Revenge of the EngiNerds

by Jarrett Lerner

  I make sure to move sluggishly, first through the house and then out to the car. I climb into the backseat and set my forehead against the window, hoping the cool glass might slow down my thoughts, which are crashing and bashing around in my head like a bunch of little kids in bumper cars.

  My mom drives fast, probably because she’s afraid I’m going to vomit.

  The trees whiz by, turning into dark, frilly blurs.

  The sky, clear and dark, is alive with stars.

  The sight makes all of what John Henry Knox said come back to me. The stuff about the vastness of the universe, and our extremely limited knowledge of it, and how—

  That’s when I see it, looming up above.

  A cloud.

  One that looks just like the cloud I saw in my backyard the day before, right after my microwave spectacularly malfunctioned, and just like the cloud that came to the rescue last weekend behind the Shop & Save, dumping down rain right in the nick of time and making the last of the robots we were facing off against go SQUAH-POOM! It’s one of those cumulo-nimbo-majigs—a big white behemoth the size of a shopping mall and shaped like a gigantic, cotton ball–covered anvil.

  Or like a UFO.

  I tilt my head to try to get a better view of the thing.

  I peer up at its wide white belly, so bright it seems to glow with its very own light.

  And then, as I’m staring up at it, the bright whiteness begins to change.

  It starts to look . . .

  Well, orange.

  I blink.

  But the orange is still there. It’s like looking at a gargantuan clementine through a thick layer of fog.

  I shut my eyes and squeeze them tight.

  And when I open them back up, the orange is finally gone.

  But the cloud hasn’t gone back to being white.

  Now it’s looks purple.

  The next thing I know, I’m pounding on my parents’ headrests.

  “PULL OVER!” I shout. “PULL OVER!”

  31.

  I HOP OUT OF THE car as soon as it stops.

  “Not on your shoes, Ken!” my mom calls after me. “No puking on your new shoes!”

  I run a short ways down the road, to a spot where I can better see the cloud through the trees.

  It’s drifting away, off in the direction of Jerry’s house, its belly no longer right above me. And seeing it like this, from an angle, the portion of the cloud that a second ago looked purple now looks more gray—a color it’s completely normal for a cloud to be.

  My breathing slows.

  My thoughts settle.

  And then I understand that the cloud never was orange, and that I didn’t then watch it turn purple.

  Obviously.

  I’ve just been exposed to too much of Mikaela’s kookiness.

  And just like all the rest of the EngiNerds, it’s got me thinking impossible things, and even seeing impossible things.

  Feeling like Kitty must feel after falling for the Ol’ Make Him Look, I trudge back to the car and get in.

  Mom cranes her neck to get a look at my feet.

  “You going to be okay?” she asks me, satisfied I haven’t ruined my shoes.

  I tell her the truth:

  “I’m not sure.”

  32.

  AT HOME, I CALL UP Dan.

  “Dan,” I say, like always.

  But he must hear it in my voice—the confusion, the hurt.

  “Ken. Uh, hey. How’s it, um . . . going?”

  “Wonderful,” I lie.

  Because this isn’t about me.

  This is about him.

  And all the rest of the guys.

  And Mikaela.

  “How’s it going with you?” I ask. And then, quickly deciding that this leaves him too much wiggle room, I get right to the point: “What’d you do after school today?”

  I can hear him swallow.

  He knows I know. And I know he knows I know.

  I also know that he’s on the other end of the line gnawing on his lip, and that, if I let him, he’ll go on gnawing for the next ten minutes while he tries to figure out what to say.

  Well, he can gnaw that lip right off his face for all I care.

  I’ve got enough to say for the both of us.

  “Dan,” I begin, “don’t you see that this is just like last time? John Henry Knox started sharing his kooky conspiracy theories about the weather, about apocalyptic megastorms and the meaning of clouds, and you gobbled it all up. You went home and built yourself a fleet of farting robots. And now you’re buying into all this alien stuff. Now you’re spending your time trying to make contact. So what’s next, Dan? Huh? What giant mess are you gonna make this time?”

  “Ken,” Dan says, “I know you and John Henry Knox have your differences, but if you don’t think something weird’s been going on with the weather . . .”

  “Then what?”

  “Well, then you might be the kooky one.”

  I open my mouth to defend myself, but Dan starts up again before I can.

  “Just think about it,” he says. “Remember the hail storm last week? And then all that rain behind the Shop & Save? I know you might not want to believe it, I know you’ll probably never admit it—but John Henry Knox was right. He is right. Something’s definitely going on. I don’t know if it’s apocalyptic. I don’t know if all this weird weather means the world is about to end. But—”

  “But you think it might mean that there are aliens in our town,” I interrupt. “Is that what you’re saying? That if there really, truly are aliens out there in the universe, you think they’d use their super advanced technology to come to our little planet, to our little town, and cause a couple of storms?”

  “I think—”

  “And what about the robot, Dan? The one we know for a fact is really and truly out there, and that I’ve been driving myself nuts trying to find for the past week so that it doesn’t fart someone to smithereens, get traced back to you, and get you in a ton of trouble?”

  “He’s not going to do anything,” Dan says, and then he gives me the same line John Henry Knox did. “We’re ninety-eight percent certain that Edsley’s bot hasn’t been responsible for any of what’s been going on in town, and ninety-nine percent certain that he’s not a threat.”

  And there it is again.

  That “we.”

  Meaning the EngiNerds.

  Plus Mikaela.

  Minus me.

  “Unless someone actively antagonizes him,” Dan goes on, “the bot’s going to keep doing whatever he’s doing. Lying in a ditch. Roaming around Canada. Or—or, I don’t know . . . working at a shoe store.”

  “Working at a shoe store?”

  If I was in a better mood, I’d laugh at the idea of one of these butt-blasters being gainfully employed.

  Dan takes a breath.

  “Ken,” he says, “you’re one of the most stubborn people I know. And before you start stubbornly telling me that you’re not stubborn,” he’s quick to add, “just please—listen.”

  He waits to make sure I’m going to.

  “Sometimes, Ken, your stubbornness can be a good thing. A great thing, even. Like when you’re facing a tough problem. You don’t give up. But sometimes, in other situations . . . well, I wish you’d just give in. Maybe Mikaela’s right about the aliens. Maybe she’s wrong. All I know is that she’s smart. Really smart. And the stuff she has to say, all the things she showed us—it’s fascinating, man. It’s exciting. And it makes a lot of sense. If you’d just let your guard down and give her a chance, I think you’d think so too. I know you would. And if it’d make you feel better, I’m sure she’d help us find Edsley’s bot, wherever he is. I mean, the girl’s got a gadget for everything.”

  I jump on this last thing, since it’s the easiest, least uncomfortable part of what he said to respond to.

  “Fancy gadgets,” I tell him, “aren’t always the answer.”

  “I know it,” says Dan. “The human brain is
the best gadget around. No contest. But now and again, it can use a little help.”

  I guess I agree with that.

  But I’m not about to come out and say it.

  So I keep my mouth shut.

  And so does Dan.

  And the silence builds, stretching on and on and leaving me to wonder what in the world has happened to us.

  Last week, I found out that Dan’s been lying to me for the past two years, all while secretly building a fleet of robots in his basement. And now, somehow, he’s over all that. He’s already moved on to the next thing—Mikaela and her aliens.

  And maybe, I can’t help but think, he’s moving on from me.

  This thought throws everything else into question.

  Maybe, I suddenly find myself wondering, the bot really isn’t responsible for the blackout and the satellite and the Food-Plus.

  Maybe my worries have been misplaced.

  Maybe I’m obsessing over this missing robot, and obsessing over Dan helping me look for him, because all along, deep down, I’ve known what’s happening. I’ve noticed the two of us drifting apart, bit by bit growing more and more distant, until finally the gap between us is just too big to be bridged. Because in seemingly no time at all, we’ve gone from best friends to regular friends within a larger group to the sort of friends who keep secrets from each other to, well, whatever we are now. A couple of kids who don’t see eye to eye. Who don’t believe the same things. Who have totally different ideas about how they should be spending their time.

  “Ken . . .”

  I hang up.

  It’s a pathetic, cowardly move—even lamer than faking sick to get out of doing something you don’t want to do.

  But I don’t know what else to do.

  Sitting there staring at the phone, I feel lost.

  The things I thought were true, and thought always would be true, suddenly aren’t. It’s like someone telling you that north is actually south, that right is in fact left, that the earth doesn’t orbit the sun but is just out there, spinning fast and loose without anything to keep it from crashing into Venus or Mars.

  I’m a smart kid. But right now, I feel like I don’t know anything at all.

  33.

  THAT NIGHT, EDSLEY’S MISSING ROBOT is once again waiting for me in my dreams.

  This time, though, he’s not gobbling up everything in sight and downing satellites.

  He’s just standing there on a street corner beside a big red STOP sign.

  Dream Me takes a step toward him.

  Then another.

  Followed by one more.

  There, the robot points.

  Not at me.

  But straight up at the sky.

  I look, and see a giant cloud—a cumulonimbus, of course.

  A spot toward the cloud’s center begins to swirl, and a hollow space opens up. It’s shaped like a mouth.

  Because, I find out a moment later, it is a mouth.

  “Kennedy,” the cloud says.

  And because I can’t seem to have a pleasant dream to save my life, the cloud’s voice is identical to John Henry Knox’s.

  “You must try to fit infinity into your brain . . . ,” the cloud commands me.

  And then again:

  “You must try to fit infinity into your brain. . . .”

  And again, even more insistently:

  “You MUST try to fit infinity into your brain. . . .”

  Until finally, the thing’s just shouting down at me.

  “DO IT ALREADY, KENNEDY. FIT INFINITY INTO THAT PUNY LITTLE BRAIN OF YOURS. HURRY UP AND GET. IT. DONE.”

  34.

  I WAKE UP SEVERAL MINUTES before my alarm is set to squawk.

  Normally, I’d turn over and get a little more sleep.

  But there’s no way I’m doing that—not with John Henry the Cumulonimbus hanging out in my dreams.

  So I get up, get dressed, and head to my desk to get my school stuff. I’m reaching for my notebook when I see it:

  The data-eater.

  The sight of the gadget fills me with all sorts of uncomfortable, conflicting feelings. I don’t know what to do with the thing. For whatever reason, I don’t really feel like flushing it down the toilet or tossing it in the trash anymore. But at the same time, I don’t want it sitting in my room.

  I stick the gadget into my pocket, figuring I can think about what to do with it on my way to school—right after I think about where I’m going to eat lunch that day, since I’m pretty sure it won’t be in the room I regularly eat along with the rest of the EngiNerds. Then I sling my backpack over my shoulder and head for the door. But halfway there, something in the window catches my eye.

  I turn and look—and look and look.

  But all the looking in the world won’t help me make sense of what I’m seeing.

  Snow.

  And a whole lot of it.

  My lawn, the street, the roofs of all the neighbors’ houses—all of them are covered in the stuff.

  Overnight, the world has been made smooth, bright, and sparkling white.

  It’s almost summer.

  But outside it’s a winter wonderland.

  35.

  I DON’T KNOW HOW LONG I stand there gaping out my window at all the snow. It must be a while, though, because eventually my mom comes up to check on me.

  “Freak blizzard,” she says.

  The words lodge themselves deep in my mind.

  “That’s what they’re calling it on channel five,” she goes on. “Apparently it was dumping down all night.”

  I hear a familiar sound—a harsh, chunky scraping. I realize what it is just before the plow truck comes around the corner. I watch it carve a dark path down the center of the otherwise blindingly white street.

  “And guess what?” Mom says.

  I can hear the smile in her voice.

  “School’s canceled,” she says. “You have a snow day, Ken—in May!”

  Before I can even begin to wrap my head around all of this, Mom says something else:

  “Oh, and Mike’s waiting for you downstairs.”

  36.

  I FIND EDSLEY IN THE kitchen.

  He’s standing there in his boots and snow pants, a toasted waffle in one hand and a bottle of syrup in the other.

  I watch him dump half the bottle of syrup onto the waffle, then try to cram the whole thing into his mouth.

  It’s messy.

  And more than a little gross.

  “Oooh aah,” he says, chunks of chewed-up waffle tumbling out of his mouth and down onto the floor.

  “What?”

  Edsley mashes his mouthful a few more times, then forces it down his throat.

  “Snow day,” he says, hooking a syrup-covered thumb over his shoulder. “My sled’s out front.”

  On snow days, the EngiNerds always do the same thing. We get our snow gear on, grab our sleds—all of which we’ve either built ourselves or elaborately remodeled, of course—and meet at the hill behind the high school.

  But I can’t do that.

  I can’t go about the day like everything’s normal, like life’s just fine and dandy.

  I mean, the rest of the EngiNerds are out there trying to contact aliens, and we just had a freak blizzard of absolutely epic proportions in May. My mind is a mess. I don’t think I’ve got the wherewithal to even eat breakfast before I set some things straight.

  Before I can figure how to explain all this to Edsley, there’s a whoosh, and a gust of cold air crashes over me.

  My stomach sinks.

  “Mike . . . ,” I say. “What’s the one thing I always tell you to do as soon as you step foot in my house?”

  Edsley doesn’t hesitate:

  “Close the door behind me,” he says. “Duh.”

  It takes him another second.

  At which point he whips around and gapes at the door standing wide open behind him.

  “Oh,” he says. “My bad.”

  37.

  THERE’S N
O NEED TO SEARCH the house for Kitty.

  The dog has a sixth sense when it comes to open front doors. If you leave one cracked so much as a hair’s breadth, he’ll know—and he won’t waste any time wriggling himself out of it.

  So I head straight for the door, my imagination already cooking up scenarios about where the pooch could be, each one more worst-case than the last.

  Outside, the porch, front steps, and walkway are all still covered in snow, making it easy to see the trail of Kitty-size paw prints leading across the one, down the other, and then all the way out to the sidewalk.

  I follow them for another half a block.

  But there the trail goes cold.

  Because some Good Samaritan decided to get out of bed at the crack of dawn, crank up their snow blower, and clear off not only their sidewalk, and not only their neighbor’s sidewalk, but their neighbor’s neighbor’s sidewalk, and their neighbor’s neighbor’s neighbor’s sidewalk too.

  I turn around and hurry back toward home, figuring I’d better put together my usual kit of Kitty search-and-rescue items: a box of tissues, as much loose change as I can find, a can of seltzer, the dog’s favorite dirty sock—

  It’s then that I finally realize where Kitty is.

  Things & Stuff.

  Or, to be precise, behind Things & Stuff.

  There’s no doubt in my mind that the pup is back there in that parking lot, whining and yapping and doing his darnedest to cram his big, fluffy—and, as of that morning, clean—body under that big, nasty Dumpster.

  38.

  I GET TO THINGS & STUFF as fast as I can, but thanks to all the snow soaking through my sneakers and numbing my toes, not to mention all the invisible patches of ice that keep threatening to sweep my legs out from under me, it’s seriously slow going.

  It’d probably help if I could actually pay attention to where I’m walking.

  But I’m having some trouble doing that.

  Surrounded by piles and heaps and even a couple mini-mountains of snow, my mind keeps wandering.