Tom was normally among the first to sign off. He wasn’t this time because just as he raised his hand to yank off the VR visor, Heather spoke up. “Are you signing off already?”
She sounded disappointed about it. Tom dropped his hand again. “Not yet.”
She scooted her desk over so they were sitting right next to each other. Despite himself, Tom felt his hands grow sweaty in his wired gloves.
“Can you believe Elliot Ramirez?” Heather said, tossing her dark hair out of her eyes. “His ego almost explodes out of the screen, doesn’t it? I felt like ducking and covering.”
“I can’t believe you’re a real girl and you’re not in love with Elliot Ramirez,” Tom said appreciatively. Then it occurred to him: she might not even be a real girl. For all he knew, she was a guy with a voice modifier who’d hacked the school feed.
“Let’s just say, I feel like I know enough about Elliot not to buy the hype.” There was something coy in her voice that made him wonder if he was missing a joke.
“And you really are a girl?” Tom couldn’t resist asking.
“I am so a girl!”
“Yeah, well, I won’t believe it till I see it.”
“Is this your way of asking me to video chat?” Heather bantered.
Tom hadn’t thought to ask her to do that. He recovered from his surprise quickly. “Yes?”
Heather twirled a lock of her dark hair around her finger. “So, this is an online school,” she said coyly. “Is video chatting Rosewood’s version of a date?”
Tom opened and closed his mouth. She didn’t sound like she hated the idea. He broke into a grin. “Only if you’re gonna say yes.”
Heather smiled. “What network address will you be at tomorrow, Tom?”
HE WAS ONLY half in the moment as he gave her his network address, as he promised her he’d be right at the same network address tomorrow when they met. He didn’t care if they were meeting at an obscenely early hour of the morning. Heather said it was because of the time zone she was in. Tom decided he’d stay up all night if he had to. His brain was whirling. He had a date … kind of. With a real, live girl … he hoped.
After she logged off, his avatar remained by his desk, his real body sitting stock-still on the couch in the VR parlor, the enormity of asking a girl out for the first time and having the girl say yes beating through his brain. He’d thought this would be just another ordinary day....
A throat cleared.
Tom noticed suddenly that he and Ms. Falmouth were the only ones left in the virtual classroom.
“I was just logging off,” Tom said quickly, and reached up in the real world to snatch off his visor.
“Not quite yet, Tom,” Ms. Falmouth said. “Stay a moment. I think we need to talk.”
Oh.
A heaviness settled in Tom’s chest, because he’d half expected this, and it wasn’t good.
“Let’s go to my office.” Ms. Falmouth twitched her fingers to alter the program, and the landscape shifted around them into a private office. She settled at one side of the imposing desk. Tom navigated himself into the seat opposite, and waited for some hint of what she needed to hear before she’d let him off the hook this time.
“Tom,” she said, folding her hands on her desk, “I am concerned about this attendance situation.”
Tom let out a breath. “I figured.”
“You were referred to this institution because your father somehow let you reach age eleven without enrolling you in school. We’ve worked to catch you up, but I don’t feel you’re making the same progress as the rest of the class. In fact, considering that you’re very rarely in class, I am finding this situation outright unmanageable.”
“Maybe I need an alternative school,” Tom suggested.
“This already is an alternative school. This is the end of the line.”
“I try.”
“No, you don’t. And what’s more, your father doesn’t try, either. Do you realize you missed two quizzes and a history paper last week?”
“It couldn’t be helped.”
“Russo-Chinese hackers, right?” she said. “Or perhaps you were taken hostage by terrorists again, or washed out to sea and stranded on a desert island without internet access?”
“Not quite.” But he’d really get a kick out of using that one sometime in the future.
“Tom, you are not taking this seriously—and that’s your problem. This is not some silly game: this is your future and you are throwing it away with both hands. You promised me a month ago that you would never miss class again.” Ms. Falmouth’s avatar gazed at him with an unnatural, unblinking intensity. “We signed a learning contract, don’t you remember?”
Tom didn’t point out that she’d demanded that he promise not to miss class again. What had she expected him to tell her, the truth? Should he have outright admitted he probably wasn’t going to show up at school? She would’ve just yelled at him for “being insolent” or something.
“This is not about me,” Ms. Falmouth went on. “It’s not about your father, even: it is about you, Tom. You realize that whatever actions I take from here, they’re for your own good. I cannot sit back and allow a fourteen-year-old boy’s entire life to be sabotaged by an irresponsible parent who will not even ensure he gets a proper education.”
Tom sat up in both the sim and the VR parlor. “What does that even mean—‘whatever actions you take from here’?”
“It means you’re under court order to attend school, and you have not been attending. Last week, I reported your absences to Child Protective Services.”
Tom slouched back, feeling like he’d just been socked in the stomach. This was not going to end well. Maybe he wasn’t reaching great heights of achievement with Neil, but life in foster care wouldn’t be a land of hope and opportunity either.
And no way could he stay at his mom’s.
No way, no way.
Dalton, her boyfriend, paid for her fancy apartment in New York City. Tom had visited her once, just once, and he’d met him. Dalton Prestwick was this rich, yacht-owning executive at some big multinational company, Dominion Agra. His job was to talk to politicians or something.
Dalton had looked him over like he was something nasty smeared on the bottom of his leather shoes and said, “My attorneys have documented everything of value in this house, punk. The second something goes missing, I’ll have you in juvenile hall.”
Oh, and Dalton already had a wife. And another girlfriend. Yeah, and Tom’s mom.
“I don’t have anywhere else to go, Ms. Falmouth. I know that you think you’re doing me a favor, but you’re not. I promise you.”
“You’re fourteen, Tom. What do you expect to do with yourself in a few years when you need to make a living? Do you plan to be a roving gambler like your father?”
“No,” Tom answered at once.
“A roving gamer?”
He wasn’t quite sure how much Ms. Falmouth knew about his gaming, but he didn’t say anything. If she’d asked him what he planned to be, he might’ve said he’d make his living one day the same way he was doing it now.