Science Fair

by Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson

  “I’m leaving,” he said.

  “Shh!” said Vaderian, pointing at the ceiling.

  “I don’t care,” said the Wookiee. “I’m outta here.”

  “But the collection,” whispered Vaderian, waving his light saber at the Star Wars memorabilia. “We have to—”

  “No,” said the Wookiee. “This junk ain’t worth going to jail for.” He started toward the stairs.

  “No!” said Vaderian, and as he did, he realized he’d said it much too loudly.

  “See?” hissed Fawn. “There is someone down there. We’re leaving.” She started toward the door. Roger was right behind her. But then he grabbed her arm.

  “Wait,” he said.

  “What?”

  “The truck,” he said. “Outside, when we got home. Remember?” They’d noticed the U-Drive-It truck when they came home.

  “So what?” she said, trying to yank her arm free. “Let go!”

  “Toby said they’re after the collection,” he said, recalling the strange phone call. “I didn’t believe him at the time, but what if that’s what the truck is about? What if that’s why there are noises coming from the basement?”

  Fawn hesitated, thinking about the memorabilia, all the effort they’d put into collecting it, maintaining it.…

  “We can’t let them take the collection,” Roger whispered. “We can’t.”

  “But…how can we stop them?” she said. “We can’t call the police.”

  “Maybe we can trap them down there,” said Roger. “Until the power comes back.”

  “How?” said Fawn.

  “I have an idea,” said Roger, groping his way back to the flashlight drawer.

  “A thousand dollars extra,” said the Wookiee.

  “Yes,” said Vaderian.

  “Cash,” said the Wookiee.

  “Yes, cash,” said Vaderian.

  “For one load of stuff,” said the Wookiee.

  “As much as you can carry in one load, yes,” said Vaderian. He was already gathering together the items he intended for them to take. His plan, formulated out of desperation, was that he and the Wookiee would load themselves with memorabilia and charge up the stairs. Whoever was up there—the parents of the little weasel, he assumed—might not like it. But whoever they were, they would back off when they saw the Wookiee. Everyone did.

  They’d bully their way out of the house, put the memorabilia in the truck, and be gone. Vaderian deeply regretted that he’d have to leave some items behind. But he’d take what he could get.

  In two minutes he’d loaded up the Wookiee. The big man’s arms strained under the weight of four large items, including the stormtrooper uniform, and a half-dozen smaller ones. Vaderian carried only one item, but it was the ultimate prize: R2-D2 himself. He thrust his glowing light saber into his belt and reverently picked up the robot.

  “Let’s go,” he said. With the Wookiee going first, feeling his way with his feet, they started slowly up the stairs.

  Fawn was in the ink black hallway, her ear to the basement door.

  “Hurry!” she whispered. “They’re coming up!”

  She felt Roger behind her, coming from the kitchen.

  “How many were there?” she said.

  “I found two,” he said. “Here, take this one.” He thrust something into her hand. “I think I got the cap loose. Ready?”

  “Ready,” she said.

  “Now!” shouted Roger.

  He yanked the door open. Fawn screamed at the sight of the two figures on the stairs lit by a ghastly reddish light, one huge and hairy, one black-clad, with that hideous yet familiar helmet.…

  “Do it!” said Roger, his voice snapping Fawn out of her shock and into action. As they’d agreed, she took the lower part of the door, and he took the upper. Squeezing the tubes as if their lives depended on it, they squirted two long lines of Krazy Glue along the door frame.

  Roger finished first. The figures on the stairs, momentarily stunned by the sudden opening of the door, had started up again.

  “Hurry!” Roger shouted.

  “Done!” answered Fawn.

  Together they slammed the door shut. Roger grabbed the knob and pushed with all his strength, pressing the door against the glue. From the other side, he heard the steps coming closer. In those desperate fearful seconds, he had only one thought in his mind:

  Please let this be the quick-drying kind.

  TOBY WAS CROUCHING under the Wienermobile.

  Next to him were Micah and Tamara; Drmtsi and Vrsk were behind them.

  All around was chaos. It had started the instant the lights went out and blackness enveloped the supermarket parking lot. People started shouting; children started crying. The crowd began surging in random directions; people were knocked over, including whoever was in the pig suit. Somebody grabbed a woman’s purse; she screamed. Then there were more screams.

  The police switched on their flashlights and waved them around, looking for the escapees and shouting at everyone to “STAY CALM, STAY CALM.” But nobody was calm, and soon the police had a small riot on their hands.

  As the police struggled with the crowd, Toby and the others—already on their knees, as ordered by the approaching police—had crawled under the Wienermobile, mainly to avoid being trampled. They could see little of what was going on around them except for running feet occasionally illuminated by darting flashlight beams.

  After a few minutes the police began to get better organized. Peeking out from under the left side of the Wienermobile, Toby saw that the police had formed a rough perimeter, waving their flashlights and shouting at the crowd to “MOVE! MOVE!” They were herding everyone to an open area behind the Wienermobile, where people were being funneled toward a half-dozen officers who were shining their flashlights into each person’s face, one by one.

  “They’re still looking for us,” Toby said. He looked out at the edge of the parking lot.

  He crawled to the right-hand side of the Wienermobile, the side next to the supermarket. It was deserted and dark.

  “Stay here,” Toby whispered to Micah and Tamara.

  “Where are you going?” said Tamara.

  “To see how we can get out of here,” said Toby. He crawled out from under the Wienermobile, stood up, and slid forward along the side of the big hot dog. When he got to the front, he saw that the police—there were a lot of them now—had established a perimeter all around the edge of the parking lot, clearly intended to keep anybody from sneaking away.

  Toby stood there, drumming his fingers, trying to think of a way past the line of police. Then he looked at what he was drumming on.

  The Wienermobile.

  He went to the passenger door and, holding the door closed with one hand, pulled on the latch with the other. It was unlocked. He took a breath; he’d have to do the next part fast and hope that the confusion behind the Wienermobile, and all the flashlights shining around, would keep the police from noticing the cab light go on.

  He yanked the door open, jumped inside, and closed the door. The light had been on for maybe three seconds. Toby listened for a few seconds but didn’t hear anyone approaching. In the dark cab, he felt for the steering wheel, then the ignition switch. No key. He felt for the visor, which was where his parents sometimes hid their car keys. Nothing.

  He dropped to his knees and felt under the driver’s seat. His hand touched something.

  Keys.

  Toby reached up and found the dome light switch; he slid it to the off position. Then, clutching the keys—which were attached to a wiener-shaped holder—he got back out of the cab. There was still a lot of shouting going on in the parking lot behind the Wienermobile. Toby crouched.

  “Tamara,” he whispered.

  “What?” said Tamara.

  “Can you drive this thing?” Tamara’s family spent summers at a cabin in Maine; she’d told Toby that her dad sometimes let her drive their car on the dirt roads up there.

  “What?”

 
; “I have the keys.”

  “You want to take the Wienermobile?” said Micah.

  “Yes,” said Toby.

  “Cool,” said Micah.

  “I can’t drive this!” said Tamara. “It’s huge.”

  “Excusing,” said Vrsk.

  “What?” snapped Toby.

  “I can drive,” said Vrsk.

  “You can?”

  “Yes,” said Vrsk. Back in Krpshtskan, one of his duties was to be backup driver for the 1961 Checker taxi that served as the presidential limousine. Vrsk figured that qualified him to pilot the giant sausage vehicle.

  Toby nodded. “All right,” he said.

  In a minute they were all in the cab of the Wienermobile, with Vrsk in the driver’s seat, Toby next to him, and Micah and Tamara with Drmtsi in an open area behind. The smell of smerk hung heavy in the air. Toby put the key into the ignition.

  “Okay,” he said.

  “Okay,” said Vrsk, none too confidently. He turned the key. The engine started. Vrsk started fiddling with his feet.

  “Where is clotch?” he said.

  “Where is what?” said Toby.

  “Clotch. Is not a clotch here.”

  “I think he means the clutch,” said Tamara.

  “What’s a clutch?” said Micah.

  “It’s a pedal on old cars,” said Tamara. To Vrsk, she said, “There is no clutch.”

  “No clotch?” said Vrsk.

  “No clotch,” said Tamara.

  Micah, peering out a side window, said, “I think somebody’s coming.”

  “Forget the clotch,” said Toby. “Just go!”

  Vrsk stomped on the gas. The engine roared. Nothing else happened.

  “The cops are coming!” said Micah.

  “You have to put it in gear!” said Tamara.

  “What?” said Vrsk, over the roar of the engine.

  “THE GEARSHIFT!” shouted Tamara. She leaned forward, grabbed the shift lever, and yanked it down. With a squeal of tires, the giant frankfurter-shaped vehicle lunged forward, sending Tamara, Micah, and Drmtsi tumbling backward. Toby saw police running outside toward the Wienermobile from all directions, shouting. Vrsk was rigid, gripping the wheel with a look of pure terror on his face. The Wienermobile, gaining speed, was heading straight toward a half-dozen police officers waving flashlights and shouting.

  “DON’T HIT THEM!” shouted Toby.

  “I AM NOT WANTING TO!” shouted Vrsk.

  “THEN TURN THE STEERING WHEEL!” shouted Toby.

  Vrsk looked down at the steering wheel, as though realizing for the first time he was holding it. He yanked it hard to the left, sending Toby slamming into the passenger door and the three in the back tumbling sideways. The giant hot dog, now going fifty miles per hour, skidded and squealed into a sharp left turn, leaning so far over that Toby thought it might flip. Outside, the police scattered as the Wienermobile shot past them, sideswiped a cruiser, went off a curb, and landed in the street. Vrsk spun the wheel right, fighting for control as the fishtailing Wienermobile roared forward into the utter darkness of the blacked-out neighborhood.

  “I CANNOT SEE!” shouted Vrsk.

  “TURN ON THE LIGHTS!” shouted Toby.

  “HOW?” shouted Vrsk. The lights in the Krpshtskani presidential limousine were never used, the last bulb having burned out in 1989.

  Toby pushed away from the door and reached across the cab, praying that the light switch on the Wienermobile was in the same place as on his parents’ car. It was; he found it and turned the switch. The lights came on just in time for Vrsk to see that they were about to ram a Dunkin’ Donuts. He yanked the wheel to the right again, sending everyone sprawling left. He managed to miss the building as he made a skidding turn onto a cross street. For the moment, the road ahead was clear, although in the distance Toby could hear sirens wailing. Many sirens.

  Behind him, Micah, Tamara, and Drmtsi, having been hurled around by Vrsk’s violent maneuvers, were struggling to get up. Tamara looked out the windshield.

  “Where are we?” she said.

  “I have no idea,” said Toby.

  “So,” she said, “we’re wanted as terrorists, we’ve stolen the Wienermobile, police are chasing us, and we’re lost.”

  “Yeah,” said Toby.

  “I honestly don’t see how things can get any worse,” said Tamara.

  Micah said, “I think I’m gonna throw up.”

  IN THE UTILITY ROOM next to the Hubble Middle School gym, Prmkt was hunched over the computer screen, watching the futile efforts of the power-company computer people to regain control over their system. Prmkt smiled: they weren’t even close.

  Through the utility-room door, he could hear the sounds of scared people—students, teachers, parents—as they groped their way around the science-fair projects in the dark gym. A voice was shouting for everyone to stay calm.

  “There’s nothing to worry about!” the voice was saying.

  Yes, there is, thought Prmkt.

  He touched the control pad, opening a window on his computer screen. He tapped some keys; the window was now showing the CNN satellite feed. Superimposed on the screen were the words MASSIVE BLACKOUT. A frowning announcer was talking.

  “…Millions of people are affected,” he said. “There is still no word from Mid-Atlantic Power about what caused the blackout, or when power will be restored. We have been told by the FAA that planes in the affected area are being diverted to airports outside the blackout area, which as we said earlier covers much of the Mid-Atlantic region. We’ve also been told that telephone service has been severely disrupted, which is making it difficult to get any information; in fact, at the moment we are not in touch with our CNN Washington bureau. Already there has been speculation that, since so many major government facilities are affected, this could be an act of terrorism. But I repeat that at the moment we have no information that would confirm this. We are continuing to…”

  Prmkt clicked off the sound. His hands went to the keyboard again.

  He would show them what terror felt like.

  “WE’RE BACK UP!” shouted a voice in the Mid-Atlantic Power command center.

  Bernard Kosar slammed his phone down and ran from his office, so excited that he left the football on his desk.

  He looked up at the Christmas Tree and felt a surge of relief: the red lights had turned green. The power was on again.

  Kosar turned to Robert Joseph, the computer genius, and said, “What happened?”

  Joseph shrugged and answered, “I have no idea.”

  “What?” said Kosar.

  Joseph pointed at his computer screen. “We didn’t get it back. They gave it back. Whoever they are.”

  Kosar felt a knot in his stomach. “Are you saying they could take it down again?” he asked.

  Joseph nodded glumly. “Yup,” he said.

  Kosar ran both hands through his wiry hair. “All right, listen up, people!” he said. “We need to…”

  “Excuse me, Bernie,” said the technician/singer Laura Schweitzer.

  “What?” Kosar said, annoyed at the interruption.

  “I think you’ll want to see this,” she said, pointing at her screen.

  Kosar leaned over. The screen showed a map of the eastern United States. The top half of the map was covered with dozens of symbols flashing red.

  “Does that mean what I think it means?” he said.

  Schweitzer nodded. “I’m afraid it does. Now the whole Northeast is down. New York, Boston, Philly—all down.”

  Kosar straightened up. “All right, people!” he said. “We have to find out WHO IS DOING THIS, and we have to STOP THEM, and we have to do it NOW.” There was no need for this speech; everybody in the room was already busy.

  Kosar’s direct-line phone was ringing again. On the way to answer it, he picked up his football.

  “HEY,” SAID TOBY, looking out the Wienermobile windshield, “the lights are back on.”

  Tamara, in the backseat with Mic
ah and Drmtsi, looked out. “Good,” she said. “Maybe now we can figure out where we are.”

  “Can we stop?” said Micah. “Because I am really carsick.”

  “If you throw up,” said Tamara, “I will kill you.”

  “Thanks for your concern,” said Micah.

  Vrsk had taken a number of sharp, random turns since they had driven away from the supermarket; at the moment, there didn’t seem to be any police cars behind them. But in the distance, the sound of sirens seemed to be coming from all directions.

  “We can’t stop yet,” said Toby. “If we stop, the cops’ll catch us.”

  “Maybe we should lose the Wienermobile,” said Tamara. “It’s a little obvious, don’t you think? People tend to notice a giant hot dog.”

  “Yeah,” said Toby. “But it’s all we have right now. When we get near the school we can ditch it. But right now we need to figure out where we are.”

  “There’s a Starbucks,” said Micah.

  “That’s a big help,” said Toby.

  From the backseat, Drmtsi, who was feeling a bit queasy himself, said to Vrsk, in Krpsht, “Are we there yet?”

  “I will ask the boy,” answered Vrsk. He asked Toby in English, “How far is to school?”

  “I don’t know,” said Toby. “We’re trying to figure out where we are.”

  “There’s another Starbucks,” observed Micah.

  “What did the boy say?” Drmtsi asked Vrsk.

  “He said we will be there soon,” answered Vrsk, who was busy driving and didn’t want to be answering questions from Drmtsi.

  “Can I ask you something?” Toby said to Vrsk.

  “Yes,” said Vrsk.

  “Who are you really?”

  Vrsk kept his eyes on the road. “I told you, we are tour—”

  “You’re not tourists,” interrupted Toby.

  Vrsk said nothing.

  “Why do you want to go to the school?” asked Toby.

  Nothing.

  “What do you know about the science fair?”

  Nothing.

  “There’s another Starbucks,” said Micah.

  “Micah,” snapped Toby, “will you stop pointing out every single…wait a minute. I know that Starbucks. That’s the one near my house!” He frowned, then said to Vrsk, “Turn left here.”