Another Pan

by Daniel Nayeri

  “They don’t have curators at boarding schools, Grin,” said the director, without looking up from his papers.

  “They don’t have professors, either,” said Simon under his breath.

  The director looked up for only a second, then went back to his papers and said with a snicker, “They do at Marlowe. It’s one of those ostentatious American upper-class misnomers — like calling an afternoon party a soirée. Really, Grin, did you think that I’d send you to the Metropolitan Museum?”

  “Well, um, yes,” Simon stuttered. “I was told that it was an Upper East Side Egyptian exhibit.”

  “That’s right: you will be assisting Professor Darling at the Marlowe High School exhibit.”

  Simon turned the words high school several times in his head. Up-and-coming Egyptologists do not waste their careers working with children. He began shaking his leg nervously. “I — are you sure you have the right assignment?” he asked desperately.

  “Yes, Grin. I’m quite sure. The items were shipped several months ago, and do you know what kind of strings I had to pull to get just a few worthless pieces to Darling?” Then the director began to mutter, “The man may be a fool, but he has friends in high places.” He raised his voice again and looked Simon directly in the eyes. “They’re just a few items that were going to storage anyway: a statue of a woman who was a historical and mythical nobody, a few jars and knickknacks, and a badly replicated copy of the Book of Gates. Rubbish. Do you think you can handle that?”

  “Maybe not,” said Simon, his voice going weak. “I mean, if he’s such a loony, then why bother . . . I mean, how is a high school getting a loan from the Brit —?”

  “Look, Grin. Some of our big donors like his insane stories. They wanted to make a gesture on behalf of the museum. And however mad I think he is, the man’s said to be an authority on all this. He’s read more about the dozen items in this shipment than you’ve read about any subject in your entire life. Besides, as I said, the items are worthless. Nobody else wants them. Free storage as far as I’m concerned. Understood?”

  “I think I’m coming down with something,” said Simon.

  “Your flight is in three hours.”

  Simon made sure to grab an expense form before skulking out of the director’s office. He had already changed his Internet profiles to say he was an exhibit manager at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. Now when he took it down, all of his strategically chosen network would know. As Simon mourned for his résumé, he heard the clatter of several sets of footsteps down the main marble hall of the museum. Strange, since the museum wasn’t open yet. Simon thought the rushing sound was coming up behind him. He whipped around just in time to see a young man with brown wavy tangles of hair running toward him with two night guards chasing behind. Simon didn’t get more than a glance at the fugitive before he flew by. But he saw that the burglar was carrying a wad of crumpled pink papers. Outside, he heard cursing and the sound of a car screeching away.

  Simon brushed it off and picked up his travel bag. This was an up-and-coming disaster. Simon was no fool. Everyone he’d ever met knew that he was number one in his high-school class, was chess champion of his college dorm, and had taken an online test that said he had a genius IQ. So Simon knew when someone was pulling a fast one. And he recognized that wavy brown hair. Amateur, thought Simon, remembering that his research assistant had been sacked for stealing office supplies. What kind of dumb ass would come back for seconds? Simon thought, absolutely certain that it was the research assistant who had just gotten away. Once again feeling utterly superior, Simon straightened his collar and headed to the airport.

  An alleyway a few blocks down from the British Museum, full of industrial-size trash cans, was the perfect hiding place for a secret meeting. On this particular morning, seven dirty faces huddled together: seven teenage runaways, all baring that one missing tooth, the one that showed that regardless of color or height or weight, they were friends of Peter.

  “Everybody, shut up!” shouted Tina. She was Peter’s number two, assembling his LBs (for Lost Boys, but shortened for texting) wherever Peter went in the world. She was a little shorter than the rest of them, a little tougher, and always by Peter’s side. She had long brown hair and tan skin, and her eyes were always half shut, as if she were appraising something or about to fall asleep. She was probably Hispanic, but nobody knew for sure. She had a dark beauty toughened by the streets. She was sexy, for sure, but not beautiful. She was just so . . . so . . .

  “And if anyone else touches my can, I’ll stuff your head in a toilet. Got it?”

  Yeah, that was it . . .

  “Peter’s flying to New York in a couple of hours to start his new job. We need you guys to keep an eye out on the museum while we’re gone,” said Tina.

  “Yeah, yeah. We know the drill,” said a redheaded kid in the back. “Old Egyptian books. Got it.” His name was Red. All the boys had nicknames like this so that Peter wouldn’t have to bother with tedious chores like remembering their real names. Red. Steroid. Hoodie. Newbie. Fattie. Spock. And so on. Only Tina got to be herself, because Tina was Peter’s undisputed favorite.

  “What’s the new gig?” asked Hoodie.

  “Peter and me, we’re gonna be RAs at some fancy school in New York,” said Tina almost proudly.

  “I heard he nicked the book from the British Museum,” said Newbie.

  “Nah, man, if he had the book, it’d all be over,” said Spock.

  “I heard he killed someone.”

  Tina rolled her eyes. Peter’s legend just wouldn’t stop growing. His fanboys knew him as a god of street kids and orphans. A phantom criminal. An underworld adventurer with a worldwide network of lost boys bent on finding one lost treasure.

  “What’s an RA?” asked Red from the back. “Hey, can we come?”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Tina shrugged. As she walked away, she added, “The LBs in New York would cut y’all open and sell you for parts.”

  Simon sat in the airport lounge, waiting for his flight and texting his mother. He was looking down when he heard, “Anybody sitting here, pardner?”

  Simon looked up to see a young man dressed like a cowboy. He had on Levi’s jeans, a white shirt, and a straw hat. His eyebrows and sideburns looked too thick to be real, and they were a darker shade of brown than the hair on his head. The cowboy gave him a wink and a smile.

  He had a not-too-tall, not-too-lanky body. He was a handsome boy, tan-faced, cocoa-haired, with eyes just a shade too hazel. He wasn’t thin, or fat, or tall, or short. He was just an American cowboy, tightly packed and nimble, able to blend in or stand out on a whim, and completely unrecognizable as the young man who had driven Simon to his meeting that very morning.

  Simon shook his head.

  “Great,” said the cowboy. “My name’s Petey Peterschmidt. Put ’er there.”

  The cowboy shook Simon’s hand up and down. He sat next to Simon and propped his muddy boots on the facing row of chairs. He let out a loud sigh. “Well, friend,” said Petey the cowboy, slapping Simon on the back, “you headed out of town on business or pleasure?”

  Simon was already uncomfortable, huddling down and putting away the message to his mom. “Business,” said Simon.

  “That’s a shame,” said Petey. “You coulda hit the town with your buddy Pete, here.”

  “Important business,” Simon added.

  “Ooh, well, don’t let me stop you. You seem like one of those genius types. Am I right? Somebody payin’ you the big bucks for that brain of yours?”

  Simon smiled. It was nice to have his genius noticed. Maybe this cowboy wasn’t as stupid as he looked. Simon didn’t want to brag. “I’m a very important man, actually.”

  “Seems that way,” said Petey.

  “I’m overseeing a major Egyptian exhibit in New York.”

  “Like, Egypt Egypt? Must be at the United Nations or some such. You’re like an ambassador?”

  “Well, kind of. Yes, yes, I guess
I am,” said Simon. Simon went on telling Petey about every detail of his important exhibit, with just a few things left out or exaggerated here or there. After Simon had exhausted every subject revolving around himself, he finally turned to Petey and said, “So what do you do?”

  “Well,” said Petey, “I’m no ambassador to Middle Eastern peacekeeping, but, you know, I do well for myself.” Then Petey gave a conspicuous look-see this way and that (presumably to make sure the coast was clear). He leaned in to Simon and said in a conspiratorial whisper, “The truth is, Mr. Grin, I’m in the self-help business.”

  “You write about how to stop being a child and get your life together?” said Simon, not stopping to ponder how the cowboy knew his name.

  “Oh no, nothing like that.” Petey laughed. “I help people help themselves. I give them the identity they’ve always wanted. Plus maybe a few added years if they’re underage.”

  “You’re saying you make fake IDs?”

  “I guess so, yes. That’s exactly the phrase for it. Leave it to the professor. But what I mean is age is just what you make of it, right? Look at me, for instance. Heck, most clubs still card me. I can’t convince a daggum soul of my age. They all think I’m a teenager!”

  At this, Petey put his head back and guffawed at the fluorescent ceiling lights. Simon chuckled nervously. Petey did have a baby face.

  “But that’s all between you and me, right, Professor?” said Petey. “I wish it was fate for me to come out a director of Egyptological studies for two major museums, but we can’t all be Einstein. You know what I mean?”

  An up-and-coming scholar like Simon didn’t want to have anything to do with the kind of riffraff that made a living off petty fraud. But Petey was such a likable guy. And great men were always nice to the plebeians. Simon nodded and smiled. Petey slapped him on the back. “Good!” said Petey. “Now, let’s get on that plane and see what kind of stewardesses they got. But first I gotta see a man about a dog, if you know what I mean.”

  “I don’t, actually,” said Simon. It stung him to admit that he didn’t understand something.

  “It means I gotta go to the bathroom.”

  “Oh, right, I should do that, too.”

  “Well, how about I stay here and watch your bag? You don’t wanna be putting that thing down in these airport bathrooms — get all kinds of hepatidal choleroids. I’ll go after you.”

  “All right,” said Simon. Simon headed to the men’s room feeling like a smooth operator.

  Sure, the cowboy was an uneducated dimwit with the slight tangy odor of a cheese wheel, but Simon had regaled him with his academic exploits, and now he was like a personal porter. Some people struck up conversations to make friends; Simon tolerated them to get something useful out of it.

  The second Simon was gone, Peter grabbed the travel bag and started walking to the boarding gate. He dumped Simon’s passport and boarding pass into the trash and then flashed his own papers to an attendant who looked more like a teenager than an airline employee. The attendant gave him a wink and said, “Have a good trip, Pete.”

  As Peter disappeared into the tunnel, he pulled out a wad of crumpled pink papers, shipping orders from the Egyptology Department dated several months ago, and examined them one more time. New York City. The Marlowe School. He may not have intercepted the shipment in time, but at least Simon wasn’t going near Peter’s prize anytime soon.

  Meanwhile, back at the security gate, Simon Grin was panicking about his lost bag and trying to get on his flight regardless. He tried to explain why he didn’t have a passport or a ticket or any other essential document. He called the attendant a few names and tried to run past him. But the uneducated types had a way of outrunning Simon, so he was tackled, Tased, and escorted out by security.

  Simon’s Log, Stardate 3109.44

  All is well in the Omega Quadrant. The triplet suns of the galaxy shine on my ship, the SS Brilliance, with equal — no, increasing — admiration. I sense that the vast alien races in this space hub will be as much in awe of my reputation as they would of a god. I will become something of a legend in their world. After escaping the clutches of these Taser-wielding monkey-men and HALO jumping from outside the stratosphere of the planet London Prime, I will save the training facility of the famous “French Maid School,” and they will see me as an avenging angel. The hottest students will beg to join my starship, but I will, of course, have to tell them that my adventures are just too dangerous for such fair maids. My weakling second-in-command, Officer Darling, will appeal as well, but my resolve will be unshaken. I’m a captain, and with that great mantle of power comes a great amount of attractiveness.

  New York (first day of school)

  Thirteen is a bad year for hair. Shiny blond curls disappear, making way for darker, coarser bundles of frizz. Cowlicks grow less and less manageable. And a whole slew of new hair-taming possibilities — not just gel and mousse, but also styling sand, highlighting pomade, and Bed Head polish — complicate a once-simple life of rinse-lather-repeat. John stood in front of his bedroom mirror in an oversize bath towel and rubbed a buttery substance with a sugary scent into his palm.

  “If it’s supposed to make me look dirty, then why shower, huh? Where’s the logic?” he asked his reflection, wiping his greasy hands into his hair. Three chunks of it stood on end, making a crown on his head. “Yeah, oh yeeeeeah.” John nodded, pursing his lips the way he had seen Connor Wirth do it in his coolest moments, which were many. Connor not only had the best hair ever, but he also had enough money to cover his entire body with Bed Head twice a day. So unfair. John separated the giant crownlike middle chunk into two parts. The crown now looked like a serving fork made of hair.

  John took another look at his overgreased hair and raised an eyebrow. Then he flexed his left arm. Then both arms. Nope, no change. He was still scrawny, still skin and bone. He sucked in his barely-there preteen paunch and picked at a hair on his chest. Was that there yesterday? Yep . . . still as bald as a well-oiled salamander. No problem. What he was lacking in physique he would make up for with a good dose of dirt and grime in his hair — a little more of the underground speed-metal look, and a little less of the preppy jock (which was too much work and lacking originality anyway).

  Wendy walked past her younger brother’s bedroom just as he was flattening a tsunami wave of hair into his signature look — slicked back and parted on the side, then tousled until it looked exactly like it had when he came out of the shower forty minutes ago, minus the hope of ever drying. She peeked in from behind the half-closed door and said, “The Banker again? Hurry up, kiddo. It’s time for school.”

  “Can’t rush first impressions, Sis,” said John, who was still not dressed. “Especially not when it’s the first day of the best year ever.”

  “Oh, geez,” Wendy mumbled to herself as she pulled out her cell phone to text Connor. She’d need a lot of help if she was going to save John from himself. But as she was typing out her first words, Wendy stopped and clicked the phone shut. She shouldn’t call or text Connor first. After all, he hadn’t contacted her in two days. Maybe things would be different now that school was starting and he had all his old friends (and girlfriends?) back. Maybe their romance was just a summer thing and it would all blow over now. Would Connor want to date a teacher’s daughter at school? Would he want to date just one girl?

  It felt strange thinking about the possibility, because even though Wendy hated the idea of losing Connor, she wondered if she shouldn’t feel more panicked at the possibility. How would other girls handle the situation? Wendy had no idea because she had no mother to ask.

  Wendy and John’s mother hadn’t been all that great an adviser. She was too young to be a mother, too pretty, too impulsive. According to Wendy’s father, she had married him when he was in the prime of his career, a dashing Egyptologist, already successful, full of adventures and stories. The perfect mix of young and old. He knew that as far as his wife was concerned, he would never grow old. Never
lose his hair. Never grow soft in the belly and begin forgetting birthdays.

  But in the real world, even adventurous men grow old, and sometimes, pretty young wives don’t stop being young and pretty. Sometimes, they get bored. Sometimes, renowned Egyptologists become underpaid high-school teachers living in school-owned brownstones — happy, obscure . . . aging.

  Sometimes, pining graduate students come along and sweep pretty wives away with the promise of adventures yet to come. When she left, Professor Darling had told Wendy, he felt it was entirely his fault. For promising too much. For being a never-never man, the way all husbands are at first.

  When Wendy thought about Connor, or even boyfriends in general, she wondered if she should feel about him the way her mother felt about her father or if she should feel the way her mother felt about that grad student. Wendy imagined that Mrs. Darling’s relationship with this other man was all fire and passion and illicit meetings in dark hallways. She imagined that it was thrilling, that it was the kind of thing that made you shudder in your sleep. Connor and Wendy were definitely not like that. Connor was nice to Wendy. He took her out to group events and made a point of including John in everything. Connor was definitely the “Mr. Darling” of this situation, and even though there was no magic or fire between them just yet, the comparison made Wendy want to stick with him — to show her mother that it could be done and that Mrs. Darling had been a weak and cowardly woman for leaving. That she had put her own base desires over the happiness of the entire family. Now that Wendy was sixteen, she realized that her biggest ambition in life was to become as little like her mother as possible.

  Downstairs, Wendy caught her father packing and repacking his old leather briefcase, trying to fit in a stack of notes he was probably afraid would be stolen by Egyptology-enthusiast thugs while he was out of the house.

  “Daddy?” she said, only to get a grunt as a response when he tried shoving his fist in after the papers. “I was gonna drop by that café after school . . . um . . . for that job I told you about?”