Science Fair Read online

  “You could wake up,” said Tamara, “because you’d be dreaming. You’re not gonna win. One of them is gonna win.” She nodded toward the ME kids.

  “She’s right,” said Toby. “We don’t have a chance.” As he spoke, Jason Niles turned around and looked at him.

  “Hey, Hardbonger,” he called. “When I win the five grand, maybe I’ll buy you some decent shoes.”

  “If you win,” answered Toby, “maybe I’ll explain your project to you.”

  A bunch of kids laughed, including even some ME kids. Jason reddened, giving Toby a look that said: You’ll be sorry you said that.

  Toby knew he should have kept his mouth shut. But he was angry. Five thousand dollars meant nothing to Jason Niles’s family, but it would mean the world to Toby’s.

  Especially now.

  “I got an idea,” said Micah.

  “Uh-oh,” said Tamara.

  “No, really,” said Micah. “I’m gonna win it this year.”

  “How?” said Toby.

  Micah lowered his voice. “I’m gonna levitate a frog,” he said.

  Tamara shook her head sadly. “So young,” she said, “and already on drugs.”

  “No, really,” said Micah. “I read about it in Wikipedia. These Dutch scientists made a frog float in the air. It’s called dia…diamagnetism. You just need a frog and a magnet.”

  “He’s insane, right?” Tamara asked.

  “Actually, no,” said Toby. “Some guys did levitate a frog. But you need, like, a superpowerful magnet.”

  “So, Micah,” said Tamara, “do you have a superpowerful magnet?”

  “No,” said Micah.

  “I see,” said Tamara.

  “But I have a frog,” said Micah. “His name is Fester.”

  Tamara turned to Toby and said, “He has a frog.”

  “Well, then,” said Toby. “He’s halfway there.”

  IT WAS LUNCHTIME in the Hubble Middle School cafeteria, and Toby, Tamara, and Micah were sitting at the same table they always sat at, with the same kids they always sat with. At tables all around them several hundred other students were doing the same thing.

  Tamara examined the cafeteria’s featured lunch entrée, which consisted of yellowish brown lumps.

  “The menu says they’re nuggets,” she said. “But it doesn’t say what kind of nuggets.”

  “Chicken,” said Micah. He bit into one. “I think.”

  “Then why doesn’t the menu say chicken?” said Tamara. “For all we know it’s squirrel nuggets.”

  “If it’s squirrel,” said Micah, chewing, “it’s not bad.”

  “Maybe,” said David Wemplemeyer, whose nickname was Brad Pitt Wemplemeyer because he looked absolutely nothing whatsoever like Brad Pitt, “they don’t say what kind of nugget because there’s no meat at all. Maybe it’s just a blob of fried grease, a pure nugget, uncontaminated by food of any kind.”

  “Or maybe,” said Jennifer “Pencil” Wenzel—known as Pencil Wenzel, because she was very skinny, a redhead, and always wore yellow—“food scientists have created a new genetic mutant species of animal that’s actually called a ‘nugget.’ It’s this little hairless blob of meat that has no head or feet or anything, so it’s real easy to prepare. You just hit it with a hammer and pop it into the fryer.”

  Everyone laughed except Tamara.

  “I hear,” said Brad Pitt Wemplemeyer, “that they’re working on an improved nugget species that you don’t even have to hit with a hammer. You just whistle, and it rolls into the fryer on its own.”

  “That’s disgusting,” said Tamara.

  “Well, you’re the one who’s eating it,” said Brad Pitt Wemplemeyer.

  “Speaking of disgusting,” said Micah, “what’s your lunch today, Toby?”

  Toby was peering into a paper bag. His mom always packed his lunch. His parents believed cafeteria food was unhealthy. In fact, as a general rule they believed that any food humans enjoyed was unhealthy. On Halloween, they gave out carrot sticks. The day after Halloween, there were discarded carrot sticks all over their lawn and usually toilet paper on their house.

  Toby reached into the bag and pulled out something wrapped in a paper towel. He unwrapped it and, sighing, set it in front of him.

  Micah leaned over to have a look.

  “Toby,” he said, “did your mom send the wrong bag? Because that looks like a stool sample for the vet.”

  “It’s a tofu enchilada,” said Toby. Toby’s mom believed that tofu had a near-miraculous ability to masquerade as any other kind of food—that if a lump of tofu was shaped like something, it would also taste like that thing. Thanksgiving in Toby’s house was a nightmare.

  He was about to attempt to eat his tofu enchilada when he felt something cold and slimy land on his neck, followed by laughter from the Manor Estates kids’ table.

  He did not turn around.

  “What is it?” he said.

  The others examined his neck.

  “Yogurt,” said Pencil Wenzel. “Peach, I think.”

  Toby tore off a piece of the paper towel that held his tofu enchilada and wiped his neck.

  “Who threw it?” he said.

  Brad Pitt Wemplemeyer looked over at the ME table and said, “Judging from how hard he’s laughing, it’s The Ferret again.” The Ferret was Farrel Plinkett, who lately had begun amusing himself by flinging food at Toby’s table. The Ferret was also one of the few ME kids not physically capable of beating Toby up.

  “Okay then,” said Toby. He picked up his tofu enchilada and walked to the line of garbage and recycling cans at the end of the cafeteria. Then, staying by the wall, he walked all the way around to the other side of the cafeteria, so he could approach the ME kids’ table from the opposite direction. The ME kids didn’t see him coming; they were deep in conversation, hunched forward over the table, heads close together. The Ferret had his back to Toby. As Toby approached, Jason Niles was talking, sounding angry. Toby stopped as he heard:

  “Fifty dollars?” Jason was saying.

  “That’s what was in the note,” said Haley Hess. “Cash, put the envelope in the regular place, get your plans tomorrow.”

  “But fifty,” said Jason. “Last year it was twenty-five.”

  “Like you don’t have fifty dollars,” said Harmonee Prescott, who was considered to be almost as hot overall as Haley Hess, and hotter in some specific areas. “You just get the money from your dad anyway.”

  “I know,” said Jason, “but…”

  “Hey!” said Haley, noticing Toby. “What’s he doing here?”

  As the ME kids turned, Toby stepped forward and grabbed the back of The Ferret’s pants. The Ferret liked his pants loose and baggy, so there was plenty of room for Toby to pull the waistband out, deposit his tofu enchilada, and let go.

  “Hey!” shouted The Ferret, scrambling to his feet, hands groping his buttular area. “Hey!”

  The rest of the ME kids were also on their feet, with the boys, especially the massive Jason, moving toward Toby. The commotion quickly spread as kids all over the cafeteria stood to get a better view of what they hoped would be a fight.

  Toby was very much hoping there would not be a fight, at least not between him and Jason, who was advancing on him like a tank, only larger. Toby had been thinking more along the lines of a confrontation with The Ferret, but The Ferret was fully occupied with the problem of getting the enchilada out of his pants, not an easy thing. Jason had just about gotten into striking range when a voice shouted:

  “What is going on here?”

  The voice belonged to Mr. Pzyrbovich, an algebra teacher who was always called Mr. P, for obvious reasons. He had a heavy accent, which a lot of kids said made him hard to understand, although to be fair some of these kids would never have understood algebra anyway. Mr. P was always in a bad mood, but it was especially bad when he had cafeteria duty.

  “What is going on?” he repeated.

  Pencil Wenzel stepped forward, a look of deep fake
concern on her face.

  “Mr. P,” she said, “we’re all worried about The Ferret here, because he seems to have pooped his trousers.”

  Everyone looked at The Ferret. A brownish glop was oozing from his right pants leg onto the floor.

  “That’s not poop,” The Ferret said.

  “It certainly looks like poop,” said Brad Pitt Wemplemeyer.

  “It’s not,” said The Ferret. He pointed at Toby. “He put it in there!”

  “So what you’re saying,” said Pencil Wenzel reasonably, “is that Toby put the poop in your pants?”

  “IT’S NOT POOP!” said The Ferret.

  “Stop it! Stop all of this!” said Mr. P. He pointed at Toby. “Did you put that in his pants?”

  “Yes,” said Toby, “but he…”

  “Quiet!” said Mr. P. “You will have three detentions, starting today.”

  “But…”

  “Quiet!” Mr. P turned to The Ferret and said, “Go clean yourself up.” The Ferret turned to go. He brushed past Toby, and as he did, he said, “You’re dead, Hardbonger.”

  “Ooh!” said Toby, wiggling his hands to show fear. “Like on The Sopranos!”

  “I told you, quiet!” said Mr. P. “Now everybody sit down!” He looked down at the remains of Toby’s tofu enchilada, then yelled across the room: “Get over here and clean this floor!”

  A tall, thin man with long hair, a scraggly beard, and a vacant stare, dressed in a janitor’s uniform and flip-flops, shuffled across the cafeteria with a mop. This was J.D., which stood for Janitor Dude. J.D. was often held up to the students at Hubble Middle as an example of exactly why you should not mess with drugs. As he got to work, the students sat down, although the ME kids took the time to glare meaningfully at Toby. Finally, the cafeteria returned to its usual random clatter and conversation.

  “Well,” said Toby. “That went well.”

  “So you’re not worried that The Ferret’s gonna kill you?” said Brad Pitt Wemplemeyer.

  “I’m more worried about Jason the Giant,” said Toby.

  “Speaking of which,” he leaned in closer to the others, lowering his voice, “I heard him say something weird.”

  “What?” said Tamara.

  “Something about fifty dollars,” said Toby. “He and Haley were talking about it, and she said you had to put fifty dollars cash in an envelope, and put it some place, and then you’d get the plans.”

  “Plans for what?” said Micah.

  Tamara was staring at Toby. “The science fair,” she said.

  “That’s what I think,” said Toby. “They buy their project plans from somebody.”

  “Who?” said Micah.

  “They didn’t say,” said Toby. “Haley just said you put the money in the regular place, and you get the plans tomorrow.”

  “Do you think the regular place is here?” said Tamara. “At the school?”

  “I don’t know,” said Toby. “But I gotta stay for detention anyway. I’ll see if I notice anything.”

  “I would SO love to catch them cheating,” said Pencil Wenzel, glancing over at the ME table.

  Everybody nodded. They went back to their lunches, except for Toby, who had put his down The Ferret’s pants.

  “Nugget?” said Micah, offering a lump to Toby.

  “Thanks,” said Toby. He took a bite and chewed thoughtfully.

  “I think maybe it is squirrel,” he said.

  THE AFTERNOON WAS FADING, and the daytime clamor of Hubble Middle School had morphed into the quiet of evening. The main hallway was empty except for J.D., the Janitor Dude, who was swishing a filthy mop back and forth across the floor, thus making it wet but not actually cleaner.

  Toby was in the detention room along with fourteen other detainees serving time for various crimes, ranging from talking in class to keeping an unauthorized snake in a school locker. These detainees were, in theory, being supervised by Coach Furman, known to generations of Hubble students as Herman Furman, because (a) it rhymed, and (b) he looked a little like the patriarch of the Munster family. Coach Furman’s supervision consisted entirely of yelling “Keep it down!” if he heard anybody say anything. He never actually looked at the students; his attention was fully focused on his laptop computer, on which he was playing Internet poker for real money. Depending on what cards he held, Coach Furman might not have noticed if the detention students were engaging in ritual human sacrifice.

  This meant that Toby, sitting by the door, was free to observe the goings-on in the hallway outside the detention room. What was mainly going on was J.D. mopping the hallway.

  “You want a piece?”

  Toby turned and saw he was being offered a stick of gum by Malcolm Kornblatt, who held the Hubble School record for most detentions by a single student. He was always in for something, most recently an unsuccessful attempt to win a bet that he could flush an entire accordion down a boys’ room toilet. He would be in detention for the next few decades. Chewing gum was a school offense and punishable by detention, so it only made sense to Malcolm to chew gum while in detention.

  “No, thanks,” Toby said. “If I put that in my mouth, they’d carry me out on a stretcher. I’m allergic.”

  “For real?” said Malcolm.

  “I turn blue and can’t breathe,” said Toby. “It goes away pretty fast, but it’s scary.”

  “Hey, you could get out of detention!” said Malcolm, holding out the gum stick again.

  “Keep it down!” shouted Coach Furman, not looking up from the computer screen.

  Toby waved the gum away and went back to watching the hallway. Every few minutes somebody walked past, and Toby had noted with interest that these evening passersby included quite a few ME kids, a group not known for hanging around after school. Sometimes they were alone, sometimes in pairs; Toby saw at least four carrying envelopes. They all passed left to right, then a few minutes later went in the other direction—without envelopes.

  Toby thought about what was down that hall: some classrooms, a storage area…

  …and the faculty lounge.

  Toby frowned, trying to remember which teachers he’d seen since detention started. There’d been Miss Cooney, the French teacher who looked like she could be a student; Mr. Shroder, the science teacher; Mr. P, the algebra teacher; and Mrs. Cortinas, the Spanish teacher. But a lot of teachers were around after school, Toby knew; it might not mean anything.

  The detention students were all watching the clock now; fifteen pairs of eyeballs were focused on the minute hand, wishing it ahead to 4:27…4:28…4:29…and finally 4:30.

  “Umm,” said one of the braver detainees, “Coach Furman?”

  “Keep it down!” yelled Coach Furman, not looking up from the poker hand on his screen. All he needed was a diamond, any diamond.

  “But Coach…”

  “I said KEEP IT DOWN!” He clicked his mouse, watched the card turn. A spade. He banged his fist on the desk so hard that all fifteen students jumped. He looked at the detainees. Several pointed at the clock.

  “All right,” said Coach Furman. “Get out of here.”

  Quickly, they did. The others headed left, straight for the exit, but Toby paused, then turned right toward the faculty lounge. He’d just reached the door when it opened and Mr. P stepped out. They stared at each other for a moment, then Mr. P said, “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m…I mean, I was just…I’m…I had detention,” said Toby.

  “I know that,” said Mr. P. “I gave it to you, remember?”

  “Oh…yeah,” said Toby.

  “You want me to give you another one?” said Mr. P.

  “No,” said Toby.

  “Then go,” said Mr. P.

  So Toby went. The last thing he heard as he exited the building was an angry roar echoing down the hall from the detention room, where Herman Furman had once again missed winning by one lousy card.

  NIGHT HAD FALLEN. Prmkt stood in the deserted main hallway of Hubble Middle School and listene
d for fifteen seconds; he heard nothing. He went to the bank of lockers next to the faculty lounge and, standing on tiptoe, reached up above the third locker from the end. His hand touched an envelope. He pulled it down, then another, then still more, until he had them all.

  He unlocked the door to the faculty lounge, went inside, then closed and locked the door. He went to the big battered round table in the center of the room, where generations of Hubble teachers had drunk coffee and complained about generations of Hubble students. He set the envelopes on the table and, using a flashlight, examined them. Written on the outside of each was a name and a number. He opened the envelopes carefully, counting the cash inside each one.

  When he was done, he stuffed the money into his right-hand pants pocket. From his left-hand pocket he drew a sheaf of papers, each covered with writing and diagrams. He folded these carefully and placed one in each envelope, resealing the envelopes with tape. When he was finished, he arranged the envelopes in numerical order, reopened the door, stepped into the hall, and locked the door behind him. He looked around and listened; he saw nothing, heard nobody.

  He looked down at the top envelope; the number next to the name was 107. He went to locker 107 and pushed the envelope through one of the vent slots in the door. He continued down the hall, slipping the envelopes into their corresponding lockers. In less than ten minutes he was done. He would e-mail his report to Vrsk tonight. The plan was working perfectly.

  TOBY’S FAMILY LIVED in Woodland Meadows, an older development lacking both woods and meadows. Their house was a small brick ranch on Milkwort Court. It was dark when Toby got there, and his stomach was growling for food. But he didn’t walk straight to his front door. Instead he stopped, keeping to the darkness away from the streetlights, and checked out the neighborhood, especially his yard. He was looking for two guys, one big, one bigger.

  Darth and the Wookiee.

  Those weren’t their real names. But that’s how Toby thought of them. They’d appeared the previous day outside Hubble Middle, right before school started, asking kids if they knew a Toby Harbinger. Nobody told them anything, because they were weird. But word quickly got to Toby that there were two guys outside looking for him. Toby had spied on them from a classroom window: Darth, a tall bald guy, wore a black raincoat even though it was sunny out; the Wookiee, even taller and much wider, had hair shooting out everywhere and a thick beard that looked as if fairly large birds lived in it.