Earthman Jack vs. The Ghost Planet
Page 2
Jack smiled at the thought of Ms. Deitz, with her large, bulky dresses that would have looked better upholstering a couch than being worn by any sane human being, and her black horn-rimmed glasses and perpetually-permed hair. How he wished he had her again. She wouldn’t care if he were late to homeroom and had missed first period entirely.
But that was before the dark times. Before Mr. Shepherd had arrived.
Jack’s first year at River Height’s High had been marked by the retiring of a good number of the faculty, which meant this year had seen the introduction of some new faces to the staff. Not the least of which was Jack’s current homeroom teacher and bane to his existence, the dreaded Mr. Shepherd.
Shepherd had taken over the physical education position at the school. No one really knew all that much about him, and rumors had started flying since his first appearance at the beginning of the school year. Some kids were convinced he used to be a Special Forces assassin for the military. Some theorized he might have been a prison guard for death row inmates. Others just thought the man was pure evil. (Jack was certainly one who fell into that category.)
Mr. Shepherd made it quite clear early on that he wasn’t like most of the teachers at the school. He wasn’t afraid to give detention for the slightest infraction. He demanded utter obedience from those in his class. And he had a piercing stare that would put the fear of God into even the most rebellious of kids.
Most students simply counted the seconds until the end of their classes with Shepherd, keeping their heads down and their mouths shut until they were able to make their escapes. And normally, if they did that, they wouldn’t have any trouble from the man.
Unfortunately, Jack never did that.
Since Jack had landed in Mr. Shepherd’s homeroom, he’d spent almost three days a week, every week, in detention. Whether it was coming to school late, speaking out of turn, or just looking at the man funny, Jack seemed always to be on the receiving end of Mr. Shepherd’s wrath. Jack was getting so much detention, it was almost becoming comical.
“What did Shepherd get you for this time?” his friends would ask.
“Apparently I was born on an odd numbered year,” Jack would reply wryly.
Indeed, the battle of wills between Jack and Shepherd had been escalating as the school year progressed. It would have been easy for Jack just to change his ways and be the kind of student Shepherd wanted – punctual, quiet, and obedient – and avoid the man’s attention all together. But Jack saw Shepherd as a bully, and Jack was never one to give into bullies, even if they did have the power of detention on their side. It was only a matter of time before one of them broke, and for better or worse, Jack was determined it wouldn’t be him.
When Jack arrived in homeroom, Principal Montgomery was already halfway through the morning’s announcements. Jack slipped in the door while the disembodied voice over the intercom droned on about tomorrow’s substitution on the lunch menu, and he worked his way toward his assigned desk in the back of the room as nonchalantly as he could.
Mr. Shepherd sat at his desk by the chalkboard, scribbling something in a notebook. He hadn’t so much as glanced up when Jack came in. By now, Jack had learned not to be naive enough to think Shepherd hadn’t noticed his entrance. The man had eyes in the back of his head.
As Jack settled into his seat, he glanced over to the desk next to him. There sat the only part about homeroom he actually liked. She had long blonde hair, so bright that even the crappy fluorescent light in the school seemed to dance off it. Her eyes were a deep blue, so blue they almost didn’t look real. She had fair skin and a slender frame, but there was no doubt about it – she was the most beautiful girl in all of River Heights, and quite possibly the world. (At least, in Jack’s opinion).
Her name was Anna. Anna Shepherd. And she was the daughter of Jack’s arch-nemesis, which made things a lot more complicated than Jack would have liked.
If little was known about Mr. Shepherd, even less was known about his daughter. River Heights High didn’t get a lot of students transferring in from out of state, so there was naturally a lot of curiosity about her. However, early attempts from the established cliques of popular girls to befriend her had gone unanswered, which immediately caused Anna to be blacklisted by them as a stuck-up snob. Normally, every jock and pretty-boy in school would be tripping over himself to get a date with her, but the prospect of incurring the wrath of Mr. Shepherd was too great a threat.
This meant that Anna Shepherd was usually left alone, and she seemed to like it that way.
Every time Jack saw her, she was sitting by herself, her pretty little up-turned nose buried in some type of book. If there were one thing that everyone knew for certain about Anna, it was that she apparently loved to read.
Everything else was a mystery, though. There were rumors that she and her father had moved to River Heights from West Virginia after her mother had died from some type of disease. There were other rumors that Anna’s mom was actually alive, but that Mr. Shepherd was in the middle of a divorce so nasty that he had moved with Anna to get away from his wife. Some whispers even went so far as to theorize they were in the witness protection program and had come to River Heights to escape being killed by the mafia.
Jack didn’t know what to believe about her. All he knew was that she always seemed to be alone. And Jack knew what it was like to be alone. Because of that, he felt there was no better match for her out there than him.
That, and the fact that she was freakin’ hot.
Today Jack saw that she was reading a book about the American Revolution. He would always try to notice what book she was reading in hopes of figuring out a way to talk to her. But they were never fun books; in fact, they always seemed to be history books of some type – nothing Jack knew much about. This made the whole “talking to her” strategy a bit difficult.
Jack had tried in vain a few times to engage Anna in conversation. He couldn’t do it in homeroom, since Mr. Shepherd would no doubt get on his case for harassing his daughter. (After all, it wasn’t like the man needed any more reason to hate Jack.) And the few opportunities that came to him at lunchtime in the cafeteria or between classes in the hallway usually devolved into “Hey!” “Hi!” and the ever-popular “Wuz up?” Anna’s usual response was just to smile in acknowledgement and to go back to reading whatever book she had her nose buried in at the time.
A normal guy would have taken the hint and moved on by now. But Jack felt in his gut that there was something there, some connection between Anna and him, almost like they were destined to be together. And, as previously stated, she was freakin’ hot.
Because of that, Jack was never going to give up.
Suddenly, in the middle of Principal Montgomery talking about a new dress code for the steadily approaching Homecoming Dance, Anna looked up from her book and glanced over at Jack.
Jack’s heart skipped a beat, and he quickly looked away, trying to act like he hadn’t just been staring at her. The worst part about being caught staring at a girl is that he couldn’t look back at her again, because then she’d know for sure he was staring at her, and that would just make him seem creepy. So Jack was forced to gaze at the back of Jamal Dugan’s head until the bell for next period rang.
In a hurry to get out of the dreaded homeroom with Mr. Shepherd, the students got to their feet in unison and rapidly made for the door.
Jack grabbed his bookbag and was trying to slip away with the crowd when a deep, forceful voice cut through the air.
“Mr. Finnegan, a moment.”
Jack sighed. Today, there was no escape. He turned and approached Shepherd’s desk. The man’s broad, muscular shoulders were hunched over as he continued writing notes down in a notebook. He was wearing a white dress shirt with a red tie, but he was so muscular, he looked like he was about to rip out of it at any moment. His light blonde hair was cropped short to his head, high and tight and meticulously groomed. Everything about the man seemed harsh and meticulous.
“Mr. Finnegan,” he said sharply. “You were late.”
“You sure about that?” asked Jack. “ ‘Cause in Mountain Time, I was totally early…”
“Are you making a joke, Mr. Finnegan?”
“No, sir,” said Jack. “I would never make any attempt to amuse you, sir.”
Shepherd grimaced. “I’m told you missed first period, as well. Do you at least have an excuse for your tardiness?”
“Would you believe I got kicked in the face trying to rescue a small child from a band of ninjas?” asked Jack, pointing to the small bruise on his forehead.
“No,” replied Shepherd.
“Then it’s pretty much the same excuse as before.”
Shepherd grabbed a tidy pile of demerit slips from the corner of his desk and quickly began to fill one out. “If I were you,” he said, “I would either invest in an alarm clock that worked, find an alternate mode of transportation to school,” he sharply tore the demerit from the stack and shoved it toward Jack, “or find a way to start enjoying my company.”
Jack took the slip, sullenly. “C’mon, Mr. Shepherd, I just missed the bus… it wasn’t even my fault this time.”
“And when has it ever been your fault, Mr. Finnegan?” asked Shepherd. “You are constantly late, you are disrespectful, and most of all, you are making absolutely no attempt to change, which to me says, quite simply, that you have yet to learn your lesson.”
Jack looked down at his feet. There was never any arguing with Mr. Shepherd. The man was utterly without mercy.
“I believe you know when and where,” said Shepherd.
Jack nodded and sullenly walked out the door.
Chapter 3
After a rather rocky start to the day, Jack settled into his normal routine, though his mood did not improve much. Indeed, the simple fact was that Jack hated most of the time he spent in school. He hated most of the people he went to school with. And he especially hated most of the classes he had to attend.
His English teacher, Mrs. Hemmert, was pretty cool, but she always seemed to assign the lamest, most boring books possible to read. When it came to math, Jack was beyond hopeless, and his wicked shrew of a math teacher, Ms. Webster, didn’t make it any easier. Mr. Shiering, who taught history, spent the entire time telling the class amazing stories, which Jack loved to listen to – but he’d always get so caught up in the tales spun by his teacher, he’d forget to take notes. Therefore, when it came time to actually study for the tests, he’d be totally lost.
Then there was study hall – normally a period where kids were allowed to goof off, but since Jack had the unfortunate luck of being assigned to Mr. Shepherd for study hall, it was pretty much an agonizing hour of pure silence, where students either actually did their homework, or wasted away the time doodling in a notebook (take a guess which one Jack tended to do).
It didn’t help that Jack also had Mr. Shepherd for Phys. Ed. immediately after study hall, during which the man had his students go through all types of rigorous sprints, pull-ups, jumping jacks, and anything else the Nazi’s might have invented to torture high schoolers during World War II. Gone were the days of actually doing “fun” activities during gym class, ever since the evil Mr. Shepherd had arrived.
The one true highlight of Jack’s curriculum was, oddly enough, his Physics class.
Normally, when it came to science, Jack had less interest than anything else he was forced to take in school. With all the abbreviations, equations, formulas, and the like, science should have been Jack’s worst subject. Who’d have guessed that Physics would end up being the one class Jack not only partially enjoyed but also seemed to be good at?
It wasn’t because Jack had any natural gift or talent for science. Oh, no. In fact, Jack attributed his enjoyment, and subsequent skill of the subject, entirely to his teacher, Professor Green.
Professor Green was relatively new to the school. He’d started teaching roughly the same time Jack had started attending River Heights High. He was a tall and lanky man, with a shock of uncombed white hair and an equally unkempt beard of matching color.
He wore glasses that were always crooked but still somehow managed to make his brown eyes look bigger than they actually were. His neck was so long and thin in proportion to his head, Jack often thought he looked like one of those bobble-heads that someone would typically put on the dashboard of a car. To complete his strange appearance, Professor Green always wore his pants pulled up to around his chest, and he possessed a rather odd affinity for bowties.
But aside from being, without a doubt, the oddest-looking member of the River Height’s faculty, he also had a true passion for what he taught and the rare talent for explaining the subject matter in a way that actually made sense to Jack.
Of course, ever since he’d heard that Professor Green was apparently friends with Mr. Shepherd and was actually responsible for helping the man get his job at the school, Jack had found himself liking Professor Green less than he had before. But as he sat in class and watched the Professor excitedly scribble on the chalkboard, rambling on about the day’s lesson, he found it hard to stay upset with the guy.
Because despite it all, Professor Green was just too darn likable.
“…so according to Newton’s second law of motion,” lectured Green at a rapid-fire pace, “the acceleration of an object increases as the force causing the acceleration increases. OR, for a given force, the smaller the object – the faster its speed changes!”
Professor Green turned excitedly back to the class, looking as though he expected them to share his passion for what he had just scribbled on the chalkboard. Instead what he saw were a lot of blank stares and disinterest.
Green’s shoulders visibly slumped, and his smile turned lopsided. “Oh, dear,” he mumbled. “I’m boring all of you, aren’t I?”
The students all looked at each other, unsure of how to respond. It wasn’t often that a teacher cared if his students were bored or not.
“It’s not your fault, Professor,” chimed in Jack, never afraid to speak out of turn. “Physics is just boring. That’s all.”
Green raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?” he asked.
“Yeah,” responded Jack. “I mean, no offense, but who cares about motion and vectors and gravity and all that stuff?”
A few of Jack’s fellow classmates nodded in agreement. Professor Green adjusted his glasses and cleared his throat.
“Well, then,” said Green, smiling. “Let me ask you this – do you think alternate realities are boring?”
“Alternate realities?” asked Jack. “You mean like somewhere out there, there’s a dimension where I’m a millionaire with a transparent head and missile-launching kneecaps?”
A chuckle went through the class. Green nodded. “Exactly!”
Jack shrugged. “No, that’s pretty cool,” he said.
“What about faster than light travel?” Green went on. “Is that boring? Being able to go from one end of the galaxy to the other in a matter of days instead of thousands of years?”
The entire class began to perk up. Now the Professor was talking.
“How about teleportation? Is it boring to be able to go from one place to another in the blink of an eye? What of time travel? Which one of you wouldn’t want to visit the past? Or the future?”
“No, all that is awesome,” said Jack. “It’s just, that’s the type of thing you see in movies and stuff. It doesn’t really exist.”
“Wrong!” said Professor Green, pointing at Jack and smiling. “It does exist. And it exists because of Physics – the very stuff you’re learning about right here!”
All of a sudden, Jack found himself more interested in Physics than he’d ever been in anything his entire life. Indeed, more than a few students were
now leaning forward in their seats.
“Have any of you ever heard of the term quantum physics?” asked the Professor.
No one answered.
“For the last hundred years, scientists have studied nature at the most microscopic level. This is what’s known as ‘quantum physics,’ and it is the science of how teeny-tiny units of matter work to shape the very fabric of our reality.”
Green could tell from the blank stares he was getting that he’d have to be a little clearer with his explanations.
“You all know what ‘matter’ is, right?” said Green as he rapped his knuckles on the chalkboard. “You’re surrounded by it. It’s anything that’s solid. The walls, the floor, your desks, your clothes – it’s all considered to be matter. Yes?”
Everyone nodded.
“But what is matter made of?” asked Green. “By now, hopefully, you should all know that matter is just a collection of tiny little things called atoms. Do you all know what I’m talking about?”
The class nodded.
“Well, atoms are the building blocks of matter! It’s how they’re arranged that makes up different materials, everything from metal, to plastic, to cloth – it’s all just a different arrangement of the same thing – atoms. But how do those atoms come to be arranged in such a way where they create specific types of matter, like this chalkboard? Or your desks? Or your chairs?”
No one raised a hand.
“Here’s where it gets interesting!” squealed the Professor excitedly. “According to quantum theory, atoms can exist in multiple places at once! So every atom exists in every possible location in the universe all at the same time. Think about that for a moment – there is no empty space, just a bunch of atoms, everywhere, in a great, big, entangled mess! This means that there is an infinite combination of atoms existing everywhere, all at the same time. And that means all matter, every object you see around you, has the potential to be anything else. Your pants have the potential to be tomato soup. Your desks have the potential to be anthills. Your sneakers have the potential to be ice skates. So matter has the potential to literally be anything, until you make a measurement. This is because the simple act of measuring an atom chooses one of its many possibilities to become a reality. So until someone observes the atom as something, it could potentially be anything!”