“Is it something you want?” asks Cecily.
“I have to get the test results to see if I qualify. That’s step one. Then, I don’t know. We’ll see.”
There’s a pause, and Whitford says, “Well, I’ve rigged up a new reading device for you, but maybe you won’t need it for much longer after all.”
“Need what?” I ask.
“Cecily told me you wanted to try out to host the morning announcements.”
I didn’t so much want to as agreed to if she would do it, too.
“I might have figured out a way to make it work.”
“You have?”
“Ever heard of a ‘refreshable braille display’? It’s pretty cool. I mean, I’m a gadget guy. I just love stuff like this. But it’s this flat tablet that has a bunch of tiny rods in it that pop up to form braille letters in real time. When you finish reading a line of the braille, the rods reassemble to create the surface for the next line of text.”
“Wow, that’s so cool,” says Ion.
“I know, right?” says Whitford. “I found a way to make it all work together. I found an app that allows a teleprompter on this iPad”—I hear him tap the device—“to be controlled by an iPhone. So another host could control the script on the teleprompter by scrolling on the iPad with her finger off-camera, which controls the text on a refreshable braille terminal that Will would have on a desk in front of him.”
“That’s tight,” says Nick.
“Wow, cool,” I say, though I have mixed feelings. I hadn’t expected Whitford to actually think up a functioning system for this. Now I really have to audition.
“Good luck,” says Nick. “You’ll need it. I mean, we’ll all vote for you. But you’ve got, you know, pretty steep competition. Xander Reusch-Bag has been host for, like, three years.”
“Wait,” I say. “We have class together. Isn’t his last name just Reusch?”
“Well, yeah, technically it’s just Reusch,” says Nick. “But, hey. If your last name rhymes with douche, you really should know better than to also act like one. Otherwise the nickname is inevitable.”
? ? ?
After Nick and Ion head home, Whitford suggests that Cecily and I try out his braille terminal.
Cecily holds an iPhone and I have the terminal on a desk in front of me. I feel the braille and start to read.
“It was the year 3017 and the Doctor was walking through the empty streets of a mysteriously abandoned city floating on what appeared to be a cloud…” I read. “Dude, what is this?”
“Doctor Who fan fiction,” says Whitford, as if this should have been completely obvious. “You don’t like it? Do you think the scene should’ve started with him stepping out of the TARDIS?”
“Wait, did you write this?” I ask. “You write fan fiction?”
“Uh… no… I mean, my friend wrote it, I just thought he might want feedback on it,” says Whitford.
“Right,” I say, completely unconvinced. “Your friend.”
“Let’s keep practicing,” says Cecily. “We need to get this down for the audition.”
As we continue through the text, the Doctor still wandering around a postapocalyptic wasteland in search of someone called his “companion,” there are times when Cecily gets a bit behind or ahead in her scrolling. After a while, though, my reading speed and her scrolling harmonize into the perfect match.
CHAPTER 10
On Monday, at the start of journalism class, Mrs. Everbrook asks everyone who wants to audition for the morning announcements to raise a hand.
I raise mine, wondering if Cecily is raising hers, too. I better not be the only one challenging Xander and Victoria. Cecily better not be backing out. I’m doing this for her, after all.
The way she spoke at that museum—the energy in her voice as she described each painting, her belief that art means something more than brushed-on oils dried and chipping on stretched canvas—that’s a voice that deserves to be heard. That needs to be shared. And if I have to audition in order for her to give it a try, then so be it.
But then I return to panicking. I’m probably the only one raising my hand. This was a bad idea.
“Don’t try to pull your hand down, Will. I already saw you,” says Mrs. Everbrook. “All right, so we’ve got Xander and Victoria running for reelection, I see. And they will be challenged by Will”—she pauses while scribbling my name on paper, and for a moment of dread, I am sure that I am the only one, that Cecily backed out—“as well as Tripp, Connor, and Cecily.”
I exhale in relief. She raised her hand.
“I’m going to go ahead and pair you off as cohosts,” says Mrs. Everbrook.
“Tripp and Connor, you guys are buddies, right? I’ll make you the first pair. And Cecily and Will, you did great work covering that van Gogh exhibit, so I’ll put you together.”
Mrs. Everbrook goes over some rules about the audition process, including what to wear. Then she gives us the rest of the period to work on our journalism assignments.