Welcome to Dweeb Club

by Betsy Uhrig

  “Forget it,” said Hoppy. “We’ll discuss this later. For now, we need to get the job done.”

  No one at that table needed security footage from the future to know that Hoppy was going to make a formidable head of Hopkins Hairnets, or maybe the United States, someday. We snapped to attention.

  “Wait a sec,” said Shannon. “I’ll be right back.”

  She stood up, and Vincent pounced on the remaining “brownie.”

  “Ew,” he said after one bite. “It tastes like mulch.”

  “Right?” said Luke.

  “But not in a bad way, really, once you get used to it,” said Vincent, braving another, bigger bite.

  “Useless for brownie-glob missing teeth, though,” said Luke. “They don’t stick right.”

  “That’s a shame,” said Vincent, who had seen Luke’s trick.

  “It really is.”

  Chapter 46

  SHANNON RETURNED TO OUR TABLE with two things: her laptop and a cardboard box full of Woozle-branded merch.

  “I’m going to see if I can book a conference room for you guys,” she said, opening her laptop. “And these”—she handed me the box—“are some fun souvenirs from your tour of Woozle. You can use the bags to discreetly move moderately sized objects from place to place in the building.”

  I pulled four tote bags from the box and spread them out on the table.

  WOOZLE, they said in big navy letters. And under that: WE KNOW WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU!

  “Huh,” I said.

  “Yeah, that promo was a major bust,” said Shannon. “We’ve still got a ton of these bags lying around. Also water bottles, baseball caps, pedometers… Take what you want.”

  Who were we to turn up our noses at free stuff? Everyone except Lara crowded around and started filling the totes with swag. We must have looked like we were preparing for a month in the wilderness. Lara shook her head, but she probably had all this stuff at home already.

  “Hm,” said Shannon, tapping at her keyboard. “I can’t find any conference rooms that aren’t booked for the next couple hours.”

  “What about a nap pod?” said Vincent, applying some Woozle lip balm.

  I, for one, was fully expecting Shannon to tell him that Woozle nap pods were a myth. But no.

  “They go dark as soon as you close the hatch.”

  “Hatch?” said Vincent. “Can we try one out?”

  “Maybe later,” said Shannon, at the same time that Hoppy was barking, “No! Stay on topic, Chen.”

  “Aha,” Shannon said. “A lactation room is open all afternoon. That’ll be private. And comfy too!”

  “What’s a lactation room?” Vincent asked.

  “For nursing mothers,” said Shannon. “They go in there to express—”

  “Uh-uh,” I said. “No way. What if someone caught us? They’d know right away we have no business in there. It would be like getting caught in the ladies’ room!”

  “Okay, then,” said Shannon. “I guess that brings us to our remaining option.”

  “Which is…?” said Luke.

  “A restroom.”

  “You can’t book a restroom,” said Luke. “Can you?”

  “Technically, no,” said Shannon. “But once you turn the lock it will say ‘occupied,’ like an airplane bathroom.”

  “So we’re going to sit around in a bathroom watching Luke fix the laptops?” I said.

  “Sure,” said Shannon. “Why not?”

  “I’m not sitting around on any men’s room floor,” said Hoppy, crossing her arms.

  “It’s not a men’s room,” said Shannon. “The Woozle restrooms are agnostic.”

  “What does that mean?” said Vincent.

  “It means anyone can use them,” said Lara. “What?” she said in the face of our faces. “My mom works here.”

  “My mom works at a law firm,” said Vincent, “and you don’t see me using terms like ‘non compos mentis.’ ”

  “You just did,” said Hoppy.

  “Not in a sentence.”

  “That was so a sentence.”

  “But I don’t know what it means.”

  I’m going to let the historical record peter out here, mainly because I don’t remember how that particular argument ended.

  Chapter 47

  “WHAT’S IBS?” VINCENT ASKED AS we sat there on the cold, hard floor of the “occupied” agnostic restroom, watching Luke open up the back of the first laptop with a tiny screwdriver. We’d smuggled them from Shannon’s office in two of the swag bags and were feeling pretty pleased with ourselves.

  “Irritable bowel syndrome,” Luke said without looking up.

  “Irritable. That’s not so bad,” said Vincent. “Not as bad as ‘angry’ bowel syndrome.” He was busy putting on his new Woozle cap, wristbands, and pedometer. He looked like an old guy about to go for a power walk around his retirement community.

  “Is that really a thing?” asked Luke with a worried edge to his voice.

  “No idea,” said Vincent. “There’s a sign here that says, ‘Spending more time in the restroom than at your desk? Check out our IBS info and stop wasting time on waste!’ ”

  “Intrusive much?” said Hoppy.

  “The sign about hemorrhoids rhymes,” I said. “See? ‘Strain leads to pain.’ ”

  “Worth remembering!” said Vincent.

  Lara’s face was so red it was probably hot to the touch. “Can we not?” she pleaded. And maybe to change the subject, she asked me, “So, what does your aunt do here—for a job, I mean?”

  I didn’t know, but I went ahead with “Something to do with computers. Nerd stuff.”

  “Same with my mother,” said Lara. “But Shannon’s not a nerd. She seems really cool.”

  “She’s a huge nerd,” said Luke, carefully laying bits of laptop innard in neat rows on some paper towels from the dispenser. Then he took a few tiny metal doodads (technical term) over to the hand dryer to hold under its stream of warm air.

  “I didn’t think you could be cool and a nerd at the same time,” said Lara.

  “I’ve actually given that some thought,” I said. “Shannon somehow manages to be a cool nerd—I have no idea how.”

  “My mom is pure nerd,” said Lara.

  “No one thinks their own mother is cool,” said Hoppy.

  “In fact,” I said, “there’s probably something actively wrong with a kid who thinks their own parent is cool. That’s not how nature works.”

  “You mean even a lion cub doesn’t think its father—the king of the jungle—is cool?” said Vincent. “I mean, all the other animals must think he’s the coolest.”

  “The lion cub is almost constantly embarrassed by its father’s roaring and carrying on,” I said. “I guarantee it.”

  Lara actually laughed at this. “But it’s possible,” she said, weirdly urgent, “to be both a nerd and cool? Not to your kid, obviously, but to other people?”

  “Well, we have one living example, anyway,” I said.

  Lara looked down at her lap.

  Vincent got up to read the many informative signs posted around the large one-stall restroom. Hoppy leaned her head against the wall and closed her eyes. I watched Luke take apart the second laptop and hold various parts of it under the dryer.

  “I like science better than playing guitar,” Lara said suddenly.

  This was starting to get weird. Lara, who never said anything as a general rule, and actively disliked me, let’s not forget, was voluntarily having a conversation—with me. Or mostly me, with Vincent now exploring the stall’s interior and Hoppy pretty much checked out.

  Personal conversations weren’t really my thing. Add the girl component and it got worse. Add the shy-girl-who-actively-disliked-me aspect, and it was off the charts. I groped and came up with “That’s nice.”

  Jason Sloan: master of the heart-to-heart.

  “I started playing guitar because I thought it would make me cool,” said Lara.

  I will alw
ays be proud of what I did next. Which was nothing. I did not immediately blurt out, “Well, I guess it hasn’t kicked in yet,” or something like that. Which was definitely my first instinct. Instead, I paused. And I thought. I paused for thought!

  Then I said, “Well, judging from the senior-year cafeteria files, it works. You seem cool in them.”

  “Thanks,” said Lara. “But my senior-year self seems to be working so hard at it. Isn’t working hard at being cool the opposite of being it? Meeting your aunt today, and seeing her being really cool doing exactly what she wants to do…” She fell silent.

  Having succeeded so spectacularly with my pause for thought before, I opted for the same tactic again. But Lara didn’t need a response from me.

  “I’m going to stop guitar lessons,” she said. “And join the science team. It’s what I’d rather be doing.”

  “Cool,” I said.

  Chapter 48

  IN THE QUIET THAT FOLLOWED, something major occurred to me. If Lara was giving up guitar, then that whole future we had seen on the recording was… what? Altered? Gone? This was way beyond Nikhil’s mustache. Lara couldn’t be forced to be in a band called Lara and the Lariats in five years against her will. Somehow her meeting Shannon today had changed the future.

  Hoppy must have been listening the whole time, because her eyes opened and she said to Lara, “You’re serious? No guitar? No Lara and the Lariats?”

  Lara shook her head. “I wasn’t really liking the look of that girl anyway.”

  “That future-Lara girl?” said Hoppy.

  “Yeah. She never talks to anyone; she never even sits down and eats lunch—just hovers by the doorway. She seems kind of… I don’t know… standoffish.”

  “Isn’t that part of being cool?” I said.

  “Maybe,” said Lara. “If you mainly care about seeming cool. But I don’t think it’s a necessary part of truly being cool.”

  “Getting all philosophical here in the restroom, aren’t we?” said Hoppy.

  “Sorry,” said Lara.

  “So what does that do to the future?” said Hoppy. “If you aren’t going to be that future-Lara girl, then what happens?”

  “I think that future is gone,” I said. And hopefully that meant good-bye to the mannerless chucklehead that was future Jason too. I wasn’t liking the look of that guy anyway.

  “I was asking Lara,” said Hoppy.

  Lara tucked her hair behind her ear on one side. “I think what happens,” she said, “is that I do my best to be a cool scientist, but if I can’t, I can’t. I’ll be an uncool scientist.”

  “ ‘To thine own self be true,’ ” I said. This was literally the one Shakespeare quote I knew besides “To be or not to be,” which babies are born knowing, and I only knew it because my dad said it a lot.

  Lara and Hoppy both looked at me as though I’d sprouted another, better-looking head.

  “Very impressive, Sloan,” said Hoppy.

  I was settling down to bask in that praise for a while, possibly the rest of the day, when someone knocked sharply on the restroom door.

  “Excuse me,” said a man’s voice from outside. “Security. Are you all right in there?”

  The three of us on the floor froze like a little meerkat colony being threatened by whatever threatens meerkats and their colonies.

  Luke froze over by the dryer with a tiny and delicate piece of computer resting on his palm.

  And Vincent… Where was Vincent?

  His voice broke the frozen silence. Coming from inside the wheelchair-accessible stall, it echoed as he yelled in the lowest, most manly tone he could:

  “Um, yes, sir, I’m fine. I’m just, ah, I have angry bowel syndrome, and my doctor says I can’t strain or I’ll get hemorrhoids, which could be fatal in my case.”

  He’d pronounced it “hemorr-hoids,” which wasn’t right, but maybe the guy outside the restroom didn’t know that.

  Then again, maybe he did.

  “Sir,” he said, but not in a tone you’d use if you really believed you were dealing with a full-grown adult sir with genuine bowel trouble, “we’ve had some complaints about this restroom being occupied for almost an hour. How much longer do you think you’ll be?”

  Vincent’s face appeared from within the stall. He looked at Luke.

  Luke held up five fingers.

  “Um,” said Vincent, his voice not quite as manly as before, “perhaps five hours? Five more hours should clear this whole situation up.”

  Luke had one hand over his eyes. He could have been laughing or crying.

  “Sir?” said the man. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to come in there. Now.”

  Chapter 49

  THE FACT THAT VINCENT HAD never been authorized or encouraged in any way to create a diversion didn’t mean he wasn’t ready and willing when the chance came up.

  Which apparently it had.

  “I’m gonna make a run for it,” he whispered. And without waiting for a response, he pulled his Woozle cap down, unlocked the restroom door, and launched himself into the hallway. He got a teeny bit of a head start because when he flung the door open, it bonked the security guy. We all heard it.

  Hoppy, Lara, and I stood up as Vincent dashed away and the security guy went after him, radioing for backup. No matter what happened next, I knew Vincent would be thrilled to learn he’d caused radioing for backup.

  “Un. Believable,” said Hoppy, taking time we didn’t have to make it two separate words. “But what the heck? Let’s each take a separate route and meet outside the main entrance. That’ll buy some time, anyway.”

  Hoppy and Lara ran for it.

  I hung back. Maybe because there was a responsible (-ish) adult related to me in the room. Maybe because I didn’t love the idea of tearing through the Woozle offices with security on my heels. Maybe because I was still processing what was going on.

  “What are you waiting for?” Luke asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Permission?”

  “None given,” said Luke. “Now get going.”

  I went.

  * * *

  I pelted out of the restroom and ran down a long, straight corridor that opened onto a vast field of cubicles. I could hear shouting in the distance as additional security guards joined the chase. I ran among the cubicles like a rat in a maze—if the maze had other rats sitting around inside it, hunched in front of computer screens and sipping healthful smoothies.

  Workers’ heads popped up over cubicle walls as I ran past, but no one made a move to stop me. In fact, I swear I heard some guy say, “Go, kid, go,” as I ran by his cube. I zigged and zagged until I saw a red exit sign, which I headed for. Still no one was following—I think all the security types had gone after Vincent, Lara, and Hoppy and were actually ahead of me in this chase rather than behind. Which meant I should slow down? That didn’t seem right.

  I heaved open a door and found myself in a concrete stairwell. This was the second floor, so I started down, slowly, because I was out of breath and also because I didn’t want to take a header on the steps.

  At the bottom of the stairs was a door marked 1. I opened it and found myself at the head of a people-mover, which was coming toward me, unfortunately. I leaped on and, still winded, started running as fast as I could. I felt like I was slogging through a strong current or against a stiff wind, making almost no progress. And here was a security guard now, yelling at me from behind to “Stop! Come back here! I’m not kidding around.…”

  I’ve always thought that yelling things at running people like “Stop!” and especially “Come back here!” was stupid. Who in their right mind would obediently halt and then meekly head back upon hearing these commands? It turns out I would, almost. Here was a uniformed adult shouting at me to stop. Ordering me to come back there. Mentioning that he wasn’t kidding around. Part of me wanted to do what he said. But only part of me. Less than half, anyway, because I did not stop or go back. I kept running.

  My security
guy obviously hadn’t spent as much time walking the grounds and jogging on the people-movers as he should have. I could hear his heavy panting getting farther and farther behind me. Then I heard him go down hard. I turned long enough to see him begin his ride back to the beginning of the people-mover, then I put on a burst of speed to the end and stumbled off.

  I landed back in the atrium. I was stooped over, trying to catch my breath, when first Lara and then Hoppy burst from the hallway opposite me. They were people-moving in the right direction (for them—the wrong direction for Woozle employees), and they were barely winded when they got to me. Way down near the end of the people-mover the girls had just gotten off hovered two security guards, unwilling to get on it going the unauthorized way.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Hoppy said as the guards dithered.

  “Where’s Vincent?” I asked.

  “He should have been ahead of us,” said Hoppy.

  I hoped he wasn’t already in custody. Knowing Vincent, he’d crack immediately.

  The guards at the ends of both people-movers were now yelling at the desk attendant, confusing the poor guy into immobility. And then all three guards were on the people-movers, one churning slowly toward us, the other two coming more quickly.

  We couldn’t wait for Vincent. We ran for the main exit.

  Chapter 50

  HOPPY, LARA, AND I EMERGED onto the walkway outside Woozle and looked around for Vincent. There were a few shrubs he wasn’t hiding behind, and two of those overgrown golf carts parked along the curb, empty.

  “He must have headed for the parking lot already,” I said. Which was putting a lot of faith in Vincent, I know, but he is my best friend.

  Hoppy and Lara nodded, and we started walking.

  As we passed the golf carts, we heard a noise. And that noise was “Pssst!”

  “No,” said Hoppy.

  But yes. Vincent was crouched in the driver’s seat of the lead golf cart. “Jump in,” he said, sitting up straight. “The keys are in it.”