Something had to give. The whole point of getting out of homework was getting out of homework, not doing more just to cover up the fact that we weren’t doing it.
“Face it,” Nussbaum said. “The guy’s too perfect.”
How could you get normal homework out of a guy who was so über-smart that it was no problem for him to hack into the school computer and beam our assignments directly into the memory of our iPads?
“He hacked into the school computer!” Nussbaum exclaimed suddenly.
Sanderson made a face. “What a brainiac.”
“Don’t you get it?” Nussbaum insisted. “We blackmailed him into doing our homework so we could get good grades. We don’t have to do that anymore.”
“But if you don’t hand in your homework, you get bad grades.”
Nussbaum shook his head. “Think! If you can hack into the school computer, you can get any grades you want!”
And a plan was born.
The next time we cornered Noah in the bathroom, we told him the good news: He no longer had to do our homework.
He looked scared. “You’re not going to tell everyone about—you know—the thing?”
“Of course not,” Sanderson assured him. “Your secret is as safe as ever—if you do us this one little favor.”
“I already did you a favor,” he protested. “The homework was the favor.”
“The next time you hack into the school computer,” Nussbaum began, “we need you to go to the grades part and punch ours up a little.”
Noah looked disapproving. “You shouldn’t want that. Oh sure, I could give myself an F in English or Math, but that would be meaningless. If I get an F, I want to have earned it.”
“Yeah, but we want the opposite of that,” Sanderson told him. “You know, A’s and B’s.”
“It’s not going to be satisfying,” he warned us.
“So you’ll do it?” Nussbaum prodded.
“It’s not so simple,” he explained. “That part of the website has a much higher security protocol. I’d have to create a bot.”
“Bot?” we both asked at the same time.
“An internet program designed to gain access to the restricted sections. Then, with a randomly generated password, you’ll be able to enter the site and change your grades yourselves. Although,” he added, “you know my opinion on that.”
We looked at each other, and the sheer triumph practically crackled in the air between us. Even though we asked, I don’t think either of us believed Noah could actually do it. Not because he wasn’t smart enough, but because—well, it was just too good to be true. Being able to remake your report card was like being given the keys to the kingdom. You didn’t have to worry about tests, essays, projects, research, quizzes, class participation, homework, or any of the things that affected your grades because only one thing affected your grade: you, and whatever keystroke you chose. It was paradise.
And it never could have happened without Donovan.
They had it right in kindergarten. Nothing was more important than having friends.
14
SUPERK.I.S.S.
DONOVAN CURTIS
Something I never would have believed possible: Noah was getting weirder.
Fame was doing it to him. He had played many roles in his life: genius, nerd, outcast, robotics whiz. None of these had prepared him for what he had to deal with now: celebrity.
When he walked down the hall, people scrambled to get near him, high-five him, fist-bump him, be noticed by him. He was constantly being asked to relive the moment he performed his heroics. With each retelling, the story became more daring, hair-raising, death defying, and downright miraculous.
He posed for so many selfies that he was late to every class. But that was okay. The teachers worshipped him almost as much as their students did. The school newspaper published a special Superkid issue, and the yearbook devoted a double-page spread to him. A letter to the Post even suggested that the building should be renamed Hardcastle-Youkilis Middle School. Dr. Schultz promised to take it up at the next board meeting.
The Daniels loved it—mostly because they enjoyed watching me squirm.
“That’s got to hurt,” Nussbaum commiserated, all the while grinning like an idiot. “You know, watching somebody else get famous for what you did.”
“Yeah, it should be Hardcastle-Donovan Middle School,” Sanderson added in sympathy.
“Not so loud!” I hissed. “Okay, so it bothers me a little. But it’s better than everyone finding out it was me.”
Even Noah’s fiercest critic—Hash Taggart—was warming toward the local hero.
The same Hashtag who’d been about to pound Noah into hamburger if Beatrice hadn’t chomped him. Hashtag—the only reason Noah had been on Staunton Street that fateful morning in the first place.
Suddenly, the injured lacrosse star’s face began to appear in the crowd that was always around Noah. Every day at lunch, Hashtag moved a space or two closer at Noah’s cafeteria table. When a sixth grader pushed ahead of Noah in line for the drinking fountain, Hashtag practically body-checked the poor kid halfway down the hall. Whether he wanted one or not, Noah had a brand-new BFF.
The kinder, gentler Hashtag applied to Noah only. He was still off the lacrosse team, still playing wounded warrior with his big fat arm in a sling and blaming me for it. As soon as that big fat arm was out of the sling, he promised, he would use it to teach me a lesson I wouldn’t soon forget. At least, that was before the superkid talked him out of it.
“You’re lucky Noah likes you, man!” he told me. “Otherwise you wouldn’t get off so easy for siccing your hairball on me!”
Another reason why I was getting mercy was that the lacrosse team was on a winning streak, despite the absence of their star. What was their secret? The superkid. He was an inspiration. And since Noah was a cheerleader, he was always on the sidelines to lift their flagging spirits.
That was another thing about Noah’s new fame. Nobody seemed to notice what a terrible cheerleader he was anymore. Brad always complained that celebrities had a free pass at life. They weren’t held to high standards, the way soldiers and sailors and marines were in the military. Well, that was exactly what was starting to happen with Noah. Nobody said anything bad about him these days. His praying-mantis posture was now “laid-back,” and his whiny voice had become “emo.” He wasn’t short anymore; he was “compact,” or “feisty.” And his bizarre personality was described as “unique” or even “alternative.”
“Alternative to what?” Nussbaum mused innocently. “Human?”
“Martian,” Sanderson corrected.
“You take that back!” came an angry voice from behind us.
We all turned around. The cheerleaders were coming out of the locker room on their way to practice. There stood Vanessa, hands on hips, glaring at us. “How dare you make fun of Noah? You’re not fit to carry his pom-poms!”
“With a little weight training,” Nussbaum returned, “maybe Noah could be strong enough to carry his own pom-poms.”
Her eyes shot sparks. “You’re a jerk! If it wasn’t for Noah, poor Megan would be dead!”
Megan came up beside her. “Can people stop saying that? I might have survived, you know.” Then her expression turned angry and she added, “But you are a jerk! All three of you! You pretend to be Noah’s friends, and as soon as he’s not around, you bad-mouth him! Noah, who’s so”—her face twisted—“great.”
I’d seen hints of it before, but this was the first time it sank in that our beloved cheerleader-in-chief was getting sick of being told twenty times a day that she owed her life to the kid who kept knocking over her human pyramid. Megan, who should have been more grateful to the superkid than anybody, really couldn’t stand the guy.
She just couldn’t say it out loud.
I couldn’t get a sense of what Noah himself thought of all this. He had no time for me. He had friends and girlfriends—girlfriend wannabes, anyway. I tried staking out his
locker a few times. It was covered in Post-it notes of congratulations, with pink envelopes drenched in perfume jammed into the air vents. When I did find him there, he was always surrounded by admirers.
Outside of school, he was just as hard to pin down. He had interviews. Thanks to that appearance on The Russ Trussman Hour, the story of the superkid was starting to go beyond Hardcastle, and his parents picked him up almost every day to whisk him to some newspaper office or radio or TV station. When the Youkilis family Prius was parked in the school’s circular drive, it caused more excitement than a sighting of Air Force One.
When he was at our house visiting Tina, he was too busy for me. Katie was following through on her promise to turn him into a better cheerleader. Day after day, Brad took Tina out for a walk in her carriage so his wife could work with Noah in the backyard. It was a lost cause. He couldn’t do a cartwheel or a somersault. He couldn’t balance on one leg for more than a second or two. He could throw a punch and yell, “Fight,” but not at the same time. He wasn’t even good at clapping.
Every so often, Brad would parade by on the sidewalk, straight-arming the frilly pink carriage in front of him like it was a battering ram he was about to smash through some enemy fortification. The sight of Noah flopping all over the grass trying to jump or kick or dance was almost painful to him. Each time he circled by, his deepening exasperation had turned his face a little grayer.
“It’s a lost cause,” I couldn’t help but blurt on one pass.
“There’s no such thing!” He pushed the carriage into my arms. “Take the helm.”
He strode across the lawn and stopped right in front of Noah, who was on the ground after yet another failed cartwheel.
“Atten-hut!” Brad barked.
To my amazement, Noah scrambled to his feet and actually stood at attention, his arms straight against his sides.
Katie laughed. “All right, Brad—”
“Dismissed,” he told her.
“Very funny, but Noah and I are working on—”
“Dismissed,” he said, with more authority this time.
And she backed away a step.
Noah let out a nervous giggle, which he swallowed when Brad addressed him again.
“Cheerleader, you lack balance, basic coordination, and physical confidence. From now on, this neighborhood is your parade route, and I am your commanding officer. Is that clear?”
Noah tried to look at Katie, but she avoided his eyes. “Well, uh—”
“The proper response is ‘Yes, sir!’”
“Yes, sir,” Noah managed, totally cowed.
“Outstanding.” Brad wrapped the strap of Tina’s diaper bag under Noah’s arms and around his shoulders so that it hung like a backpack. “Forward, march!”
And off they went down the sidewalk, with Brad counting, “Hup, two, three, four. Hup, two three, four . . .”
As they passed, Noah shot me a pleading glance, which I answered with a helpless shrug.
“Eyes front!” Brad snapped.
Even my baby niece seemed fascinated by it all, but she was still too young to sit up in the carriage and watch her crazy father. Maybe that was for the best.
I rolled Tina back to her mom. “Don’t you think we should rescue poor Noah?” I asked Katie.
She looked thoughtful. “Maybe Brad’s onto something.”
“Seriously? Marine training for the cheerleading squad?”
She shrugged. “Let’s give Brad a chance. He can’t do any worse than I’ve been doing.”
It was almost an hour before they appeared again, two specks on the horizon—one four times the size of the other. The “hup, two, three, four” wafted in on the wind. Brad was still going strong, but Noah was dragging. He was red-faced, panting like an old dog in a heat wave. And yet—was it just me, or did he look a little better, marching almost in rhythm, his shoulders back? At least they would have been, if he had shoulders. Okay, it wasn’t perfect posture, but at least it was posture.
When they finally got back, he collapsed onto the front steps, hyperventilating.
“You did great, Noah,” Katie approved.
“Outstanding,” Brad agreed, removing the diaper bag from Noah’s back. “Same time tomorrow.”
Noah didn’t have enough breath to respond.
I figured we’d never see him again. I mean, I was stuck with Brad. He was family. But Noah didn’t have to put up with this. He was the superkid—at least, everybody thought he was.
Yet the very next day, after cheerleading practice, there he was at our door. And the day after that, and so on. On the fourth day, I looked out my window to see Kandy frolicking in a huge truck tire that was lying in the grass of the backyard.
Uh-oh. Brad was getting creative. Noah was in for it now.
And when Noah couldn’t budge the truck tire, much less flip it, Brad took one of the wheels off his SUV for his cadet to train with.
Noah was dubious. “Couldn’t we just march some more?”
“We’ll do that later,” Brad confirmed. “Marching is outstanding for cardio, but tire flips build strength and endurance.”
“Well, it’s just that the average light truck tire weighs thirty-five pounds,” Noah persisted. “That is, depending on tread wear—”
Brad cut him off. “Atten-hut!”
Noah scrambled to attention. If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn his back was straighter than it had been just a few days ago.
“Cheerleader, if you can’t flip this tire as far as that fence, you’re not fit to carry the pom-poms of the Hardcastle Middle School cheerleading squad. Is that clear?”
“All right.” Noah sighed. “I mean, yes, sir.”
By this time, trainer and trainee had an audience—Katie, Tina, Beatrice, Kandy, and me. It took a lot of struggling—not to mention Brad barking encouragement all the way—but Noah actually managed to get the tire across the yard. By the time he made it, he barely had the strength left to high-five Tina’s tiny hand.
“Outstanding” was Brad’s opinion.
My brother-in-law had plenty more in store for his trainee—push-ups, sit-ups, jumping jacks. Noah did eleven. Not of each; in total—one push-up, three sit-ups, and seven jumping jacks, depending on whether or not I should count the one where he got his feet tangled up and fell flat on his face. Jumping rope had to be scrapped because the cord kept wrapping itself around Noah’s neck.
“Outstanding,” Brad said again.
I had to admit that watching a guy strangle himself with a jump rope was kind of outstanding. Meaning it definitely stood out in your memory.
I felt sorry for Noah, but then it dawned on me. My brother-in-law hadn’t woken me up for a pre-dawn run ever since the beginning of Noah’s Marine training.
Brad had someone to torture and it wasn’t me.
The only one-on-one time I ever got with Noah these days was on those minibus rides to the Academy for robotics class. And then he spent most of the time on his phone, checking his Twitter feed.
I put my hand on his shoulder. “Noah—”
“Mmmm.” He continued to thumb the small screen.
Louder. “Noah—”
“Hey, my tuna melt from lunch got a hundred and fourteen likes.”
Eventually, I got so sick of being ignored that I ripped the phone out of his hand and jammed it into his backpack.
He was annoyed. “I was looking at that, you know.”
“That’s the problem, Noah,” I snapped. “Nobody should care about your tuna melt.”
“But they do. And I got a lot of retweets for my root beer float from Scoops Ahoy. Two twenty.”
“Because you posted it in the first place,” I insisted.
“It’s not my fault I’m famous.”
That made my blood boil. “It is your fault! It’s a hundred percent your fault!”
“You guys okay?” the driver tossed over his shoulder.
“Fine,” I replied. If you didn’t count the fact that I was on
the verge of strangling this brain-dead genius.
I dropped my voice to a whisper. “Everything was going fine until you got the brilliant idea to whip out that St. Christopher medal and tell the world you’re the superkid.”
“I did that for you.”
He sounded so sincere, so wounded, that my anger died down a little. “I know you did—at first. But look at yourself now. Your whole life is a blur of high fives and selfies and people liking your tuna melt. And you’ve gotten so into it that you’re forgetting the fact that it wasn’t you.”
“Of course I know it wasn’t me,” he defended himself.
“Okay, but don’t deny that you’re loving every minute of it.”
“Fine. I like it—a little.”
“A little?” I pressed.
“A lot. But what’s so bad about that? And anyway, even if I wasn’t the one who jumped into the cab of the truck, I’m still the superkid in a way.”
I stared at him. “How do you figure that?”
“People read about me in the newspaper or see me on TV,” he explained, “and they feel good. Kids see me in the hall or get to shake my hand, and it’s the best thing about their day. What difference does it make if I’m not the actual person who saved the house? People think I am. They don’t have to be right; they just have to believe it.”
I actually groaned at that one. Maybe part of Noah’s smarts was that he could talk himself into anything.
“The point is,” I went on, “you’re going to blow it.”
“How?” he challenged.
“By talking too much. They don’t teach this at genius school, but the key to every good lie is K.I.S.S.”
“Kiss?”
I nodded. “It stands for Keep It Simple, Stupid. Every time you retell the story, every interview you give, you run the risk of messing up a detail.”
“Impossible,” he scoffed. “I have an eidetic memory—that means I never forget anything.”
I shook my head. “You never know when you’re going to get asked something different, something you’re not ready for. Sure, you were on the scene, but you weren’t inside the truck. Once a reporter sniffs that something’s not kosher, it’s all over. No one will let it go until the truth comes out.”