The Perpetual Motion Club (11 page)

Brown was a lost cause. She remembered how he’d sneered at the idea of Jason Bridges going to the Science Society meeting. Course he wouldn’t go, he doesn’t need it, but maybe he likes science on the side. There were reports that some professional athletes actually had hobbies outside of sports and groupies. It has happened. Why nip it in the bud?

Elsa started feeling a passion grow in her. A negative passion. She was starting to hate the man.

For the rest of the day Elsa pondered passion. She thought of J.J. and Lisa and the rest and how they spent their time downloading comics at the InterConnect booths. That was their passion. They were smart, but only in the way that would get them good grades. They were good at producing results on standardized tests, but actually interested in any of the information poured down their throats? She doubted it. They’d rather just joke and eat pizza and text, just like everybody else: May, Jason Bridges, and even those idiots silently screaming their protests all over town.

***

“Did you get invited?” a voice asked her.

Jimmy Bacomb’s locker was six down from hers. She’d hardly noticed him rifling through papers there. She’d been staring at the coat in her own locker, clicking her nails against her teeth for several minutes and pondering what to tell May. She shook herself free from her thoughts and turned to Jimmy.

“No.” She said it like it was obvious she didn’t get invited.

“No?”

“I mean . . . I guess.”

“I knew you would.”

She wanted to say, “what’s it to you?” but something in his tone changed her mind. It didn’t have the excited-for-her-but-sorry-for-himself attitude that May’s would have if she were here instead of Jimmy. Jimmy’s tone was flatter, almost as if it really didn’t matter to him. And that kind of made her sad too. Or mad, maybe. She didn’t know why; who cared what Jimmy thought?

“Yeah, well . . . ” she said, and then suddenly she wanted to be sadistic, dump all the pain of the situation onto Jimmy. “Did you?” she asked.

He laughed and then looked at her with an “are you kidding” look.

Immediately she was sorry she had said that. Jimmy was such an easy target, his feelings on his sleeve and all. “Well,” she said, “I probably won’t join. Brown is an ass and . . . ”

“Brown is definitely not an ass, and he’s funny as hell.”

“What do you have him for?”

“Algebra I.”

“Algebra I? Didn’t you take it last year?”

“I had to take it over.”

“Why bother?”

“Well, I have to take algebra eventually—and pass it. Required for graduation.”

“Oh yeah. Stupid rule.”

“Not really. I like it actually. I’m concentrating better this time around. It’s really quite beautiful when you think about it.”

“Does Brown know about your passion for variables?”

Jimmy said nothing, just looked at her with his eyebrows pinched.

“Never mind,” she said. “Just thinking about how some people don’t get invited to his Science Society for flimsy reasons.”

“Did it ever occur to you that deep down inside May doesn’t want to join?”

“What?” How the hell did he know what was bothering her?

“She thinks she wants to join, but is she really going to want to hang around a bunch of popular geeks?” He clicked his locker shut. “Did you ever notice she’s not into that popularity crap? She doesn’t care about fads. She’s too honest. I bet everything’s going to fall into place for her because of that.”

He smiled at Elsa and then turned to walk to the exit. Elsa stared after him. It was amazing how insightful a twerp could be.

She took a quick hit of iHigh and joined the throng of students leaving the building. The doors were programmed to state “Enjoy your evening,” but because so many people were just now passing through, they never got to complete the sentiment. They droned an endless series of “Enjoy,” “Enjoy,” “Enjoy” until the last student finally made it through.

***

As they walked home, May and Elsa each kept to her own private thoughts. After a few blocks, Elsa turned to her friend. “I’m not joining.”

“Makes no difference to me,” May said. “I think you’re crazy, but it probably won’t matter. You don’t need to.”

“Well, I’m not joining because I don’t have time. I’ve got the Perpetual Motion Club to run and we have a meeting this week.”

“That stupid thing? I was hoping you’d drop it.”

Elsa reached out with her pen and began tapping on the side of a public InternetConnect booth, an almost unconscious act indicating she was both nervous and thinking but didn’t want anyone to know she was. As they walked she kept up the tapping on any post box, trash receptacle, mechanical crossing guard, and lamp post they passed.

“Yes, well I’ve been working on my own,” she said. “And I have a presentation to make and officers to assign.”

“I thought it was non-hierarchical. Just give up. I mean, honestly, Elsa, nobody cares.”

“Oh how wrong you are. First off, I’m going to make this an official school club. I’m talking to Dean Williams about it. Once it gets official status, you can put it on your resume. You’ll be V.P., May. It’ll be better than joining the Science Society, especially after we win FutureWorld. How’s that going to look on your resume?”

May sighed. She had enjoyed being slighted, hurt, angry all day and wasn’t sure she was prepared to be light-hearted and hopeful. “Did you actually speak to Dean Williams?” she asked, reaching over and grabbing the pen out of Elsa’s hand to stop the tapping. She slipped it into a side pocket of Elsa’s pack.

Without skipping a beat, Elsa began flicking the back of her fingernails on the passing objects. “Well, not yet,” she said. “But I’m going to. I found a copy of the Northawken High School Group Application Handbook in the library so I know what we need to do. And after I speak with Dean Williams . . . ”

“Uhh!” May said, she hung her head and reached up and massaged the back of her neck as if it was the point of Elsa’s exasperation and if only she rubbed enough, her friend’s inane idea would disappear. They’d reached her house by now. Without giving Elsa a hug, or a “goodbye,” she turned up the sidewalk pressed her thumb onto the door ID system.

“Welcome home, May,” the door said.

Unperturbed by the final note of May’s disbelief, Elsa tapped two fingers against her teeth, the mental gears turning so quickly in her head she had to do something with her hands to relieve the pressure. She watched May go and simultaneously put it all together: she’d help May and placate her Mom. Lainie would not approve of her declining the Science Society, but this new effort was definitely going to go a long way in smoothing things over.

Earlier when she’d read the Handbook, Elsa hadn’t thought much of it. Too many requirements. Coming to no decisive plan of action, no motivating force, she’d forgotten all about it during her conversation with The Twerp. But now, trying to cheer up May, the whole thing came back to her, materializing in her mind. She thought about how having Dean Williams on her side would finally give it some legitimacy her mother couldn’t refute. Why not start a brand new school sanctioned club? Why not improve your resume with such an achievement? Wouldn’t everyone think she was great?

***

During supper of primavera with angel hair and garlic, Elsa delicately broached the subject. She treaded ever so lightly to soften the blow. She needed to tip-toe, elegantly tap dance, somehow soften the shock.

“I’m not joining the Science Society,” she blurted.

Lainie choked on a strand of pasta. Actually gagged. Elsa shoved her chair back, stood and punched her mother on the back, then ran to refill her water glass.

“I don’t understand,” Lainie said between gasps.

Elsa returned to her seat, took a deep breath, and as non-chalantly as possible, explained her plan to work with Dean Williams to get the PM club sanctioned by the school.

“Elsa, Elsa, Elsa,” Lainie said, dropping her fork onto her plate. “You can’t win with perpetual motion. It’s a mirage, a fraud, like fighting a windmill with a broomstick.”

“Actually a broomstick would be perfect. You could wedge it in between—”

“I don’t care.” Lainie glared at her daughter. “What you’re doing is nothing. Nobody’s going to buy it. And you won’t win. There’s always too much friction.” She shoved her half-empty plate of food away.

“Friction is not the problem. That’s what everyone thinks. It’s really the designs that prevent the machines from working. All you need to do is study the physics better. You need to work with the laws of nature, not against them. Think of the power in an atom.”

“You’re going to build a nuclear reactor now?”

“If I have to.”

Lainie shook her head. “You joke.” She stood and began collecting up the dinner plates and scraping them down into the garbage collector. She slammed on the water and slapped at the switch. Then she pulled the sanitizer door open and threw the dishes inside.

“Thank you,” the appliance said.

Elsa watched silently as most of her dinner was tossed into the collector before she’d had a chance to eat it. Lainie, the perfect mom: so understanding, so forgiving of criminals and the unfortunate, so knowledgeable in the ways of the greater world. How could she be so clueless now?

Elsa listened as Lainie ranted on about the unfairness of everything, glossing over the fact that the problems of the world probably started in high school where the have-talents were separated from the have-not talents. How could her mother not see the Perpetual Motion Club’s battle against the injustices of elitism? Lainie slammed dishes and cupboard doors, exercising parental right to easily disregard truth that she herself had taught to Elsa. If nothing else, Elsa would have to prove the strength of her idea to her mother, get the club sanctioned. She had to have Lainie behind her. Otherwise what was the point?

***

The following day after her last class, Elsa went directly to the administrative office. The meeting with Dean Williams went well. The only rough spot was the Science Society. The dean wanted to know why Elsa hadn’t yet sent in the acceptance form. Elsa found it difficult to explain why she didn’t want to join. She wasn’t really sure why herself. She only had her boredom with programming for a reason, a weak response.

Her loathing of coding was not truly the reason anyway. In her heart she simply disliked Mr. Brown, the Society’s faculty advisor. But she didn’t know why. He wasn’t smarmy like the leering Mr. Bartch who sidled up to Jenny Winstrom and Lisa Gable, the school’s big-breasted girls. He wasn’t the testosterone bull Coach Budzynksi who puffed up and down the hallway before a big game to let everyone know their duty was to be in the stands worshipping the “team” that night. Mr. Brown wasn’t diminutive like the history teacher or ugly like the remedial English guy. It wasn’t the conversation Elsa had with Mr. Brown concerning May even.

Her dislike of the man seemed to come in one small moment when he wrote off the new, tall boy: Jason Bridges. In that single unstated write-off, Mr. Brown had unconsciously planted the seed of hatred toward himself in Elsa’s newly fertile heart. Even though she had herself now written off Jason, she despised the man who had done it in the first place.

But she could never say all that to Dean Williams. Dean Williams would say she was being, well, silly. She’d have all kinds of reasons why Elsa should be bigger than that. That she probably misunderstood what Mr. Brown was saying. That Mr. Brown no more disapproved of the new, tall boy than he did of Elsa’s best friend, May Sedley. That’s what Dean Williams would say, not even knowing that Mr. Brown also disapproved of May. Yup, Elsa could never go down that road with Dean Williams because she’d never win.

“It’s just that I don’t have time for it,” Elsa explained to the dean. “I’ve started my own club and I need it to be sanctioned by the school. In fact that’s why I’m here. I want to find out how to do all that.”

This mollified Dean Williams in a way that had not satisfied her mother. Elsa steered clear of her purpose for the club, to invent a perpetual motion machine, and that worked in her favor as well. Dean Williams was no science major. She had no undying devotion to technology or the scientific method. She approved of science, naturally, couldn’t deny the handiness of modern inventions and communications, but in her heart, social concerns topped everything. When Elsa explained that she wanted an afterschool activity for herself and her friends that would help some of the students with problem grades get into college, Dean Williams was thrilled to her toes with Elsa’s selfless intention. Not to mention how the effort would boost the school’s stats.

“Well,” Dean Williams cooed, “That’s certainly a good reason and I’ll definitely help you get it sanctioned. You can work on the requirements over Christmas and see me about it after New Years. Follow the rules in the handbook. The application is on Northawken’s website. Just click on ‘organizations’ and follow the links to ‘starting up.’ Here’s my card. Call me any time you have questions. Get everything in place and put together a proposal and send it in as soon as possible.”

Elsa jumped up and ran around Dean Williams’ desk to hug her. “Thank you Dean Williams, thank you,” she cried.

“It’s quite all right, Elsa.”

The dean didn’t know what to do with the outpouring of emotion. “Thanks for stopping by. Robert,” she said to the bullet proof door, “the student is leaving.”

Robert the door opened itself and stated, “Have a nice day.”

“Close,” Elsa said behind her. As she passed through the outer office, the non-ambulatory gray metal box that was Dean Williams’ office assistant, asked if she needed to schedule an appointment.

“No thanks,” Elsa said. The outer door, also bullet proof, opened automatically for her and she left the dean’s office and skipped home. She was elated with the thought of the report she’d have for May who would no doubt be charmed. What a great day. What a great educational system. Opportunities everywhere.