THREE YEARS LATER
Andrew Morton was lounging in the soft spot in the tattered couch where he always watched television. He tried to feel cozy and warm, as he usually did in his hollow, but he couldn’t. His dad was screaming at him.
His father, a big man, wore an undershirt and pants. “If you fail teleschool again, your mom and I will have to watch sixty hours of parenting classes. Sixty hours of idiots telling me how to get my son to do better on his television tests. Do you know how boring those parenting classes are?” His voice dropped. “You read me?”
“The law says you have to pass eighth grade. You’re the unluckiest kid I’ve ever known. You’re sure to lose your Toss. You only need to make a sixty-five or above. After you pass, you’re finished studying for your whole life. Are you ready?”
“Yes, sir.” Andrew had watched reruns of Historical Survivor, Dialing for Dollars, and Tele-Novelas for the past week.
“I’m going to turn on the test.” His father clicked the remote. RETAKES FOR EIGHTH GRADE FINAL EXAMS, JULY 15, 2083 appeared on the screen.
A voice broke in. “But first a special message from the Secretary.”
The redheaded Secretary of Entertainment was young to be so important. She leaned toward Andrew and seemed to be speaking only to him. “I’m sponsoring something very special for eighth graders this year. Apply to be a contestant on my new upcoming Historical Survivor series for kids. If you finish the game, you’ll be paid ten thousand dollars, and if you’re voted Most Valuable Player, you’ll win an extra ninety thousand dollars, for a grand total of one hundred thousand dollars. The series is set in Antarctica, one of the coolest places in the world. Press ENTER now if you’re interested.”
“Press ENTER!” Andrew’s dad barked.
Andrew pressed ENTER on the keyboard.
“After the test, an application will appear on the screen,” the Secretary concluded. “Complete it and submit it, along with your test. Good luck.”
“Do it!” Andrew’s dad ordered. “Maybe your mother and I’ll get lucky and you’ll go to Antarctica. You know you had an ancestor who was an explorer there?”
Andrew had heard his aunt speak of a distant uncle, a man named Bowers.
EIGHTH GRADE HISTORY FINAL RETAKE appeared on the screen.
“When did Bowers explore Antarctica?” Andrew asked.
His father pointed sternly at the question on the screen. “You can’t put your test off any longer.”
Andrew read: QUESTION 1: WHICH PHARAOH BUILT THE MOST PYRAMIDS IN ANCIENT EGYPT?
He should know this answer. He had watched every episode of Egyptian Pyramid Historical Survivor.
“Remember!” his dad thundered before leaving. “A sixty-five or above!”
It was a cool day, but Andrew wiped the sweat off his face before he began to work.
From her stall at the flea market in Times Square, Polly Pritchard watched the bustle of the vendors behind aging stands, the brightly colored signs of all shapes and sizes, and the crowds of worried-looking people carrying shopping bags. She reminded herself that she didn’t know what else to do. Although she had been a nationally recognized student on EduTV, she had lost her Toss. Her mother was disabled. A few years ago, her father had died of tuberculosis. Without the help of a Toss scholarship, she had no money to continue in school. When the flea market offered her father’s old stall, she had to take it. So here she was today, working as a memorist for the first time. Mr. Pebst, her father’s former partner, had willingly given her the money for the stall in exchange for an agreement that she would give him twenty percent of her take.
“Are you as good as your father?” Mr. Pebst had asked her. Before she could speak, he shook his head. “Nobody was as good as him. In the twenty years that I knew him, he never once got anything wrong. He was the best.”
Her customers might ask her anything—the date of George Washington’s death, the distance to the moon, the calories in a peanut. She had learned many of her facts from reading the World Book encyclopedia. But most of her business would be from shoppers. Polly’s head was full of jumbled phrases from the morning’s paper and from the bulletin boards she had read on her way to work: “Instant Travel, the world’s first human fax.” “Fastgrow: Watch your hair grow one foot each night or your money back.” “Dream Hat: Finally you can photograph your dreams.” “Help the victims of the Urban Trash Wars by donating to …” And she found herself wondering, not for the first time, if the kids on her street were right, if the Memory was a curse. Casey Duncan claimed that Polly’s brain would explode before she was twenty.
A customer, her first, hobbled toward her.
The old woman scrutinized Polly’s face for a second before bursting out, “I need to know if there are any used televisions for sale. They’ll take my grandkids from me if I don’t have a television.”
Polly nodded. Everybody knew that the law required all kids under the age of fourteen to watch thirty hours of teleschool a week.
“I’ll pay you a dime. That’s all you’re worth.” The old woman’s teeth were the brown, unhealthy color of the endless smog that blanketed the city.
“Okay.” Polly tried to ignore the woman’s rudeness. Once her mother had been unable to afford a television repairman, and her fear had made her grouchy, too.
The old woman flung the dime into Polly’s empty jar.
“There’s a basement sale on the corner of Broadway and Fifty-first that lists a used television along with an EduTV attachment,” Polly said.
“You’re sure?” The old woman shook a bony finger at Polly.
“I saw it on a bulletin board.”
“I want my dime back if you’re wrong,” the old woman warned her.
Polly shrugged and wondered how her father had worked at this job for thirty years.
A boy her age walked up. He had long, shaggy hair and a broken front tooth.
Polly tried to look serious, as a memorist should.
“I lost my Toss,” he said in a quavering voice.
Polly knew how he felt. She had lost hers, too.
“I was wondering, are there any other scholarships for kids advertised?”
“Why, yes,” Polly said. There had been one in the newspaper. It felt strange to realize that she hadn’t even thought about it for herself.
“Oh, give me what you have,” she said. Charging a boy as poor as herself would make her feel bad.
He threw a nickel into her jar.
“So?”
“The Secretary of Entertainment is producing a Historical Survivor show with kid contestants.”
“What age?”
“Fourteen.” Polly’s exact age. The age when teleschool ended and only the rich, along with the lucky few who won their Toss, got to continue their education.
“Tell me more,” the shaggy boy said eagerly.
“It’s going to be a simulation of the Robert F. Scott expedition. Five kids need to make it to the South Pole with the supplies Scott had. There’s prize money.”
“Where do you apply?”
“The application is on EduTV.”
“Gee, thanks!”
As he jogged away, she couldn’t resist shouting, “Those Historical Survivor shows are dangerous!”
“What do I have to lose?” he called over his shoulder.
Polly listened to the clip, clip, clip of Mr. Jones’s toenail clippers in the next stall and the shouts of a roving food vendor: “Hot dogs, hot dogs!” She watched swarms of ragged people passing by. What do I have to lose? Polly wondered.
Robert Johnson pressed his nose against the fence of Motorworld. For forty-five dollars a boy could spend the day at Motorworld driving any of its “thousands of vehicles specially outfitted for young teens.”
Peeking through the fence, which was all Robert had ever done, was free.
A kid his age was working the controls of a miniature red-and-black helicopter, which rose up and then settled back down on the landing pad.
A few Jaguars, Ferraris, and Corvettes sped around the track fast enough for the kid drivers to feel they were driving the real thing.
One trailer truck plodded along on the track. Behind the windshield, a boy’s face shone with excitement.
If Robert ever got the chance, he’d drive one of those race cars. But wishes were for babies. Wishes were for people of the twentieth century, not the twenty-first.
“Robert!” Joey Washington hollered at him from across the bayou.
Robert turned away from the shiny vision of Motorworld.
“Come on and tell me where to look, Robert!” Joey shouted.
Last year a giant mud slide had submerged a parking lot a little to the east of Motorworld. Robert had dug up a pickup truck there. He could probably use some help dismantling it. “Meet me at the bridge!” he yelled back to Joey. The bridge was a water tower that had fallen across the bayou.
Robert dodged the mud-encrusted trash piled on the banks of the bayou until he came to the silver water tower. He climbed onto the trestle at its base and surveyed the smelly brown water passing underneath.
Joey was already there.
“Someday I’m going to break into that Motorworld and drive every car I want,” Joey said. He straddled the H of HOUSTON, the name inscribed on the fallen tower.
“You’re dreaming,” Robert said.
“You dream, too,” Joey said.
“I just scavenge.”
The boys heard a buzz. An ad airplane was circling overhead. A banner burst loose from its rear. It read: “KIDS: TRY OUT FOR ANTARCTIC HISTORICAL SURVIVOR. $100,000. APPLY BY AUGUST 14.”
“You should do that, Robert,” Joey said.
“Has it ever snowed in Houston?”
“Naw, you’re a bayou man, but …”
“You got it. I’m a bayou man.”
“I’m stuck here,” Joey said sadly, looking at his dirty shoes. “But if anybody could get out, it would be you.”
Robert didn’t answer him. August 14 was this Saturday. He wondered if he could afford to take the afternoon off.
“If you do, remember us here in ol’ flooded Houstontown.”
“I’ll remember your lazy self for all my life,” Robert said. “Do you have any tools with you?”
Joey shook his head.
“Go home and get some tools, and I’ll meet you back on the bridge in a couple of hours.”
Joey walked off slowly, whistling. He was never in a hurry to do anything.
The ad plane circled again.
One hundred thousand dollars!
With one hundred thousand dollars, Robert could buy several motorboats and start a hauling business.
But he couldn’t remember: Was Antarctica north or south?
* * *
Billy Kanalski stared at the Compu-gametable. His father had designed the round table with a computer top. Every game in the world was in its memory. When a player selected his game, the colored board and game pieces appeared on the screen.
The table was a great idea, a cool invention. It was just that the toy companies were stupid losers who didn’t know a great game when its bright lights flashed in their fat faces.
At first the Compu-gametable had promised success. In those early days, Billy and his parents had vacationed in the largest indoor mall in the world and had once ridden in a white limo that was so long it had trouble turning corners. But those early days were over, and now Billy was hungry almost all the time.
Billy pushed a button and the table lit up with reds, blues, and purples. “What game do you want to play?” the table asked him.
I don’t want to play any game, Billy thought. I want to have lunch. I want to go to high school and college. Since he had lost his Toss and his father hadn’t been able to sell his invention, Billy couldn’t hope for further schooling.
Billy punched the button for Navigant. The fake starry background and bright purple compass appeared on the screen. It had been one of his favorite games since he was a child. Players traveled across the globe, navigating by the location of the sun and stars, and using simulated compasses and a gauge capable of reading longitude and latitude. He had played the game so much that he no longer needed to consult the instruments.
A news bulletin flashed across the top of the screen: “Trying to top her popular Alamo Historical Survivor, the Secretary of Entertainment has announced a new Historical Survivor series. This one will involve fourteen-year-old kids. The MVP—the contestant voted Most Valuable Player—will get one hundred thousand dollars. All contestants …”
One hundred thousand dollars?
Billy’s mom and dad appeared at the door. Billy noticed first that his mom didn’t have a grocery bag in her arms, then that his dad still looked discouraged. “Hey,” Billy said. The map of the world lit up next to the purple compass. Idly, Billy’s finger traced a path south.
It was Grace Untoka’s turn to be “it.” She counted to one hundred in the central plaza of Pueblo Village, looked around for her cousin, and almost bumped into a family of tourists. The family all had cameras dangling from their necks. The daughter wore a flowered shirt that matched her beret. “My parents want a photo of a Hopi. Can we snap your picture?”
“I’m an Iñupiat Eskimo, not a Hopi.”
The girl smirked.
Grace didn’t say anything. Hopis and Iñupiat Eskimos both had straight black hair. But the Hopis’ skin was reddish while the Eskimos’ was yellowish, and Grace’s cheeks were full, not hollow like the Hopi kids’.
“You sure look like a Hopi.”
Grace turned her back on the tourists. As she listened to the girl march away, she tried to calm her anger. Of course the girl mistook Grace for a Hopi. Grace was standing in the plaza of a pueblo in the middle of an Indian reservation in Arizona. Some days even Grace thought that she was a Hopi. But her grandfather had always reminded her, “You are an Iñupiat Eskimo with a proud six-thousand-year history.”
“Grace, I don’t want to play hide-and-seek anymore.” Her cousin Aleqa crept out from her hiding place. “Look what I found.”
Grace stared at the animal Aleqa held in her outstretched hand. Grace had raised baby kangaroo rats before. “It’s got a broken leg,” she said, noticing the naked bone.
“Eskimo, Eskimo, Eskimo …” Tommy Screechowl, one of her many tormentors, was shouting at her from behind an adobe building.
“Take it to my clinic,” Grace whispered to Aleqa, “and I’ll meet you there in just a minute.” She was sure that if presented with a choice, Tommy would chase her, not her smaller cousin.
“Okay.” Aleqa started down the path to the discarded refrigerator carton that housed Grace’s clinic. Right now her patients were a blind dog and a bald goat.
“You can’t catch me!” Grace called to Tommy.
His footsteps pounded the trail behind her.
Grace ducked into her family’s shack and almost knocked her mother down.
“Whoa! What’s wrong?” Grace’s mother put a pile of T-shirts and one old pair of sealskin socks on the table. “Those boys were after you again.” She shook her head.
It was a statement, not a question, and Grace didn’t have to answer. Years ago Grace’s family had been subsistence hunters in Alaska, roaming an area that was among the least populated on earth. Because there were so few people there, Congress had voted to turn her tribe’s land into a nuclear waste dump, and the government had offered the tribe a deal. It would pay to move them to a Hopi Indian reservation in Arizona. They would be given a few acres of land and a tractor.
Grace had been born on the reservation. All she knew about the ways of the Iñupiat were what her grandfather, her parents, and the elders of the tribe had told her. But every day she was tormented and bullied by the Hopis for being an Eskimo and mistaken by the tourists for a Hopi. It didn’t seem fair.
Her mother hugged her. “I’m sorry. They’re just ignorant kids.”
A rock sailed through their one small open window and clattered onto her grandfather’s table. His tools and skinning knife crashed onto the floor.
Her mother screamed.
Grace knelt by the scattered objects. She missed her grandfather so much. He had died only a few weeks ago. Tommy Screechowl was lucky that her grandfather’s knife wasn’t broken.
Grace ran out the front door to look for Tommy.
Tommy smiled at her from behind the neighbor’s beat-up truck. When he was sure that Grace had seen him, he disappeared.
Grace returned to her mother, who was holding the rock.
“Those boys are getting worse and worse,” her mother complained.
Grace leaned over her mother’s shoulder. Her mother unrolled the piece of paper that had been wrapped around the rock.
“Historical Survivor. Set in Antarctica. For the first time, taking applications from kids,” Grace read slowly. She looked into her mother’s broad face. “I guess Tommy wants me to move to Antarctica.”
“That’s silly. There’ve never been any people in Antarctica.” Her mother turned away to finish the laundry.
Grace slipped the flier into her pocket. Antarctica. Even the name sounded white and clean.