Away We Go Read Online Free PDF Page B

said, and turned away.
    Alice looked crestfallen, so I pretended to wake up from my pretend sleep. I offered her my hand.
    â€œLucky for you I have no such orders,” I said. “I’m Noah Falls.”
    Alice took my hand. “How was your nap, Noah Falls?” she asked, the hint of a reproach in her voice.
    â€œIt involved lots of sheep, Alice Witaker,” I said.
    â€œAre your dreams often farm-themed, Noah Falls?”
    â€œAren’t yours?”
    She cracked a smile.
    â€œI’ll take that as a yes,” she said.
    It was thanks to Alice that, soon after I arrived at Westing, I learned the world was going to end in a year’s time. She dragged me to Bullsworth 112, where I sat in a circle of desks and listened to Morgan, president of the Believers, tell us about the comet Apep, her eyes wide and distant.
    â€œâ€”a mile wide,” she was saying, “traveling thirty thousand miles per hour. It’ll release as much energy as a one-million-megaton bomb.”
    She didn’t mention the AwayWeKnow science articles in which NASA scientists put the odds of impact at one in ten thousand.
    She said instead, that we shouldn’t trust what we read on AwayWeKnow. After all, if kids knew the truth, they’d panic. Only two things can stand in the way of panic—belief, or ignorance.
    â€œThese are our last days. So what do we do? We live our lives as if the world depends on our actions. We be better people. We manifest a better reality. This is our test, our trial.”
    I could’ve filled in the rest for her. These last days are our tribulation, our means of lending our passing some semblance of meaning, our moment of self-definition in the light of the fires of Armageddon or whatever.
    The fact that there was a chance the whole world,everything anyone ever did, might end so stupidly —not a good chance, but still a chance—was all the proof I needed that there were no better realities to manifest, no great trials and tribulations. You just waited and waited to run into some shitty accident of nature. A rock, a germ, a falling tree. An apocalyptic asteroid that would destroy all life as you know it. A banana peel.
    I tugged at the sleeve of Alice’s dress.
    She ignored me.
    I continued tugging.
    Finally, she sighed to let me know that I had prevailed, as I had known I would.
    â€œDo you think,” I whispered, “that our esteemed president has considered that the odds of The Great Cliché hitting the earth are about the same as winning big in Vegas and blowing it on—ha—blow, hookers, and penile enhancement? I believe in believing in nothing, but if you must believe in something, why not Vegas?”
    â€œâ€˜The Great Cliché’ , ” she echoed. “Oh my God, you can’t even take the end of the world seriously.”
    â€œI am very serious about not taking anything seriously,” I confirmed.
    She studied me for a moment, with a doctor’s unnerving intensity, before settling on a diagnosis: “You,” she said, “are a troll .”
    I could hardly believe my ears. Girl picked up some Internet lingo, courtesy of AwayWeGo, and now insisted on transposing it to real-life situations, mainly those involving me.
    â€œYou’re a sheep, ” I whispered, and instantly felt bad, wanted to take it back.
    She rolled her eyes. “You and your sheep, Noah Falls.”
    â€œI have a dream, that one day, we will be judged, not on thebasis of which farm animals we have in our dreams, but on how we choose to spend perfectly decent Friday nights.”
    â€œTroll,” she reiterated, in case I hadn’t gotten it the first time.
    Just then the door to the room swung open, revealing a group of boys.
    â€œWelcome, welcome!” Morgan said with grating enthusiasm as they picked their noisy way to the outskirts of our circle. We made room for them, and Morgan resumed her spiel, but after a few minutes,