I found my dad in his study with his nose in a book made out of dead trees. Dad can be embarrassingly retro at times. A lot of the times, actually. Like every day. I mean, who reads paper books anymore?
Dad has more paper books than he has hairs on his head. Not that he has that many hairs anymore. But still . . . a lot of books. His entire study is lined with the nasty papery things.
He was reading something called The Island of Dr. Moreau. I wondered why a doctor would want to live on an island, but I’d learned to never ask my father about any book ever—a simple polite inquiry was likely to turn into a fifteen-minute lecture.
I took a deep breath and said, “Dad, why is our town called Flinkwater?”
He frowned and shrugged. “Because of the flink in the water?”
“Dad!”
“Maybe flink is some sort of fish, Ginger. I wouldn’t know.” One of my father’s many quirks is that he hates fish. He won’t even eat a tuna sandwich.
“There’s no such word as ‘flink,’” I said. “I looked it up.”
He sighed and closed the book over his index finger to keep his place. If he’d been reading on his tablet, he wouldn’t have that problem.
“Why do you ask, Ginger?”
“It’s for this stupid school report.”
“Maybe the town was founded by somebody named Flinkwater.” He shrugged. “I really couldn’t say.”
“But . . . you’re supposed know everything!”
“Apparently I don’t,” he said.
“Isn’t your finger getting squished?”
“A little bit,” he said, flipping open the book to ease the pressure.
“How come you don’t just read on your tab?”
In my not-so-humble opinion, a proper book should be represented by an icon on a screen. Printing books on paper is as primitive as wearing animal skins or recording music on a plastic disk. Paper books won’t let you make the font bigger or smaller, they aren’t illuminated, and there’s no search function. Also, they take up a lot of space, and they are heavy, unsanitary, unsightly, and noisy—the sound of someone flipping through those dry, whispery pages sets my teeth on edge.
“Studies have shown that reading paper books results in greater memory retention,” he said.
“I don’t have any problem remembering,” I said.
“Well, I certainly do. I didn’t grow up with e-books. When I was your age, we were still reading on stone tablets.”
“Dad!”
He laughed. “Okay, we did have e-books, but they were pretty primitive. Anyway, I’m not taking any chances, what with all the forgetting going on these days.”
“All what forgetting?” I asked.
“Several of our people at ACPOD have been experiencing abnormal memory loss,” he said. “It’s become an epidemic. Just yesterday one of our engineers asked me my name, and he’s been working with me for the past ten years.”
ACPOD, in case you’ve been living under a rock for your entire life, is the world’s largest manufacturer of Articulated Computerized Peripheral Devices. If you own a robot, it probably came from Flinkwater, Iowa. My parents—along with half the adult population of Flinkwater—work at ACPOD.
“Fortunately, one of our neuroprosthetics experts, Ernie Rausch, has developed an experimental memorization technique that is quite remarkable. He gave me a demonstration, and I now know all fourteen hundred lines of Longfellow’s poem ‘Evangeline.’”
“That’s a lot of lines,” I said. “How did you do it?”
“The funny thing is, I don’t remember! One minute I was in the neuroprosthetics lab, and the next thing I knew I was back at my desk with my head full of Longfellow. And I couldn’t remember my ACPOD password.”
“It’s Mom’s maiden name backward, plus the first seven digits of pi,” I said.
He gave me a sharp look. “How do you know that?”
I pointed at the sticky note on the corner of his computer display, where he had written KNUF3.141592—not exactly the best way to keep your secret password secret.
“Oh yeah,” he said. “Like I said, my memory has been playing tricks on me.”
“And you think reading books printed on pulverized wood pulp is the answer?”
“I guess I just prefer real books,” he said.
I like books too. But I read them on my tablet. Like a normal person.
“Think of all the trees they had to cut down to make the paper,” I said.
“Yes, but how many prehistoric trees do you think it took to make the crude oil used to make the plastic case for your tablet?”
“Oil doesn’t come from trees,” I said. “It comes from hundred-million-year-old algae.”
He laughed. “Apparently that ‘stupid school’ is teaching you something. As for the origin of Flinkwater, your mother has lived here her whole life. Ask her.”
• • •
Before I go on—and I can go on—I should introduce myself.
Presenting the fabulous Guinevere Crump—recently turned fourteen, speller of difficult words, defender of helpless animals, fiancée of the smartest boy in the universe, problem solver extraordinaire, revolutionary rabble-rouser, social-justice crusader, and ravishing red-haired beauty—at your service. You may call me Ginger, or on formal occasions, Your Majesty.
So there. I’m glad we got that out of the way.
• • •
“Ask your father,” said my mother.
“He told me to ask you! Your family has been here forever, right? You can’t answer a simple question?”
She shot me her glittery, narrow-eyed witch queen look. “Ginger, if it’s so simple, why do you ask?”
My mother doesn’t scare me. Usually. But she tries.
“It’s for school.”
“Look it up.”
“I tried,” I said. Which wasn’t completely true. Actually, I’d thought it would be easier to just ask. My mistake. “Do you even know?”
“Of course I know. I’ve lived here my entire life. But I’m sure you can figure it out on your own.”
“I’m trying to figure it out by asking you.”
“Ginger, I’m not going to do your homework for you. I’m busy.” She went back to her oh-so-important task: trying to reprogram our DustBot swarm by stabbing at the DustBot control module with her red-nailed fingers. She didn’t think the bots were doing a good enough job sucking Barney’s cat hair off the carpet. It’s Barney’s fault. He keeps flipping the bots onto their backs, leaving them to buzz and spin around until somebody turns them right side up.
She might have better luck reprogramming the cat.
“If I get an F, it’ll be your fault,” I said.
She lowered the control module and gave me a look that was supposed to freeze the blood in my veins. I countered with my wide-eyed-innocent look. It was a mother-daughter standoff.
“Ask your school librarian,” she said after a moment.
“Mom, it’s Saturday. No school. And next week we get off Monday and Tuesday for teachers’ conferences. And my report is due Wednesday.”
She arched one precisely plucked eyebrow. “Then you’ll just have to go to Flinkwater Memorial.”
I was afraid she’d say that.