Feed Page 17

  Outside her window, her father was working in the garden. He was on his hands and knees, pulling out pieces of grass from where the flowers were. His feedpack glittered in the sun. I watched him. The sky was blue over him. He patted the dirt with his hands.

  And I whispered, “Violet … Violet? There’s one story I’ll keep telling you. I’ll keep telling it. You’re the story. I don’t want you to forget. When you wake up, I want you to remember yourself. I’m going to remember. You’re still there, as long as I can remember you. As long as someone knows you. I know you so well, I could drive a simulator. This is the story.”

  And for the first time, I started crying.

  I cried, sitting by her bed, and I told her the story of us. “It’s about the feed,” I said. “It’s about this meg normal guy, who doesn’t think about anything until one wacky day, when he meets a dissident with a heart of gold.” I said, “Set against the backdrop of America in its final days, it’s the high-spirited story of their love together, it’s laugh-out-loud funny, really heartwarming, and a visual feast.” I picked up her hand and held it to my lips. I whispered to her fingers. “Together, the two crazy kids grow, have madcap escapades, and learn an important lesson about love. They learn to resist the feed. Rated PG-13. For language,” I whispered, “and mild sexual situations.”

  I sat in her room, by her side, and she stared at the ceiling. I held her hand. On a screen, her heart was barely beating.

  I could see my face, crying, in her blank eye.

  M. T. ANDERSON is the author of The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party, which won the National Book Award, and the sequel, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves. He is also the author of Thirsty, Burger Wuss, and several books for younger readers. About Feed, he says, “To write this novel, I read a huge number of back issues of magazines like Seventeen, Maxim, and Stuff. I listened to cell phone conversations in malls. People tend to shout. Where else could you get lines like, ‘Dude, I think the truffle is totally undervalued’?” M. T. Anderson lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.