Science Fair (4 page)

T
OBY’S FAMILY LIVED
in Woodland Meadows, an older development lacking both woods and meadows. Their house was a smal brick ranch on Milkwort Court. It was dark when Toby got there, and his stomach was growling for food. But he didn’t walk straight to his front door. Instead he stopped, keeping to the darkness away from the streetlights, and checked out the neighborhood, especial y his yard. He was looking for two guys, one big, one bigger.

Darth and the Wookiee.

Those weren’t their real names. But that’s how Toby thought of them. They’d appeared the previous day outside Hubble Middle, right before school started, asking kids if they knew a Toby Harbinger. Nobody told them anything, because they were weird. But word quickly got to Toby that there were two guys outside looking for him. Toby had spied on them from a classroom window: Darth, a tal bald guy, wore a black raincoat even though it was sunny out; the Wookiee, even tal er and much wider, had hair shooting out everywhere and a thick beard that looked as if fairly large birds lived in it.

Toby knew right away who they were and why they were looking for him. What he didn’t know was what to do about it. Ordinarily, he would have told his parents. But if he did that, he’d have to confess what he’d done.

He’d done it because he needed money. No, that wasn’t right; he didn’t
need
the money, the way poor people need money for food. He
wanted
the money so he could buy a decent gaming computer. His parents couldn’t afford to buy him one, and even if they could, they never would. They’d given him their old Mac, and as far as they were concerned that was al the computer anybody needed, and when
they
were kids, they didn’t even
have
computers, blah-blah-blah.

Toby didn’t even try to explain that you couldn’t be a competitive gamer with an old computer running the wrong operating system at the speed of a dead slug. His parents were clueless about electronic things. They stil could not, on their own, get photographs out of their digital camera. When they wanted to show their pictures, people had to gather around and squint at the teeny camera screen, trying to figure out whether they were looking at a wedding, or the Chrysler Building, or what.

So Toby didn’t waste time discussing his computer needs with his parents. Instead, he went down to the basement, which was mostly fil ed with al this supposedly valuable and sacred Star Wars junk col ected by his parents. His parents were, to Toby’s ongoing horror, major Star Wars geeks. They had actual y met at the premiere of
The Empire Strikes Back
, which was the second Star Wars movie, although it was Episode V, which was one of many reasons why Toby thought Star Wars was stupid.

His mom had gone to the movie premiere dressed as Princess Leia, and his dad—Toby was glad he had not been alive then because he would have had to kil himself—had been dressed as C-3PO. Toby found this appal ing. His feeling was, if you
have
to go out dressed as a Star Wars character, why wouldn’t you at least be a human? And if you
have
to be a robot, why would you be the
dork
robot?

Fortunately, his parents were older now, and the Force was not as strong in them. But they stil sometimes watched the movies, and they hadn’t thrown out any of their sacred junk.

There was so
much
of it, they couldn’t possibly know everything they had. At least that’s what Toby told himself when he went down there and took the autographed BlasTech DL-44

blaster pistol used in the Star Wars movies by Han Solo.

His father bought the pistol in 1978 and took it to the premiere, where he somehow managed to get it signed by Harrison Ford himself.

Or so he had always claimed.

Toby put the pistol up for auction on eBay, where, to his utter amazement, it sold, after frenzied bidding, for $2,038. Toby set up a PayPal account to get the money; to make sure his parents didn’t know, he used the Hubble Middle School address. When the money showed up in his account, he mailed the blaster pistol to the winning bidder, whose name—Toby later realized this should have made him nervous—was D. Arthur Vaderian. Using the money, Toby had bought, online, a total y screaming notebook gaming computer, the Tarantula Disemboweler 666X, which his parents, being clueless, did not realize was not his old Mac. For a short while, Toby was happier than he’d ever been, using his new computer to kil huge numbers of online enemies.

Then he got the e-mail from D. Arthur Vaderian.

Mr. Harbinger
, it said.
The alleged signature of Harrison Ford on the BlasTech DL-44 you sent me is a fake. I demand that you send my $2,038 back immediately.

Which was a problem, seeing as how Toby had already spent the money. Toby couldn’t think of what to do, so he didn’t do anything. He hoped D. Arthur Vaderian would go away.

But D. Arthur Vaderian did not. He kept sending e-mails, each one angrier than the last. Toby didn’t answer them. The last e-mail he had gotten said:
Since you have chosen not to respond to my e-mails, I am going to take direct action.

He didn’t say
what
direct action. But when the two weird guys showed up at Hubble Middle asking about him, Toby knew right away who they were. He also knew it was only a matter of time before they found out where he lived.

They had his name, and there weren’t that many Harbingers.

And so he paused at the dark end of Milkwort Court, checking the neighborhood for Darth and the Wookiee. Seeing nobody, he walked quickly to his front door and let himself in.

“Hi, honey,” said his mother, Fawn Harbinger, who was sitting on the sofa. She actual y did somewhat resemble Princess Leia, if Princess Leia had let her hair go gray and gained a little weight from pretty much never doing anything except Sudoku. “You’re late.”

“Yeah,” said Toby. “I was busy working on my science fair project.”

“I saved you some dinner,” said his mom. “Tofu pork chops.”

“Yum,” said Toby.

“After you eat,” she said, “your father needs some help packing shipments.”

“Okay,” said Toby. His parents operated a home-based business sel ing health products. His mom sat in the living room, taking orders and playing Sudoku; his dad worked in a corner of the basement, packing and shipping the orders. Their big sel er was a product cal ed HydroxyPulse 3000, which, according to the label, cured basical y every human ailment.

As far as Toby could tel , it was water.

He started toward the kitchen.

“Also, Mrs. Breetle cal ed, from the school office.”

Toby stopped.

“About what?”

“She said some man came by the school, wanting your home address. Something about winning some kind of Internet contest. She didn’t give out your address, of course, but she got his name and number. He’d like you to get in touch with him. His name is…wait, I wrote it down…here it is: D. Arthur Vaderian.” Toby’s stomach clenched. He started toward the kitchen again, though he was no longer hungry.

“Hey!” said his mom. “I just noticed something!”

“What?” said Toby.

“Wel , D. Arthur Vaderian! If you take out some letters, it spel s Darth Vader! Isn’t that funny?”

“Yeah,” said Toby. “Hilarious.”

T
HE
ME
KIDS GATHERED
every morning at a certain reserved spot in the hal near the front entrance to Hubble Middle School. It was a prime location because everybody had to walk past it, which meant (a) everybody saw the ME kids, and (b) the ME kids could observe al the other students and make note of their numerous flaws.

This morning, however, the ME students were formed into a close little clot, examining the contents of the envelopes they’d found in their lockers.

“Wow,” said Harmonee Prescott, frowning at a piece of paper. “Mine has a lot of seriously big words.”

“Mine, too,” said Jason Niles. “Like, what’s an alg…algri…What’s this word?”

The Ferret glanced at Jason’s paper. “Al igator,” he said.

“Whoa,” said Jason. “I need an al igator.”

“Let me see that,” said Haley Hess, snatching the paper from Jason. “You morons,” she said. “It says algorithm.”

“What’s an algorithm?” said Jason.

“I have no idea,” said Haley, handing the paper back. “But it’s not an al igator.”

“These are, like,
way
more complicated than last year,” said Harmonee.

“Yeah,” said Haley. “But it doesn’t matter to us, does it?”

The others smiled.

“Whoa,” said Jason. “Look at that.”

They turned to watch a girl come through the front door carrying a tray, on which sat what looked like a big silver bal , nearly two feet across. As the girl drew near they realized that the bal was actual y thousands of paper clips. From the look of it there was nothing holding the paper clips together—no glue, no tape. The girl clearly enjoyed the looks of astonishment from the other students.

“What is
that
?” said The Ferret.

“That,” said Jason, “is the competition.”

“It’s a magnet bal ,” said Haley. “I read about one on the Internet. You charge al the paper clips until they’re magnetized. Then they stick together and you make them into al sorts of stuff. It looks impressive, but it’s pretty lame. No way that wins.”

“She’s already
done
with hers?” Harmonee said. “It was only announced yesterday!”

“I’m not worried,” said Haley, tapping her piece of paper.

“So when do we go see our friend at the mal ?” said The Ferret.

“Today,” said Haley. “I can’t wait to start learning al about”—she looked at her piece of paper—“co-resonant phase-shifted induction sequencers.”

“Me, neither,” said Jason. “And al igatorithms.”

“Algorithms,” said Haley.

“Whatever,” said Jason.

“Uh-oh,” said The Ferret, looking down the hal . “It’s The Armpit.”

Striding toward the ME kids was Assistant Principal Paul Parmit, Hubble’s disciplinarian. The Armpit—as everyone, including teachers, cal ed him, although of course not to his face—was a remarkably sweaty, prematurely bald man in his mid-thirties who always looked as though at least one of his eyebal s was about to explode. He spent the time before classes patrol ing the hal s, tel ing clots of students to break it up. Nobody knew why The Armpit felt that it was so important for clots to break up, but he did.

“Hide the papers,”
hissed Haley. The MEs scrambled to put their papers away. Harmonee, finding nowhere to put hers, shoved it up the back of The Ferret’s shirt.

“Break it up!” said The Armpit, bearing down.

Haley’s paper slipped back out of The Ferret’s shirt and fel to the slick hal way floor directly in front of The Armpit. “Let’s break it UUUUUUNNHOOF!” he said, stepping on the piece of paper in such a way that his foot slid violently forward and the rest of him flew backward, causing him to land hard on his butt, sweat spraying outward from his body in a smal perspiration typhoon. The paper flew forward and into the air, directly into the face of Toby, who had just entered the school and was hoping to slip past the ME kids while The Armpit was breaking them up. Reflexively, he reached out and grabbed the paper.

“Give me that!” said The Armpit, scrambling to his feet, his face a deep, glistening red. He snatched the paper from Toby with one hand and grabbed Toby’s shirt with the other.

“Do you think that was funny?” The Armpit yel ed.

“Yeah, Hardbonger,” said Jason. “Do you think that was funny?”

“But I didn’t—” Toby began.

“Quiet!” said The Armpit. “You’re going to come with…”

“Excuse me,” said Haley, sweetly, putting her hand on The Armpit’s arm. “But there’s been a mistake.”

“There has?” said The Armpit, softening, as al males did when targeted at close range by Haley’s blue-eyed gaze.

“Yes,” said Haley. “This paper belongs to Harmonee. She dropped it. Didn’t you, Harmonee.”

“I did,” said Harmonee, batting her eyelashes at The Armpit. “And I am
so
sorry, Mr. Armp…Mr. Parmit.” She, too, put her hand on The Armpit’s arm, trying hard not to show how seriously grossed out she was by its dampness.

The Armpit looked at the piece of paper. “Ah!” he said, nodding. “I see.” With an odd smile, he handed the paper to Harmonee. Then he turned to Toby and said, “Okay, break it up.”