Teen Frankenstein (16 page)

Adam hugged the ball to his chest. “Starting me to do what?” he asked, looking down and hiking his book bag farther up onto his shoulder. A curtain of thick lashes brushed his cheek. If I looked closely I could make out the red slivers behind his ears.

Billy Ray wedged himself between me and Adam, knocking me sideways. He wrapped his arm around Adam's neck. Ruffled the hair on his head. “The game, man. Football!” He released Adam's head and shook his own good-naturedly. “You, Smith! Where the heck did you come from, son?”

“I came from Elgin, Illinois,” he replied.

Billy Ray looked over at me as if to say
Can you believe this guy?
As I said, it was a popular look where Adam was concerned. I pressed my lips together and raised my eyebrows. But truthfully, no, I couldn't.

“I would like to start playing more football.” Adam bobbed his chin up and down. “That would be good.” It occurred to me then that I'd already been thinking of reasons not to let him. It was too dangerous. We hadn't studied the possible side effects. His state was fragile. It was only when I heard the hopeful lilt in his voice that I had to consider whether I had any right to tell him what to do at all.

I created him, but did that make me the master of his universe, too? I couldn't decide.

“Well, good.” Billy Ray thumped Adam on the chest. “Because you keep it up and you're starting the
game
. The big one. Two bye weeks and then you better be ready.” He pointed at him with both hands as he backpedaled away. “You, Smith. You're the man. This is the season. I feel it, buddy. This year.”

As soon as we were out of earshot, I grabbed Adam's arm. “Group sidebar. Please?” I yanked Owen into the huddle. “I mean now.”

Our heads pushed together, except that I was the shortest so mine only reached to their chins. “They're
starting
you?” I said to Adam. “Is this a real thing? Because I'm feeling like this isn't a real thing.”

“I'm feeling like you're talking real fast,” Owen chimed in.

“I thought people were being uncharacteristically nice or curious or had all suffered some weird, town-wide aneurysm.”

“I liked it,” Adam said. He was still a man of few words, but even since yesterday I observed that he was just a hair more lively. Less stiff, more natural maybe. “I made friends.”

“You made
friends
?” I said. “But you have friends. Why the need for more friends? I've had one friend for the past eight years and you don't see me complaining. You already have two friends. Me and Owen. And what, you're already bored? Don't you think that's being just a wee bit greedy?”

“If you lifted your leg, I think you might be able to pee on him to mark your territory.” Owen tilted his head and stared hard at me.

“What's a ‘bye week,' anyway? What do you do with ‘bye weeks'? They sound like a made-up term.”

“It means they don't have games tonight and next Friday to lead up to Homecoming,” Owen said as if he were some authority on the sport now.

I ground my teeth. At least that gave us some time. “Adam, look, these people might be nice to you now, but…”

But it was too late. I didn't get to finish. Cassidy Hyde had butted her perky behind straight into our conversation.

“'Scuse me.” She spun around. She was holding the ends of a pair of black and orange streamers. “Pep rally decorations.” Her smile was blinding. “Go Oilers.” She said this with a shrug in her voice like she was partly making fun of herself.

Standing at the steps of the school, I was about to continue with my train of thought when I registered how his eyes were lingering on Cassidy as she pulled the streamers high over her head to wrap them around the top of a column, so that her pierced belly button peeked out the top of her jeans.

“Good morning, Cassidy Hyde,” Adam said, formal, flat, but strangely charming because of both those things. “Do you need help with that?” Adam walked over with his stiff gait. He took a pair of streamers from her and stretched up to tape them higher than she could reach.

She put her hands on her hips. “Well, look at that. I didn't think they made real gentlemen anymore.”

I felt a scowl overtake my mouth.
They
didn't, I wanted to tell her. I did.

*   *   *

“OUCH-GOSHDARNIT-
DAMN
!” MY FINGER
sprung out from under the metal hot plate I was working to pry free from its base. I shook it and stuck the tip in my mouth while it stung.

“How are you
still
single?” The door to the chemistry lab swung closed behind Owen. He cocked his head as I continued sputtering jumbled curse words under my breath. “I mean, really, it's an unsolvable paradox. You have such a sweet demeanor about you. That's what I always say, anyway.” I removed my finger from my mouth and examined the broken nail left over. He strolled through the empty classroom to the lab table I was occupying near the back and paused at the sight of my project in progress. “Maybe a little light would help?” He moved for the switch.

“I didn't want anyone to know I was in here,” I said sourly. Late afternoon light trickled in through the blinds, casting the classroom in shadowy gray. Trace smudges of dry erase marker covered the whiteboard where Ms. Dot had erased today's notes, and the freshly wiped countertops smelled like antibacterial soap.

“You mean while you're defacing school property?” Owen's white T-shirt read
Wikipedia is accurate
.

“I mean while I'm working.” It was nearly five o'clock. Ms. Dot, my AP chemistry teacher, had collected her giant tote bag and stack of manila folders half an hour ago. I had keys to the lab and exactly twenty-five minutes before Adam would be finished with
football
practice. Even in my head, I couldn't say it without a sneer.
Football
practice. Now, scattered around were crucible tongs, a base holder, boss heads, burette clamps, and a hot plate.

“Well, you're doing a good job of that at least. I've been looking for you for thirty minutes,” he said, dropping his backpack on a nearby stool. “You might want to consider fixing the whole cell phone situation at some point.” I cringed at the thought of my phone splintered on the road and how it'd found its way back to me. Annoyed as I was about football and Adam's sudden rise in popularity, the day had been pleasantly uneventful, and it almost felt as though phones and missing boys could slip into the background and disappear. “We're living in the twenty-first century.” I decided not to deal with his cell phone comment.

Since I'd been unsuccessful in wrestling the hot plate away, I gripped the base in both hands and began beating it against the tabletop. Owen jerked and plugged his ears. “What are you doing?” His eyes were wide behind his lenses. I made several more noisy blows before he put his hand over my wrist. “Tor, stop!” I held the hot plate in midair before striking again. “Are you insane?”

“I'm trying to loosen it.” I clamped my tongue between my teeth and went to try for another blow, but Owen held me firm.

“Step away from the hot plate.” Like a cop disarming his suspect, he slowly extracted the piece of equipment from my grasp. I huffed but folded my hands in my lap. “Now speak in sentences,” he said. “What is it that you're trying to do?”

I rolled my eyes. “I'm trying to build this.” I reached into my bag for my composition book and flipped through the pages until I landed on the one I wanted. I shoved the notebook in his direction. On the open sheet of lined paper, I'd drawn a circle diagram with four smaller circles inside.

Owen squinted. “Which is…?”

I snatched the composition book back and frowned at the rudimentary drawing inside. “It doesn't have a
name
yet.” I glanced sidelong at him. “Adam malfunctioned last night. He completely lost his energy, and his whole body started to shut down.” I shuddered. “I … had to do it again.”

Owen did that thing where he looked over his glasses and made me feel like a little kid in trouble. “Electrocute him?”

“A little,” I fibbed,
exactly
like a little kid. “Okay a lot.” I nodded. “He was going to die, though.”

Owen pushed his fingers into his hair and left it standing straight up. “He already is dead.”

“You know what I mean.” Footsteps squeaked by in the hallway. A shadow crossed the door before disappearing. “And”—I lowered my voice—“if he's going to insist on playing this caveman sport with all the hitting and running around and throwing of things, his energy's going to keep getting drained.”

“Funny. I would have thought you'd have been proud to learn your progeny was turning out to be a perfect physical specimen.” He tilted his head. “At least in Hollow Pines terms.”

I blinked and felt my forehead wrinkle. “You think?”

“If the cleat fits…”

I bit my lip. Adam was becoming every bit the breakthrough that I'd sought out for him to be. Maybe Owen was right. “I'm trying to make a … device.…” This time I jammed my finger into the page and it tore a centimeter. “… To make it easier to, you know, recharge him. But it's not working.”

Owen pulled the edge closer and slid his glasses to the bridge of his nose. “Some kind of plate?” He hummed quietly.

“I figured I'd surgically insert it. With portals for the wires and—”

Owen held up a finger and looked away from me. “I am going to try not to be positively offended—no, wait—blasphemed by the fact that you didn't come straight to me before attempting to upend a perfectly innocent laboratory hot plate.” My shoulders relaxed. “But I'm here now.” He cracked his neck, followed by his knuckles. “We can get to work.”

A slow grin stretched across my face. “Really?”

Owen had already turned the hot plate onto its back and was bent over, fiddling with the screws. I glanced at the clock and registered the time. Resting my elbows on the table, I leaned in to watch him work. Owen tinkering, a man in his natural habitat. “Uh, Owen?” His fingers stopped. He turned toward me, our noses an inch apart. “Think you can help a girl out and sort through the rest of this on your own?” I set my chin on my fists and peered up at him. “Pretty please?”

He spared a long-suffering look for the ceiling. “I'm already in this deep, I suppose.” He returned his attention to the lab equipment and pinched his tongue between his teeth. “Besides, you're hazardous when it comes to machines, anyway.”

“Awesome.” I grabbed my bag and slung it over my shoulder. “I'll see you tomorrow. Can you have it ready by then?” I batted my eyelashes.

The right corner of his mouth crept into a smile that dimpled his cheek. “You're not that charming, Frankenstein.”

“I am to you.” I blew him an air kiss, turned on my toes, and headed out the door.

At least half the school's lights had been turned off, and the hallway was dotted with patches of darkness with only the red glow of exit lights to mark them. Outside the classroom, I fumbled in the bottom of my bag for my keys and looped a finger through the ring. The soft melody from a teacher's radio floated toward me as I made my way to the football field.

A prickle grew along the back of my neck, inching its way up the notches of my spine like a caterpillar. By the time I'd passed the last of the science classrooms, I was able to place the creeping sensation as the feeling of being watched. It slithered and disappeared into the cracks between my ribs, where it forced my heart to beat faster.

I froze in place and spun. My bag banged against my hip. I felt the dead quiet all around me until over my heartbeat I could again hear the small trickle of music coming from the radio hidden behind one of the classroom doors.

Shadows cloaked groups of lockers in even intervals. My eyes focused, and I saw a silhouette. The tingle worked a path down my forearms. The silhouette stepped from the shadow into a shaft of light. The head of a mop landed next to his feet.

I let out a whooshing exhale. “Mr. McCardle,” I said. “God, you scared me.” My pulse throbbed even as my muscles relaxed. I shook my head, unsure of what had gotten me so spooked.

Blackness filled in the lines on his face. His mouth was curved into a shallow frown. “It's dark,” he said.

“Guess so.” I lingered awkwardly, remembering when he'd found me rather precariously positioned in the girls' restroom with Adam. I could only imagine what he must have thought he'd walked in on. I pressed my lips together and rocked back on my heels. Maybe he'd forgotten. Earlier today, I'd seen a few kids playing Pin-the-Tail-on-McCardle, a dumb game where students tried to attach embarrassing signs or stickers to the janitor's back. The game was mean-spirited and cold, but I never removed the stickers for fear that McCardle would think that lots of people had been noticing. “Anyway.” I waved. “Just heading out. Have a good night.”

He took another step forward when a door behind him opened. “Tor!” Owen popped his head out, brandishing a notebook in his hand. “You forgot this.” Owen jogged down the hall, past Old Man McCardle, and deposited my black-and-white composition book into my hands.

The book that contained Adam. I squeezed it to my chest. I never went anywhere without it. Instinctively, I flipped through the pages of data, diagrams, and research, reassuring myself that it was all still there. “Thanks,” I said, and meant it. Then I went outside to the emerald field that waited, glittering underneath the glare of the stadium's industrial lights.

 

SEVENTEEN

I believe an improvement can be made in the administration of the electroshock. Now that we know that the shock will not be a one-time event, it seemed a priority to create something that would negate the need for new incisions, which are not only time-consuming, but the more incisions, the more likely someone is to notice them in the outside world.