With a sigh, I settled at a table by myself. At least I could use the time to work on my designs for the lens filter they wanted me to create for the show.
I pulled out my notebook from my backpack. The worn spiral book held most of my invention ideas, and I took it everywhere. You never knew when or where inspiration would strike. Sure, I could type notes on my phone if I had to, but I always felt more creative writing in my notebook, maybe sketching out a crude drawing or two while everything was fresh in my mind.
I found a blank page and began scribbling some ideas for the filter. I would need a clear piece of glass as well as a small video screen to reflect the image onto the glass, just as I had done with my glasses. I drew a square to represent the piece of glass and then began sketching out adjustable mounting brackets that could be attached to the camera lens. The brackets had to be adjustable so the glass could move closer or farther away to bring the projected image into focus.
I was so engrossed in my design that I didn’t notice when Sam approached my table. I hate to admit it, but I jumped when I saw her from the corner of my eye.
“Easy there, Swift,” she said, her voice a bit muffled.
Sam’s voice was muffled because she was wearing a transparent full-face shield, along with a pair of rubber gloves. She held a plastic bucket in one hand and a metal paint scraper in the other.
“What’s with all the”—I pointed at her weird accessories—“everything?”
“I’m helping out Amy with her project,” Sam said. “With the upcoming Olympics and all, her gum receptacles aren’t filling as fast as she’d like.” She let out a sigh. “We’re moving on to plan B.”
“What’s plan…” I started to ask as Sam dropped to her knees and crawled under the table. “Oh no,” I said.
“Oh yes,” Sam said as she began to scrape the underside of the table.
I scooted back in my chair to give her more room. “That’s… disgusting.”
“You get used to it,” Sam said as a thick wad of gum plopped into the bucket. “The library was worse.”
I shook my head. “You’re a really, really good friend. I’m sure Amy’s germaphobia would be on overload if she had to do this herself.”
“Nah,” Sam said between scrapes. “I offered to do it all, but she wouldn’t hear it.”
“No way,” I said.
That’s when I heard an eruption of laughter. I turned to see another bucket-wielding figure enter the cafeteria. If I didn’t know it was Amy, I wouldn’t have recognized her. She was covered from head to toe in a plastic hazmat suit. She wore rubber gloves and a face shield like Sam, but Amy also had a cloth surgical mask stretched over her mouth and nose. Her eyes were the only part of her body that was visible, and they were behind a pair of safety goggles under the clear face shield. She looked as if she wasn’t taking any chances. For someone who wanted nothing more than to blend into the background, Amy was now the center of attention. But if I knew Amy, being completely covered gave her more confidence, even if it meant being more visible.
Amy gave me a nervous wave with her scraper before shuffling over to an unoccupied table. The laughter soon died down as she crawled underneath and got to work.
That was one of the interesting things about our school: seeing someone in protective gear wasn’t an unusual occurrence.
There was a little time left in lunch period, so I was about to offer to help, but I quickly changed my mind when I noticed one of the camera operators enter the cafeteria. My table was closest to the door, so the cameraman made a beeline for it. As casually as I could, I packed up my stuff, grabbed my tray, and moved toward the kitchen. Luckily, a kid with a lunch tray wasn’t as interesting as someone in safety gear working under a table. The operator crouched and steadied the camera, getting a shot of Sam at work.
I swung by my locker and then made it to robotics class just in time. Of course, Noah was a no-show again. I guessed Sam would be late since she had to get out of all that gear. Luckily, our robotics teacher, Mrs. Scott, was pretty lenient as long as you didn’t fall behind in your work.
I had already brought in my robot and stowed it in the storeroom. I grabbed it and placed it on one of the large worktables. Turning it on its side, I worked at taking apart the base. I wasn’t looking forward to cleaning out dried pancake batter from the treads and gears down there.
I was almost finished when Noah finally breezed into class. Unfortunately, he wasn’t alone; one of the camera crews was right behind him. A short brown-haired woman held the camera, and a tall balding man held the boom mic. They broke off from Noah and began recording some of the other students working on their projects. I saw Jamal Watts stiffen a little when they showed an interest in his work. As instructed, he didn’t look at the camera and did his best to ignore his new audience.
“Long time no see,” I said to Noah as he dropped his backpack onto our worktable.
Noah grinned. “Yeah, I took Lori and Pete around the school, showing them all the hidden loot in my app.” He held up his phone. “There’s a lot of stuff left today, though. I don’t think as many people are playing as before.”
I nodded toward the camera crew. “I guess everyone is distracted by the filming.”
Noah shook his head. “If this keeps up, we’ll never collect enough loot to feed the beast.” He ran a hand over his head. “Maybe I should get Davenport to make an announcement, like he did for Ames.”
“That’s a good idea,” I agreed as I cleaned out the last bit of debris from my robot’s gears. I grabbed a screwdriver and began to reassemble the base.
Noah pulled a stool close to mine and sat down. “So how’s the lens filter coming? I had to hold my phone up in front of the camera today. You could see the loot, but the image wasn’t that great.”
“Oh yeah.” I dropped the screwdriver onto the table and pulled my notebook from my backpack, opened it, and thumbed through the pages. “I have the lens all figured out.” Once I found the correct page, I pointed at my design.
Noah leaned over my sketch. “This is all you’ve got?” he asked. “You haven’t even started building it yet?”
“Uh, there’s this little thing you might’ve noticed called school.”
Noah pointed to my robot. “You have time to work on your project, though.”
I felt my face flush with anger. “One, you know this is a school assignment. And two, why should your project be more important than anyone else’s?”
“Because it is,” Noah said stretching his arms wide. “You know they’re going to feature it on the show.”
“Oh yeah,” I said with an eye-roll. “I forgot all about the Noah Newton Show.”
Noah put a hand to his ear. “Is that jealousy I hear? For once, everything isn’t about Tom Swift?”
I couldn’t believe what he was saying. Of all people, Noah knew that I didn’t like special treatment. Heck, he was usually the one making fun of me for wanting out of the spotlight.
My lips pressed together as I pushed the notebook toward him. “Why don’t you build it yourself, then?”
“Because you said you’d do it.” Noah pushed the notebook back to me.
“Fine. If it’ll shut you up.” I shoved away from the worktable and got to my feet.
I’d planned to go to the storage room to get the parts I needed for the lens brackets. Instead, I froze in my tracks. Everyone in the class was staring at us. Worse, the camera crew was a couple of feet away.
And they had recorded our entire argument.
6 The Dissension Impression
I DIDN’T SPEAK TO NOAH for the rest of the day. Or for the entire next day, for that matter. It felt weird being so angry with my best friend, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what he had said. He was always razzing me about not wanting to be the center of attention, but this time was definitely over the line.
I wondered if he knew that the camera had been on us. That would explain why he went there during our argument, but it certainly d
idn’t excuse it. Honestly, the thought of that possibly being Noah’s motivation made me even angrier.
Sam had tried to smooth things over between us before algebra. Of course, it was in her Sam-like way. “Look at you two,” she’d said. “Did you suddenly get sent back to third grade and no one told us?”
Yeah, that hadn’t worked at all.
Amy, on the other hand, had just sat there looking uncomfortable. She really hated any kind of conflict.
So Noah and I continued to give each other the silent treatment.
As for the camera crews, true to Joey’s promise, everyone seemed to forget they were there. As I went about my day, I would see them following groups of students or simply planted in a hallway, catching students as they walked by. Out of the corner of my eye I even caught a camera recording me. Luckily, they didn’t linger. I guess I wasn’t doing anything interesting enough.
As the day went on, I noticed that Noah and I weren’t the only ones on the outs. As I was walking to chemistry, I caught the tail end of an argument between Toby Nguyen and Ronny Jenkins.
“You totally stole my idea,” Toby accused as they marched down the corridor.
“That’s not true,” Ronny replied. “My invention is completely different. Besides, you said you were done with drones.”
They moved out of earshot, so I couldn’t make out what Toby said next, but I wondered if either of them had noticed that one of the camera crews was trailing along behind them.
They weren’t the only people I saw bickering. Terry Stephenson and Evan Wittman were in a heated discussion in the back of the biology classroom. Even Barry Jacobs and Kaylee Jackson weren’t speaking for some reason.
It was weird seeing so many people at odds with one another. Our school has always been about collaboration and teamwork. It’s extremely rare that anyone would take someone’s idea without asking. I could only think of one time when that happened, but luckily for Amy’s sake, we were able to find out who had stolen her cool pop quiz app.
I’d also noticed that people in the halls were giving me strange looks. Maybe I was just being paranoid, but it seemed as if everyone was keeping an eye on me for some reason. Maybe word of Noah’s and my dispute had gotten around and people were waiting to see how things played out. But it seemed that there was plenty of other people’s drama to keep everyone entertained. I didn’t know why I would be of particular interest.
Since Sam and Amy were still on chewing-gum detail, I took my lunch into the robotics classroom so I could finish building the lens filter for Noah’s app. I wasn’t doing it to get him off my back. (Okay, maybe that was one reason.) I had told him that I’d build the filter, and I wanted to keep my word. I certainly didn’t want to give him any reason to think that I was trying to sabotage his big break.
Unpacking my notebook, I turned to the page with my filter designs. I’d also pulled out a tiny video screen that I’d brought from home after taking apart an old broken camcorder. Once the screen was mounted at just the right angle, it should be able to project an image onto the glass filter, working the same way my glasses did.
I was halfway through assembling the filter when Ms. Jensen walked into the classroom. “Ah, there you are, Tom,” she said.
I put my tools down. “You’re looking for me?”
“Yes, you’re one of my last stops. I’d like to borrow any invention designs or blueprints you have.”
I raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
She clapped her hands together. “Well, since this school is chock-full of talented young inventors, I had the wonderful idea to use different blueprints as cool graphics during the show.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “You’re working on the show too?”
Ms. Jensen gave a dismissive wave. “I like to pitch in where I can. Remember, eyes and ears everywhere or I wouldn’t be good at my job.”
“Oh, okay.”
She pulled up a stool to my worktable. “Here’s how it’ll work: Say Joey records someone’s invention in action. Well, before that, he’ll cut to an animation of the blueprints in action. One of your fellow students, Amy Hsu, has even agreed to help with the animation.”
“Oh yeah. She’s great,” I said. Amy had some mad animation skills, so if anyone could pull it off and make it look good, she could.
Still, I instinctively reached out and slid my notebook closer. “My designs are pretty crude, though,” I said. “They’re not what I’d call real blueprints.”
Ms. Jensen glanced down at my sketch. “Oh, are these them? May I?” She didn’t wait for an answer before she picked up the notebook and began thumbing through the pages. “These are great. They’ll be perfect.”
It felt weird having a stranger look through my designs. Sure, there weren’t any top-secret inventions like at my dad’s company, but the notebook was filled with ideas that I hadn’t fully fleshed out yet.
“I… I don’t know,” I said, slowly reaching out for my notebook.
“Oh, come on,” she said. “Don’t you want to help support your school? Besides, everyone else has been fine with it.”
Yeah, but everyone else seems to have reality show fever, I thought.
Ms. Jensen clutched the notebook to her chest. “Please? We’ll scan in the pages and get your plans back to you tomorrow.”
I think the implied peer pressure finally won out. After all, were my inventions so special that they had to be more of a secret than anyone else’s? If I didn’t want anyone giving me special treatment based solely on my name, then I shouldn’t give special treatment to myself, either, right? Still, I wasn’t thrilled to just hand over my private notes. It wasn’t like my notebook was a diary or anything, but for an inventor like me, it was almost just as personal.
I rubbed the back of my neck. “I… I guess so.”
“Wonderful.” Ms. Jensen got to her feet. “So glad you could help,” she said, before she breezed out of the classroom with my notebook tucked under her arm.
I glanced down at my work and was tempted to run after her—she’d just walked off with my plans for the lens filter I was building. But I stopped myself when I realized that I no longer needed them. I’d already built all the components using the dimensions I’d written down. All that was left to do was the assembly, and the steps for that were in my head.
I sighed before going back to work. If I hurried, I could finish most of the filter before class began. Part of me wanted to get it out of the way so I could finish tweaking my robot. But a bigger part of me didn’t want to work on the filter in front of Noah. I didn’t want any suggestions from him and I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing my attention focused on his project. It was petty, sure, but I was still angry about what he’d said.
As my classmates began filing in, I put away the last piece of the filter. It appeared I’d been worrying about Noah for nothing, since he was a no-show. In fact, I didn’t see him again until everyone was gathered out front after school for the latest beast attack.
Just as Noah wanted, Mr. Davenport had made an announcement earlier reminding everyone about the app. The front grounds were packed with students holding their phones in front of them. Noah stood a few feet ahead and didn’t turn around. Both camera crews were also set up recording the event.
“Did you download the update?” Sam asked as she moved in beside me.
I nodded. “Of course. Did Amy come up with another animation?”
Sam shrugged and gave a sly grin. “I’m not saying.”
I shook my head and turned my attention back to my phone. The beast was just coming into view. As he moved into range, people began launching loot. Unfortunately, just as before, they didn’t launch enough food to prevent an attack on the school. The beast stomped forward as Jacob Mahaley’s name flashed across the screen. He was today’s top loot collector.
This time there were no animated Ghostbusters to fend off the attack. Instead, a lone figure stood on the roof. He raised a bazooka
and fired. The beast roared with frustration but kept coming. I held my phone higher and zoomed in on the figure, cracking up when I realized it was an animated Mr. Davenport. Amy had done a great job dressing him up in full military gear. I widened the image back out just in time to see the beast shake off another bazooka blast before biting down on the animated figure, swallowing him whole.
Everyone around me laughed, and Noah turned back to grin at me. He must’ve forgotten we were fighting for a moment. I just got out half a smile before his grin faded as he spun back around. So much for a truce.
7 The Association Polarization
“AM I SUPPOSED TO BE seeing something yet?” Lori, the camera operator, asked. She peered through the eyepiece again.
I tightened one of the plastic zip ties holding my filter to her camera. “Not yet. We have to find some loot for it to register.”
I had finished the filter the night before and caught up with one of the camera crews after second period. Just as I had hoped, it didn’t take much to attach the device to the front of the camera. Pete, the sound guy, had already downloaded Noah’s app on his phone, so it was no big deal to pair my filter with his phone via Bluetooth. It was the exact same way my glasses worked.
Unfortunately, there was no way to truly test the filter until we found one of the virtual food items hidden around the school. And since everyone was playing Feed the Beast with renewed vigor, those items would be hard to find.
“I think I know where we can find one,” I said. “Follow me.”
I led Lori and Pete down the nearby stairs and onto the second floor. We entered the chemistry lab and moved toward the nearby storeroom. We were between classes and Mrs. Gaines didn’t seem to object. It appeared the teachers were getting used to the camera crews too.
When Noah had first created his app, he boasted to me about a few hard-to-find items he’d hidden throughout the school. One of them was sitting on a shelf among all the bottles and jars of various chemicals in the lab’s storeroom. I just hoped it was hidden well enough to still be there.
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