by Sue Lange
“The . . . ” Elsa said, and then stopped as the magnificence of the boy hit her.
Jason Bridges turned and moved forward.
“Society Society,” Elsa shouted at his back, frightening herself with her aggression.
“Huh?” Jason Bridges stopped and swiveled his head ever so slightly toward the pesky inquisitor.
“I mean, the Science Society.” Elsa said, calmer, quieter. “It meets tonight. It’ll be totally slice.”
Jason half-smiled. “Yeah, sure,” he said not meaning it for a minute. As he turned away again and resumed his walk to class, he forgot she even existed.
But Elsa remembered. She skipped past Mr. Brown, who stood and chewed his lip while staring at an area in the hall where the spectacle had taken place.
“Yeah, I’m coming,” she stated as she passed him by.
Underneath his mustache, his lips gave up a little quivering smile, half upper lip curl and half consternation before turning to his fifth period responsibility.
Elsa just made it into Room 105 down the hall before the bell. She slid into her seat behind Johnnie Williams who turned and sneered at the bump and noise of her entrance. Elsa glared as best she could, but couldn’t quite carry it off through the smile spreading across her face.
CHAPTER THREE
“Elsa, pull that device out of your ear. No music at the table.”
“It’s not music. It’s a lecture on statics.”
“Oh great. You’re listening to some talking head while we’re having dinner together?”
“First off, Mom, you were in la la land yourself. I don’t know what you were thinking about but it didn’t have anything to do with the here and now, and second—”
“I’m tired. Long day and—”
“Second. I aced first year Mind Splitting. Remember? I can hold two thoughts in my head at the same time. One to—”
“Take it out. Please.”
Elsa popped the waxy receiver out of her ear and stowed it politely under the rim of her plate.
The microwave spoke. “Your” (pause as it inserted the proper meal name) “macaroni and cheese” (pause again as it resumed the generic portion of the statement) has completed its cool down cycle. You may now safely remove the plate.”
An electronic ding followed the statement just in case the diners were not yet in the room and couldn’t hear the message.
Elsa clicked the front panel open, extracted the bowl, and plopped a couple serving spoonfuls onto her mother’s plate. She gave herself a couple as well and then placed the bowl in the center of the table before sitting down.
No conversation ensued for a full five mintues as Lainie Webb returned to la la land and Elsa tried to figure out how to get the iHigh receiver back in her ear without Lainie Webb noticing. Finally she gave up and opted for conversation. “There’s a Science Society meeting that I need to go to tonight,” she said.
Lainie had been absorbed in trying to decide if she really wanted to go to her own meeting of the Left Wing Think Tank (LWTT). Was it worth it to go and rehash the ills of society? Sure the jukebox had a full stock of classic punk rock and there’d be a stiff Bloody Mary from the bar, but . . .
She blinked her eyes and looked up from her food. “Oh?” she said. She wore a babushka to keep the stray hairs out of her face. Unfortunately a few curly tendrils had escaped and were dangling from her forehead.
“Yeah, I guess I should try and get something for my resume,” Elsa said.
“Sure, that’s a good idea,” Lainie said, tucking a hair under the scarf. Whatever you want. Your future is—”
“Up to me, I know.”
“Well,” Lainie shook her head slightly and looked at her daughter. “What’s it about?”
“I don’t know. They’re inviting sophomores that show promise . . . ” Elsa rolled her eyes and then continued, “ . . . to a meeting to see if we’d like to join.”
“That show promise?” Lainie rolled her eyes, then turned serious, a slightly comical look with the unkempt hair and stale makeup that the end of a trying-day gives you. “You have to go.”
“Yeah, well, the whole thing seems elitist to me. Just macabre.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re talented, Elsa. You should capitalize on that.”
“I don’t know if I like science.”
“You always get A’s.”
“Doesn’t mean I like it. And just because someone gets A’s doesn’t mean they show promise. You always said that the grading system was a farce and rewarded kids for the wrong things, for memorizing answers and regurgitating facts. It doesn’t reward creativity. There’s more than one answer to a—”
“Yeah, but believe me, after twenty years of working with disadvantaged people, I’ll tell you one thing: if someone offers you an advantage, grab it.” Lainie scratched at the back of her head with the hand that held the fork. A piece of macaroni fell to the floor. “You go to that science think tank meeting tonight, and you join. Get it on your resume. Get it bronzed: ‘Elsa Webb shows promise.’” She dropped her fork on the plate. Done.
Elsa stood and picked up her mother’s plate. “Oh, Mom, you are such a disappointment,” she said with a theatrical lisp.
“Yeah, yeah,” Lainie answered, rolling her head around and stretching her shoulders, still deciding on the night’s activities. She stood and kicked her chair back into place. She noticed the piece of macaroni on the floor and reached over for a paper towel to clean it up. “Leave a plate in the microwave for Dad,” she said. “I’ll be gone when he gets home. I’ve got a thing of my own.” She emphasized “thing” as if it was a burden. A cross, like Elsa’s Science Society meeting, to bear.
She tossed the piece of paper towel to the garbage chute which answered with a “thank you,” and then she headed for the bathroom, pulling her blob of red hair out of the babushka. At the doorway she stopped and turned. “By the way, I was talking to Mrs. Bacomb this morning.”
Here we go again, Elsa thought. She dreaded what was coming next. Something glowing about Jimmy no doubt. Lainie thought Jimmy was slice and loved repeating conversations with his mother in the hopes that her feelings would rub off on Elsa. She harbored an inane belief that friendship with Jimmy rounded out Elsa’s subversive edges. She was well aware that Elsa thought Jimmy was macabre. Lainie probably felt sorry for him and so put forth testimony on Jimmy’s validation whenever she had the slightest chance to do it.
Out loud Elsa said, “Yeah?”
“Yeah, she said there’s a new movement afoot.”
Lainie said “afoot,” like out of an English novel. She was dramatic in that way. Sort of a dreamer. Good hearted but nutty in an exasperating way at times.
“A new movement?” Elsa said, her eyebrows raised skeptically.
“Yeah. Anti-rid or something. Sounds interesting.”
“You mean Anti-Rif?”
“I guess.”
“Oh Mom. Sometimes you have no clue what you say. You’ve always been pro-RFID. What’s this right here?” Elsa bounced her finger on the bump behind her right ear to emphasize the illogicality of her mother’s statement. “That you had installed, I might remind you?”
“Everybody does that, it’s not a political statement,” Lainie answered. “And I don’t know that I’m anti or pro. It just sounds like something interesting. Jimmy’s thinking about joining it.” She rubbed at her scalp to loosen her hair as she talked.
“He is certainly not thinking about it. Just because he mentioned something to his mother. Ugh!”
“Well, I don’t know anything about it. It’s just that—”
“If you did know anything about it, you’d probably want me to run in the opposite direction. It’s a scary bunch of people. They’re into sharing tinnitus and addiction and stuff. Really, mom.”
“I did not know that,” Lainie said before moving on into the bathroom to freshen makeup and prepare for the Think Tank. “And I’m pretty sure we’re all sharing tinnitus at this
point,” she called.
Elsa shook her head as if ridding herself of a pesky fly. Mom was so transparent. Always trying to get her to latch onto something as if the meaning of life came with group experience. She no doubt would be ecstatic if Elsa joined the Science Society even if it turned out to be a big drain on her allowance and left her no time to do homework. Elsa could wind up going down the toilet because of the Science Society, but all Lainie would care about was whether or not Elsa was socialized properly. As if socialization was the end-all to everything.
Course if a certain tall, new boy whose Nike sweat pants flattered him to no end was also joining the Science Society, Lainie’s troubles would be over. Elsa would join up yesterday and . . .
“’kay,” Elsa answered, not realizing Mom had left the bathroom and was now upstairs dressing. Mom was slice. Always ready with a joke or a unique viewpoint on a problem if things were serious. When hadn’t she given Elsa excellent advice? She could certainly carry a great conversation with her sardonic humor and worldly ways. She was a little annoying with her meddling in Elsa’s affairs, but isn’t that what good moms do?
Elsa lazily rinsed orange bits down the drain and set the plates in the dish sterilizer which answered with a “thank you” each time it sensed new material.
Dad had no input into the conversation mostly because Dad was absent. He’d missed dinner again.
Dad, otherwise known as James Webb, was an architectural analyst working twelve-hour shifts until the completion of his current project. His company was losing a million dollars a day while the building was closed, so everybody, even the analysts, had to work twelve-hour shifts until the thing got rented. Had it been legal, management would have required sixteen-hour days. Even so, Dad Webb wouldn’t be getting home until nine or so and by then Elsa would be at the meeting at school and Lainie would be in bed sleeping or dead drunk on the living room couch. Either way, Dad would be heating up his own mac and cheese tonight.
“Washer engaged,” the dishwasher stated after Elsa had loaded it and pushed the button. She grabbed the ear receiver off the table from where she’d stored it earlier and squeezed it several times until it said, “beaming up,” meaning the underground iHigh channel served from somewhere in Northawken was on and streaming.
No one knew the exact location of the local iHigh transmitter especially since it moved around whenever the feds closed in. The band changed too; you had to know where the bulletin board was to find the new information whenever that happened.
Most everyone had experimented with iHigh once or twice. The truly devout tuned in regularly. Elsa was devout. She loved the pleasurable high. Not so over the top she couldn’t react to the world around her, but capable of taking the edge off having to hang around a bunch of people she didn’t know, the single most horrific experience Elsa could imagine enduring. Even the fact that her pal, May, would be with her tonight and maybe even a tall, new boy, was not enough for her to go it alone without a dose.
The underfunded station emitted a staticky flow of signal. Nevertheless, she felt the endorphins immediately kick in as she walked out the door with a “Bye Mom!”
CHAPTER FOUR
Jimmy Bacomb had floppy, red-tinged hair and a profusion of freckles that had not gone away in the nine years that his schoolmates had discovered them. He was a dreamy kid, not bright, yet oddly curious.
He may very well have been the only student less popular than May Sedley. Not very talkative, he was also thin and the two components together rendered him invisible. Worse, he was a creative person. While he performed marginally in most of his history, English, and math classes, he excelled in drawing and paper-making. In his free time, he studied the lost arts of painting and sculpture, eschewing the Photoshop world as something too limiting. “It’s easy to create something using the computer, but all you get is virtual 3-D,” he was fond of saying. To himself, of course, because no one else was ever listening. He was wicked with a welder’s torch and his parents’ home had copies of miniature Calders all over the front lawn. His own creations were in the backyard because nobody understood them and he didn’t want to get teased.
Jimmy liked Elsa because she was the only one who ever argued with him about his ideas. While everyone mostly just ignored his mass-of-ganglia model under the maple tree in the back, Elsa correctly identified it as Captain Rage on drugs. She gave him feedback, suggesting he drop the comic book motif for more serious subjects. Nobody else even knew he was doing derivative art. And certainly no one ever bothered to look closely.
Odd thing about Jimmy was that as unpopular as he was, he had accumulated a broad camp of sponsors. Of course his ASW portfolio and Strathmore backpack drew little attention because nobody had ever heard of those companies. He was simply one of the students in school lost between the three pillars of academic achievement: sports, science, and rock music. His art classes were few. No drawing clubs or found art jam sessions existed on campus.
As Elsa walked to the sidewalk, Jimmy was also leaving his house two doors down with his large drawing portfolio. The streetlights kicked on as they sensed the two students leaving their homes.
“Hello,” Jimmy called to Elsa. “You heading to school?”
“Yeah,” she answered back. “You?”
“I’ll walk you to the corner, I’m heading over to the . . . you know.”
She did know. The cemetery. He was taking embossings of headstones there. Creating a wall collage in the Bacomb’s basement.
“Why do you go at night?” she asked when he met up to her on the walkway. “It’s creepy.”
“It’s the only time I have time.”
“Can’t you wait until the weekend?”
“I’m not scared, Elsa.”
“You should be, those anti-Rifs are everywhere. They probably have séances and conjure dead spirits in the . . . you know.”
Jimmy giggled. He was a giggler. Too nervous to laugh outright, too unslice to remain aloof and above it. “They’re not so bad, you know,” he said.
“Hm,” Elsa replied.
By that time they’d reached the corner, motion detecting streetlights engaging as they went. “Anyway,” she said. “I have to go meet May. You got your cell in case anything, you know, happens?”
Jimmy giggled again. “See you later,” he said before loping off in the opposite direction.
Elsa watched him go, hoping he didn’t make too much about her concern. She didn’t really care. She was just being polite.
CHAPTER FIVE
“You may walk,” the traffic signal stated in its monotone.
The September air carried hints of early frost, hurrying the girls across Lambert. On the other side of the street Northawken High was lit up on the near east end to accommodate tonight’s basketball practice. Light blasted from the upper floor windows above the blinking Jetstream sign. The sounds of Coach Budzynski’s drill filled the air: the squeak of the Nikes, the aggressive dribbles, the slam against the floor just before the layup, the crash against the backboard, the scoring box announcing “Two Points” if the ball made it through the hoop, or “A Miss” if it didn’t.
The West Wing of Northawken High, opposite the gymnasium in position as well as mentality, was likewise lit up with night time activities. This wing, representing the sciences, stood as the second pillar of acclaim and achievement in the school. Here is where tomorrow’s software engineers were incubated. Here a student could distinguish him or herself in the ways of program and design. If you couldn’t attract a name brand clothing or snack label to sponsor you, here in the West Wing you could attract the biggest employers of the scientific mind: IBM, Google, WikiCorp. They were always on the lookout for new talent.
The third pillar of acclaim and achievement, the North End, stood perpendicular to both the gymnasium and the West Wing. It jutted straight back from the front of the building and tonight was as empty as prime time TV. Dedicated to producing great rock musicians, the North End was deserted because of a v
ideo taping downtown. All of the school’s soon-to-be pop gods and goddesses were on set, dancing or playing or entouraging.
To be sure, the sadder, lonelier disciplines such as history, English, and government, all had classrooms as well. Curriculum had not totally changed from that of the Twentieth Century. But being somewhat superfluous in the modern world, there were fewer classrooms devoted to those subjects. Such classes met in corners here and there in the main sections of the school lorded over by the big three.
For instance, Spanish class was held next to a volleyball court, with spikes and setups explained in a south-of-the-border dialect. Russian history stood in the middle of a bank of organic chemistry labs. If Rasputin didn’t kill you, the benzene rings would. English Lit shared a room with art classes next to rehearsal room B. Lectures were kept to a minimum since no one could hear over the drum solos anyway. There were no Latin classes held anywhere, ever.
Tonight’s two busy wings, bright with the business of science and sports, invited onlookers on the street to witness Northawken’s important contributions to tomorrow’s world. One felt a warm feeling in the gut to behold such staunch pillars of achievement, especially with the loud, blinking ads for sports drinks, software, and video games installed on the building.
The friendly competition for the hearts and souls of the students that the three disciplines engaged in provided a solid basis for community spirit and hope for the future. As long as old Northawken High remained busy every night spewing out software heads and pro wrestlers, the entire town could hold its head up. Here was a solid American institution.
May and Elsa stopped momentarily to take in the greatness of the school.
“That is one butt-ugly building,” May said. “What is that crappy flying buttress? I mean okay, so they couldn’t find any stone. Why pretend? It’s plastic. Paint it purple and make it loud like baby toys. It’s so fake! Macabre.”
“Yeah, well, you don’t like anything that isn’t thatched, cresselated, or older than the Seventeenth Century, so there’s no pleasing you,” Elsa replied.
