Geek Abroad (12 page)

“But the Snowflake is over,”Finn said. “Hughes can’t make you stay on the team now.”

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t tempted to quit. I may be gifted in math, but it wasn’t something I enjoyed. Not like the other members of the MATh team, anyway. They actually thought it was fun to spend their afternoons sitting around working on math drills. But Sanjiv and the rest of my MATh teammates would be royally ticked off at me if I quit now. They were counting on me.

“I have to,”I said, yawning. “I said I would.”

Finn shrugged. “If you say so,”he said, unconvinced. Finn never does anything that he doesn’t want to do. Except go to school, and even then, he treats it all like it’s one big laugh.

Which reminded me—I hadn’t checked out Finn’s blog, geekhigh.com, in a while. He wrote the blog anonymously, updating his readership on all of the school gossip. I clicked over to the Web site, but saw that it hadn’t been updated since the last time I’d checked it while I was in London. Instead there was a note at the top of the Web page that read: ON HIATUS.

“On hiatus?”I read aloud, and raised my eyebrows at Finn.

He shrugged moodily. “I haven’t felt much like blogging lately,”he said. I could have sworn I saw him cast a hurt glance at Charlie, who was still too immersed in her IM conversation with Mitch to notice.

Just then, Mr. Douglass came in. He was, as usual, wearing a three-piece suit. He was the only teacher at Geek High who wore a suit to work—the rest of the male teachers wore chinos and polo shirts—but it was hard to imagine stiff, fussy old Mr. Douglass dressed casually. His hair and mustache were white, and his fleshy face and hands were covered with liver spots. He looked up at the class, jowls quivering. The few students still standing quickly took their seats.

“Quiet down, quiet down,”Mr. Douglass said grumpily. “Or I’ll start taking down names for cage-cleaning duty.”

Finn slouched down in his seat, looking disgusted.

“This semester we’re covering the subject of geology. This is not, as some students have derisively called it”—Mr. Douglass’s eyes raked over the class, and he had a very sour expression on his wrinkled face—“‘Rocks for Jocks.’So if you’re here thinking that this course will earn you an easy A, you can just leave now.”

Mr. Douglass paused, as though waiting for one of his students to stand up and march out of the room. I glanced over at Finn again, thinking that if anyone was going to leave, it would be him. But Finn didn’t move. Instead, he had his fingers primed on the keyboard of his laptop, ready to take notes. Which was really rather shocking for Finn, considering he normally spent class time playing around on the Internet or working on one of the computer games he was developing.

He must be even more afraid of snakes than I thought,
I decided.

Mr. Douglass looked a bit disappointed that we’d all stayed rooted in our seats. He cleared his throat and continued. “Geology is, of course, the study of the solid matter of the earth, and thus is considered part of the earth sciences.”He coughed. “Eh-eh-eh.”It was a disgusting, wet, phlegmy sound. “Do any of you know how old the planet Earth is?”

A half-dozen hands immediately shot up into the air. The propeller-hand phenomenon was common at Geek High. In a school full of geniuses, everyone was a know-it-all. Well. Everyone but me. I had no idea how old the Earth was. I glanced at Charlie. She didn’t have her hand up, either, and from the speed with which she was typing—as well as the dreamy, drippy expression on her face—I got the distinct feeling she was still instant messaging with Mitch.

If Douglass catches her doing that, she’ll get stuck cleaning up snake droppings for sure,
I thought.

“Yes, Mr. Frost,”Mr. Douglass said.

“The earth is four-point-six billion years old. The outermost shell of the earth is called the lithosphere, which is fragmented into tectonic plates,”Christopher Frost began, speaking in the flat monotone he always used. Christopher had sandy-colored hair and rarely blinked behind his thick glasses. I was familiar enough with Christopher’s idiosyncrasies to know that he would keep talking until he was stopped. If Mr. Douglass didn’t cut him off, Christopher would cover the entire syllabus.

Douglass seemed to have figured this out. “That’s enough,”he said curtly.

“The tectonic plates move independently of each other. . . .”Christopher continued, blissfully unaware.

“I said,
that’s enough
. Do you not understand what those words mean, Mr. Frost? Shall I look them up in the dictionary for you?”Mr. Douglass asked, his voice rising and his face coloring.

Christopher fell silent and blinked a few times. I frowned. Sure, Christopher could be annoying, there was no doubt about that. But that was just what he was like; he didn’t know any better.

“Jerk,”Finn muttered under his breath.

“Now. Where were we?”Mr. Douglass asked. “Eh-eh-eh.”He plucked a cotton handkerchief out of his pocket and hocked up into it. “Right. Tectonic plates.”

Revolting,
I thought, with a shudder. It was going to be a long semester.

“Doesn’t Douglass know that Christopher is autistic?”Finn asked later that day, after school.

“Is he?”I asked.

Finn stared at me. “Did you seriously not know that?”

“No. I just thought he lacked some social graces. That’s not so unusual,”I said, shrugging. “There are lots of kids at Geek High who don’t really fit in anywhere else.”

It was true. In fact, when I was a kid and my parents first became aware of my ability to calculate sums in my head, they’d had me tested to see if I was on the autistic spectrum. I think it was because of the movie
Rain Man
, which featured a severely autistic man, played by Dustin Hoffman, who was also able to solve complex math problems in his head. Insert an eye roll here, considering that (a) it wasn’t the most flattering comparison for them to make, and (b) I didn’t have any of the other symptoms that Dustin Hoffman’s character had. I was a pretty normal kid in all, except for the calculator that came hard-wired to my brain.

“Seriously, I’m just amazed that they’re not lined up outside the school ready to study us,”Finn said darkly.

“Who?”

“You know. Doctors. Psychiatrists. Sociologists.”Finn shrugged. “You have to admit, the Geek High student body would make an interesting case study.”

Finn, Charlie, and I were at Grounded, a coffee shop and our favorite after-school hangout. Actually, Finn and I were there together, sitting at one of the small round tables and drinking lattes. Charlie had come with us, but she was perched on one of the tall stools lined up near the counter, sipping an iced coffee through a straw and giggling at something Mitch said.

Mitch had a square face, large vacant eyes, and a snub nose. He gelled his dark hair up into spikes that stood straight up on top of his head, making him look like a porcupine. Mitch worked at the coffee shop, and so he was standing behind the counter and wearing a navy blue apron over a maroon GROUNDED T-shirt. But there weren’t any other customers in the shop, so he was able to stare at Charlie with a sappy, lovestruck expression that was the mirror of the one Charlie wore.

Finn followed my gaze.

“I know. They’re revolting,”he said.

“Well. She seems happy,”I said loyally, not wanting to run Charlie down behind her back. Unfortunately, at that very moment, the two lovebirds began to kiss noisily.

Finn snorted. “Happy? She seems possessed,”he said. “And in the worst way possible.”

“I’m sure it’s just a stage. Once they’ve been going out for a while . . .”My voice trailed off. I had no idea what they’d be like after they’d been going out for a while. Maybe this was the sort of affliction that got worse over time. Maybe in a few weeks, they’d be surgically attached at the lips.

A curly-haired woman wearing workout clothes walked into the coffee shop, sending the bell on the front door jingling. She strode up to the counter and waited patiently to place her order. A minute passed. And then another. And another. The whole time, Mitch and Charlie were so busy kissing, they hadn’t noticed she was standing there.

“Excuse me,”the woman said.

Still no response from the kissing couple. The woman looked over at Finn and me.

“I just want a cup of coffee,”she said helplessly. “Is there anyone else working here?”

Finn sighed. “Hold on,”he said. He stood and walked around the counter, passing by the oblivious Mitch, and poured a cup of coffee for the woman from the large thermos by the cash register. She started to hand him money, but Finn waved her off.

“This one is on the house,”he said.

“Thanks,”the woman said, smiling at him. “I’m glad someone’s doing their job around here.”

When she left, the door jingling closed behind her, Mitch and Charlie finally broke apart. Mitch looked around, his brow wrinkling in confusion when he saw Finn behind the counter.

“What are you doing? Did I just hear the door?”Mitch asked.

“Nope. You didn’t hear a thing,”Finn said, now helping himself to coffee before coming back around the counter and over to our table. He held up his paper cup in a mock toast to me, and said, “M, I’m out of here.”

“What . . . now?”I asked. I opened my eyes wide and tilted my head meaningfully at Charlie and Mitch, who had gone back to smooching.

I knew Finn understood that I didn’t want to be left alone with the couple. But he just shrugged, winked at me, shot one last disgusted look at Charlie, and then headed out of the coffee shop.

Mitch looked up again as the bell jingled on the closing door. His mouth was red and chapped, and his eyes looked a little dazed. “Did someone just leave?”he asked. Charlie giggled and leaned in for another kiss.

I sighed, slumped back in my chair, and tried to avert my eyes.

Chapter 11

Modern Literature class was a yearlong course, so we were continuing where we’d left off before Christmas. On our first day back, Mrs. Gordon—my favorite teacher—had assigned us
Tender Is the Night
by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I’d started reading it, and been immediately enchanted with the idea of moving to the French Riviera and living the life of the ultraglamorous American expatriate. Minus the insanity and alcoholism, of course.

As usual, the desks in Mrs. Gordon’s small, messy classroom were set up in a circle. Posters from Shakespeare plays were tacked to the wall, and a tall narrow bookshelf behind Mrs. Gordon’s desk was crammed full of books. Padma Paswan, wearing an inadvisable amount of turquoise eye shadow, was already there, deep in conversation with horsey-faced Tabitha Stone, when Finn, Charlie, and I walked in to class. Tate Metcalf, Christopher Frost, and Sanjiv were also in their seats. Tate brightened when he saw Finn.

“Dude, I played
Mutant Monkeys
last night. You were right, it’s a great game,”Tate enthused. Tate had skin the color of dark coffee, a wild frizz of hair, and loved video games almost as much as Finn did.

“
Mutant Monkeys?
That’s not one of yours, is it?”I asked Finn.

“No, it’s an online RPG,”Finn said. As though I had any idea what an RPG was. “Tate, did you get as far as Death Wish Island?”

Finn sat down in the desk next to Tate’s so that they could discuss the mutant monkey game. Charlie and I took the two empty desks next to Finn.

“Do you want to go to Grounded after school?”Charlie asked.

“I can’t. I have Mu Alpha Theta practice. Sorry,”I said, although I wasn’t at all sorry. The last thing I wanted to do was spend yet another afternoon sitting by myself, feeling increasingly uncomfortable while Charlie canoodled with her boyfriend. Besides, she only wanted me there so she’d have someone to talk to if Grounded got busy and Mitch had to work. I didn’t like being her backup plan.

“That’s too bad. You and I haven’t had a chance to catch up since you’ve gotten back,”Charlie continued.

I looked at her.
Is she serious?
I wondered.

“What?”Charlie asked, wrinkling her forehead in confusion.

“Um . . . I’ve been around,”I said.

“I know. It just feels like we haven’t really had a chance to talk,”Charlie continued.

I decided to just let it go. After all, what was the point? Finn muttered mutinously every time Charlie brought up Mitch’s name—in other words, every time the three of us were together—and Charlie just ignored him. She didn’t seem to care that her two best friends weren’t at all thrilled by how drastically she’d changed in such a short period of time. Or maybe she was so caught up in her new relationship, she hadn’t noticed.

This is temporary,
I told myself.
The newness of it will wear off, and eventually she’ll go back to being the same old Charlie. And I’ve never had a boyfriend. Maybe this is just what it’s like.

So instead, I just said, “Yeah, I know. It does feel like that.”

Felicity Glen and Morgan Simpson came in, their heads bent together, as they whispered intently about something. Felicity was thin with green eyes, petite features, full, pouty lips, and dark brown hair that fell in sleek waves around her pretty face. Morgan, on the other hand, was a short, squat girl with piggish features and an unflattering bob of limp dirty-blond hair.

I watched them warily. Felicity and I had never gotten along—she’d pretty much hated me from the moment she set eyes on me on my first day at Geek Middle—and she rarely passed up the opportunity to say something nasty to me. My nickname for her was the Felimonster, and it was well deserved. But last semester, she and I had been on the Snowflake Gala committee together, along with Morgan, Finn, and Charlie. We’d all pulled together to make the dance a success. I’d wondered if this shared experience would permanently defrost relations between us. Felicity glanced over at me. There was a familiar malicious gleam in her moss-green eyes.