PEDERSON: We made a promise.
(Silence)
REBECCA: What questions do you want to ask me?
CHANG: What happened in the gym with Callum?
PEDERSON: Dude!
CHANG: Okay, okay, relax . . . This is an interview with Rebecca Walker, Monday, May 4, 12:58 p.m., in Principal Walker’s office at Chaminade High School. Lieutenant Chang and Detective Pederson present. Rebecca, what can you tell me about the Princess Game? Where do you stand in it?
REBECCA: Nowhere. I know it for what it is. It isn’t about the “Princesses” in the slightest. It’s the Princes who are playing games. It’s always been about them.
CHANG: What do you mean?
REBECCA: The boys assign a hierarchy to the girls, scoring them on their looks. But it’s the boys who have the real hierarchy. Being a man means hooking up with the hottest girl they can, telling their friends about it, and tossing them out like trash. Get drunk, hook up, brag about it, humiliate the girl, then try for someone hotter. That’s the real game. And the girls were starting to figure it out. Maybe that’s why they’re ending up dead. Someone out there is warning what happens to girls who don’t play by the rules.
CHANG: Who was figuring it out?
REBECCA: All the girls. That’s why Ariana started telling people what a creep Adam was. And why Charlotte cheated on Eric with Flynn, because she knew Eric was passing private pictures of her around the locker room. And why Anika Gelt went with Raymond Green to prom, when she heard Naveen was calling her a racist for rejecting him. Girls were starting to turn the tables. For once, I had hope that things were finally changing. That we could win the game. But at this school, the Princes always win. (pause) Even the ones you think are different.
CHANG: Different? How?
REBECCA: Imagine a new boy who comes in. Honest, vulnerable, real. One who doesn’t know the rules. And out of all the girls at school, somehow he takes a liking to you. He treats you well. He cares about you. You sneak out to old movies at the Lantern. You make s’mores in the woods at night. You send each other playlists, and his has Joni Mitchell on it. He lets things go slow, without pressure, and you feel at home with him. But then he starts hanging out with the Princes. Eric. Flynn. Phillip. Adam. And all the others. They start pressuring him to hook up with you. Flynn, especially. Telling him to seal the deal and prove he’s one of them. He tries to ignore them, but he can’t. His manhood is on the line. Every boy wants to be a Prince—even this one who thinks he’s a “good guy.” Suddenly, he’s putting a little more pressure on you. Maybe he doesn’t even know he’s doing it. Pushing you to do what you weren’t ready for. But you care about him. You know who he really is. So you pretend you’re okay with it. You let him take you further . . . one day in the school gym, when it’s dark. And it goes badly. Not for you. For him. You try to make him feel better. You tell him it’s okay. But then he just ignores you. Throws you away like the Princes taught him to. Could be worse, of course. He could lie and tell the whole school he banged you in the gym. Then he’d be a real Prince. But as long as he doesn’t lie, you hold out hope that maybe deep down, he’s still the guy you once knew.
(Silence)
PEDERSON: He is still the guy you once knew. And he would never lie.
CHANG: (Mutters.) Christ.
REBECCA: Please tell my dad I’m looking for him.
PEDERSON: Rebecca?
REBECCA: Yes, Detective Pederson?
PEDERSON: (softly) Why didn’t you tell me how you felt? Why didn’t you speak up?
REBECCA: Ask Madelyn Mayberry what happens to girls who speak up.
KRISTOFF
PEDERSON: What happened with you and Madelyn Mayberry? No bullshit, or we’ll haul you down to the station.
KRISTOFF: Slooooow down, cowboy. Comin’ in hot! Hear that’s your specialty, though.
CHANG: Both of you, cool it. It is Monday, May 4, 1:18 p.m. This interview is taking place with Kristoff Arendelle in Principal Walker’s office at Chaminade High School.
PEDERSON: Kristoff, you kissed Madelyn because of a locker room dare.
KRISTOFF: False. She kissed me. She insisted we do it with my mascot head on, but I was like no way, fair princess, you gotta taste these fat, chapped lips in front of all these boys.
CHANG: This was after basketball practice?
KRISTOFF: I run mascot for spring sports, so me and the cheerleaders usually rehearse on the sidelines with the teams once a week. Behold “Prince Chaminade,” who looks like a cross between Jack Sparrow and Liberace, and somehow that’s supposed to intimidate teams like the Titans or the Wildcats? God, that costume smells like ass. I usually shower after practice with the boys, because wear that foam head for an hour and you come out smelling like necrophilia. Plus, hang around those Princes long enough, and you end up catching a little wench tail on the back end.
CHANG: The girls the “Princes” reject.
KRISTOFF: Stewards and wenches gotta scavenge somewhere, right? They nickname me “Incel,” and even then, I still get more play than most of those pretty boys. I just don’t brag about it like they do, ’cause I don’t want to spoil a girl’s reputation. But Madelyn . . . well, she doggone went and spoiled her reputation all by herself.
PEDERSON: So this dare.
KRISTOFF: Madelyn Mayberry is like the Virgin Queen of Flyover Land. Dresses in pink and wears butterfly berets and eats Greek yogurt at lunch. Ariana and Charlotte were down to bone, but Madelyn’s hot in that Mormon-girl way, which is why half the dudes in school wanted to climb that tower, even if they all crashed and burned. Only evidence that Madelyn had any libido at all was when she let Phillip feel her up during Eric’s birthday party. Phillip told everyone about it, of course. That’s the point. And then suddenly Madelyn’s on this rampage, saying that if our team name’s the Princes, then guys need to treat chicks better, and before you know it, she’s asking for mandatory Chivalry Training—she was really into Chaminade’s fairy-tale lingo—like we’re some kinda ground zero for #MeToo. Says boys and girls need to be held to the same standards, because if chicks treated dudes the way we treat them, then all hell would break loose. Which is true, but that’s evolution, man. Don’t hate the players; hate the genes. No one listened to her, but she’s editor of the school paper, so she decides to eavesdrop on the locker room after practice and expose just how filthy our mouths are when we talk about girls. Kelly Blake sneaks her in, but Kelly’s big ass trips, and we end up catching them both. Then Phillip tells Maddy that he’s going to report her for spying in the guys’ locker room—which by her own “equal rights” logic should result in being expelled, since if a guy did that in the girls’ locker room, he’d be put in a hole. Only way Phillip won’t report her and ruin her life is a game of truth or dare—and he dares her to kiss the ugliest boy in the room. She instantly looks at me. Stares right at me like I’m a hobgoblin about to eat her. Phil never said my name. She could have made the case for any other dude. Hell, Maddy could have picked Phil for being ugly “inside.” But not after she looked at me like that. Ugly to Maddy meant unshowered, rank-smelling, pizza-faced Kristoff, with a jiggly belly and hair on his shoulders. Still remember those wide, revolted blue eyes. She’d rather die than kiss me. But didn’t have a choice, did she? Her fate was sealed. Had to be five seconds long, and the boys counted it out, two seconds for every one.