Welcome to Dweeb Club

by Betsy Uhrig

  His hair color was the same as mine, but medium brown is a common hair color. His black sweatshirt was something I would wear, but it was also something almost everyone at Flounder Bay Upper School would wear. There was something familiar about him, though, even from the back.

  Then his head turned partway, and I realized what made me think that. He reminded me of my uncle Luke. He looked like Luke would if he were in high school. And that’s easy to imagine because Luke still kind of looks like he’s in high school.

  I changed the view so I could see all of the kid’s face: his face, Uncle Luke’s face, and also, I realized, my face.

  I’d never realized how much of the way I thought I looked was based on my trademark scrawny neck. And the matching scrawny body underneath it. I didn’t know what to think now, confronted by this larger me.

  And as I wondered about this, it occurred to me that I believed Hoppy’s theory. This had to be the future me. There was no way a computer program could have taken the baby-bird-necked picture of me from a couple of weeks ago and mutated it into the Luke-ish kid on the screen.

  I let the action move forward for a while, studying my future self as he ate his lunch and talked (with his mouth full) to Vincent, who didn’t respond or even look up.

  Vincent was older and bigger too, but his transformation was nothing like mine. Physically, anyway. Behaviorally was a different story. Seventh-grade Vincent wasn’t one to do homework during lunch. Or to look like he hadn’t slept for the past week. Future Vincent appeared to need a long rest and some vitamins.

  Future Jason finished his lunch and sat back in his chair. I studied him, trying to assess him as if he were a stranger, the way you sometimes try to catch yourself in a shop window and see how you look to others. Was he good-looking? Did he seem happy? But it was too late. Now that I recognized myself, I could no longer be impartial. He was already too familiar to judge.

  Then, as I watched, future Jason sat up straight. His attention was riveted by something off camera, over Vincent’s shoulder. His hand went up to his hair in an embarrassingly self-conscious gesture that I recognized as one of my own. I decided never to do it again. A dopey grin developed on his face. It was almost enough to make me decide never to smile again. Now his gaze was tracking from right to left. He looked like a cat watching a bird outside a window.

  Vincent glanced up from his work and said something to Jason. Jason’s grin disappeared as he responded—rudely, I was pretty sure. Then he went back to staring at whatever it was he was staring at. I switched views so I could see what he was seeing.

  Then I did. It was a girl.

  Chapter 24

  THE GIRL WAS VISIBLE BRIEFLY and only from the side, as she slipped through the cafeteria doorway. She was tall and—what’s the word I’m looking for? Ms. Grossman would know. Willowy? Something like that. She had short blond hair that came to two points at her chin. She was dressed in black. She was gone.

  I followed her into the hall, where suddenly everything went dark.

  I wiggled the cursor around uselessly, which is what I always do when a computer disappoints me. Then I saw something wander across the screen. My old friend the skunk. It seemed that once you left the cafeteria, you were in the present.

  I moved back into the cafeteria, hoping to see more of the girl who had attracted future Jason’s attention. But the stupid door to the janitors’ closet banged open again.

  “You said half an hour,” said Steve.

  “Sorry. I’m almost done. I need—”

  “You are done. They’re about to close the office. Come on.”

  I shut the laptop down and locked the door behind us. Then I handed the key to Steve.

  He took it without a word, and we walked up the stairs. When we reached the main hallway, Steve turned to me.

  “Did you find yourself?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Good,” he said. “I was starting to worry that you’d moved away or something. In the future, I mean.”

  “Nope,” I said. “In fact, there’s more of me than ever.”

  * * *

  By the time I got home I was almost falling over from lack of sleep and also from the weird turns the day had taken. I barely managed to stagger into the house.

  “You’re late,” said Alice. She was wearing a paper crown and stood in the middle of the hallway, blocking my path, like the opposite of the Statue of Liberty.

  “For what?”

  “For rehearsals. You have to be in my show tonight. It needs two people.”

  “There’s no way I’m going to be in your show tonight or any night.”

  “I’m telling Mom.”

  “Be my guest.”

  “Moooooooooom!”

  I didn’t wait for Mom’s response. I went upstairs to my room and flopped onto my bed with my sneakers and backpack still on. It was extremely uncomfortable. I remained there anyway.

  I kept picturing the expression on future me’s face as he watched that girl in the cafeteria. Why was he so interested in her?

  Maybe she was new and he was curious about her. Possible, but that intense stare seemed to be about more than idle curiosity. Maybe she had stolen something from him. But if so, why just stare at her? Why not go up to her and demand it back? Maybe he suspected that she’d stolen something but wasn’t sure and was trying to figure out if she had it by staring at her. That one was so pathetic I almost convinced myself it was the answer. This was me we were dealing with, after all.

  But in the end, as the dinner smells started wafting upstairs and I finally removed my backpack before it fused with my spine, I admitted the truth to myself. Future me had a crush on that girl in black. A major crush.

  “Jason! Dinner!” my dad called.

  Grateful for the distraction, I went downstairs.

  Where, after dinner, my mom proceeded to browbeat me into “helping your little sister” with her ridiculous “performance.”

  Alice’s two-person show was called Dork, Dork, Goose. Her role was to walk in circles around me, slapping my head and saying, “Dork, dork, dork, dork…” over and over again. The longer it went on, the harder the slaps got. My role was to sit there and be slapped. I, and possibly my parents, figured that eventually she’d say “Goose!” and start to run. At which point I intended to let her keep running and hope she didn’t come back.

  Instead, what she didn’t do was say “Goose!” The show ended when she got so dizzy from walking in circles that she fell over. My dad had to carry her upstairs to her room.

  My mother actually clapped as Alice was borne away. “It was like Waiting for Godot,” she said to me. “You keep expecting something to happen, and the point is that it doesn’t. It’s really very intriguing.”

  “It was really an excuse to hit me and call me a dork.”

  “You’re very patient with her, and I appreciate that,” said my mother.

  I was so tired by now that I kind of wanted my dad to carry me up to bed. But I was way too old and dignified for that.

  Chapter 25

  THE NEXT MEETING OF THE H.A.I.R. Club didn’t go as expected. We were just getting settled when Ms. Grossman knocked on the door by shouting, “Knock, knock!” and then let herself in, followed by a guy in a park-ranger or big-game-hunter costume of some kind, lots of khaki and utility pockets.

  “H.A.I.R. Club,” said Ms. Grossman, “this is Neil Drumlin, from the Flounder Bay Natural History Museum. You’ve all been there, right?”

  We nodded. Of course we’d been there. The museum had nature trails and woodland exhibits and farm animals, and also some wild animals that had been injured and couldn’t live in the wild anymore.

  “Neil’s here to take a look at the skunk recordings,” said Ms. Grossman. “Steve told me that’s what’s been cadging the cafeteria croutons.” She chuckled a bit at this. “Sorry—couldn’t resist,” she added, not sorry at all.

  “Hey, everyone,” said Neil in a practiced-at-talking-to-ki
ds voice. “Ms. Grossman called to ask me about removing the skunk, but I’m hoping we can do better than that.”

  What could have been better than removing it? I wondered. Officially enrolling it at the school? Getting the cafeteria’s crouton recipe for it?

  “The thing is,” Neil continued, “I’m hoping that your skunk is actually my skunk. One of our resident skunks, Penelope, wandered off a couple of weeks ago when we were cleaning her enclosure. She may have come over here and gotten hooked on your croutons—she does love her carbs. And she also loves people—she’s completely tame and de-scented. She used to be someone’s pet, believe it or not. Never do that,” he added quickly. “Wild animals aren’t pets, and also it’s illegal.”

  This explained a lot, if you’ll recall my encounter with the skunk. I was sort of sorry now that I hadn’t been friendlier to it. Because sure enough, as soon as Steve had found a bit of skunk recording and zoomed in on its face, Neil let out a shout of recognition.

  “That’s my girl,” he said happily.

  Don’t ask me what he saw there that he recognized. It looked like a generic skunk face to me.

  “I have to set a few traps,” Neil said. “Bait them with some peanut-butter crackers. Those are her favorites.”

  “Traps?” said Sonia. “That’s so cruel! You can’t use traps!”

  “Not to worry,” said Neil. “Humane traps. She goes in, she has a snack, and she can’t get out till I let her out. She’ll be safe and sound. But thanks for your concern.”

  “Mystery solved, then,” said Ms. Grossman. “Thanks, H.A.I.R. Club!”

  “Hey,” said Neil, “if any of you want to help set the traps, I’ll make some extra peanut-butter crackers for you.”

  I shook my head. Poor Neil. He actually thought a few salty snacks could convince us to schlep around the school setting skunk traps. Little did he know that we had our futures to discover instead.

  Actually, little did I know the attraction of peanut-butter crackers in the late afternoon. Especially for kids who ate lunch at ten thirty. Everyone except me volunteered immediately.

  “Great!” said Ms. Grossman. She saw me settling into a chair and said, “Lock up, will you, Jason?”

  I nodded.

  Steve raised his eyebrows questioningly. Then he tossed me the key, and everyone filed out, leaving me alone.

  I brought up the recording from last night and focused on the table that Vincent and I had been sitting at the day before. Sure enough, there we were.

  Future me was eating like utensils and napkins were unknown to him. Poor future Vincent was probably being sprayed by wet food bits as future Jason blathered away at him, but he clearly didn’t have the energy to protect himself.

  Vincent and future me were alone at the table, as we had been before. And as I watched us sitting there without Steve or any of the other people Steve tended to attract, I felt my stomach lurch the way it does if you bend over while you’re riding in an elevator. I felt sick, and it wasn’t from watching myself eat.

  I realized that what I was feeling was pity. I pitied my future self, who seemed to be down to one friend. A friend who was probably just too tired to get up and find better company. And then I felt a cold little stab of fear in my already queasy stomach.

  If that was my future, I really didn’t like the look of it.

  I was about to stop the recording, when lunch period ended onscreen. As most kids left for class, future me started doing something I recognized as stalling. He gathered his trash and started piling it slowly and neatly on his tray. He folded his unused napkin, unfolded it, refolded it, and set it delicately atop the rest. For me, neatness is almost always about stalling.

  Finally, Vincent left him alone with his fussy trash stack. Future me got up immediately, heaved the carefully arranged tray into the trash, and glanced around. He was up to something he wasn’t proud of. But what?

  Chapter 26

  HERE’S WHERE THE STORY GETS even more personally embarrassing for me. You’re thinking that I look pretty bad already—what more could possibly be coming? A lot, unfortunately. But I’m a historian, and my objective is to tell the truth, no matter who gets humiliated along the way. So far it’s been mainly me, and going forward it will still be mainly me. But that’s the price I pay for truth-telling.

  Future me waited until almost everyone was out of the cafeteria. A few kids I didn’t recognize lingered by the trash cans, but I guess they didn’t matter, because now he made his move. He rushed over to the wall with the calendar on it, reached up, and expertly—as if he’d done this before so many times he’d gotten good at it—took down a poster for the upcoming dance featuring Lara and the Lariats.

  Weird, huh? Did he not want anyone to go to the dance? If so, he was too late—the poster had been up for days. Was he planning to deface the poster? If so, why not deface it while it was still on the wall, like a normal vandal? He seemed to have planned this in advance—he could have brought a Sharpie.

  But no. He didn’t write on it or tear it up or throw it away. He didn’t even fold it. He carefully rolled it up, then he pulled an elastic band out of his pocket (he had come prepared!) and slipped it around the tube. Which he gently slid into his backpack.

  Then he walked jauntily out of the cafeteria, a smug smile on his face.

  * * *

  I may not be as good at math as some, but I can add two and two and get four. So it took mere moments for me to add yesterday’s crush on a mysterious blond girl and today’s poster-stealing and come up with the blaringly obvious: Future me had a crush on a mysterious blond girl who was in Lara’s band. Lara was blond. Lara was in her band. Therefore… I can’t bring myself to write it. You can do it in the space provided here:

  Future Jason had a huge and embarrassing crush on future _____________.

  There. You wrote it. Happy?

  I wasn’t. And here’s more about why.

  Lara Andersen hated me. Hated me. Ever since I had revealed that I didn’t know her name and didn’t care that I didn’t know it, Lara’s attitude toward me had changed. Before, she had just acted shy. In math class, in the halls, at club meetings—she’d see me coming and duck her head; she’d look away if I sat near her; she’d answer in a whisper if I asked her a question. But at least it was a friendly whisper.

  Now she seemed more sure of herself around me. Sure of her intense dislike for me. As an example: This morning I had come to the end of my pencil eraser’s usefulness in math. So I asked Lara if I could borrow a pencil. She looked directly at me, all right, and it was not a look people normally give other humans. It was more the kind of look people give something from way back in their refrigerator and way, way back in time. Then she grabbed a pencil from her case and flipped it onto my desk without comment. The kicker? It didn’t have any eraser left on it.

  So if future Lara felt about future Jason anything like present Lara felt about present Jason (and it appeared that she did, or why was he reduced to stealing posters?), then… future Jason was out of luck.

  My current problem was that Lara herself was fully capable of adding two and two and getting four. In fact, she was better at math than I was, as our performance in class showed. Which meant that if she saw the recording I’d just seen, she was going to know that the kid she hated was going to have a huge, sloppy, hopeless crush on her in five years. And it was possible, I had to admit to myself with horror, that she might assume that the kid she hated had a huge, sloppy, hopeless crush on her now. I couldn’t live with that. I just could not.

  My future self, with his one remaining friend and one-sided, obsessive crush, did not need Lara feeling sorry for him on top of his other issues. And my present self didn’t need her feeling stalked by one or both of us. Her hostility was bad enough.

  It was obvious what I needed to do. I needed to erase this recording, or at least the end of it. There had to be a delete function, right?

  I brought up the home screen and searched for anything like a de
lete command. Nothing. Then I brought up the recording itself, minimized it a bit, and searched that screen for a nice big X. Or a trash can icon—those were always handy. Nothing.

  All right. I hated to do it, it went against everything I stood for, but I was desperate. I looked around for a help symbol. Which I found where all help symbols live: in the upper-right corner of the screen. A nice red question mark. I clicked on it.

  A box popped open. It read:

  Tailored-Wording Enriched Response Program (T.W.E.R.P.) engaged.

  Hello, Jason. What do you want to know?

  This was weirdly casual, but okay.

  How do I delete a recording? I typed.

  Recordings are automatically deleted after ten years with no views.

  What if I want to delete one sooner than that? I asked.

  Recordings can be deleted prior to ten years by an Authorized User.

  Who is an Authorized User? I asked.

  The current Authorized User for this system is: Yvonne Wu.

  Great. Only the vice principal could delete my embarrassing file. I tried one more angle.

  Can I delete part of a recording? I typed.

  Partial recordings can be deleted by an Authorized User.

  Great again. But it wasn’t quite done. Another line appeared below:

  The exception is +5 files, which are auto-deleted twenty-four hours after viewing.

  What’s a +5 file? I asked.

  And here’s what popped up on the screen a couple of seconds later:

  Come on, Jason. Figure it out.

  So that was kind of snarky and personal. But not as snarky and personal as what followed.

  After picking at something on my chin and thinking for a while, I realized that “+5” must refer to the recordings of the future, which were five years ahead of now. You knew that as soon as you saw it, right? I triumphantly typed: