“I read your essay,” he tells her, which gets a nice head-snapping reaction out of her. “You have a dancing princess fantasy—don’t deny it.”
“My legs have a dancing princess fantasy.”
“Well, to dance with your legs, I guess I’ll have to put up with the rest of you.”
“No, you won’t,” she says, “because not a single part of me will be here.” Then she glances toward Lev’s portrait, which is now weirdly lit by colorful strobe lights. “Why don’t you dance with your portrait?” Miracolina suggests. “The two of you deserve each other.” Then she storms out. The adults at the door try to stop her from going back to her room, but she gets past them anyway.
After she’s gone, Lev hears the grumbling around him.
“She’s such a loser,” someone says.
Lev turns to the kid with a vengeance. It’s Timothy, the boy who arrived with her. “I could say the same about you!” he snaps. “All of you!”
Then he shuts himself up before he goes too far. “No, that’s not true. But you shouldn’t be judging her.”
“Yes, Lev,” says Timothy obediently. “I won’t, Lev. I’m sorry, Lev.”
And then a shy girl, apparently less shy than all the other shy girls, steps forward. “I’ll dance with you, Lev.”
So he goes out onto the dance floor and obliges her and every other girl there with a dance, while his portrait looks down on them with its irritating gaze of holy superiority.
- - -
The next day the portrait is vandalized.
Something rude is tagged in spray paint right across the middle of it. Breakfast is delayed until the portrait can be removed. There is a spray paint can missing from the storeroom, but no smoking gun as to who could have done it. Everyone has a theory, though, and most of those theories point to the same person.
“We know it was her!” the other kids try to tell Lev. “Miracolina’s the only one here who has something against you!”
“How do you know she’s the only one?” Lev asks them. “She’s just the only one with guts enough to say it out loud.”
Out of respect for Lev’s wishes, the other kids don’t accuse her to her face, and the adults are diplomatic enough to keep their opinions to themselves.
“Perhaps we need more surveillance cameras,” Cavenaugh suggests.
“What we need,” Lev tells him, “is more freedom to express opinions. Then things like this wouldn’t happen.”
Cavenaugh is genuinely insulted. “You talk like this is a harvest camp. Everyone’s free to express themselves here.”
“Well, I guess not everyone feels that way.”
26 - Miracolina
After a day of being cold-shouldered by every living thing in the mansion, there’s a knock on her door. She doesn’t say anything, because whoever it is will just come in anyway; the bedrooms here have no locks.
The door opens slowly, and Lev steps in. There’s a quickening of her heart when she sees him. She tells herself it’s anger.
“If you’re here to accuse me of vandalizing your portrait, I confess. I can’t hide the truth anymore. I did it. Now punish me by taking away all my inspirational movies. Please.”
Lev just keeps his arms limply by his side. “Stop it. I know you didn’t do it.”
“Oh—so you finally caught the naughty tithe?”
“Not exactly. I just know it wasn’t you.”
It’s a bit of a relief to be vindicated, although she did take some guilty pleasure in being a prime suspect. “So what do you want?”
“I’ve been meaning to apologize for the way you were brought here. Tranq’d and blindfolded and all. I mean, what they’re doing here is important, but I don’t always agree with how they do it.”