Teen Frankenstein

by Chandler Baker

  “Very good.” She pivoted back to the board and began drawing an axis for a graph.

  I squirmed in my seat, my thoughts turning right back to Adam. Maybe Heisenberg’s theory was true on a larger-scale system, too. Maybe, while I’d been able to measure the input—the electricity, the conductor, the positioning—to a high degree of precision, I’d let my finger slip on the output and that was where the uncertainty had slipped into the equation. I had no way now to measure what Adam had lost except to say that he seemed to have lost close to everything.

  I glanced at the clock. Only ten minutes had passed. Dr. Lamb had sunk into the meat of her lecture, and instead of taking notes, I was worrying about Adam. Suddenly fifty unsupervised minutes felt like an eternity. I chanced a glance at Owen, but he was scribbling in his notebook, tongue pinched between his teeth.

  A dead body was enrolled in my high school. There were approximately ten thousand things that could go wrong. I tried to concentrate on Dr. Lamb but could only grasp the movement of her lips without being able to assign any meaning to the words that were forming there, so, instead, I pulled out my black-and-white composition book and began scribbling notes from the last day and a half.

  I was detailing my second line of observation when there was a jab at my back and my hand slipped, causing me to leave a long pen mark across the top of the page. I spun around in my chair. Behind me, Knox Hoyle was pretending to listen intently to Dr. Lamb’s lecture. I grimaced. Knox had beady, foxlike eyes and a thin face partially obscured by a fringe of shaggy hair smashed underneath the brim of a ragged old ball cap. He was the punter on the football team and Paisley’s on-again, off-again boyfriend. Together, they were the closest thing we had to a William and Kate. The secret to Knox’s popularity wasn’t that he was a good football player—he wasn’t, he was terrible—but that he was the guy who knew how to get anything. Fake IDs, alcohol, hall passes. He was the favor guy, and everyone at school knew him because of it.

  I turned back around, but no sooner had I done that than Knox’s tennis shoe jabbed me in the spine again. My back stiffened. The rational part of me felt sorry for Knox that he had nothing better to do with his mind than formulate ways to mess with me, a girl who registered as a point-nothing on the social Richter scale. The more primal part wished I could dislodge his shoe and shove it in his mouth.

  He had no idea who he was pestering. I had created life during the last few days alone, and he probably hadn’t even finished last week’s math homework. Come to think of it, I could be one of the most famous scientists in centuries already. Right up there with Darwin, Edison, and Faraday. I glared at the page in front of me and squeezed my hand into a fist. Stage Two, I reminded myself. We were only entering Stage Two. I had to bide my time, which meant for now, there was the eleventh grade.

  When Knox rammed me in the back once more, I whipped around so hard I nearly pulled a muscle. “What is your problem, Hoyle?”

  His eyebrows shot up in a look of faux-surprise. “What?”

  “What?” I shot back. “Really?” That weasel.

  “Ms. Frankenstein!” Dr. Lamb’s face became pointy with annoyance. “Outbursts belong outside.” She nodded toward the door. “No one here is above the rules, and that’s twice that you’ve interrupted class today.”

  “But—”

  She pointed the open end of her marker. “Now.”

  I ground my teeth together and clamped down on the monologue brewing inside me about how cosmically screwed up the high school universe was for me to be the one getting kicked out of class.

  “Fine,” I said, sliding my notebook underneath my arm and leaving behind a snickering Knox. It would be better for all humanity if we didn’t have to breathe the same air, anyway.

  I let the door close behind me too hard. The corridor was empty and hushed. The noise of the air conditioner through the vents thrummed behind the walls. I stood planted outside of Dr. Lamb’s classroom for a moment while my chest rose and fell in rapid succession. Now that I had time to spare, it was a matter of determining how best to kill it. Right, well, I certainly had some experience in killing things, it seemed, so perhaps I should go check on that.

  I adjusted my strap and took fast steps down the hall toward the history department. I’d taken US History with Mrs. Landers last year, and I recognized the door with the small, slender window carved into it and the blue cutout of North America. I slowed my pace as I approached and watched as my shadow crossed the seam of the wall and doorway. Adam was inside. A peek wouldn’t hurt. One peek just to make sure he’s all right.

  I chewed on my lip and leaned over my toes to get a view through the narrow window. Mrs. Landers was writing something on the whiteboard. I scanned the students. At first, I didn’t see Adam, and my heart skipped. The students were pulling out notebooks and pencils. Then, in the fourth row near the center, I spotted his hunched-over figure. He was curled over his book bag, one of Owen’s old ones from last year. I held my breath as I watched him pull out a notebook and set it on his desk just like the other kids in the classroom. His eyebrows scrunched together. A sigh of relief morphed into a muffled gasp when he bent back over, pinched the bottom ends of his book bag, and turned it upside down to shake out the contents.

  Several heads turned, including Mrs. Landers’s. I ducked so as not to be caught spying. Adam, I mouthed to myself. What are you doing? I ventured back to the glass and craned to see. The students had settled. Adam’s belongings were still strewn across the floor around him, but he’d found a pencil, which he now held poised over his open notebook. One eyebrow crawled higher on his forehead than the other, and it looked as though he’d stuffed his tongue into the pocket of his cheek so that it protruded in concentration. He returned his gaze from the whiteboard to the page when—pop!—the pencil snapped in two. The eraser end tumbled to his desk. I smacked my forehead and groaned audibly. Adam’s eyes snapped to attention.

  Victoria? I couldn’t hear from the other side of the glass, but from the dozen heads that turned in my direction, I was sure he’d said it out loud. “Victoria!” This time he waved. Mrs. Landers, who, to be honest, had never really liked me, stared directly at me, her pillowy cheeks reddening. “Victoria!” Adam’s smile took over his face, and he exclaimed loudly enough for me to hear. I felt my eyes widen. He stood up and the desk got caught at his thighs. “Hi, Victoria! That’s Victoria! Come inside!” He beckoned me in with the hand still clutching his broken pencil.

  I flattened my back behind me and slid to the ground, sinking my forehead into my hands. Bad idea. Such a bad idea. I didn’t know how long I waited, but the commotion on the other side of the door seemed to die down and, in any event, Mrs. Landers must have been in a more lenient mood with the new kid than Dr. Lamb had been with me.

  At this rate, Adam would cause as much disruption in the school day as a small tornado. He was big, enthusiastic, and, unlike any real high schooler I’d ever known, completely unselfconscious. Whoever he was, he was all Adam and he was all my problem.

  The bell for the end of first period jarred me from my thoughts. A swarm of students funneled out into the hallway, and, from my vantage point on the ground, I could sense how Adam felt this morning. The crush of bodies, the explosion of voices, the slamming locker doors that rang out like gunshots, it was all a bit shattering.

  I felt the weight of eyes on me and peered up. “Victoria.” Adam cocked his head. “Why are you on the ground?”

  I sighed and stretched my hand out to him, which he took. “I’m … hiding.”

  Adam looked around, nearly knocking over a ninth grader with his book bag. “From what?”

  I dusted off the grime from my palms. “From reality.” I shrugged. “Come on. We’re only one-seventh of the way through.”

  I spent the rest of the morning escorting Adam from class to class. With each hour, I added more rules for Adam to live by. Keep your shoes on your feet. Don’t stick your head in the water fountain. Watch out for open locker doo
rs, janitorial buckets, and people that are shorter than you.

  By lunchtime, I was exhausted. The cafeteria doors felt heavy as I tugged one open. We passed a tenth grader with frizzy red hair that stuck out six inches from his scalp.

  “Adam, no!” I snatched his wrist as he was tugging at one of the tight curls, leaning in close to examine the unconventional hairstyle. I gave an apologetic wave to the boy and dragged Adam closer to the growing lunch line.

  The corners of Adam’s mouth drooped, and he nestled his offending hand close to his chest. “But he has hair like yours, Victoria.” He ventured a sheepish grin. “It’s pretty.”

  “Adam, I don’t have hair like that.” I self-consciously fingered my ends. “Mine’s darker. Auburn. I don’t know.” I tried to cover the horror I felt at being compared to a boy whose head resembled a clown wig. “Anyway, that’s not the point. You can’t go around touching other people’s hair, okay? It’s not polite.”

  His chin lowered. “I’m sorry, Victoria.”

  I exhaled. “It’s okay. Let’s just find Owen and get some food. I’m starving.”

  I led Adam through the maze of lunch tables, where we found Owen and tried sneaking inconspicuously in front of him in line, but as had been the case all day, there was no sneaking Adam anywhere. He towered over everyone, and we were taunted until we were all forced to the back of the line.

  “And the perks just keep on coming,” Owen said.

  “So there’s a small learning curve.” I moved up in the line and handed Adam a tray. Yesterday I’d been nervous to feed Adam. I could think of no way to test whether his body was fit to consume food without him actually consuming the food. I hypothesized that once his vital organs had been restarted, all systems, including the digestive, should operate as normal. I held my breath as he consumed one bite of a Whataburger Owen had picked up, then two, and before I knew it, he’d eaten both my burger and his along with the entire large fries. To my relief, he didn’t short-circuit.

  As we moved closer to the front of the line, I heard a thundering rumble from deep in Adam’s belly. Owen’s shoulders shook with laughter. I slid my tray onto the metal shelves. “Okay, Adam,” I began. “You just tell the lady what you want, and she’ll put it on a plate and hand it over to you.”

  He nodded while another rumble sounded from the pit of his stomach. I ordered the only thing on the menu that didn’t look like prison food, a slice of pizza and a side of tater tots. I watched out of the corner of my eye while Adam pointed through the glass. I slid farther down the row and picked up two Cokes.

  “Adam, I got you a—” But when he joined me at the cashier, my eyes nearly bugged out of my head. He grinned. His plate was a mountain of food. Mashed potatoes piled on spaghetti with gravy running into a puddle on the side of his plate. Pizza with tater tots half covered in a mushy spinach dish. I fought my gag reflex and forked over an extra five dollars to cover Adam’s cafeteria feast.

  “Are you sure that’s what you want?” I squinted at his plate as we staked out a table near a row of trash cans.

  “I don’t know,” Adam said.

  Owen plopped a tray with pizza and tater tots down on the other side of Adam. “So I see we’re still calibrating his taste palate.” Adam’s forehead wrinkled. He stared up quizzically at Owen. “Interesting tastes, my man.” Owen patted him on the back. “March to the beat of your own drum. More power to you.”

  At this Adam grinned and eyed his plate greedily. He sank down into a chair and gripped the sides of his tray.

  “Shoot, we forgot utensils for you,” I said. “One sec.”

  But before I could return to the end of the lunch line, Adam had pawed a heap of mashed potatoes and spaghetti into his mouth and was slurping down a noodle. Brown gravy dribbled down his fingers. I hesitated, then lowered myself back into my seat. “Or … not.”

  He was already going in for another. This time he scooped up some of the spinach mixture and licked it happily from his hand. I pulled out my seat, shaking my head slowly as I watched Adam devour fistfuls of his food. Fatigue and hunger dragged at me as I rested my elbows on the table.

  “Shouldn’t we teach him about silverware?” Owen asked, curling the left side of his lip up and scooting a couple inches farther from Adam.

  I blew bangs out of my face and stuffed the end of my pizza in my mouth.

  Don’t eat with your hands, I should have added to our list. But, instead, I just sighed, picked up a tater tot, and said, “Tomorrow…”

  TWELVE

  The closest comparison to the subject’s experience of the world is that of a toddler. While he has retained motor skills and clearly some muscle memory, he is learning about how his surroundings work each moment. So far it seems the maturity of his brain and its size are resulting in a faster learning curve than a toddler despite following the same processes.

  * * *

  By the time I crawled into bed on the night of Adam’s first day, fatigue had reached into the cavities of my bones and clogged them up like lead fillings. An hour ago, I’d carried a plate of brisket down to the cellar and put Adam to bed on his makeshift pallet, or at least I turned off the light, seeing as how you can’t exactly tuck in a hulking teenage boy, regardless of whether he’s alive or not.

  I smiled faintly to myself as I switched on the bedside lamp. When we got home, Adam had tugged at the hatch door, clamoring to get in. As soon as he did, I could see the muscles in his jaw loosen and his hands unclench.

  He was home. This was his lair. Maybe he’d be more like a superhero than Owen had thought.

  Yawning, I jiggered open the nightstand drawer and pulled out one of my black-and-white-speckled composition books. Even as sleep dragged on me, I forced myself, in scrawling letters, to write down everything I could remember about the past two days.

  I scribbled a reminder at the top and underlined it with blue pen. Rule Number One: Catalog Everything.

  I didn’t know when I fell asleep, only that once I did, it was restless, with dreams of splintering glass, and that sometime later I woke to pitch-darkness and the sound of rain pattering against the roof. Eyes unfocused, I felt around my bedspread until my hand found the lumpy outline of Einstein. She groaned and nestled deeper into the space beneath the small of my back.

  A flash of lightning burst through the blinds. I let out a hoarse scream. A glimpse of a face hovered inches above mine, lit up and then disappeared into the night. I could just make out the fuzzy edges of a figure bent over the bed. I scrambled upright, tugging the sheets around my waist. A pair of eyes shone at me in the darkness, the rest of the outline stock-still.

  I pressed my back to the cool wall behind my bed and twisted my fists around the cotton bedding. Einstein let out a soft woof but didn’t stir.

  “Victoria?” Adam’s voice was deep and baritone.

  I felt my tendons tighten into guitar strings at the base of my neck. I tried to swallow and wound up nearly choking. “Adam? God, Adam, you scared me.” My eyes were beginning to adjust to the dim light.

  “Did I wake you?” He touched my knee gently over the blanket.

  I pulled the neck straight on a threadbare shirt I’d stolen from Owen. “It’s the middle of the night,” I whispered. “So yeah.”

  “Sorry.” The pressure from his hand lifted and his silhouette retreated a few inches farther. The tracing of his body blurred.

  “What are you doing here?” I was suddenly conscious of all the embarrassing items scattered around my room. A dirty bra hanging from the back of a chair. Yesterday’s clothes still lying in a pile. A stuffed unicorn. The open notebook in which I’d been cataloging Adam’s progress. I reached for that first, shut the book, and shoved it into my nightstand drawer.

  “Victoria.” The way he stood stiffly at the side of my bed was unnerving. “I’m scared.”

  I rubbed my eyelids, thick with sleep. “Of what?”

  He pointed outside. I crawled to the end of my bed and peeled back the curtain, bu
t there was nothing out there. Fat rain droplets plummeted past the window, splashing onto the lawn below.

  I glanced back at him. “Of the rain?”

  “I don’t like it.” I caught the tremor in his voice.

  “I—” I started to tell him that was silly but stopped short. Instead, I crawled back to the head of my mattress, but this time scooted over. Adam hesitated and then sat down on the empty spot. There, he tucked his hands into his armpits and rocked slowly back and forth.

  “When will it stop?” he asked.

  I slid closer and put my hand on his back. The ridges of his spine pressed into my palm. I marveled at the way his rib cage expanded and shrank beneath it. So alive. “I don’t know. Soon probably.” My vision adjusted to the light. I peered intensely at his profile. The slight bump at the bridge of his nose like it might have been broken once made him seem all the more real.

  He was real, I reminded myself. He was real because I made him that way.

  I shouldn’t have left him alone in the laboratory tonight. It was the accident. He must be having an adverse reaction to the thunderstorm because of the storm on the night he died. A fist squeezed around my heart. Which meant his memories were there, somewhere, waiting.

  I decided to test the waters gently. “Is there a reason you don’t like the rain?” I suspected that if he knew the reason, he wouldn’t be coming to me for support, but if he’d uncovered the truth, I might as well know now. I studied the pronounced seam of his brow. So many answers locked away in that single head.

  He shrugged, a very human gesture. He must have picked it up from Owen. Then he shook his head. His back curved into a C and his chin jutted over his waist. He turned his head. His dark eyes reflected tiny glints of light. “Can I stay here with you?”

  I glanced at the door. The thunder drowned out the sound of Mom’s wine-fueled snores. I pressed my lips together. “Okay. Fine.” I let out a long breath. “But you have to be quiet. And leave before it gets light out, deal?”