The Agent's Daughter (13 page)

“
He looks as if he is
trying to find someone,” Jean said.

“
If he comes over here, I
can ask him about the project,” Melina said.

Jean stood up and waited as Alex’s eyes
scanned the room. When he saw her, she pointed at him and gave him
the one-finger ‘come here’ signal.

Melina smiled and shook her head. “Or we can
just point at him and tell him to come over here.”

Alex nodded and then made his way across the
cafeteria. When he got to Melina and Jean, he stood at the end of
the table, unsure if he should sit down. Melina suddenly became
tongue-tied and didn’t know what to say.

“
Have a seat, mister,”
Jean said, easing things a little.

Melina looked at Jean and gave her a smile.
Not only because she had just helped with the awkwardness with
Alex. Rather, some friends are territorial about their friendships,
and they will undermine their friend’s relations with others, but
it was clear that Jean was not threatened by Alex.

“
Thank you, Jean,” Alex
said as he sat down and turned to Melina. “I only have a few
minutes. Would you like to get together after school and work on
our physics project?”

Melina looked up as she was thinking. The
project was due in two weeks, but she was not going to turn down
spending time with Alex.

“
Sounds great,” Melina
said. “How about if you came over to my house tonight?”

“
Okay,” Alex said. “But I
don’t know where you live.”

Melina took a piece of paper out of her
backpack and wrote her address on it.

“
Here you go,” Melina said
handing the paper to Alex. “What time is good for you?”

“
Is six o’clock too
early?” Alex asked.

“
I don’t think so, but
I’ll call home to check and make sure it is okay. How about we say
six o’clock and I call you if it is not okay.”

“
Get your phone out and
call me now,” Alex said.

Melina got out her phone and dialed the
numbers as Alex said them to her. A few moments later, she heard
the sound of a bunch of cows mooing in Alex’s pocket.

Alex stood up, pulled the phone from his
pocket and answered it. “Hello, this is Alex.”

Melina laughed as she talked into her phone.
“That is the lamest ringtone I have ever heard.”

“
You’re right,” he said,
smiling. “Some friends of mine in Seattle set that ring tone up on
my phone when they found out I was moving to Texas. I just left it
that way. ”

Melina looked over at Jean. “Don’t get any
ideas.”

Alex looked at his watch. “Gotta jet. You
have my number. Call me if six doesn’t work.”

Melina waved as he walked away and then
turned to Jean.

“
Okay, what now?” she
said. “He’s coming over to my house!”

“
Calm down, lady,” Jean
said laughing. “You guys are just getting together to
study.”

Melina looked down her nose at Jean. “You
and I both know it is more than that. I don’t know what to wear.
Should I serve food? Arghh.”

Jean leaned across the table toward Melina
and rested her elbows on the table. “First, I wouldn’t serve food.
Too messy. Have a selection of things to drink and some basic
snacks. Second, wear what you always wear. That’s what he seems to
like, but show him a look that he hasn’t seen already. To surprise
him. Like pairing one of your sweaters with your usual jeans.”

“
I have some sweaters I
haven’t worn this year,” Melina said, trying to picture how they
would look.

“
The tighter, the better,”
Jean said.

“
Jean!” Melina
gasped.

“
I’m just sayin’,” Jean
smiled.

…………………………
.

The doorbell rang at Melina’s house promptly
at six o’clock. Alex stood on the doorstep nervously tugging on his
backpack strap. He looked over his shoulder at his mom sitting in
the car at the curb. She was waiting to make sure that he went into
the house. He waved his arm at her to tell her that she could go.
It was painful enough that he was being dropped off by his mom, but
she also had to wait to see that he was going to be all right. His
mom saw Alex trying to wave her off. She looked down her nose and
shook her head. She wasn’t going anywhere.

Mercifully, the door to the house opened,
and Melina stepped into the doorway. Alex went to say hello, but he
only got his mouth open before he froze, looking at Melina standing
before him. A million thoughts raced through his mind, but they all
related to how fantastic she looked. It appeared Jean was right
about the sweater.

“
Hey,” he said finally,
hoping she didn’t look over his shoulder as he heard his mom drive
away.

“
Hey lab partner. Come on
in.”

Alex came inside and stood in the foyer as
Melina shut the door behind him. He stood a moment and looked
around, taking in the surroundings.

“
That is a cool painting,”
he said as he pointed at a framed painting on the wall of the
foyer.

“
My mom painted that,”
Melina said. “She painted most of the paintings in the house. As my
dad tells it, when my mom and dad first moved in, they couldn’t
afford paintings for all of the places in the house that they
wanted to hang art. So my mom learned how to paint. Now she just
does it as a hobby. They are mostly abstract, but they are
colorful.”

“
Wow,” Alex said, pointing
to another painting further down the hall. “I especially like this
one. What is it supposed to be?”

“
Mom won’t tell us,”
Melina said. “I think it’s a boat on the water, but my dad thinks
it’s a bowl on a table.”

Alex smiled, but then it was quiet. They had
reached that point where the initial chitchat had ended, and both
were so nervous that they did not know what to say next. They stood
there awkwardly in the hallway. Melina finally broke the
silence

“
So, shall we do it?”
Melina said.

Alex stood frozen again. Now he was even
more unsure of what to say.

Melina realized that she
was not clear about what
it
was. “The project, I mean.”

“
Umm…yes. The project,”
Alex stuttered.

Melina laughed to herself about her little
mistake and started to walk down the hallway. She motioned to Alex
for him to follow her. “Come on, we can work at the kitchen
table.”

They walked into the kitchen, and Alex laid
his backpack on the table. He got out his books, papers, and
calculator and set them in careful order in front of him. He made
sure that he placed them at the seat right next to where Melina’s
things were already in place.

“
Is this okay?” he said
once he had finished. “I can sit right here.”

Where he sat, was right where she hoped he
would sit. Next to her.

“
Where you are sitting is
fine,” she said coolly. “Do you have the project
description?”

Alex sat down in the chair and looked
through his notebook until he found the piece of paper that Mr.
Clary had handed out that outlined the project.

“
Here it is,” he said.
“Make a working model that demonstrates the power of magnetism.
Explain the properties and equations involved. Write an essay of
three pages or more on any subject related to
magnetism.”

“
Do you have any ideas for
the working model?” Melina asked.

Alex thought for a moment. “Well… the
obvious thing to do would be to place a magnet on a table and show
metal being attracted to it.”

Melina did not speak but gave him a look and
shook her head.

Alex shrugged and looked down at his notes.
“Okay. Too simple. Another thing would be if we placed a magnet on
a piece of white paper and sprinkled little iron filings next to it
to reveal the lines of magnetic force.”

“
That one has some
potential,” Melina said as she stood up. “But what we need is
something more exciting. Something with more power. Something that
has ….”

Melina was interrupted by what sounded like
something crashing into the walls in the next room. It was just
Travis coming down the stairs. Much to their mom’s dislike, he
insisted on taking the stairs three at a time on the way down. As
if that weren’t loud enough, he often missed a stair and ended up
bumping into the walls creating a telltale dull thud. It was a
sound that the family had become used to. Since the stairs ended in
the kitchen, he liked the last step to be a leap into the kitchen
where he would see how far he could slide on the kitchen tile on
his socks. Today, it sounded as if he were going for the
record.

“
Whoohooooo!” Travis
yelled as he slid across the kitchen floor. He came to a stop a few
feet short of the kitchen table. There would be no new record
today.

“
Duuuude, that was some
fine socksmanship,” Alex said in his best surfer-speak. This made
Melina giggle.

“
Who are you?” Travis said
as he stood up and looked at Alex.

Little brothers can sometimes be blunt.

“
Are you my sister’s
boooyyyyfriend?”

They can also be wildly inappropriate.

Alex blushed and smiled at Melina.

“
Travis,” Melina said.
“This is Alex Winfield. He is my physics lab partner. He is here to
work on our project.”

“
Pleased to meet you,”
Alex said. “Your sister told me about you, but she didn’t mention
anything about us rockin’ the same hairstyle. Haven’t seen many
dudes around here with the longer hair. Nice look, man.”

“
Thanks,” Travis said.
“The ladies like it. They think I am as smooth as melted
chocolate.”

“
The ladies, huh,” Alex
said, smiling.

“
That’s right. My hair has
been down to my collar as long as I can remember. My mom used to …
wait, what did my sister say about me?”

“
She said that you are
quite the physics genius,” Alex said. “Maybe you could hang around
with us and give us some advice.”

Melina, who was standing
behind Travis, waved her arms and mouthed the word
no
. Her brother would be
a tremendous help, but she wanted to spend time with Alex
alone.

Alex looked at her and then back at Travis.
“Ummm.”

“
I’d love to help you
novices,” Travis said, “but I am going over to my friend Wedgie’s
house. He just got the new Mutant Karnage II video
game.”

“
You have a friend named
Wedgie?” Melina asked, with a tone that indicated that there must
be a story to the name.

“
Yeah. One day in fourth
grade, he came to school wearing his pants real low like his older
brother. But this made his underwear totally stick out. He got
about twenty wedgies that day. After that, the name kinda
stuck.”

“
I used to play a lot of
the original Mutant Karnage,” Alex said.

“
You used to play that?”
Melina asked.

“
Heck yeah,” Alex said.
“The central theme of the game is that there is an evil scientist
that has this laboratory. There, you create your own mutant fighter
that has unusual characteristics such as an extra arm or the
ability to run really fast. Then the scientist gives the mutant
some weapons, and it goes out and terrorizes the town. It’s a
hoot.”

Melina laughed and rolled her eyes. “Yeah.
Sounds like it.”

“
No, I’m serious,” Alex
continued. “It’s like real science. You try to make your mutant
have mutations that make it better at terrorizing the town. I gave
mine eyes at the end of its hands so that it could see around
corners just by putting its arm out. It was easier to sneak up on
the townspeople that way.”

“
That’s right,” Travis
said. “I made my mutant consume massive quantities of iron
supplements so that over time it came to have an iron core. Then I
wrapped a wire around its torso hundreds of times. When I connected
each end of the wire to a car battery, the mutant became like a
giant electromagnet. I hooked the current up backwards, so the
magnet repelled bullets and metal weapons. The poor townspeople
didn’t stand a chance.”

“
That’s it!” Alex said.
“That’s what we can make for our project.”

“
An iron-enriched mutant?”
Melina asked.

“
No,” Alex said. “An
electromagnet. I would think that we could get a decent sized piece
of iron at the hardware store. Some wire and a large battery too. I
bet we would get bonus points for creating the magnetism from
electricity.

“
And you could make it
powerful enough to stop metal weapons!” Travis said as he moved his
arms to deflect some imaginary threat.

“
Hmm… I don’t know about
that,” Melina said. “But we could have it deflect something like a
metal pendulum.”

Alex smiled. “Wow. I think we are on to
something. Thanks for the idea Travis.”

Melina looked up when she heard Angela call
for Travis from the living room.

“
He’s in here,” Melina
yelled out.

“
There you are,” Angela
said to Travis. “Are you being a bother?”

“
He’s okay,” Alex said.
“He just helped us with a great idea for our project.”

“
Angela, this is Alex
Winfield,” Melina said. “His father works at Hadron Systems
too.”