THE NEXT DAY, Knacke hooked up a dead frog to a hand-cranked magneto and had us work it. One at a time we'd come up to the front of the class and take hold of the sweaty black crank. Round and round till electric current was pouring out the wires and into the frog.
It twitched and spazzed there on the table, like it was halfway back from the land of the dead. Some kids were seriously grossed out. Some thought it was pretty cool.
"In the earliest days of science," Knacke told us, "it was thought that living creatures could be brought back to life by the use of electric current."
It was my turn to go up and work the crank. "There it is, Zee." I hated when he said my name. "There it is up close and personal." I turned the crank and watched the frog thrash around. He was dead. Sure. But he was alive too, in some weird way. His rubbery lips came apart and his tongue stuck out.
The worst part was when his eyes slid open and he lay there staring at me. I looked away. Knacke had come close and was giving me the same dead-alive stare as the frog.
"Don't be afraid," Knacke whispered to me. "There's nothing to fear."
I thought I was going to throw up. Letting go of the magneto crank, I stood there in front of the whole class like an idiot. Some kids were snickering and making jokes. Gary Geetz, who always thought everything terrible was funny, said something about "love at first sight."
"Shut up, Geetz," I said. "Shut your big fat mouth."
That was all it took. I got detention. Just me and Knacke and his Marlboro Man.