“But, we’ve never been on a date. How do you even know if you like me?” Marvin asked.
“Don’t be naive,” Fatima said. “Dating isn’t about liking people.”
“Well, what is it about, then?”
“Don’t confuse the issue,” she said. “I’ll be wearing blue. Try not to clash.”
“What color goes best with awkward?” Marvin asked. Fatima glared at him but didn’t answer.
A steam whistle cut through the night. In the moonlight, a long freight train rumbled across the sleepy countryside outside Butcherville toward its destination, PLI Meat-Processing Facility 44. The engineer knew the delivery was right on schedule. He prided himself on running his trains like clockwork. In exactly thirty-four minutes, he would drop off his cargo and be done for the night.
He blew the whistle again as the train approached a railroad crossing. Then, in the train’s headlights, he saw a vehicle stopped in the middle of the tracks. The engineer, panicking, pulled the brake. The train screeched and shrieked as it ground to a halt, stopping just inches from the obstruction. Disaster averted, the engineer wiped the sweat from his forehead with trembling hands and climbed outside to see what had happened.
Parked on the tracks was a Volkswagen bus, painted black and white to look like a Holstein cow. The word “PorkPeace” was emblazoned across it. Surrounding the van were a dozen college-age kids, who were chanting, “Hey, hey! Ho, ho! P-L-I has got to go!” and “One, two, three, four! Don’t eat cows anymore!”
“That’s a terrible slogan,” said the engineer.
The students stopped chanting, and one of them elbowed a tall, skinny youth who was wearing a T-shirt with a picture of Mr. Piggly Winks in the middle of a red circle with a slash through it. “I told you that was lame,” said the first student.
“What’s this all about?” asked the engineer. “You kids could have gotten yourselves killed.”
“It would have been a small sacrifice to save the lives of those innocent cows,” said the ringleader.
“Speak for yourself!” said a student in the back of the crowd.
“Well, I’m just glad nobody was hurt,” said the engineer. “Now, do you mind moving your cow-van off the tracks so I can be on my way?”
“No can do. We’re not moving this van until all those cows in your train are set free!”
“Set free? Are you crazy?” said the engineer. “Have you ever seen a stampede, son?”
“No, but I’ve seen the stampede of corporate greed that tramples this town every day!”
“Well, okay,” said the engineer, shaking his head. He walked back to the cab of the engine and radioed the police.
Meanwhile, back in the long chain of cattle cars, all the cows were still peacefully asleep. All except for Bovina, or, as the plastic tag pinned to her ear indicated, Number 2378. She had restless bovine syndrome, which meant she slept lightly or not at all. Bovina noticed that the train had stopped, and she did not like it one bit. She chewed her cud uneasily and stared into the haunches of the cow in front of her.
Overhead, a hatch in the roof of the cattle car creaked open. With a shuffling noise, a dark shape filled the moonlit hatchway and then dropped into the car. A long, silvery line stretched down from the open hatch. Bovina heard a startled mooing from the front of the car, but couldn’t see what was going on. The mooing stopped, and she watched as the dark shape scurried back up the line, with a much larger shape in tow. Again and again, the shape returned, pulling her herdmates from the car. Finally, she was the only one left.
“Moo!” Bovina called in alarm. She saw the shape descend once more, and she backed into the farthest corner of the train car.
“The ox hath therefore stretch’d his yoke in vain,” said the shadowy shape. “The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn hath rotted!”
Sharp fangs plunged into Bovina’s neck, and she suddenly felt much less restless. As she was hoisted into the air by a silver thread, she wondered what she had been so worried about, and fell into the first—and last—sound sleep of her life.
On Monday, Lee wobbled into the cafetorium, his shirt on backward. On his way to the lunch table, he bumped into three different students, two tables, and a wall. Finally, he settled himself into his seat across from Marvin. His eyes were glazed and unfocused.
“How you feeling, Lee?” Marvin asked.
“I’ve been better,” Lee said.
“You actually don’t smell so bad,” Marvin said.
“That’s great, but I sure am glad I don’t have to keep this up much longer.”
“You could try,” said Fatima, who walked up to the table with her arms full of laboratory gear. “The human body can go without food for about sixty days. But it would make an interesting science experiment if you tried to break the record.”
“That doesn’t sound like a good idea,” said Lee.
“You’re right,” said Fatima. “That would take too long; our results are due next week.”
She turned to Marvin. “Here’s some juicy gossip: I heard that Barry Walsh’s dad got a speeding ticket.”
“You don’t say,” Marvin said. “Does that really qualify as ‘juicy’?”
Fatima looked at him for a long moment. “And you know what song I just love?” she said. “‘She’s Got a TICKET to Ride,’ by the Beatles.”
“Um, yeah,” Marvin said, raising his eyebrows. “That’s great. But maybe we should talk about Lee and the experiment?”
“Absolutely,” Fatima said. “When it comes to getting a good grade in our science lab, you could say that Lee is our meal ticket.” She looked at Marvin expectantly.
“Stop saying ‘ticket’ already,” Marvin said. “I bought the stupid tickets to the dance. They’re burning a hole in my backpack. See?” He pulled them out and waved them in the air briefly.
“Well,” she said, “I thought you might appreciate some subtle reminders. I didn’t want to nag.”
“Oh, I got my ticket, too,” Lee said. He fumbled in his pockets for a few moments. “It’s around here somewhere. I’m sure I could find it if I wasn’t so dizzy.”
“Have you really gone two days without eating?” Marvin asked.
“Thanks to Fatima, I was able to complete my task,” said Lee. “I think Fatima is just great. So sweet and thoughtful.”
“You really must not be feeling well,” said Marvin.
“Yeah, I have been a little woozy,” said Lee. “And I have been bumping into things a lot. But it’s okay. Fatima watches over me.”
“What the heck are you talking about?” Marvin asked, glancing from Lee to Fatima and back.
“I stopped by his house a few times to make sure he wasn’t eating,” Fatima said.
“My grandmother said she doesn’t know if she likes you watching me through binoculars,” said Lee. “But I still think you’re the best.”
“You spied on him through binoculars?” Marvin asked.
“In case I needed to intervene,” she said.
“What do you mean, ‘intervene’?”
“Well, at one point, I had to sneak into his house and scrape the food off his dinner plate when his grandmother wasn’t looking,” she said.
“How did you manage that?”
“It wasn’t easy,” she said. “It involved three broken windows and a ten-foot-long squeegee. But the important thing is, the integrity of the experiment has been preserved. Now, let’s get to work.” Fatima spread out her gear: notepad, pencil, digital camera, toothpicks, tape measure, empty plastic sandwich bags, and other odds and ends.
“What’s all that for?” Marvin asked.
“We need to follow the scientific method, per Miss Sweeney’s instructions,” Fatima said. She reached across and grabbed Lee’s lunch bag, emptying its contents onto the table.
“I thought we’d just shove some food in his mouth and see what happens,” Marvin said. “That’s how I get my science on.”
“So you’re a mad scientist, is th
at it?” Fatima said, scowling.
“Well, I don’t have a mountaintop fortress with a death ray, or anything—not for lack of trying, mind you—”
“We need to be methodical in the way we conduct this experiment,” Fatima said. “Science and recklessness don’t mix.”
“Look around you at the miracle of life, Fatima,” Marvin said. “Stars and galaxies spinning through the depths of space. Majestic mountains and sweeping plains teeming with plants and animals. The Pork Loaf Big ’Un, making everyone in a ten-foot radius salivate like a drooling baby! Do you think all that came about thanks to tape measures and toothpicks and careful notes?”
“The Big ’Un is not a miracle of life,” Fatima said.
“Big ’Un …” Lee muttered through the haze of his hunger. “Oh, you’re so wrong. I’d trade both of you for a Big ’Un right now.”
Marvin looked back at Fatima and said, “I just think the fundamental secrets of the universe are not that boring.”
“I did not imply that anything was boring, only orderly and rational,” Fatima said. “The universe holds itself together with laws and rules, and our job as young scientists is to uncover, catalogue, and appreciate those laws. There’s nothing boring about that.” Lee groaned in hunger and disagreement. “Now can we get on with this?” she continued. “Before Lee eats one of our arms?” She turned to their test subject. “First, we need to document all the food in your typical diet,” Fatima said. She unwrapped Lee’s sandwich. “Is this your usual lunch?”
Lee nodded. “My grandmother makes me a Pork Loaf sandwich every day.”
Fatima picked up a knife from her lunch tray and began slicing Lee’s sandwich into little pieces. She put small squares of each component—bread, cheese, tomato, Pork Loaf, and so on—into separate plastic bags and then photographed each one with her digital camera.
“Now, we start reintroducing Lee to food,” she said.
Marvin poked a cube of bread with a toothpick. He waved it in front of Lee’s face. “Hello, Lee, this is food! Hello, food, this is Lee!”
“Just give me the food!” said Lee.
“No, wait!” Fatima said sharply. “Don’t give it to him yet. We haven’t established a baseline.”
“What baseline?” asked Marvin.
“His baseline smelliness!” Fatima said.
“How do we measure that?” Marvin asked.
“Here, I’ll show you.” Fatima looked out into the aisle at a student who was passing by. “You, there! Volunteer!”
The student stopped. “Who, me?” he asked.
“How close would you stand to this boy?” She grabbed him by the elbow and shoved him right up next to Lee. “Is that close enough for you?”
“Yes, plenty close, thanks,” said the student. “Can I go now?”
“Not yet,” Fatima said. “Marvin—measure how far away he is from Lee and record it.” She slapped a tape measure into Marvin’s hand.
Marvin stretched the tape out between the subject and the volunteer. “Eight inches,” he said, then scribbled it down on the notepad.
“Thank you for your participation,” Fatima said, shoving the student back out into the aisle. “Now leave. Results will be published in due time.”
Fatima coerced several more passersby into volunteering, and Marvin measured and tallied the results. In Lee’s non-smelly state, people stood an average distance of twelve and a half inches away from him.
Meanwhile, as volunteer after volunteer was caught and released, Lee’s mouth was opening wider and wider with every passing minute. He stared at the cubes of sandwich parts spread out before him with a frantic look in his eyes. “Oh, feed me!” he finally cried. “Feed me! Feed me!”
“Can I feed him now?” Marvin asked Fatima.
“All right,” she said. “Go ahead.”
Marvin popped the cube of bread into Lee’s watering mouth. “Oh, food, glorious food!” Lee said as he munched. “White bread never tasted so good.”
They waited sixty seconds for any odor to surface, figuring that might be enough time. They noticed nothing. Fatima grabbed another student, and Marvin diligently measured the distance between Lee and the volunteer. “No change,” Fatima said. “Move on to the tomato.”
Marvin picked up a cube of tomato and dropped it onto Lee’s tongue. “Truly, this is the finest tomato,” Lee said. “The most juicy, the most flavorful, the most wonderful tomato that I’ve ever eaten!”
Again they measured the distance at which volunteers would be willing to stand next to Lee, and again there was no change. It was the same with the cheese, the lettuce, and the pickles.
“Nothing,” Marvin said. The only ingredient left on the table was a mound of pink cubes of Pork Loaf.
“Of course,” said Fatima. “By process of elimination, it must be the Pork Loaf. We’ve gotten no reaction from the previous five ingredients. We don’t even need to test it.”
“But is that scientific?” Marvin asked. “Seems kind of reckless.”
Fatima rolled her eyes at him. “Thank you for pointing that out, Marvin. No, it’s not scientific. We should actually test it.”
“For science!” shouted Lee, stabbing a Pork Loaf cube with a toothpick and plunging the meat into his open mouth.
All was still as Lee chewed and chewed and chewed at the lump of luncheon meat. The seconds ticked by, and there was no reaction.
Fifteen seconds.
Lee swallowed.
Thirty seconds.
“Anything?” Fatima asked, squinting at Lee.
“I feel fine,” Lee said, already eyeing the rest of his dismembered sandwich.
Forty-five seconds.
Marvin glanced at Fatima. “Well, I guess you were wrong, Fatima.”
“Time’s not up yet,” she said. “We need to wait a full minute if we’re going to be scientific.”
Fifty-nine seconds.
“So much for your theory,” Marvin said to Fatima. “I guess it’s not the—”
Just then, the cafetorium lights seemed to flicker and dim. Lee’s stomach gave out a low rumble.
“Guys? Guys?” said Lee. “Something’s happening …”
Fatima pulled out a pair of swimmer’s nose clips, snapped them into place, and ducked down, hugging her knees as though she were assuming an airline crash position.
As Marvin turned his head toward Lee, the stench rolled out from his lab partner like a sonic boom. It hit Marvin full in the face—a hot, dense, humid wind carrying the scents of a summer fish market and long-forgotten gym socks. The odor was a force of nature, like a hurricane or an erupting volcano. It overwhelmed the senses and made Marvin long for the comparatively tame smell of his baby brother’s diapers. He toppled backward out of his seat as though he had been slapped.
The wave spread out from Lee like ripples in a pond. The other schoolchildren, struck by the smell, tried to flee but were knocked down. They clawed and climbed and overturned tables in their haste to escape. The lunch ladies yelped and abandoned their posts. In short order, the entire population of the cafetorium was standing in a wide, clearly defined circle with Lee at its center—the boundary at which his odor was tolerable.
Marvin, still on the floor, began to crawl for the safety of that boundary.
“No! Measure! Measure!” Fatima cried in a nasal voice. Marvin groaned and turned around. He hooked the end of the tape measure into the collar of Lee’s shirt and ran as fast as he could for the nauseated crowd. But he was brought up short, with a sudden jerk, several feet from the nearest student.
“Well?” asked Fatima. “What’s the distance?”
“I don’t know,” Marvin said. “This is only a twelve-foot tape measure. It’s not long enough.”
“Do I have to do everything myself?” She walked over to where Marvin stood, marked the end of the tape measure on the floor with a pencil, and then measured the distance from that spot to the edge of the crowd. “There—eighteen feet, two inches.”
The
other students glared at Marvin and Fatima, clearly looking for some explanation. “My mom told me those hard-boiled eggs had gone bad,” Marvin said, shaking his head in mock regret, “but I didn’t listen to her.” Gradually, the smell began to weaken. Marvin and Fatima left the angry, muttering crowd and made their way back to the table.
“How about that,” Marvin said as he sat down. “It was the Pork Loaf, after all.”
Fatima pulled off her nose clips and glared at him. “I hate you.”
“Wait a minute,” Marvin said, suddenly troubled by the implications of their experiment. “Does this mean that there’s something wrong with Pork Loaf?”
“My hypothesis has always been that there’s something wrong with Pork Loaf,” said Fatima. “And here’s our first evidence.” She pointed at Lee.
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Lee said. They all stared with suspicion and dread at the cubes of Pork Loaf piled on the table.
“Can I eat the rest of my sandwich now?” Lee asked.
Another day at the zoo was ending, and the elephant’s keepers were gently herding him into his enclosure for the night. On any other day he would have put up a fuss, but today he was feeling a bit wistful and went quietly. Earlier, a small girl had tried to pass a hot dog to him, which had reminded him of the good old days at the Bronx Zoo, where he was born. He ran with a fast herd there, always getting into scraps with the other bulls. Now here he was serving out his remaining years stuck in this small-town zoo. The town was so boring that he was starting to forget things, which was pretty bad for an elephant. He had almost forgotten what a hot dog tasted like. The girl had pushed the dog between the bars in an attempt to give it to him. It was the perfect frank, with mustard and green relish, just the way he liked it. They didn’t serve much in this town besides Pork Loaf, so a real hot dog was a rare sight. But just as he reached over with his trunk to seize the delightful snack, the girl’s mother jerked the food away, admonishing her child: “Elephants don’t eat hot dogs!”
Marvin and the Moths Page 6
