I looked down at Pete’s scanner. Sure enough, words appeared saying, “picked for the group date; present.” I then looked at the space above the scanner, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw a red light blink three times.
“It was alright,” I offered casually.
“No,” Ian announced from his bed. “First off, you gotta say more. And does it say a tense?”
“What do you mean?”
Ian came over and sat next to me. “See,” he said pointing at the display. “It’s telling you to talk about being picked for the group date as if it were the present. So you have to talk about it as if we haven’t gone on it yet.”
“But we have gone on it.”
“Yes. But when the audience sees it, what you say now will appear before the date. So you have to talk like it hasn’t happened yet.”
I returned my attention to Pete.
