The New Kid (5 page)

An hour later, after the Harrisburg fire department had completely doused the flaming float, Will sat across from Principal Steadman, who tapped a pencil tip on one of his crooked teeth and stared at Will with irritation.

“We’re not getting off to a very good start, are we, William?”

It was of course a rhetorical question but Will nonetheless gave his stock answer, the same answer he’d given over and over whenever he’d found himself in similar situations.

“I made a mistake. I’ll try and do better.”

“A MISTAKE? You call burning down a homecoming float a
mistake
?” The veins in Steadman’s forehead looked like they were about to pop. He took several deep calming breaths, closing his eyes and touching his fingertips to do some Yoga thing, acting like Will wasn’t even in the room. Will wished he wasn’t. Steadman opened his eyes and forced a smile onto his lips.

“Forgive my outburst. I’m working on that. It’s good, William. What you said was good. All is good. Admitting our mistakes, our . . . weaknesses, admitting who we really are is the first step to improving our lives.” Principal Steadman smiled. “I’m going to have to assume this was, as you say, an accident. I promised you a clean slate and that’s just what you’re going to get. So even though you have a history of this sort of thing, I’m going to let this slide and let you off with a warning this time. But please remember, if you cross the line again, the consequences could be . . . severe.”

Will nodded, his nostrils flaring, not out of anger but because he smelled something coming off of Principal Steadman. Slowly Will lifted his head and met Steadman’s eyes. For a split second Steadman’s eyes darkened. Then he smiled and shook Will’s hand.

“William, I’m a good judge of people. And I happen to think that even though you have a pretty damn dodgy past, I believe in my
heart that deep down you’re a good boy. I hope you don’t prove me wrong.”

As Will left the office and made his way toward the bus loading area, kids stared at him and whispered to each other and pointed. There he goes, Torch Boy the fire freak. The New Kid. Will boarded the bus. His first day at his new school was finally over. But his adventure in Harrisburg was just beginning. The hail and the crows might have been a coincidence but the Goth punks were real. As Will rode the bus home he could think of only one thing:
He’s here.

W
ill got off the bus with Natalie and a few of the other kids but didn’t look back at her as he walked toward home. He knew that just being in her orbit was a bad idea; he was pulled toward her like the planets to the sun. He wasn’t sure exactly how he was going to handle the feelings he was beginning to have for this stranger but he knew he would have to keep his distance. Even if she did have a smile that cut right through him.

His house was two stories and constructed of brick with ivy crawling up the front and had a large porch jutting out like a big strong jaw. It had green shutters and a gray slate roof and an attached two-car garage. Will anticipated his mother’s singsong voice asking him how his first day of school had been.
Well, gosh, Mom, let’s see, the bus was attacked by demonic crows, I made the toilet in the boys’ room flood while saving some skinny kid I don’t even know, I inadvertently blew up the homecoming float, forever alienating myself from the head cheerleader and her gang of pretty faces, and now the whole school thinks I’m some kind of whacked out arsonist. How was your day?
Of course Will would say none of that, he would smile and nod or grunt some monosyllable answers like all teenagers. Sometimes being sixteen
came in handy—you could gloss over tons of bizarre behavior and have it all chalked up to being a teen and going through “those awkward years.”

He called out as he entered the house, “I’m home.”

No answer. Good. Will slouched off his backpack, made a quick raid of the refrigerator and scarfed down a couple of brownies with a cold glass of milk, and then, after locking the front door, went down into the basement. Flicking the lights on he saw that all his crates had arrived intact. The basement itself was huge and as such suited Will’s purposes perfectly. He pretended to be an old-school photographer, shooting on film in addition to digital, so he could construct a “darkroom” and thereby restrict entry and keep his real work away from prying eyes. He would get around to building the false wall later. For now all he really needed to do was unroll some thick black plastic and staple it to the overhead floor joists to seal off the first phase of his workspace construction from his mom and Gerald. The basement was always Will’s domain. His mom backed him up unequivocally on this and Gerald, though he grumbled, went along with the edict. Will was sure it was because as long as Will wasn’t anywhere to be seen or heard, Gerald was happy. Out of sight, out of mind. That’s the way it worked.
If only it worked that way with everything
, thought Will.

Two hours later Will heard his mom and then Gerald come home and, rather than risk an awkward intrusion, went upstairs and shared perfunctory greetings with them. While Gerald opened one of his homemade beers and extolled its taste, Will nodded like he gave a crap, had a quick bite of chicken and biscuits, mumbled something about homework, and then went back down into the basement. Two hours after that he had the darkroom set up in the first chamber. Anyone trying to enter had to do so by means of a “light lock,” which meant completing an S turn and then moving through a flap door so that by the time you were in the amber-lit room you were completely turned around, a fact that worked entirely to Will’s advantage. Any parental unit snooping around
would surely miss the fact that Will had put up a false back wall, creating a secret chamber that only he knew about.

Now that his secret chamber was in place, at least with temporary walls, Will went about setting up his futon and unpacking his crates of equipment. He had geological sensor probes and infrared motion detectors and spelunking supplies. He had a well-stocked chemical lab setup and another for weapons design. He had a crate that held his cache of weapons, which he unpacked and inspected. The pulse generator pistol had shifted in transit, but he examined it and it looked fine. And of course he had his computers. Lots and lots of computers; enough computing power, in fact, to service a small university. He was wired in and dialed in to the max. He had to be. His survival was at stake.

He set up his largest monitor, connected to his most powerful XTC 9000 computer, and fired up his
Demon Hunter
game. He fed in some data and the hero on the screen came to life, charged down a hallway, and using a microartillery bracelet, unleashed a barrage of firepower that blasted a horrifying winged demon. He glanced at his kill count. 642. Will smiled. The microartillery bracelet kicked ass, but was nothing compared to his power rod.

Turning his attention away from the game program, Will opened several more crates and set up his chemical analysis and modification lab. Once it was operative he concocted a cleansing healing potion. Rolling up his shirt sleeve, he applied it to his forearm where the Goth punk had sunken in his rusty screw teeth. The salve stung at first but as it began to simultaneously disinfect and heal, the pain lessened. Will watched as his skin repaired itself, the wounds pussing, then scabbing, then smoothing over in a matter of seconds instead of the usual days. It said a lot about how much he had to use it that he’d recalled his precise formula off the top of his head without having to consult the data on his mainframe.

He was rolling his shirt sleeve back down when he heard a noise. His head jerked up to the right and he saw the barest flash of an
image. Eyes, a pair of eyes. Silently cursing himself for leaving a small corner of one of the basement window wells exposed, he grabbed a boltdriver and sprinted out of his secret warren. He took the stairs three at a time and burst up into the kitchen and out the door.

Outside he ducked into a crouch and quickly scanned the yard for movement. There! A figure was darting through the shadows. Fortunately the guy didn’t look too big or strong so Will pocketed the boltdriver and took off running across the dark yard, his feet slipping on the wet grass. The interloper was fast and evasive but Will had experience,
lots
of experience, not to mention time-bending speed, so when the guy zigged Will zagged and leapt into him, knocking him sideways and taking him down with a flying tackle. The guy was slender and strong and had arms taut with muscle, but Will swiftly overpowered him and flipped him over. Then his jaw dropped. It wasn’t a guy, it was a girl. It was
her
. Natalie.

“Back off, you freak!” she shouted.

“Whoa! Um, it’s Natalie, right?” he stammered.

“Yeah, that’s right, it’s Natalie. I don’t think we really met properly before.”

Will was stunned and didn’t see the punch coming. But he sure felt it. Not only was Natalie strong, she had one heck of an uppercut. Will blinked up at the stars, and now she was looking down at him. She looked pissed. “Do you always go around tackling people?”

Will got up rubbing his jaw. He couldn’t help but notice again how she seemed even prettier when she was mad as a hornet.

“Why are you in my yard?” he asked.

“I was out walking, and I was . . . curious. This is my neighborhood, too, you know.” Natalie’s eyes sparkled with life and Will was again flummoxed, this time by his attraction to her.

“What were you doing spying on me?”

“The question is, what were
you
doing in your basement that you didn’t want anybody to see? And what is that thing?” She pointed to the boltdriver, which had fallen out of Will’s pocket.

“It looks like some kind of taser or something. Are you a hood?”

“It’s just a . . . prop. Sometimes I make videos.” Will hastily shoved the boltdriver back into his pocket.

“Uh-huh.” Her tone said she didn’t buy it. “And that goopy stuff you were putting on your arm?”

Will couldn’t answer immediately; he had to think about this. He decided that sometimes the best defense was a good offense.

“I should turn you in for being a peeping Tom,” he said. He started walking back toward his house but stopped at her next words.

“Fine, do that. And I’ll tell everyone I know about your secret little mad scientist laboratory in your basement.”

A voice suddenly blurted from the hedge, “What secret mad scientist laboratory?”

Both Will and Natalie jumped at the sound but relaxed as Rudy emerged from the shadows, crawling out of the hedge, brushing debris off himself.

“What are
you
doing here?” demanded Will. This was not good. Things were quickly getting out of control.

“What’s it look like? I’m snooping, eavesdropping, detecting.”

“Well, you can cease and desist now, and depart,” said Will.

“No way, José!” said Rudy. “I have as much right to know what’s going on here as she does.”

Will looked to Natalie for help.

“He’s not mine,” she said, then added, “So what’s it gonna be, you show-and-tell, or we tell and then you show?”

He would have to make some kind of concession or he’d never get rid of them. He thought quickly. “What do you want?”

“Well, for starters, you could slop some of that magic goop on this,” she said, holding up her elbow. Her long-sleeved T had torn and her elbow was bleeding.

“Magic goop? Cool! Oh, she’s bleeding, I think I’m gonna faint.”

“Please do,” said Will. “That would definitely be your best move.”

“Nobody’s fainting and nobody’s leaving, not until you share, cowboy,” said Natalie.

Will looked around at the trees, which were gently swaying in the night wind. The area looked secure, at least for now. And he couldn’t risk Natalie following through on her threat. These two seemed relatively harmless and he didn’t have to really show them much, just enough to get them off his back. Part of him wanted to show them, wanted to let them in on his secrets. He couldn’t, of course, but surely them seeing a few things wouldn’t hurt. He’d take them down and put on a little dog-and-pony show and be done with it. Shaking his head, he motioned for Natalie and Rudy to follow.

“All right, come with me.”

 

Entering Will’s house they ran smack into April, whose face lit up with delight. Rudy’s jaw dropped. This woman was so retro, she looked like June Cleaver from that old black-and-white show
Leave It to Beaver
. She wasn’t wearing pearls or anything, but she did have on a cotton dress and the way she smiled made him think of old-fashioned moms, not modern ones like his own mom, who wore workout clothes most of the time. Rudy smiled right back at Will’s mom as she spoke.

“I see you’ve already made friends. How wonderful. I’m April, Will’s mother, and that’s Gerald.”

Gerald was in the adjacent room, wearing the world’s ugliest mismatched terry cloth shorts and shirt outfit, complete with ketchup stains. He was glued to the TV, watching the golf channel and chugging his homemade beer, and didn’t even bother grunting in their direction. He did, however, treat them to one of his fire-cracker farts, which delighted Rudy to no end.

“I’m Natalie,” said Natalie, hiding her wound and extending her other hand, which April took. She was about to go on when Rudy butted in.

“I’m Rudy, and your son, Will, I mean, he really stepped up to the plate and saved my butt today, let me tell you!”

“Oh, he helped you with your schoolwork?” asked April.

“No, I was practically in the jaws of death when he—”

Will saw Gerald’s head bob up like he couldn’t wait to hear what a screw-up Will had been on his first day as the New Kid. Will cut Rudy off.

“Yeah, Mom, schoolwork, something like that. Listen, I’m gonna show them my darkroom real quick and then they’re gonna leave.”

“I can bring you some—”