She hadn't told her parents about the call—she didn't want them to worry. Just as she had not told them about Tony shooting at her. If they knew, they would do something, take steps that might interfere with her plans for Tony and Warren.
But she brooded about the call as she lay in bed trying to sleep. And as the situation began to clarify itself in her head, she began to relax a little more.
Warren's daughter must be scared. Her father wouldn't like to know that she had been riding on the violent building manager's motorcycle. Ann's father had said he was glad to be away from that explosive situation. But the girl must be afraid Ann's father might tell her father about it.
Ann smiled to herself. And what would happen if somebody did tell Warren about it? It sure would get Tony in deep trouble with his boss. It could be the first step in her campaign. And after deciding that, excited as she was, she was able to sleep.
She had gotten Jeff to agree to walk with her to school. She would have preferred Lep, but he lived in the opposite direction; it would be way too far for him to walk, and he had so much work to do. Anyway, that was impossible because Lep didn't want Tony to see them together. Jeff would walk with her for the next two days, Thursday and Friday. He was pressuring her to come over to his house while his parents were away over the weekend. Now, after what had happened with Lep, she wasn't even considering it. But she could string Jeff along until then. She knew it was mean of her. But was she supposed to put her life at risk to be nice to Jeff?
Anyway, now she didn't like his carefully styled hair and expensive clothes. All he thought about was himself. Lep really cared about her.
She was able to put on an act and chat happily with him as they walked and the day dawned. But she worried about Tony, and about the weekend. If she canceled on Jeff, he'd stop walking with her. There was nobody else who lived near her. Maybe she did have to go over to his house, just to save her own life.
But now, because of the way she felt about Lep, intimacy with Jeff was hard to imagine. It was nuts, she never thought she could have felt this way, but there it was. Lep had gone out of his way to follow her to protect her from Tony after school. Lep had taken a big risk by doing that. No other boy she knew had that kind of courage. He had held her and comforted her in his hard, warm, wiry arms. She wanted him to hold her again.
And he had told her about Tony giving him test answers. That was her ace in the hole—it was what could really get both Tony and Warren. But it was such a sacrifice for Lep! How would he ever graduate without cheating? She understood why he had to cheat.
She would have to help him, that was all. They would make the time. She would tutor him for real. She would do anything she had to do. And if they were incredibly lucky, and things worked out the way she was fantasizing, maybe the test wouldn't matter so much anymore.
Tony did not appear the whole way to school.
Luckily Jeff always sat with his own group of guys at lunch, so she could eat with Lep. She wanted to hold hands with him, she wanted to kiss him, but not in the school cafeteria.
She felt she no longer had to be careful of what she said to him. He had given his secret away to her. He knew what she wanted to do to Tony and Warren. He was on her side. "Warren's daughter called our house yesterday," she told him. "She didn't say who she was, but I'm sure it was her."
"Why she do that?" Lep leaned forward. She loved how his black, black hair, crew cut, framed his dark face.
"She wanted to talk to my father. My guess is that she's afraid he's going to tell her father that we saw her with Tony on his motorcycle. Don't you think she'd be afraid of that?"
Lep nodded vehemently. "Make big, big problem for Tony. Then she never see him again. And I think she like to see him."
"What's she like? Did you ever meet her?"
He laughed, shaking his head. "Meet her? You think anybody introduce me to her? But I see her one time when she come to Grand Diamond. And I watch her. She don't know I watching her." He seemed pleased by that.
"So what was she like?"
"Like rich people." He winked, and laughed again. "She look down on everybody. She kind of person who talk about 'Third World,' and what she buy there."
She could tell by the sound of his voice that he hated that term, "Third World." She wished she had never used it, not even with her father.
"But she nice to Tony," Lep said, his smile mocking. "Very nice to Tony. What is word? She… uh… flirt with Tony."
That made Ann disgusted. This girl had a crush on the man who wanted to kill her? "What do you think would happen if her father found out about her and Tony?"
Lep's expression changed. He pressed his lips together for a moment. Then he sighed. "Tony go. Many problem for everybody. And no more test answers."
"Then we'll have to wait." Now Ann leaned forward. "You saved the answers he gave you already, right?"
He nodded.
"Can you bring them to school?"
"Yes," he said.
"Yesterday you said…" She was hesitant about this, but he had mentioned it, after all. "You said they made you do other things to get XCAS answers. Can you tell me what you did?"
He seemed like he was about to close up again, his eyes downcast. Then he looked up into her eyes. "Woman live in building, no money… like everybody live there—nobody there pass XCAS. Woman work as waitress." He spoke very haltingly, as if reluctant to admit what had happened. "Tony tell me many time she always late for pay rent. She always complain to Tony if light don't work or toilet don't flush. She have four-year-old little girl who have to stay alone sometime when she work. Tony don't like her. Want her to move out of building. So Tony tell me…"
He looked down again.
She took his hand. She didn't care if anybody saw. "Lep, don't worry. You know you can trust me. And this might be important. We want to stop them."
He squeezed her hand. "Tony want me to make bad electric in room. Make it dangerous so maybe fire start when little girl alone there. To scare mother, make her move away. He tell me he give me XCAS answers if I do that. First time he say he give me XCAS answers. I want to finish high school, have better life. Have to pass XCAS. So I do it." He said the last words very quickly, and pulled his hand away, looking down again.
How could she make him understand she didn't think he was a bad person for doing that? It was XCAS—and the corruption of Tony and Warren—that was behind it all, not anything about Lep. "What happened to the little girl?"
"Very lucky. Spark come from fan when mother is home. Curtain start to burn. Mother scared. She and little girl move away. Better for her to live someplace where no Tony."
"Lep. I understand why you did that. I know you didn't want to. But you had no choice. If you told Tony you wouldn't do that, what would he do?"
"Fire me from job I need and get somebody else to do it for little money. And not give me any XCAS answers. Throw us out of building. Then my sister very mad at me. And no hope to finish high school for better life."
"Like I said, you had no choice," Ann told him. "I know you're a good person—you took a big risk to follow me home from school because you were worried about Tony hurting me. But if we don't do something to try to stop them, they'll make you do more things like that."
He looked at her, hard. "Tony already make me do more. Make me loosen balcony railing in apartment with four kids. Man I don't like, treat me like dirt, also late for rent. He make me break his toilet so everything come up and flood his room. Then make me clean up the mess. He make me clean up mess from toilet a lot." He paused. "Tony find me at prison school last year, where they put me after first time I take XCAS. I think they have special question on test to find people they think dangerous to country. Very bad there. Only one bathroom for many people. Sleep in room with many people, some of them dangerous. Fighting. Other things… Very glad Tony take me out. I do almost anything to get out of there."
"My God," Ann murmured. "I bet curity looks at the test. Especially the tests taken by foreign students."
"I think Warren find Tony at that prison school too, years ago," Lep said. "Other people too. I think he have many people working for him, doing bad things, so he don't do them himself, and get caught. Grand Diamond only very small thing for Mr. Warren. Oil and test more important for him. And corruption there too. You really think we can stop it?"
She nodded, very firmly and confidently. "Now that I know about Tony giving you the test answers, and what he makes you do for them. Now that Tony shot at me. You remember the license number of that bike he was riding?"
"G571."
"What about the card that man gave you? The man who saw Tony shoot at me? Do you still have it? Did you look at it?"
He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out the card. "I don't read it yet," he said, holding it up to his eyes. "Frank Gilroy," he read slowly. "Investigative Re… Reporter. NBS News."
"Wait a minute," she said. "Let me see it."
He handed it to her. She read it quickly. "I don't believe this!" she said, very excited now. "This guy is a newsman! And he saw Tony shoot at me. And he wanted to interview us!" How could such good luck be possible? "It's a sign," she said. "A sign that we're doing the right thing, on the right track. I want to see those test answers. Bring them tomorrow. And you don't have to worry about me. Jeff is walking with me now—for the rest of the week, anyway. Tomorrow's Friday and I want to see the test answers then."
The bell screamed and they got up. They both had other classes to go to before English.
Ann was sure Lep hadn't done the assignment about finding out what technology they had in 1909. He had to work, and he had no computer access. She hadn't done much either, because she had still been shaken up by Tony shooting at her. She had stayed in her room, pretending to work at the computer, though, not wanting her parents to know anything unusual had happened. She didn't think it really mattered that she hadn't done the assignment, because Ms. Summers hadn't asked for anything to be handed in. They were going to have a discussion, and she could participate in that, and maybe even Lep, like he had yesterday. English was pretty amazing now, with Ms. Summers. Even after what had happened with Tony, Ann was still curious about what the class was going to be like.
It still felt unfamiliar to sit in a circle. And, as if by habit, everyone took their same seats, Ann next to Lep. They knew Ms. Summers didn't care what order they sat in, but it was too much of a habit to break in a day or two. Anyway, it might help her to remember their names if they stayed in the same places. Unlike Wells, Ms. Summers thought it was important to call them by name.
Ann hoped Wells was going to be sick forever. She got out the little recorder she used to tape some of her classes. It helped remind her of details in long lectures. But this time she used it because she knew she would want to relive this exciting class.
"So," Ms. Summers said. "What technology did they have in 1909? We'll start with that, and then try to figure out what could have made this writer so afraid of it."
Keith raised his hand first. Ms. Summers consulted her paper. "Yes, Keith," she said.
"They had cars. And Henry Ford invented mass production," he said.
A girl named Nina raised her hand and when Ms. Summers found out her name, Nina said, "The Wright brothers made their first airplane flight before 1909. And in 1907 somebody invented the first piloted helicopter."
It turned out they had zeppelins, escalators, vacuum cleaners, air conditioners, and even movies. The other students had done their homework well.
"Now… can anybody think what might have made this writer see technology as dangerous?"
For a long moment, nobody moved. Then, to Ann's great surprise, Lep slowly raised his hand. What could he have thought of?
"Well, if they just start having cars then, maybe roads not so good. Maybe have car accident," he said.
Along with everything else great about him, Lep was really smart too, Ann thought. She had been in English class with him since the beginning of the year, and she never knew he was smart until now, in this very different kind of English class.
"You're absolutely right, Lep," Ms. Summers said. "Cars were very different then, not as safe. They shared the roads with horse-drawn carriages, and there were accidents in which people got injured in horrible new ways. I think the writer of this story, E. M. Forster, might have been thinking about that." She paused. "What else? What about the fact that every room in the earth is exactly alike? Where could he have gotten that idea?"
Ann remembered what Keith had said. She raised her hand. "Mass production," she said.
"Very good!" Ms. Summers beamed at her. "Probably most people thought mass production was wonderful—they could make complicated things like cars so quickly and cheaply. But what would it seem like to a different kind of person, who was used to most things being made by hand?"
Lep raised his hand again. "In Thailand," he said shyly, "in countryside, everybody make their own house. Every house different. Here, many apartment all the same. Maybe that writer, he think, life not as…" He shrugged, as if searching for a word. "He think life not as—lovely as before, because everything same."
Ann felt as if Ms. Summers wanted to clap. Ann did too. Lep had thought of that himself, and none of the other students had. "I'm positive that mass production was a big factor in that story, and for that very reason," Ms. Summers said. "He keeps stressing how everything is exactly the same, all over the world, and how much richness and culture is missing from everyone's life because of that." She leaned forward in her chair. "You know, you kids really know how to think. I bet you never really had to… well, never mind."
Mass production; people listening to radios and watching movies instead of talking directly to each other and spending their time outside; car accidents—all had contributed to the story, even before World War I. Ann had never been in a class like this before. Again, she wondered where they had found Ms. Summers—and how long they would let her continue.
Their assignment for tonight was to look at the story again and think about the characters—why they were the way they were. Not just Vashti and Kuno, but also some of the people Vashti had seen on the airship, and especially the lecturers who worshipped the Machine. Ann hoped she could relax enough about the situation with Tony to be able to think about it a little. She packed up her recorder and headed to her next class.
Jeff walked her home again. This time he held her hand. He was rough about it, not gentle like Lep. She didn't want him to. But what choice did she have? And if she was holding hands with him she probably was safer from Tony. Again, Tony did not appear. And again, Jeff urged her to drop by on Saturday night.
The next day at lunch Lep gave her the papers Tony had given him. She looked at them quickly—there wouldn't be much time before the bell rang. Some of them were the answers to the English paragraphs—that was obviously how Lep had worked his way up so quickly to the middle of Wells's class from the bottom. But others were different. They were questions and answers Ann had never seen before, not just English, but math and social studies too. "What are these?" she asked Lep. "I never saw them."
"Tony say very important. Not just for practice. For big test, to graduate."
Ann felt the excitement and danger in her gut. "For the big XCAS? The real XCAS, that you can't graduate unless you pass it?"
"That what he say."
Ann put them carefully into her bag. "It's like they're worth a million dollars," she murmured.
"A billion," Lep said, and laughed his throaty chuckle.
"Do you know the name of that woman who was forced to leave the building, the one with the four-year-old daughter?"
"I don't know her name, but somebody in building know it."
"Do you think they'll know where she went? How to find her? She'd like to get Tony and Warren in trouble too, I bet."
Lep looked uncomfortable. "But… it is me who make the dangerous electric."
"It was Tony and Warren who made you do it so you could graduate from high school. Nobody will blame you."
The bell screamed.
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