The Weight of the World (14 page)

“Thanks,”
Zach grumbled, “it was.”

They
forwarded through the footage for a moment, watching other cars come
and go in fast-forward. Then the screen went black. “Well that's
odd. The camera stopped.” He pressed a button on the console and
then jammed it a few more times with his index finger. “Hey,
Jerome. This camera's still not working.”

“Huh?”

“Hasn't
been running for twenty minutes. It's broken.”

“What?”
Zach bellowed.

“Calm
down,” Jerome said. “Ain't nobody dropped a spoon on your car.
That's crazy.”

“There
was a big spoon-- or a ladle-- it was a giant ladle on my car. I saw
it.”

“Maybe
you've been struck by lightning too many times,” Max suggested.

Zach
took a deep breath. He could feel the surge of energy bubbling up in
his chest and he knew that, if he let himself go, he would have
another incident like the two on the football field last fall. It
would be a lot harder to explain indoors.

“Listen,
kid, I'm gonna call the police. You think hard about that ladle
story. If you're pulling my leg...”

“I'm
not pulling your leg,” Zach growled. “Just tell the cops I'll be
waiting outside.”

Zach
got up, knocking his chair over, and marched back outside. The sky
had clouded over and thunder was starting to rumble. Great. Now the
car was going to get wet, too. He sat down on the curb as heavy drops
started to fall and stewed in his own misery.

A
navy blue Volvo, a throwback from the 80s, pulled up. Minnie rolled
down the window. “Why are you out in the rain?” she asked. She
had just gotten off of work.

Zach
got up and crossed to the car. He leaned against the passenger side
window to answer her. “Uh... my car is wrecked.”

“What?
The Thunderbird?”

“Yeah...
there was a giant ladle on it and then it was gone and security
thinks I'm crazy. Cameras didn't get it and the cops are on their way
now.”

Minnie
put the car in park.

“Zach,”
she said. “Giant ladle?”

“I
know it sounds strange, but it didn't just fall from the sky.”

“Zach,
it might have.”

Zach
took a deep breath. He closed his eyes and groaned. “Shit. And all
this time I've been assuming it's a football prank.”

“Ladle?
Dipper? Big Dipper? We made the constellations, Zach, according to
myth.”

“So
it might be--”

“Don't
tell the cops about the ladle. And get in the car. You're getting
soaked.”

Zach
climbed in the passenger seat. Minnie turned the heat on for him and
handed him a small towel from the back seat. “We should go over
your story before they get here. You got outside and found the car
totaled. No ladle, got it?”

The
police took Zach's statement and AAA towed his car. When all was said
and done, it was past dinner time and Zach's mom had called to find
out where he was. Minnie offered to stay and give him a ride home and
Zach was grateful to accept it. He didn't want to wait for his mom to
get to the mall, and he wanted to talk about the possibility that the
ladle was Pantheon related.

Minnie
had cranked up her stereo while she waited for Zach, and when he
opened the passenger door to duck in from the rain, he was assaulted
by a symphony of heavily distorted guitars and violins. “Woah, this
is what you listen to?”

Minnie
turned it down so he could hear her over the female singer's operatic
vocals. “Not what you expected?”

“Not
at all.” Zach listened to Dave Matthews. He had never pegged Minnie
as a girl who listened to metal.

“I
am a goddess of war, you know.” She put the car in drive and pulled
out of the mall.

“Still
got that towel?” Zach asked.

“In
the back.”

Zach
turned in his seat and reached back. His hand landed on a glossy
black skate helmet covered in stickers. “What's this?”

“My
derby gear,” Minnie said.

“Derby?”

“Roller
Derby. You know, girls skating in circles, knocking each other down.”

“You
do that?”

“Well,
I have to be on the junior league team until I'm twenty-one.”

“You
don't seem like the type.”

“And
apparently I don't seem like the type for symphonic metal either. You
don't know me very well, Zach.”

“No,
I guess not.” Zach picked up the helmet and read the back of it.
“Hermione Danger.”

“That's
my derby name, though it's taken in the WFTDA registry, so when I get
to move up in a couple years I'll have to coin a new one. I'm
thinking JK Rolling.”

Zach
laughed softly. “You're full of surprises.”

Minnie
turned the radio off completely. “We should probably be worried
about this dipper,” she said.

Zach
set the helmet down in the back. “Do you think whoever did it meant
for me to be in the car?”

“I
don't know. Maybe, but not likely in a parking lot. And if they were
close enough to come retrieve the dipper in that short of notice,
then they probably would have attacked you anyway. Or there's the
possibility they can make the thing vanish. I mean where did they get
it? From the actual sky? Does that mean they could send it up there
again?”

“Or
was it actually a football prank and we just withheld evidence from
the police?”

Minnie
shook her head. “You said it was thirty feet long. Traffic out of
here is tough enough in a Volvo. Add a trailer long enough to carry
it and you wouldn't be able to pop in and pop out in that amount of
time. Plus, like I said, where else would they get it? If it's heavy
enough to crush a classic car, made out of
real
metal, then it's not likely some gimmicky soup kitchen sign.”

“Not
very bright, whoever it was, attacking me. There are easier targets
in the group.”

“If
I were trying to kill us, I'd attack you.”

Zach
just looked at her with his eyebrow raised. Minnie read the confusion
in the silence.

“Any
sensible opponent would cut off our head first and watch us squirm.
In the chaos, without a leader, we'd be easy pickings. The ladle was
likely a warning.”

“Then
maybe we ought to warn the others,” Zach said.

Minnie
nodded. “I think so. I'll send out an email blast tonight
explaining the situation.”

She
turned down Zach's street. He sat in silence, thinking about what she
had said about cutting off the head. He'd have to start being a lot
more careful if someone was really out to get them. It was foolish to
think that Epimetheus and Prometheus were the first and last of their
enemies.

He
turned his gaze to Minnie. He had always thought of her as the group
encyclopedia. Now he was starting to see her as warrior goddess. It
was a strange lens to view the tiny girl through.

“This
is you, right?” she asked as she pulled into the driveway of a
yellow house. Zach's mom had a little four-foot garden in the front,
and their narrow strip of lawn had one of those mirror lawn globes on
it.

“I
know you're mad about the car,” Minnie said, putting the car in
park. “I mean, it was a really nice car.”

“My
dad gave it to me,” Zach said, “on my sixteenth birthday.”

Minnie
glanced over at the house. She was sure she had never seen Zach's Dad
at any of the school events, at least the ones she went to. The house
they sat in front of was modest. It didn't look like someone who
could afford to give classic cars as birthday presents lived here.

“Are
your parents divorced?” Minnie asked. Come to think of it, had Zach
mentioned his Dad at all in these past weeks of spending time
together?

“Since
I was a baby. Dad lives in Orlando. I see him once or twice a year.”

“But
that's so close.”

Zach
shrugged and looked down at his lap. “It was a nice car. It was my
car.”

“I'm
sorry, Zach.”

Zach
nodded and unbuckled his seat belt. “Thanks for the ride.” He
hesitated with his hand on the door handle.

“Everything
okay?” she asked. Zach had spent a lot of time with Minnie over the
last few weeks. She had become his confidant. He felt closer to her
than Lewis these days.

Zach
turned back and leaned across the center console. He closed his eyes
as he pushed forward. His lips met Minnie's hand.

“What
are you doing?” she asked.

“I
just thought...”

“Zach,”
she groaned. “Ew, no. I mean no offense, but no.”

Zach
sat up and furrowed his brow. When was the last time he'd been
rejected? Never, perhaps. “I don't get it.”

“You
and I would be terrible together.”

“What
are you talking about? We get along great.”

“Zach,
you're all passion. I'm logic. You're Kirk and I'm Spock. Not to
mention you're still in love with June.”

Zach
snorted, “Am not.”

Minnie
just stared at him. Zach looked down at his hands.

“I'm
not really in to dating, Zach. I have way more important things I
want to spend my time on and-- no offense-- if I was going to be with
someone, I would want an intellectual equal and I just haven't met
one yet.”

Zach
didn't know what to say. He was humiliated.

“We're
going to pretend this never happened, okay?” Minnie said. She
pointed to the passenger-side door. “So go inside. Have some
dinner. Shout about what happened to your car. In the morning we'll
pretend you didn't just try to pull a move on me.”

Zach
nodded, relieved that she had offered him an escape route. He stepped
out of the car, into the pouring rain and ran into his house. His
mother greeted him at the door with a hug and a reheated meal. Zach
Jacobs had just survived his first ever romantic rejection.

June
Herald's phone chimed. She picked it up, finding a Twitter
notification waiting for her. Her username was mentioned with a link
to “new, hot gossip” by Discordia. June signed on to her laptop
and clicked the link. A bright page with a golden apple at the top
came up. It was the Discordia gossip blog.

The
top of the article featured a zoomed-in photo of Zach leaning over
the center console of Minnie Rutherford's car. The photo was taken
from the street view, looking over Minnie's shoulder as Zach leaned
in to kiss her in front of his house. June's heart took off.

New
Romance for Jilted Quarterback

Zach
Jacobs, known to Olympia Heights football fans as “Lightning”,
has finally moved on after ending his long romance with preppy
redhead June Herald this February. The lucky lady is a dark horse in
the race for Jacobs' heart. Miranda Rutherford, known as the girl who
always has her hand up in class, is sporting a new look for her new
boyfriend.