Dr. Wilburn was a tall, elegant woman with silver-gray hair. She looked at my father and said, “To tell you the truth, Mr. Dougal, we are still trying to decide. We had thought about suing Duncan for slander. However, since he is a minor we chose not to follow that option. I will be bringing the matter up at the Board of Education meeting later this week, where I will note your concern. An apology from Duncan would, of course, be useful.”
My father looked like someone had smacked him in the face with a dead fish. When he demanded that Dr. Wilburn find the alien and get rid of him or her, Dr. Wilburn replied that there was no way the school was going to pay attention to the rantings of a disturbed seventh grader who had a long history of lying and was using last spring’s tragedy to bring attention to himself.
“What about the glove?” demanded my father, his face red with anger.
Dr. Wilburn folded her hands in front of her. “Show me the glove, and I will take action,” she said.
“Duncan,” said my father, “where’s the glove?”
“It’s gone,” I whispered. “It fell apart.”
The look on his face said it all. My father felt I had totally betrayed him.
Dr. Wilburn asked us to leave. Actually, she told us that if we didn’t go, she would consider having us arrested.
I felt like a bug on the windshield of life. I felt like dog poop. I felt like blowing up the universe.
My father went off, and I went to my first-period class, which was home ec. I was looking forward to seeing Miss Karpou, since she was usually so cheerful, but she was all upset because the refrigerator was broken, and it had messed up her lesson plan for the day.
Plus, everyone started to laugh when I came in.
“Quiet, class!” said Miss Karpou.
No one paid any attention (which was what usually happened when poor Miss Karpou tried to get us to shut up). They just kept laughing and mocking me.
Too bad for them. Because a few hours later, when I finally got a clue as to who the alien was, I decided to keep it to myself.
Oh, I had my reasons. For one thing, I knew no one would believe me. For another, by then I didn’t give a bat’s butt about what happened to any of them anyway.
Besides, what gave me the clue was something so big, so tremendously exciting, that I knew it might be the most important discovery in the history of the planet.
Given the way everyone was treating me, I decided it was going to stay my secret.
CHAPTER NINE
How To Fry Your Brains
My discovery happened during math class. Mr. Black was explaining something about changing fractions into decimals, which was about the same thing as explaining how to make snoods into farfels as far as I was concerned, when suddenly I started to understand what he was talking about.
Now that may not seem like much to you. But it was the first time it had ever happened to me. I never got anything in math the first time around. Of course, I didn’t usually listen real hard, but that was mostly because there didn’t seem to be much point in listening, since I knew I wasn’t going to get it anyway.
That day was different. As I listened to Mr. Black, all the things I was supposed to have been learning about math over the last eight years suddenly began to fit together. I was amazed. This stuff actually made sense! It connected. It was almost beautiful, in a weird sort of way.
My brain was tingling.
And then the next amazing thing happened. Mr. Black asked a question, and I knew the answer! I thought about raising my hand, but that seemed too weird. Besides, if I answered the question, I knew people would just figure I was cheating somehow, and I had already had enough attention for one day.
It didn’t take me too long to guess what was happening. Even a moron could have figured it out, and I was no moron—at least, not anymore.
It was simple: Andromeda Jones was the alien, and that machine she had used on me the day before was some sort of alien brain fryer—a brain fryer that made you smarter.
And if it could make me smarter once, maybe another dose would make me even smarter. Wouldn’t that be cool? Forget Duncan Dougal, boy hero. I was going to be Duncan Dougal, boy genius!
I couldn’t wait for the day to end. I had my plans already made. All I had to do was hang on and not bop anyone before the final bell rang. It wasn’t easy, since I was still getting a lot of flak about the article in the Sun. But I didn’t care anymore. I was going to be better than those jerks, better than all of the clods who had laughed at me all these years.
When the last bell rang I headed for the boys’ room. I slipped into one of the toilet stalls and stood on the seat, so no one would see me if they looked underneath the door. Normally it wouldn’t be a problem to stay after school; lots of kids stay after for different activities. But since I was known as a troublemaker, the school didn’t want me around. If anyone spotted me, I would be sent home.
While I was standing there waiting, I found myself wishing that I had brought a book to read.
The very thought made me blink. Why in heaven’s name would I want a book?
The answer was simple. My brain was hungry.
This being-smart thing was going to take some getting used to!
After about an hour I left the rest room. By that time most of the teachers had gone home, so I knew the halls would be a little safer. Besides, I was worried that one of the janitors would be coming in to clean the toilets before long.
How soon did I dare go use the brain fryer?
Not soon. The more I thought about it, the more I knew I didn’t want to be interrupted. I didn’t want any teachers or kids to catch me at this. It was going to stay my secret.
And I sure didn’t want the alien to catch me.
Of course, the question I should have been asking myself was, why had she used it on me in the first place? I had probably gotten smart enough to think of that question. But I was too excited about the potential of all this to really worry about that idea. I didn’t want anything to stop me—not even the possibility that this was a trap of some kind. If it was, the bait was worth it. I was tired of feeling stupid.
I began sneaking down the hall toward the science lab. I figured I might as well hide in there, even if I was going to wait until later to use the brain fryer.
After about three steps I decided to take off my sneakers, which aren’t all that great for sneaking no matter what you call them. They’re not bad, but they can give you a surprise squeak if you’re not careful. Socks, even filthy ones, are quieter.
I heard a noise and scurried into a classroom. Lying on the floor, I watched as a whistling janitor pushed a broom down the hall. I tried to time him in my head and see how long it took before he came back. I counted a hundred and eighty elephants—about three minutes.
I decided to wait in right where I was, which was probably as safe as anywhere. Then I realized that I was across the hall from the library. That would be more interesting.
I waited for the janitor to go past again, then scurried across the hall and through the library door.
That was the first time I had been in the library this year. It might have been the first time in my life I had gone into a library without being forced. I found a book that looked interesting, something about cars, and crawled under a table in the corner.
I had enough light, but just barely. It didn’t make that much difference. Even though I really wanted to read the book, I couldn’t. I just couldn’t figure out what the words said.
I had to get another zap of that brain fryer.
I tried to read for a little while longer. My eyes got heavy. My head sagged forward. Soon I was asleep.
When I woke the building was pitch dark. I crawled out from under the table and listened. Silence.
Well, near-silence. My stomach started to rumble, which wasn’t surprising since I hadn’t had anything to eat since lunchtime.
Trying to ignore my stomach’s pleas for food, I stepped out into the hallway. It was kin
d of spooky being in the school all by myself. Kind of fun, too. Normally I might have decided that this was the time for a little mischief. Now I only had one thing on my mind: getting smarter.
Wow. Getting smarter in school. That was the first time the idea had ever occurred to me.
I tiptoed down the dark hall to the science lab. I paused at the door. The room was pitch dark. What if the alien was inside? For all I knew, she slept here—maybe she folded herself up and spent the night on the shelf. Who could tell with an alien?
My stomach rumbled again. I wondered if Ms. Jones had anything to eat in the lab refrigerator. I figured if I was going to get smart, there was no point doing it on an empty stomach.
I felt my way to the lab refrigerator and pulled open the door. The little light inside seemed terribly bright after all the darkness. At first glance, it wasn’t very encouraging. Most of the bottles had either little dead animals or small green plants. None of them looked like they were meant for human stomachs.
But at the back of the fridge I found a square Tupperware container that looked promising. I pulled it out. Hoping there would be something inside that might make my stomach stop complaining, I pulled off the lid.
Then I started to scream.
CHAPTER TEN
Poot!
I probably wouldn’t have screamed if the stuff in the container had only been glowing. Even if it had only started to wobble, I might have been able to control myself, telling myself that I had accidentally shaken the container.
But when the glowing, jellylike mass I had uncovered began to ooze over the rim of the Tupperware and up along my arm, it was more than I could handle. I not only screamed, I dropped the container onto the counter.
But the blobby stuff was attached to me. It stretched, extending from my wrist to the container. I backed away, still screaming. The stuff continued to stretch, dragging the container with it. Suddenly the container slid off the edge of the counter. The goo inside pulled out with a horrible sucking sound, then snapped onto my hand, almost like a rubber band.
Then it started to whine.
“Aaaahh!” I screamed. “Aaah! Aaah! Get off! Get off!”
I shook my hand, trying to get rid of the glowing goo. The stuff stretched to the right, and then to the left, bulging with my movements. Suddenly it came loose from my hand. It sailed through the air and landed on the counter with a splat!
It sat there whimpering for a minute. Then it slowly reshaped itself until it looked something like a two-foot-long slug. A glowing slug. The slug-thing lifted its front end (at least, I assume it was the front end) several inches into the air. It turned so that it was pointing at me.
And then it burped. It burped right at me, as if it wanted me to know how disgusted it was with me.
Then it collapsed onto the counter.
I wanted to run. But if I did, if I left that stuff lying on the counter, Ms. Jones would know that someone had been snooping around. And then I would never get to use the brain fryer. And I wanted to use it.
Suddenly I got an idea, which sort of shows you the effect the brain fryer had already had on me. The idea was this: if I used the brain fryer first, maybe it would zap up my mindpower enough so that I could figure out what to do with the slug next.
“You stay there,” I said, pointing at the slug and trying to keep my voice from trembling.
It lifted one end and said, “Poot.” But it said it in a kind of a weak little voice. I felt a twinge of fear. Did this thing have to be in the refrigerator to stay healthy? Was it going to die if I left it out on the counter? If it did, what then? Andromeda Jones would know that someone had been fooling around in the lab, and with her alien science it probably wouldn’t take her long to figure out who it was.
Then another thought hit me. The worst one yet. What if I was supposed to come in here and fry my brains? And what if the reason was that this thing I had found in the refrigerator was some alien brain-eater that needed a supercharged brain for a snack every now and then, or else it would starve to death? Suddenly the phrase “brain food” took on a horrible new meaning.
I couldn’t decide if I was glad I was smarter, because it let me think of things like this, or if I wished that I wasn’t so smart, so such awful ideas wouldn’t cross my mind.
Well, I had gone this far. No point in stopping now. Unless there was some way to put that machine in reverse, I was going to have to keep getting smarter just so I could stay alive.
Of course, none of this was going to make any difference if I couldn’t find the thing. It suddenly occurred to me that maybe Ms. Jones had taken the machine home with her rather than leave it around in the school, where someone like me could get ahold of it.
That is, assuming she had a home, and wasn’t curled up somewhere on a shelf in the science lab, just waiting for me to finish making a fool of myself by making a genius of myself so that she could feed me to the refrigerator slug.
I tried to remember what she had done with the machine after Marcus had finished cranking it the day before. At first I had no idea, which made sense; because I had been so mad at everyone that I wasn’t really paying attention to what happened with the machine.
But then some images began to form in my head. I was remembering. I was really remembering! I hadn’t even paid attention. But the images were stored in my brain.
I wondered how much else was stored in there.
This getting smart had its advantages after all!
I went to the walk-in closet where Ms. Jones had put the machine after her demonstration was over. My heart began to pound. What if she was inside waiting for me? My imagination created a vivid image of her hanging upside down from the ceiling, like some giant bat, just waiting for me to open the door so she could grab me.
I shook my head. I guess I was also getting more creative. Too bad courage wasn’t also part of the package.
I was dying to turn on a light. But that was impossible. It would have been like standing on the roof and shouting that someone was snooping around in the building.
Taking a deep breath, I began to open the closet door. Slowly. Very slowly, standing not in front of it but beside it, in case anything came charging out of the darkness.
Nothing. Silence.
Holding my breath, I began to peer around the edge of the door. Suddenly I felt something touch my ankle.
I learned it doesn’t take brains to invent antigravity, just fear. I was halfway to the ceiling before my scream hit my lips. “Aaaaah!” I cried, just like before. “Aaaaahh!”
“Poot?” asked a small voice.
I was standing on the doorknob. I looked down and saw the glowing slug-thing on the floor beneath me. One end was lifted in the air, waving in a slow circle.
“Poot?” it asked again.
My heartbeat went from jackhammer level down to bass-drum level. For a moment I wondered what would happen if I jumped on the slug. Maybe I would kill it. Or maybe it would just split into a jillion little slime balls, each one of them hungry, angry, and out to eat my brain.
Scratch that idea.
“Go away!” I yelled.
“Poot!” answered the slug, sounding as angry as me.
I decided to take a chance. I jumped down from the doorknob, landing about two feet from the slug. “Scram!” I screamed.
“Poot!” it cried in panic. Then it formed itself into a circle and began to roll back across the floor to the lab table.
I didn’t have much time. And after all that noise, there was no way I was going to sneak up on anyone (or anything) waiting in the closet. So I just walked in.
I didn’t spend long looking for the thing. Actually, I didn’t spend any time looking for it, since the closet was too dark inside to see anything. But I hadn’t groped my way more than two feet past the door when I bumped into a rolling table, the kind teachers usually keep movie projectors on.
This one didn’t have a projector; it had Ms. Jones’s brain fryer.
Trembling wit
h excitement, I rolled the machine back into the lab. Working in the dim light (half from the moon, half from street lamps) that came through the windows, I began to set up the machine. At one point I closed my eyes, trying to remember how the helmet had been connected to the generator. In a few seconds my brain sent me the image.
I smiled. This being smart was good stuff.
I looked around for the slug. It was lurking over by the lab table.
Placing the helmet carefully on my head, I got ready to fry my own brains.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Zap!
I concentrated hard, trying to remember everything Ms. Jones had done that first time. After all, I sure didn’t want to put the machine in reverse and make myself dumber.
Finally I was ready. Leaning one hand on the table next to the generator, I took the crank in my other hand and began to turn it—slowly at first, then faster and faster.
For a moment nothing seemed to happen. Then I felt a familiar sensation, as if a breeze were ruffling my hair.
I turned the crank a little faster.
My hair stood up. The ants started to crawl around inside my head.
I could almost feel myself getting smarter.
Now I started to really crank. “Come on, machine,” I whispered, “come on, baby, do your stuff. Make me the next Einstein!”
Sparks of lightning began to flash through my head. Colors seemed to flicker around me. My hand was a blur as it turned the generator’s crank faster and faster.
“Poot!” cried the slug-thing in alarm.
I thought I smelled something burning. I wanted to stop, but it was as if my hand were on automatic pilot, and my brains were too busy getting fried to give it a new order.
Z-A-A-A-P!
That sound, like an enormous spark sizzling through the night, is the last thing I remember. I blacked out and fell to the floor.