The Choosing Read Online Free PDF Page B

says.
    “Wait, I know,” Carrington says. Her voice is small, her fingers no longer painted, her dress no longer red but white   —the required uniform for all girls during their practicing lessons.
    “Truth One: I am part of a community led by God, and the function I fulfill is essential to the success of our people,” the room says.
    “Wait, wait, please . . . ,” Carrington cries.
    “Truth Two: I take pride in my role and how I will serve under God’s law, set forth by the Authority.”
    “No! Stop! I know them!”
    “Truth Three: My first responsibility is to make myself worthy of being chosen.” The little voices echo through the room. Mr. Holden starts to pace up and down the aisles between the desks.
    Carrington pulls her hand down and feels tears fill her eyes. She knows the statements! She has been learning them all summer. Her mother will surely ask Mr. Holden if she knew them, and what will he say?
    “Truth Four: My significance comes not from my own merit but from being chosen.”
    Carrington joins in with the other voices. “Truth Five: Being chosen secures my station and the love and acceptance I will receive under the Authority. Truth Six: Not to be chosen would yield a cruel fate of my own making.”
    Mr. Holden walks by Carrington’s desk, and she tugs at his jacket. When he turns to look down at her, his face is different. Thin, nearly hollow, like wax spread across a bare skull, his blue eyes replaced with coal. Carrington gasps and Mr. Holden cocks his head to the side and smiles.
    “And who are you?”
    Carrington struggles to find her voice. “I’m Carrington.”
    “Wrong.”
    “But I am.”
    “Let’s ask the rest of the class, shall we?”
    Carrington turns to see that the faces from her memory are gone, replaced with the same monstrous features she sees in Mr. Holden. She wants to scream or run, but suddenly her desk feels like a prison around her, trapping her in this unending terror.
    “Girls, do you know who this is?” Mr. Holden asks.
    A roomful of black eyes turn to her and all the girls answer at once. “She is no one.”
    Carrington’s tears feel cool against the hot fear collecting in her cheeks.
    “They say you are no one,” Mr. Holden says.
    “I’m not no one; I’m Carrington.”
    “Were you chosen?”
    Panic gathers in every cell across her skin. “I will be.”
    “No, you won’t.” Mr. Holden’s face turns dark, and Carrington’s tiny heart roars inside her chest.
    “I will . . . ,” she tries, but her words are like wind, invisible.
    “She is nothing,” the girls sing around her.
    “Stop,” Carrington manages.
    “She is nothing.” Their voices grow, a haunting chorus that echoes the message across the room in unison. “She is nothing.”
    The sun outside disappears and darkness fills the room. Laughter, deep and brittle, accompanies the hateful song. Mr. Holden bellows rippling howls from the front of the room.
    “Please stop.”
    “She is nothing.”
    “That isn’t true. Stop!”
    “Truth Six: Not to be chosen would yield a cruel fate of my own making,” the group says.
    “No, I didn’t do this!”
    “Truth Six: Not to be chosen would yield a cruel fate of my own making.”
    Carrington clamps her hands over her ears and shakes her head. “No, no, no.”
    “Truth is truth, little girl,” Mr. Holden yells. “As the Authority set forth the law, so the law must be obeyed.”
    The girls continue to chant the truth as Carrington squeezes her hands tightly over her ears, her nails digging into the sides of her skull, her body shuddering in her desk, their words crashing into her with painful force.
    “Truth Six: Not to be chosen would yield a cruel fate of my own making.
    “Truth Six: Not to be chosen would yield a cruel fate of my own making.”
    Hot breath rushes past her ear and she opens her eyes to see Mr. Holden’s terrorizing face inches from her own.
    “You are nothing,” he whispers.
    Carrington shot up in bed and