“Duncan,” whispered a voice in my head. “Duncan, wake up.”
I knew that voice; it belonged to weird Peter Thompson. But it couldn’t be Peter. He was gone, off in space with Broxholm somewhere. Which meant that I had to be dreaming. Which meant that I was asleep.
I tried to wake up.
My body didn’t cooperate.
All right—I’ll stay asleep, I thought.
Peter’s image materialized in my brain, looking just as he had the last time I had seen him, the night of our spring concert; the night Susan had used her piccolo to drive off the alien teacher.
It hadn’t surprised me that Broxholm couldn’t stand the sound of her piccolo. I didn’t like it much myself.
But I had never quite gotten over the fact that as near as any of us could tell, Peter had chosen to go into space with the alien. I mean, the rest of us were terrified that we were going to get kidnapped. Old Peter couldn’t wait to get his butt up into that spaceship.
Peter Thompson, tall and skinny, his brown eyes lost behind the thickest pair of glasses in the sixth grade.
“Duncan,” he whispered again. “Do you remember how many times you beat me up in the last three years?”
I shook my head—in my dream, that is.
“Lots,” said Peter with a nasty smile. Then his face began to change. His skin started to turn green: pale green first, then darker and darker, until it was the color of limes. His eyes stretched out until they looked like butterfly wings, huge and orange.
Broxholm!
“Get away from me!” I screamed.
And then I woke up—which didn’t improve things any, because when I opened my eyes I saw myself staring back at me. Only my face had no color. No color at all, only a pale, greenish-yellow glow.
I blinked. The other me blinked, too.
I shouted in terror.
The other me said, “Poot!”
“Yeeaaah!” I cried, rolling away. It was the slug-thing. It had climbed/crawled/oozed its way to the underside of the lab table, where I had landed when I blacked out.
I didn’t mind so much that it had been hanging over me, though that was pretty disgusting. What had me worried was the fact that it had imitated my face. I hoped it wouldn’t do that when I wasn’t around. It would be like an announcement that I had been here.
Could the slug only copy something that was in front of it? Or once it had copied something, would it be able to repeat that image over and over again? Who could tell? It’s not like there’s been a lot written about the mental ability of alien slugs that live in Tupperware containers kept in the refrigerators of junior-high science labs.
Of course, that was only one of the important questions I was facing at the moment. The others included (a) how was I going to get the slug back into the refrigerator? (b) how long had I been asleep? (c) had the brain fryer worked? (d) if it had worked, just how smart was I? and (e) what should I do next?
I decided the first thing to do was put the machine back. As I was packing it up I kept an eye out for the slug, which had crawled down from under the lab table and was watching me (I guess you could call it watching) from a spot on Andromeda Jones’s desk.
“Stay there,” I said, trying to sound menacing.
“Poot!” it replied.
I put everything back in place and rolled the cart toward the storage area. As I closed the door, I wondered if the machine had some sort of meter that would let Andromeda Jones keep track of how much brainpower it had passed out. I figured I must have gotten smarter, since that wasn’t the kind of thing I would have thought of before. Of course the thought didn’t serve any purpose other than to make me nervous. But at least it showed I was thinking.
I also wondered if Ms. Jones had used the machine on anyone else.
And I wondered why she had used it on me. I didn’t think it was out of the goodness of her alien heart.
That thought made me really nervous. It also convinced me that I had done the right thing. If Ms. Jones had fried my brains as part of some alien experiment, the best thing I could do to protect myself would be to get smarter as fast as I could.
I stopped and closed my eyes. How much smarter was I? It was hard to tell. I didn’t really have any way to test it. And the last brain fry had taken a while to really have an effect. I did feel a tingling in my skull. Maybe the machine had stimulated my brain so that it was growing new synapses or something.
I blinked. Why in the world did I know a word like synapses?
Must be the brain fryer had worked after all. Except I couldn’t figure out where I had found the word to begin with. Was the thing putting new information into my head, like those subliminal messages in records that people keep worrying about?
I shivered.
“I’ll think about it tomorrow,” I said to myself. “Just like Scarlett O’Hara.”
I blinked. It was happening again. Other than “Make my day,” I had never quoted a movie or a book before. Where was this stuff coming from?
Never mind. I had to get out of the lab. No more fooling around. I grabbed the Tupperware container and its lid and headed for the slug.
“Inside!” I ordered, holding the container in front of it.
“Poot?” it replied, sounding pitiful.
“Inside!” I repeated, trying to sound fierce.
It made a little pooty sigh, then slumped forward and oozed into the container. I slipped on the cover, then sighed myself. Remembering how my mother used these things, I pressed the edges of the lid in place, then pushed down on the center to get rid of the extra air. This is called “burping” the Tupperware.
Only the sound that came out was a tiny “poot.”
I put the container back into the refrigerator, which reminded me that I still hadn’t had anything to eat.
Stomach rumbling, I stared around the room. As far as I could tell, everything was back in place.
Now to head for home, I thought. I decided to put on my sneakers. I figured that with the amount of screaming I had done already, if there had been anyone else in the building, they would have caught me by now anyway.
Even so, I walked quietly. Being alone at night in a building where you don’t really belong will do that to you. Also, I still had a slight fear that the alien was going to jump out and nab me. That may not have made much sense, but you live through what I had lived through in the previous few days and tell me how much sense you make!
I went to one of the back doors, since I didn’t want some late-night driver who happened to be passing by to spot me slipping out of the building.
The moon had disappeared behind a cloud. Its absence made the sky darker and the stars brighter. I looked up into the darkness and wondered which of those points of light Andromeda Jones called home. As I stood there staring into the night, I suddenly remembered that there was a constellation called Andromeda. Was that where she had gotten her fake human name? Pretty nervy of her.
Of course, it was pretty odd for me to remember the name of any constellation. But I barely noticed that fact. I guess I was already getting used to being smarter.
I walked around the school. The grass was soaked with dew, and so were my sneakers by the time I got to the front of the building. I could hear crickets singing in the distance.
I like being out in the night. The time is quiet and private, and you can feel more like yourself than you do in the daylight.
I heard the town clock begin to chime. Two hours past midnight. I figured I had better get moving.
I had only walked a couple of blocks when a car pulled up beside me and a deep voice said, “Get in, Duncan.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Accused
Once my heart started to beat again, I realized that I knew the person driving the car.
It was Peter Thompson’s father.
“Get in,” said Mr. Thompson again. “I’ll give you a ride home.”
I hesitated. Not because I didn’t trust Mr. Thompson. I just didn’t want
to hear him whine on about how much he missed Peter now that he was gone.
On the other hand, I was tired and hungry, and getting a ride home instead of having to walk was very appealing. I decided I could listen to Mr. Thompson for a few minutes if it meant getting to my house—and my refrigerator—faster.
Actually, it was the refrigerator that was topmost in my mind. I was hoping I could find something in there that I could eat without having to worry about whether or not it was still alive. Of course, there was no guarantee on that matter. My father calls our refrigerator Resurrection City, because my mother puts in stuff that’s dead and three months later takes it out covered with new life.
Whenever Dad says that my mother replies, “Look, Harold, if you don’t like it, you can clean the refrigerator yourself, since last time I looked you didn’t have two broken arms—though you might if you don’t watch out.”
Life at my house is not exactly like life on Leave It to Beaver.
“So, what are you doing out at this time of night?” I said as I climbed into the car.
The instant I said it I realized what a dumb question it was for a kid to ask an adult at two o’clock in the morning on a school night. But then, I’ve noticed that for most people, their tongue is the last part of their body to get smart.
I wished I hadn’t asked. I wished it even more when Mr. Thompson answered, because depending on how I took it, what he said was either terribly sad or as scary as anything that had happened so far that night.
But I had asked, and Mr. Thompson answered.
“I’m looking for Peter,” he said.
I closed my eyes. Even though my tongue was running ahead of my brain, I was smart enough to know that “Grow up, Jack, your kid took off for outer space because he couldn’t stand you,” was not the right thing to say under the circumstances.
Actually, I could think of several dozen things that were not the right thing to say under the circumstances. What I couldn’t come up with was anything that I should say.
So I kept my mouth shut, which was probably the best proof I had had so far that the brain fryer was making me smarter.
“I know he’s around here somewhere,” said Mr. Thompson as he began to drive. “I just don’t believe he’s gone that far away. He’s too smart to think he could survive someplace like New York City, even though he always wanted to live there.”
This was sad. Mr. Thompson’s idea of far away was several trillion miles short of where his kid had really gone.
“Do you know where he is, Duncan?” asked Mr. Thompson. “I know you were his best friend, because you were the only one who ever stayed overnight at the house. He must have told you where he was going. Tell me. Please tell me.”
A car passed us, going in the other direction. In the glow of its headlights I could see that Mr. Thompson had tears running down his cheeks.
“Peter didn’t like me as much as you think he did,” I said truthfully, which was sort of a new experience. “He only let me stay at your place because I was in trouble.”
Mr. Thompson nodded. “Peter would have done that,” he said. “He was a good boy.”
I felt like asking Mr. Thompson if he had ever bothered to tell Peter he thought he was a good kid while he was still around. I decided it wasn’t the time.
I really didn’t like seeing him so sad. So when he stopped the car in front of my house I said, “Listen, if I hear from Peter, I’ll be sure to let you know.”
“Thanks, Duncan,” said Mr. Thompson. “You’re a good boy, too.”
I swallowed. My throat started to hurt. I don’t know why, for sure, except that no one had ever said that to me before.
When I went inside everyone was asleep except Patrick, who was sitting up watching an old movie. “Ma’s mad ‘cause you didn’t call,” he said.
I nodded. She always said she was mad when Patrick didn’t show up, too. But usually she was really just relieved.
I went upstairs and got into bed.
But I didn’t go to sleep.
Mostly I stared at the ceiling, trying to figure out the answers to questions I had never asked before I got so smart.
If I didn’t know how to take Mr. Thompson, my teachers began having the same problem with me. It started two days after I gave myself the second dose of the brain zapper. Mr. Black, the math teacher, called me in at lunchtime and said, “Mr. Dougal, I am going to give you one chance to confess. Otherwise you will be going straight to the principal’s office.”
I looked at him. “Confess to what?” I asked.
He glared at me. “Mr. Dougal, I cannot abide cheating. I want to know how you passed the math test I gave you yesterday afternoon.”
Sheesh! What was I going to tell him? That I passed it because I had gotten my brain fried and I was probably smarter than he was? I was smart enough to know that was a bad idea, even if I hadn’t been smart enough to realize that suddenly passing a test was going to get me into trouble.
I closed my eyes and thought fast. “I’m turning over a new leaf,” I said, trying to sound sincere. “I really studied for that test.”
Actually, that was a lie. I had barely studied at all. I didn’t need to; my brain had just absorbed the information.
From the look on his face, Mr. Black might have found the fried-brain story more believable.
“I want the truth,” he said.
“Mr. Black, I didn’t cheat. I can prove it. Give me some more questions, right now, and I’ll do them for you. You’ll see. I really know the stuff. I do!”
Mr. Black smiled, as if he knew I had really gotten in over my head. “All right,” he said. “Have a seat.”
I sat down in the first row. Mr. Black went to his desk and took out a sheet of paper and a pencil. He scribbled down a few numbers, then brought the paper over and set it in front of me.
I wanted to kick him. The problem he had written down was harder than anything on the test. He wanted me to get it wrong.
Brain, I thought, don’t fail me now.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Sound of Music
I stared at the problem. For a moment my mind seemed to go blank. Then I could almost feel the ants start crawling around inside my head. Without looking up, I reached for the pencil Mr. Black was holding. He handed it to me, and I began to figure.
Thirty seconds later I had the answer.
When I handed the paper to Mr. Black he was staring at me as if I had just sprouted wings and flown around the room a couple of times.
“How did you do that?” he asked.
“Must be you’re a great teacher,” I said. It was a nasty crack, but I was really mad.
Mr. Black sat down at his desk. He looked at me, at the paper, and then back at me. “You can go, Duncan,” he said at last. “Please keep up the good work.”
I should have learned my lesson from that little scene. People don’t want you to change too fast. Some people don’t want you to change at all, because then they have to think when they deal with you.
But I was too excited about my new brain to hide my light under a bushel for the moment. When I left Mr. Black’s room I went straight to the library.
The librarian looked at me suspiciously. “We don’t circulate the swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated, Duncan,” she said when I walked through the door.
“That’s all right,” I said. “I want to read a book.”
The look on her face was even better than the one on Mr. Black’s had been.
It wasn’t until I got to science the next morning that I realized I had better be careful about this. Home economics had been fun. Even though I was doing better there, people just figured it was because I had settled down for a couple of days. No one thought that much of my intelligence because I didn’t ruin the eggplant, though Miss Karpou gave me a big smile and thanked me for my good work, which made me feel kind of warm inside.
But when I sat down in science class it suddenly occurred to me that if I showed off too much,
Ms. Jones would be bound to know what I had been up to.
On the other hand, since she was the one who had fried my brains in the first place, I shouldn’t have to act entirely stupid in her class, either.
The ones who really had a problem coping with me were the other smart kids. They had known me as Duncan the Dunce for so long that they didn’t know how to react when I started answering questions that some of them couldn’t figure out.
Part of the reason I was getting smarter so fast was that I was reading my brains out. Or in. Or something. It only took me a day or two to realize I needed to do that in secret. The first time Patrick saw me reading a book he pulled it out of my hand and asked me if I was turning into a geekoid. I couldn’t believe he could be such a jerk.
Then I remembered how I used to treat Peter Thompson.
My father was no better. He told me he thought reading was a complete waste of time.
So I had to do all my reading where no one could see me.
Two nights later I stayed after school and gave myself a third zap with the brain fryer. I looked in the refrigerator for the slug-thing, but it was gone. I wondered if Ms. Jones had eaten it or something. To my surprise, the idea made me a little unhappy. Despite the fact that it had terrified me, I had gotten kind of used to the little guy.
Between the third session with the brain fryer and the fact that I was reading hundreds of pages a day, I could feel myself getting smarter faster and faster. Something I hadn’t expected was that the more I learned, the more things made sense. Sometimes learning one thing made three other things suddenly come into focus. I was starting to find the connections that made learning fun.
Sheesh. Listen to me! Who ever thought I would use the words learning and fun in the same sentence?
Even though I was having fun, there were a few things still bothering me. Number one was the question of what Andromeda Jones was up to. Why had she fried my brains to begin with? And why hadn’t she said or done anything about it since? Was I some kind of experiment? Had the aliens gotten together and said, “Hey, let’s see what happens if we make a bozo bright”? I didn’t particularly like that idea, though from my point of view it was working out OK for the time being.
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