Against the Odds

by Amy Ignatow

  “But that doesn’t make any sense, because I’m not actually a terrorist.”

  “Ah, right. Bad example. A good example would be our dearest deadly Ms. Zelle telling everyone that there are dungeons full of chemically altered humans like Willis Fisher and Mr. Friend. No one believes her but we know that she’s actually telling the truth.”

  “You believe that she’s telling the truth. I believe that you’re a nutball.”

  “Look at us, the believer and the skeptic. We are going to make a great team.” Jay punched Farshad lightly on the arm. Farshad glowered at him. It had no effect whatsoever.

  “Okay, okay, everyone, gather round,” Ms. Zelle called. “Farshad, you sit here and roll up your sleeve.” Farshad sat in a wide chair next to her while a lab technician with a thick mustache prepped a needle. He spied Mr. Greene standing in the corner as far away from the tech as possible. The science teacher wasn’t looking too hot.

  “Roll up your sleeve, please,” the tech asked, and quickly tied a rubber tourniquet around Farshad’s arm. He placed a squishy stress toy shaped like a brain in Farshad’s hand. “Can you squeeze this a few times?”

  Farshad squeezed the brain, taking care not to use his thumb. Is this what it was going to be like for the rest of his life? Always having to be hyperaware of his thumbs? The tech advanced with the needle, and behind him Farshad could see Jay. He looked worried. Farshad looked down and felt the sharp pinch as the needle slid into his arm. A vial attached to the syringe by a rubber tube quickly filled with his blood.

  Farshad heard a loud crash and looked up. Mr. Greene had fainted dead away. Ms. Zelle rushed to kneel by his prone body. “Did anyone see if he hit his head?” she asked.

  The tech with the mustache took the needle out of Farshad’s arm and gave him a folded wad of gauze to press against it. “Keep your arm elevated for a minute,” Mustache said. “I’ll be back with a Band-Aid in a second.” Farshad watched as the tech slipped the vial of his blood into another tech’s hand. The other tech quickly and quietly left the room. Farshad shot a look to Jay. Jay nodded, and slipped out the door after the tech with the blood.

  Farshad began to panic. He thought he had given Jay a look that had clearly meant, Hey, look, they’re taking my blood away, not, GO FOLLOW MY BLOOD! What was that little weirdo going to do? Would he bite the lab tech?

  Mr. Greene groaned and tried to sit up. “Steady, steady,” Ms. Zelle said. The lab tech with the mustache came back to Farshad and put a Band-Aid over the square of gauze.

  “I’m fine, I’m fine. I just have a thing about blood. This is so embarrassing,” Mr. Greene muttered.

  “Do you need anything?” Ms. Zelle asked him as he got up.

  “I think I saw a vending machine in the hall,” Farshad volunteered. “I can get him a drink or something.”

  Ms. Zelle reached into her purse and gave Farshad two dollars. “Come back quick, we’re going to put your blood into the ultracentrifuge as soon as Mr. Greene is better.”

  “I’m better.”

  Ms. Zelle rolled her eyes. “Go go go, get him some orange juice if they have any.”

  Farshad headed out the door into the hall, and kept walking past the vending machine, desperately wishing that he had Cookie’s ability to hear people’s thoughts about directions. He turned one corner, and then another, and started testing doors.

  Locked. Locked. Locked. Locked. Supply closet. Locked. This was ridiculous. How was he supposed to find Jay? Ms. Zelle was going to start looking for him any second. Bathroom, locked. Farshad gingerly opened a door marked Security.

  There was no one inside. Farshad looked at a bank of small television screens showing different areas of the building. The lobby, labs, lots of nondescript hallways, a room with a man strapped to a bed by his wrists and ankles, employee break room . . .

  MR. FRIEND.

  Farshad gaped at the television screen. There he was: Mr. Friend. Farshad quickly scanned the rest of the screens. Different angle of the lobby. Back entrance. Room full of rabbit cages. A teenage boy pacing a room with a cot in it, writing on a wall with a pencil. Farshad could see writing on all the walls. Mathematical equations?

  “Can I help you?” Farshad spun around to see an Auxano security guard. The locked bathroom . . .

  “I . . .” Farshad was at a loss for words. The security guard leapt forward and grabbed Farshad, deftly pinning his arms behind his back and pushing him up against a filing cabinet. Farshad cried out in pain.

  “WHO ARE YOU? WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?” the security guard bellowed into Farshad’s ear. He was huge and his breath smelled like onions. Farshad was terrified.

  “My name is Farshad Rajavi! I’m here on a field trip with my science class! I got lost! Oww!”

  “A likely story,” the security guard said, pushing Farshad against the filing cabinet. The handles of the drawers dug into Farshad’s rib cage.

  “I swear it’s true I go to Deborah Read Middle School my teacher is Ms. Zelle my mom works here just ask for Miryam Rajavi she works here find my mom . . .”

  “Farshad, old boy, what on earth are you doing here?” Jay strode into the room and seemed completely undisturbed by the fact that a two-hundred-pound gorilla dressed as a security guard was slowly crushing Farshad. “Ms. Zelle was about to call security to find you and here you are, already with security! And you’re hugging. That’s nice. Lab time! We’re going to do experiments, huzzah!” Jay walked up to the security guard, who looked very confused but had not let go of Farshad.

  “And hello to you!” Jay said excitedly. “I’m Jay Carpenter, and I’m a polymath. Do you know what a polymath is? Of course you do, I can see that you’re a man of great wit, why else would you choose to work around geniuses all day? Marvelous! I have a song about being a polymath that I’ve been working on, would you like to hear it?”

  “No,” the security guard said, bewildered. He had loosened his grip on Farshad’s arm.

  “Of course you would! I am a polymath. I’m very clean because I like a hot bath . . .”

  “Where are you boys supposed to be?” the guard asked, looking at Farshad for the first time as though he might actually be just a lost kid.

  “Wait, wait, I’m about to get to the good part,” Jay continued, singing, “I like so many things, like car parts and bottles and cutlery and whatever I find lying around . . .”

  “Enough,” the security guard growled. “Do you know how to get back to your group?”

  “Of course we do! And you’re right, we should go, Ms. Zelle will be worried. Ta-ta, Officer!” Jay grabbed Farshad’s arm and steered him out of the security office. “Are you all right?” he asked as soon as they were out of earshot.

  “No. Yes. No. I’m fine,” Farshad said, feeling the pain in his arm and his rib cage. He was eager to put as much distance between himself and the room as possible. “Were you able to get the blood?” he asked Jay in a low voice.

  “Unfortunately no,” Jay said, guiding him back to the hallway where the vending machine was. “But I saw where they put it.”

  “We have to get it back,” Farshad said. “We have to. Cookie was right about everything.”

  “She is magical, isn’t she?”

  Nick tried to breathe. In through the nose, out through the mouth, remaining calm, not going anywhere. Martina had her hand on his arm, so he knew he wasn’t going anywhere, but he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life tethered to her. Not that he minded her hand on his arm. It wasn’t like she had a clammy hand or anything, but, knowing Martina, she probably wanted to use it to draw in her sketchbook.

  She’d put her hand on his arm when Farshad and Jay were telling their story. Jay did most of the talking, of course, and at first it sounded like another one of Jay’s crazy tall tales, like the time he’d told Nick and his mom that he’d done some genealogical research and was pretty sure that he was a direct descendent of Benjamin Franklin. But Farshad was backing up everything that Jay was saying, and Nick began
to feel incredibly nervous. They had Farshad’s blood, which meant they would soon figure out that he was . . . odd, and then it was only a matter of time before they realized that they were all odd. And then they’d end up locked up like Mr. Friend and Willis Fisher.

  “The last time I saw Farshad’s blood, it was in a fridge in a lab near the security room. That was four hours ago,” Jay said.

  “Do you think you could draw a map?” Ed asked. Nick jumped a little. Having the invisible man around was unnerving.

  “Why, what’s the plan?” Jay asked.

  “I’m going to go and get the blood.” Ed said. “That’s the plan.”

  “Yes!” Jay said, forcefully slamming his hand down on the breakfast buffet. “We need to strategize. Ed is our guy for stealth, clearly, and Farshad is the muscle. Daniesha, we’ll need you to hone your skills . . .”

  “What?” Ed said, clearly startled. “No. I am going to go and get the blood. No one else is coming with me. That is the plan. I’m going tonight. Abe, you can come with me as far as the campus. I’ll need you to get into the driver’s seat so that nothing looks suspicious. The rest of you—and yes, I’m looking at all of you right now and pointing my finger at you . . .”

  “He is,” Martina confirmed.

  “The rest of you have to stay put. I’m done having you play spy—I appreciate what you’ve learned, but it’s time for me to take over. I’ll find the blood.”

  “We can’t just sit here,” Farshad said, clearly frustrated. “It’s my blood. It’s my fault that it’s there. I need to get it back.”

  “I’m going to get it back,” Ed said. “You’ve done enough.”

  “I should go,” Cookie said.

  “No, you really shouldn’t,” Ed snapped.

  “And how will you explain Abe sitting alone in a car outside of the Auxano campus?” Cookie asked. “An Amish weirdo, alone in a car, doing nothing? If I’m with him then we can at least tell people we were on a date or something.”

  Abe immediately turned so red that Nick was momentarily worried that his head would actually explode. “I . . . I don’t think . . .” the Amish boy stuttered.

  “Plus Abe is terrible under pressure,” Cookie interrupted. “If I’m there I can keep him from saying the wrong thing. Or anything.”

  “But . . . but . . . it would not look realistic for us to be romantically involved,” Abe stammered.

  “I’ll wear a little lipstick, it will make me look old enough,” Cookie said dismissively.

  “I cannot date a black girl!” Abe blurted.

  The room fell silent as Cookie gave the trembling Amish teenager a hard stare. After a moment, Jay stood up.

  “It’s decided then. I will go instead of Abe.”

  “How are you going to convince anyone that you’re old enough to drive?” Farshad asked. “You’re the size of a peanut.”

  “One small peanut can take down an army, my friend, providing that everyone in the army has a severe peanut allergy . . .”

  “Enough!” Ed’s disembodied voice rang throughout the kitchen. “That’s enough. Abe is coming with me. Cookie, you are also coming with us, and you’re not going to kill Abe, he’s not used to people like you.”

  “People like me. REALLY?”

  “Yes, really. Black people. Look at him. He looks like he’s going to pass out.”

  Cookie looked at Abe. “Maybe Jay should be the one to come with me.”

  “YES!”

  “No,” Ed said, “like it or not, Abe is the only one who looks old enough to drive a car. And Cookie is the only one who seems to be able to keep it together under pressure.”

  “Hey!” Nick said, hurt.

  “I’m sorry, but you’re going to transport yourself into a wall and Farshad’s the one who thought it was a good idea to give Auxano a blood sample in the first place despite everything my brother told you.” There was a silence as everyone in the room turned to Martina.

  “And none of you know what to make of me,” she said.

  Ed snapped his fingers. The sudden noise made Nick jump a little. “Abe, Cookie, let’s go,” he said. “The rest of you? STAY. HERE.”

  Abe stood miserably as Cookie got up and put on her jacket. She looked grim. “Be careful,” Nick told her.

  “I will,” she said.

  “And try not to kill Abe,” Martina advised.

  “I’m not making any promises.”

  “Daniesha,” Jay said, inserting himself directly in front of her and snatching her phone.

  “Hey!” Cookie tried to grab the phone back but Jay quickly ducked behind the breakfast bar while he typed furiously into her phone.

  “I’m inputting my emergency cell phone number. If you are in trouble and need us, text to ask about how the kittens are doing. If you’re fine, email to ask how the puppies are doing.”

  Cookie leaned over the bar and yanked the phone out of his hands. “Why would I email you if everything is fine?” she asked.

  “To chat. If you wanted to chat.”

  “UGH.” Cookie turned on her heel and followed Abe out the door to Ed’s car. Nick, Jay, Martina, and Farshad watched as it drove away with her in the backseat and Abe sitting shotgun.

  “Okay,” Jay said as the car disappeared around a corner. “Let’s get moving.”

  “Let’s get moving where?” Farshad asked.

  “To Auxano, of course.” Jay said. “They’re going to need us and it’s a long walk, so we might as well get started.”

  Farshad picked up his backpack. “Right. But we’re stopping by my house first to get a change of clothing and my mom’s work access card.”

  “Good man.”

  Nick stared at them in astonishment. Had everyone completely lost their minds?

  Martina packed her sketchbook into her bag and looked at him with big dark green eyes. “You coming?”

  Abe sat in the front seat of Ed’s car with his hands gripping the steering wheel. They were parked on the side of the road near the woods that bordered the Auxano campus. Cookie had moved into the front seat and was amusing herself by staring at the clearly terrified Abe.

  “So,” she said after a while. “How are you doing?”

  Abe said nothing.

  “Anything new going on in your world?” They could see the top of Auxano’s main building over the tree line. There wasn’t much else to look at, besides each other, and Abe seemed determined to avoid even a quick glance in Cookie’s direction.

  “So,” she continued, “on a scale of Uncomfortable to Completely Freaked Out, would you say that you’re nervous around me or crazy scared?”

  Abe gripped the steering wheel a little tighter.

  “Whatever,” Cookie said, fishing her phone out of her bag. Maybe she should email “puppies” to Jay just to make his day. The kid was weird and super annoying, but at least being around her didn’t make him go into a catatonic state.

  Abe shifted uncomfortably. “I am not scared of you,” he said carefully. Cookie looked up from her phone. “But I do not want you to have the wrong idea about what we are doing here.”

  Cookie raised an eyebrow. “And what do you think that I think we’re doing here exactly?”

  “Well . . .” Abe looked incredibly uncomfortable. “It is important that you know . . .”

  “Mmmmmyes?”

  “It is important that you know that we’re not actually on a date.”

  Cookie stared at him.

  “I am not interested in you in that way and we are just pretending to be on a date if someone wonders what we are doing here. And if they do, we will not be kissing or hugging. We will just tell them that we are on a date.” He turned to her, looking pleased with himself for getting it all out. “Do you understand?”

  “So what you’re saying is that if anyone should come by for any reason, we should immediately start making out like crazy bunnies.”

  Abe looked incredibly confused. “No, no, I do not think you understand what I am trying to te
ll you . . .”

  “No, I totally get it. If we even think that someone might be driving by us, I should immediately jump on you and we should smush our mouths together.”

  “That is the opposite of what we should do!” He looked terrified.

  Cookie smiled. She knew that torturing a dumb Amish kid wasn’t a particularly kind thing to do, even if he was clearly pretty racist. She couldn’t even be angry about that—she was probably the first black person he’d ever spoken to, and now he was trapped alone with her in a parked car. But that didn’t mean that she couldn’t mess with him a little. Or a lot.

  “So let me get this straight,” she said, “if a person were to come by and say, ‘Hey, what are you kids doing?’ we should just yell, ‘WE’RE IN LOVE!’ and then you’ll immediately get down on one knee and ask me to marry you, and we’ll lick each others’ faces. That’s the plan, right?”

  “No! No! That is not a good plan! I could never marry you! We are never getting married!!!” Abe looked like he was about to have a heart attack.

  “Oh my god, dude. CHILL. Don’t worry. I’m not going to touch you with my scary black face.” Cookie looked back down at her phone. “You need to calm down. I don’t want you accidentally using your power to summon a nearby bear to eat us or something.”

  “Bears do not eat people under normal circumstances. And also, rabbits do not kiss each other.” Abe took his hands off the steering wheel to rub his temples. “Where is Mr. Ed? Can you hear him?”

  “A little,” Cookie said. She’d been hearing him navigate the hallways of Auxano for a while, along with about ten or so other faint voices in her head of other people. One woman was trying to find the entrance to the highway—another couldn’t find a bathroom. She was getting a little better at tuning them out in order to focus on Ed’s thoughts. “He’s trying to find an empty stairwell so that he doesn’t have to use the elevator.”

  Abe perked up. “I have been in an elevator,” he said, almost as if he was telling her an exciting secret.

  “No. Really? What was it like?”

  “It was incredible,” he said. This kid wouldn’t know sarcasm if it came up to him in the middle of an empty field in broad daylight and said, Hello, Abe, I’m Sarcasm! “I knew that I was being pulled up, but it was almost as if I had stepped into a magical box that transported me to an entirely different place.”