We Are All Made of Molecules (5 page)

IF I DREW A
graph of my first day at Borden Secondary School, it would look like this:

At the beginning of the day, I felt terrified, hence the dip well below my normal mood, which is the baseline. The spike at 8:55 a.m. indicates the brief moment of happiness I experienced when I saw my almost-sister, Ashley, in English class. This is followed immediately by a sharp plunge, when I was reminded that even though she has made no effort whatsoever to get to know me, she hates my guts.

Period 2—history—was uneventful. But lunchtime was a low point. When I walked into the cafeteria with the money Dad had given me as a treat for my first day, it was full of kids from eighth grade up to twelfth, and it was noisy and overwhelming. As I approached the food line, a tall guy with an actual
mustache
turned around suddenly and whacked me in the head with his tray, spilling some of the gravy from his fries on my shirt. “Sorry, kid, I didn't see you,” he said.

I believe he was sincere, but he was also huge. And that made me think about a Stephen King novel I'd read called
Under the Dome
, where people in this town find themselves living under an impenetrable bubble one day, and, well, I don't want to give away the ending, but let's just say I started to feel like an ant among giants. So I left the cafeteria without any food and hid under a stairwell until my next class began. It calmed me down, and it brought me back to my baseline.

I had science after lunch, and we're doing chemistry experiments, one of my favorite activities in the whole wide world. I got paired up with a cute girl named Phoebe, but only because her regular partner was home sick. And guess what, she laughed at my joke! I said, “What is the chemical formula for the molecules in candy?”

“I don't know,” she replied.

“Carbon-Holmium-Cobalt-Lanthanum-Tellurium.” She looked at me blankly till I wrote down the elements' symbols on the front of my notebook. “CHoCoLaTe!”

It's true that she only laughed a little bit. And it's true that she said, “You're an odd duck.” But she didn't say it in a mean voice. She said it with a smile. So, as is clear on my chart, that part of the day was a highlight.

My last class was phys ed, and because it was a nice day, the teacher, Mr. Stellar, took us outside to play baseball. I was picked last, which didn't bother me, since after all I am (1) the new guy and (2) shorter than everyone else. Also, (3) my hand-eye coordination is not a strong point, so I struck out when I got to bat. That part of my chart stays around my baseline because at least there were no surprises.

But in the change room afterward, I had what was easily the worst part of my day. Because that was when Mr. Stellar said, “All right, boys, shower time. And I
will
be checking on your way out.”

At Little Genius Academy, the school was so small it didn't have showers in its change rooms. So they just scheduled PE for the end of the day. That way our teachers didn't have to put up with a class full of stinky kids, and, if we felt so inspired, we could shower when we got home. (I usually didn't, unless my mom insisted.)

But here at Borden Secondary, it's a whole new ball of wax, as my mom used to say. The moment we got into the change room, boys who were twice my size started to get naked. And when I say
twice my size
, I mean
in all areas
. I didn't know what to do. I just sat quietly on one of the
benches and tried not to stare, but it was impossible not to notice that almost every single guy in my class was well into puberty. They had hair in all the right places, and their you-know-whats actually
dangled
.

Mine does not dangle. Mine is more like a protruding belly button. Dad has told me I have nothing to worry about; he says that he, too, was a late bloomer, and that I just need to give it time.

But time was not on my side as I sat in that change room surrounded by naked, hairy guys. I held my street clothes close to my chest and tried to think. At Little Genius Academy, I prided myself on being good at analyzing situations and working out creative solutions. I was on the Model United Nations team last year, representing Denmark, and we had to resolve a food-shortage crisis in a war-torn African country, and I got a perfect score. But solving world hunger was a cakewalk compared to figuring out how not to get naked in front of all these almost-men.

I was stumped. Around me I could hear the guys cracking jokes and talking about a girl named Lauren. “She's only a thirty-two double A,” someone was saying. “I heard from a reliable source. She stuffs her bra.”

“She's still cute,” another boy said.

“Lauren's okay,” said a tall, muscular guy. “But you know who's really hot? Ashley Anderson.”

“Pretty stuck-up, though,” said someone else.

Agreed
, I thought, but even though I was somewhat curious, I tried to block out their chatter and concentrate on the issue at hand.

Then I remembered the bathroom stalls. Of course! I got
up and made a dash for them, my clothes still clutched to my chest. I was thinking I could change in there and then wet my hair in the sink so Stellar would think I'd showered.

But just as I got to the stalls, one of the big guys—the one who'd said Ashley was hot—stepped in front of me, blocking my path. He was about to go for his shower, and he was naked except for a towel tied around his waist. Another guy, not as tall, stepped up beside him. “Where do you think you're going?” asked the tall guy.

“To the bathroom,” I said.

“You haven't showered. Showers are mandatory.”

“I need to pee first.”

“Then leave your street clothes out here. I'll hold them for you.”

“That's okay.”

“I insist.” He tried to grab my clothes. I held on tight. “I—I can't have a shower. I don't have a towel.”

He looked me up and down. “How old are you, anyway? Eight?” His friend laughed.

“I'm thirteen,” I said, offended. I may be short for my age, but I'm not
that
short. “They bumped me up a grade because I'm gifted.”

The tall guy smirked. And I suddenly remembered Dad telling me I shouldn't trumpet the fact that I am gifted, because people might think I was bragging.

I think the tall guy thought I was bragging, because he glanced at his friend, then back at me and said, “Gifted, huh?”

I nodded. My head came up to just past his nipples, so I had to look way up.

“You don't seem very gifted at basic personal hygiene, like showering. Maybe you need a little help getting undressed.”

“No. Thanks anyway. If you'll excuse me—”

Without warning, he grabbed my gym shorts and yanked them down around my ankles. Luckily I was wearing my favorite boxer shorts underneath.

The tall guy started laughing. “Holy crap! Look!” His friend started laughing, too.

My boxers have cats' faces all over them. My dad bought them for me last Christmas. I don't think they're that funny, but then I remembered a technique I'd learned in Model UN:
Attempt to diffuse a situation by establishing a bond
.

So I started laughing, too. “Yeah, they are pretty goofy,” I said, and I actually thought my tactic was working, because we made direct eye contact, and he was still laughing.

Then suddenly he grabbed hold of my boxers and I realized with sphincter-tightening horror that he was about to pull them down, too.

“C'mon, boys, hurry it up in there!” Mr. Stellar shouted as he flung open the door. The tall guy dropped his hands and took a step back. “Jared, tryouts start in five. You'd better get a move on.”

“Yes, sir,” replied the tall guy. He sauntered away from me toward the showers. I scurried into the stall, locked the door, and changed. When I was done, I wet my hair in the sink. It was enough to fool Mr. Stellar.

But I know I can't keep fooling him. And I certainly can't keep fooling the guy named Jared.

The way I see it, I have a choice to make before next gym
class: either I transfer back to Little Genius Academy, or I come up with a plan.

—

ON MY WAY HOME
from school, I pulled out my phone and called Dad at work. He answered right away. “How are things in the newsroom?” I asked.

“Good, fine. I'm just trying to decide which story to lead with. Events in the Middle East, or the latest kerfuffle in Parliament?”

“I'd take a kerfuffle any day.”

“All right. Kerfuffle it is.” There was a pause, and then he asked, “How was your day?”

“B,” I told him. In reality it was more like a C, but I knew C would worry him, and I knew A would sound too good to be true.

“That's great!” I could hear the relief in his voice. “I want details later. We'll be home right after the newscast, okay?”

“Okay.”

When I arrived at the house I now had to think of as home, I stood outside on the sidewalk for a moment. I gazed at the light gray stucco exterior. It is a perfectly nice house. But it doesn't have a lot of character. Our old house had character to burn.

I started to feel a little sad, but then I thought about Schrödinger waiting for me, so I walked up the front steps and reached into my pocket for my key.

It wasn't there. Then I remembered I'd used it when Dad and I had raced back home so I could poop, and I'd left it in the house. I rang the bell in case Ashley was home already, but there was no answer.

Then it started to rain.
Really
rain. I headed through the side gate to the backyard, to see if the patio doors were unlocked. They weren't. But as luck would have it, Ashley was there, in the kitchen. I could see her through the window. She was getting herself a snack. I knocked. She didn't even look up. I knocked again.

This time she looked up. She looked right at me, standing there in the rain. But instead of coming to open the door, she stuck her tongue out at me and left the room.