by Betsy Uhrig
This wasn’t exactly throwing myself on a grenade or anything, but it was some level of heroic, I think. And I wasn’t going to let them forget it. Ever.
Chapter 20
IN THE END, THE SKUNK held the H.A.I.R. Club hostage until 2:15 a.m., when it simply trotted off, probably in search of tasty croutons. Vincent and I were back in bed by three. And four hours later, the alarm went off.
None of us was looking good that day at school. We’d see each other in the hallway and nod weakly at our fellow zombie, then shamble off to our next class. It seemed as if our ordeal had bonded us, which felt good. Especially since I (at least) considered myself the hero of the night. But by the time we had assembled in H.A.I.R. headquarters that afternoon, we were way past bonded and well into irritable.
Nikhil had taken one of the two chairs and was resting his head on the desk in front of it. When everyone was there, he managed to lift his head. “I’m going to play the recording for last night,” he said. “Even though I’m pretty sure there won’t be anything on it, since you guys interfered.”
“We did not interfere,” said Steve. “We weren’t in the cafeteria at midnight. If anything, it was you two—”
He stopped because Nikhil had already gotten to midnight on last night’s recording, and instead of Nikhil, Andrew, and possibly a skunk in the dark cafeteria, there was the usual crowd of not-quite-us, having lunch in broad daylight.
“What the what?” said Vincent. “That did not happen last night.”
“So it can’t be an A.U. thing,” said Sonia. “Unless it’s an invisible alternate universe?”
“An I.A.U.,” said Andrew quietly.
“If it’s invisible, how does it appear on the camera?” asked Hoppy.
“It’s not a normal camera,” Steve said.
I was only half paying attention to this discussion, since I was busy trying to find myself among the kids in the cafeteria.
“Maybe…,” said Andrew slowly. “Maybe this is a prank.”
“What do you mean?” asked Hoppy.
“I mean, what if the security system took the pictures it has of us and…” Andrew paused to collect his thoughts.
No one said anything.
“And pasted them onto the bodies of other people who were in the cafeteria at noon,” Andrew concluded.
“Right!” said Hoppy. “I mean, that definitely isn’t my body. Though it does look like my mother’s. And she wasn’t in the cafeteria at noon.”
“But did the security system paste a mustache on me?” Nikhil asked.
“It could have,” said Andrew. “It could have borrowed a mustache from someone else.”
“Couldn’t it have borrowed a better one?” I muttered.
“That totally explains my hair,” said Steve over my muttering. “That has to be the explanation. That is borrowed hair.”
“But,” said Vincent.
“But what?” said Steve.
“But why? Why would a security system prank us? It’s not clever and it’s not funny. It’s not mean. It’s got none of the essential qualities of a successful prank.”
“It did have us going, though,” said Steve. “I mean, alternate universes? Come on.”
“That was your theory!”
“Not anymore. My hair couldn’t look like that even in an alternate universe.”
No one knew quite what to say. It had been such a cool mystery—and now it boiled down to an unsuccessful prank by an anonymous security system? If that was the solution, it was disappointing.
We let the recording play for a while.
We saw Hoppy. She was speaking earnestly with the woman working the cafeteria cash register. She was pointing. We watched the woman reorganize the bills in the cash drawer as Hoppy nodded approvingly.
We saw Sonia. She was wearing a faded denim jacket with patches sewn all over it. She was showing the boy she was with (not the pirate-blouse-makeup boy) how to sew a patch on his matching denim jacket.
“Wait, though,” said Nikhil.
Which was weird, since none of us was exactly rushing to do anything at this point.
“Here’s the thing,” Nikhil added.
“Yes?” Hoppy prompted.
Nikhil wasn’t usually one for hesitation, and—was that embarrassment on his face? It might have been. I had never seen Nikhil embarrassed. That was more of a Jason thing.
“I was thinking about growing a mustache,” Nikhil said. “Planning to, actually. When I could, I mean. What?” he asked when he saw the collective expression on our faces. “I had no idea it would be that awful. My dad has a mustache and his looks good.”
“That’s true,” said Steve. “But his doesn’t look like something that barely survived a harsh winter collapsed on his upper lip.”
“Okay, okay,” said Nikhil. “The point is—”
“Yes, what is the point here?” I said. “I mean, what does it matter if you were planning to grow a mustache?”
“It matters because how could a security system know that?” said Nikhil. “Why would it choose me for a mustache? Why not Steve?”
“No way!” said Steve. “I would never grow a mustache.”
“That’s what I mean,” said Nikhil. “It can’t read minds, so how did I end up with a mustache?”
“I recently bought a bowling shirt,” said Sonia.
This conversation was zigging and zagging around so much I was getting a headache.
“A bowling shirt? Why?” asked Hoppy. “Unless you bowl. Do you bowl?”
“I’ve never bowled,” said Sonia. “I was at a thrift store, and I found this bowling shirt that had ‘Sonia’ embroidered on it. I had to buy it, right?”
“Of course you did,” said Steve.
“That’s what I thought. But what if it wasn’t a one-off bowling shirt?” Sonia asked. “What if it was a gateway purchase? What if it’s the beginning of my descent into weird fashion choices and matching boyfriends?”
“A bowling shirt does leave the door wide open for pirate blouses,” said Hoppy. “And whatever statement those denim jackets are trying too hard to make.”
“Um,” said Laura from behind the other laptop. “I started guitar lessons over the summer.”
There was a baffled pause until she zoomed the big-screen picture in on a poster on the cafeteria wall. The poster said FALL DANCE FEATURING FBUS’S HOTTEST BAND, LARA AND THE LARIATS! TICKETS ON SALE FRIDAY. We couldn’t make out any of the smaller type below that.
“Oh my gosh,” said Sonia. “That is such a cool band name.”
“What on earth,” I said slowly, losing all patience with the irrelevant zigs and zags, “does some girl named Lara’s band have to do with Laura taking guitar lessons?”
I assumed the silence that followed was admiration for my logic. But it turned out not to be that. It turned out to be horror at my chuckleheadedness.
“Dude,” said Vincent finally. “Her name is Lara. Not Laura.”
Chapter 21
LAURA ANDERSEN’S NAME WAS LARA Andersen. It always had been, and everyone knew that except me. I tried to calculate how many times I had called her Laura, and at first I was relieved to think that I had never called her by any name. Which is why no one had corrected me until now.
The fact was that Laura/Lara Andersen was of so little interest to me that I had never talked about her. I had relegated her to a two-dimensional minor-character role in my life to the extent that she was just Shy Girl from Math Class and H.A.I.R. Club and nothing more.
This could have been my low point. I could have recognized my mistake and apologized to Lara and vowed to pay better attention to the people around me and lived up to that vow. But it was not my low point. I had still lower points to achieve. And one of them occurred immediately after the Laura/Lara revelation.
Here’s what I said: “Laura, Lara, whatever.”
Yes, I was tired and cranky and my head ached. And yes, I was embarrassed and wanted to move on. But still… My parents hadn�
�t brought me up to be such a chucklehead.
“So what if the program knows that one of us wants to grow a mustache or play guitar?” I went on, trying to guide the conversation back to the actual topic. “Maybe it’s a good guesser. Or maybe it somehow reads our Internet stuff.”
“I did not announce my plans to grow a mustache on the Internet,” said Nikhil. “That’s private.”
“Plus, it made a big mistake with me,” said Andrew. “Zoom in on me,” he said to Nikhil. “Right next to where you and Steve are.”
Nikhil brought the image up on the big screen.
“See?” said Andrew. “That’s me. But I’m wearing an MIT sweatshirt. Not my UC Santa Barbara sweatshirt.”
“At least this one fits you,” said Vincent.
“But it’s wrong,” said Andrew. “I have absolutely no plans to apply to MIT. And I would only wear a sweatshirt from someplace I wanted to go.”
“That’s kind of eccentric,” said Hoppy.
“Why wouldn’t you want to go to MIT?” Steve asked, reasonably enough.
“No surfing,” said Andrew.
“You surf?” said Steve.
“Yes, I do,” said Andrew. “Why? Is there something you think I might be better at? Something to do with spherical orange objects being thrown through hoops?”
“Um,” said Steve. “No, not at all. I mean, the water in Flounder Bay is so cold.”
“Uh-huh,” said Andrew. “And while we’re on the topic of my extracurriculars, I play clarinet. Not piano.”
Steve just looked baffled at this.
“Guys,” said Hoppy. “Stop talking for a sec. Move the focus to the left,” she told Nikhil. “By your elbow.”
“Like this, Your Majesty?”
“Yes. Now zoom in as close as you can on the newspaper.”
“It’s just the Flyer,” said Vincent.
The FBUS Flyer was the school paper. Most kids used it to mop up spills—it was more absorbent than the water-repellent napkins the cafeteria stocked.
Sure enough, the paper by Andrew’s elbow was blotted with ketchup.
“Can anyone read the date on the paper?” said Hoppy.
* * *
No one could. The focus was too fuzzy. But we could make out the headline:
PRINCIPAL WU ANNOUNCES NEW MENU FOR CAFETERIA
“That’s a relief,” said Vincent. “The old menu is—Wait. Principal Wu? Wu is the vice principal.”
“Yes, she is,” said Hoppy.
“In this universe, anyway,” said Sonia.
“Can you try one more thing?” Hoppy asked Nikhil.
“Aye, aye, Captain.”
“See if there’s a calendar on the wall.”
Nikhil switched views to the wall where the big calendar hung in the cafeteria as we knew it. And there it was.
“That might be easier to read,” said Hoppy.
She was right. Everyone could see the month and year printed across the top.
“That’s five years from now,” said Vincent.
Chapter 22
ALL THE MEMBERS OF THE Flounder Bay H.A.I.R. Club except Hoppy were staring at Hoppy.
“What?” she said.
“How did you know?” said Sonia.
“Know what?”
“About the calendar.”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” said Hoppy. “A security system isn’t going to play pranks on us or look at our Internet posts. Or read our minds.”
“And what makes more sense to you,” said Nikhil carefully, “is that a security system is somehow showing us the future?”
Hoppy shrugged. “It was just a guess.”
“You read too much science fiction,” said Vincent.
“I don’t read any science fiction,” said Hoppy.
“I bet you’ve read A Wrinkle in Time,” I said.
“Okay, yes,” said Hoppy. “But not time-travel stuff.”
“Technically,” I said, “A Wrinkle in Time does involve time tr—”
“Can we focus, please?” said Steve. “We’re almost out of time.”
“Focus on what?” I asked.
“On the fact,” said Steve, “that the futuristic calendar and newspaper could be part of the prank. Right?”
“Oh no,” said Vincent. “Now we’re back to the stupid prank theory when things were starting to be cool again?”
“You’re just worried that your hair really will look like that in five years,” Hoppy said to Steve.
“Not at all,” said Steve. “I just think a prank is way more reasonable as an explanation than some sort of time-traveling security camera.”
“The camera itself wouldn’t necessarily have to travel in time,” said Andrew. “The security files could travel somehow… which might explain why the midnight files aren’t as clear and easy to navigate as the others. They weren’t recorded on this system. It’s theoretically kind of interesting.…”
“Not to mention impossible,” said Steve.
But he was losing the crowd. The rest of us were way more intrigued by the idea of files from the future than we were by some program randomly pranking us.
“Um,” said Lara. “One thing that makes sense? About the future idea?”
“Yes?” said Hoppy, as Steve opened his mouth to object.
“The name of the company,” said Lara. “Prescient Technologies.”
“What about it?” said Vincent. “Company names don’t mean anything.”
“True,” said Nikhil. “Woozle? That’s not even a word.”
“It is too,” I said. “It’s from Winnie-the-Pooh.”
“It’s not a real word,” said Nikhil.
“So ‘prescient’ is a real word?” said Vincent.
“Yeah. It means something like being able to see the future,” said Andrew. “Right?” He turned to Lara.
She nodded.
“That hair is not my future,” said Steve. “And besides, we have to finish up. Nikhil and I have a cross-country meeting this afternoon.”
“And I have Haiku Club after this,” said Vincent.
As we headed upstairs, a disturbing thought sprouted like a poisonous mushroom in my mind. I still hadn’t seen myself in any of the midnight recordings. So if they did show the future, there was something wrong with mine. Specifically, I wasn’t in it. My stomach clenched and I forgot to take a breath for a few seconds as this sank in.
“Steve,” I said when we’d arrived on the first floor. “Can I borrow the key for a little while? I want to go back and… ah, check on something. I’ll drop it off in half an hour.”
“Okay,” he said.
“Thanks.” I took the key and hurried back down to the basement.
My hand was shaking as I put the key in the lock. My other hand was shaking as I flipped on the light. Both hands shook together as I logged on to a laptop and brought up last night’s recording again.
What if I searched the whole cafeteria and still couldn’t find myself? If Hoppy was right and this was the future and I wasn’t in it, what did that mean?
Chapter 23
CALM DOWN, I TOLD MYSELF. Breathe. Just because you’re not in one particular room five years from now doesn’t mean you don’t exist five years from now. And that’s what you’re worried about, right? Existing?
And yes, existing was my main concern. But not my only one. What if I had been in a terrible accident and was so disfigured that I didn’t recognize myself? What if I had committed a crime and was in some sort of juvenile-detention facility? What if the bookstore had gone out of business and my family had moved away from Flounder Bay?
I decided that lurching around the cafeteria in terror and zooming in on every kid who remotely resembled me wasn’t the best use of my limited time. I needed to use a grid system, the way they search for missing hikers in the wilderness. But trying to impose a neat grid on the chaos of a school cafeteria is not as easy as it sounds. Especially since I had to keep right-clicking to change views. I was star
ting to feel sweaty and nauseated when the door to the janitors’ closet opened.
I nearly fell out of the chair.
“Sorry,” said Lara as she crept around the door into the room. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I left my gym bag in here.”
“I’m not startled,” I said.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “You look kind of—”
“Of course I’m okay, why wouldn’t I be okay?” I had no control at all over the pitch of my voice.
She picked up her bag, which was behind my chair.
“Are you looking for yourself?” she asked.
Now she was chatty? The girl who wouldn’t eke out a “help” if her hair was on fire was all willing to make small talk now that I was mid-crisis?
She did seem less shy than usual, I couldn’t help noticing. She was standing behind me with her bag over her shoulder and a hand on a hip: not her usual stooped “don’t notice me” posture. Maybe it was because I was sitting and she was standing, but she seemed taller.
“No, I’m not looking for myself,” I said, as if that were the stupidest thing I could possibly have been doing.
“You’re right there,” said Lara, jabbing a forefinger at the screen. “Across from Vincent.”
“That isn’t me,” I objected after a millisecond of checking out the back of the kid sitting with Vincent. “What makes you think that’s me?”
Lara didn’t answer. She was already out the door.
I zoomed in on the table. Vincent was surrounded by textbooks, and he was scribbling in a notebook, an elbow in his abandoned lunch.
The only other person at the table was the boy across from him. He had his back to the camera, but it was obvious that he was a big kid with a thick neck to match.
We need to pause for a minute, because here’s something you should know about me before we continue. As I’ve said, I was spectacularly ordinary in seventh grade. The one thing that set me apart was my neck. My scrawny little neck. Picture that baby bird from the picture book Are You My Mother?, then subtract the beak and add a pointy Adam’s apple. That was me. So this kid with the sturdy neck couldn’t be me.
