Missing—One Brain!

by Bruce Coville

  Then he held up his copy of The National News.

  Pleskit’s eyes got wide. His sphen-gnut-ksher swiveled around as if it was looking at the paper, too. “Geezil beedrum!” he cried. At the same time the sphen-gnut-ksher let out an odor something like dead fish mixed with vanilla and motor oil.

  “Eeuuuw!” cried several kids, backing away in disgust.

  “Let me see that thing!” cried McNally, grabbing the paper from Jordan’s hands. He looked angrier than I had ever seen him. He stared at it for a moment. When he threw it to the floor, he looked even angrier than he had before—which I would not have thought was possible. “How did this rag get a photographer in here?” he snarled, speaking as much to himself as to us kids. “This place is sealed up tighter than a drum.”

  “It could be worse,” said Larrabe helpfully. “At least it’s not one of those skeezy weekly papers you get at the supermarket, like The National Scoop.

  “My father calls that one The National Pooper-scooper,” said Chris Mellblom.

  That wasn’t a bad name for it. In the last year The National Scoop had announced, among other things, that the president was an alien, that the world was going to end on July 27 (it hadn’t), and that Elvis was alive and teaching school in Boulder, Colorado.

  None of these was true, of course. (At least, I don’t think the president is an alien.) But that doesn’t seem to make any difference. I used to love that paper because it was so weird. Then I realized they were just making up their stories, and I decided I hated it.

  McNally wasn’t the only one who was upset by the article. We had barely settled into our seats when the loudspeaker came on and Principal Grand said, “It has come to my attention that an unpleasant newspaper has acquired a photograph of one of our students—a picture taken in this very school. Out of courtesy to the student, I will not mention his name.”

  (Like anyone didn’t know who it was!)

  “However, I must stress that this is not acceptable. Our students are guaranteed privacy and security within these beloved walls. If the person who took this photograph will come and see me privately, we may be able to deal with the situation leniently. If not—well, let me just say that we will find out who it was, and when we do, you’ll wish you had come to me on your own.

  “I trust there will be no repeat of this incident.

  “Have a nice day.”

  Mr. Grand would end an announcement with “Have a nice day” even if had just proclaimed three weeks of detention for every kid in the school.

  Ms. Weintraub started to say something, but a knock at the door interrupted her. It swung open, and two guys dressed just like McNally (black suits, dark glasses) stepped into the room.

  “Sorry, ma’am,” said one of them. “Given the quality of that picture, we think the photo was taken with a high-resolution camera. We need to do a camera check.”

  Ms. Weintraub hesitated, then nodded and said, “Yes, that’s probably a good idea.”

  I wondered if she thought one of us was the rat.

  The guys whipped out a couple of detectors of some sort and began scanning the room.

  McNally didn’t say anything, but from the look on his face I could tell he was furious. Clearly he considered this room his territory and didn’t like these guys barging in.

  When they got to me, the first agent bent down to look in my desk. “Good grief, kid,” he said, sounding horrified. “How do you ever find anything in there?”

  “I’ve got a system,” I said, feeling a little defensive.

  “What’s it called, ‘Cram It and Jam It’?”

  I was about to point out that he was here to look for a camera, not to insult defenseless students, when his detector started to beep.

  “Gotcha!” he cried.

  Thrusting his hand into my desk, he pulled out… a camera! I felt cold. Even worse, I began to blush. Not, I want to point out, because I was guilty. But I’ve had this problem since I was little of blushing whenever something goes wrong, which always makes me look guilty.

  It didn’t help that every eye in the room was turned toward me, staring so hard I felt as if I were naked.

  “Come on, kid,” said the agent gruffly. “We want to have a little talk with you.”

  CHAPTER 8 [PLESKIT]

  SUDDEN SUNSHINE

  I was stunned when Tim was hauled away by the security agents. How could this be? I thought he was my friend. How could I have been so wrong? And how would I ever become a diplomat like the Fatherly One if I did not learn to judge people’s motives more clearly? What kind of fool am I?

  (Alas, the answer to that final question eventually turned out to be even more disturbing than I first suspected.)

  I do not remember what we discussed in class that morning. I could no more concentrate than a plonkus can climb a tree.

  However, when we took a brief break, I discovered an unexpected side effect of the nasty situation—a pleasant side effect. Suddenly the other kids were very sympathetic to me.

  The Grandfatherly One helped me analyze this later. We decided that several things were going on. One, the kids felt sorry for me because I had been betrayed by someone who had seemed to be my friend. Two, they felt a little guilty because their own unconscious fear and prejudice had kept them from being more friendly to me themselves. Three, our classroom—which is, in a way, our home—had been violated, both by the sneak who took the picture and by the agents who came to find him. My fellow students needed to heal the wound, repair the broken wall. And in doing that, they took me in, rather than shut me out.

  Chris Mellblom was the first one to come up and speak to me. “Man, that stinks,” he said, shaking his head sadly.

  “Sorry,” I replied, afraid that I had accidentally released an unpleasant odor. Then I realized Chris was talking about the situation with Tim.

  “It sure does,” said Larrabe, coming up to join us. “What kind of a kid would betray another kid like that, anyway?”

  This was reassuring. Clearly Larrabe thought of me as one of the class, rather than as “The Purple Outsider.”

  Before long a circle of kids had gathered around me, all telling me how sorry they were about what had happened. It was as if they feared that they shared the guilt, or had somehow been part of it. I felt a glow as I basked in the warmth of their acceptance. Finally I felt as if I belonged here!

  The strange thing was, I was not actually that upset about the picture. The ban on publicity about my life in school comes from the Fatherly One, who wants me to have “a normal experience” in my education. (Why he thinks I can have a normal experience when I am the only kid on the planet with purple skin and a knob growing out of his head is more than I can explain. But if I have learned anything from living on four different planets, it’s that no matter where you go, adults have weird ideas.)

  What I was upset about was that my friend—my supposed friend—had taken advantage of me in this way. I felt an ache in my clinkus, the sickening pang that comes from the sorrow of betrayal.

  This ache, of course, made me all the more willing to accept the sympathy of the other kids. To my astonishment, even Jordan seemed to relax in his attitude toward me. “I always knew Tompkins was a jerk,” he said smugly. “Nice to have my instincts confirmed.”

  Though most of the kids came to speak to me during this break, Linnsy did not. She simply sat on the window ledge, looking troubled and unhappy. I wanted to ask her what she was thinking about, but it was not easy to get away from the group of kids surrounding me.

  Besides, I was enjoying their attention.

  * * *

  Tim had still not returned by recess time. My fear that I would be alone on the playground proved to be unfounded as, once again, several kids gathered around me.

  It was interesting to observe that when Jordan walked up, most of them pulled back a little, as if acknowledging his right to move to the head of the group.

  “So, did you get a little taste of reality this morning, Pleskit?
” he asked. His tone was aggressive, but not as nasty as it sometimes is.

  McNally was standing close by. I could tell he was ready to move fast if necessary.

  “I’m not sure I understand,” I replied.

  Jordan rolled his eyes. “Wake up and smell the Starbucks, Plesk-o. It’s not you Tim likes. It’s your purple-osity. He was making friends with an alien, not a person.”

  I did not like this idea, partly because the thought had crossed my own mind more than once. To push it aside, I brought up another issue. “I’m not concerned about Tim right now,” I said, not entirely truthfully. “What I really want to know is why you dislike me so much.”

  Jordan laughed. “I don’t dislike you. I act that way toward everyone! It’s just part of my ’tude. You know—part of being cool.”

  That word again. This idea of being “cool” is one of the most perplexing things about Earthlings.

  Jordan draped his arm over my shoulder.

  McNally started forward.

  “Chill, Secret Agent Man,” said Jordan. “I’m not gonna hurt your boy. I’ve decided to make him my pal.”

  McNally’s face was expressionless. Brad Kent, however, looked worried. I could see he was afraid I was going to take his place as Jordan’s second-in-command and chief butt-kisser. I could have told him this was not a job I particularly desired, but this was not the moment for it.

  * * *

  From the moment Jordan said he was going to be my pal, I could feel my place in the social structure of sixth grade begin to change.

  I mention this mostly to try to give some excuse for the things that happened afterward. Despite my friendship with Tim—which was now very much in question, of course—I had been feeling like a total outsider. I wanted to be accepted, to be part of things, maybe even to be “cool.” So I ignored my internal warning systems and let myself relax into the idea that Jordan could be my friend.

  The Fatherly One has told me that one of the most important tools you can have in the adult world is charm—the ability to make people like you and want to be with you. Jordan’s behavior is often disgusting. Even so, he has this charm, and plenty of it. When he turned it on that day, it was like sudden sunshine after a week of rain.

  At last I understood why Jordan had the standing he did in the class, understood why the others wanted to be near him and accepted him as their leader.

  This charm thing is a great and dangerous gift.

  I hardly noticed when Tim came onto the playground.

  I was too busy talking with Jordan.

  CHAPTER 9 [TIM]

  A TERRIFYING DEVELOPMENT

  (From the Journal of Tim Tompkins)

  The good news was, the security guys couldn’t pin anything on me. Despite the cold terror that gripped my gut when they pulled me out of class, this didn’t really surprise me, since there was nothing to pin on me. I had never seen that camera before in my life. They questioned me six ways from Sunday, but finally had to let me go. Even then I don’t think they believed the camera wasn’t mine. They just couldn’t prove that it was—especially since it didn’t have any of my fingerprints on it.

  When I got back to the room, everyone was outside. I hurried outside, too, eager to talk to Pleskit so that I could explain the mix-up.

  I also wanted to start a little snooping of my own, to see if I could figure out who had stashed that camera in my desk. I can’t figure out if someone was trying to frame me, or if it was just an accident. I have three theories about how that camera got there.

  Here they are, in increasing order of badness:

  (1) Someone came to school with a camera for some other reason and panicked when they realized there was going to be a problem about the picture in the paper. This unknown person shoved the camera in my desk just so he or she wouldn’t get caught with it, even though he or she hadn’t actually done anything wrong.

  (2) The camera really did belong to the sneak photographer, who had ditched it in my desk for basically the same reason.

  (3) The camera had been planted by someone who wanted to get me in trouble.

  The last theory is the really scary one. Who would be trying to get me in trouble? And why?

  The obvious candidate, of course, is Jordan. But this doesn’t really seem like his style.

  I have to think about this.

  Meanwhile, back to what happened after my “interview” with the agents.

  When I went out onto the playground, I was horrified to see Jordan putting his arm around Pleskit’s shoulders and doing his patented buddy-buddy act. Even though Jordan is the biggest pain my own personal butt has ever suffered from, I know that when he decides to turn on the charm, no one can resist.

  Despite the fact that I basically hate him, I’d like to figure him out. He is one weird ball of wax.

  “Hey, Pleskit,” I said, trying to sound cool and casual. “Going over to the Dark Side?”

  He looked at me like he didn’t know me and said, “I am trying to get another perspective on things, Tim. Perhaps we can discuss it later.”

  Then he walked off with Jordan.

  I couldn’t believe it! I was the only kid in class who had been totally accepting of Pleskit from the moment he got here, and now he was stiffing me for the one kid who had been most unaccepting of him. I tried to tell myself it was a bad dream, but the snickers I heard around me were all too real.

  “If they gave a merit badge for friend-snatching, that Jordan kid could get it without raising a sweat,” said a voice beside me.

  I looked to my right, then looked down. The new kid, Larrabe, was standing there. (He really is short!)

  “Wanna come to my house after school?” he said. “I can show you my collection of matchbooks from famous restaurants.”

  “Thanks, Larrabe,” I answered. “But I don’t really feel like it.”

  “Okay,” he said. “That’s cool.” But his shoulders slumped as he walked away.

  I felt like a total creep. I had just given Larrabe the kind of brush-off I have experienced in my own life far too many times. But I had been telling the truth. I really didn’t feel like it. I was too upset about what was going on with Pleskit—not to mention the fact that at the moment everyone still thought I was the one who had taken that photo for the newspaper.

  Well, not everyone. I was still looking at Larrabe, wondering if I should go after him and say something when Brianna, the other new kid, came up to me.

  “What was it like to talk to all those guards?” she asked breathlessly.

  “Oh, not so bad,” I said. I was trying to sound casual, but I was having a hard time because I had suddenly gotten distracted by her smell, which was kind of warm and flowery. This is something that had never happened to me with a girl before, and it startled me. I blinked and shook my head.

  “Tim?” she asked.

  I shook my head again. “Sorry. I think I was having a flashback or something. It was a very upsetting experience.”

  “So how did it turn out?” she asked, looking worried.

  I shrugged. “They got upset because I wouldn’t admit to anything. But since the camera wasn’t mine, there was nothing to admit. Finally they had to let me go.”

  She smiled in relief. “I figured if they let you come back, it must not have been yours. I didn’t think it was anyway.”

  “They tried to bully me into confessing that it was,” I continued, which was actually kind of true. They hadn’t hit me or anything. But, psychologically speaking, they had been pretty rough.

  “That’s awful!” she cried, her eyes getting wide.

  “I got through it,” I said, shrugging modestly, the way Lance Driscoll always used to on “Tarbox Moon Warriors.”

  Brianna smiled, which was sort of like unleashing a sunbeam. “You must be pretty cool,” she said. Then she put her fingers to her mouth and rolled her eyes a little, as if she had said too much. “Well, see you later.”

  She turned and walked away, leaving me feeling sli
ghtly dizzy, and wishing that I could still smell her.

  * * *

  I didn’t have a chance to see Pleskit after school, since he had to leave early because his Fatherly One was taking him to a party being thrown by some king or other.

  I did, however, have a chance to talk to McNally for a minute.

  “You don’t think that camera was mine, do you?” I asked him.

  He shook his head. “Nah. Looked like a setup to me. Those morons who questioned you probably knew that, but they had to look like they were doing something, and that was easier than really working.”

  Obviously he was still bitter about the extra security guys.

  “So Pleskit knows it wasn’t me, too?” I asked hopefully.

  “I’m not sure,” said McNally, sounding a little troubled. “Hard to say what Captain Weasel has been doing to his brain this afternoon.”

  By “Captain Weasel” I understood him to mean Jordan.

  “It’s too bad our plan to shrink Captain Weasel didn’t work,” I said wistfully.

  McNally stiffened, and I could tell I was in dicey territory. He was still unhappy about the fact that Pleskit and I had roped him into helping us with our disastrous attempt to shrink Jordan.

  “Tell you what, Tim,” he said coldly. “Next time someone—say, a special agent—suggests a code name so you can discuss a given person in public, flash back to this little tip: Don’t immediately use that code name in a sentence that would let anyone listening in instantly know exactly who the code name refers to!”

  He turned and stalked away.

  Great. I had just screwed up my last link to Pleskit.

  I stood there for a minute, feeling like I had just had the air sucked out of my lungs. Then Brianna walked up. “Man, he looked angry,” she said, sounding awed.

  “Yeah, he kinda is.”

  Then—and this was the worst and scariest part of this whole terrible day—I did something I’ve never done before. I don’t know why I did it. Maybe because I was so upset about everything—the guards, the camera, Pleskit, Jordan, McNally, the whole rotten mess. Maybe just because something is happening in my brain that I don’t understand. Maybe just because of that amazing smell, which I had not been able to get out of my mind all afternoon.