A Catastrophe of Nerdish Proportions (8 page)

Sometimes being with this family was like entering the Twilight Zone.

“Oh, hey there, girls,” Department Store Dad said to Q and me. “Hey, sporto, you guys going to be okay if we go out for a while?”

“Sure thing, Daddy,” Beanpole answered.

“Is there a sale on sweaters, Mr. Tanner?” I asked.

“One can only hope, Maureen,” he replied with a smile. “Now, don't have too much fun without us, okay, girls?”

“There's lemonade, mint tea, and pomegranate juice in the fridge if you get thirsty,” Department Store Mom said as she got ready to depart. “And there's apple cider and with-pulp as well as pulpless orange juice, too,” she added. “But if you decide you want a coffee drink, I whipped up a batch of decaf iced cappuccinos and chocolate mocha lattes, although we're running low on maraschino cherries, so there might not be enough for a second round of those if you decide to go for a refill. As for water, we have bottled flat, bottled sparkling, distilled flat, distilled sparkling, lemon flavored, raspberry, kiwi, lime, mixed berry, or no-salt seltzer. Are you sure you girls are going to be okay? We'll be gone a few hours.”

“Well, there's a potential they'll drown,” Department Store Dad said with a chuckle. “Come on, honey, they'll be fine. Besides, my juices are all revved up thinking about cardigans. What's got your engines revved today?”

“Doilies,” she answered. “I am all about the doilies this afternoon.”

Like lovebirds from an old movie, Department Store Dad and Department Store Mom left arm in arm, headed for the new mall.

“See, even your mom wants us to blast them,” I noted after they'd gone.

“That's not what she said, Mo,” Beanpole said. “And how come no one told me about any ‘plans' we have to get them again?”

“In due time, Beanpole,” I said. “For now, you can relax, 'cause we're just going to lie low and lull them to sleep.”

“Yeah,” Q said mischievously. “Lull 'em
nerrrd style
.” She reached for a cookie.

“WAIT!” Beanpole screamed.

I jumped back. “What?”

“Don't eat those, Alice. They have nuts,” Beanpole said, coming to Q's rescue.

“I know,” Q answered calmly. “It's okay.” She picked up a chocolate-hazelnut cookie.

It's okay?
Beanpole and I cocked our heads to one side.
What did she mean by that?

“I'm seeing a new doctor,” Q explained. “He thinks my allergies are psychosomatic.”

“Psychosomatic?” Beanpole asked. “What's that mean?”

“It means she's psycho,” I said. Q glared. “Sorry…Go on.”

“My doctor thinks that by exposing myself to things I think I am allergic to, I can build up an immunity and prove to myself that I am really
not
allergic to the things I think I am allergic to.”

I took a moment to try to figure out what all that meant.

“And this is a licensed doctor?”

“Would you let her finish, Mo?” Beanpole said. “She's trying a new form of treatment. I think that's nice.”

“Instead of avoidance, she recommends exposure,” Q informed us.

“Wait a minute—
she
?” I replied. “A second ago you said it was a
he
.”

“She's a team,” Q said. “I mean, they're a team. It's experimental. If I can beat my allergies, then my mom can stop worrying about me so much and get her life back. She used to have a career and everything, you know.” Q looked at the cookie. “And since nuts are the biggest problem for most kids like me who have allergies, I'm going to start here.”

The room fell quiet as Q stood eye to eye with her arch-allergic enemy, the nut family.

“Well if you ask me—” I began.

“Which nobody did,” Beanpole interjected.

“But if you did ask me,” I continued, “these docs sound like quack-quack ducks. I mean, how is someone who is allergic to something going to become nonallergic to something just like that? Don't they know the reactions you have?”

Beanpole glared.

“I'm not trying to be a hater,” I explained. “I'm just worried about her, that's all.”

Q studied the chocolate-hazelnut cookie she held in her hand. Simply touching the thing could cause her issues, but eating them?

“I'm doing it for my mom. I have to get better for her. She's already sacrificed way too much for me.”

“G'head, Alice,” Beanpole said. “Eat one. I support you.”

Q eyed the treat.

“And Mo supports you, too,” Beanpole said, nudging me. “Don't you, Mo?”

They both looked at me, Beanpole seeking to encourage my support, Q with an expression that showed she was nervous and really, really needed to have me in her corner on this one.

“I support you,” I said. “Even if your head explodes and mushy gray juice oozes out of your ear hole, I support you.”

Q raised the chocolate-hazelnut cookie to her lips.

“My doctor thinks my brain is sending the wrong signals to my body and can be retrained,” she said, hoisting the cookie into the air as if she were making a toast. “So, here's to new brain signals.”

“And to health insurance,” I added.

Beanpole elbowed me. “We support you, Alice. Even if we have a funny way of showing it.”

There was a pause, just like when a kid is standing at the edge of a really tall diving board wondering whether to jump or turn around and climb back down the ladder and put their feet safely back on the deck.

“Focus on how great it'll be once you're free from these things,” Beanpole said. “I bet you'll be cured in no time. Trust the science.”

Slowly, carefully, Alice took a bite of the chocolate-hazelnut cookie.

“Yep, just trust the science,” I conceded.

T
hough there was a slight breeze, it was warm on campus, the sun shining, the sky blue, the cover over the outdoor lunch tables providing just the right amount of shade. Days like today were the reason people loved California so much, especially when there were reports of snowstorms and hail on the East Coast. The only thing I knew about snow was that you weren't supposed to eat the yellow stuff.

I think that was a pee joke.

“Clear the way!” I cried. “Hubcap ears, coming through!”

“Don't make fun of her like that, Mo,” Beanpole said as we sat down at our regular lunch table toward the back of the courtyard. “You know she's sensitive.”

“But it's Monday, and her ears are still the size of coconuts,” I replied. “What'd your doctors say?” I asked as Q sat down on the bench across from me.

“Skunk stink can only be washed off with tomato juice.”

She began to unpack her lunch.

“Huh?”

“Skunk stink can only be washed off with tomato juice,” she repeated.

“What's that even mean?” I asked.

“It means,” she said, “that sometimes you need to endure some yuck in order to get to where you want to go. And I know exactly where I want to go.” She looked at me with fierce determination. “I'm going to help my mom.”

Without a doubt, Q was the most stubborn person I'd ever met. If she set a goal, she accomplished it; that was that. I watched as she set her lunch items on the table.

Today's midday cuisine for Q consisted of seedless watermelon, a few slices of roasted, no-salt turkey, a couple of crackers, and a Ziploc bag filled with peanuts.

Peanuts?
She couldn't have been serious. But just as I was about to question the wisdom of her eating them, my cell phone buzzed. I checked the screen to see who it was, pushed a button, then tossed the phone into my backpack and reconsidered having any sort of chat with Q about her being nuts to be eating nuts. After all, she was gonna do what she was gonna do, so I decided instead to focus on my own heart-healthy midday meal: a plate of cafeteria nachos and a king-size bag of Flamin' Hot Cheetos.

Okay, perhaps Cheetos weren't the most nutritional item on the menu, but when I read the back label on the bag, I did see that they were made with enriched cornmeal, and that's gotta be some kind of vegetable, doesn't it?

“Was that a text?” Beanpole asked me.

“Yup,” I said. Truth be told, there is nothing like the experience of that first Flamin' Hot Cheeto scorching your tongue. What a burn! I mean, there is no way to describe it to someone who has never been through this fiery taste-bud pleasure dome before.

“Who was it from?” Beanpole asked. Her lunch was a vegetable frittata that had been crafted into the Torch of Academic Wisdom. I guess Department Store Mom was hoping that if Beanpole ate the scholarly symbol for brains, some of it would rub off.

“My dad,” I replied, as the sting of the Flamin' Hots began to make my eyes water. The way those Cheetos could tie pleasure with pain together in my mouth deserved some sort of award. “My mom gave him my school schedule, so now he knows things like that my lunchtime starts at eleven thirty-eight, and stuff like that.”

“Hole-filling?” Q asked.

“Exactly,” I answered, my tongue ablaze. Good thing I had the nachos to put out the inferno. A few bites of corn chips—see, there's vegetables once again—smothered under a glop of cheese pumped from a jar was just the thing I needed.

Of course, eating lunch like this is a science, and I'd never recommend it to amateurs. Or adults. A person could get seriously injured if they didn't know exactly how to handle the various hazardous food materials I was juggling in my oral cavity. Ask any kid: tongue fires, singed stomach linings, roasted gum lines—they've all been known to happen with this flavor of Cheetos. When they say Flamin' Hot, they're not joking around. This chip bag needed a warning label on it.

“Sooooo…” Beanpole said.

“So, what?” I said, licking the red plutonium dust off my fingertips.

“What do you mean, ‘So, what?'” Beanpole said. “So how'd you respond to your dad's text?”

“Two words,” I told her. “Dee. Leet.”

“Well, here's two words for you, Mo,” she said in a momly voice. “Ketch. Up.”

Why couldn't Beanpole just mind her own business? I mean, here she was with a sweater-wearing father whose biggest thrill in life was cardigan shopping at the new mall, and yet she felt like she was entitled to pry, pry, pry, as if she could just…

“Uh-oh…” Q suddenly said, gazing across the courtyard. “We've got company.”

I dropped my train of thought and spun around. Marching toward us were the ThreePees.

“Did you arrange this?” I asked Beanpole sharply.

“Nope. Swear,” she replied.

The ThreePees jiggled closer.

“Whaddya”—
Wheeesh-whooosh. Wheeesh-whooosh
—“think they want?”

“I'm sure it's just to play mind games with us,” I said. “That's what they always try to do. So, look, whatever you do,” I instructed, “don't engage with them. Especially on an emotional level. No passion. No argumentation. No nothing but calm, even-tempered logic. In order to win the Academic Septathlon, we have to practice remaining cool under pressure.”

The ThreePees were almost upon us.

“Nothing but ice. Got me, ladies? Nothing. But. Ice.”

The ThreePees wiggled up to our table wearing spaghetti-strap tops and funky, rainbow-swirl flip-flops. When it came to fashion, they always had the latest, freshest clothing.

Kiki spoke first. “You do realize we're going to thump you, right, dork heads?”

“Oh, yeah?” I barked, leaping out of my seat. “Well, I've got some news for you, Keek-o-la. We've been putting in mad, crazy hours of study, so get outta of my face unless you want a piece of this right now. Do ya?! Do ya?!”

I was so riled up Beanpole had to jump in front of me.

“Accept the universe, Mo. Accept the universe.”

Note to self: consider reducing the amount of caffeine in diet.

“Oh, yeah, think you're so smart?” Brattany taunted. “What's the capital of New York?”

“The city or the state?” Beanpole replied with a
You're not going to fool me
look on her face.

Uh-oh. Had to think. Quick!

“Who invented the Pythagorean theorem?” I shot back.

“Don't even go there,” Kiki said dismissively. “Mr. Theorem, of course.”

Ooh, perhaps they did know something.

“What's the square root of pi?”

“Apple or pecan?”

“How many metric meters are in a gallon?”

“A gallon of water or a gallon of lemonade?”

“How many elements are on the periodic table?”

“How many elements are on a buffet table?”

“Is the table wooden or does the table have a marble countertop?”

The questions flew everywhere, each of us trying to outdo the other. And then came this:

“If you've got seventeen office chairs and they are each traveling sixteen miles per hour from the northeast on a train with scheduled stops every quarter mile, how many desks and how many trains will you need if the sun sets in the east on a leap year during a full moon? Huh? How many? How many? Huh?”

Everyone stopped and stared.

“Too challenging?” asked the girl who had just posed the question.

“Sofes, is your headband wrapped too tight?” Kiki shook her head, a look of total disapproval in her expression. “Like, is it cutting off the circulation to your brain?”

“Just stick to the stuff you know, Sofes,” Brattany pleaded. “We talked about this.”

“You mean like hair?” Sofes replied.

“Like silence,” Kiki snapped. “The less you talk, the better.”

“Yeah, the better for all of us,” Brattany noted.

Sofes's shoulders slumped. “Like, um, just trying to help,” she said softly.

“Like, um, you're not,” Kiki responded. “So don't.”

Suddenly, Mr. Piddles shuffled up, out of breath.

“Is there a problem, ladies?” he asked, stepping between us.

Mr. Piddles was a bald-headed man who wore neckties with short-sleeved shirts, a fashion faux pas if ever there was one. His great mission in life, though, was not clothing trends; it was promoting justice. In fact, he cared more about justice than any person I'd ever known. Heck, those ties he wore? Some of them were Statue of Liberty–themed.

Another fashion faux pas.

“No,” Kiki said, her eyes burning as she glared at me. “There's no problem, sir.”

“Nope. No problemo at all, Mr. Piddles,” I responded, glaring back at Kiki. “Everything is just fine, fine, fine.”

Of course, Mr. Piddles wasn't stupid. And he wasn't buying it, either. To him, hostility between groups of kids on campus didn't represent a proper, just, educational environment, and the look on his face made it one hundred percent clear he wanted all of this to stop.

Thankfully, the ThreePees, being that they were on our lunchtime turf, started to back away before Mr. Piddles got some kind of “justice” idea in his head. I'm sure they wanted to avoid having to do something stupid, like give an oral report in social studies on the importance of respecting one's fellow citizens. Mr. Piddles was always trying to teach life lessons that way, and students avoided being punished by him like the plague, because he always made you do things where you actually had to think and weigh and consider stuff in order to get the work done.

“See ya, soon, señoritas,” Kiki said sarcastically, getting ready to lead her coven of witches back to the other side of the courtyard.

“You mean we're not even gonna finish our lunch together?” asked Sofes.

“Not you, Sofes! You're coming with us,” Kiki said, grabbing her fellow ThreePee by the arm. “I was talking to them.”

“Oh, I was wondering,” Sofes replied. “Because that would have been different, you know, like, if you had left me over here.”

“Trust me,” Kiki said, walking away, “a part of me thinks that's where you really belong anyway.”

“Yeah, like Nerdville might be your natural habitat,” Brattany said, as she inspected her fingernail polish. “
Urrggh
,” she added. “If I am going to do well at this brainiac competition, there's no doubt I am going to need a mani-pedi.”

And with that the three donkeys disappeared back to their own side of the universe.

Mr. Piddles, however, continued to scowl. Clearly, he didn't like any of it, and I could see the little teacher wheels spinning inside his head.

With another look at me—why he was always lasered in on me, I had no idea—to communicate the idea that
There'd better not be any more issues
, Mr. Piddles returned to his lunchtime monitoring station, where I'm sure he was engrossed in something fascinating like reading the U.S. Constitution in its original longhand form.

When the three of us were alone again, Q spoke in her Wild West gunslinger voice. “Yeah, see ya soon, señorita. See ya real soon.”

“Sheesh,” I said. “The way we're going, we might as well rename it the Academic Stinkathlon. We still have
so
much to learn.”

“Don't worry, Mo,” Beanpole said in a perky voice. “We're nerds, and nerds always do great at this kind of stuff.”

“Quick,” I said, pulling a pop quiz on Beanpole in order to sharpen her skills. “What's the fifth planet from the sun?”

“May I have a definition, please?”

“You want a definition for the word
planet
?” I asked.

“It's within my rights.”

“But it's a word you already know,” I pointed out.

“Yes, but how do I know that the word I know is really the word I think I know?” she asked.

“Beanpole, I have no idea what you're talking about.” I turned to Q. “Have you figured out whether or not this is within her rights yet?”

Q opened her study binder. “‘A satisfactory grade point average ensures eligibility in the competition, which will be calculated through'”—
Wheeesh-whooosh. Wheeesh-whooosh
—“‘the agreed-upon standards set forth by the mandates in the official guide.'”

“Tell me,” I asked, “have you read anything other than the rules, to prepare?”

She didn't respond.

“You haven't, have you?”

“What can I say? I'm attracted to regulatory procedures.”

“OMG, we are toast,” I said. “Toast with butter and jelly and fancy marmalade on top.”

Q looked at her binder, turned the page, and scanned the text.

“‘The eating of food during competition is expressly forbidden unless medical reasons preclude'”—
Wheeesh-whooosh. Wheeesh-whooosh
—“‘such an exclusion.'”

She paused. I stared, with menace in my eyes.