Chaos on CatNet, Naomi Kritzer [bill gates books recommendations txt] 📗

On the plus side, the raid was fun. We had multiple reenactor groups scattered around the campsite.

Hermione: LARPing groups

Marvin: Whatever. Anyway, supposedly all the excitement was going to be in the morning but INSTEAD two of the people at my campsite wanted to go raid one of the other groups so we sneaked up on them through the woods at 2 a.m.

Hermione: How’d that go?

Marvin: I clobbered two of them with my boffer and then some of them got me with a bucket of water.

Hermione: Do I want to know what “boffer” is a euphemism for?

Marvin: It’s a big fake foam sword. Well, the foam is real. You make it out of PVC pipe, a pool noodle, and duct tape.

The water was also real, unfortunately.

Hermione: That actually sounds pretty epic except for the water.

Marvin: I TOLD you that dihydrogen monoxide was nothing to mess around with!

14•  Nell  •

I sleep late on Saturday, but the house is silent and dark when I get up. There are still dishes in the sink, and after I eat half a toasted bagel, I peer at the stack of cups and bowls, wondering if it will make things less tense if I just wash them, or if it’s someone’s turn and everyone else will be cross that this specific someone didn’t do the dishes. I end up washing just the items I used and putting them in the drying rack. After a minute, I also dry them off and put them back where I found them. When I’m done, it looks like I was never even here.

It’s almost nine. How are they all still asleep? My mother and grandparents never sleep this late.

I check my phone, and there’s a message from the Catacombs offering me another quest. I click Yes without so much as reading the details, then follow a set of instructions to put on a loose sweater with easily accessible pockets and then dress for a walk outside.

I hesitate when the next set of instructions is to walk to a hardware store four blocks away. Should I leave a note, in case someone wakes up and wonders where I am? I close my bedroom door instead. If they even get up, they’ll assume I’m sleeping.

It’s a bright, frigid Minnesota day, and my face aches from the cold when I get to the hardware store. I smile at the old man behind the counter; he nods without really looking at me.

I step out of sight in an aisle and check for the next set of instructions.

Shoplift a tool. You may choose any of the following: hammer, crowbar, sledgehammer, ax. Take the biggest you can remove without being caught. Check first for mirrors that let the employee watch what you’re doing. If you can see him in the mirror, he can see you. Don’t get caught.

Oh. Okay. I’ve never stolen anything before, and my hands are shaking as I put my phone back in my pocket. This must be why I needed the big pockets, I guess. I look around for a mirror, and there is one, but the store phone rings and the employee is distracted. I pick a hammer off the rack, turn my back so the mirror won’t show what I’m up to, then stuff it awkwardly under my coat. It’s not exactly in my pocket, but the pocket is holding it in place under my coat.

Is he going to be suspicious when I walk out without buying anything? I didn’t bring money, because my instructions didn’t say to bring money. I stride brusquely to the front of the store, and when he puts his hand over the phone receiver and says, “Can I help you find anything?” I shrug apologetically and say, “My dad just wanted me to check if you had any snowblowers left in stock. I’ll tell him you do!”

He nods distractedly, and I’m out on the street, the hammer in my pocket, my heart pounding in my chest. I walk halfway down the block, then check my phone for the next instruction.

It’s a photo of a box that’s been left out on the alley one block over. Leave the tool you chose in this box.

The box is easy enough to find. There’s four other hammers, an ax, and a sledgehammer inside, almost everything brand-new with the tags still on. I add my hammer and then take a picture so the app knows I’ve done it.

Now go home. Delete the photo. Tell no one.

I take the next alley toward my father’s house. I’ve never lived somewhere with alleys before; they’re like a second street that runs behind the houses, with trash bins and garages and all the other unattractive stuff people like to keep out of sight. The next block down, I see another box like the one I left my hammer in. Curious, I check inside; instead of hammers, it’s bottle after bottle of stump remover.

Well, okay. I was told to tell no one about the hammers, but no one’s told me I can’t talk about the box full of stump remover, so maybe I’ll ask someone if they know what they might be for and that’ll give me some clues about the hammers? I take a picture, and don’t delete this one.

I walk the rest of the way home, thinking about how this sort of thing was probably the reason why Brother Daniel always said I had the devil in me. “That one wants to know the exact rules so she can wiggle under them,” he said to my mother not long after we first joined the Remnant. My face heats as I remember the look on my mother’s face after he said that. The disgust. She knew he was right. Wanting to stay out of trouble is not the same as wanting to be good.

I’d kind of given up on being good, though. Two churches ago? Three? Anyway, I’d realized ages ago that I was never going to be good the way girls were