Secret

"Listen," Blossom said. "Listen." She spoke very slowly and distinctly. "We lived in a house. With real grass around it, and a live growing tree." She sat up a little straighter, watching for their reaction.

"A house?" Cheryl said. "But—"

"Yes." Blossom nodded. "Some people still live in their own private houses. You didn't know that did you? Hardly anybody knows. I mean, the President lives in one, everybody knows that. But some of his top advisers do too, his chief aides and advisers. There's a whole neighborhood with houses in it, and a big wall around it. Of course, it's a secret, because if anyone outside knew about the houses, they would think it wasn't fair, and it would be bad for the administration's image. So we went to a special school; they never let us meet outsiders. And our house had a swimming pool, and a special room to eat in, that wasn't the kitchen, a room just for eating. And sometimes my mother even made our own food, and it was so good. Oh, it was so good."

She clasped her hands together, and for a moment her eyes slipped shut and her head tilted back in a kind of reverie. Peter found that he was listening closely to her, hanging on every word, just as Cheryl was doing. He couldn't deny that Blossom could be fascinating, almost charming in some odd way. And even though her story was preposterous, she spoke with such intensity and conviction that it was difficult not to believe her.

"Really?" said Cheryl skeptically.

"Yes," Blossom insisted. "My father was a psychiatrist. He checked people out, people they were thinking of hiring. And that's why we got to live in a house, and have meat every week, and a pool, even though all the press releases said we lived in residential megastructures like everybody else."

Peter leaned back again. Blossom's story was a direct contradiction of information that had been drummed into him for his whole life, but nevertheless he believed her. Why should I make it up? her tone implied with every matter-of-fact word. It was the same way when she had gotten him to admit that Hanna was mean; Hanna really had been mean, after all.

"I just thought of something," Blossom said. "The food thing doesn't work for me anymore, and it never worked for them, but maybe it would work for you. Why don't you try it, Cheryl?"

"I'm not really hungry," Cheryl said.

"Me either," said Blossom. "But I mean, what else is there to do until they come to get us out? Come on, just try it? Just get down there and stick out your tongue."

"Well …," said Cheryl. She was clearly uncomfortable.

Peter wished Blossom would leave her alone.

"But why not?" Blossom said. "Are you afraid?"

Cheryl shook her head. "No. It's just that … I'm not hungry now. And if you're the only one it ever worked for, then you should probably try."

"Well, all right," said Blossom. "I'll do it now. But I'll get you to do it sometime." And once again she began laboring awkwardly over the screen.

Peter closed his eyes. It was difficult at first to get into the daydream; the hard realities on the other side of his eyelids did not want to retreat. But gradually his head began to fill with warmth. The steps dissolved into a white mist, and back through the mist came his old room, his and Jasper's room. Jasper, sitting on the bed and taking off his shoes, smiling, punching Peter on the shoulder and telling him not to worry.

"You're okay, Pete, you're better than a hundred of those slobs put together. Tomorrow, I'll tell them so myself."

Jasper's strong, hard body as he got into bed, so different from Peter's. Strong, to protect him, to take care of him. Jasper, who always took care of him—

"What?" said a voice. It sounded real, but it was a familiar voice, and Peter knew it was part of his daydream. How strange, that the dream should sound so real.

"What," said the voice again, "are you doing down on the floor like that?"

And there were footsteps, and he heard Blossom's noises stop. But that voice, how could it be real?Apprehensively, he opened his eyes.His feet on the spiral stairs, the top half of his body already through the hole, looking around at the three of them with an expression of amused bewilderment on his face, stood Jasper.