Page 82 of Old Habits
“Wait…” I squint in confusion. “What is this?”
“It’s a measure of your personal happiness over time,” he answers nonchalantly.
I stare at him. “You keep tabs on my personal happiness? What, do you keep psychological profiles on everybody in town?”
He hesitates. “Well...”
My eyes grow wider. “You keep psychological profiles on everybody in town?! How is this not common knowledge?”
“Well, the profiles become tainted if people know about them.”
“This is a serious invasion of privacy.”
He shrugs. “It’s my job, William.”
“You’re the PE teacher!”
“And it’s my responsibility to monitor the physical state of this town’s citizens.”
“No, it’s your responsibility to teach sex-ed and the rules of dodge ball.”
“Oh, no.” He waves a hand. “We don’t play dodge ball anymore. It’s cruel and encourages bullying.”
My jaw drops. “Oh, my God!”
“This is your happiness profile,” he continues, pointing at the screen unfazed. “As you can see, you lingered at a steady 7.8 from age ten until your freshman year of high school when it dipped to an understandable 7.4. Now, half-way through your junior year, that spiked to an all-time high of 9.1.”
I nod. “That’s when I started dating Jovie.”
“Exactly. Fast forward to February 2013 when Jovie left town.” His pointer crashes to the bottom of the graph and the crowd audibly cringes. “1.4, William. Usually, we reserve the low points on the graph for homeless people and the recently deceased.”
Blood rushes to my cheeks. “So, what? Breakups are, in general, unhappy times. It’s not a crime to be sad over a breakup. Also, none of this affects any of you. It’s none of your business.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” He clicks open another document and I groan. “We like to keep the General Happiness Index of Clover — or G-HIC — at a healthy average of 7.3. If this point drops below 7, we start to worry, but if it goes anywhere near a 6...” He shakes his head.
“What?” I ask. “You start sacrificing virgins in the town square?”
“No, we call regular town meetings to address those who are messing up the curve and, William...” He lays a hand on my shoulder. “If history is going to repeat itself, as it often does, then this Jovie situation could plummet you right back down to low happiness ratings and that affects all of us.”
I shake his hand off. “No, it just affects these absolutely batshit insane charts you have.”
“Language,”he warns. “You’re in a school.”
“No! This is...” I turn to the silent crowd again. “Look, I get it. You don’t like change. No one does. That’s normal but Jovie Ross was born in this town and she deserves to be here as much as everybody else in this room.”
Mrs. Clark leans forward. “But, Will, she...”
“She what?”
“She glued a rubber...” she hesitates, “you-know-what to the statue of George Washington outside the elementary school!”
I hold back a chuckle. “Oh, come on. That was me!”
They all gasp.
“Yeah, that’s right!” I point at my chest. “I did that! You gonna drive me out of town, huh? You gonna start having secret town meetings about me behind my back to address the Will situation?”
“Will, you’ve grown up,” Lucky says. “You come from a good family. Hank and Jovie Ross, well...”