Science Fair Read online

  “Your hair looks nice, Tamara!” called Haley sweetly. “Is that eggplant?”

  “I hate Haley Hess,” said Tamara, once they were out in the concourse. “I hate her I hate her I HATE her.”

  “Oh, I’m sure she’d be nice enough if you ever got to talk to her alone,” said Micah. “And she had a brain transplant.”

  Tamara was glaring back toward the Science Nook. “What do you think they’re doing in there?”

  “Same as us,” said Micah. “Getting science fair stuff.”

  “They’re up to something,” said Tamara.

  “There’s Toby,” said Micah, nodding down the concourse. Toby was trotting their way.

  “Sorry,” he said, when he reached them. “I got held up.”

  “Where’s your backpack?” said Tamara.

  “I…I left it somewhere,” said Toby. Tamara frowned and started to say something, but Toby cut her off. “You ready to go to the science place?”

  “We already did,” said Micah. “The weird dude’s gonna fix me up with a magnet and a cold-fusion reactor.”

  “There’s no such thing,” said Toby.

  “That’s what all the morons say,” said Micah.

  “The ME kids are in there now,” said Tamara.

  Toby perked up. “Really?” he said. “Doing what?”

  “Dunno,” said Micah. “They kicked us out.”

  “Interesting,” said Toby. He started walking toward the Science Nook.

  “What’re you doing?” said Micah.

  “I’m gonna have a look,” said Toby.

  “Niles is in there,” said Micah.

  “I’m not afraid of Niles,” said Toby.

  “Yes, you are,” said Tamara.

  “Yes, I am,” said Toby. “But I’m gonna be stealthy.”

  “We’ll wait for you here,” said Micah.

  “Stay away from the eggplants,” said Tamara.

  Toby looked back, frowning.

  “She’s serious,” said Micah.

  Toby walked to the Science Nook entrance, glanced at the strange window display, took a breath, and stepped inside. He saw nobody. He looked around, checking out the boxes and the stuffed owl. He noted with interest the eggplant splatter on the walls and ceiling, and the loose eggplants on the floor. Hearing voices, he moved to a door along the back wall; it was open a crack. He put his ear close. A man was talking.

  “…Some unusual items this year,” the man said. “For example, this…” There was a pause, and Toby heard paper rattling “…this item here, this is highly classified technology. Only certain government agencies are even supposed to know it exists.”

  A boy’s voice—Toby recognized The Ferret—said, “How come you know it exists?”

  “Because I’m smarter than the government,” said the man. “But the point is, all of your projects this year involve classified technology. Who gave you these plans?”

  “We told you, we don’t know.” That was Haley Hess’s voice. “They just showed up, same as last year. But what do you care where they come from, as long as you get paid.”

  “Just curious,” said the man. “But yes, as long as you pay my price, I don’t care. I’m just saying some of these components are hard to get. Very hard to get. There are countries in the world that would love to get their hands on this technology.”

  The next voice belonged to Jason Niles. “Whatever it is, my dad can get it,” he said.

  “My dad, too,” said another voice, which Toby recognized as Harmonee Prescott’s. “If I tell my mom I need it for my project, she’ll make him get it.”

  “So what’s the deal?” said Haley.

  “A thousand apiece,” said the voice.

  “A thousand?” said Jason. “That’s a rip-off!”

  “Fine,” said the man. “Make your own project.”

  Jason mumbled something that Toby couldn’t hear.

  “Five hundred up front,” said the man. “Five hundred when you get the project. You supply the parts I need. I circled them on your project sheets. Understood?”

  There was more mumbling, and suddenly Toby realized that they were about to open the door. He had no time to get out of the store. He looked around frantically and saw the stuffed owl. In three quick tiptoe steps he was around the cabinet, crouching behind it.

  He peered over the top and watched as the ME kids walked past, back out into the mall. The Ferret said something; they all looked back and giggled.

  Toby was about to leave when Sternabite, whom Toby recognized as the store owner, came out of the back room. Toby almost showed himself but decided not to; after what he’d just heard, he didn’t want this weird man to suspect he’d been listening. He decided to hold still for the time being, hoping Sternabite would go into the back room again, so he could escape.

  Instead, Sternabite went out the door and pulled out a key ring. Toby’s stomach froze.

  He’s closing up.

  Sternabite walked over and pushed the middle button. Then he stepped outside, pulled the door shut, and put his key in the lock. Toby half rose behind the owl, wanting to yell, but afraid of what the weird dude might do.

  The door lock clicked. As it did, the store lights went out.

  And then the stuffed owl started to move.

  Toby dropped back to the floor. Instantly the owl’s head whipped around 180 degrees. Lying on his back on the floor, not breathing, Toby saw that the owl’s eyes were glowing bright red. Two rays of red light shot out, causing two dots to appear on the wall.

  Lasers, thought Toby.

  The two dots scanned slowly down the wall; in a few seconds they would reach Toby. As quietly as he could, he felt around on the dark floor. His hand found something round and hard. An eggplant.

  With the laser dots only inches away, Toby gripped the eggplant and, as quietly as he could, tossed it. It landed with a thud in the middle of the store.

  Instantly, the owl spread its wings—to Toby, directly below, its wingspan looked gigantic. It flapped twice—Toby felt the air—and swooped off the perch. By the mall light filtering through the store window, Toby saw the owl pounce on the eggplant. There was an ugly wet splat. The owl stood there for a moment, and then, apparently satisfied that it had killed the eggplant, flapped its wings, took off, circled the room once, and returned to its perch.

  Directly above Toby.

  TOBY LAY AS STILL AS POSSIBLE, his eyes on the owl—or whatever it was—perched overhead. Toby could see its talons gripping the perch. They glinted in the light coming through the store window from the mall concourse. Made of metal—steel, it looked like—the talons were at least six inches long, ending in curled, sharpened points. Definitely not a standard-issue owl.

  Its laser eyes tracked back and forth, scanning the store. Toby studied the pattern: the twin red dots started up on the ceiling, then swept down to the floor. They continued across the tile to a spot right in front of the owl, and then the owl’s head rotated slightly to the right as the beams flicked back up to the ceiling and the process started again. Each cycle was fast, taking only a second or two, ceiling to floor. In no time—less than a minute—the red dots would fall on him, and the owl would do to him what it had done to the eggplant: turn him into sauce.

  His instinct was to run, but to where? The front door was locked. That left the door to the back of the store…but what if it, too, was locked?

  He fought his growing panic. The dots were coming right for him. He’d have to try the back door. But the owl, when it moved, moved fast. If the door gave him any trouble, slowed him down at all, the owl would attack. Toby tried to remember what, if anything, he’d seen at the front of the store that he might use to defend himself.

  An image flashed into his mind.

  It would have to do.

  Carefully, he groped out with his right hand, hoping desperately to find…There! Another eggplant. With the moving red dots now only inches away, he threw the eggplant as hard as he could toward the back door.
/>
  Before the eggplant hit the wall, the owl was already moving, its huge wings lifting it off the cabinet perch. At the same moment, Toby rolled to his right, scrambled to his feet, and ran toward the store’s front window. Behind him he heard the ugly splat as the owl landed on the eggplant.

  As Toby reached the window, he looked back: the owl was on the floor, eggplant goo seeping from between its glinting talons. Its head was aimed directly at Toby.

  Toby looked down: two red dots were centered on his chest.

  The owl flapped its wings.

  Frantically, Toby turned back to the window, looking for ... There it was. As he felt the rush of air behind him he grabbed the Hello Kitty vanity and whirled, holding it in front of his face, mirror-side forward.

  He staggered off balance as the owl’s right wing brushed against him—the thing was powerful—and he peered around the side of the vanity to see that the owl had veered sharply left, following where the two red dots, now reflected by the vanity mirror, danced on the side of an old, dust-covered TV set.

  The owl, talons raised in attack position, slammed into the TV, which in turn slammed into the wall, its tube exploding in a thousand shards of glass. Toby, still holding his Hello Kitty anti-owl vanity, ran to the back door. As he reached it, he heard the flap of wings and saw the owl—the thing was indestructible—swooping at him again. He lifted the mirror just in time to redirect the lasers and send the owl careening into the side wall with a crash so violent that it brought down ceiling tiles. Immediately, the owl turned, located Toby again, and flapped its huge wings.

  Toby tried the doorknob. It was unlocked! He pushed the door open and slammed it shut just as the relentless owl slammed into it. Toby’s relief lasted for perhaps two seconds; then the owl, which clearly had not given up, slammed into the door again—this time so hard that the wooden door frame began to give. Toby heard the huge wings flapping as the owl went airborne, evidently preparing for another lunge.

  Frantic to get out of there, Toby looked around. He was in a back office lined with shelves full of tools and electrical components. A battered desk stood by the back wall, near the only source of light in the office.…

  An exit sign.

  Toby jumped as the owl, with another resounding CRASH, smashed into the door again; this time the door itself began to splinter as the points of the owl’s steel-sharp talons pierced it. Toby, trying not to think about those same talons piercing him, ran toward the exit sign. As he reached it, he spotted a sheet of paper on the desk. Handwritten at the top was the word “Hubble.” Beneath that was a list. Toby grabbed the paper and stuffed it into his pocket. He turned and slammed the panic bar on the door beneath the exit sign just as the owl burst through a hole in the office’s wooden door. Toby heard an alarm sound as he slammed the metal door. A second later, the owl thudded into it.

  Toby found himself in a wide, windowless corridor lit by overhead tube lights—a service hallway behind all the stores. He ran down the corridor, dodging cardboard boxes stacked outside the back doors of the stores. A dozen yards ahead he saw another exit sign.

  “HEY! STOP!” a deep voice shouted from behind him.

  Toby kept running. He reached the exit door, blasted through it, and was out of there, running from the mall as fast as he could into the approaching night.

  “I NEED A THOUSAND DOLLARS,” said Jason Niles. “For the science fair.”

  Jason was eating dinner with his parents in their kitchen, which—in the style of Manor Estates homes—was the size of a volleyball court. It had two restaurant-quality stoves and a state-of-the-art refrigerator with a touchscreen, Internet-connected computer in the door that you could use to plan meals, generate grocery lists, and do many other helpful things, if you knew how to use it, which nobody in the Niles family did. The Niles family rarely used any of their vast array of advanced kitchen technology. Tonight they were eating—from designer ceramic plates that cost $280 apiece—takeout Mexican food from Mister Burrito.

  “A thousand dollars?” said Jason’s dad, Carl Niles, looking up from his BlackBerry, which he took everywhere, including into the shower in a special waterproof case. “For the science fair?”

  “Yeah,” said Jason. “That’s what the other kids are spending.”

  “But a thousand dollars?” said Carl.

  “If that’s what he needs,” said Jason’s mother, Jeanette, “that’s what he needs.”

  Carl Niles was an imposing, powerful man who had thousands of people working for him. He had no trouble disagreeing with generals, senators, even presidents. But he knew better than to disagree with Jeanette.

  “Whatever,” he said, looking back down at his BlackBerry.

  Very few people argued with Jeanette Niles. She was an attractive, petite blond woman with perfect teeth and blue eyes capable of producing a gaze so intense that people felt as though she was burning holes in their faces. Jeanette sometimes sold real estate—always Manor Estates homes—but mostly she was a mom, an extremely involved mom, a mom who made certain that her son Jason, like his brother, Taylor, before him, had every possible advantage in what Jeanette viewed as the fierce, relentless, and critically important competition to always be ahead of all other children, and thus ahead in life.

  Jeanette was very, very good at this competition. In elementary school, when Jason, along with the rest of his first-grade class, had to do a report on a country, Jeanette had chosen Switzerland. On the day the report was due, Jason had arrived at school wearing authentic Swiss lederhosen and carrying a 124-page, professionally printed report that Jeanette had been up all night assembling in an attractive leather binder. Some of the other involved moms had also produced high-quality reports, but nobody else had broken the 100-page barrier. The rest of the kids—the ones who had actually done their own reports—showed up with a few stapled-together pieces of construction paper, on which they had pasted maps and pictures cut out from magazines. Jeanette could not imagine what kind of parents would allow such a thing to happen to their children. Losers.

  Every school assignment Jason was given received a 110 percent effort from Jeanette, who had produced, over the years, dozens of detailed, well-researched, error-free, professional-quality reports. In addition, there was her beautifully crafted miniature medieval village, her rainforest simulation complete with actual running water, and her solar-system model with planets that revolved and rotated, to name just a few of the projects she had done for Jason. She gave just as much effort, night after night, to Jason’s homework. As he progressed through the grades, this had become more and more of a challenge for Jeanette; trigonometry, for example, did not come easily to her. But she had, through hard work and perseverance, mastered it. That’s how involved a mom she was.

  Jason’s test scores, often below average, were her biggest headache. Jeanette was certain he was gifted—had had to be gifted—so she had concluded that he must have some kind of learning disability. This she dealt with by hiring tutors for Jason and volunteering at his school, where she could keep an eye on Jason’s teachers, who quickly learned the importance of always giving Jason the benefit of the doubt and then some.

  Thus Jason had managed to compile an impressive academic record as he progressed through the grades. He was right on course to get into one of the best colleges, as his brother had. Jeanette would see to that.

  “What’s your project this year?” she asked Jason. “Do you need help with it?”

  “Nah,” said Jason. “The Science Nook guy is doing it.”

  “You mean he’s helping you,” said Jeanette. “Like a coach.”

  “Whatever,” said Jason.

  It bothered Jeanette, a little, that the strange man at the Science Nook was so involved with her son’s project. But the strange man got excellent results—he’d done a marvelous job for Jason’s brother—so Jeanette tried not to think about it.

  “Oh, yeah,” said Jason, pulling a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and handing it to his mother, �
�I need this stuff.”

  Jeanette unfolded the paper and read it. It was a list of technical words, meaningless to her. She tapped her husband, who looked up from his BlackBerry. She handed him the paper.

  “Jason needs these things for his science-fair project,” she said.

  Carl looked at the paper, frowned, and looked up at Jason.

  “Where did you get this list?” he asked.

  “From some guy,” said Jason.

  “Can’t you get him those things?” said Jeanette.

  “I can get them,” said Carl. “But this is highly restricted technology. This isn’t supposed to be available outside of—”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Carl,” interrupted Jeanette. “It’s for your son’s science-fair project.”

  Carl could feel his face burning under his wife’s gaze. He turned to Jason.

  “All right,” he said. “But you have to get this stuff back to me as soon as the science fair is over.”

  “Whatever,” said Jason.

  THE NEXT MORNING, Toby squished through Hubble Middle’s main doorway on sneakers still wet and mud-stained from the previous evening’s Wookiee adventure. Toby had seen no sign of either the Wookiee or Darth this morning; that was good. Not so good was the fact that they had his backpack. Also not so good was the fact that Jason Niles was detaching his large self from the clot of ME kids to block Toby’s path.

  “Nice shoes, Hardbonger,” he said.

  “Good one, Niles,” said Toby. “That must have taken all four of your brain cells.”

  Haley Hess, behind Jason, giggled, which made Toby secretly pleased and Jason openly infuriated. He stepped toward Toby and gave him a shove, sending Toby staggering backward, directly into The Armpit.

  “Hey!” said The Armpit. “Break it up!”

  “But he—” began Toby.

  “I said BREAK IT UP!” said The Armpit, giving Toby a shove with his sweat-slimed hands.

  Toby stumbled forward past the smirking ME kids. He detoured around a ladder in the middle of the hallway occupied by J.D., the Janitor Dude, who was replacing a fluorescent ceiling lightbulb, a task that often took him more than an hour, because he spent long stretches of time staring into space. This spawned many jokes about how many Janitor Dudes it took to screw in a lightbulb.