One Hundred Percent Lunar Boy (23 page)

“Wait. What do you mean?”

“Clellen. She is a very bad girl. She has a hot date with Pete.”

“Pete?”

“Is your brain caked with moose curd? Pete, the fellow we met on the transport yesterday who started trading tongues with dear old Clellen! Your acquaintance—the athlete boy who plays those inane games with the other barrelheads like him. It is pointless to ask her to accompany us on this misunderadventure because she is taking Pete to a motel over by Telstar Towers tonight! A motel! How sleazy and cheesy is that?”

Hieronymus looked down into his mug of hot fedderkoppen. The purple swirls on its surface dissolved into cruel fuzzy rings. The stuff was awful. Why did he drink it? Why did he come to places like this? Why was he friends with
people like this?

O’Looney’s horrible dog started barking at the homeless old men banging on the Plexiglas storefront, trying to get back in.

Then Bruegel came up with a suggestion that truly disgusted Hieronymus. And as soon as he mentioned it, the One Hundred Percent Lunar Boy knew it was going to be the program of the evening, the awful trade-of he had to make if he wanted to see that damn Ferris wheel again…

“So Clellen is out. But, Hieronymus, there is someone else I am dying to meet, and I know that you are friends with her because I have seen you with her on numerous occasions. That girl with the goggles and the blue hair…”

He hated to mix his two worlds. He hated to socially mix anything up. And now this. Not so much because he was afraid something would happen between Slue and Bruegel—he knew beyond all certainties that that was the mother of all dead ends. Slue would hate Bruegel. Period. But it was the mix between Slue and Windows Falling On Sparrows that made him curl his toes and grit his teeth. Both girls, thrown together like that in front of him. The idea bounced between the hemispheres of his brain and it went nowhere comfortable.

As he pondered that inevitable awkwardness, he barely heard Bruegel going on about how hot he thought Slue was.
That damn fool! Look at him, talking about Slue as if she was his girlfriend already. What an arrogant, pathetic spectacle that big oaf is making out of himself as he sits there running his mouth of, that presumptuous, pompous Loopie, talking about Slue like that, how dare he!
On the other hand, it certainly would be comical to set this up. Slue, after all, has been snubbing him, so the idea that she would go somewhere with he and Bruegel was beyond all remote possibilities. She was pissed of at him. She refused to even say hello. Then he found out she’d been socializing with Pete. Of all people! Despite that misunderstanding in the rotunda, Pete was a nice guy, but also a complete barrelhead! Why, he could not fathom. Pete? He did have a nice car—a Prokong-90. But Slue didn’t give a Pixie about things like that. Or did she? If he were to call her, she would just be dismissive and inform him she had a date with Pete. On the other hand, thanks to Clellen and that motel in Telstar, Pete might be…busy…

“Are you even listening to me?” demanded Bruegel, who noticed that Hieronymus was drifting of into his own daydream.

“No, not really, big guy. What were you talking about?”

“I was talking about tonight. We are going to go see the Ginger Kang Kangs.”

“The Ginger Kang Kangs? What are you talking about? I told you that we’re going to the amusement park at LEM Zone One.”

“Only losers go there. Losers and children. No. We are adults now, adults with a vehicle, and adults with vehicles do not go to amusement parks. You will call Slue and you ask her if she’d like to come on an exciting road trip tonight with you and your pal Bruegel, who is an allaround T-Bird guy, extremely good looking and, unlike you, can actually drive a car—tell her that I have four tickets to see the Ginger Kang Kangs, who are playing tonight at the Dog Shelter, which is right next to LEM Zone One. Tell her that we will go to the amusement park to pick up your date…”

“Bruegel, hold on—the Ginger Kang Kangs?”

“They’re a local band. They’re really excellent. They come from Sputnik Heights and everyone says they are really happening. Clellen, for example, loves them and Clellen does have good taste in music, if nothing else. Also, the Dog Shelter is the grooviest club—very underground, so it might even be illegal. It was a dog shelter in former times. They still have old dilapidated kennels in a separate room. It’s like the make-out room. People make out in the dog kennels while the band plays in the main hall. It’s really wild.”

“That sounds completely sick. I’m not taking the Earth girl there. And I’m not inviting Slue to a place where people make out in cages meant for dogs.”

“I see. I guess Clellen was right about you.”

“Right about what?”

“You being uptight and all.”

The public bubblephone at O’Looney’s was all the way in the back and mounted to a yellow painted cinderblock wall. It had a small screen. Neither Hieronymus nor Bruegel was in the habit of carrying around portable phones or screen devices of any sort. It was a distaste for instant communication they had in common. Hieronymus hated the idea of always being cornered by a call of some sort. The obligation of answering the phone. It was a form of tyranny.

Bruegel decided to follow Hieronymus to the back and listen in on the conversation the One Hundred Percent Lunar Boy was about to have with the One Hundred Percent Lunar Girl. Hieronymus punched in the numbers. It had been three weeks since he last spoke to Slue. His heart was racing.

She answered, turning away slightly as if someone had distracted her just the second before she answered her bubblephone. He took in the image of her. Her three-quarter angle, the slope of her nose. Her cheekbones. Her jawline, her lips, and her eyebrows. Her blue hair appeared bluer that ever in the extreme palate of the small screen.

She looked into the field of the screen and recognized it was Hieronymus. She was slightly speechless.

“Oh. Hi.”

“Hey, Slue. How are you?”

“I’m fine, Hieronymus. How is everything going with you?”

“It’s good.”

Awkward silence followed. She looked away, then back. He was not sure if she was looking at him, or looking at the edge of her screen. The electric field was blurry, and the colors were saturated, and the contrast was high. The bubblephone at O’Looney’s was several decades old and in need of repair. Her face was vague, and he wondered if he looked as distorted to her as she to him. Then he thought that this was probably a good thing—they could hide behind the imperfect images they saw of each other. She futtered on and of, and in that millisecond when she disappeared, his heart sank, and when she came back on, he realized how much he really missed her. She spoke, her voice crackling through the broken speaker.

“I…I never told you this, but I really loved your presentation on
The Random Treewolf
. It was so wonderful. I think you worked much better on it alone than if I was there. I would have just made it weaker.”

“Don’t say that, Slue. That’s not true. I think the opposite. I think my presentation would have been a lot better if it was our presentation. I think there’s a lot of things I missed that you would have picked up and made into something wonderful.”

“Did you like the presentation I made with Poole on
Sanctified Island
?”

“Yes,” Hieronymus lied. “It was very powerful.”

But nothing like what you came up with
, she thought.

“So. Hieronymus. Why are you calling me?”

“Well, I was wondering if you’d like to check out this band tonight. The Ginger Kang Kangs? Have you ever heard of them?”

“They sound familiar. Where are they playing?”

“The Dog Shelter.”

“The Dog Shelter? Isn’t that over by LEM Zone One?”

“Yea. But my friend Bruegel is willing to drive. He has a driver’s license.”

“Bruegel. Isn’t he one of the Loopies? Oh. I forgot. You’re a Loopie, or at least half a Loopie. And you hang out with Loopies.”

Hieronymus cringed and looked to the side. Luckily, Bruegel had stepped away as soon as the conversation turned to their ancient literature presentations. He was already at the far end of the aisle, reading the ingredients on a box of children’s cookies. He appeared to be deeply interested in the list of chemicals.

“You know, that’s a really mean thing to say.”

“You saw what they did to the rotunda. I want nothing to do with any of those criminals.”

“Bruegel wasn’t there that day.”

“Are you sure? I’d hate to imagine that I’ll be stuck in a car with some guy who tricks me into smelling something abominably horrible from a small silver box around his neck.”

“Come on. You have to admit that that was funny.”

“It was one of the worst moments of my life.”

“What, smelling Jessker’s horrible odor mixture?”

“No. Watching you. Realizing that you have a completely split personality. That you live in two irreconcilable worlds at the same time. Hiding it from me.”

Hieronymus stared into her face on the small screen. Two people with goggles. Having a bitter discussion that only people who were meant to but never became lovers could have.

“What you are saying is true, Slue. I have tried to separate my two existences at school. I knew that nobody would understand. I knew you wouldn’t. But those are the cards I’ve been dealt. At least the kids in the remedial section don’t judge me. If they had the chance, they might rob me and beat me up—but they wouldn’t judge me if they knew I took classes with the honors section.”

“I’m not judging you, Hieronymus. I’m hurt that you’ve kept this from me.”

“Look. I’m sorry. I know you’re mad. That’s understandable. But something came up that I really have to talk to you about.”

“What? You found another book that has been drastically changed and reedited through the centuries?”

“No. Listen. How secure is your phone line?”

There was a pause in their inane conversation that was drastically deeper than everything that had transpired, and in that long, silent gap, Slue understood immediately what must have happened.

“I…don’t know…how secure my…phone line is…”

“Listen. Last night. Something happened that I should not have let happen.”

“Go on.”

“There was this girl.”

Slue’s face became utterly grim. Her head tilted down. She breathed through her nose. She looked so sad and at the same time so much like an animal who was caught with no chance of rescue, a mouse in a glue trap, a starving dog in a cage.

“I met this girl last night. She was very curious about the thing you and I have in common, but we never talk about. She…did not have a good reaction when we crossed a certain line.”

Slue could not believe what she was hearing.

“Have you any idea what you’ve done?” she whispered.

“I do now. But at the time, I was crazy. She really wanted to see my eye color. And I really wanted to look at her—without the goggles…”

“What was it like?” she whispered.

“I can’t talk about it. Not here.”

“You said she reacted badly.”

“It was terrible.”

“How was she when you saw her last?”

“When I dropped her off, she was fine. But I have to see her again. And you should see her, too. She told me something unbelievable. A rumor. One that involves you, and me, and anyone else who has to wear these goggles.”

Slue said nothing. Her face remained blank, but a terrible fear seemed to radiate from every muscle in her face. Last time, it was she who brought the subject up. And he did not want to talk about it.

Ninety-four years ago there were camps on the far side of the Moon…

But that was not what Hieronymus was about to tell her. His concern was over certain hidden current events—which were, naturally, intertwined with certain hidden historical events.

“There is a rumor going round on Earth. The Earth girl I had this misadventure with—”

“Wait,” interrupted Slue. “She was from Earth?”

“Yes. Listen. She told me this rumor that she claims to have sub-stantiated.”

Heironymous told Slue what he had heard about the Mega Cruisers. He stopped speaking as Slue’s face switched from fear to panic. Out of sight of the screen, she appeared to have grabbed something, and furiously wrote the following sentence on her tablet with her stylo-point and held it up to the screen for Hieronymus to see:

stop talking aBout this now.

i Don’t know iF this line is saFe.

we’ll speak aBout it in school.

change the suBject.

Hieronymus paused.
Where were we? Oh, yes. Tonight. The Ferris wheel. The girl from Earth. The Ginger Kang Kangs playing at the Dog Shelter. Bruegel. I have to convince Slue to come along. She won’t want to. But she must. She has to…

“So. Slue. Like I said, I met this really cool girl from Earth, and I’m supposed to meet her tonight at eight. You would like her. And how often do you get a chance to hang with a girl from Earth? It would be so excellent! After we pick her up, the four of us can head over to the Dog Shelter and check out the Ginger Kang Kangs. It will be so much fun. Please come. Bruegel won’t drive me unless you come with us.”