I am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to be Your Class

by Josh Lieb

  OP 919: “Drop out of the student-council election.”

  JACK: Why would anyone? . . .

  OP 919: No idea. Damnedest thing I ever heard of. Anyway, now that we’re done, I’m heading back to the airport, catching the first flight home.

  JACK: Wait! Will anyone? . . .

  GIRL’S VOICE (in distance): Great game, Jack!

  (Sound of frantic envelope stuffing)

  JACK (false hearty): Thanks, Shirelle! (then, quieter) Will anyone see these?

  OP 919: Not if you drop out of the election.

  JACK: Okay. Fine. I’ll do it. I’ll do it!

  OP 919: Try to see the upside. Now you got a reason to break a really nasty habit. So, maybe in the long run, we’re doing you a favor.

  JACK (sighs): Right.

  OP 919: It’s been a pleasure doing business. Forgive me if I don’t shake hands.

  (Sound of stiletto heels walking away)

  (Fin)

  THEKID STAYSIN THEPICTURE

  (Setting: teachers’ lounge. Time: mid-morning)

  (Sound of teachers lounging)

  MOORHEAD: Hi, Lucy.

  SOKOLOV: Mmm.

  MOORHEAD: Still reading (pronounces it correctly) Nabokov, huh?

  (Sound of book being reluctantly put down)

  SOKOLOV: I’m trying to.

  MOORHEAD: That’s awesome. Coffee?

  SOKOLOV: I don’t drink coffee.

  MOORHEAD: Thought you might have changed your mind. Personally, I drink way too much (lame giggle).

  SOKOLOV: Gee. How awful for you.60

  MOORHEAD: Well . . . enjoy your (pronounces it correctly) Nabokov.

  SOKOLOV: I will!

  (Sound of leather man-sandals walking away)

  SOKOLOV (under her breath): Twit.61

  (Fin)

  DANCIN’ FOOL

  (Setting: a suburban kitchen. Time: late afternoon)

  (Sound of someone licking the crème filling from Oreos, a window opening)

  LIZ TWOMBLEY: Wow! Did you just come through the window?

  THE MOTIVATOR:62 No room is closed to me.

  LIZ: You’re funny looking.

  MOTIVATOR: Erm . . .

  LIZ: I’m sorry, that was rude. You’re not funny looking at all. I hardly noticed.

  MOTIVATOR: I suggest you drop out of the election for class president.

  LIZ: That’s so weird! I already almost did drop out, because there’s this boy who has this disease of fatness that’s killing him, but it turns out it wasn’t true.

  MOTIVATOR: I suggest you drop out—

  LIZ: But I don’t see how it’s not true, because he’s still totally fat.

  MOTIVATOR: (coughs) Erm . . . Really? I don’t think he’s fat.

  LIZ: Are you crazy? He’s huge!

  MOTIVATOR: Erm . . . no . . . I hear he looks powerful. Handsome.

  LIZ: Huh. I guess he’s kind of cute. Like one of those poison fish that blow up, if you could pet them. Do you want the cookie part of my Oreos? I only eat the stuf.

  MOTIVATOR: I suggest you drop out of the election for class president.

  (Sound of papers being taken out of an envelope)

  LIZ: Oh my God! That’s me!

  MOTIVATOR: I suggest—

  LIZ: (delighted laughter) Dancing around in my jammies, singing into my hairbrush. I remember doing that! That is so embarrassing!

  MOTIVATOR: Yes, exactly. So, I sug—

  LIZ: You know what? If my friends saw these? How embarrassing would that be! Where did you get them? Can I get more?

  MOTIVATOR: We can make an unlimited supply of—

  LIZ: Oh my God! What if we blew them up, like, poster-size, and put them up all over school. That would be so embarrassing! (Ten-second-long giggle fit).

  MOTIVATOR: (long pause) Do you know what the word embarrassing means?

  LIZ: It means hilarious! Can I have these pictures?

  MOTIVATOR: Knock yourself out.

  LIZ: I’m going to be totally humiliated!

  MOTIVATOR: What if I was to offer you anything in the world if you agreed to drop out of the election?63

  LIZ: Anything?

  MOTIVATOR: Anything.

  LIZ: World Peace.

  MOTIVATOR: You can’t have that.

  LIZ: You said anything!

  MOTIVATOR: Besides that.

  LIZ: Mmm . . . a pet unicorn.

  MOTIVATOR (urgently): Permission to go to Phase Four! Please, give me permission to go to Phase Four!

  LIZ: Who are you talking to?

  (A beat of silence)64

  MOTIVATOR: Damn it.

  (A beat of silence)

  LIZ: This is getting boring.

  MOTIVATOR: Yeah, fine. I guess that’ll work. (then, friendly) Sorry, I should have told you before. I’m the doctor for the little boy who’s dying.

  LIZ: He is dying!

  MOTIVATOR: Yes. And the only thing that will cure him is if he wins the student-council election.

  LIZ: That makes sense.

  MOTIVATOR: The thing is, it won’t work if you tell anyone, even his parents. Do you understand?

  (Sirens in the distance)

  LIZ: Sure. Don’t tell anybody.

  MOTIVATOR: Even his parents. Or you’ll kill—

  (Sirens get much louder)

  MOTIVATOR: Are those coming here?

  LIZ: You set off the alarm when you opened the window.

  (Beat of silence)

  MOTIVATOR: I hate you.

  (Sound of steel-toed boots scrambling out a window)

  LIZ: Bye! Thanks for the pictures!

  (Fin)

  Chapter 15:

  EVIL IS MADE, NOT BORN

  I am not purely a force for destruction. I don’t only produce electro-rays, untraceable poisons, and blackmail files. One time, for instance, I invented this amazing gold-plated back scratcher—I think I already mentioned it. I also sometimes publish counterfeit Archie comics, in which Betty and Veronica dump that idiot Archie and devote their lives to worshipping the great Reggie. Because I think there’s an audience for that.

  But if I don’t make more constructive contributions to society, it’s really not my fault. I’ve never gotten any encouragement for such ventures.

  When I was five, my family drove to Florida for a week’s vacation. My father’s friend Don owned a house down there.

  I spent most of my first day at the beach building a sand castle with Mom, while Daddy sat in a folding chair reading (see plate 11). For the most part, it was like he wasn’t even on the same vacation with us. He just sat there, reading, wearing black sunglasses and a blue Chicago Cubs baseball cap, getting bright red streaks on his shoulders.65 But at one point, he looked up from his book and gave our castle a surprised look.

  PLATE 11: I spent most of my first day at the beach

  building a sand castle

  “Wow, Marlene,” he said. “That’s some castle.”

  “Ollie did most of it,” she said proudly.

  “Well, what do you know” he said. “Huh.” He sounded genuinely, almost kind of impressed. He got up and walked around the castle slowly, getting down on his knees to examine a particularly cunning parapet. “Good work, Ollie.” He turned to “Mom.” “Maybe he’ll grow up to be an architect. Sometimes the ones who have the worst verbal skills have the best spatial abilities.”

  “He has wonderful verbal skills,” said “Mom.” “He just doesn’t talk very much.”

  It is hard for me to describe the delighted tingle that was running through my body all through this conversation. Probably because it’s the only time in my life I’ve felt that tingle. God help me, it’s probably what Lollipop feels when I tell her, “Good dog.”

  How sick is that? I was five—way old enough to know better, and yet some small part of me still wanted to please this sunburned buffoon. I guess boys are hardwired to admire their fathers. But when I look back at this weakness in my five-year-old self, I get almost physically ill. Thank God, I
’m over that.

  After making his proud noises, Daddy went back to his book. Then the tide started to come in, inching ever closer to my castle walls. So I got busy with my plastic shovel. I am not the first child who ever started digging a moat around his castle to try to save it from the oncoming waves.

  “Time to go, son,” said Daddy.

  “I’m not finished.”

  “You’re just digging holes.”

  I smiled up at him. “I’m keeping the water from wrecking my castle.”

  “Oh, Ollie,” said Mom. She looked heartbroken. “The ocean washes away everyone’s sand castles. I’m so sorry, honey.”

  But I kept digging. My father smiled at her and whispered, “Let him finish. It’s a good lesson for him to learn. There are some things he can’t control.”

  My mother rummaged in her bag to find me a cookie.

  It took me about ten more minutes to finish digging my network of trenches, pits, and grooves in the sand.

  Then we went back to Don’s house and ate corned-beef sandwiches for dinner.

  I woke up early the next day. I couldn’t wait to go back to the water. I wanted to feel that tingle again.66

  When we got to the beach, Daddy spent a few minutes setting his chair up, laying his towel down, rubbing aloe vera on his shoulders. Then he finally looked around, surveying the shoreline like some all-powerful fairy-tale king. That’s when he noticed my castle, twenty yards away.

  It was pristine. Perfect. It had not been touched by a single wave.

  Mom was very happy for me and immediately suggested we add a giant tower to the center. But my eyes were on Daddy. He didn’t say anything for a while. He walked around the castle again, like he’d done the day before, examining it even more closely. Like he wanted to see if it was really the same castle.

  I suppose I was expecting him to say, “Wow, Ollie.” Or, “Good work, son.” I would have settled for “Good dog.”

  What he said was, “What the hell? . . . ” And when he finally looked at me, what I saw wasn’t justifiable paternal pride. His skinny little lips had gone transparent from the blood fleeing his face. His nostrils were wide as half-dollars, like a gorilla smelling gunpowder. His beady eyes were narrowed into greedy, suspicious slits.

  What I saw was fear. Horror. He was threatened by me.

  Here I had devised an entirely new system of hydraulic engineering—out of sand—a system that could easily keep the world’s coastlines safe from hurricanes, typhoons, and whatever other nonsense nature throws at us—and my father’s reaction was not only disbelief, it was disgust. Terror.

  He was scared I would somehow surpass him. As much as he might moan about what a disappointment his dumb son was, his ego couldn’t tolerate a son who might be better than him.

  That’s when I realized I was destined to either disappoint my father or terrify him. There would be no middle ground, no soft and squishy place called “pride.”

  But that’s also when I realized I didn’t care.67 I still don’t. I don’t need his approval. I don’t need his love. I don’t need anything. I’ve got my genius to keep me warm. And I certainly don’t need to build anything to prove myself to him.

  Daddy settled back into his chair and started reading again, after saying something about “a fluke” and “a-one-in-a-billion chance.”

  I kicked the castle down and spent the rest of the day breaking seashells.

  And that’s pretty much what I’ve done every day since.

  Chapter 16:

  I DRAW A HISTORICAL PARALLEL

  In 1936, a German company completed construction of the LZ 129 Hindenburg. The Hindenburg was a zeppelin—basically, a blimp with an ego. It was as big as the Titanic, but it flew.

  Unfortunately, not for long. In 1937, as it was coming in for a landing, the Hindenburg burst into flames, killing thirty-six people and two dogs (see plate 12). A radio reporter on the scene was so moved by the carnage, he started spouting some of the best poetry ever spoken over American airwaves: “It’s smoke and it’s flames now . . . and the frame is crashing to the ground, not quite to the mooring mast . . . Oh, the humanity!”68

  Although nothing was ever proved, there has always been speculation that what happened to the Hindenburg wasn’t an accident. It was the biggest, most famous thing that has ever flown—and when you are that big, that famous, you are bound to make enemies.69

  PLATE 12: In 1937, as it was coming in for a landing, the Hindenburg burst into flames, killing 36 people and two dogs.

  Which is why cover has always been so important to me. Why I’ve done everything I can to fly under the radar at school, to be a being of complete bland boringness to my

  classmates. When you draw attention to yourself, dangerous things can happen.

  For instance: Liz Twombley is hugging me. Furiously. Frantically. Right in the middle of the cafeteria. Her left hand clasps the back of my head and grinds my face into her body. Since Liz stands a good foot taller than me, even you can do this math.70 I am caught in a web of equal parts humiliation and exhilaration.

  “Oh, Oliver,” she emotes. “You’ll be the best class president ever.” Her clique—Megan Polanski, Shiri O’Doul, and Rashida Grant—remain seated at the Popular Table, watching this display with abject, slack-jawed horror. I struggle to free myself, but I can’t decide how hard I should fight.

  “Be careful, Crisco-breath,” taunts Tatiana, sauntering past with a carton of chocolate milk. “You might suffocate.”

  That makes up my mind for me. I somehow find the strength to push Liz away, find the appropriate words to say thank you (“Your sweater smells fuzzy”), and rush to my table, where Randy Sparks waits with a slice of pizza—forgotten—stuck halfway into his mouth.

  Liz gives me one last longing look and returns to her friends. Megan, Shiri, and Rashida, without speaking, without exchanging so much as a glance or gesture, stand up and move to another table. Middle-school cruelty has struck again. The girl who took me into her arms was the Most Popular Girl in School. The girl who let me go is nothing.

  Liz is just one of the victims of my political career. This morning, Jack Chapman announced he was withdrawing from the race so he could concentrate on his studies.71

  There’s also been a massive increase in farting in class. My new high profile has made me a magnet for bullies, even bullies who should know better, and I suspect Pistol, Bardolph, and Nym are running low on blow-darts. Yesterday, Alan Pitt—he of the loud mouth and bad complexion—slammed me into a locker so hard I nearly broke a finger. My minions filled him with Lazopril darts, but too late to do any good. Ten minutes later, he laid such a stinker in history class that I thought the gas was going to melt the zits off his face.

  Still, it’s all worth it. Once again, I have triumphed.

  Randy Sparks has recovered enough to swallow the cheese in his mouth. He gives me an encouraging smile. “I guess you’re going to be president now, Ollie.”

  I dig frantically into my pocket and pull out a greasy dollar bill. I push it across the table to him. “Okay, okay. Here,” I say. “It’s all I’ve got.”

  Randy is puzzled. “I don’t want your money.”

  “It’s all I’ve got!” I scream, “I’ll bring more tomorrow!”

  He gives me a nervous smile, looks around to see who’s heard me. “No. Take it back. That’s yours.”

  “Okay ! Okay! I’ll steal money from my Mommy and give it to you!”

  “But I don’t want—” Randy is yanked to his feet by the beefy paw of Miss Broadway, a rather enormous new math teacher. “Leave him alone,” she commands.

  “But I wasn’t—I don’t want his money. I don’t know why he thought—” protests Randy, but the look on Broadway’s broad face silences him.

  “Really, Rudy, I expect better from you.”