Science Fair

by Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson

  A HELICOPTER?!?

  “LOOK OUT!” shouted Toby, but at that point even if Vrsk had the skills of a NASCAR driver—which he definitely did not—he could not have prevented the collision. As the occupants screamed and covered their faces, the Wienermobile slammed into the back of the TranScent helicopter. The entire tail section was sheared off cleanly, and it tumbled wildly toward first base, with the tail rotor still spinning. The cockpit and cabin rolled over several times and wound up at third base.

  Meanwhile, the Wienermobile hurtled into the outfield, where Vrsk was finally able to slam on the brakes and bring the vehicle to a fishtailing stop. The windshield was shattered; the front end was badly smashed. Smoke poured from the engine and billowed around the Wienermobile, which looked like a bratwurst left on the grill too long.

  Toby felt himself for injuries; he seemed to be okay. He looked at Vrsk, who was still gripping the wheel, staring ahead, breathing hard. A medley of groans sounded in the backseat as Micah, Tamara, Drmtsi, and Toby’s parents disentangled their limbs and sat up, blinking.

  “Well,” said Toby. “We’re here.”

  “THIRTY SECONDS, MR. PRESIDENT.”

  The president, sitting at his desk in the Oval Office, nodded slightly, his eyes on the teleprompter. He looked grim and felt grimmer. Trouble was erupting all over the United States; as the blackouts continued to wreak havoc, the national mood had quickly gone from worry to fear to full-blown panic. The president understood now that he was facing his ultimate test as a leader: this was the crisis that would define his presidency and his place in history. In a few moments, the nation—no, the world—would be watching him, expecting reassurance, answers—leadership.

  But the president had no answers. He had shouted at people; he had bullied; he had pressured; he had begged. He had committed the vast resources of the mightiest nation on earth to an intense effort to stop the blackouts, or at the very least, explain them. So far, that effort had produced, essentially, nothing. The consensus of the experts was that the blackouts were being caused by some very sophisticated technology. But as for the specific kind of technology and who was using it—the experts had no clue.

  So the president was about to face the world armed with nothing more than a vague speech about the need to remain calm and a promise that all would soon be well.

  The president didn’t believe that all would soon be well.

  “Five seconds, Mr. President.”

  The president took a breath. The red light on the camera came on.

  “Good evening,” the president said. “As you know, large areas of the United States have been affected by a series of power outages, which have also affected communications in many areas. Tonight I want to talk to you about what action we in the federal government, along with the public utilities, are taking to correct these problems. I also want to talk about how we, as a nation, can work together to minimize the disruption until this situation passes. And you have my word: it will pass.”

  The president paused and smiled his most confident-looking smile.

  I hope they’re buying this, he thought.

  Prmkt, seeing the president’s smile on his computer screen, responded with a smile of his own.

  His fingers went to the keyboard.

  It was time to show America who was really in charge.

  In the Hubble gymnasium, only yards away from Prmkt’s makeshift headquarters in the utility room, the science fair crowd was gathered around a large-screen television, watching the president. The volume was cranked up; nobody had heard the Wienermobile-helicopter collision on the ball field two minutes earlier.

  By the second sentence of the president’s speech, the crowd had already begun to relax a little. The president was a good speaker, and he had a sincere-looking face. When he smiled his confident smile, people in the crowd, relieved to be reassured by their leader, smiled gratefully back at him.

  And then something began to happen to the president’s face.

  “What on Earth?”

  The White House communications director grabbed his phone. He was in his office, watching the president’s speech on network TV. He could have been in the Oval Office, just down the hall, but he preferred to see the president exactly as the American people saw him.

  At the moment, he couldn’t believe his eyes.

  He stabbed the speed-dial for the broadcast control room. Two seconds later a voice said, “Yes?”

  “What’s wrong?” the communications director asked.

  “What do you mean?” said the voice.

  “Something’s wrong with the broadcast!” said the communications director, pointing the remote control at the screen and switching rapidly from channel to channel. “Look at the president’s face!”

  The voice said, “I’m looking at the president’s face right now, on our monitors and on the satellite feed. It looks fine.”

  “WELL, LOOK AT IT ON THE NETWORKS, YOU MORON!” said the communications director.

  There was a pause, and then the voice came back.

  It said: “Oh. My. God.”

  The crowd in the Hubble gym—along with millions of people around the nation and the world—stared at the screen with a mixture of fascination, puzzlement, and fear. As the president’s face began to change, he still sounded like the president; he was giving a very reassuring speech about the need to remain calm while steps were being taken to blah blah blah.

  But the president no longer looked like the president. As he spoke, his face was morphing into another face entirely—the hair getting longer, the skin getting softer.…And although the president’s new face was unfamiliar to the rest of the world, it was recognized instantly in the Hubble gym.

  “Hey!” shouted a voice. “The president turned into Harmonee Prescott!”

  Prmkt said a very bad Krpsht word. After doing everything else perfectly, he’d forgotten to change the settings on the Hotness Box. His fingers flashed furiously over the keyboard. Meanwhile, on millions of television screens around the world, the president’s deep and manly voice continued to come from Harmonee Prescott’s heavily glossed lips.

  The White House communications director was on his feet now, shouting into the phone: “How can somebody hijack a satellite? GET THE SATELLITE BACK!”

  He paused a moment, listening, then said, “No! We can’t stop the speech! That would look even worse! You have to…what?” He looked back toward the TV. “It is?”

  On the TV screen, the president—or, more accurately, the girl whose mouth the president was speaking through—had started to change once again, morphing back to an older face, a masculine face. A wave of relief swept through the communications director, who was already starting to formulate an explanation to give to the media about what had just happened. Technical difficulties…solar flare interference with satellite radio transmissions…

  “Okay,” he said into the phone. “When we get his face back, we’ll have him wrap it up as quickly as—” He stopped speaking, now staring at the screen, his throat tightening as if tied into a knot. When he managed to say something again, his normally deep, controlled voice came out close to a shriek.

  “THAT…IS…NOT…THE…PRESIDENT’S…FACE!”

  AMONG THE FEW AMERICANS not watching the president on television were federal agents Lefkon, Iles, and Turow. They were sitting in the conference room that, a short time earlier, had held their high-priority, top secret prisoners. Now it held only them.

  They were still trying to comprehend how these prisoners had managed to escape their top secret facility and then elude a massive manhunt. At the moment, the federal government’s attention was focused on the blackouts. But Lefkon, Iles, and Turow knew that once the immediate crisis was over, they would need to explain how they managed to be outwitted by two bumbling foreigners and three teenagers. Teenagers! The three agents could already see their careers swirling down the toilet. Their only hope was to find the escaped prisoners right now.

  The problem
was, they had no idea where to look for them.

  “I still don’t understand,” Turow was saying, “how you lose track of a thirty-foot-long hot dog.”

  “It’s more like twenty-five feet,” said Iles.

  “Oh, well, THAT explains it,” said Turow, giving Iles a you-moron look. “No wonder we can’t find them! They’re in a twenty-five-footer! It’s practically invisible!”

  “You don’t have to be sarcastic,” said Iles.

  “Well, if you would…” Turow began, but he was cut off by the ringing of the phone on the wall. Lefkon reached it first. She listened for a few moments, then said, “They what?” She listened another minute, then said, “Okay, get everybody we have over there. Hold them until we get there. Do not let them get away.”

  She hung up and turned to Turow and Iles, who were watching her intently.

  “They’re at their school,” she said. “A patrol car picked up the Wienermobile and chased it there. It crashed into a helicopter. The patrol car crashed, too, but the officers saw three kids and some adults running into the school gymnasium.”

  “How did they crash into a helicopter and manage to survive?” said Iles.

  “Who knows?” said Turow, already out the door. “And who cares? Let’s get over there.”

  Only minutes later, the three of them were in a government car with Turow at the wheel, violating many traffic laws.

  “You know, it’s funny,” Lefkon said.

  “What is?” asked Iles.

  “Well, the one kid, Toby,” she said, “kept insisting that something really bad was going to happen at his school science fair tonight.”

  “So?” said Turow, running a red light.

  “And now he’s gone to all this trouble to escape, and where does he go? He doesn’t go home. He doesn’t run away. He goes to his school science fair.” She turned to Iles.

  “What’s your point?” said Iles.

  “Well,” said Lefkon, “this might sound a little crazy, but what if he’s right? What if the science fair has something to do with all this weird stuff going on?”

  “You mean the blackouts?” said Turow.

  “Yes,” said Lefkon. “They’re saying on the news that whatever’s causing the blackout might be in this area.”

  Turow looked at her, then back at the road.

  “Yeah, you’re right,” he said. “That’s definitely crazy.”

  TOBY REACHED THE DOOR FIRST. He peeked inside and saw hundreds of people crowded at one end of the gym watching a TV screen set up on a stand. That was good news; as long as the crowd’s attention was on the TV, it would not be on the science-fair projects.

  Toby turned around. Behind him, just outside the door, were Micah and Tamara; behind them were Toby’s mom and dad, who were still—Toby was beginning to regret this—wearing their Star Wars costumes. Behind them were Drmtsi and Vrsk, who had been talking to each other quietly in Krpsht.

  “All right,” Toby said to Micah, Tamara, and his parents. “We need to find the ME kids’ projects and disable them.”

  “How do we do that?” said Roger.

  “I don’t know,” said Toby. “Unplug them, or just break them, if we have to. Just as long as they don’t work.”

  “I need to check on Fester first,” said Micah. “I bet he’s starving.”

  “Micah,” said Toby, “we’re trying to save the country, okay? This isn’t the time to feed your frog.”

  “It’ll only be a minute,” said Micah, trotting off.

  “Good to have priorities,” said Tamara.

  “Come on,” said Toby. “Let’s find the ME kids’ projects.”

  He and Tamara took the first aisle; his parents, trailed by Drmtsi and Vrsk, took the second. Toby had hoped it would be an easy search, but there were dozens and dozens of projects, many of them elaborate, emitting a confusing profusion of lights and sounds. He and Tamara had to stop and check each one, looking for the student’s name. Toby glanced back toward the crowd at the end of the gym; people seemed to be getting quite agitated about whatever was happening on the TV screen. That was fine with Toby; he was grateful for the distraction. He turned to look at the next project.

  Then he froze, as a voice boomed behind him:

  “THERE THEY ARE! STOP THEM!”

  Toby whirled around and saw, standing in the gym doorway, the furious figure of Lance Swingle. His hair was messed up, his jacket was torn, and his nose was bleeding. He was pointing at them.

  “GET THEM!” he bellowed. “THEY WRECKED MY HELICOPTER!”

  In the crowd, heads turned. One of the heads belonged to Jason Niles, who yelled, “Hey! It’s Hardbonger!” More heads turned.

  “GET THEM!” yelled Swingle again.

  Some people—including Jason Niles and Coach Furman—separated from the crowd and started heading toward Toby and the others.

  “What do we do now?” said Tamara.

  “Now,” said Toby, “we run.”

  THE PRESIDENT, now that his emergency broadcast to the nation had been hijacked, was no longer sitting at his desk in the Oval Office. He was a few doors down, in the office of the communications director, who was on the phone. Also in the room was the president’s chief of staff, talking on another phone and furiously scribbling notes.

  The president was watching a bank of six television monitors. Each was tuned to a different network, but all showed the same picture: a man sitting at the president’s desk in the Oval Office, wearing the president’s suit, the same suit the president was wearing now. But the head sticking out of the suit was not the president’s. It was, instead, the head of a large man with a puffy red face, a thick beard, a low forehead, and small, close-together eyes peeking around an enormous red nose.

  The man on the screen wasn’t talking. He was simply staring into the camera, as he had been doing for several minutes now—ever since the satellite had been hijacked. The president was glaring back at the man wearing his suit. The president was very, very unhappy.

  The chief of staff hung up the phone.

  “Well?” snapped the president.

  “Okay,” said the chief of staff, glancing down at his notes. “The State Department says this guy”—he pointed at the screen—“is Grdankl the Strong.”

  “Who the what?” said the president.

  “Grdankl the Strong,” said the chief of staff. “He’s the president of Krpshtskan.”

  The president frowned and said, “Is that the one with the hole?”

  “No, that’s Fazul,” said the chief of staff. “Krpshtskan is next door.”

  The president glared at the screen again. “And can anybody explain,” he asked, “how on earth the president of Krap…Karp…Kapa…”

  “Krpshtskan,” said the chief of staff.

  “…of this dirtbag little nation is being broadcast to the entire world while sitting in my office, wearing my suit?” said the president, his voice straining.

  “At the moment, sir, no,” the chief of staff admitted. “But—”

  “Well, can we at least shut the satellite down?” said the president, aiming his glare at the communications director.

  “Apparently we…cannot…sir,” he answered.

  The president took another breath, trying to calm himself. “So,” he said, “you’re telling me that in the biggest crisis of my presidency, in the most powerful nation on earth, we can do nothing about the fact that I can’t communicate to the American people BECAUSE MY HEAD, ON MY BODY, HAS BEEN REPLACED BY THE HEAD OF A FOURTH-WORLD DICTATOR WITH A NOSE THAT LOOKS LIKE A TOMATO?”

  The chief of staff and the communications director looked at each other but said nothing. Neither wanted to inform the president that, minutes earlier, he had had the head of an attractive teenage girl. Now both men cringed as the president prepared to bellow something. But before he could start, he was interrupted by a new voice.

  Grdankl the Strong had begun to speak.

  All three men turned to the bank of TV screens. “Turn it
up!” said the president. The communications director increased the volume, and the room was filled with the harsh sounds of the Krpsht language.

  “What’s he saying?” snapped the president.

  “I’ll find out,” said the chief of staff, reaching for a phone.

  “Wait,” said the president. “I’m hearing English.”

  A new voice was coming from the speaker, talking over Grdankl’s voice. The new voice spoke English with a thick accent, apparently translating Grdankl’s words.

  “People of the United States of American,” the voice said. “I am Grdankl the Strong, president of Krpshtskan, son of Bmepl the Brave, grandson of Kminkt the Good at Remembering Names. I will tell you now why my country, Krpshtskan, will destroy your country.”

  The president turned to the communications director and snapped, “Is this being broadcast everywhere?” The communications director nodded. The president rubbed his face with both hands.

  “In Krpshtskan,” said the Grdankl translator, “we have a saying. We say, if you steal the goat of a Krpsht, you are stealing a goat from all Krpshts. And you, United States of American, you have stolen a Krpsht goat.”

  “We stole their goat?” said the communications director.

  “Shut up,” said the president.

  “Five years ago,” said the translator, “a young Krpsht man came to your country with a big hope in his heart. You told him, ‘Welcome! We are liking you very much!’ But these were lies, United States of American. You were laughing at him. Big funny ha-ha American joke. But this joke was not funny to this young man. You stole the goat of his hope. And now, for this, you will be destroyed. But first you will see one last time a brave son of Krpshtskan. Enjoy this, people of American. It is the last thing you will see.”

  On the screen, the president body/Grdankl head disappeared. It was replaced by a brightly lit stage. On it was a smiling young man with long, floppy hair.