Welcome to Dweeb Club

by Betsy Uhrig

  Did I have to grow up and start Prescient because I already had? And if I didn’t, where did this equipment even come from?

  My brain felt like an old rubber-band ball from the back of a desk drawer, with various dried-up, broken ends sticking out. I started to feel as if I couldn’t catch my breath.

  “Are you okay, Jason?” Sonia asked.

  “I think I need to breathe into a paper bag,” I managed, remembering my mom’s treatment for Luke’s attacks.

  Sonia pulled out a neatly folded lunch bag and handed it to me.

  I took a few breaths from the bag and started to feel better. “Thanks,” I said, handing it back.

  “Keep it,” she said.

  Chapter 58

  WHILE I WAS HUNCHED OVER a paper bag, the other club members had moved from the cafeteria recording to the help screen, peppering it with questions and getting the standard unhelpful responses.

  Finally, Steve lost patience and hammered in all caps,

  WHAT PRODUCT AM I PUTTING ON MY HAIR THAT IS MAKING IT LOOK LIKE THAT????

  “Steve,” Hoppy said calmly when his typing tantrum led to the help screen’s standard

  Sorry! That question is outside the parameters of this system.…

  and Steve responded with some choice language about what Prescient could do with its stinking parameters.

  “You need to get a grip,” Hoppy told him when he was done. “There’s no gel in the world that could make your hair look like that. We all know this but you.”

  “It has to be a product,” said Steve. “What else could it be? My hair isn’t going to look like that in five years without chemical intervention.”

  Hoppy sighed noisily. “I’ll bet you a thousand dollars that it is,” she said. “One thousand dollars say that no hair product is involved.”

  “I would take that bet in a second,” said Steve, “but I don’t happen to have a thousand dollars lying around.”

  “Okay,” said Hoppy, “here’s the deal. If it turns out in five years that there is a hair product causing you to look like that, I will pay you a thousand dollars.”

  “But wait,” said Vincent, long an expert on and victim of bets and dares. “Can’t Steve stick some glop in his hair when the time comes to win the bet?”

  But we knew Steve would never do that, not even for a thousand dollars.

  “He won’t,” said Hoppy. “Will you?”

  “No!” said Steve. “Geez. What if it didn’t come out?”

  Of course, if Steve put something in his hair that wouldn’t come out just to win a bet, thereby causing the problem, that would be…

  But this rubber-band-ball thought was overtaken by a memory. Something about Steve. And Hoppy. And bets…

  “Don’t take it, Steve,” I said.

  But he wasn’t listening to me.

  “So what do I give you if you win—not that you will, but for form’s sake?” Steve said to Hoppy.

  “If I win, meaning it can be proven that no chemical is involved in this situation, you will wear something of my choosing every day of senior year,” said Hoppy.

  It was clear to everyone in the room—except Steve, crucially—that Hoppy had given this some thought already.

  To his credit, Steve did give it some thought of his own. But not enough. “No capes,” he said.

  “No capes,” said Hoppy.

  “And nothing that will annoy teachers or get me expelled?”

  “Nothing like that.”

  “Don’t do it,” I warned again, louder.

  Surely that warning wasn’t necessary. No one in their right mind would take that bet, would they? But this was Glamorous Steve. Not only was he sure he was right, but he could come to school wearing pink satin toe shoes on Friday, and by Monday half the school would be wearing them, and the other half would have them on back order.

  “You’ve got a bet,” said Steve.

  They shook hands.

  And now, naturally, I remembered what I’d been trying to remember. It was future Jason, via the help screen, who had told me to warn Steve not to make any bets with Hoppy.

  This hair bet was based on what we’d seen in the future, though. It couldn’t be the same bet that future me had warned against. Could it? Or were some things so destined—by fate or personality or whatever—that they would happen no matter how hard we tried to intervene?

  More dried-up rubber bands snapping in my brain. I raised the paper bag again and took a couple of breaths.

  “So what do I have to wear?” Steve asked Hoppy. “Or haven’t you decided yet?”

  “Oh, I think you know what you have to wear,” said Hoppy. Her face was a portrait of calm triumph, which was weird, since she wouldn’t know if she’d won for five years.

  “Good lord,” said Vincent after a moment’s silence. “What have you done?”

  Hoppy folded her arms and smirked. “Vincent knows,” she said.

  “What does Vincent know?” I asked from inside my bag.

  Nikhil and Andrew were trying hard not to laugh. Lara’s face was going red. Sonia’s eyes were wide with dismay.

  Steve was back on last night’s recording, focusing as closely on his future self as possible. “Is that what I think it is?” he asked.

  And now I saw it too. It was obvious if you knew what to look for. Steve didn’t have a product in his hair in the future. He was wearing something on his head. Something manufactured right here in Flounder Bay.

  Glamorous Steve was wearing a hairnet.

  Chapter 59

  STEVE TOOK HIS DOWNFALL IN stride. I think he was relieved that his future hair condition wasn’t permanent (hair joke!). “It’ll spring right back into shape when I take that thing off,” he said, over and over again. “My hair is resilient as all get-out.” He promised Hoppy he’d wear a hairnet every day senior year without complaint. He even offered to make it into a yearlong social-media event for Hopkins: the Hendrix Hairnet Challenge. Knowing Steve, half the school would be wearing hairnets by the time it was over.

  Andrew accepted his future too. We spent several club meetings trying to trick the T.W.E.R.P. screen into spilling some hint about who was behind Prescient, but its filters remained stubbornly in place. As Andrew became less interested in the who and more interested in the how, though, the rest of the club members began to suspect it was him. Then he started wearing a new, oversize MIT sweatshirt. “I think MIT might be the best place to study the theoretical possibilities of sending digital files back in time,” he explained. “Plus the sleeves on my UCSB hoodie are getting short.”

  And what about the rest of us? Did we accept our futures or defy them? It’s kind of a mixed bag, actually.

  * * *

  First, Vincent. One day he arrived at the H.A.I.R. lunch table looking chipper in spite of a black eye. “I have an announcement,” he said as he took his usual seat.

  “Does it involve whoever punched your face?” Nikhil asked.

  “It does, sort of,” said Vincent. “Be patient, my impatient friend, and I will explain.”

  He’d gotten the black eye, he told us, during Ultimate Frisbee the afternoon before, when he had nodded off while standing on the field and been hit in the face with the Frisbee. “While I was sidelined with my ice pack,” he told us, “I remembered a piece of wisdom I once read in a bathroom stall. Which was: ‘Strain leads to pain.’ And I realized that it doesn’t apply only to butts.”

  Those of us who had been in the restroom with Vincent at Woozle nodded because we understood. The rest nodded in case Vincent was losing it and not nodding would rile him.

  “So I quit all my clubs except H.A.I.R. and Crochet!” Vincent said. “And I’m feeling less pain already. Except for the eye. The eye hurts a lot.”

  “But what about Karen?” I said. “And the dare?”

  “Karen can soak her head,” he said. “Dares aren’t legally binding—I asked my parents. And I saw what would happen if I kept going with all those clubs. It was…” He fishe
d for the word he wanted.

  “Unsustainable,” Andrew supplied.

  “I was thinking more ‘drool-producing,’ but yeah, what Andrew said.”

  * * *

  Next, Hoppy. Our second official security assignment came a few weeks after Vincent’s revelation. Our mission: to find out who had written “weenies” on the door to the boys’ locker room. In no time at all, the crack H.A.I.R. investigation squad discovered that it was the JV field hockey team. Which surprised the boys in the group but not the girls. “The handwriting was too neat to be a boy’s,” Sonia said.

  Later, as we watched the midnight recording for that day, Hoppy sighed so hard that the laptop screen steamed up. “Do you see future me?” she said. “Now I’m making the janitors reorder the recycling bins. I not only look like my mother, I’m as bossy as she is too.”

  This had been a common rant of Hoppy’s for a while now, and it was getting old. Which meant that one of us was going to speak up. One of us in particular.

  “What, exactly, is so wrong with being bossy?” Nikhil asked her. “Someone has to be the boss. And you seem good at it.”

  Hoppy told Nikhil to take a flying leap, but by lunch the next day she’d had second thoughts. Not about Nikhil taking a flying leap, but about her future bossiness.

  “You were right,” she told him. “I’ve been hating the idea of turning into my mother this whole time, but you know what? My mother is the boss of a successful company. Her employees respect her. I’d be proud to turn out like her. So I’ve decided I’m running for class president next year. Can I count on your votes?”

  She said this last part so loudly that kids several tables away nodded obediently.

  “You’ve got my vote,” said Nikhil. “I love being right.”

  * * *

  Nikhil himself defied his fate so hard that he ended up a cross-country all-star. At lunch the day after he won his third race in a row, Steve asked him what vitamins he’d been taking and if he was willing to share.

  “It’s not physical,” Nikhil told him. “It’s mental.”

  “I can do mental stuff,” said Steve. “What, like meditation or something?”

  “Nothing like that,” said Nikhil. “Okay,” he went on, lowering his voice and leaning in, “I’ll tell you. But it doesn’t go beyond the eight of us, understood?”

  Everyone agreed. The weirder and more squirrelly Nikhil got about this, the more interested even us non-athletes were.

  “Every time I feel myself getting tired and slowing down,” said Nikhil, “I picture something awful chasing me. Something nightmarish.”

  “An alien with double-hinged jaws that drip acid slime?” said Vincent.

  “Worse,” Nikhil said. He waited to let the suspense build, which it did. “I picture that mustache from the recordings, the size of a person, coming after me like a giant, disgusting, balding caterpillar. It hasn’t failed yet.”

  And it continued not to fail. Nikhil was interviewed for the school paper and the town paper when he made all-star, but he never revealed his winning strategy to the outside world.

  * * *

  As for Lara, she showed up in math class one morning wearing a T-shirt that said FBUS SCIENCE: THINK LIKE A PROTON AND STAY POSITIVE.

  “What?” she said when she caught my eye. “I told you I was joining science club. I’m letting my inner nerd shine.”

  “That’s awesome,” I said, though I didn’t understand the shirt’s joke. Assuming it was a joke. “But it’s your hair I’m staring at.”

  She had cut off about a foot of it. It now matched the chin-length style we’d seen on the recordings.

  “Oh, right. It was getting in my way in the lab. So I donated it.”

  “You can donate hair?”

  “Well, it has to be a certain length. And, you know…” She trailed off politely.

  “Don’t worry,” I told her. “I’m not thinking of trying to donate my hair.”

  “That’s probably for the best,” she said.

  The haircut was cool. The science pun T-shirt was definitely nerdy. She clearly didn’t care if people thought she was a nerd. Which made her cool, didn’t it—not caring what people thought? It was a conundrum, as Ms. Grossman would say.

  * * *

  You may be wondering if I, Jason, accepted my future and ended up with a crush on Lara, or defied it and ended up with better manners. And what about Sonia? We haven’t covered Sonia yet either. I’m going to answer your remaining questions by inviting you to a school dance. Buckle up!

  It was the Spring Fling, the first school dance I’d ever been to, and as I stood there in the darkened gym, my jaw did drop. Because up on the stage was a girl I thought I knew. But this girl had a low-slung guitar, a new attitude, and not a hairband in sight.

  The lead singer-guitarist for Sonia and the Sonics may have looked familiar, and her outfit (black) did match her guitar case, but she was a huge surprise. Remember how I described Sonia as possibly the most agreeable person I’d ever met? It turned out that the lead singer-guitarist for the Sonics had some complaints. And she wasn’t shy about expressing them in song. Many of us close to the stage were hit by flying flecks of spit, and it was amazing.

  When Sonia came offstage after her set, she was shiny with sweat and excitement. She spotted me and ran over. “That was the most fun I’ve ever had!” she shouted into my ear.

  “You were…” I couldn’t think of another word. “Amazing. You were so amazing. I might never get over the amazingness!” What was happening to me? Where was my Ms. Grossman–drilled vocabulary when I needed it?

  But Sonia didn’t mind. She hugged me hard and I hugged her back. Then we separated and she said, “Thanks, Jason. You’re kind of amazing yourself.”

  And my knees got wobbly and my smile got big and stupid, and did I mention that her eyes are the color of a deep forest pool at twilight?

  Chapter 60

  THE LAST MIDNIGHT RECORDING WE saw, toward the end of the school year, didn’t show lunch period. It showed us lining up in our caps and gowns in the cafeteria prior to marching into the auditorium for our graduation ceremony. We agreed that we looked ridiculous dressed like that, but we also felt weirdly proud of our obsolete senior selves. They were marching into a future that no longer existed, but they looked so excited to be heading out there.

  And when future Steve finally removed the hairnet, ran his hand through his resilient hair, and put on his graduation cap, we all cheered, onscreen and off.

  * * *

  The day after we saw that recording, the fire department was once again called to the school. This time it was smoke that set off the alarm in the basement, not a flailing broomstick. (I was nowhere near the area at the time, I swear.)

  School had just let out when the strobe lights and the whooping noise started up. I was on the sidewalk in front of the building. Vincent and Olaf burst out the main doors at a run, their crochet projects trailing. Olaf’s scarf looked like it was meant for a giraffe. Vincent’s was more hamster size. Or maybe he was making a wristband. We watched with a gathering crowd as a fire truck roared up and firefighters raced inside the building. When they emerged soon after, they did not look pleased. One of them was carrying two melted hunks of plastic. And all of them reeked of skunk.

  “Two computers in a basement office overheated,” we heard the firefighter with the hunks of plastic tell Ms. Wu. “Completely melted. No other damage, though. Pretty lucky.”

  “Until we were ambushed by a skunk down there,” added another. “Animal Control is on the way.”

  As the firefighters stripped off their fire- but not skunk-proof coats and pants, a familiar van pulled up and two familiar people hopped out.

  “Hey, Skunk Boy,” said the woman. “We meet again.”

  * * *

  Even Luke couldn’t explain what had happened to the Prescient laptops. He figured they must have been programmed to fry themselves after a certain period of time. It probably wasn’t a co
incidence that it happened right after we got to the end of our senior-year files. The computers were unsalvageable, according to the fire department.

  The self-destruction of the laptops meant the end of H.A.I.R. Club. We met for the last time in the basement office, which still smelled faintly of smoke and skunk. Ms. Grossman told us that the school couldn’t get in touch with Prescient about replacing the equipment, nor could they afford to install a different brand.

  Which brings me to the end of the official history of H.A.I.R. Club. But not quite to the end of the story.

  “Ms. Grossman,” Vincent said as she was turning to leave club headquarters, “would it be okay if we start another club to replace H.A.I.R.?”

  “Of course!” she said. “What did you have in mind?”

  “We’ll let you know when we have the details,” said Vincent. “Thanks!”

  “I look forward to hearing what you come up with,” said Ms. Grossman.

  When she was gone, Nikhil turned to Vincent and said, “I, too, look forward to what you come up with, Vincent. Do continue, please.” Which meant that Nikhil thought Vincent was spitballing and didn’t have anything in mind. I thought the same. He hadn’t said anything to me about another club. But Nikhil and I were wrong.

  “Okay,” said Vincent. “I was thinking when I saw our melted computers the other day that H.A.I.R. Club was responsible for one of the best times of my life.”

  “The time we met the skunk?” Sonia asked.

  “No. Well, yes. That was good too. But no,” said Vincent. “The Great Escape from Woozle was one of the most fun things I’ve ever done.”

  “That was awesome,” said Lara.

  “It was,” Hoppy agreed.

  “I’m still sorry I missed it,” said Steve.