Psych Investigation Episodes: Episode 1 (A Young Adult Scifi / Fantasy) (7 page)

Jack tried to explain as much as he could, but
his mother’s confusion slowed everything down.

“
Even the Naruto poster?”

“
Yes, Mom,
especially
that
one. God help me if she sees that.”

Alana grinned. “She?”

Jack knew right away he’d said too much. His
mother wouldn’t be able to resist giving him a hard time. She had a
playful nature, which at times deviated into outright harassment
for the sake of amusement.

With a hearty chuckle, she said, “Who is this
‘she,’ Jack? Are you bringing home a girlfriend?”

Jack felt his cheeks grow hot. “She’s just a
friend, Ma. She’s tutoring me at math, and that’s all.”

“
She’s just a friend, huh? I thought
Adam tutored you at math.”

“
Well, she’s better at
it!”

Jack knew his mother was toying with him,
trying her best to make him squirm.

“
Does this girl have a
name?”

Jack soured as even more time spilled away.
“Her name’s Melissa. She’s a girl in my class and she said she’d
help me learn the math. I figured why not? So she’s just a friend
and that’s all there is to it, Mom, so don’t ask any dumb questions
or embarrass me when she gets here. And stop looking like you’re
enjoying this.”

Alana inhaled and made an exaggerated
expression of shock, as if Jack’s words were cruel and unfounded.
One of concern quickly replaced it.

“
Jack, I got a call that there was a
fire in your class today. What happened? Were you scared? I was
worried, but they said no one was hurt.”

Aww man, now she’s gonna wanna talk about
some dumb fire.

“
Mom, we don’t have time for idle
chat. Hey, do you still have Dad’s old football poster? You know,
the one of that player, umm, Iverson Allenson or something?” Jack
recalled seeing it up a few years back.

“
I think you mean basketball,
sweetie, and it was Allen Iverson. You really need to watch more
sports. It’s not normal for someone your age to be this clueless
when it comes to man-stuff. Heck, I’m your Mom and I know more than
you.”

Jack grunted. He did not have time for a sports
lecture from Mrs. Know-It-All.

“
Whatever. Do you have anything I
can put up that doesn’t make me look geeky?”

Alana frowned. Jack braced himself. He knew she
was not one to let her disapproval go unvoiced.

“
Now why should you be ashamed of
the person you are? I think you’re overreacting and blowing all of
this way out of proportion. If you’re trying to impress a girl and
you hide who you are, don’t you think she’ll find out eventually,
anyway?”

“
What? Of course not! Dad used to
tell me it’s a man’s job to lie to a woman.”

“
Oh? Did he, now?” For a moment,
Jack thought he saw her face darken.

“
At least help me get rid of my
playing cards. We can move them into the den for a little while
until she leaves. If she sees my collection she’s gonna laugh at
me. Just make sure you don’t—”

“
I know,” Alana said, cutting him
off. “Don’t touch the ‘Black Lotus’.”

“
That’s right, Ma, never ever
mishandle my beta edition ‘Black Lotus’. It’s my most precious
treasure. For no Mana, it gives me three, not two, but
three
Mana of any color until the end of my turn. No one
but me can handle ‘The Lotus’.”

“
Jack, honey, don’t you think you’re
just a bit too young to be telling
me
how to handle a
‘lotus’?”

“
No, why would I be? You don’t even
know anything about Magic the—” Jack stopped short. “Oh, wait, oh,
OH MOM, come on.” Jack felt his face flush with embarrassment.
Alana erupted with thunderous laughter.

“
Look, hun, you’re not changing
anything. I’ll be damned if I’m raising a coward who needs to hide
behind false images of himself. Just be yourself. The way you
always talk about this girl to Adam over the phone—and yes, I can
overhear your conversations, don’t give me that look—I know you
really like this one. But trust me, you’re a great person, and I
promise you that you alone are enough for any girl, and always will
be.”

Jack didn’t know how to respond. He felt his
eyes grow moist at the confidence his mother had in him.

“
Thanks, Mom. I just hope I have
enough time to prepare before she gets here.”

As if on cue, loud chimes rang over the
intercom, announcing a visitor.

“
Ah, that’s the door. Well? Go
answer it, Jack.”

In the time between heartbeats, Jack went from
calm and collected to nervous and frantic.

“
I don’t know if I’m ready for this!
What if I say the wrong thing? What if you embarrass me by
accident? What if I trip and fall on my face, and then I have to go
to the hospital, cause like, I’d be bleeding from
falling?”

“
Man up, Jack, and get the door. Or
I will.” The playful-yet-sinister look returned to her
eyes.

 
Jack ran down the stairs in
pairs of two and then paused in front of the door. Reflexively, he
patted his shirt and the sides of his black jeans. He tugged to
straighten out each end. With a deep breath, he opened the
door.

Standing in the frame was the goddess he’d come
to fawn over. Her delicate golden hair rested gently on the back of
her pink tank top. She wore tight-fitting jeans, and her arms were
crossed, cradling math books, extra pencils and a bundle of
loose-leaf paper.

“
Hey, sorry I’m late. I got a bit
held up on the way over here. Are you just going to stand there or
let me in?”

Jack tried to form words, he really did, but
nothing seemed to come out. Instead, he forced his feet to move. He
stood aside and waved his arms toward him in an inviting
gesture.

Melissa entered the home and followed Jack into
the kitchen. She set down her books and turned her gaze on
him.

How can anything be this pretty? It doesn’t
even make sense.

Jack forced saliva into his mouth and spoke.
“Can I get you something to drink, Melissa?”

“
Just water—I’m trying to watch my
weight. The last thing I need is soda or more carbs.”

Gliding down the staircase behind them, Alana
Harris carried a look of pure amusement as she examined Melissa
like a hawk searching for prey.

“
You must be the Melissa my son has
told me so much about.”

“
Only good things, I
hope.”

Alana gave Jack a wink that he prayed to all
known deities went unobserved by Melissa.

“
Well, we might as well get started.
We’ve got a lot to cover, and you’re pretty far behind. Where’s
your room?”

“
This way,” Jack croaked.

 “
This is impossible. No human
brain can comprehend this stuff. It’s completely and utterly
impossible."

All thoughts of happiness, joy and even
apprehension had been thrown out the window in favor of total
frustration.

“
Oh, stop being such a baby and
actually look at the problem. Okay, look. The integral of ‘two x
squared, from zero to four.’ Just like all the other problems, we
just need to add ‘n plus one’ to the exponent and divide by ‘n plus
one.’”

Jack inhaled. “Melissa, I understand what
you’re saying, but all I see here is a ‘two’ and an ‘x.’ Where is
this ‘n’ thing? If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re making
this up as you go along.”

Melissa chuckled. “Oh, come on, you asked me
the same question just before. The ‘n’ value is what we call the
degree of the exponent. In this example, it’s two, because we have
an ‘x squared’.”

Jack looked at the loose-leaf paper and stared
at it with the intensity of a burning star.

“
Okay. I think I see what you’re
saying. Basically, what you’re trying to tell me is that this
garbage is beyond what the human mind is capable of solving, no
sane person can do it and we should just give up because no one
would ever need or want to know this stuff.”

“
Yep! I think you finally solved the
enigma. The real way of winning is not to play!”

Jack scratched his head. “Stop teasing me. I’m
really trying here.”

He flinched as Melissa ruffled his hair. “Hey,
you’re actually making progress,” she said. “Don’t feel down. I
mean, look, you managed to finally get derivatives … even if it did
take us all night.”

 
Jack smiled as the reality of
his situation dawned on him. He was in the company of a beautiful
woman who wanted to help him, and he had made her proud. Melissa
laughed and playfully punched him on the arm.

“
What are you smiling
about?”

When she laughs she’s so beautiful. Well,
even when she doesn’t she is, but
especially
then,
when her smile lights up her face.

The sound of his mother’s voice snapped him out
of his reverie.

“Jack, Melissa, dinner’s ready.
Come down!”

Melissa followed him down the steps to the warm
smell of a pot roast. Initially, Melissa had insisted she wasn’t
hungry and that Alana shouldn’t go through the trouble of cooking a
big dinner on her behalf. But Jack’s mother was stubborn, and “no”
was not being taken for an answer.

As usual, the food was delicious. Jack’s Mom
was quite the cook. She had prepared a plump pot roast with
well-seasoned mashed potatoes and her homemade iced tea with just
the right amount of sweetness.

Jack was amazed by how much Melissa ate, asking
for both seconds and thirds. His father had once told him that a
girl who wasn’t afraid to eat was a keeper. In a moment of clarity,
he wondered if he would ever be able to make Melissa his
girlfriend, someone who seemed so clearly out of his
league.

So much for her avoiding carbs,
Jack
mused.

“
So, Melissa, how do you like living
in our humble little town? I hear you moved out from New York and
transferred to Jack’s school early this semester.” Jack flushed
with embarrassment as his mother spat the words out between
mouthfuls of pork.

Melissa did something Jack would never have
expected of a lady and barked a response back the same way, almost
appearing to have a food fight with his mother.

“
Well, I whike-iwt," she barked
while chomping on her potatoes. With a humongous and painful
looking gulp she continued. “But I do miss the big
city.”

“
I’ve been to the old N.Y.C a few
times with my husband when he wasn’t away on work. It’s quite a
place there, very noisy, though.”

Jack’s mother and Melissa continued the idle
chat while they ate with the kitchen TV playing reruns in the
background. For dessert they had apple-pie and coffee, with Melissa
politely asking for tea. Alana smiled and was happy to
oblige.

For nearly an hour, they laughed and discussed
current events, even the fire from earlier in the day. Jack and
Melissa each took turns describing it from their perspectives,
agreeing on certain parts and laughing at others.

“
And the teacher’s hair was a mess!
He was drenched from the sprinklers. I don’t think I’ve ever seen
him so mad.”

A moment of quiet overtook the room. The
television playing in the background paused.

“
We interrupt this program to bring
you breaking news.”

Jack put down his fork and turned
around.

“
Local One has more.” The screen
flashed, and the picture resumed with a tall Hispanic reporter
centered on the screen. He had the
Local One
microphone
held close to his mouth, and his eyes were wide with
shock.

“
This is Michael Alvarez of Local
One, reporting live from Maple Hill. What started off as a warm,
peaceful summer day has ended in a tragedy of unspeakable
proportions. Richard Davins, age sixteen, along with his mother
Roberta Davins, age forty-four, and two Seven year old sisters,
Casey and Brianna, were found brutally massacred in their home just
a few hours earlier.”