Tesla's Attic

by Neal Shusterman

  “Hi,” she said. “Nick, right?”

  “Yeah. Sorry to come over without any warning or anything, but I really need to talk to you.”

  She crossed her arms. “About what?”

  She wasn’t making this easy, and Nick noticed she wasn’t inviting him in.

  “Some of the stuff at the garage sale,” he said. “It might be…toxic. Yeah. And I just wanted to warn you. I’d be happy to give you your money back for that reel-to-reel tape recorder.”

  “Thanks for your concern, but you gave it to me for free. And besides, I’m very happy with it, toxic or not.”

  Nick knew he had to choose his words carefully so as not to arouse suspicion. “Well, can you at least tell me if it…works?”

  “Sorry to disappoint you,” said Caitlin, with an impatient flick of her head, “but it doesn’t.”

  “Really?” Nick asked, blinking in surprise.

  “You said yourself it was a piece of junk.”

  He had said that to her, but that was then, before he’d seen the toaster. And the Shut Up ’n Listen. And the wet cell.

  “Can I at least try it out?” he asked.

  “Too late,” Caitlin said. “I smashed it for my art project.”

  That threw Nick for a loop. “You what?”

  “With a sledgehammer. Into tiny pieces. Glued them to a big canvas. Media Frenzy, I call it. So whatever it is you’re worried about, you don’t have to worry.”

  Nick stood there for a minute at a complete loss for words. “Oh,” he finally managed, “well, if you smashed it—”

  “I did. Is there anything else you wanted?”

  “No, that’s it.”

  “Well, then. Bye.”

  And she closed the door, not quite slamming it in his face, but hard enough to make it clear that the good-bye really did mean good-bye.

  Inside, Caitlin leaned against the door, trying to hold back tears. She listened until she heard the front gate open and close. Only then did she look out the window to make sure Nick was really gone.

  She went up to her bedroom and closed the door. Then she went into her closet and closed that door, too. Sitting hidden beneath hanging blouses and dresses, she turned on the reel-to-reel recorder and opened her diary.

  While diaries are supposed to hold one’s deepest, most personal musings, Caitlin was savvy enough to know that they often turn up as damning evidence in court, or embarrassing tidbits in celebrity exposés. As she had every intention of being famous for something one day, she was not about to feed the fires of public scrutiny by writing anything “deep” in her diary. Mostly it was a journal of the day’s activities, and the things other people in her life would be pleased to read about themselves if they ever got their hands on it. There had been times when Caitlin actually wanted to write something genuine, but she found that she didn’t know where to begin. It frustrated her so much that she had given up trying.

  Now, as she opened the diary, she chose a particularly ordinary passage that she didn’t even remember writing, hit record on the machine, and read it aloud.

  Dear Diary,

  Today in debate team I argued in favor of electric cars, and I blew the other side away. I was pretty confident about my talking points, so I knew it would go over really well. People congratulated me—it made me feel great. Like maybe my debating skills could get me somewhere. Or my art. People love my smashed-objects collections, and my parents are happy with all my grades. They even like my friends, which parents never do. My mom and dad are cool. Mom’s very Zen, spending quiet time in the garden, and Dad works hard to keep food on the table. Theo came over for dinner tonight. It’s funny, he’s always so awkward with my parents, but that’s part of his charm. I can see us staying together. There are a lot of bright things in my future, but now I must get back to creating yet another work of art!

  Caitlin shut her diary, pressed stop on the recorder, and rewound the tape to the point where she started. Then, holding her breath, she moved her finger to the button marked PLAY and touched it lightly. Part of her didn’t want to press it—she felt as if she were on a cliff, about to jump into her own depths, where she feared she could drown. But in the end, she closed her eyes, leaned forward, and pushed the button all the way down.

  Dear Diary,

  Today in debate team I argued in favor of electric cars, and the scary thing is, even though I might have sounded confident, I didn’t feel like I knew what I was doing. If people ever find out how insecure I really am, I’ll just shrivel up and die. I don’t just smash things for the sake of art. I do it because I’m angry, but I don’t know what I’m angry about, and that just makes me angrier. My parents don’t see any of this. They see how good my grades are, they see how many friends I have, and they think nothing’s wrong. Just like the way they pretend that nothing’s wrong with them. But I know how depressed Mom gets, and how Dad buries himself in his work to avoid thinking about anything else. Then there’s Theo, who came over for dinner tonight again, uninvited. I know it’s not like I’m going to marry him or anything—I doubt our relationship will even make it to high school—but there’ll be another Theo, and then another. Someday, if I’m not careful, I’ll be stuck marrying a Theo. And that just makes me want to smash something else.

  Caitlin turned off the machine. This horrible, wonderful machine that could dig into her very soul, and put into words the things she couldn’t. The things she protected herself from with such subconscious force that it exhausted her. But to hear these things out loud—it both condemned her and freed her.

  She broke down into sobs. She knew it was all true. Yet, somehow, hearing herself speak the truth made it seem less powerful. Maybe she didn’t have to be afraid of it. And maybe someday, if she listened to her heart played back enough, she’d truly know herself.

  While Caitlin’s interest in Nick was, at this moment in time, lukewarm, Petula Grabowski-Jones’s interest in him was red-hot.

  To say that Petula had a specific crush on Nick wouldn’t be entirely accurate. Petula loved anything new, be it technology or people.

  When it came to photography, however, she was very old school, and she enjoyed using her father’s classic 35mm Nikon just as much as her digital camera. “The best results are worth waiting for,” she always said—when referring to photography, but not to people. With people, she wanted instant results.

  As for the old box camera she had picked up at the garage sale, it was classic old school. In fact, it was beyond old school. More like preschool.

  She experimented with it, taking a picture of her father while he was leaning against the wall of the family room, talking on his cell phone and scratching his armpit. Petula preferred candids. They were infinitely more truthful and embarrassing. She developed the large negative in her tiny closet/darkroom, which, while barely adequate, did the job.

  The negative came out almost completely black, which she thought meant the camera was broken, but she decided to make a print from the negative anyway. As the nearly all-white positive image appeared in the tray of developing solution, Petula saw that the photo wasn’t blank at all. She had, in fact, taken a perfect photo of the family room wall, without her father in it.

  For a brief moment she entertained the exciting idea that her father was a vampire who would not appear in a picture, but, alas, he was far too lackluster for that. No, the solution had to be something else. She picked up the camera and looked at it from every side, finding Property of NT engraved in tiny letters on the bottom.

  She filed this information in the area of her brain reserved for things that required further investigation.

  The next day in school, Petula continued her observational study of Nick Slate. Others might call it stalking. Nick was performing his own observational study of Caitlin, who was traipsing around the school with a garage-sale device as well.

  Petula cornered Nick at his locker between classes. “You know she has a boyfriend.”

  “I don’t know what you’re
talking about.”

  “Come on, you’ve been staring at her like she’s a filet mignon sizzling on the grill. Why set yourself up for disappointment?”

  Nick slammed his locker. “I don’t even know you, Petula. Why are you trying to give me advice?”

  “I provide it as a public service,” she said, secretly thrilled that he remembered her name, and that he pronounced it correctly.

  “Well, if I wanted your opinion, I’d ask for it.”

  “No, you wouldn’t. You’re like the other boys—too hormonal to see what’s right in front of your face.”

  “Well,” Nick said, “what’s in front of my face right now will make me late for class if it doesn’t get out of my face.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  This was going better than most of Petula’s other encounters with boys, and she held high hopes that they might have a future together.

  “Once you come to your senses, check back with me,” she said. “My calendar’s pretty full, but I might be available for a date this weekend.”

  “Sorry, Petula, but I got over pigtails in fourth grade.”

  That made her gasp. No one, absolutely no one, insulted Petula’s piggies. They were her signature look. It wasn’t a hairstyle, it was a lifestyle. She’d spent years training her scalp to grow hair in the optimum directions for the perfect part down the middle. It wasn’t her fault that more hair grew on the left side of her head than the right. She’d always considered her hair’s mildly lopsided nature a charming bit of uniqueness.

  “Since you’re new here, I’ll forget you just said that.”

  He shrugged, striding off to class. As she watched him go, she determined then and there that Nick Slate would come to appreciate the glory that was Petula Grabowski-Jones. Even if it killed him.

  Caitlin had arrived early that Tuesday morning, a woman on a mission. With Theo toting the rather heavy recorder, she wandered the halls, selecting friends and teachers much less randomly than it appeared.

  “Hi, I’m doing a multimedia art project, and your answers might be included,” she told people, thrusting the microphone in their faces and then asking questions like:

  “Tell me, Mrs. Applebaum, how do you feel about our principal?” and “So, Ashley, who’s your closest friend? And why?” and “Drew, as the football team’s star running back, what do you think of our quarterback? Can he really take us all the way?”

  Not that Caitlin was going to publicize any of the answers, but she had an inquiring mind and wanted to know.

  “Caitlin, this thing is heavy. Can I put it down?” Theo asked, after about five minutes.

  “Don’t be a wuss, Theo. It’s not that heavy for a strong guy like you.”

  Which, she knew, the machine would no doubt translate as, “If I flatter you, you’ll do anything I ask.”

  During lunch she continued her “random” interviews. That’s when Nick stormed up to her.

  “I’ve been watching you use that thing all day. You said you shattered it.”

  “Sorry, I lied.”

  “We need to talk about this,” Nick said.

  “Who’s this guy?” Theo asked. “What do you need to talk to her about?”

  “Don’t worry, Theo, it’s nothing important.”

  Then Theo smiled. “Oh, you’re the guy who gave Heisenberg the beef dip. That was great!”

  “Nick,” Caitlin said, “I really don’t have time right now. Would you like to answer a few questions, though?” She held the microphone closer to his face.

  “The only thing I want to know,” Nick said, steely, “is if that tape recorder has done anything weird.”

  “Exactly what are you accusing me of?”

  Nick took a step back. “Accusing you? It’s just a question.”

  “Are you harassing her?” asked Theo, who believed himself part of the conversation. “Because we have a zero-tolerance policy for harassment. I’m on the student council and missed out on being student body president by only three votes, which gives me a lot of clout. One word to the principal and you could be suspended.”

  Nick shook his head. “You have to exist to be suspended.”

  That comment put Theo in a feedback loop, which kept him quiet for a while.

  “There’s nothing to worry about, Nick. I’m just making some recordings for my project.”

  “Well, if there’s anything unusual about that machine, you have to tell me. It’s important.”

  “Fine,” said Caitlin. “If I notice anything strange, you’ll be the first to know.”

  “Second,” said Theo. “Caitlin tells me strange things first.”

  From across the cafeteria Petula watched this exchange, and although she couldn’t hear the gist of the conversation, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that Nick was continuing to devote all of his attention to a girl more popular than she was.

  Never mind that Theo was carrying her heavy object. Never mind that Caitlin seemed to be brushing Nick off like so much dandruff.

  All that mattered was that Petula was not going to let this go.

  She observed Caitlin continuing to do man-in-the-cafeteria interviews during lunch. After lunch she watched as Caitlin tried unsuccessfully to fit the bulky recorder in her locker and then had Theo deposit it in the art room. There was no art class that period, so after the late bell had rung, rather than going to class, Petula slipped into the room. Caitlin had taken the microphone with her, but that didn’t mean Petula couldn’t listen to the things the machine had recorded. She rewound it and pressed PLAY.

  The questions Caitlin asked all seemed to be very, very personal—and what surprised Petula was that people gave extremely candid responses. Mrs. Applebaum thought their principal was “a silver fox,” whatever that was, and the school’s star running back had a secret crush on the quarterback. Nothing she heard particularly interested Petula—until she got to a certain conversation.

  Petula didn’t consider herself a scheming person. She preferred to think of it as “interpersonal engineering.” It was all about spin. Be that as it may, a magnificent idea came to her as she listened to that conversation and then recorded it on her phone. She had to smile. This was going to be a very good day!

  Hell breaks loose in a variety of ways. Just like the varied splatter patterns when certain things hit the fan. On this particular day, the event in question came down at precisely two nineteen. It was seventh period, the last period of the day. Nick was struggling to keep up in a world history class that he could swear was about a different world than the one he had been learning about in Florida. The teacher, Mr. Brown, was somewhere between Sumeria and Phoenicia when the school’s loudspeaker came on, blasting at high volume into every classroom. Everyone expected some announcement about buses, or sports-practice cancellations, but instead, a conversation between three people played for everyone to hear.

  “I’ve been building up the nerve to talk to you all day. You said you shattered that recorder.”

  Nick immediately recognized his own voice and the conversation. But wait a second—had he actually said that out loud?

  “I lied, but I had a very good reason, which I’m not going to tell you,” he heard Caitlin say. That had not been a part of the conversation either.

  “How can you be so pretty and so frustrating at the same time?”

  Nick felt himself going red. Now he knew something was really, really wrong. He looked over to Caitlin, who was in his history class, and she glanced at Nick with the kind of panic reserved for random locker checks or an approaching tsunami.

  “Uh-oh, is my territory being threatened?” he heard Theo ask. “Quick, act intimidating.”

  To which Caitlin responded, “Ugh! Theo, do you have to get involved? Just check out and think about lunch or something.”

  A few people around the room chuckled. Mercifully, Theo was not in this class with them—but no doubt, wherever he was, he was hearing this, too.

  “Oh, you’re the guy who gave H
eisenberg the beef dip,” Theo said. “I’m glad it wasn’t me—I would have peed my pants!”

  More laughter around the room. Now Caitlin just stared forward, as if she were watching it all unfold on the room’s SMART Board.

  And then it got juicy.

  “Nick,” Caitlin said, “you’re really cute, but you keep giving me grief. Hey, I’ve got an idea! Why don’t you answer a few questions so I know if you like me as much as I might eventually like you?”

  “All I want to know,” Nick heard himself say, “is if that tape recorder has done anything weird.” Which is exactly what he had said, and exactly what he had been thinking. Caitlin’s response, however, was very different.

  “Quiet! Do you want my so-called friends to find out what I’m up to?”

  That had been the moment when Nick had realized Caitlin was being defensive. Sure enough, he heard himself say, “Wow, something’s wrong. She’s really defensive.”

  “Hey! Hello! I’m still here!” Theo then shouted. “I know big words like ‘harassment’ and ‘tolerance.’ I’ll run to the principal if you both keep ignoring me!”

  To which Nick responded, “The principal’s a moron.”

  Now Nick put his head in his hands, wondering if it was possible for this to get any worse.

  Across the room Caitlin seemed frozen in time and space as she heard herself say, “I’m uncovering people’s secrets to feel better about myself. It’s not hurting anybody, so leave me alone.”

  “Caitlin, you have no idea how much trouble we might all be in, but you’ll probably just say something vague and dismissive to make me go away.”

  “Fine,” said Caitlin. “I’ll do my usual trick of saying something vague and dismissive, to make you go away.”

  And it was all wrapped up by Theo, who said, “I wonder what’s for lunch?”

  Mr. Brown attempted to continue his lesson, but who was he kidding? The history class was history. About ten seconds after the broadcast ended, Caitlin bolted out of the classroom, a hurricane of emotional distress. Nick now knew what her garage-sale purchase did—and although he was embarrassed, it was nothing compared to Caitlin’s humiliation. People were already congratulating Nick, and giving him condolences for openly calling the principal a moron. It further immortalized him at the school, but it really wasn’t the kind of notoriety he needed on his second day.