by Sue Lange
“No, that’s not the point. I’m saying we have the benefit of a good education here. We know why PMMs fail.”
“PMMs?” the dean asked.
“Perpetual Motion Machines,” Elsa and Mr. Brown answered as one.
“So you know everything already, and can’t possibly fall under the spell of fame and fortune. You don’t even need us anymore,” Dean Williams said.
“No, I didn’t mean that either. With the guidance of our school, we won’t go down that path. We are interested in the phenomenon for its beauty and what it can teach us.”
“It seems like a narrow subject,” Ms. Phelps said.
“Well, it is,” Elsa said. “But we can expand on it and follow anywhere it leads. The idea would be to give students an avenue to question, well, not question, but study old theories, new theories, artistic endeavors, really. Anything we come across, I guess. It would be a work in progress. The club itself would be a work of art.”
Ms. Phelps pursed her lips in a way that indicated she could see the possibilities. “Your application doesn’t say anything about artistic endeavors or being a work in progress,” she said.
“Well, that’s what I intended,” Elsa ad libbed.
“You may need to redo that section,” Ms. Phelps said. “That may make a difference. Who will your advisor be?”
“Advisor?”
“All clubs need an advisor from the faculty,” Dean Williams answered. “It’s required.”
Elsa stole a quick glance at Mr. Brown. His arms were still folded. His lips stuck out in a pout and he was staring at the ground, lost in angry thought. Would he be flattered if she named him, or would he use it to snarl that he had no interest in such foolery. What if he agreed. No way, she thought.
“I would say Mr. Brown, but he’s already advising the Science Society, so I think, maybe Ms. Curnsom would be good. Or maybe even Ms. Phelps?”
“Ms. Curnsom in physics would indeed be good,” the dean said. “Or maybe both Curnsom and Phelps since this is an interdisciplinary project.”
Ms. Phelps gave a slow nod of acceptance. Not altogether unenthusiastically.
“But we can see about that later,” Dean Williams continued. “What we need to determine first is whether or not Northawken High really needs this club. Do you have anything else to say, Elsa?”
Time for the clincher.
“I think this club, being the only one of its kind, could really put Northawken on the map. We’ll be the first to have . . . ”
“So you think Northawken needs to be put on the map?” Mr. Brown cut in. “We don’t have a good reputation?”
“Oh no, it’s just that . . . ” Elsa stopped. She had no idea what “just that” would be. Everything seemed so obvious before, now it all seemed merely selfish. She looked to the floor for answers, saw her scuffed shoes with frayed laces against the immaculate composite parquet of Dean Williams’ office. She had never felt so out of place in her life.
“Thank you for your consideration,” she mumbled.
“Thank you for coming in, Elsa,” Dean Williams answered. “We’ll let you know in a week or so what we think.”
She left the office and as the door closed behind her she heard a little sound from Ms. Phelps and an angry reply from Mr. Brown. “Harold, you can’t blame her for trying,” Dean Williams clearly said.
Out in the hallway, the “r” of the Jetstream logo was blinking to dim. Soon the sign would say “Jetsteam.” Elsa pondered the imperfection, the utter wretchedness of humanity’s efforts and how it all turns to crap sooner or later.
A group of basketball players exiting the gym drew her attention momentarily. They laughed and joked unaware of the misery everywhere. They used words and voices she could barely decipher as if they were aliens from another country. Jason stood out—taller, brighter, but he too comprehended nothing of the desolate state of things.
She stood frozen before the Jetst eam sign, listening and watching. The athletes engulfed her on their way, not stopping their conversation as they flowed around her as if she wasn’t there. And then they were beyond her and out the door, moving to their various vehicles in the parking lot. She followed at a distance and waited until they had all made it out into traffic before she continued on her own way.
At the corner May and jWad and Jimmy Bacomb huddled, waiting for news of her success. May was hugging herself for warmth. jWad leaned against a light post. Jimmy stood squarely with his arms folded. She took a deep breath as she approached them, wondering if she should be fake optimistic or truthful.
“Well?” said May. “We’re freezing to death here.”
Elsa opted for optimism. “I think it went well,” she lied. “Brown’s an asshole, but—”
“Brown’s all right.” Jimmy and jWad said it at the same time.
“Yeah, I guess,” Elsa lied again. “Come on. Let’s go get a hot chocolate.” She hustled her group to the Wendy’s stand across the street where they stayed and talked for an hour. Elsa’s mood of false optimism could not cut through the gloom she truly felt. They broke up early and went their separate ways. Actually May and jWad went in one direction, Elsa and Jimmy in another.
“You know it doesn’t really matter if the club doesn’t get sanctioned,” Jimmy said as they set off for home.
“Who said it’s not getting sanctioned?” Elsa said with a clipped voice, quick and churlish.
“I’m just sayin’.”
“Well, that attitude is not helping.”
“Helping what?”
“I don’t know.”
The remaining six blocks were passed in silence. At Elsa’s door, she said, “Thanks for walking me home, Jimmy. See you around.”
“At the meeting?”
“What meeting?
“The next meeting.”
“Oh, yeah. Right. See you then.” She turned and entered the house, muttering, “damn twerp,” and blaming him for all her problems.
***
A week later found Elsa back in Dean Williams’ office, this time in a guest chair opposite the dean’s desk. While the dean excused herself to retrieve the paperwork and notes for Elsa’s case, Elsa perused the artwork on the wall.
A framed cross stitch of a unicorn surrounded by a circle of ivy-covered fence held the words “Though in chains, my heart is free and therefore so am I” at the bottom. Just below them was the name of the author in letters too small to read.
In addition to the unicorn, various accomplishments of Dean Williams’ life were displayed: her diplomas—bachelors’, masters’, doctorate; a couple of little basketball team photos from when she coached at a small high school in Iowa before she came to Northawken; some handwritten letters of esteem from students she’d helped through tough algebraic episodes; the first dollar she earned in education. On her desk sat the tokens of big business, artifacts meant to entice the dean into letting the corporations pitch to her students. A Pepsi Max mug, Disney deskpad, stack of iPad pens, Googleware glass case, and a set of black and white Dell erasers.
“Well, Elsa,” Dean Williams entered the office holding a manila folder. She took her seat behind the desk, tucking her skirt underneath herself. “You’ve certainly done a great job with your presentation.”
Bad sign. If this was good news, the dean would have skipped the softening and come right out with “Congratulations!”
The dean placed the file on the desk before her and folded her hands over it.
“What do you think we decided?” she asked.
“Uh, I don’t really know,” Elsa said hopefully.
“How do you think we should decide?”
“What?”
“Do you think a club with only five members should be sanctioned? I know you’ve tried. I’ve noticed your efforts.”
“Well, I guess I’ve never thought of it that way.”
“Your ideas are sound, Elsa. They make sense. We, actually I, think it would be marvelous to have a perpetual motion club on campus.”
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“You do?” Elsa’s eyebrows rose.
“But Mr. Brown was vehemently against it.”
Elsa felt her insides turn to jello. They slunk to her midsection and quivered. Dean Williams fell out of focus.
Elsa could barely see her as she continued speaking. “I disagreed with him. I felt your project was not mere mathematics. It was art, as you said.”
“Thanks,” Elsa mumbled. The sickening, thickening feeling in her gut began to burble.
“Ms. Phelps felt no one seemed interested. I had to agree with that.”
“Yes,” Elsa said. She placed her hands on her stomach to try and hold it back. “Thanks for your help, but I have to go.”
She scraped her seat across the floor as she pushed herself up and out. “Open,” she yelled to the door before flying through the outer office and out into the hallway to the closest girls’ room where she vomited into the sink, not making it to the john. A mass of morning mush splattered over the Frito-Lay decal there. “May I help you?” the SafeChild automonitor asked.
Dean Williams was close behind. “Elsa, are you sick?”
“I’m okay,” Elsa’s face was still in the sink. Her words had a weird hollow sound as they bounced off the ceramic basin. She turned on the water to rinse her mouth and the breakfast down the drain. Dean Williams pulled paper towels from the dispenser to help clean up.
“You know, Dear,” the dean said once all the particles had been removed to the Rubbermaid waste basket. “You shouldn’t feel bad. We haven’t added a new organization in years. We have the language clubs, pep club, Thespians, choirs, cheerleader squads, and the Science Society. No one has tried to start anything new in years. You’re to be commended for even trying.”
Elsa could easily have thrown up again, but vowed to keep everything down. She also vowed to not shed a tear in the odious dean’s presence.
The dean continued blathering. “Let me ask you something,” she said.
Elsa was beginning to get angry. The interview and decisions were over, too late for questions. Why did the dean insist on turning the knife in her heart?
“Yes,” Elsa said coldly.
“Why didn’t you join the Science Society?”
“Because I have the Perpetual Motion Club,” Elsa answered and turned to exit the room.
“As a conciliation, Mr. Brown has decided to extend the invitation to you again. He was impressed with your efforts.”
Elsa spun on her heel. “That’s a lie! He was laughing at me the whole time. He didn’t even hear what I said.”
She turned and left the room and ran out of the building and to home—the long way, around the reservoir, just to make sure the dean didn’t follow her this time. And to make sure she didn’t run into anybody like May or jWad or Jimmy. Especially not Jimmy who would insist that it didn’t matter, when it absolutely did matter. She had counted on sanctioning the club to solve her problems with her mother. God. Her mother would gloat. Even Dad wouldn’t be that helpful. He’d take both Lainie’s and Elsa’s side, trying to keep peace long enough to get a good night’s sleep and then be off in the morning before Elsa and Lainie started through all this again.
But mostly Elsa took the long way home to avoid any chance encounters with the asshole, Jason Bridges. All she needed right now was someone who had no more brains than a basketball sneering at her.
She’d run away. Somewhere that was so far away they’d never find her. To the mountains. To the desert. Or downtown. But she was not shedding a tear. She was never in a million years giving that witch Williams and that prick Brown the satisfaction.
By the time she’d made it home she was blubbering, her sweatshirt was soaked with nasal mucous, her eyes were swollen from crying and her face was bloated.
“Welcome home, Elsa” the door stated after she thumbed the lock. She entered and heard her father’s voice on his cell in the kitchen. Without hesitating she walked to him, fell on the floor with her head on his lap, bawling.
“Er, I’ll call you back, John,” he said before setting the phone down. He kissed the top of Elsa’s head as her body heaved but said nothing.
Finally she cried herself down. He stroked her head as she heaved a final time and said, “Can I transfer to another school?”
“Come here,” he said, pulling her to her feet. He sat her on his lap as if she wasn’t too big for that and said. “What happened?”
“I hate everybody.”
“May?”
“No, not her.”
“Jimmy?”
“Who cares about him. He’s a tw—”
“Twerp, so I’ve heard. Come on, Elsa, what’s wrong? I can’t help you if you don’t, you know, explain.”
“The school is not sanctioning my perpetual motion club.”
“Perpetual . . . ? Oh, yes.” He took a deep breath through his nose. His shoulders lifted as he sorted through his brain notes to come up with fatherly advice. Something to comfort his daughter and at the same time be intelligent enough to not lead her down a path of destruction. It was hard going because he barely remembered what the perpetual motion club was about.
“Well,” he began. “Do you really need the sanctioning? I mean, what’s the purpose of it?”
“Don’t you remember? I need it for my resume because of the Science Society invitation.”
Then it clicked. “Oh, yeah, right. Well, you can still have a club. You can still put it on your resume.”
“Yeah, but mom won’t shut up about it. She’ll keep nagging me because it’s not a real club and I need to join the Science Society.”
She said the last phrase, the I-need-to-join-the-Science-Society part in the exaggerated whiney voice that you use when you’re trying to denigrate the speaker you are imitating. With that annoying phrase, James Webb finally understood the dynamic of Elsa’s plight. It did not help him come up with better fatherly advice, but at least he understood the problem.
“I think you should just go forward as planned. New organizations often don’t get respected until they’ve shown they can meet their goals. What are your goals?”
“Goals?”
“Yes. Reasons for existence? Don’t tell me you don’t have any. An organization is not an organization unless they have goals. Putting something on your resume is not a goal. What does the club do?”
“We’re working on a FutureWorld entry.”
“That’s it! That’s your goal.”
“So what.”
“So what? If you complete your entry and show it in FutureWorld; you’ll be a club even if you’re not sanctioned. You just need a little PR. You can get that if you’ve got an entry in Futureworld. After that you won’t need any piddly sanctioning.”
Elsa reluctantly began to lighten up. She stood and leaned to kiss her dad’s cheek. “I suppose,” she said.
James rose to his feet and hugged his daughter tight.
“Your mother loves you, no matter how much she nags about joining the Science Society.” He said the last phrase, the “joining-the-Science-Society” part in the whiney voice she had used earlier.
She laughed, slapped at his arm. Hugged him again, then asked what he wanted for supper.
“Oh, nothing. I’m just home for a few minutes, I have to get back. I’ll grab something on the way. Where’s your mother?”
Elsa looked at him and shook her head slowly. How would she know where Lainie was, she’d just gotten home herself.
***
The next day, she avoided May and everyone else in the club. As much as she wanted to believe her father’s optimism, she was not at all sure she could pass that on to the others. Not yet, anyway.
At the end of the painful day, after popping her seventh stream of iHigh, just as she was shutting her locker, she saw Jimmy. Too late to sneak out, she ran through excuses in her head. Then she felt stupid. What did she care what Jimmy thought? He was a—
“You hear about Jason Bridges?”
She leaned against her locker
in the most are-you-kidding stance she could muster. What the eff did she care about basketball stats? How could Jimmy think she’d want to hear anything about that asshole.
Before she could return a snide response he interrupted. “He’s been arrested.”
A jolt of negative energy shot through her. “What?”
Jimmy nodded, his face blank. “For his brother’s murder.”
Another jolt. “What?”
“The kid down by the river. It was his little brother.”
“That can’t be right. He, he plays basketball. He doesn’t . . . He wouldn’t . . . ”
Jimmy watched her struggle a moment before stating the obvious. “Nobody would.”
Elsa watched Jimmy’s face, waiting for a punch line. When she realized it wasn’t coming, she turned to go. He followed.
“Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy,” the doors stated as they passed through them with the rest of the crowd.
“Where did you hear this?” she asked him when they were out in the yard.
“Everyone’s talking about it. It’s on the news, look,” he pulled her up to the InterConnect at the edge of the sidewalk just beyond the doors. He hit “start” and the browser showed up.
Shuffling past the Miller, Toro snowblower, and Swanson chicken dinner ads he finally hit GoogleNews and selected “local.” He inserted the zip code and a few seconds later Jason’s face showed up under the words “Teen Basketball Star Arrested for Murder of Brother.”
Elsa walked backwards away from the machine eventually tripping a freshman running to catch a bus. She barely heard the freshman say, “Hey asshole, watch where you’re going,” before stopping to watch the box from ten feet away. She kept thinking the truth would somehow shoot out and then everything would make sense.
Jimmy clicked the machine off and walked to her.
“I can’t believe it,” she said to him.
“It doesn’t mean he did it. He’s only arrested.”
They walked together across Lambert and home. Halfway there, Elsa finally calmed. “It’s them damn anti-Rifs. Why do you hang around with them?”
“It’s not them. Why can’t you see that? Why are you so smart and so dumb at the same time?”
“Why are you just dumb all the time?” she said and then ran ahead.
