Lenny Cyrus, School Virus (9780547893167)

by Schreiber, Joe; Smith, Matt (ILT)

  “Yo, Lenny!” Astro shouted, yanking me over. “Meet Lug!”

  I looked up and saw a massive, ultrabuff molecule hunched over a table in the corner. At first glance, Lug looked to be half gym rat, half brick wall—slabs for shoulders, scrambled DNA for brains, tiny little eyes peering out suspiciously at his microscopic world. Underneath his spandex muscle shirt and black jeans, every part of him seemed to be testing the limits of the cellular membrane that encased his beefy heft.

  When he saw me standing there, he leaned back, stretched, and flexed, and I realized that I was somehow seeing him both as a chemical compound like the ones I’d studied under the microscope and a football player like the ones I helped with their homework.

  “You the new virus?” he growled.

  “Yeah.”

  “Heard you’re looking for someone to get you across the BBB.”

  “That’s right.”

  “What’s in it for me?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “What do you want?”

  “Glycogen. Twenty molecules up front, another fifteen when I get you to the other side.”

  “I don’t usually carry that much on me,” I said, glancing at Astro, who looked as helpless as I felt. “I mean, I could get some, but...”

  Lug was already losing interest. “Then we got nothing to talk about.”

  “Wait,” I said. I had an idea, but I was going to have to work fast. “Just give me a second. I really need—”

  “Get lost, virus, before I break you in half.” He started to turn away.

  That was when I grabbed him.

  SEVENTEEN: HARLAN

  I was on my way out of Mr. Cheney’s office when the bell rang for the end of third period, and a moment later I heard a commotion behind me in the hall.

  Looking back, I saw Zooey talking to a TV news crew, which had already started unloading their gear in the entryway, unspooling long black pythons of electrical cable. I remembered what she’d told me earlier about reporters from WCRW coming to do a piece on the play.

  “Harlan?”

  I looked back. It was Lenny’s mom. She’d broken away from Lenny’s dad, who was already standing halfway down the hall, waiting for her.

  “Who was Lenny talking about?” his mother asked.

  “What?”

  “That...girl that Lenny mentioned. The one he’s supposedly so...fixated on.” She glanced at one of the posters for Escape Claus, hanging on the wall behind her, and then looked over at Zooey with the camera crew, but Zooey’s head was turned the other way, and Lenny’s mom didn’t see her face. “Is that the one who’s putting on this Christmas play?”

  For a second I just stared at her, not quite able to believe my ears. For the last five years, Zooey Andrews had literally been the only girl that Lenny had ever talked about. In fact, he’d talked about her so much that even I had actually gotten sick of hearing about her...and I liked her. I knew that he’d told his mom and dad about her too, over and over, year after year—mentioned her specifically by name a million times at the dinner table. One year on Valentine’s Day he’d actually created this weird pink chemical gas, lighter than air, that spelled out her name in twenty-foot-high floating letters over the front yard. It had lingered there for almost three days and left a big stain on the grass. His dad had to hire a lawn service to scrub it off. I don’t think Zooey ever saw it.

  “Why do you want to know?” I asked.

  “Because I’m his mother. And if this...person is distracting him from his studies, then I think we need to have a talk with her.”

  “Why don’t you try having a talk with him for once?” I asked.

  “Are you insinuating that we don’t communicate?”

  “No, I’m saying you don’t talk.”

  “Susan!” Lenny’s dad called from the door, pacing with impatience. “Can we go, please? Tempus fugit!”

  “I’m coming.” She turned back to me. “For your information, Harlan, Leonard and I have very rewarding conversations every day.”

  “About what? Strange quarks? Subatomic particles? Honestly, Dr. Cyrus, when was the last time you asked him about his feelings?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Feelings?”

  “Yeah,” I said, “you know—those things that aren’t thoughts?”

  “Please,” she said, “spare me your semantics. Lenny knows that he can come to us whenever he likes. I think we’ve made that abundantly clear to him in the past.” She stared at me. “And right now, between this untenable bullying situation and whatever else is going on, I think he’s got more to worry about than feelings.”

  I just shook my head. “Right.”

  “Harlan, I have to say, I’m quite disappointed in you as well. If you were a true friend, you’d be more worried about him.”

  “Oh, that’s funny, coming from you.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You guys just go on living your lives, doing whatever you want and plowing right ahead with your experiments or whatever, but do you ever think about what any of it does to him? Do you ever think about the consequences?”

  “I’ve heard just about enough of this.” Lenny’s mom crossed her arms. “Where did you say he was right now? The auditorium?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Let’s go see him right now.” She threw another glance down the hall at Lenny’s dad. “Don? There’s been a change of plans.”

  That was when I realized I’d made a big mistake.

  EIGHTEEN: ZOOEY

  The TV crew wanted to set up in the auditorium, to get what they called “bump shots” of the stage and costumes for the evening broadcast. I told them that the play wasn’t supposed to start until three thirty, but the reporter, a guy named Ted, told me that he could get what they needed now.

  “That might be a problem,” I said. “See, the auditorium’s also the gym, and—”

  “We’ll work around it.” Ted popped a breath mint, flashed a smile so white that it hurt my eyes a little, and gestured me forward. “You’re Joey Daniels, you said? The little girl in charge of all this?”

  I gritted my teeth. “Zooey Andrews.”

  “Right.” He waved to the cameraman and the sound guy and they came trailing up the hall, dragging wires along after them. “Listen, sweetie: I know it’s exciting having us here. Just try to relax. When we get there, I’ll ask you a few questions. Just try to speak clearly and don’t look directly at the camera, okay?”

  I shot a glance at the crowded hallway. Classes were changing, and the bad news was that Harlan and I were supposed to be starting gym in about two minutes. I didn’t think that Mr. Shoenwald was going to be too happy to see a news crew showing up during class. Even worse, I was pretty sure that, unlike my other teachers, old Shovelhead wasn’t going to excuse me from class to deal with the reporter and cameras. Getting an excuse from gym was ridiculously hard, and usually required a doctor’s note, if not a broken limb or a blood-spurting injury—either of which would’ve been preferable to having a TV crew videotaping me running around in a pair of gym shorts.

  “Where are we going?” Ted the reporter asked. “Which way?”

  “I’d be happy to escort you,” a voice behind me said, and I turned around to see Aria standing behind me. She was dressed in her Mrs. Claus costume, boots and full stage makeup, which was a surprise since the play wasn’t supposed to start until after school.

  “Aria?” I said, staring at her. “What are you doing?”

  “Aria Keen—so pleased to meet you.” She practically knocked me down reaching out to shake Ted’s hand. “Actress, singer, ingenue.” She handed him a glossy black-and-white headshot. “All of my contact information’s on the back.”

  Ted glanced at the photo, then up at her. “You’re the one who called my office?”

  “Yes,” Aria said modestly, “that’s right. Now if you want to follow me...”

  “Wait a second,” I said. “You called them?”

  “Well, of course,”
Aria said. “Do you think that TV people just happen to come to middle school plays? You have to pursue them.” She smiled back at Ted and his cameraman and sound technician. “If we start walking now, we can get there before class starts.”

  “Aria,” I said, “wait.”

  She turned back to me with a pasted-on smile. “Do you really think you should be here today, Zooey? You don’t look well at all.”

  “I’m fine,” I said, but they were already moving again, and I had no choice but to chase after them, trying to catch up, even though my stomach was making weird burbling noises and I wasn’t sure I should be running.

  We were almost to the gym when I saw Harlan pushing his way toward me, but he wasn’t alone. There were two adults following him, and they both looked weirdly familiar, like two halves of somebody I knew from school. Harlan didn’t look too happy to be with them.

  In fact, I could’ve sworn he was mouthing the word “run.”

  NINETEEN: LENNY

  “Dude,” Astro said in a low voice as he backed away, “are you out of your mind?”

  It was too late to turn back now. I’d already jammed Lug up against the wall of the ovary, shoving both hands through his membrane, straight into the deepest recesses of his molecular structure, where the atoms came together. He was so big that I had to stand on my tiptoes to reach in, but I found what I was looking for fast enough, and when I got there, I didn’t hesitate. Grabbing a hydroxyl in one hand and a methyl group in the other, I gripped them as hard as I could and pulled. They came off their respective nitrogen bindings with a loud pop and a hiss, like somebody cracking open a fresh soda. Lug jumped up, looking startled, and got right up in my face.

  “Kid, you just signed your death warrant.”

  “Hold still,” I said. “You don’t want me to mess this up.”

  “What are you—”

  “Be quiet and let me work.” Flashing back on what I remembered about my dad’s molecular engineering textbooks, I started switching up his valences and replacing atoms onto the newly available bindings. When I finished, Lug stood there motionless for a long moment.

  “Whoa...” he said. “What did you do?”

  “Changed a few things around,” I said. “You’re not a steroid anymore.”

  “I feel different.” He looked down at his rearranged chemical structure. “I feel...better.”

  “Good.”

  “Smarter.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “More energy, and—”

  “Yeah,” I said, “that makes sense.”

  “—I want to dance.”

  “What?”

  “Dance!”

  He spun and roared into the crowd, and they roared back at him in delight as he pivoted around to look at me, a huge grin on his face. His eyes blazed with new light, new awareness, and probably new ideas for ways of putting my life in jeopardy. Astro leaned over and whispered in my ear.

  “What did you do?”

  “Just some basic atomic restructuring,” I said. “I turned him into a caffeine molecule.”

  “Oh.” Astro looked out at the crowd, where Lug was jumping up and down and waving furiously at me. “And that’s a good thing?”

  “I think he’s going to help us now.”

  “I think he wants to dance.”

  “He’s already dancing,” I said.

  “No, I mean, I think he wants you to dance.”

  “I can’t—”

  “Dude, do it. You do not want this guy as an enemy. Especially now that you’ve turned him into a living can of Red Bull. Now he’s huge, supersmart, and completely amped out of his mind?” He shook his head. “I’d start dancing.”

  I pushed my way out into the crowd. After a few steps I realized that something was wrong with my oxygenation system, or maybe there wasn’t enough hemoglobin down here, because as the room got crowded, it was becoming harder to breathe. When I got out to the middle of the dance floor, the last thing I remember was Lug grabbing me and wrapping me in a big sweaty hug. As he whipped me around, squeezing me harder, I realized I was in trouble.

  My lungs cramped and a blade of pain hit me across the sternum.

  Then everything went black.

  TWENTY: HARLAN

  I was trapped outside the gymnasium with Lenny’s parents, sandwiched between a flood of kids coming out and the TV news crew trying to fight their way in, when I felt someone grab my arm. It was Blake Hartman, captain of the football team.

  “Hey, man,” Blake shouted. “Have you seen Lenny around?”

  I saw Lenny’s mom turn at the sound of his name. She looked Blake up and down, saw his muscles and football jersey, and jumped nimbly to her own conclusions. “Who are you?” she demanded. “Are you one who’s been picking on him?”

  “What? No.” Blake flipped open his notebook and pulled out an unfinished algebra worksheet. “Lenny always helps me with my math.”

  “Helps you with it,” Lenny’s dad said, “or does it for you?”

  I closed my eyes and thought, Oh, Lenny. I can’t believe you have to live with this.

  Blake, meanwhile, looked genuinely bewildered. “It’s not like that. He actually explains it to me so I get it, you know? Like when two trains pass each other at sixty miles a hour and stuff like that?” He shot another glance at Lenny’s parents and started backing away. “Anyway, I gotta go.”

  Lenny’s mother watched him leave, then turned to face Lenny’s dad. “I told you we should have considered private school.”

  “Next year,” Lenny’s dad muttered. “Brixton Academy.”

  “How about right after holiday break?”

  “Even better.”

  The doorway had cleared, and the three of us made our way into the gym.

  I should’ve known we were in trouble from the second I got inside.

  The badminton nets were put away, the gymnastic mats had been rolled up, and the retractable wooden risers were pushed back into the wall, leaving the whole gym floor completely empty. On the opposite side, I saw Aria Keen—who for some reason was already dressed in her Mrs. Claus costume—leading the camera crew toward the stage, where the curtains were drawn over the Escape Claus set. Zooey was following along behind them, looking sick. She was going to feel a whole lot sicker if Lenny’s parents found out who she was.

  “I don’t see Lenny,” his mom said, and glared at me. “Where is he, Harlan?”

  I was about to admit the whole thing was a lie when the curtains parted and Mr. Shoenwald stepped out in his too-tight nylon running shorts and rippling biceps, hands on hips, staring down on us like a bronzed king surveying his domain.

  “Who or what,” Lenny’s dad asked, “is that Neanderthal?”

  I felt a cold, dull sense of misery drape itself over my shoulders like a wet towel. “That’s our gym teacher.”

  Shovelhead bent over and started doing something with an iPod and some wires, plugging in cords to a set of speakers at the corner of the stage. Behind us, the rest of the kids in fourth-period gym were straggling their way in, dragging their feet and complaining every step, trying to take up as much time as possible before the last bell rang.

  “Let’s go, people,” Shovelhead bawled down at us and clapped his hands together. The noise rang out like a gunshot. “Get changed and get your butts out here. I’ve got a special surprise for you today.” He turned and stared at the reporter and the cameraman making their way up on stage. “What’s going on here, some kind of press conference?”

  I rolled my eyes and looked back at Lenny’s parents. “I’ll be right back.”

  “They’re from WCRW,” Zooey was telling Mr. Shoenwald when I got close enough to hear. “They’re taping a segment on the show this afternoon.”

  “I don’t care if they’re covering the Winter Olympics,” Shovelhead snapped. “I need you suited up and ready in two minutes, Andrews—you got me? Or the next performance you’ll be giving is two forty-five detention.”

  That was when Zooey turn
ed around and saw me. Her eyes were dilated, and her face was flushed bright red, like she was getting a fever. “Harlan?”

  “Hey,” I said, and pointed at Aria, who was talking with both hands to the TV reporter. “What’s Aria doing?”

  “Apparently...” Zooey let out a breath. “I don’t know. I guess she set this whole thing up herself without telling anybody.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m...fine.”

  “You don’t look so good.”

  “I’m just a little hot, that’s all.” She fanned herself. “Is it hot in here or is it just me?”

  “Um,” I said. “Listen, Zooey—”

  “Sixty seconds!” Shovelhead bellowed, clutching the stopwatch that dangled around his neck next to his whistle, and Aria and the news crew disappeared behind the curtain.

  “I should go with them,” Zooey said, but Shovelhead just glared at her, arms crossed over his barrel chest. I’m not sure what happened next, except that Zooey just seemed to teeter backwards, as if she’d suddenly lost her balance and started to fall. I just barely managed to catch her arm before she would’ve tripped over one of the footlights. Touching her was a shock. Her skin wasn’t just warm—it was blazing.

  “You sure that you don’t need to go see the school nurse or something?” I asked.

  “I was just there. I’m fine.”

  “Okay, sorry. Jeez.”

  “No, it’s just—” She shook her head. “I can’t afford to be sick today, that’s all. Today is huge.”

  “I know.” I was starting to feel more nervous myself. “It’ll be fine.”

  Shovelhead blasted his whistle again, louder than ever, and we both looked up, wincing.

  “Let’s go, people! Now!”