hesitation she turned to me with a look of guilt.

  “You told her that slogan, didn’t you?” Beyond shocked that Morgan would divulge the phrase that had been the root of the nightmare we’d both lived, I stared at her, waiting to hear her justification.

  “I didn’t mean to, okay? It just slipped out, and then she loved it and wanted to use it. What was I supposed to say? That she couldn’t use it because it would remind us of the time we spent in the F.A.T. center in a parallel world?” She frowned.

  Knowing she was right and that it was too late to take it back now, I sighed. “Hopefully Holly and her . . . HLO or whatever it’s called . . . doesn’t like it.”

  “I know.” Morgan’s frown deepened. “It would be awful if they chose that slogan.”

  The pledge from my world had been imprinted on my mind. I couldn’t remember a time when I didn’t know it, and after being required to say it day after day after day, I knew I would never be able to forget it. Seeing it in this world, printed boldly on a poster—it was like I’d never left my world at all. “I wish you hadn’t told her,” I said.

  “Believe me, so do I.”

  Chapter 14

  Morgan

  When Billy and I had finished our homework, I put my things in my backpack and smiled at him. “Do you want to stay for dinner?”

  “Sure. If it’s okay with your parents, that is.”

  “I’ll ask Mom.” I jumped up from the floor and went into the kitchen where Mom was putting together a casserole. I leaned against the counter. “Is it okay if Billy stays for dinner?”

  She smiled at me as she sprinkled cheese over the top of the casserole. “I like the influence this boy is having on you. You’ve never been so good about getting your homework done each day.”

  If she thought it was all Billy’s doing I wasn’t going to try to convince her otherwise. In truth, he did have a lot to do with it. Knowing how much he appreciated being able to go to school made me have a new appreciation for it too. “Is that a yes?”

  She nodded. “Sure.”

  “Thank you.” I went into the living room to tell Billy the good news and found Zac showing him more card tricks. Laughing, I said, “Geez. I leave for just a second . . .”

  Focused on his trick, Zac ignored me, but Billy smiled.

  “You can stay for dinner,” I said to Billy.

  He nodded. “I should probably let Tasco know, don’t you think?”

  “Probably.” I didn’t want to drag Billy away from Zac, so I offered to grab the cordless phone. A moment later I handed it to Billy. “Do you know his number?”

  Billy unzipped a side-pocket on his backpack and pulled out a card, then held it up for me to see. “He gave me his card.”

  I listened to Billy’s side of the conversation, and a moment later he disconnected the call.

  “All set,” he said.

  At dinner Billy sat next to me. This was only the second time he’d eaten over, which meant it was only the second time he’d been with my whole family. After the way his family had treated him, I wanted him to see how a family should be—loving, kind, there for you.

  “Mom tells me you submitted your entry to that contest, Amy,” Dad said as he scooped a helping of casserole onto his plate.

  “Yeah. Morgan had this great idea for a slogan.” Her face lit with a grin. “I just know I’m going to win. It’s the best.”

  “Oh? What is it?”

  Amy sat up straighter. “A healthy me is a healthy world.”

  “That’s very good.” Dad looked at me with a puzzled expression. “I didn’t know you were into slogans and advertising, Morgan. You have a real talent for it. Maybe you’d be interested in doing an internship at my firm over the summer.”

  With zero interest in advertising, and with the knowledge that I hadn’t actually come up with the slogan, I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”

  “Are you sure?” Dad asked.

  “Yeah. But thanks.” Wanting to turn the conversation away from my phantom talent, I said, “We had an assembly at our school today.”

  “Oh?” Dad said. “What was it about?”

  I glanced at Amy, before focusing back on Dad. “It’s the same one Amy’s school had. About being healthy.”

  “Well,” Mom said as she portioned out a helping of casserole on Zac and Brandon’s plates. “We can all be a little healthier, can’t we?”

  I looked at her in surprise. Hadn’t she listened to my story? Hadn’t she understood the underlying problem—government control? Wanting to point out the issue to her without being adversarial, I said, “Well, yeah. But don’t you think it should be up to us to decide what we eat?”

  She set the spoon in the casserole dish and looked at me. “Maybe I don’t understand, Morgan. What did they say at this assembly that you find so objectionable?”

  I glanced at Amy again before looking back at Mom. “I don’t know what they said at the junior high, but at my school they said they were going to take away our junk food.”

  “Oh,” Mom said, her expression showing a mix of emotions. “Some people eat too much junk food, so maybe that’s not such a bad thing?”

  “Just at school,” Amy said. “They’re just not going to sell it at school, but you can still bring it from home.”

  I thought about how I’d been locked up in Camp Willowmoss for the “crime” of distributing high calorie food to minors—a fancy way of saying I’d tried to share my homemade cookies at school. “For now,” I said. “But don’t you think eventually they won’t even allow us to bring stuff from home?”

  Mom’s forehead creased. “I remember reading recently about a child whose lunch was taken away because it didn’t have the right kind of grains in it. The report said what was in the lunch, and it sounded healthy to me.” She frowned. “That’s already happened.”

  Finally, someone is starting to get it.

  “Are they having the contest at your school too?” Amy asked.

  “Yeah.”

  Her forehead creased with worry. “Do you want to use your slogan, Morgan?” Her voice droppe
d. “I can come up with something else. I think.”

  “Oh no, Amy. You can use it. I don’t care about that.”

  Joy suffused her face. “Really?”

  I nodded, glad I could make her happy so easily.

  She jumped up from her place at the table and came to my side, then threw her arms around me. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

  Laughing, I hugged her back. “You’re welcome.”

  “You’re the best sister in the world.”

  I flashed back to the Amy in the other world being dragged away to Camp Willowmoss in my place and all she’d gone through because of me. And then the way she’d launched herself at Lori when Lori had confessed that she had falsified records to get me put into Camp Willowmoss in the first place. But when I pictured the way she’d stood up to Mrs. Reynolds when my true identity had been revealed, tears filled my eyes and I had trouble keeping them from overflowing. “So are you,” I whispered, my voice choked.

  With a wide grin on her face, Amy went back to her place at the table.

  I felt Billy’s hand reach for mine under the table, and I knew he knew what I was remembering.

  Chapter 15

  Billy

  Warmth toward Morgan’s family swelled within me, taking me by surprise. I could tell Morgan was trying to hold back tears and I knew exactly why. I hadn’t spent very much time with her family, but it was clear to me now why Morgan had been so determined to get back to them—and why she hadn’t let me sway her decision to help Amy when she’d been hauled off to Camp Willowmoss.

  These were good people and Morgan was lucky to have them. Sadness crowded out the warmth as I thought about the people who had brought me into the world. My parents were nothing like Morgans. My parents were evil and selfish. But that was in my world. What about the parents here, in this world? Were they the same way?

  The Richard Tasco in this world didn’t seem to be anything like the man Morgan and I had known. Could my parents—? That just didn’t sound right, and I rethought it. Could the parents of the Billy from this world—the Billy who had died—be different from my parents in my world?