Bad Taste in Boys (14 page)

ur bus was always ungodly early, so the chem lab was dark and empty when I arrived. Sunbeams trickled in through the frosted glass windows, and the lab equipment made twisted shadows on the floor. I didn’t dare turn on the lights. I didn’t want to scare Swannie off if she was here.

I was halfway through the main lab when Swannie’s door opened and I saw a huge backlit Afro before the light clicked off. She was standing with her back to me, fiddling around with the locks. “Going somewhere?” I said, like a character from a TV movie.

She let out a little shriek and dropped something on her foot.

“Kate!” She put a hand to her chest. “Oh my god. You scared me.”

“Whoops.”

“What’s up? I didn’t expect to see you this morning.”

“I wanted to check on my cultures.” I looked from the brown paper bag on the floor to the guilty look on her face. She’d taken them. I knew it. “You haven’t seen them, have you?”

“Um,” she said, her free hand reaching up to toy nervously with her necklace. “No, I didn’t notice any cultures. Are you sure you ran some?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. So what’s in the bag?”

“Nothing! I mean, lunch. Nothing important.”

“Ah.” I nodded. “Did you buy lunch using the money you made on Playwell?”

“I’m not making any money on it!” She clapped a hand to her mouth, but it was too late. We both knew I had her.

“It’s making people sick, Swannie. A lot of people.”

“How do you know about Playwell?” she asked.

“Did you make it infective on purpose, or was that just a happy coincidence?” I asked, ignoring her question.

“In—infective?” she stammered. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, you know exactly what I mean. My brother’s infected now, and it’s all because of you. And you made me a part of it. That’s the worst thing of all; part of this is my fault! All that mouse work you gave me was really a bunch of illegal drug testing!” I shouted. “I was so flattered that you’d let me help that I didn’t even stop to question why you have all this stuff in a high school lab. I didn’t think to ask what you were doing because I trusted you. How could you do that to me?”

Swannie had grown very pale. “I’m sorry, Kate. I—”

“Bull. If you really cared, you’d be trying to fix things instead of covering your butt. You took my cultures, didn’t you? You’d better give them back before I take them from you by force.”

I wasn’t a violent person, but I meant what I said. I didn’t understand how she could do something like this. She had been my idol—and she’d totally let me down.

“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” she said. “I just needed to make a little money. It’s hard to get by on a teacher’s salary. You’ve got to believe me, Kate. That’s why I took all those research materials home. I’ve been trying to find a cure.”

“Didn’t you think maybe you should tell someone in the meantime? Even an anonymous tip is better than nothing. Because otherwise, it’s just going to spread. Everyone is going to turn into a zombie eventually if we don’t do something. But you’re too worried about yourself to think of anything else, aren’t you?”

She flinched. “It was just supposed to be a performance enhancer. I wasn’t trying to hurt anybody.” Then she hesitated. “Kate … we could work together to find a cure. In fact, we could maybe write a paper on it. A real paper, in a real science journal. We could put your name on it if you wanted.”

It was a desperate bribe from a desperate person. But still … it made me pause. Sure, I was smart. I had great grades. But brainiac physician wannabes are a dime a dozen. If you want to get into the best pre-med programs, you have to be able to play concertos while blindfolded or spend your summers teaching sustainable farming to kids in Africa. I was determined to get into med school
but partly afraid that I couldn’t compete with people like that. But if I was the lead author on a scientific paper that described a new disease and its cure? I could choose any school I wanted.

And Swannie knew it.

She pressed her advantage, and the fact that I saw through it didn’t make it any less effective. “You might be able to cure them. That’s what I’ve been working on the past few days.” She bit her lip. “Kate, I’ll give you everything you need.”

“Excuse me if I feel skeptical,” I said. “Coach’s foot fell off. How exactly do you propose to cure that? Superglue?”

She shook her head. “We need to concentrate on what we can cure. On the future, not the past. Based on my current data, this thing can be deadly if it’s not treated. Neither of us wants that. The virus should respond to medication. It’s just that I haven’t quite identified the right drugs yet. Help me work on this and I’ll make sure you’re rewarded. We’ll fix this together. No one has to know where it came from, right?”

It was so tempting. After all, I’d done all the legwork to develop Playwell in the first place; why shouldn’t I share in the proceeds? Everyone would still be cured in the end. I wouldn’t be hurting anyone else if I took her up on it.

“All right,” I said reluctantly.

The look of relief on her face was instantaneous. Despite all efforts to the contrary, I couldn’t help but pity her. All of a sudden, things had changed. I had always been desperate for her approval,
and it had led me to do things I regretted. But now she was the desperate one.

“Thanks,” Swannie blurted out, and for a moment I thought she might hug me. “I really appreciate you keeping this between us, Kate. It was an honest mistake. You know that, right?”

“Yeah,” I said.

But there was no way I was going to keep this between us. It wasn’t right, and the more I thought about the attempted bribe, the angrier I got. I’d play nice until I had enough evidence to turn her in. And then I’d write my own darned journal article. “Show me what you’ve got.”

She smiled, relief in every line of her face. “Everything’s in the bag. Why don’t you take a look, and we can work on treatment possibilities after school tonight. I’ve got a few ideas already, and I’m sure you’ll have some as well. I’d expect nothing less from you.”

I peeked inside and saw printouts on the chemical breakdown of Playwell, along with a bunch of my data on the mouse testing. My work was meticulous and letter-perfect; it made me feel simultaneously proud and ashamed. I should have known. Legit high school teachers didn’t do research like this, and they especially didn’t let their students help. It was so blazingly obvious to me now; why hadn’t I seen it before?

I pulled out my specimen dishes. I didn’t even need a microscope to see the plaques on the culture that proved once and for all that those vials contained some kind of virus.

I had all the proof I needed. The Ho would listen to me now, assuming that I could get him to stop delivering babies and actually return my phone call.

My first instinct was to show the dish to Swannie. Old habits are hard to break. I held it up with a huge grin and said, “And there’s our virus.”

“Yep!” She beamed at me. “I’m so impressed that you figured it out. I’ll have to make sure to mention your deductive skills in my letter of reference. I’ll write you a great one for college.”

I smiled.

It was going to feel so good to take her down.

I offered to set up our workstations, and Swannie was more than willing to let me do all the grunt work. But as soon as she left, I started arranging all the data on the worktables. I wanted photos for my records, and I figured I’d better send them to the Ho before Swannie made the evidence disappear.

I was about halfway done when the loudspeaker clicked on. The principal’s disembodied voice filled the room. “Attention, all students. Please remember that we are on an abbreviated schedule today due to this afternoon’s pep rally and announcement of the homecoming court. Thank you for getting to class on time.”

I quickly labeled all the materials, snapped some pictures with my cell, and emailed them to the Ho’s office. It only took a couple of minutes to tear it all down and stuff the labels into my backpack,
where Swannie would never see them. And then I set up both workstations as rapidly as possible. I only had a few minutes left, but I’d set up these stations so many times I could have done it in my sleep.

As I walked to my locker, I saw Aaron leaning against it.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey.” He scooted over a little so I could reach the lock, but he was still standing really close. Close enough that I had to try the locker door three times before the stupid thing opened.

“So did you get my text?” he asked.

Oh my god. After all the time I’d spent drooling over Aaron, you’d think I could remember to respond when he asked me to homecoming. Of course, the zombies needed to take priority, but I could have found two minutes to text him the word
yes.
Underlined. And with about six hundred exclamation points.

“I did.” I smiled. “And I’d love to go with you. Sorry I didn’t text you back. But the infection is spreading. I’ve been trying to figure out what it is.” A zombie epidemic striking at the same time I get asked out by the boy of my dreams. Who would have thought?

“Oh, great,” he said. “I mean, that sucks about the infection. But I’m happy about homecoming.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “So it’s spreading, huh? Have you notified the authorities about those vials? Because Mike can’t even talk now. His mom was really flipping out when I called the house this morning. Couldn’t get him on the cell, and I was worried. I tried to get her to take
him to the doctor, but she’s one of those new age people who think the medical industry is a huge secret conspiracy to give people autism.”

We rolled our eyes in tandem, which was awesome.

“Well,” I said, “I just picked up all the evidence a couple minutes ago and sent it to the Ho. There’s a virus in those vials. I’ve got proof.” And hopefully we’d have a cure and Jonah would be fine. At least, that was what I kept telling myself.

“What ho?”

“Oh. Dr. Ho. Naturally.”

He grinned. “Naturally. Well, congrats. I’m honored to hang in the presence of such a genius.”

“Quit making fun of me.”

He held up his hands, laughing. “Who said I was?”

I didn’t know how to answer, so I pulled out my bio and Latin books instead. Aaron took them from me before I could cram them into my backpack. It was really old-fashioned but still kind of sweet. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” he said. We started walking down the hall. I kept thinking I should tell him about Coach, but I didn’t know how to bring it up. If someone had found him, we would have heard about it by now, wouldn’t we? I thought maybe I should call 911 and give them an anonymous tip. But what if they traced the call? I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t risk being thrown in jail. Not now.

“I waited for you in the parking lot this morning. Did you sneak past me or something?”

“Nah. My car’s been confiscated.”

“Really? Why?”

“You know I have epilepsy, right?”

“Yeah, I saw you have a seizure once. No offense, but it was kind of freaky.”

“Tell me about it. Anyway, I was in remission for a long time, and they let me get my license and everything. But then, a few days ago, I started having them again. My dad took my keys. Can’t have me seizing all over the road, right?” I forced a laugh.

“That’s weird.” He shifted my books to his other hand so he could slide his arm around my shoulders. “Why do you think that happened?”

“No clue.”

“Well, what were you doing when it happened the first time? Come on, Kate; you’re a genius. It’s part of your appeal.”

“You’re kidding, right?” I looked up at him through my bangs and tried not to go all giggly.

“Not.” He steered me down the hallway, and people stopped to stare. For once, I kind of enjoyed the attention. “So what happened right before your first relapse seizure?”

I forced myself to stop smirking at the group of annoying, perky-voiced party girls who always insisted on standing in a herd right in front of my locker and never let me through. Today, they clustered by the water fountain and watched us with their mouths hanging open. I found it a definite improvement.

“Uh … let me think,” I said, wrenching my mind back to the
seizure thing. “It was the night of the bonfire. After I got home, I hit my head, fell down, and had a seizure.”

He stopped, releasing my shoulder, and I was so out of it that I took another three or four steps without him before I realized it. I turned around. Aaron was all white and panicked-looking.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“What you just said.” Aaron stepped closer to me. “You had your first seizure right after”—he thumbed the slowly healing scab on my lip, and I flinched away from the contact—“this.”