THE HUNT
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But it’s useless. I can’t stop shivering. And when I hear the first voices cautiously enter the locker room, I grab my bag and head out. “I don’t feel well,” I say as I walk past them. Disgust pulls their faces down as they step aside, but that’s okay. I’m used to it, that look. It’s the way I look at myself in the mirror when I’m alone at home. You live too long trying not to be something, eventually you wind up hating that thing.
In English literature class right before the Declaration, no one can concentrate. All we want to do—including the teacher, who jettisons any pretense of teaching—is talk about the Declaration. I’m quiet, trying to thaw out, coldness still dug in deep in my bones. The teacher insists the Declaration is about another Hunt. “It’s not like the Ruler is going to marry again,” she says, her eyes stealing up to the clock, counting down the minutes to two A.M. Finally, at one forty-five A.M., we’re led to the auditorium. It’s bubbling over with excitement. Teachers line the sides, shifting on their feet. Even janitors loiter in the back, restless. Then two A.M. arrives and the screen above the stage is filled with our nation’s symbol: two white fangs, standing for Truth and Justice. For a frightful moment, the projector sputters and blanks out. A groan ripples across the rows of seats; technicians fly to the projector that sits, heavy and unwieldy, like all audiovisual equipment, in the center of the auditorium. Within a minute, they have it up and running again. Just in time. The Ruler, sitting at his desk in the Circular Office, is beginning his speech. His hands are clasped, his long fingers interlaced, the nails gleaming under the spotlights. “My dear citizens,” he begins. “When it was announced earlier
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10/24/12 2:23 PM