Beware of the Giant Brain!

by Mark Young

  The only student who’d ever tried to be nice to him was Shelly Ravenholt, and his processors had picked up the look of pity in her eyes, and that had been too much for Odifin.

  “Why don’t you go hang out with your monster misfits instead?” he’d said when Shelly had invited him to go to movie night with her and Theremin once. Shelly had looked sad and gone off, and Odifin had instantly regretted it. He actually thought the little monsters Shelly rescued or repaired were cute. But he couldn’t stand her pity.

  I’d rather be hated than pitied, Odifin had thought, more than once, and with his razor wit and inflated ego, he’d done a pretty good job of getting kids to hate him.

  The only problem was that he knew how disappointed his mom would be if she knew he didn’t have any friends. So whenever they video-chatted, he lied.

  “Oh yes, um, Salton Pepper and I went to the Airy Café last night,” he’d said once, making up a name on the spot. “It was very fun.”

  “See, Odifin, I just knew you’d fit right in at school,” his mom had said. “Soon you’ll be the most popular boy at Franken-Sci High!”

  Odifin didn’t have the heart to tell her the truth. It was the first time he had failed at something she’d asked him to do, and the first time he had lied to her.

  Determined to figure out how to be popular, he’d started scanning social media sites. He’d done an analysis of the teens who were trending with the most followers and hits. They were the best-looking, or the richest, or the ones with popular songs or who starred in movies.

  That’s why Odifin had tried out for the school musical, hoping that it would help him become popular. But it hadn’t worked. Shelly had become an instant celebrity, but nothing had happened to him.

  That’s okay, Odifin thought. Because now I have another chance, thanks to the Brilliant Brains Trivia Competition! If anyone is a natural to win, it’s me. And when that holographic statue of me goes up in the Center Court, I will be the most popular kid in school!

  “Rotwang, here is today’s plan,” Odifin said now. “We have a free day, so let’s go to the library Brain Bank. I want to study for the trivia contest.”

  Rotwang frowned. “Do we have to go to the library? You said I could play video games today.”

  “I know, Rotwang, but this is important,” Odifin said. “I need to study if I’m going to win the contest.”

  “You’re already smart,” Rotwang said, and Odifin suspected that his assistant was just buttering him up.

  “I need to be the smartest,” Odifin said. “The smartest brain in the world! And I need you to help me plug into the ports in the Brain Bank.”

  Rotwang sighed. “Yes, Odifin,” he said.

  “Excellent!” Odifin said. “Now hurry up and stuff that food down your throat. We need to get going.”

  Rotwang ate as fast as someone can eat a dozen pancakes, a pound of bacon, a whole cantaloupe, and two dozen crispy hash browns.

  “Honestly, Rotwang, I don’t know how you are so skinny,” Odifin said. “It’s physically impossible.”

  Rotwang shrugged. “Genes, I guess.”

  “What does an assistant know about genes?” Odifin snapped. “Come on. Let’s get to the Brain Bank.”

  The Brain Bank was Odifin’s favorite place in the school, probably because everybody in it looked like him. The room was filled with nothing but brains floating in jars of liquid. These brains couldn’t see or talk like Odifin could—his mom had said that he, Odifin, had been created using much more advanced technology than those in the Brain Bank. But students could plug their tablets into ports on the brain jars and download information to help them study. Odifin didn’t use a tablet; anything electronic he used for studying was plugged directly into a port on his jar, and shot right into his brain.

  Once they were in the Brain Bank, Odifin asked, “Where should we start, Rotwang?” Rotwang just shrugged, so Odifin continued. “Mumtaz said the first trivia category will be Unconventional Chemistry. So let’s find the brain of Elvira Mixenhooper. She’s one of the greatest unconventional chemists of all time.”

  Rotwang slowly walked around and squinted at the brains. “Is it this one?”

  Odifin rolled over to him. “No, that’s not Elvira Mixenhooper. That’s Elvena Mixelheimer, a molecular time travel pioneer! Find me Elvira!”

  Rotwang moved down the row. “Here she is.”

  Odifin rolled over to the brain of Elvira Mixenhooper. It looked like an ordinary brain, but Odifin knew that it contained a wealth of information that he wouldn’t be able to find in any book.

  “Plug me in!” Odifin commanded.

  Rotwang quickly attached a connector to Elvira’s port, and plugged the other end into Odifin’s jar, and Odifin felt his nerve endings tingle. Then he heard a female voice in his brain.

  Hello, young man. Or should I say, young brain?

  “I am Odifin Pinkwad,” he replied.

  How is it that you are on wheels, Odifin? That looks like a lot of fun.

  “It’s a long story,” Odifin replied. “Right now I need you to tell me everything you know about Unconventional Chemistry.

  Certainly, Elvira said. It’s been a long time since any student has connected with me. Although, I do hope that you will tell me about those wheels of yours when I’m through.

  Then Elvira began a lecture on Unconventional Chemistry. Unlike other kids, Odifin didn’t need to take notes. The information went right into his memory banks, and he was able to call up those memories at will. His mom said that was one reason why he was the smartest boy in the world.

  Elvira went on and on about her experiments and inventions. Plant food that helped carrots grow to be twelve feet long. Perfume that changed the appearance of the person wearing it. Peanut butter that was altered to taste like jelly, and jelly that was altered to taste like peanut butter.

  Elvira had a lot to say, and Odifin absorbed every word. After a few hours, Elvira gave no sign that she was going to stop anytime soon.

  “Excuse me,” Odifin said. “How much longer will this take?”

  It all depends on how much you want to know, Odifin, Elvira replied. I have at least forty-two more hours of information for you. And I’m not the only Unconventional Chemistry expert in here. There’s Klaus Widdershins, and Romeo Yolando, and—

  “I understand,” Odifin said. At this rate, Odifin realized, it would take him forever to get ready for the contest! But there was nothing he could do about that. “Continue, please.”

  Elvira started to lecture again, but a squeaking sound interrupted her. Odifin looked away from Elvira to see Rotwang drawing on one of the brain jars with a marker.

  “Rotwang, what are you doing?” Odifin asked. Then he noticed that his assistant had drawn eyeglasses and a mustache onto the jar of the school’s first Harnessing the Power of Lightning professor. “Are you serious? Stop that!”

  “But… I’m bored,” Rotwang complained. “There’s nothing to do in here.”

  “Go get a book from the library to read,” Odifin snapped. “But come right back. After I’m done with Elvira, I need you to hook me up to Ignatius Nakamura. He’s known as the father of Heretical Electricity.”

  “Books are boring,” Rotwang grumbled, but he slunk away and came back a few minutes later with a copy of How to Overthrow Your Overlords in Ten Easy Steps.

  “Thank you, Elvira,” Odifin said. “I need to move on now.”

  You’re welcome, Odifin. Now if you could tell me more about those wheels of yours—

  “Rotwang, connect me to Ignatius, now!” Odifin commanded.

  Rotwang removed the connector and followed Odifin as he rolled over to Ignatius Nakamura’s jar. Rotwang had drawn an eyepatch over one of the floating eyeballs and a grinning mouth with huge front teeth.

  “Really, Rotwang?” Odifin asked.

  Rotwang just shrugged and plugged in the connector, and Odifin heard the voice of Ignatius.

  It said, Excuse me, young man! Can you pleas
e clean my jar? I can’t see out of my right eye!

  Odifin sighed and thought, Once I’m popular, I’ll have friends to help me out, for once. No more Rotwang!

  CHAPTER 3 Mysterious Mumtaz

  “Peewee! Stop chewing on Theremin’s leg!” Shelly scolded. “Bad monster!”

  A furry blue monster that was the size of a small cat froze mid-munch, and then scurried to hide behind the leaves of a potted plant. Newton, Shelly, Theremin, and Higgy were in Shelly’s mostly secret animal rescue lab in the school basement. Headmistress Mumtaz knew about it, and so did Professor Gertrude Leviathan, who taught monster-making. Shelly was great at making monsters, but she also loved to bio-upgrade animals that had been injured, and then release them into the wild.

  The animals currently living in the lab were: an iguana with a robotic tail that could warn him when a dangerous animal was sneaking up behind him; a fish in a glass bubble equipped with mechanical legs; and Peewee, the furry blue monster that had once followed Shelly home when she was on vacation.

  Shelly had equipped the lab with artificial sunlight, a small pond, and plants from the animals’ native environments.

  “It’s a bit stuffy down here,” Higgy complained. “Is there a reason why we’re meeting in Shelly’s lab?”

  “Privacy,” Shelly answered. “If Flubitus won’t tell Newton who his relative is, there must be a reason. So if we’re going to find out who it is, we need to keep our search a secret. Maybe Newton’s relative doesn’t want him to find out either.”

  That thought hadn’t occurred to Newton yet, and it made him sad. “I hope whoever is related to me will, you know, be happy about it,” he said.

  “I know I would be,” Theremin said.

  “Secrecy it is, then,” Higgy said. “I hope you understand if I unwind, then.” Without waiting for an answer, he took off his hat and goggles, unwrapped the bandages around his face, and then replaced his goggles. “That’s better.”

  “Good!” said Newton.

  “Great. Okay, so let’s start with what we know,” Shelly said, and she tapped the screen of her tablet. A holographic list projected into the air:

  1. NEWTON DOESN’T KNOW WHERE HE CAME FROM.

  2. NEWTON HAS A BAR CODE ON HIS FOOT.

  3. NEWTON HAS SUPERHUMAN ABILITIES.

  4. FLUBITUS TRAVELED THROUGH TIME TO MAKE SURE NEWTON STAYS SAFE.

  5. FLUBITUS SAYS NEWTON HAS A RELATIVE IN THE SCHOOL.

  “Did I forget anything?” Shelly asked.

  “You forget to mention that Newton has an awesome friend named Theremin,” Theremin replied.

  “And a roommate named Higgy,” Higgy added.

  “Those things are true, but they’re not relevant to the problem we’re trying to solve,” Shelly said. “If Newton has family in the school, maybe they have amnesia too. Or special abilities. Or maybe they look like Newton.”

  “Looks don’t necessarily mean anything,” Higgy said. “I don’t look a thing like my brother. He’s chartreuse, and I’m lime green.”

  “Isn’t the best way to tell if humans are related is to test their DNA?” Theremin asked.

  “Of course!” Shelly and Higgy shouted.

  Newton frowned. “What’s DNA?”

  Theremin’s eyes flashed blue as he accessed his data banks. “ ‘DNA’ stands for ‘deoxyribonucleic acid,’ ” he responded. “It’s, like, the stuff in your cells that contains all your genetic information—the things you inherited from your parents that determine how you look and how your body works.”

  “Right,” Higgy said. “And anyone who is genetically related to you will share some of the same DNA.”

  Newton’s mind was whirring. This DNA stuff meant that he could know for sure who his relative was. No guessing.

  “How do you look at someone’s DNA if it’s in their cells? That sounds painful,” Newton said.

  “You can test for DNA using a strand of hair, or saliva,” Theremin said. “The test itself is complicated, but collecting DNA is pretty easy.”

  “I could sneak into everyone’s rooms and steal their toothbrushes,” Higgy offered.

  “That would be hundreds of toothbrushes—and gross,” Shelly said. “Besides, DNA testing is expensive. Unless… maybe we could use the school’s lab.”

  “That lab is off-limits to all students except for seniors,” Theremin pointed out. “Mumtaz would never let us use it.”

  “What about Mumtaz?” Newton asked. “I mean, we haven’t asked her yet who my relative is. If Flubitus knows, she must know.”

  “And if she doesn’t, she could arrange to have everyone’s DNA tested for us,” Shelly said. “It’s worth a try!”

  “Definitely. Let’s go talk to her!” Newton said.

  After making sure all of Shelly’s creatures had fresh water and food, they left the rescue lab and made their way up to Mumtaz’s office.

  “Wait a minute. It’s the weekend,” Newton said. “She won’t be there.”

  “She’s always there,” Theremin said. “She says that she’s headmistress twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.”

  Newton knocked on her office door. A tiny drone floated down in front of them and scanned each one of their faces. Then her voice came through a speaker.

  “Come in, Newton, Shelly, Theremin, and Higgy.”

  They entered and sat in the metal chairs across from her desk. As usual, the headmistress wore clothes as colorful as her orange-and-purple-streaked hair. Her fuchsia blouse had bright green leopard spots on it, and she wore a chunky necklace with alternating blue and red beads.

  “What can I do for you?” Mumtaz asked.

  “You can DNA test everyone at Franken-Sci High for us,” Theremin blurted out.

  Mumtaz raised her eyebrows. “And why would I need to do that?”

  “Professor Flubitus told me that I have a relative here at the school,” Newton explained, “but he wouldn’t tell me who, so I’m trying to find out. Unless you know?”

  The eyes of the headmistress flickered for a nanosecond. “I know nothing about this,” she said. “Perhaps Flubitus was confused. Time travel has a way of turning your brain inside out.”

  Newton’s heart sank. “I don’t think he would say that if it weren’t true,” he said. “He knows how much it means to me to find my family.”

  “Well, even if he is right,” Mumtaz began, “I’m afraid DNA testing every biological unit in this school is simply not possible. First off, it’s a very time-consuming, expensive process.”

  “We’ll raise the money,” Shelly said.

  “Yes, we could do a bake sale!” Higgy offered. “Or perhaps a yogurt sale. Mmm, yogurt.”

  Mumtaz shook her head. “That’s not the only reason. Collecting DNA from students has been banned for decades, ever since Horatio Doppelganger tried to use students’ DNA to create a clone army of mad scientists to do his bidding.”

  “I’ve never heard of Horatio Doppelganger,” Shelly said.

  “He’s been erased from all history books, because we don’t want any students trying to duplicate his experiments,” she replied. “I’ve already told you too much.” She stood up. “Now, if I were you, I’d put this idea out of your mind and start studying for the Brilliant Brains Trivia Competition. Off you go!”

  “But—” Newton protested.

  “Off. You. Go,” Mumtaz said firmly, with a look that reminded Newton more of a bird of prey than of any tropical songbird.

  The four friends left Mumtaz’s office.

  “Well, that was a dead end,” Shelly said. “Don’t worry, Newton. We’ll find some other way to figure out who your secret relative is.”

  “Do we have to do it now?” Higgy asked. “I wouldn’t mind studying for the trivia contest. That set of encyclopedias is an awesome prize.”

  Shelly nodded. “Yeah, there are three whole volumes on monsters.” Then she frowned. “But we should really help Newton.”

  “No, go study,” Newton urged.

&
nbsp; “Come with us!” Theremin said.

  “Nah, it’s okay,” Newton said. “I don’t think I’m going to enter the contest anyway. I don’t have enough facts in my head to win without using the whole noodle-you-know-what thing. And that feels like cheating.”

  “It’s not cheating!” Theremin argued. “It’s part of who you are.”

  Newton shrugged. “I’m not really sure who I am, Theremin,” he said. “See you guys later.”

  Feeling discouraged, Newton turned and walked away from his friends, outside the school, and back to his dorm room. He climbed to the top bunk and stared at the ceiling.

  Mumtaz had said she didn’t know anything about his relative, but he wasn’t sure if he believed her. She seemed to be connected to everything else that had happened to Newton. But if she wasn’t going to help him, how was he going to find his family member?

  What had Theremin said about DNA? It determined how you looked. Higgy had said that family members didn’t always look alike, but Newton knew that sometimes they did. Shelly looked like a mini version of her mom. Debbie Danning and her twin brother, Donnie Danning, had the same brown hair, the same turned-up noses, and around the same number of freckles.

  Newton sat up and grabbed his tablet. He pressed a button, and a hologram of the student and teacher directory appeared in front of him. It had a photo of every student, along with their name and grade, as well as every teacher and the name of the classes they taught.

  “Okay, let’s see who looks like me,” Newton said out loud. “We’ll start with the As. Adam Atomico.”

  The 3-D image of a short, chubby boy with light brown skin, dark brown eyes, and curly black hair popped up in midair and revolved in front of Newton.

  Newton looked down at his tall, thin, pale-skinned body. Nope. And Newton had green eyes, not brown. He did have black hair, but it had a white streak.

  Probably not, Newton thought with a sigh. He swiped his tablet, and Amy Azerath replaced Adam Atomico.