Resurrection Dreams (3 page)

“Good man,” Dad said. “So, they gave you a day off, huh?”

“Yep.”

“Think they can get along without you?”

He rolled his head around.

“Guess your father’ll have to pump the gas himself, huh?”

“And wipe the windshields, too,” Melvin added.

Dad slipped the card-table out of the trunk and handed it to him.

“Don’t you have your own project to set up?” Vicki asked.

“Done it already,” he said.

Dad shut the trunk, and the three of them started across the parking lot toward the arena. Melvin walked in the lead, balancing the table on top of his head.

He hadn’t spoken a word to Vicki after the incident with Randy Montclair in the hallway on Monday. Though she hadn’t relished the prospect of a conversation with him, she’d expected at least a word of thanks. Finally, she had decided that he was probably unaware of what she’d done. That didn’t seem so likely, now. Offering to help carry her project was apparently his way of showing appreciation.

When he reached the door, he slid the table off his head, held it against his chest with both hands, and sidestepped through the entrance.

Vicki and her father followed him. The area set aside for the high school seniors was at the far end. She spotted Ace, who looked busy unloading a carton onto a table. Melvin knew enough to head for the big girl. He lowered the card-table in the open space beside Ace’s display. When she said something to him, he darted a thumb over his shoulder. Ace saw Vicki approaching, and nodded.

Melvin folded out the legs and set the table upright.

“Thanks a lot for the help,” Vicki told him.

A corner of his mouth slid up. He nodded and blushed and turned away. A few shambling steps took him to the other side of the space that had been left open for a walkway between the two rows of projects. He slipped a tattered paperback book out of a rear pocket of his baggy shorts, then sat on a stool facing the girls, and began to read. The book was Frankenstein.

“Want me to help you set up?” Dad asked.

“No, that’s all right. Thanks.”

“Okay. We’ll be back later. Have fun.”

He said good-bye to Ace, then walked away.

Vicki set her bottled rat on the table.

“I see you brought your lunch,” Ace said.

“You’ve got the bread, cheese and beverages. We’ll have a feast.”

Ace’s bread and cheese, neatly arranged atop her table, were coated with mold. She also had jars of coffee, red wine and apple juice. Each jar looked as if someone had dumped in a handful of fuzz from a vacuum cleaner bag. A pair of hand-lettered posters, joined together with tape, listed mold’s beneficial uses.

“You’ll get a blue ribbon for sure,” Vicki said.

“Eat my shorts.”

Vicki went ahead with her preparations. She opened her wooden display case and propped it up near the back of her table. Then she emptied her dissection tray and put on surgical gloves. She started to open the jar containing the formaldehyde and rat.

“Spare me, would you?” Ace said. “The thing doesn’t start for half an hour. Wait’ll you’ve got an audience, for godsake.”

Vicki shrugged. “Why not?” She put the bottle down and pulled the gloves off.

Ace was busy unfolding the two chairs she had brought from home. She set them up side by side with the backs to their tables. Both girls sat down.

Melvin, across from them, glanced up then resumed reading.

“What do you suppose he’s got?” Ace asked in a quiet voice.

“Maybe he made that megaphone.”

The megaphone rested on the floor beside his stool. It didn’t look homemade.

Behind him was an enclosure the size of an outhouse: a framework draped with blue bedsheets.

“What’ve you got in there?” Ace called over to him.

He raised his head and grinned. “It’s a surprise.”

“You got another car engine this year?”

“Maybe.”

“Come on, be a sport and give us a peek.”

“You’ll see. I gotta wait for the right time.”

“When’s that?”

“Not till the judges show up.”

“You’re kidding.”

He shrugged his round shoulders. “It’s kind of a one-shot deal,” he said, and went back to reading.

“Turkey,” Ace muttered.

Vicki and Ace talked about other things for a while. When Ace’s boyfriend, Rob, showed up, Vicki left her seat and wandered over to Henry’s display. Not because she especially wanted to visit with him. But he was the closest thing Vicki had to a boyfriend, and he was taking her to the senior dance next week so she felt it would be weird of her to ignore him.

She found him seated at his computer, hunched over the keyboard, avidly pecking out commands that made Humphrey dance and wink though nobody seemed to be watching the performance.

Humphrey was a marionette, about three feet tall, decked out in a top hat and tails. He did his numbers beside Henry’s computer, and looked somewhat as if he’d been impaled on the plastic pipe that ran from the control box to his rump.

“Howdy, Humphrey,” Vicki said.

The marionette waved to her and gave his legs a couple of spastic kicks.

Henry, seated on a swivel chair, swung around and looked up at Vicki. Behind his glasses, his eyes were wide with eagerness. They always seemed that way, as if Henry were perpetually on the verge of making a startling announcement.

“How’re things?” Vicki asked.

“Oh, fine.”

“Nifty outfit,” she said. Henry wore a bow tie and black dinner jacket. His outfit was identical to Humphrey’s, though Henry wore no top hat. His hat rested on the table beside his keyboard, ready to be donned when the spectators started wandering by.

“You look very lovely this morning,” he said.

“Thanks.” Vicki wasn’t especially pleased by the compliment. A day rarely went by that Henry didn’t make a similar comment. But she’d never seen him really look her over. The words just came out like a programmed response to her arrival—as if he realized he ought to feign some interest in her physical appearance.

We’ve really got a red-hot romance cooking here, she thought.

But she supposed it was her fault as much as Henry’s. Their relationship had started on an intellectual level when they’d been teamed up as lab partners in physiology last year, and neither of them had made any effort to get physical. They had gone out together at least a dozen times, and never even kissed. It was as if neither of them had bodies.

Vicki sometimes wondered what might happen if she should embrace him and kiss him hard and squirm against him, really let him know she was a woman, not just a discussion partner. Henry might suddenly turn into a lusting animal.

The idea didn’t have much appeal.

So she’d done nothing to change the nature of the relationship—such as it was. She liked Henry, and he did fine in the role of boyfriend until something better might come along.

Which didn’t seem too likely in the immediate future.

Of all the guys she could think of, there was not a single one who really interested her.

Thanks to Paul. When he moved away, it all fell apart.

She realized that Henry was talking to her. “What?” she asked. “My mind was wandering.”

“Did it wander someplace interesting?”

Someplace empty, she thought.

“No,” she said. “What were you saying?”

“I thought that perhaps we might meet during the lunch break. We should discuss our plans for next Friday.”

“Sure. That’d be fine.” She glanced at her wristwatch. “Well, it’s about time for the fun to start. I’d better get back to my rats.”

“Ciao,” Henry said, and swiveled around to face his computer. His fingers fluttered over the keyboard, and Humphrey waved and winked.

Vicki walked back toward her table. Ace and Rob were standing in front of the chairs, facing each other, holding hands. Ace was nodding as she listened to him. Though three inches taller than Rob, she somehow always seemed less imposing when they were together, as if his presence transformed her into someone more feminine and vulnerable.

Vicki didn’t want to intrude on the intimacy she sensed. She turned to her table and picked up her surgical gloves.

She wished she hadn’t thought about Paul.

Sometimes she went for days at a time without thinking about him.

Her parents had called it “puppy love,” which seemed like a way to make her feelings for Paul sound less important. Vicki had thought of it as love, and still did. When she’d been with Paul, she’d felt special and beautiful and full. Whether they were just sitting together in class, or holding hands in a movie, or spending a whole day exploring the woods or swimming or boating on the river, each moment seemed golden.

But his father was a Master Sergeant in the Marines. Paul showed up at Ellsworth High in the fall of Vicki’s sophomore year. They met at once and fell in love and had just that school year and the following summer. Then new orders came down, and Paul left with his family for a base in South Carolina.

They’d had almost exactly one year together. It had been over so fast.

It was as if the best part of her life ended when Paul went away. “You’ll get over it,” her parents had said. She supposed she did get over it. In a way. More like getting used to it. The loss seemed always there, deep inside, a shadow that made every day a little less bright—a loss that would rise to the surface every time she was reminded of Paul.

A time like now.

Pulling on her gloves, she felt a hollow ache in her chest.

No point in getting yourself all upset, she thought. Hell, I’ll probably meet some terrific guy at college in the fall.

Sure.

She unscrewed the lid of the jar, lifted out the rat with tongs and placed it on the dissection tray.

“That’s really disgusting,” Ace said. “Barforama.”

“Your mold is appetizing?”

Ace watched over her shoulder as she pinned the rat’s paws to the waxy bottom of the tray.

“What’s Rob up to?” Vicki asked.

“He’s taking me to the drive-in tonight.”

“What’s playing?”

“Who cares?” Ace said, and let out a couple of cheery snorts.

Vicki alternated between exposing the vitals of her rat and sitting on the chair to chat with Ace, whose project was a display with no performance. They spent a lot of time watching Melvin ward off curious spectators wanting to see what was hidden inside his enclosure of bedsheets.

He explained that it was a “one-shot deal” and that they should be sure to hurry back when he made the announcement with his megaphone.

“He’s sure getting me curious,” Vicki said.

“Maybe he’s got a guillotine in there and he’ll do us all a favor and lop off his ugly head.”

“You think he’s got the brains to make a guillotine?”

“If he had any brains, he’d be dangerous.”

Vicki was beginning to look forward to lunch by the time the four judges reached the project next to Melvin’s. She checked her wristwatch. A quarter till twelve. At noon, there would be an hour-long break. Some of the parents, she knew from past Science Fairs, would have tables set up just outside the doors with beer and wine for the adults, soft drinks, hot dogs and pizza and tacos—all kinds of good stuff. Though she wasn’t especially eager to spend the lunch hour with Henry, she was definitely hungry. Her mouth had been watering all morning because of the formaldehyde, which simply did that to you even if you were bent over cutting up a dead rat.

Ace patted her knee. “The moment, ladies and gentlemen, is upon us.”

The judges stopped in front of Melvin. He climbed off his stool, picked up the megaphone, and flipped a switch. A high piercing whine stabbed Vicki’s ears, then faded.

“Attention, everyone,” Melvin announced, his voice sounding tinny and loud. “Come one, come all. Come and see Melvin’s Amazing Miracle Machine.” As he spoke, he swayed from side to side and rolled his head. “You don’t want to miss it. Nosirree.”

“What a moron,” Ace whispered.

He did have a rather moronic look on his face, which wasn’t all that unusual for Melvin.

Spectators were beginning to come over.

“Come and see it,” Melvin went on. “The Amazing Miracle Machine. Hurry, hurry. Step right up. You’ve never seen anything like it. You don’t want to miss it. Come one, come all.”

Mr. Peters, the principal and head judge, stepped up to Melvin and said something—probably telling him to get on with it.

Melvin nodded, put the megaphone to his mouth, and said, “The show is about to begin!”

By now, a substantial crowd was gathered in front of Melvin’s display. Vicki followed Ace’s example, and stood on the seat of her chair. From there, she had a fine view.

Melvin set his megaphone on the floor beside his stool. He stepped to a corner of his enclosure, hooked back one of the sheets enough to let him slip through, and vanished.

Nothing happened.

Everyone waited. More people showed up. There were murmured questions, heads shaking.

Mr. Peters checked his wristwatch. “We haven’t got all day, Melvin,” he said.

“Is everybody ready?” Melvin finally called out. His voice sounded flat without the amplifier.

“Do it, doufuss,” Ace yelled.

A few people turned and looked up at her, some laughing, others frowning.

“And now—Melvin’s Amazing Miracle Machine!”

The sheet across the front of the framework fell to the floor.

People gasped and went silent.

Vicki stared. For a moment, she didn’t understand what she was seeing. Then, she couldn’t believe it.

Surrounding Melvin and his “project” were coils of razoredged concertina wire. A poster at the rear proclaimed. “I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE.” In the center, on a platform at least a foot high, rested a wheelchair.

In the wheelchair sat the corpse of Darlene Morgan. She wore the cheerleader outfit in which she had been buried: a pleated green skirt, a golden pullover sweater with a raised green E on its chest for Ellsworth High.

Her neck was wrapped in bandages to hold her head on. Her head was tipped back, her mouth hanging open. Her eyes were shut. Her face looked gray.

Between her feet was a car battery, jumper cables clamped to its posts. Melvin raised the other ends of the cables overhead and bumped the clamps together. Current flashed and crackled.