The Subatomic Kid (40 page)
Authors: George Earl Parker
“Never enough,” Cal echoed sadly.
“My, my!” Hunter said. “Were there any extenuating circumstances?”
“Nothing extra special,” Kate pointed out. “Just a world to save, an evil twin to defeat, a bad guy to beat; oh, and then a little hop from one world to another. But the thing was, the girl very nearly cried over him right in front of him, and he very nearly saw it!” John felt himself redden and he slunk down into the seat.
“Hmmm!” Hunter mused. “Well, you know this acquaintance better than me. Perhaps you should keep an eye on him, make sure this doesn’t become regular behavior, and if there ever is a next time, invent a secret signal.”
“A secret signal to save embarrassment,” Tex suggested.
“We have lots of them in baseball,” Cal added. “Maybe I could invent something.”
“Yeah, well just don’t make it rude,” Kate warned with a sly grin. “He’s very easily embarrassed.”
“But speaking for myself, if I’d have been there, I would thank him from the bottom of my heart for saving my life,” Hunter added.
“I’d second that if I’d have been there too,” Steve chimed in.
“Okay, guys, that’s enough,” John interjected. “You’ve made your point, now leave me alone.”
“Now therein lies the strange dichotomy,” Cal pontificated.
“You mean the constant craving for attention, and then the complete rejection of it, out of hand?” Tex analyzed.
“Oh brother,” John exclaimed. “Please make them stop.”
“Are you asking me to make them stop?” Hunter asked. “‘Cause you know I could do it in seconds.”
“Hmmm! That’s a very tempting offer,” John replied. “They are a nuisance, and they have been bugging me for the last twenty-four hours.”
“And what about me, Johnny?” Kate asked, affecting a Brooklyn accent and draping herself around him like a blonde in a black and white movie.
“Er!” John flummoxed, losing his whole train of thought and succumbing to the ravages of teenage embarrassment.
“We’re here,” Steve said, pulling the limousine to a halt.
“Good, let me outta here,” John said with relief. “I love these guys, but once they start there’s no stopping them.” Hunter smiled; he loved the way the kids used humor to focus attention fully on the moment.
“Seriously,” Cal said, “thanks for saving his life, ‘cause he’s nothing without me.” He pointed at Tex.
“Yeah, and thanks for saving his life,” Tex said pointing at Cal. “He’s delusional, but he’s fun to have around.”
“And as for me, I owe you one, kid,” Kate added, keeping up the movie babe thing with a slow seductive wink.
John smiled. “Thanks, guys,” he said as he opened the door. “Will you please take my friends home, Mr. Hunter?”
“It’ll be my pleasure, kid,” Hunter replied.
“I’ll see you all at school,” John said, bidding them farewell and closing the car door.
Outside in the crisp morning air, he realized that this was what it had all been for, so he could come home to his normal house, on this normal street, in a normal town. As he got closer to his own front door he heard the telephone ringing incessantly. He rushed inside and picked it up. “Hello,” he mumbled, in the teenage way.
“John!” his mother shrieked at the other end of the phone. “Where have you been? I’ve been calling and calling.”
“I went out for er…pizza.”
“All day and all night for pizza?” she exclaimed. “That must have been one hell of a big pie!”
“Oh, it was,” he said smiling, “it most certainly was.”
***
The ornate ballroom was festooned with sunflowers, and a makeshift stage had been erected at its center. Above it hung a crudely hand-painted banner advertising the Leitz Academy of Educational Excellence, Annual Haiku Poetry Competition. Kate bustled back and forth between the throng of students and potted plants and fretted.
In keeping with the poetic form’s tradition of spontaneity, the competition was never announced. It just appeared one morning with a theme, and those students wishing to participate composed an entry on the spot, in much the same way the earliest practitioners of the art had on the highways and byways of ancient Japan.
Monday morning, Kate had arrived to find the competition underway. She had grabbed a pencil and paper and immediately zipped into her realm of personal enlightenment and dashed down the requisite seventeen syllables that forever enshrined the heart of the moment. Just as soon as all the students arrived, the winner would be announced, and now she wondered where John, Cal, and Tex were. Sunday had been lonely without them. Even though they had all talked incessantly on the telephone, she had missed having them underfoot, and she realized she missed their adventure.
The time had arrived for the announcement of the winner, and the principal of the school strode up to the microphone and tapped it with her glossy red fingernail.
“Who the heck is that?” John whispered, appearing out of nowhere.
“Good morning, students,” her voice crackled, buzzed, and hummed through the speakers.
“I don’t know,” Kate replied, happy he was there.
“I’ve seen her somewhere before,” John added, unable to remember exactly where.
“I’m Miss Amelia Moon, your new principal,” the woman continued.
“Uh oh!” Cal warned, appearing on the other side of Kate. “There’s been a shakeup at the funny farm.”
“What happened to Leitz?” Tex wondered over her shoulder. Now Kate felt whole again; they were all together.
“Doctor Leitz has taken a sabbatical so that he may better concentrate on some important research for Global Elixirs Inc, and I’m sure you’ll join me in wishing him the greatest success.” Miss Moon clapped her hands and a halfhearted ripple of applause flowed around the room.
“I think they’ve imprisoned him in one of the towers,” John joked.
“That’s too bad,” Cal said, trying to be serious.
“Yeah, he was funny,” Tex added.
“And now onto the winner of the competition,” Miss Moon said, glancing at the piece of paper in her hand. “And it is…Katherine Caitlan.” Kate squealed with delight and John, Cal and Tex all hugged her at the same time as applause rang out around the room.
“Get off me, you morons,” Kate fussed. “Just because we’re friends doesn’t mean you can squeeze me every chance you get.” As she took off for the stage, John, Cal, and Tex smiled at one another: they were back at school.
“And now Katherine will read her winning entry,” Miss Moon said, congratulating Kate as she stepped up to the microphone.
The applause died down, and a hush fell over the room. Kate stared at the words on the piece of paper in her hand. “Before I start,” she said, “I want to dedicate this Haiku to my three best friends in the world—Because without them, I would never have written this.”
John, Cal, and Tex smiled. Life was good, they thought, life was really good.
Kate’s voice rang throughout the room:
The sunflower’s golden petals,
and green leaves,
hide secrets,
within seeds.
George Earl Parker is an author, an artist, a singer/songwriter and a filmmaker. The short film he produced, “The Yellow Submarine Sandwich,” for Eric Idle’s pseudo-documentary of a band called the Rutles, was shown at festivals around the world, won awards and was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. His songs are played around the world and have charted in a number of European countries. His art has been shown at galleries, universities and museums around America, and his first novel,
Vampyre Blood—Eight Pints Of Trouble
, got great reviews when it was published in 2010.