Red Rover | gxg | Wattys 2023 Winner | ✔

(1) The I-Word

Ditzy has a point. Morse code won't stop one of us from blurting a Sleeper's name out loud if we're startled to find someone we recognize lying in a grocery aisle. But there are scenarios when it could be useful—I've been in some too recently to forget—and I don't see the harm in trying. At very least, it will give Ditzy something to keep her occupied.

I give the idea the green flag. Ditzy talks Patrick into it, and then we run it past Calico J when he wakes up. He just shrugs as he ties his locs back out of his face.

"We can learn enough to test it, at least," he says. "Find a Sleeper we know and try tapping their name. If it works, it could be a good backup communication option for us."

Ditzy bounces on the couch like an excited kid at a birthday party. She's always so happy about her little ideas. Even the slightly deranged ones. "There's a girl down the road from the school that I recognize," she says. "Out on her lawn, facedown. We'll have plenty of room to run if we wake her."

"Running's not the problem," Patrick begins to say, but Ditzy just talks over him.

"I can even be the test subject. I know her name, so I can learn those letters. Or maybe enough for a simple phrase. Then we could grab a tin can or something, from an old recycling bin, to make it louder? And walk right up, tap the name. You guys could even hide. I can take a Sleeper, and she was always the weak one on the baseball team."

Yeah. That's Ditzy for you.

"So long as you don't let her see us," says Patrick.

"That doesn't matter," says Calico J. "If she wakes it, it's only coming after her anyway. If you don't want to be there, you don't have to come."

Patrick grumbles, but I already know he'd rather eat baked rat than be left alone without the rest of us, even in a safe house. He'll complain, but if we try this, he'll come.

Ditzy's still bouncing. Her hands pop up and begin drumming on her knees instead, all delicate white fingers and painted nails. I've never understood why she still bothers to do her nails when we're in the middle of the apocalypse. "Standards are important, Meg," she scolded me last time I brought it up. "If we let that slide, soon we'll be no better than animals."

This coming from the girl I've seen bash a sleeper's head in with a baseball bat, but she even went so far as to clean the Redding off after. Redding, or blood. She didn't bat an eye either way. This is also the girl who's told me she was a straight-A student in senior year, a baseball star in her school league, and got named valedictorian before the Redding sent the whole world down the toilet. Ditzy is many things, and terrifying is one of them.

"Next question," says Calico J, probably the most on-track of all of us. Ironically. "Where are you actually going to learn Morse code? The internet's been down for five weeks, and something makes me doubt it's the kind of thing you find a booklet about just lying around."

"Oh, my brother was interested," says Ditzy breezily. In the kitchen, Patrick winces. "I can just make a run back to my house tomorrow and go through his room. He's Sleeping anyway."

"If you go, you're not going alone," says Calico J. "I'm coming with you."

I'm not about to argue with that. I'm a liability when it comes to Ditzy, and Patrick isn't a fighter. Besides, Calico J is the only person on the team that Ditzy can't manipulate. Even if she only does it subconsciously. Patrick tries to hide it, but he gets tongue-tied like a thirteen-year-old with a crush when she shoots him that little smile, and I'm no better.

That's a lie. I'm definitely worse.

"Meg should come, too," says Ditzy, and I'm pretty sure my brain tries to protect me from that statement, because I process it in retrospect five seconds later. Which is dumb, because I went into this assuming we'd all be going, and being offered an alternative isn't usually enough to sway me. Not when I'd be passing up a chance to watch Ditzy being awesome, and also Ditzy being gorgeous while being awesome, which tend to go together.