“You were told to stay off-campus, period.” Somehow, her lack of emotion was scarier to Wayne than his stepfather Ken’s white-hot rage. “I didn’t want to handle things this way, but you don’t leave me much choice. The police are on the way, and they’ll take it—and you—from here.”
Wayne felt heavy, his limbs leaden. His head slumped down toward his chest, and he could not stop it no matter how hard he tried. It was all so desperately unfair; he knew that no matter what he said, he would not be believed. No one cared.
“Good,” Colin said, appearing from practically nowhere at the office door.
Wayne found the strength to lift his eyes toward Colin, betrayal and confusion stinging them. Dr. Doran took a step to the side so she could stare down both boys at once. She was no more certain of Colin’s intentions or his meaning than Wayne was.
Colin stood tall, arms straight. His glasses seemed to sit right on his nose. He did not slouch, or slump, or look away. For the first time in his life, he didn’t look like a boy who could be bullied or in need of protection from bullies. Colin looked CERTAIN.
“The police will be here when Wayne is proved innocent,” Colin said.
Sandy entered behind Colin, as confused by the gathering as anyone. “Dr. Doran?” she asked. “I got a note that you wanted to see me?”
Dr. Doran looked between Colin and Wayne and then at Sandy, suddenly understanding why Sandy had come even if she didn’t understand the reason behind the invitation. “I didn’t send anybody a note. If you got one, it was forged.” She directed the word forged at Colin, as if to say, “We’re going to talk.”
Colin shook his head, clearly disagreeing with Dr. Doran’s conclusion. “The note only said that you want to see her, which you do, even if you don’t know it yet. I know this because I sent the note.”
Dr. Doran took a deep, cleansing breath. “Colin, I told you before: There are limits to my indulgence of you.”
“I told you before: The gun didn’t belong to Wayne. And I was right.”
Sandy shifted nervously. She edged back toward the door. “Can I go?”
“Go, Sandy,” Dr. Doran said.
“Stay, Sandy,” Colin said.
“Wake up, Wayne,” Wayne said. He slapped his own cheek, hard.
Colin was acutely aware of the SHOCK that rippled through the office from his clear but simple defiance. He could feel the stares directed at him, the CONFUSION and ANGER of the teachers and staff, the ADMIRATION of his fellow students. None of that mattered. None of that could be allowed to distract him from his mission now.
Sandy had gone pale. She shook with FEAR.
Colin turned to her. There was no malice in him. No cruelty. There was just a relentless confidence in the facts. “It was Eddie’s gun,” Colin explained. “He bought it from a La Familia in Sylmar named El Cocodrilo, which is Spanish for ‘The Crocodile.’ They call him this on account of his toothy smile. I think that’s a bad metaphor because crocodiles can’t smile.32 But it’s his name, and I suppose he can call himself whatever he likes.”
“Dude,” Wayne interjected, “if you could get to the point, that would kick ass.”
“Yes,” Dr. Doran agreed, ignoring his language. “Less color, more fact.”
“Eddie bought the gun because he was mad at Wayne and wanted to scare him. But he never got the chance,” Colin revealed. He fixed his gaze on Sandy, not letting the FEAR in her eyes stop him. “You took it out of his locker when he wasn’t looking and you hid it in your purse.”
“That—that’s crazy,” Sandy stammered.
“No, it’s perfectly rational. You took the gun to protect Eddie because you like him. The same reason why you ate ice cream with him when your mother wasn’t home.”
Whatever color remained in Sandy’s face drained away. She seemed to know what Colin was referring to, but no one else did. Colin himself only understood it in the context of Eddie’s story. Not even Wayne, schooled as he was in the dark arts of schoolyard innuendo, could say for certain what ice cream had to do with anything.
“You can’t prove anything,” Sandy croaked past the lump in her throat.
Dr. Doran stepped between Colin and Sandy. She had seen and heard quite enough, and if there was more to hear, the main office wasn’t the place for it. “Sandy is right,” she said to Colin. “And without proof, you’re just harassing an innocent student.”
“Like Wayne?” Colin asked.
“Don’t change the subject.”
“I’m not. Wayne is the subject. And the gun.” He gestured toward Sandy and the large purse slung over her shoulder. “Look inside her purse. You’ll find residual gun oil and some pink-and-white-chocolate frosting, from the piece with the rose.”
In spite of herself, Dr. Doran glanced down at Sandy’s open purse. Was that dried chocolate frosting crusted on the inside? It was hard to say.
“You saved a piece of Melissa Greer’s birthday cake to take to Eddie after his workout,” Colin reminded Sandy. “The gun must have rubbed against it as it fell out during the disturbance in the cafeteria. Just like your tube of melon lipstick, which you had to replace.”
Wayne just stared at Colin. This was the most amazing thing he had seen in a week of amazing things. He made a surreptitious attempt to gain Colin’s attention and share the moment, but Colin was oblivious to Wayne’s sudden swell of camaraderie.
Sandy shook her head in denial and disbelief. She glared at Colin, her FEAR transforming into HATE. As an adolescent girl, hate was a weapon she knew how to use. “I don’t have to say anything to you…Shortbus.”
“Don’t call him that,” Wayne growled before he realized he had said anything at all. Dr. Doran frowned. If Colin noticed the slur, it made no difference.
“I already spoke to Eddie,” Colin pressed. “He knows what you did.” The first assertion was a fact, the second a strongly stated conjecture. Still, there was no way to know whether Colin was telling the truth to manipulate Sandy’s response or not. His expression was blank, his voice emotionless. He was a walking, talking Kuleshov Effect.
“Tell the truth or take the consequences. I know it seems like you’ll be better off if you don’t say anything, but it’s not true. The math just isn’t on your side.” He stepped closer to her, unconscious of encroaching on Sandy’s personal space in a way that under other circumstances would have been impossible for him. “Tell the truth now before the police get here,” he insisted. “And maybe you won’t go to jail.”
“That’s it,” Dr. Doran broke in, and she meant it. “We’re done here.”
“But we have to bring Eddie in. We have to ask him how he made contact with La Familia and arranged for the purchase. This is much bigger than—”
“Enough.”
Colin was silenced by her intensity—even taken aback. “Dr. Doran…”
“He was so mad at Wayne,” Sandy broke in suddenly, staring out the window. She sounded strange, disconnected from everything and everyone. Even the fear seemed to have fled from her as the words flooded out. “I didn’t know what he would do. I couldn’t let him hurt anyone, and I couldn’t let him get in trouble.” She looked over to Dr. Doran, pleading now. “Please don’t let me go to jail.”
Dr. Doran’s eyes flicked toward the picture window on the far side of the office, behind the secretaries’ desks. Outside, she could see what Sandy had been staring at the entire time she’d been speaking: A police cruiser was parked in the driveway now. A pair of LAPD school policemen were making their way to the front door.
“Sandy, get in my office and call your parents,” Dr. Doran snapped. “Call them right now.” Sandy didn’t have to be spoken to again; she did as she was instructed and disappeared down the narrow hallway to Dr. Doran’s private office. Dr. Doran waited for her to close the door behind her, then fixed on Wayne and Colin. Hers was not the look of an authority figure grateful for the efforts of private citizens.
“Wayne, go home. We’ll work this out tomorrow. And Colin…
” Her voice trailed off. She was less certain about how to deal with Colin than she was about anything in this sea of uncertainties she found herself swimming in.
“No need to thank me,” Colin said helpfully. “We will deal with Eddie next.”
“You missed detention yesterday. Now you owe me two.”
With that, she turned on her heel and marched out of the office to intercept the police before the situation got any bigger or any worse. Wayne watched her go, waiting for the click of her heels to fade to inaudibility before daring to address Colin.
“Dude,” Wayne said finally. “That blows.”
Colin slumped ever so slightly. His glasses slipped, and he pushed them back up. This was not how he expected all of this to end. Later, in his Notebook he observed:
Real life doesn’t work like a mystery novel. But it should. Investigate.
“It’s quiet in detention,” Colin said. “I like it when it’s quiet.”
31 Many experiments have actually been carried out to determine the existence of the so-called psychic staring effect, most notably by biochemist and fringe researcher Rupert Sheldrake. Sheldrake found that blindfolded test subjects could detect when someone was staring at them at rates consistently above what could be accounted for by random chance. A handful of subjects answered correctly every time. Michael Shermer and others from the skeptic community attempted to debunk Sheldrake’s results by pointing to potential bias on the part of the experimenters. However, Sheldrake’s findings were reproduced by other researchers who altered their methods to answer skeptics’ objections.
32 Crocodiles have a habit of lying on a riverbank with their mouths wide open, displaying twenty-four jagged teeth. This was thought to be a “smile” by some observers and a show of aggression by others. Zoologists, however, discovered that crocodiles sweat through their mouths. Smiling is just how a crocodile stays cool.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
HANS ASPERGER
The subcategory of autistic spectrum disorders called Asperger’s syndrome takes its name from Hans Asperger, an Austrian pediatrician who did most of his work in Vienna during the 1930s and ’40s. As a child, Asperger himself displayed many traits of the syndrome that bears his name. Shy, remote, and lonely, Asperger had a gift for languages and an astonishing memory for subjects he was interested in and would often bore and alienate his classmates with recitations of long passages by his favorite poet.
As an adult working with disabled children, he was fascinated by a group of patients he called his “little professors”—socially awkward boys and girls who would fixate on a subject and talk about it passionately and in great detail. While mainstream autism researchers in the United States focused on these patients’ disabilities, Asperger emphasized their special talents and their potential for great contributions to society in adulthood. “They fulfill their role well,” he wrote, “perhaps better than anyone else could, and we are talking of people who as children had the greatest difficulties and caused untold worries to their caregivers.”
Only later did researchers realize Asperger had another motive for emphasizing his patients’ gifts rather than their deficiencies: his desire to save their lives. While he was careful never to lie, he managed to artfully arrange the facts in a way to best make his case to the Nazi authorities in Vienna that his patients did indeed have lives worthy of living. As a scientist, Asperger felt a commitment to the truth. As a doctor, he felt an even greater commitment to the welfare of the children in his care.
This is why I would not make a very good doctor. I have a difficult time making decisions under pressure. Especially when there are consequences.
Dinner at the Fischer house that night was uncharacteristically quiet.
“So, Big C. I got a call from your principal today,” Mrs. Fischer finally said, breaking the silence.
Colin had a good idea what Dr. Doran had said but decided the best policy was to wait until his mother had revealed her hand. Though he was not an experienced liar, Colin had long ago mastered the art of compartmentalizing information. It was a time-honored investigative technique with proven results.
“Detention,” she finished. “Two days in a row.”
“Yes,” Colin acknowledged, as though she had just made a comment about the dress code or school supplies. He picked up an asparagus stalk, experimentally bending it between his fingers, testing the point at which it snapped in two. “I like asparagus,” he said. “Although there is one thing I do not like, and that is it makes my pee smell funny.”
“You plan to tell us what happened?” Mr. Fischer asked. “Or are you just gonna sit there and finish your asparagus?”
Colin did not answer. If anything, he focused even more intently on testing the tensile strength of his vegetables. “Chemists think it has to do with the digestive system breaking down sulfur compounds into ammonia, but they’re not really sure.”
“Dr. Doran told us everything,” his father revealed, undeterred by Colin’s efforts to change the subject. “She said—Colin, look at me—she said you got into a fight. Then you skipped detention. Then you lied to her, forged a note from the office, and fooled Wayne into coming into school when he was clearly forbidden from doing so. LAPD had to dispatch a cruiser to West Valley High, for God’s sake.”
Mrs. Fischer looked at her husband very seriously. “Salt, please?” she asked. He passed it to her without comment. “Thanks,” she said, and dashed it over her potatoes.
Colin cut into his asparagus, took a bite, and chewed very slowly, working to keep his face as blank as possible.
His father, pointing his fork across the table for emphasis, made no such effort. Still, it was difficult to say if he was ANGRY or IMPRESSED—his expression kept changing, as though he didn’t know how he felt himself. “In forty-eight hours, you’ve broken more rules, started more trouble, and caused more chaos than in all your fourteen years on this planet.”
Danny squirmed in his chair, drumming the table with his hands. “Yes!” he hissed under his breath, but not quite under his breath enough. One dark look from his mother was all it took to silence him immediately. Danny returned to eating his salmon.
“You also saved an innocent boy.”
Colin chewed his asparagus five more times, swallowed, and then washed down what remained of the mouthful with a sip of chilled water. “No, I didn’t,” Colin said. “I just figured out the truth. The rest…happened.”
“Either way, we’re proud of you.”
“And if you ever do it again,” his mother said, raising a warning finger, “we’ll strap you to a chair, lock you in a closet, and feed you through a tube.”
Colin understood she was exaggerating for effect, and the punishment described was an unlikely outcome whether or not he did anything like this again. However, he knew with equal certainty whatever consequence his mother actually devised would be, in its own way, far less entertaining. Colin nodded, acknowledging her threat as he went back to his dinner, quietly hoping this discussion was at an end. After all, he suspected this was all far from over. There were still too many questions.
“Colin,” Mr. Fischer said.
“Yes, Dad?”
“You were saying. About asparagus.”
“Oh,” Colin said. He looked at his father and pushed his glasses up his nose. “What is very interesting is that while everyone seems to produce the compounds for stinky asparagus urine, only about half the population can detect the smell….”
An hour later, Colin sat in his room, enjoying the solitude as he recorded his thoughts for the day in his Notebook. His quiet repose was interrupted by the approach of familiar footsteps and the creak of his door.
Danny stood at the entrance for a moment, giving Colin an UNCERTAIN look. “So that’s pretty cool what you did,” he said.
Colin had no idea what Danny was talking about.
“Nailing Sandy Ryan for bringing that gun,” Danny explained, EXASPERATED. “I guess she deserved it for peeing on your bed.�
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“No,” Colin said, “she deserved it for not reporting the gun to the authorities.”
Danny shook his head, quite certain he would never really understand his older brother. “Speaking of which…about messing up your room. You remember how Dad said I would apologize to you when I really felt it?”
“Yes.”
“Just wanted to see if you remembered that,” Danny said. “Later, loser.”
Danny left. Colin wasn’t sure why, but he was overcome with the urge to smile.
Dr. Doran had arranged for Sandy and her mother to come before the first bell so she could clear out her locker before most of the other students arrived. Melissa, who had arrived early, watched from a distance as her friend peeled stickers off the metal and collected her things into a cardboard box. Sandy paused only to wipe away her tears.
Melissa sensed Colin standing behind her. He was watching the scene with mild curiosity, his Notebook open, recording his thoughts on the matter.
7:30 A.M.: Sandy Ryan cries as she clears out her locker, including the following items:
—A poster of a teenage singer whose high-pitched voice makes me cringe.
—Photographs of herself with various friends, including Melissa and Eddie. In the picture of Eddie, she is kissing him on the cheek. Eddie looks bored. I am not sure if he is bored with Sandy, the kiss, or where she is kissing him.
—Stickers. Most depict rainbows, unicorns, or shirtless men with rippling muscles.
—A dog-eared copy of a novel about a girl who becomes romantically involved with a zombie. (I do not understand this at all. Zombies eat people; they do not kiss girls.)
—Eddie’s blue-and-gold Notre Dame jacket.
Since Sandy has never been what I would describe as an academic, I assume she is not sad for the loss of West Valley High School’s myriad scholastic opportunities. Her tears seem to coincide with the removal of specific artifacts. Nostalgia? Will she miss her friends? I find this unlikely. Sandy is not moving out of the neighborhood, and her popularity with upperclassmen affords easy access to private transportation—
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