Popular Clone, page 4
She strode quickly back to her chair, and Fisher scurried off behind her. The pro-restaurant team looked at one another, and began chattering among themselves and scribbling notes, trying to rethink their tactics.
“Nice job, Amanda,” said Theresa Keller, brushing her red bangs out of her eyes. The rest of the team complimented her. It was obvious she had won the debate for them.
“Good work!” said Fisher, handing her back her pen.
“Thanks. I just need to make a few posters to tell people about the protest I’m going to stage in the parking lot of the new King of Hollywood, and hopefully I’ll get at least a decent crowd to—Ew, Fisher, what is this?” She was about to scribble a few notes when she let out an exclamation of disgust, holding the pen by its cap as though it were a dead cockroach. The other debate team members crowded around to look. Fisher looked at the pen he had handed back to her, and then down at his own hands, in horror. Both had bits of Einstein’s and Heisenberg’s droppings all over them. His face turned fire-engine red.
“Remind me not to lend you my toothbrush!” said Jen Keller, giggling.
“It’s m-mouse poop!” stuttered Fisher. “I had to feed Granger’s mice today!” The other kids were starting to break down into fits of laughter.
“Ugh, and all these little white hairs on here, too,” Amanda said. “Fisher, I’m allerg—” Her words were cut off by a sudden sneeze. She raised her hand, barely able to ask to be excused in between sneezes, and then tore out of the room, sneezing every few steps. Fisher’s teammates were still laughing and pointing at him.
At that moment, Fisher wished that he were a rodent himself. He would find a deep, dark hole, burrow into it, and hibernate. Forever.
His day went downhill from there.
He was bumped into by no fewer than four people as he made the long journey to the bathroom to wash his hands, and then four more on the way back to his locker, including Wally Dubel, who sweetened the deal by shoving Fisher into the wall and grunting, “Move it, loser.”
Usually, bricks were a building material but apparently Wally had decided that one would make a good substitute for a brain. Fisher trudged to his locker, trying to distract himself from his dark mood with theorems and mental calculations.
Assuming a rate of naturally selected brain expansion consistent with early Homo sapiens development, Wally Dubel’s descendants should be able to fit into modern-day society in approximately 134,000 years, assuming the presence of suitable breeding partners, which is unlikely.
On the way to his locker, he glanced up and immediately felt his throat seize and his chest tighten. Veronica Greenwich. The last time he’d seen her had been moments before diving into a shrub. This time, he promised himself, he would actually smile at her. Maybe he would even talk to her.
But the feeling of warmth in Fisher’s chest turned to cold revulsion when he saw Veronica was already talking to someone. Chance Barrows.
Chance Barrows, who had a golden aura radiating out from his blond hair. Tall, athletic, with a smile that could make plants grow. Always accompanied by a pack of girls who wanted to be closer to him, and boys who thought that if they stood in his presence they might absorb some of his holy Chance Barrows-ness.
Fisher’s stomach twisted as Veronica let out a chiming laugh in response to something Chance had said. Fisher spun around and stormed off in the opposite direction, forgetting all about his locker.
To add insult to injury, with Mr. Granger out sick, Fisher had no choice during lunch but to brave the off-white, leaky-ceilinged, straw-wrapper-strewn wasteland that was the cafeteria. When the time came, he took his place in line between two elbows that reached almost to his head.
He shuffled forward in line, trying to pick out one or two things that looked marginally digestible. He ended up with a turkey sandwich that was about 93 percent bread with a membranous layer of what may at some point in the past have been turkey, some stale chips, and a small carton of chocolate milk.
Fisher looked over the crowded tables, each occupied by one of Fisher’s carefully observed and named groups. The Aristocracy sat around the sole round table in the corner with the best windows. They wore clothing that most students’ parents couldn’t even afford for themselves, the kind with a single European name on the tag. They didn’t pick on Fisher for the same reason that they didn’t pick on potted plants. This was where people like Chance Barrows sat.
In the middle of the cafeteria was the two-table domain of the Legion. These were the largest athletes, the ones whose mental capacity was even smaller than their necks. Fisher would have to constantly dodge elbows if he sat there.
At the smaller table nearest the door sat the Urchins. They wore torn hoodies and band T-shirts with words like skeleton and witch in their names. They enjoyed being thought of as delinquents, even though the worst crime any of them had actually committed was putting Krazy Glue on a chalkboard eraser so that it stuck when the teacher tried to use it.
Finally, there was the uneven-legged table by the trash cans. Its sole occupant was Gassy Greg. Of course. The kid was cursed with the world’s most troubled digestive tract. But if Fisher was lucky he would be able to sit down, eat, and leave in between Greg’s “eruptions.”
He moved toward the table and almost jumped in the air when he caught sight of Leroy the Viking bearing down on him. Fisher braced himself for impact, but Leroy just swiped his chocolate milk. “Trade ya,” he said, putting a carton of the cafeteria’s regular, unappetizing, and probably past-expiration milk down in its place.
Fisher let out a small sigh of relief. All things considered, he’d gotten off easy. He took his seat, exchanging mumbled greetings with Greg, and tried to get his teeth to cut into the spongy bread of his sandwich.
Greg, in spite of his volcanic intestines, still sat a little above Fisher on the Wompalog social ladder. His father worked at TechX, and all the kids liked to wonder what he did there all day. Greg was the only Wompalog student who had ever been inside the TechX compound, and he kept what he’d seen to himself, which only made the other kids pay him more attention.
let:
D = density of farts
C = circumference of Greg’s stomach bloating
Q = quantity of beans consumed (in liters)
R = quantity of roughage consumed (soluble fiber in grams)
W = weight in kgs
X = measurable day, where Monday = 1, Tuesday = 2, Wednesday = 3, etc.
y = day of most recent turd
T = # of turds
f = frequency of farts, in farts/min (fpm)
NOTE: Add additional variable mx2 for days when cafeteria serves tacos (every other Wednesday)
Greg grinned at Fisher, squinting his narrow blue eyes and showing his Dorito-colored teeth. Uh-oh. Doritos were a known trigger for Gassy Greg’s condition. Fisher decided he better eat his sandwich as quickly as he could.
“Hey, Fisher.” That voice. That bell-like, clear voice. Fisher’s internal organs tap-danced around each other as he looked up and saw Veronica Greenwich, smiling at him. And talking to him. In public.
He tried to greet her in four or five different ways at the same time, then settled on nodding and smiling back, trying to keep his knees from knocking under the table.
“I was wondering if you could give me a hand with one of the science questions from last night’s homework before class starts,” Veronica said, lightly moving a strand of her long, blond hair out of her eyes. She sat down across from him, hardly noticing her proximity to Gassy Greg. Fisher could barely breathe, and his mouth felt like it was coated with sandpaper. He took a huge swig of milk and straightened up as Veronica got out her worksheet.
Suddenly, Fisher couldn’t recall a single word in the English language. In a panic, he looked down at his watch. In addition to the compliment generator that had almost gotten him caught in Granger’s closet, there was one button designed to measure the freshness of his breath, and a third that, when pressed, would suggest conversational topics and witty greeting lines. And he needed a greeting line.
Quickly tapping his watch, he looked up into her eyes, put on his best smile, and said, “Your breath is below acceptable social levels.”
“What?” she said, looking puzzled. He stuttered a bit, looking down and realizing that he’d pressed the FRESH BREATH button instead of the GREETING LINES button. Great.
“Uh … I said, I’d accept the chance to help you with your grade level. Happy to help.” Fisher tried to keep his voice from squeaking, and quickly popped a Tic Tac in his mouth. “So in question one …”
Grrrrrrl, his stomach growled loudly. Fisher cringed; he was sure Veronica must have heard. The butterflies in his stomach continued their frantic flapping, as they did whenever Veronica was in the same county. He took a deep breath. “In question one, it asks for a brief explanation of Newton’s first law.”
“I’m not sure I understand the principle well enough to properly word it,” Veronica said, and as always Fisher marveled at the elegance of her speech.
“Well, to understand inertia you need to consider objects in both possible states, moving and still, and—”
Fisher broke off as once again his stomach gave an enormous, churning growl. Sweat began to bead on his forehead. Veronica was smiling at him encouragingly, and he felt the butterflies beating their wings faster. With some effort he wrenched his eyes away from hers and back down to the paper.
It was only then that he realized something was wrong. His stomach wasn’t filled with butterflies—more like a swarm of angry hornets. He leaned forward, wrapping an arm around his stomach, willing the hornets to calm down.
“Fisher?” Veronica said. “Is something wrong?”
A few tables away, he saw Leroy, Brody, and Willard smiling wickedly at him. Leroy was rattling a small plastic bottle.
Fisher tried to say, I’m fine, when he felt a violent, cramping heave, and the sandwich and everything else he had eaten all day came right back up, on the table, on the homework, and on Veronica’s clothes and backpack. Veronica leapt up with a horrified yelp. Her face was contorted with disgust. She looked at him as though he were a pile of vomit, and then, grabbing her things, bolted for the bathroom to try and clean off.
Fisher frantically pressed a button on the side of his watch, desperately trying to deploy his emergency escape jet pack. Nothing. He clearly hadn’t perfected the gadget yet.
It was no use. Everyone had seen, anyway.
Laughter. Laughter roaring all around him.
“Ew!”
“Did you see that?”
“Foul, Fisher! Totally foul!”
Fisher sprang from his seat and fled the cafeteria. Even after he had made it into the hallway, Leroy’s, Willard’s, and Brody’s leering faces still seemed to hover in front of him tauntingly. Whatever was in that plastic bottle had ended up in Fisher’s milk carton, and then, all over his crush, in the form of acrid, vile vomit.
So much for getting off easy. This was the slimy garbage pile at the bottom of the hill Fisher had been tumbling down all day. No—all his life.
And he was not going to stand for it anymore.
CHAPTER 5
Dear Stanford Admission Community— My name is Fisher Bas, and although I have not yet taken my SATs—or even entered high school—I would like to once again petition seriously and earnestly to be admitted to your undergraduate program …
—College application, third attempt
Fisher kept running. He barreled down the corridor as other kids dodged and leapt out of his way. His stomach still felt like he was skydiving with a grand piano for a parachute.
Rows of lockers stood on either side like sinister metal walls. They glared down at him with their off-beige faces. The air vents looked like snootily upturned nostrils.
He barged through the double doors at the school’s entrance. He continued his dash down the walkway and turned onto the sidewalk without slowing down.
He couldn’t imagine going back to school again—ever. He would keep running and running, racing as fast as his short legs could take him on a straight line away from the school until he’d reached the exact opposite spot on the planet.
And once he got there he would build a towering spacecraft with a module on top just big enough for him, and its massive rockets would fling him farther away from his middle school than any human being had ever been from anything.
After a few more blocks, Fisher slowed to a walk. He had calmed down a little, but his mind was unchanged. He had a three-day weekend ahead of him. But if this was the way things were going to be at school from now on, nothing could get him to return—not on Tuesday, not on Wednesday. Never. He would rather go to jail. He would rather get a job.
As Fisher passed TechX labs, he watched as a squad of robots marched in perfect lockstep out of one giant door, across the concrete surface surrounding the building.
One day, Fisher thought, he would create his own robotic army to follow in his wake and do his will. He could see it clearly: Robots pursuing the Vikings and tossing them headfirst into garbage cans. Robots tying the Vikings up in the gym and playing “It’s a Small World After All” over the loudspeakers for twelve straight hours. Robots and Vikings in a baseball game: robots as players, Vikings as baseballs.
It wasn’t until Fisher was home that he remembered his backpack, which was still sitting in the cafeteria. By now the Vikings had probably found it and were filling it with the vilest things they could find. Although they would be hard pressed to find China on a map of China, they were quite talented at locating all things disgusting.
Fisher stumbled into the kitchen, determined to eat anything he could find that was bad for his dental health. Certain times in life called for a mix of chocolate and Day-Glo-colored cheese crackers, and this was one of them.
Unfortunately, the closest thing to junk food he could find as he dug through shelves and pantries was his father’s newest culinary innovation, Cookie-in-a-Thermos. The clear liquid inside the thermos tasted enough like a cookie, but Fisher wanted something he could chew. He kept searching until the clattering woke up one of the kitchen’s permanent occupants.
“Young Fisher! Have I overslept, or are you home early?” Fisher looked up at the toaster, which looked essentially like any other toaster with the exception of two white, glowing eyes that had appeared on one of its sides, and a small speaker grille that functioned as a mouth.
The toaster was one of his mother’s early experiments in sentient appliances. It—or he—brightened their mornings with clever wit, delivered in a clipped, upper-class British dialect. He was far friendlier than the refrigerator.
“Hey, Lord Burnside,” Fisher said with a sigh. “I’m home from school early. I guess you could say I gave myself an unscheduled vacation.”
“Oh!” said the toaster. “Lovely.” Fisher continued to scowl at the floor, giving up his search. “Fisher, are you quite well? You don’t seem to be pleased by your impromptu time off.” The glowing spots narrowed slightly. It was the closest approximation to a look of concern that Lord Burnside was capable of. Fisher sighed again.
“I ran away. I couldn’t stand to be in school anymore so I came back here to escape.”
“I say! Was something bothering you, dear boy?”
“Vikings.”
The glowing spots widened in surprise. “Goodness me! I have only the most basic of historical knowledge, but I was under the impression that those Norsemen had not been around for hundreds of years. If they have come back, I should worry for all our sakes, and I dare say you are fortunate to have escaped with your life.”
Fisher cracked a narrow smile for the first time in what felt like days.
“Not real Vikings, Burnside. A group of dumb, ugly boys whose only source of satisfaction in their dumb, ugly lives is to torment people less ugly and dumb than themselves. They just call themselves that to feel cool and tough.”
Lord Burnside clicked his toast basket up and down, a curious method he had developed to express sadness.
“I am indeed sorry to hear that, young sir.” He paused for a moment. “I’m afraid I don’t quite know how to advise you in this matter. I am rather untutored in human interaction, and my only real expertise lies in the realm of darkening bread.”
“That’s okay,” Fisher said. He did actually feel a little better. “This is something I have to get myself out of. I don’t think anybody can really help me.”
Burnside waggled his eyespots vertically in a sort of nod.
“Do you have any bread you need to be darker? I would be only too happy to oblige, if that might help lift your spirits.”
“Not at the moment.” Fisher patted the toaster lightly. “Maybe tomorrow morning.”
“But of course, young sir. I would advise you to consult with your parents on this matter, but I’m afraid they’re both out. Your mother is at her genetics lab in town, and your father is in all likelihood tramping through mud looking for new amphibian species, the dear fellow.”
“Thanks for listening, Lord B.”
“Anytime, my dear boy.” Lord Burnside’s eyespots winked out as he returned to sleep mode.
Having at last located a half-finished bag of Cheetos and some hot chocolate, Fisher walked out of the kitchen. His fury had cooled to a low, smoldering anger.
Fisher’s parents were out, which meant that Fisher had free rein of the whole house. A small side door beyond the living room led to a narrow spiral staircase that wound down to Fisher’s father’s basement laboratory.
