Chapter 22
Thursday was a total loss. There were chills, fever, oh yeah, and vomit. I was hoping my day-pass home would give me a chance to get my Gamma Glamma presentation up to speed, but that hope ticked away with the hours I spent curled up near death under the covers. Finally, midafternoon my mom came home early and fed me some mild tortilla soup, and I found enough energy to crawl out and at least begin to organize my data.
I was surprised nobody (well, Bridge or Adam) called me after classes to dish me the new daily dirt. I hoped that nothing terrible had gone down, but I figured that they had their own busy lives to lead at the moment. And I didn’t mind being free from the distraction of worrying about everybody else’s lives.
Dr. Hamrock finally called to check up and make sure I would be good to go for Saturday. I reassured him that I was busy tightening everything up at the moment and that Saturday would be no sweat. But the sweat I was feeling wasn’t just coming from my fever.
Friday I felt better. If I had wanted to, I could have gone to school since my temperature was back down, but my mom let me stay home again. She knew I really needed to spend the entire day, if not more, on Project Gamma Glamma.
I had all my gear and gadgets and data spread out on the floor of my room. I had the “before” and “after” photos of my subjects and had printed up pictures from everybody’s cameras (Mase’s were particularly arty) of the various cliques and groups that they each had penetrated, as well as a catalog showing everybody’s “before” and “after” wardrobes. I also included the formulations and samples of the different scents that I had concocted, and I had recorded loops of the subjects’ vocal transformations on separate tape players that could be activated by buttons under their pictures.
I also made sure to include the postcards that were, in a way, extensions of Mase’s new voice. And, finally, I displayed the list of Homecoming finalists along with a last set of “after” pictures taken the day of the announcement. I thought it looked profound, but I still thought it needed something more; I just didn’t know what.
I glued pieces of Gabber Gum and the White Away Right Away jelly beans along with their formulations to my presentation board, and that seemed to help a little. I didn’t want to have my creations on a plate or something, because I wouldn’t put it past someone to eat them just to sabotage my presentation. Yeah, it was an educational event, but for some participants this was a full-on scientific battlefield.
Midday, I took a catnap, or actually dognap, with Shortie. I fell into such a deep sleep that I had a dream that Venus was putting on her crown and speaking to the crowd. Just hearing her cackle woke me up from my slumber.
I wondered if my dream was just telling me that Venus and Bart were going to win and that it was just fate and the way life played out in high school. Shortie farted and I agreed, “Yeah, Shortie, that stinks.”
It was around lunchtime when my cell phone rang underneath the display board. I just figured it was Bridge wondering where I was.
“Hello?”
“Luz?” Swen asked.
“Yes?”
“It’s Swen. Are you at school today?”
Dang. I had completely forgotten about Swen—well, not really forgotten, but in the midst of illness and panic over my future in science and especially my fears over what damage my experiment might be causing my friends, I had forgotten to keep him posted on my progress.
“No. I was home from school yesterday with a temperature and other nasty stuff.” I wanted him to know I wasn’t faking but really didn’t want to get too far into the details.
“Oh, I didn’t know you were sick.”
“I’m good now and my temperature is down so I’m working nonstop on my presentation.”
“Well, that’s good.”
“Uh, Swen, I was wondering ...”
“Yeah?”
“I was wondering if you could come over just to take a look at it. I mean, after school.”
“You mean at the eleventh hour after I’ve been hounding you for days?”
“Uh ... yes?” I said, feeling sick again, but only to my stomach.
I couldn’t help it. I’d been spending so much time cleaning up mess after mess I’d invented or created that I hadn’t had the kind of time I would’ve liked to have put into the project.
“Well, the only time I have is after school, but I can’t really leave the campus since I’ve got to do interviews with Rod and his crew for the paper.”
“Then how about I meet you in the media center after school. And I’ll just wait for whatever time you can give me,” I said, feeling bold—no, just feeling desperate.
“Sounds like a date,” Swen replied.
Date? Hearing that stabbed my heart. No date. No Homecoming. I could barely focus.
“Great, I’ll see you at the date. I mean, media center.” One day I am going to make a way-back machine that only goes back like five minutes so that when you say something superstupid you can have a “do over” or a “take two.” The fact was, I couldn’t wait to see him and give him my own in-depth interview on how much I am over documentaries. Unfortunately, there was no time in my schedule to be bitter right now.
I had to call my mom and she left work early again to take me back to school. As soon as I walked inside and down the hall, I ran across one of the TV monitors and caught the footage of Venus in the lunchroom waving her hands. I didn’t bother to stop and listen since Bridge had filled me on the horror of that episode.
I especially didn’t want to hear her announcement to the world about Adam’s mom’s employment status. I heard a few kids down the hall laughing and I couldn’t tell if they were just laughing-laughing or if they were making fun of Adam. After that I found postcards on the hall floor of Adam that said, “Can Adam” with a picture of a can over Adam’s mouth. I could only imagine what kind of day Adam had endured.
Honestly, I didn’t really want to know right at this moment since time was not on my side. I shuffled as fast as I could upstairs to the media center. And that’s when I passed a flier taped on the wall that read, “Tell Fridge Joiner to Eat It.” And it had a picture of Bridge eating a turkey leg at the state fair when she was like twelve or thirteen and wearing extra large “missy” sizes. It wasn’t flattering, to say the least.
In a panic, I set down my bulky display and ran down a few hallways and checked a few bathrooms including the boys’. Nasty. I retrieved five fliers in all. I looked at my Watchame, and even though I wanted to continue to scour the school and confiscate any more hate propaganda, I knew I needed to get back to the media center and to my project.
I was sweating and I could taste the salt from my upper lip as I walked in to the brightly lit room. The center was humming from the aged fluorescent lights and computers in the room. And that’s where I found Swen, tapping away at supersonic speed at his computer. A few people from the Student Council and the video crew were rushing around grabbing last-minute decorations and equipment to take to the gym, where everyone was getting ready for the Homecoming festivities.
While I was looking for a place to set down my heavy and awkward-sized Gamma Glamma display, I saw what looked like a very important box. And it was. It was the box that contained the freshman king and queen crowns. They were kind of gaudy looking, but because they were shiny and made of metal, they called my name.
I very carefully picked one up and scanned the room. No one was really around now except for Swen, who, sadly, hadn’t noticed my existence yet, because he was still typing a million miles a minute. Oh, whatever, just do it, my thrill-seeking cerebral neural network told me. I placed the crown on my head. I just wished I had a mirror. I tried to look at my reflection in a nearby computer that wasn’t on.
“I see you like shiny things,” said Swen, peeking over his computer and causing me to jump.
“Yes, I like shiny things and metal.”
“Well, when you win Regionals maybe you’ll get crowned ‘Queen of Science.’”
“Yeah, maybe with a satellite dish.”
Swen walked over and shook his head. I opened up my display and asked for some constructive criticism. He just stared a long time at the before and after pictures, my visual aids, and covered his mouth with his hand and thought and squinted his eyes. As I stared at him, I hoped he would help me and didn’t think that I was stupid or that this project was a failure. Finally, he spoke.
“Was the project successful?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, already feeling defensive.
“Do you think this project was successful?” Swen asked again.
I stammered, “Uh, I mean, I took three subjects and changed elements of their self-presentation to gain admittance into new peer groups and raise their social status, and using that criterion I proved my theory. They even became Homecoming finalists.”
“But was it successful?” Swen pressed. I wasn’t quite sure what he was getting at, but I tried to answer him as best I could.
“Well, from a scientific perspective, yeah, it was, but personally speaking and between you and me, it’s been nothing but a complete disaster and it’s getting worse by the minute.”
My brain flashed me pictures of Adam’s can-drive postcards, a missy-sized Bridge, and Susan in a wizard’s hat. “With the Homecoming nominations and the documentary exposure, it’s kind of been creating public humiliation and emotional scars and maybe even permanent damage to our high school cred the next four years. And these weren’t just test subjects. They’re my friends.”
“Then I think you need to include that in your conclusion,” Swen said.
“What?! You think I need to say that my project is a failure?! I’m sorry, but you don’t really win that way.”
“It will be more poignant if you show off the impact of science through your experiment and presentation.”
“What do you mean, the impact of failure?” I said, feeling kind of hurt that he was giving me lousy advice.
“Look, Luz, I’ve been trying to help you for weeks, and at the last minute you come and want my help? I’m telling you if you detail the entire truth about this project, warts and all, it becomes compelling. If you don’t, it becomes sci-fi plastic surgery,” Swen said, holding back no punches.
Omigod. I can’t believe he said that. He wants the truth? How about that all I wanted to do was go to Homecoming with him? How about that I never wanted to do this stupid experiment in the first place but I only did it so I wouldn’t fail out of the science cluster, and then later because I wanted to help his uncle keep his job. I tried to hold my tongue but it was hard to do when it was on fire.
“Do you want me to tell the truth or win?” I asked.
“I want you to do both.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Well, I thought you would. You seemed to have a conscience.”
Seemed to have a conscience? Oh, that was great! I took a moment to gather my thoughts, but I kept visualizing emotional fuel rods sliding into my core and approaching critical mass, at which point there would be a total nuclear meltdown. So, in a word, I was a ticking bomb. I kept telling myself, Por favor, don’t explode!
I literally held my mouth and took a deep breath, hoping that the extra oxygen to my brain would cool things off a bit. And, finally, I responded to Mr. “I thought you had a conscience.”
“Well, Swen, I have a lot of things lately but right now time isn’t one of them. I think the best thing for me to do is to go home and keep working on this. I know you’re busy. Thanks for your time.” I spit all this out knowing I sounded very sarcastic. But I couldn’t help it.
I immediately gathered up all my stuff, which wasn’t hard to do since I was still really mad, but I was trying to act cool and I wasn’t about to cry. Even though I wanted to. As I began to make my grand exit, I turned around and gave Swen a courtesy smile good-bye.
“Uh, Luz, do you still want me to pick you up at five for Regionals?”
“Yeah, I guess,” I spit out quickly because I had a lump in my throat and tears were forming in my eye ducts and I still wanted to see him even if he thought I didn’t have a conscience.
“Um, Luz?”
“Yes?” I squeaked.
“I think it might be a good idea if you didn’t leave with that crown. You know how uptight those Student Council guys are.”
Heat built up into my face, causing it to turn bright red. I set my presentation on the floor and returned the crown to the box. Here I had been arguing about having a conscience and telling the truth and I was wearing a crown. A crown! What an idiot! Maybe the fever was returning.
As I ran down the stairs, I passed the gym. And I just had to torture myself further and see all the decorations that I would miss. I poked my head in and saw about three video crews running around shooting all the Student Council members, who were hanging streamers and tying down a giant balloon arch by a small stage that was draped with curtains that had been created especially for the dance. It was sooo beautiful. I thought about Bridge and B-Dawg dancing under the disco ball of lights.
From behind me I heard a familiar voice that grated on my last nerve.
“Do us proud tomorrow.”
I turned around with all my belongings (which were getting really hard to hold).
“Excuse me,” I spat back.
“I said do us proud tomorrow.” Venus grinned as she walked in with Bart. I couldn’t say anything. Not because I didn’t have a snappy comeback but because I was in shock at the sight of the two of them. Venus was wearing a wizard hat and Bart had masking tape over his mouth and a T-shirt with “Toot for the Mute” written with a marker. I watched them walk up to a group of cameramen.
Those two were dissin’ Mase and Susan to get media coverage. This was truly evil. It was so unfair. I set my stuff down because my arms were about to give out.
My forehead was hurting, and as I rubbed it with my hand, I discovered all the tiny indentations on my forehead still left from the crown and then thought about the future. Even though Bart and Venus were evil and shallow, would they still win because the media loved the show they put on and no one would ever think to challenge them? Would the obvious truth about these two be appreciated by the masses? Then it hit me like lightning. The truth was going to set everybody free because now I would be science with a conscience. And I couldn’t wait to get home and get started on my latest experiment.