Honest Faces 😡 — Transcript

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1. 0:00In this world, everyone has a second
2. 0:01face on the back of their head. You see,
3. 0:03your front face says whatever you want
4. 0:04people to hear, but your back face says
5. 0:06what you actually think, and it can't
6. 0:08lie, ever. That's why everyone in the
7. 0:09world is bald. Hair grows over the back
8. 0:11face, so the law says you shave it every
9. 0:13single morning. Job interviews are
10. 0:15brutal. The front face says, "I'm a hard
11. 0:16worker." The back face says, "I just
12. 0:18need the money." On first dates, couples
13. 0:19sit back to back so they know what
14. 0:21they're really getting. My teacher
15. 0:22writes on the board all day, while her
16. 0:23backface tells the class, "I hate this
17. 0:25job." At the movies, you hear the whole
18. 0:27row in front of you reviewing the movie
19. 0:28out loud. And grandma always says, "What
20. 0:30a lovely sweater, dear." While the back
21. 0:31of her head says, "That's hideous." The
22. 0:33only person in town who's allowed to
23. 0:34cover his back face is Mr. Branick. He
24. 0:36runs the Branic home for kids, the
25. 0:38orphanage on the hill. He wears a tall
26. 0:39wool hat all day, every day. They say
27. 0:41his backface got burned in a fire 30
28. 0:43years ago, and it can't talk anymore, so
29. 0:45nobody asks. Everybody loves Mr. Branic.
30. 0:47He hands out candy at the park. My best
31. 0:49friend Theo lives at the Branick home.
32. 0:50Theo's backface is my favorite person in
33. 0:52the world because it always says what
34. 0:53Theo's too shy to. like, "I'm really
35. 0:55glad you sit with me. Kids at the home
36. 0:56get adopted all the time. Branic always
37. 0:58finds them families in far away towns,
38. 1:00but none of them ever write back." Then
39. 1:02one day, Theo ran up to me at the bus
40. 1:03stop. "I got adopted," he said. "I'm
41. 1:05leaving tomorrow." And from the back of
42. 1:06his head, very quietly, "I don't want to
43. 1:08go." The next morning, Theo was gone.
44. 1:10"No goodbye, no address. He's with a
45. 1:12lovely family," Branick told me, patting
46. 1:13my head. And under his wool hat,
47. 1:15something moved like a mouth trying to
48. 1:17talk. "Where does Theo live now?" "A
49. 1:18lovely family, far away." And every time
50. 1:20the hat twitched. That's when I realized
51. 1:22his back face wasn't burned. It was
52. 1:24covered because if anyone ever heard it,
53. 1:25they'd hear the truth. So, I waited for
54. 1:27the one day the whole town would be in
55. 1:29one place, the fall fair. Branick was up
56. 1:30on the stage giving his speech while the
57. 1:32whole town clapped. I climbed up behind
58. 1:34him and I pulled off his hat. Under it
59. 1:35was a scarf tied tight around the back
60. 1:37of his head, right over the mouth. The
61. 1:39crowd went silent. Brick grabbed for it,
62. 1:41but I yanked the scarf loose, and I
63. 1:42asked him one question loud enough for
64. 1:44everyone to hear. "Mr. Branick, where is
65. 1:46Theo?" His front face said, "With a
66. 1:48lovely family," his back face said,
67. 1:49locked in the cellar under the old mill
68. 1:51with all the others. Nobody moved. "Mr.
69. 1:53Franic, I said. Where are the kids from
70. 1:54last year? The seller. And the year
71. 1:55before that, the seller. His front face
72. 1:57turned to the crowd. I can explain, it
73. 1:59said, and the back of his head said, "I
74. 2:00can't." The whole town ran to the old
75. 2:02mill. They kicked in the cellar door.
76. 2:04And there they were, 12 kids sewing
77. 2:05shoes he sold in other towns. And in the
78. 2:07back corner, Theo. He looked up at me
79. 2:09and his back face said, "I knew you'd
80. 2:10come." Branick went to jail and his back
81. 2:12face confessed to the judge for 6 hours
82. 2:14straight. It's still talking. The guards
83. 2:15can hear it through the walls every
84. 2:16night. As for Theo, he lives with us
85. 2:18now. When he asked if he could stay, mom
86. 2:20said, "Of course, sweetheart." And for
87. 2:21the first time in my whole life, her
88. 2:23back face said the exact same