Don't Care High

  The next day, Sheldon and Paul entered the school to be greeted by a great hum in the corridor outside Feldstein’s office. A group of students populated the hall in various relaxed postures, their eyes intent on a workman perched on a ladder. He had ripped out the old broken clock and was replacing it with a shiny new one.

  “What’s going on?” Paul asked the first face he took to be familiar. It was Peter Eversleigh.

  Peter chewed on his breakfast licorice. “This seems to be a pretty conceptual deal to me. New clocks. This dude whom we are regarding has been installing these new clocks all over Don’t Care.” He added, “Care for some stick?”

  “No, thanks. It’s a little early for me.”

  “I’m amazed at this,” commented Lucy LaPaz, one of the set of identical triplets in the school. “I’ve never seen anything new in this place.”

  Wayne-o was convinced that this was a symbolic gesture aimed at him. “They put those new clocks up so I should come on time,” he mourned. “They want me there at the beginning of every class.”

  “No, that’s not it,” Sheldon said suddenly. “Mike Otis arranged for these new clocks.”

  Paul’s breath caught in his throat.

  “Who?” echoed a dozen voices.

  “Mike Otis, our student body president. That was his very first demand. He saw what a disgrace it was that none of our clocks gave the same time, so he put some pressure on the school board, and look what happened.”

  Dick Oliver scratched his head. “I didn’t know the student body president could… do things.”

  “Oh, he’s got power, all right,” said Sheldon. “What would a president do without power?”

  Dick shrugged. “Nothing.”

  “Well,” said Sheldon, despite frantic signaling from Paul, “maybe other presidents have no power but mark my words, when Mike Otis talks, people listen. These clocks are living proof. And that was pretty fast work.”

  An answering hum testified to the fact that many people had heard Sheldon’s words. Paul grabbed his friend by the arm and hauled him away bodily from the group.

  “What are you — sick?” he hissed angrily. “Why did you do that?”

  Sheldon gave him an angelic smile. “I’m just helping out Mike. He’ll have a much easier time leading the students once he has a few accomplishments under his belt.”

  “But this isn’t his accomplishment! He’ll probably be the last guy in the whole school even to notice that there are new clocks!”

  “How could I resist?” said Sheldon dreamily. “Here was something just waiting to have credit taken for it. So I gave credit where credit was due.”

  “You’re crazy,” said Paul in disgust.

  “Maybe,” said Sheldon honestly. “But didn’t you think that there was one brief moment, one tiny shining instant, when those people back there cared? Not much, I admit, but remember, this is Don’t Care High.” He shook his head violently. “Don’t you see? In a world where students of this school can care about something, no one can tell what wonderful things could happen next. It… it enriches the experience of life.”

  Paul’s face radiated deep distaste. “And what are you going to do with your enriched life when people start going up to Mike Otis and saying ‘Thanks for the clocks’ and he says ‘What clocks?’”

  “Mike’ll probably just say ‘You’re welcome’ anyway. I don’t think he’s much for getting to the bottom of things.”

  “Well, don’t you think this whole thing is a little unfair to poor Mike?”

  Sheldon nodded. “I’ve thought of that. We owe him a bit of an explanation. But, being a Don’t Care student, he’s hard to talk to in school. We’ll let him in on the whole thing when we call him this afternoon.”

  “Call him? We don’t have his number.”

  “Well,” Sheldon admitted, “yes we do. You see, while you were studying in the library yesterday, I went to guidance to ask Mr. Morrison for Mike’s phone number. But the office was empty. So I went over to the confidential files, pulled Mike’s record, and photocopied it. I had it home with me last night. It makes for fascinating reading.”

  Paul was horrified. “That’s not only immoral and unethical, it’s probably illegal! This is disgusting! You’re disgusting!” He paused and studied the floor. “What did it say?”

  Sheldon beamed. “Just a lot of stuff about where he was born and the different schools he went to. His marks are nothing to scream about — mostly low seventies and a lot of comments like ‘Michael could be an excellent student if only he’d try.’ It almost reminds me of me.”

  “It doesn’t say ‘make of car’ in there anywhere, does it?” asked Paul with some embarassment.

  Sheldon shook his head. “No. But I did get his phone number and address and anything else we would need to know. We can call him from your house after school today.”

  “Why not your house?” asked Paul.

  “My father’s hosting a big meeting this afternoon. They all collect airplane boarding passes, so they formed a society, and my Dad’s vice-president. It seems some guy has dug up an old pass from Transatlantica’s Flight 643, the only flight to go direct from Zurich to Cleveland, and they’re coming from far and wide to look at it. Sometimes I wonder about my family. I’m crazy, and I’m still the sanest guy in the place.”

  * * *

  The elevator doors opened on the thirty-third floor of Paul’s building, and Sheldon and Paul found Mrs. Abrams standing there, car keys in hand.

  “Oh, Paul. Thank goodness you’re here. Hello, Simon.”

  “That’s Sheldon, Mom.”

  “Yes, of course, dear. I’m in a terrible rush. I’ve got to go over to your Auntie Nancy’s. Your cousin Cheryl sat in some tea.”

  “So?”

  “She’s in the hospital with first degree burns! Everyone’s very upset, especially poor Nancy. I must run. I’m needed there. Oh, and your father won’t be home for dinner tonight. I’m afraid you’re on your own, Paul. This is an emergency.” She dashed into the elevator, which Sheldon had been holding open for her, the doors shut, and the car bore her away on her mission of mercy.

  “Sat in some tea,” Paul repeated, shaking his head as they entered the apartment. “And you say your family is crazy? What say we go over to your place and have a look at that boarding pass before the guy leaves?”

  Sheldon smiled appreciatively. “We’ve got business.” He opened up a notebook and produced his copy of Mike’s file. “Here we go. Do you want me to do the talking?”

  “Please do.”

  Sheldon dialed the number and sat listening, a puzzled frown coming over his face. He hung up, then handed the receiver to Paul. “Here. You try.”

  Obediently, Paul dialed.

  “The number you have dialed is not in service. Please hang up and dial again.”

  Paul looked at Sheldon in surprise. “What do you make of that?”

  “He must have changed his number over the summer and forgotten to register the new one with the school. But look, we have the address. Let’s go over there.”

  “Aw, come on, Shel, couldn’t we just forget about it for the time being?”

  “No,” said Sheldon positively. “We owe the guy an explanation.”

  “Well, if you could learn to keep your big mouth shut, we wouldn’t owe him anything.”

  “One-oh-six Gordon Street, apartment eleven twenty-five,” Sheldon read. “That’s a short subway ride from here. Let’s go.”

  One-oh-six Gordon Street was a small, modern apartment building set in the middle of very old row housing. It was an attractive red brick structure with wrought-iron balconies trimmed with flower boxes. Paul wondered why Auntie Nancy hadn’t searched out such a place for his family instead of the chrome-and-gunmetal giant she had settled them into.

  They walked into the building and headed straight for the elevator, which opened at the call button.

  “Shel, are you sure we have to go through with this?”

  “
Yes, I’m sure. Now shut up and press eleven.”

  “There is no eleven.”

  “Don’t be silly. There has to be. The guy lives in apartment eleven twenty-five.”

  “Well, there isn’t.”

  Both boys stared. There were buttons for the basement, and floors one through ten, but no eleven.

  “The numbering system must be different,” Sheldon concluded. “We’ll ask the superintendent.”

  The superintendent’s office was on the main floor, and the super himself was a big burly man in a greasy undershirt. He was watching a Gilligan’s Island rerun when the two boys entered the office.

  “Yeah?”

  “Excuse me,” said Sheldon politely. “How can we find apartment eleven twenty-five?”

  “With great difficulty,” the man wisecracked in a deep booming voice. “It would be up on the roof with the pigeons. This is a ten-storey building, kid.”

  “Oh… well, where can I find the Otis family?”

  “There ain’t no Otis family here, buster, unless they snuck in last night and didn’t tell me.”

  “Well, they must have moved,” Sheldon concluded. “Do you have a forwarding address?”

  “I’ve been here twelve years, kid, and there ain’t never been no Otis family. Now, go away. Ginger’s going to sing.”

  Paul spoke up. “The fellow we’re looking for is about my height, seventeen, long straight hair greased back, always wears a big raincoat and sticks safety pins in the cuffs of his pants, and he drives a black… uh… car.”

  The superintendent stared at him, his expression a combination of malice and pity. “Look, I’ve never seen a guy like that in my life, and if I did, I’d call the cops. Now, leave me alone.”

  The boys left hurriedly, only to stand on the sidewalk staring back at the building.

  “That’s one-oh-six, all right,” Sheldon confirmed. “And this is Gordon Street. I don’t understand it.”

  “This is too weird,” said Paul in exasperation. “He drives a car that isn’t anything, his phone number is phony, and he lives on the eleventh floor of a ten-storey building. And every day he drives home from school, goes into an underground parking lot and never comes out. It’s as though the guy doesn’t even exist!”

  Sheldon shook his head again. “I just don’t understand it. But as long as we’re on our own for dinner, it occurs to me that we’re not too far from Onmiburger, where they make the best burgers in town. And fries — oh, man! I’d sell my sister’s cat to a tennis racket company just to inhale the aroma of those fries!”

  “Sheldon —” began Paul warningly.

  “We have to order the Megaburger. It’s a whole pound of meat on an eight-inch bun. It comes with Ton-o’-Fries and Vat-o’-Coke. We can split it.”

  “Sheldon, this isn’t another one of your deadly poison places, is it? I mean, there’s no patent on these burgers, I hope?”

  “Heck, no, this is gourmet junk food at its finest. Come on. Let’s go.”

  * * *

  Paul let himself into the empty apartment, clutching his midsection, where the Megaburger simmered, surrounded by his share of the Ton-o’-Fries. Passing the hall mirror, he looked at his green face. In the past two hours, he had taken in enough grease and oil to keep a fleet of taxis in perfect working order for six months. He switched on the radio in time to hear Flash Flood proclaim,

  “Isn’t it a beautiful evening in the greatest city in the world?”

  “No!” Paul shouted. Mike Otis was on his mind, and fast becoming the only thing on his mind aside from his overtaxed digestive system. He sat down heavily at the kitchen table and noticed that Sheldon had left Mike’s confidential file sitting there. Curiosity overcoming heartburn, he began to study it.

  OTIS, MICHAEL

  BORN: APRIL 1, 1968

  PLACE: FINCH, OKLAHOMA

  An odd feeling came over Paul, one that had nothing to do with the Ton-o’-Fries, and he all but ran to his room for the large family atlas.

  “North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma… Finch… aha!” There was no Finch, Oklahoma. Paul was not surprised.

  Replacing the atlas, he wandered to the window. Well, this certainly was a situation. Raincoat and safety pins notwithstanding, Mike Otis didn’t seem to exist. Out of a school of twenty-six hundred students, Sheldon had picked at random the only one with no past and no present. As for the future, Paul could only shrug out the open window. It boggled the imagination.

  * * *

  A burst of flame caught his eye, and he squinted into a window of the building across the street. It was a fire-eater, getting in a little extra practice at homße. Paul found it pretty mundane, actually, when compared to Mike Otis’s uncanny ability to disappear off the face of the earth.

  It was as though the fire-eater had guessed Paul’s thoughts and was insulted, because he stuck his head out the window and blew a fireball at Paul. Involuntarily, Paul jumped back.

  Flash Flood’s voice reached him from the living room. “It’s seven forty-six in the greatest city in the world. The late traffic is a mess in the tunnels, and the weather is going to be lousy. Face it, the world’s too complicated to try and figure out tonight, so stay home and stay tuned to the old Double 9.”

  Paul smiled in spite of himself. Flash Flood was no dummy.

  5

  Rolling into the third week of school, a number of things changed. The weather went from insufferably hot to unseasonably cold, and naturally, the climate control system that governed the air inside Don Carey High School was taken completely by surprise. The school staff apparently gave up trying to meet with student body president Mike Otis, as he was no longer mentioned in morning announcements. And Paul Abrams became the first student ever to understand fully the system employed by the LaPaz triplets.

  Lucy, Shirley and Rose LaPaz, identical in every way, were in Paul’s math class, his second-to-last class of the day. Only one of the LaPazes was registered for the course, and therefore only one would attend any given math class. However, Paul had begun to notice he would be in class with a different LaPaz every day. They were quite open about their respective identities, and did not mind Paul’s leading questions, but they would not reveal to anyone the secret and purpose of their system.

  Through careful observation, though, Paul had worked it out. Each girl would receive her schedule of six courses, and would immediately request that she be changed out of any course she might share with a sister. Mr. Morrison, ecstatic over students showing an interest in the curriculum, would be only too happy to oblige. This left the sisters with a total of eighteen courses, through which they rotated in turn. Come exam time, there was a great pooling of information, and finals would be divided up, six apiece, each test to be written by the most capable in the subject.

  “Wow!” exclaimed Sheldon when Paul let him in on his findings. “Ambition, you never cease to amaze me.”

  When they confronted Rose LaPaz with the theory, she seemed pleasantly surprised. “That’s quite a piece of detective work.”

  “Oh, we never would have figured it out,” said Sheldon modestly. “But Mike Otis knew it for a long time.”

  “Who?”

  “Mike Otis, our student body president. He’s unbeatable.”

  Rose looked impressed and went off to tell her sisters.

  That was the way it was becoming with Sheldon, Paul observed, not without some trepidation. Mike Otis was terrific. Mike Otis was wonderful. Everything good that happened was entirely the work of Mike Otis, regardless of reality.

  The part that really worried Paul was that Sheldon didn’t seem to be joking anymore. He had apparently convinced himself that Mike was some kind of superman. It was getting to the point where talking with Sheldon on the subject of the new student body president was downright impossible.

  “You know, Shel,” Paul would say, “don’t you think you’re overdoing this whole Mike Otis thing a little? I mean, he’s just a creepy little guy —”

&n
bsp; “He’s not creepy, he’s just avant-garde, that’s all. He’s, let’s say, the symbol for the nineties, so how can we, as eighties people, expect to judge him?”

  “If weird is the way of the nineties, then I agree with you. I mean, I’ve got nothing against the guy, but he’s strange. I’ve told you about how he doesn’t exist.”

  “Oh, that,” scoffed Sheldon. “A few mixed-up records. Mistakes like that happen every day. The guy is just too cool.”

  Paul shivered. He knew, for this week anyway, everyone at Don’t Care High was too cool. In response to last week’s heat wave, the janitors had managed to get the fans circulating cool air, just in time for the cold spell. So all the students wore thick sweaters and coats to class. All except the student body president, who continued to move about the school shrouded in his voluminous raincoat.

  Sheldon took this to be one of Mike’s many endearing qualities. “Look at the guy!” he crowed gleefully. “Nothing can make him change his habits! Not even the elements!”

  May I have your attention, please. Here are the day’s announcements.

  Due to the cold inside the school, the cafeteria staff requests me to tell you that there will be no fruit juice offered for sale today. There will, however, be snow cones available at the same price.

  Paul nudged Sheldon. “That guy’s crazy! You can never tell whether you should believe him or not!”

  “He was meant for the stage, not the desk,” Sheldon whispered back.

  On a somewhat less credible note, there is a program of restoration and repair planned for the school over the next couple of weeks. Consequently, there will be a number of workmen employed both in and around the building. We suggest that you steer clear of these people and let them get on with the job. That’s all. Have a good day.

  Paul could tell from the wide smile of pleasure on Sheldon’s face that his friend had big plans. He could see the wheels turning as Sheldon anticipated heaping credit on Mike Otis for each and every improvement made in the school during the weeks to come.

  * * *

  “I didn’t know the student body president could do that kind of stuff,” said Phil Gonzalez after listening to Sheldon explain how Mike Otis had single-handedly arranged for the renovations to the school building.