by Mark Young
“I never realized that Higgy was so self-conscious about how he looks,” Newton remarked as he, Shelly, and Theremin headed to Genetic Friendgineering class. “He always seems like he’s happy. He loves to joke around!”
“Yeah, poor Higgy,” Shelly agreed.
Suddenly the hallway in front of them became very crowded—too crowded for them to move ahead. Newton stood on his toes and realized that a group of kids had surrounded Mimi.
“I am so excited to go to New York City,” Minerva Kepler was saying. “Thanks, Mimi.”
Mimi smiled. “You’re welcome,” she replied. “I mean, Crowninshield Industries is paying for everything, but it was my idea.”
“Well, that’s really nice of your family,” Debbie Danning said.
“Crowninshield Industries loves to give back to the mad-scientist community,” Mimi said proudly.
“EXCUSE ME,” Theremin said loudly. “Some of us are trying to get to class.”
Mimi rolled her eyes. “Weren’t you programmed to say ‘please’?”
“In seventeen different languages,” Theremin replied. “I just didn’t feel like saying it.”
The bell announcing the start of the next class rang, and everyone scattered before Mimi could respond. Newton, Shelly, and Theremin slipped into their seats in class late, but lucky for them, Professor Wells was distracted.
“Aim for the thorax!” he was yelling. “No, not the spiracles!”
It wasn’t unusual for Professor Wells to be yelling out unusual things in class. He had a round face and a thin mustache, and the left half of his body was in this dimension, but the right half was in another one. His right side looked fuzzy and constantly flickered in and out. An interdimensional portal accident had resulted in the professor being permanently stuck in two dimensions at once, and his attention was constantly torn between the two of them.
Suddenly he stopped yelling and focused his left eye on Newton’s class.
“Students, my class in the other dimension is being attacked by a giant grasshopper, a matter that requires my immediate attention. Please keep yourselves busy by reading chapter four of your textbooks! RUN, I SAY! RUN!”
Confused, everyone stood up.
“CORRECTION. ONLY RUN IF YOU ARE BEING CHASED BY A GIANT GRASSHOPPER!” Wells yelled, and everyone in Newton’s dimension sat down, following the professor’s instruction.
Newton tapped his tablet screen and scrolled to the fourth chapter in his Genetic Friendgineering textbook.
CHAPTER FOUR:
A LITTLE OF THIS, A PINCH OF THAT
What do you want in your genetically engineered friend? Unfortunately, many genetic friendgineers do not consider this question carefully before beginning their experiments. If you’re going to go to all the trouble of genetically engineering the perfect friend, then you’d better be sure you know what you’re looking for in a friend.
This step is helpful if you’ve ever had a friend before. Ask: How did that friend make you feel? In what ways did that friend help you?
Newton stopped reading and thought of Higgy. At first Newton hadn’t been sure what to think of his roommate, who’d started off their friendship with one of his trademark practical jokes. But Higgy had proved himself to be a very loyal friend who would do anything for Newton. Higgy had helped Newton sneak into Mumtaz’s office once to try to find out information about his past. And once, when Newton was sad, Higgy cheered him up by shaping his gooey form into human shapes—shapes that looked like they could have been Newton’s mom or dad.
Higgy had always been there to help Newton, and make him laugh when he needed it most, and Newton realized that he’d never really done anything to help his friend in return. He thought of Higgy’s sad pfffffffft after he’d announced that he wasn’t going with the others on the field trip.
It’s not fair that Higgy feels like he can’t go on the trip, Newton thought. If there’s a way to help Higgy, I’ll find it!
CHAPTER 3 It’s Not Easy Being Green
The next night, Newton asked all his friends to meet up in room #YTH-125, the dorm room that he and Higgy shared. Half the room was taken up by Higgy’s giant computer (and giant mess), so Shelly, Theremin, Odifin, and Rotwang squeezed in on the other side, which was clean because Newton didn’t have many possessions.
“Are we having some kind of party and you didn’t tell me?” Higgy asked. “I was just getting ready to go out on my nightly food run. Does anyone want anything? Pudding? Chips?”
“I really want you to go on this trip to New York, Higgy,” Newton said. “So I thought we could put our heads together and come up with a disguise for you that would work.”
“You’re wasting your time,” Higgy said. “There’s no way to make me look like a human. And I don’t want to go anyway.”
“Can’t we at least try?” Newton asked.
Higgy sighed. “If I say no, you’re going to keep bugging me, aren’t you?”
“I might,” Newton admitted. “I really want to help you.”
Odifin piped up. “Perhaps it would help you to see the disguise that Rotwang and I have worked up. Rotwang, please!”
Rotwang pulled a backpack off his back and opened it up. He took a metal hanger and hung it under Odifin’s rolling table. Then he hung a beige trench coat on the hanger so that the coat covered up everything below Odifin’s jar. Rotwang placed sunglasses on the jar, where Odifin’s eyes were, and topped off the jar with a baseball cap. Rotwang smiled, looking very proud of the costume.
“We’re still working on it,” Odifin said. “What do you think?”
“I think you look… stylish,” Shelly said diplomatically.
“Yeah. A stylish scarecrow,” Theremin said.
“Yes, the whole look needs a bit more padding,” Odifin said. “I’m also considering a wig.”
“Well, clothes don’t do much to disguise me,” Higgy said. “People always stare at me when I wear my usual getup. I don’t look human. I look like a squishy blob wearing clothes.”
“Well, I had a thought about that,” Newton said. “I know you can move your green stuff around into different shapes. You did it for me once, remember?”
“I can,” Higgy said. “But I can’t keep the shape for very long.”
“Can you show us, Higgy?” Shelly asked.
“All right,” Higgy replied. He shed his coat, scarf, bandages, and hat, leaving on his goggles and boots. Then his green blobby shape wiggled and jiggled and he transformed his green goo into the shape of a chubby human boy with a friendly face and a shock of wavy hair on top of his head.
Shelly clapped. “Oh, Higgy, that looks good!” she said.
“But I’m still green,” Higgy said as he looked at his gooey hands.
Shelly opened one of Newton’s drawers and pulled out a button-down shirt. She slipped it over Higgy’s wobbly arms.
“That’s not bad,” Theremin said. “Except for the fact that humans aren’t green.”
“I’ve got an idea,” Shelly said. “Stay just like this. I’ll be right back.”
Shelly dashed out of the room. Higgy turned to Newton. “It takes a lot of concentration for me to stay like this,” he said. “Is it easier when you do your mimicking thing?”
Theremin’s eyes flashed. “Higgy, be careful what you say!” He nodded toward Odifin and Rotwang.
“It’s okay, Theremin,” Newton said. “We can trust them.” He looked at the other human in the room, Rotwang. Then he closed his eyes and concentrated on what Rotwang looked like—tall, thin, pale, with black hair that covered his eyes. Newton took a deep breath and continued to focus until…
He heard Rotwang gasp. “Whoa, you’re me! I mean, you look just like me, but you’re not me!”
Newton opened his eyes and turned to the mirror. Rotwang’s reflection stared back at him. He’d done it! He still didn’t know how it worked, but he was able to change his appearance.
“That’s pretty amazing, Newton,” Odifin said. “But a
s far as I know, that’s not a human ability. It’s more octopus-like.”
“It’s kind of a long story,” Newton said. “But I know I can trust you and Rotwang now. Basically, I just woke up at the school here one day with amnesia. I have weird memories of emerging from some kind of pod. With some help from Shelly, Theremin, and Higgy, I’ve realized that I can do things that humans can’t do.”
“Cool origin story,” Rotwang said.
“Thanks,” Newton said. “Higgy, Theremin, and Shelly have also been trying to help me find answers about who I really am. That’s how we ended up discovering that you and I are brothers, Odifin.”
“I always knew there was something strange about you,” Odifin said. “But don’t worry. Your secret is safe with us.”
“Yeah,” Rotwang echoed.
“It had better be,” Theremin said.
“Sorry to spill the beans,” Higgy said. “Odifin and Rotwang are part of the gang now, so I thought it was fine to tell them.”
“It is fine,” Newton assured him.
Higgy glanced at the door. “Where is Shelly? It’s taking a lot of energy to maintain this human form. I’m going to need an extra gallon of pudding just to replenish. I don’t see how I’d be able to keep this up for the whole museum trip.”
“Maybe you could practice,” Newton suggested. “Or, you know, eat a lot right before the trip to keep your energy up.”
“I don’t know, Newton,” Higgy said, and then Shelly came through the doorway.
“All right. I’ve borrowed some makeup from Tabitha Talos,” she said, and she pulled out a little jar of pinky-peach liquid. “Let’s see how it looks on Higgy. Come here, Higgy!”
She poured some onto the fingertips of her left hand, and then she rubbed it into Higgy’s cheeks. He giggled.
“That tickles!”
“Hold still,” Shelly told him, and she spread the liquid makeup over his face. It streaked the green goo with peachy pink, but it didn’t cover it up.
“You kind of look like a watermelon,” Theremin remarked.
“Wait. Maybe the powder will be better, or will make it look more natural,” Shelly said. She opened up a compact container and took out a round cloth pad. She pressed it all over Higgy’s face, but that just made the makeup look splotchy.
Shelly frowned. “This isn’t working like I thought it would,” she said.
Newton stepped back and studied Higgy. The makeup did make him look less green.
“We’re getting close, though, I think,” he said.
Higgy let go of his human-boy shape, and the makeup absorbed into his protoplasm.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “It’s too hard to keep that human shape. I’ll just stay here. It won’t be so bad. I’ll have less competition at the cafeteria with all of the freshmen on a field trip.”
“It looks like I’ll be staying here with you, Higgy, unless Rotwang and I can come up with a better disguise,” Odifin said.
“We’ll keep thinking,” Shelly promised. “It’s getting late, and I’ve got to go feed the crew.”
By “the crew” Shelly meant the group of monsters and injured animals that she took care of in a special room in the basement.
“Come through the tunnels with me,” Higgy offered. “You’ll get there faster.”
“Sure,” Shelly said, and she followed Higgy through the opening beneath the bunk beds that led to the basement.
Theremin, Odifin, and Rotwang said good night, leaving Newton alone in the room. He changed into a T-shirt and shorts and scrambled onto the top bunk.
That didn’t go like I thought it would, he realized.
* * *
The next morning Newton met Shelly and Theremin in the main hallway of the school building.
“Remind me again why we signed up for this extra class?” Newton asked Shelly as they walked on the yellow-and-green-tiled floor.
“Because Professor Leviathan is teaching it, and we like her,” Shelly said. “Besides, I think Transmogrification of Common Flora sounds like it’s going to be fun.”
“ ‘Flora’ is plants, right?” Newton asked. “What’s ‘transmogrification’?”
Theremin’s eyes flashed green as he accessed his data banks. “It means ‘the act of transforming in a surprising manner.’ ”
They entered the school library. Drones flew overhead, making sure students kept quiet and stayed away from the section of restricted texts.
Shelly led Newton and Theremin through the stacks of books to a glass-walled greenhouse attached to the library.
Inside, there was a lot to take in. The room was filled with shelves of green plants and colorful flowers. Some of them were glowing, spinning, or shooting out puffs of gas.
The students who’d arrived already were gathered around a metal lab table. At its head stood Professor Leviathan, a friendly tower of a woman with curly pink hair. She wore a leopard-print lab coat.
One of the students grinned when she saw Newton and his friends.
“Hey, guys!” Tootie Van der Flootin called out loudly and happily.
“Tootie, shhhh!” Professor Leviathan warned. “The greenhouse is under library rules. We’ve got to keep quiet or the drones will be on our case.”
“Sorry, Professor,” Tootie said, but she didn’t lose her smile. She motioned toward Newton, Shelly, and Theremin, and they sat down in the seats closest to her. Newton glanced around the table and saw a few kids he didn’t know yet—and Mimi.
“It looks like everyone is here,” Professor Leviathan began. “Welcome to Transmogrification of Common Flora! I am excited that Ms. Mumtaz has given me the opportunity to teach this class. I’ve been studying the works of Phineas Broccolini for years now, and while my main passion is monster creation, I love the idea of creating monstrous plants.”
Professor Leviathan placed a small potted plant on the table. Bright red, spiky flowers grew inside a cluster of long, thin green leaves.
“This is a bromeliad, a plant common on this island,” she said.
Then she put another plant next to it. It looked just like the first.
“This is a bromeliad that has been transmogrified,” she said, and she picked up a tiny watering can and sprinkled the plant. The red flowers began to open and close, looking very much to Newton like birds’ beaks. Then they began to sing!
Twee, twee, twee! Twee, tweeeeee!
Shelly gasped. “A singing plant!”
Professor Leviathan beamed. “It’s magnificent, isn’t it?” she said. “This is the kind of fun we’ll be having in this class. But before fun comes work.”
She pointed to a shelf filled with very old, very thick books. “Everyone, take a copy of Professor Broccolini’s book, Leaf It to Me: A Compendium of Plant Transmogrification Techniques. Today I’d like everyone to read chapter one and take notes.”
There were a few grumbles as everyone got up to take a book, but Newton didn’t mind. Thanks to his having woken up with amnesia, he always felt like there was a lot for him to learn. He liked reading about new things.
The greenhouse was quiet for a few minutes as everyone began to read. Then… SCREEEEEETCH!
The horrible, grating sounds of nails on a chalkboard interrupted the silence.
SCREEEEEETCH!
A drone whizzed into the room and hovered over Mimi.
“Quiet in the library,” the drone warned in a robotic voice.
Mimi, who had been tapping her fingernails on the table, sat up straight. “Oh, sorry.”
The drone sped away, and Professor Leviathan nodded to Mimi. “Miss Crowninshield, what was that racket?”
Mimi grinned and held up her hands. Her fingernails were painted bright pink. “It’s my new invention,” she said. “I call this color “Piercing Pink”. It’s nail polish that makes nails sound like they’re scratching on a chalkboard no matter what surface you tap them on. I started tapping my nails on the table when I was reading, without thinking about it.”
&nb
sp; “That’s very… creative,” Professor Leviathan said. “But please try to keep your nails quiet. I am not a fan of these library drones! Once they ejected me just for sneezing.”
“Yes, Professor,” Mimi said, and she looked back down at her book.
Newton started thinking about the first time he’d met Mimi. She had sprinkled Shelly with a makeup powder that had made Shelly sing an annoying song over and over. Mimi seemed to have a talent for inventing unusual cosmetics.
Maybe she could invent something for Higgy, Newton thought. He wanted to tell Shelly and Theremin his idea, but didn’t want to risk upsetting Professor Leviathan. So he waited until after class.
“I have an idea,” Newton said as soon as they exited the library. “I’m going to ask Mimi to invent some kind of mad-science makeup for Higgy that will make his goo look more human. She’s really good at makeup inventions. I bet she’ll come up with something great!”
Shelly stopped. “Newton, asking Mimi for help is a waste of time.”
“Why?” Newton asked.
Theremin answered. “Because Mimi doesn’t like helping anybody but herself.”
“It can’t hurt to ask,” Newton reasoned. “The worst she can do is say no, right?”
Shelly shook her head. “No, it’s not the worst she can do,” she replied. “Last year Percival Aubergine asked Mimi for help with a concept for a shrink ray he was working on. Mimi was convinced that he was only asking her because Crowninshield Industries was working on a shrink ray too, and he was trying to steal her ideas.”
“I remember that,” Theremin said. “She sabotaged his shrink ray, right?”
“Right,” Shelly said. “Percival hated broccoli, and he was trying to shrink it down so it would have the same nutrients but he could eat less of it. And Mimi engineered the ray so that he ended up with a seventeen-foot-tall stalk of broccoli! It trapped Percival in his dorm room and he had to eat his way out. On the plus side, he learned to like broccoli after that, believe it or not.”
