Bad Taste in Boys

by Carrie Harris

  And Swannie knew it.

  She pressed her advantage, and the fact that I saw through it didn’t make it any less effective. “You might be able to cure them. That’s what I’ve been working on the past few days.” She bit her lip. “Kate, I’ll give you everything you need.”

  “Excuse me if I feel skeptical,” I said. “Coach’s foot fell off. How exactly do you propose to cure that? Superglue?”

  She shook her head. “We need to concentrate on what we can cure. On the future, not the past. Based on my current data, this thing can be deadly if it’s not treated. Neither of us wants that. The virus should respond to medication. It’s just that I haven’t quite identified the right drugs yet. Help me work on this and I’ll make sure you’re rewarded. We’ll fix this together. No one has to know where it came from, right?”

  It was so tempting. After all, I’d done all the legwork to develop Playwell in the first place; why shouldn’t I share in the proceeds? Everyone would still be cured in the end. I wouldn’t be hurting anyone else if I took her up on it.

  “All right,” I said reluctantly.

  The look of relief on her face was instantaneous. Despite all efforts to the contrary, I couldn’t help but pity her. All of a sudden, things had changed. I had always been desperate for her approval, and it had led me to do things I regretted. But now she was the desperate one.

  “Thanks,” Swannie blurted out, and for a moment I thought she might hug me. “I really appreciate you keeping this between us, Kate. It was an honest mistake. You know that, right?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  But there was no way I was going to keep this between us. It wasn’t right, and the more I thought about the attempted bribe, the angrier I got. I’d play nice until I had enough evidence to turn her in. And then I’d write my own darned journal article. “Show me what you’ve got.”

  She smiled, relief in every line of her face. “Everything’s in the bag. Why don’t you take a look, and we can work on treatment possibilities after school tonight. I’ve got a few ideas already, and I’m sure you’ll have some as well. I’d expect nothing less from you.”

  I peeked inside and saw printouts on the chemical breakdown of Playwell, along with a bunch of my data on the mouse testing. My work was meticulous and letter-perfect; it made me feel simultaneously proud and ashamed. I should have known. Legit high school teachers didn’t do research like this, and they especially didn’t let their students help. It was so blazingly obvious to me now; why hadn’t I seen it before?

  I pulled out my specimen dishes. I didn’t even need a microscope to see the plaques on the culture that proved once and for all that those vials contained some kind of virus.

  I had all the proof I needed. The Ho would listen to me now, assuming that I could get him to stop delivering babies and actually return my phone call.

  My first instinct was to show the dish to Swannie. Old habits are hard to break. I held it up with a huge grin and said, “And there’s our virus.”

  “Yep!” She beamed at me. “I’m so impressed that you figured it out. I’ll have to make sure to mention your deductive skills in my letter of reference. I’ll write you a great one for college.”

  I smiled.

  It was going to feel so good to take her down.

  I offered to set up our workstations, and Swannie was more than willing to let me do all the grunt work. But as soon as she left, I started arranging all the data on the worktables. I wanted photos for my records, and I figured I’d better send them to the Ho before Swannie made the evidence disappear.

  I was about halfway done when the loudspeaker clicked on. The principal’s disembodied voice filled the room. “Attention, all students. Please remember that we are on an abbreviated schedule today due to this afternoon’s pep rally and announcement of the homecoming court. Thank you for getting to class on time.”

  I quickly labeled all the materials, snapped some pictures with my cell, and emailed them to the Ho’s office. It only took a couple of minutes to tear it all down and stuff the labels into my backpack, where Swannie would never see them. And then I set up both workstations as rapidly as possible. I only had a few minutes left, but I’d set up these stations so many times I could have done it in my sleep.

  As I walked to my locker, I saw Aaron leaning against it.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey.” He scooted over a little so I could reach the lock, but he was still standing really close. Close enough that I had to try the locker door three times before the stupid thing opened.

  “So did you get my text?” he asked.

  Oh my god. After all the time I’d spent drooling over Aaron, you’d think I could remember to respond when he asked me to homecoming. Of course, the zombies needed to take priority, but I could have found two minutes to text him the word yes. Underlined. And with about six hundred exclamation points.

  “I did.” I smiled. “And I’d love to go with you. Sorry I didn’t text you back. But the infection is spreading. I’ve been trying to figure out what it is.” A zombie epidemic striking at the same time I get asked out by the boy of my dreams. Who would have thought?

  “Oh, great,” he said. “I mean, that sucks about the infection. But I’m happy about homecoming.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “So it’s spreading, huh? Have you notified the authorities about those vials? Because Mike can’t even talk now. His mom was really flipping out when I called the house this morning. Couldn’t get him on the cell, and I was worried. I tried to get her to take him to the doctor, but she’s one of those new age people who think the medical industry is a huge secret conspiracy to give people autism.”

  We rolled our eyes in tandem, which was awesome.

  “Well,” I said, “I just picked up all the evidence a couple minutes ago and sent it to the Ho. There’s a virus in those vials. I’ve got proof.” And hopefully we’d have a cure and Jonah would be fine. At least, that was what I kept telling myself.

  “What ho?”

  “Oh. Dr. Ho. Naturally.”

  He grinned. “Naturally. Well, congrats. I’m honored to hang in the presence of such a genius.”

  “Quit making fun of me.”

  He held up his hands, laughing. “Who said I was?”

  I didn’t know how to answer, so I pulled out my bio and Latin books instead. Aaron took them from me before I could cram them into my backpack. It was really old-fashioned but still kind of sweet. “Thanks.”

  “No problem,” he said. We started walking down the hall. I kept thinking I should tell him about Coach, but I didn’t know how to bring it up. If someone had found him, we would have heard about it by now, wouldn’t we? I thought maybe I should call 911 and give them an anonymous tip. But what if they traced the call? I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t risk being thrown in jail. Not now.

  “I waited for you in the parking lot this morning. Did you sneak past me or something?”

  “Nah. My car’s been confiscated.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “You know I have epilepsy, right?”

  “Yeah, I saw you have a seizure once. No offense, but it was kind of freaky.”

  “Tell me about it. Anyway, I was in remission for a long time, and they let me get my license and everything. But then, a few days ago, I started having them again. My dad took my keys. Can’t have me seizing all over the road, right?” I forced a laugh.

  “That’s weird.” He shifted my books to his other hand so he could slide his arm around my shoulders. “Why do you think that happened?”

  “No clue.”

  “Well, what were you doing when it happened the first time? Come on, Kate; you’re a genius. It’s part of your appeal.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” I looked up at him through my bangs and tried not to go all giggly.

  “Not.” He steered me down the hallway, and people stopped to stare. For once, I kind of enjoyed the attention. “So what happened right before your first relapse seizure?”
>
  I forced myself to stop smirking at the group of annoying, perky-voiced party girls who always insisted on standing in a herd right in front of my locker and never let me through. Today, they clustered by the water fountain and watched us with their mouths hanging open. I found it a definite improvement.

  “Uh … let me think,” I said, wrenching my mind back to the seizure thing. “It was the night of the bonfire. After I got home, I hit my head, fell down, and had a seizure.”

  He stopped, releasing my shoulder, and I was so out of it that I took another three or four steps without him before I realized it. I turned around. Aaron was all white and panicked-looking.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “What you just said.” Aaron stepped closer to me. “You had your first seizure right after”—he thumbed the slowly healing scab on my lip, and I flinched away from the contact—“this.”

  e walked the rest of the way to bio in silence. I kept obsessively rubbing my finger over my lip lump, and Aaron was probably trying to figure out how he could get out of taking a walking disease vector with a lip crater to homecoming.

  I stopped when we got to the door. The hallway had emptied fast; we only had a minute until the bell rang.

  “Wait. I can’t go in there,” I said.

  “Why not?” Aaron pulled his arm off my shoulders again. It had been nice while it lasted.

  “What if Dr. Ho doesn’t check his messages? I need to make sure he’s taking care of things.” I glanced into the classroom. Mrs. Mihalovic was setting up a bunch of stations and covering them with sterile blue sheets so no one could see what was under them, and I knew what that meant. It was pop quiz day. I was usually one of those freaks who wouldn’t miss pop quiz day for the world, but today, I was a different kind of freak altogether. By the time this was all over, I’d probably be lucky if I wasn’t the committed-to-an-insane-asylum kind of freak.

  But this whole thing was my fault; I couldn’t just sit around and wait for the Ho to show up and fix everything. Not if I wanted to live with myself. I could only think of one way to get out of the classroom so I could follow up with him, and I didn’t like it. I would rather have stuck bamboo shards under my fingernails than done what I was about to do, but I was just going to have to swallow the embarrassment.

  I threw myself on the floor.

  I’d never seen myself seize, since I hadn’t figured out the whole out-of-body experience thing yet. But I’d had it described to me plenty of times, so I figured I should be able to fake it pretty well. Most people panicked when they witnessed a seizure anyway. It wasn’t like they were going to be critiquing my performance. So I shuddered and shook, and I felt like I was doing a great job until I managed to give myself a charley horse.

  My fake seizure ended a lot more abruptly than I intended. I clenched my leg, trying not to cry. It hurt so bad. Aaron knelt down beside me and took my calf in his hands, smoothing out the spasming muscles with long, sure strokes of his thumbs.

  “It’s okay,” he said, looking over my shoulder. I twisted my head to see the entire AP Biology class clustered in the doorway, staring at me like I’d grown a third eye. “She just strained a muscle during her seizure. Didn’t you, Kate?”

  He looked down at me and winked. I could put one over on a lot of people, including Mrs. Mihalovic, but Aaron was too smart, or maybe he just knew me too well already.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’m okay now.”

  “Why don’t you help her down to the nurse’s office, Aaron?” Mrs. Mihalovic said. “And come back quickly, please. We’re having a pop quiz today.”

  She closed the door, cutting off a chorus of moans from our classmates. I felt like moaning too. Maybe she’d let me take it later for fun.

  We walked down the hall, nodding to a pair of freshmen sprinting for the door before Mr. Gilbert shut them out of freshman bio. “Care to explain what’s going on?” Aaron asked once they were out of earshot.

  “I had to fake it, Aaron. There are some things I haven’t told you yet.”

  My heart pounded. He deserved to know about Mike’s finger. The zombie virus. Coach. I felt bad for keeping everything from him this long. I hoped he wouldn’t be too angry.

  But when we turned the corner, a couple of the guidance counselors were standing in front of the nurse’s office.

  Mr. Wiesner, my counselor, nodded at me. “Kate,” he said. “You’re looking a little peaked.”

  “I was, uh, taking her to the nurse’s office,” Aaron said. “She had a seizure.”

  Mr. Wiesner clucked his tongue sympathetically and held the door open for me. I had no choice but to wave goodbye to Aaron while telepathically sending a thank-you for not proclaiming my fakeness in front of AP Bio and my fervent wish that he not get eaten by a zombie before homecoming.

  “Thanks,” I said as Aaron headed back to class. “I’ll talk to you later.”

  Mrs. Rooney, the school nurse, and I had a long history together. I’d probably spent more time in her office than I had in homeroom. When I was an underclassman, she used to let me read her nursing books while I waited for Mom to pick me up after a particularly bad seizure.

  “Kate,” she said, frowning. “I haven’t seen you here in a while.”

  “I had a seizure in Mrs. Mihalovic’s class. I’m not feeling so good now.”

  “You look horrible, you poor thing.”

  It was almost insulting. I couldn’t possibly look that bad. I almost started arguing with her over it before I realized that it would be awfully counterproductive.

  “Shall I call your dad to come pick you up?” she asked.

  “No!” She widened her eyes at me, and I forced myself to speak at a more reasonable volume. “He’s in an important meeting today, and it was just a seizure. If I could just lie down in the back room for a little bit, I should be okay. I could probably even go back to bio in time to take our pop quiz.”

  She deposited me in the back room on her foldout cot with a glass of water and a thin blanket. I had my phone out about five seconds after she closed the door behind her. Dr. Ho’s office number was still in my call history.

  The phone barely rang before someone snatched it up and yelled, “What?”

  “Uh …” I was kind of taken aback. Maybe there was a crossed line or something. I knew I hadn’t dialed wrong. “I need to talk to Dr. Ho. Can you help me?”

  “Afraid not, honey. Dr. Ho went rock climbing yesterday and fell off a cliff. I don’t know when he’ll be back in the office, but I imagine it’ll be a while. Can I take a message?”

  I started hyperventilating. It was nice to know that he wasn’t avoiding me, but what was I supposed to do now? The Ho couldn’t help cure zombies from traction. And really, if he was falling off cliffs, he wasn’t as smart as I thought he was.

  “Well?” she demanded.

  “No message,” I said.

  She hung up on me. I wasn’t very impressed with his secretarial staff. But I had a much bigger problem to worry about.

  I eyed the door. I knew Mrs. Rooney worked with the health department sometimes. If I could convince her that I wasn’t completely batty, she could put me in touch with the right person. It was just a matter of constructing an airtight argument.

  I lay there in the dark for a while, going through all the evidence in my head, thinking through the arguments she’d likely make and planning my responses. I had to be completely rational if I wanted her to listen to me, so I had to eliminate the Z‑word from my vocabulary. Otherwise, she’d write me off as a total nutcase.

  Finally, I flung open the door, ready to impress Mrs. Rooney with my viral detection abilities. It figured; she wasn’t at her desk. I couldn’t catch a break. But the secretaries liked me. Maybe one of them would page her if I asked nicely enough.

  I was halfway to the administrative offices when the screaming started. I wasn’t surprised. I’d known it was only a matter of time before the zombies started attacking.

  I jogged towar
d the ruckus. I didn’t hear anyone yelling “Zombies!” just yet; they seemed to be in the wordless panic-at-the-top-of-your-lungs stage. The noise came from the direction of the cafeteria, and I had horrific mental images of zombie lunch ladies. Our lunch ladies were kind of scary to begin with. But zombie lunch ladies? Almost as scary as clowns.

  As I got closer, the screams grew so loud and shrill that I started to wish for earplugs. I turned down the hallway leading to the kitchen, and Mindi Skibinski came running in the other direction. She knocked me off my feet. Seriously, she could teach our linebackers something; I flew backward so fast that I slid across the lineolum on my butt and banged my head into the lockers. She didn’t even pause. She was too busy running and screaming.

  Only an idiot would walk in on a zombie infestation empty-handed, so I looked around for something to defend myself with. I entered the little alcove outside the kitchen, which was fitted with coat hooks and stocked with about a thousand hairnets. Nothing that would be vaguely useful in a zombie fight. It was almost enough to make me wish I was one of Jonah’s geeky gamer friends; at least then I’d have a pseudosword.

  I opened the door, letting out a blast of screaming that assaulted my eardrums, and then I dashed inside because I figured it might give me a slight edge of surprise. I was about to go into a room full of zombies armed only with a backpack. I’d take anything that could make me feel better about the situation.

  The kitchen was crowded and steamy and always smelled like fish sticks no matter what they were cooking. I took two steps in and grabbed a pair of metal tongs, then inched around the storage freezer and into the main room.

  “Ahhhh! Ahhhh!” One of the lunch ladies was crouched on her hands and knees atop the metal counter, screaming at the top of her lungs. When she saw me, she pointed at the floor and screamed some more, like maybe I hadn’t gotten the picture yet. I looked down at my feet, expecting to see a sneaky ninja zombie.