This Is My Brain on Boys (14 page)

He couldn't argue with that, as his mother had often warned her that Dexter suffered from particularly sensitive skin that made it impossible to shake hands, for instance, much less secure a rough rope.

“Here. Take this, I don't need it,” Lauren said, tossing her the heart monitor.

Addie strapped it on and then pivoted to the wall, assessing the best route up. The rocks were different primary colors—yellow, red, blue, green—which must be portentous in some regard. Yellow, she deduced, were easier footing. Blue were safeties. Red were advanced. Green . . . no clue.

Gripping a red, she hoisted her right foot on a yellow
and proceeded in logical fashion. The process provided an interesting challenge vaguely reminiscent of chess. It wasn't just the next move you had to contemplate, but the move after that, and even one after that.

“All right!” Kris shouted as Addie reached the halfway point. He gave the harness a reassuring tug of the rope. Something felt off and she reached behind her to adjust the carabiner, tightening according to the rule of thumb her mother used to sing:

Righty tighty, lefty loosey.

Calling down to Lauren, she said, “See how easy this is?”

“You're, like, only six feet off the ground. As a kid, I slept on a top bunk that was higher.”

Bunk bed, eh? Hmm. Setting her sights on where the wall bent to the overhang, Addie assessed the available rock outcroppings and proceeded accordingly, rising a good twenty feet. Her arm muscles—accustomed to holding books, not pulling up her entire weight—began to ache and her knees were slightly unsteady.

She dared not look down; already her palms were turning moist, thereby raising the possibility of slipping.

“Grab that green rock over there,” Kris said, gesturing to her left. “That'll put you in the sweet spot for the final ascent.”

Except the green rock was a bit of a stretch. In order to
reach it, she would have to extend her leg a good five feet, almost her entire body length.

“Be careful!” Lauren cried.

“You can come down now,” Dex said. “Your heart rate is one forty. That's enough.”

No, it wasn't. At her age, her pulse should be able to exceed two hundred and be fine. Anyway, if she relinquished at this stage, Lauren would refuse to go any higher during her turn and that would defeat the purpose of the experiment.

She had to give it a shot. Reach for the red, swing to the green, right foot on the yellow. Perfect. With a deep, oxygenating breath, she summoned all her courage and followed the plan. Anyway, if she fell, there was the harness and the rope. Backups.

“I'm going for it,” she declared.

Gripping a rock with her right hand, she extended her left foot to the green rock. It was like doing a midair split. Her anterior thigh muscles balked in protest. Tentatively, she reached for the red rock with her left hand. Now she was splayed against the wall like a splattered spider.

“Halfway there,” Kris said. “Hold on. You can do it. I'll keep a tight grip on you while you do.”

She had no choice. Removing her right hand from the safety, she was about to bring her right foot over when she felt another tug and heard an ominous
snap!

This was followed by an “Oh, crap!” as the carabiner she'd just adjusted released the clip, which flew up to the grommet on the ceiling where it remained, a good ten feet above her head.

Addie clung to the wall with all her might. She was thirty feet off the floor, higher than the top story of her house back home. Below her, Kris, Lauren, and Dex were the size of toys. Or so she imagined. She didn't have the guts to check.

“Help her!” Lauren screamed.

Dex read off her heart rate. “It's one sixty-three. And climbing.”

“You're cool, Addie,” Kris said calmly. “There's another rope right off your left shoulder. If you can reach it and hook it on, you'll be back in business.”

She could barely turn her head, much less grab a rope. “I'm afraid that's a negative, captain.”

Lauren said, “We should get Carl. He'll be able to . . .”

“No!” Addie surprised even herself by shouting. “That will only cause administrative problems. Kris is right. If I can get rehooked, I'll be fine. When I adjusted the carabiner, I must have accidentally loosened it instead of the opposite.”

“No problem. I'm coming to get you,” Kris said, throwing the other end of his rope to Lauren and taking to the wall.

“Here we go,” Dex said. “Countdown to disaster. Don't worry, folks, I have 911 on speed dial!”

Addie watched as Kris climbed with sure footing. “You've done this before.”

“Camp in Canada. We had a tradition of racing each other to the top of a cliff every night after dinner,” he said. “None of us had these wimpy harnesses.”

Which raised an interesting question. “What will you do when you get to me?”

“I'll attach my rope to your clip.” He paused to contemplate the best route to get next to her.

“You can't. There'll be too much distance between us.”

Kris was close enough now that they could talk without having to shout. “I agree,” he said. “But not for long.” Two more climbs and he was inches away. “See?”

Addie grinned. She was so relieved to have him next to her. “Thanks.”

“No problem. You look really pretty today, by the way. I don't know what it is.”

A stimulated ventromedial prefrontal cortex,
she almost replied, choosing instead to respond with a simple shrug and a blush.

“One hundred ninety-five and rising!” Dex announced.

Kris reached behind his back, holding on to the wall
with one precarious hand, and undid the carabiner. Then, leaning far to his right, he attached it to her clip and twisted it tight. “There. Safe and secure.”

“But you're . . . free!” Addie said.

He shrugged. “No biggie. Want me to help you down?”

Addie thought about this.

Her hands were sweating so profusely she had to wipe them off on her shorts before each grab. Her heart felt like it was about to crack through her ribs. Every inch of her was screaming to descend to safety, to get off this godforsaken wall with its tricky rocks and ridiculous purpose. Only sick adrenaline junkies would call this fun.

“That's okay,” she said. “I can do it myself.”

“But . . .” Kris went silent as Addie summoned all her courage and forced her left hand to reach for the red rock to the left.

“All the way to the top,” she said shakily, “like I promised.”

He broke into a wide grin. “Me, too. I'll go first so you'll know which rocks to use.”

“I can't look.” Lauren hid her face in her hands.

“You have to look,” Kris called to her. “Because you're holding the other end of her rope.”

“Oh, right.” Lauren scrambled to get the end lying on the mat. Kris climbed all the way up without a safety!

They worked in unison, Addie following his trail. The trick was to keep looking up. If the brain did not know how far off the ground it was, it could not flip the switch into panic mode. Of course, descending would present its own problems, though Addie wasn't worried.

Kris was with her, and just having him around made everything all right.

“You go first,” he said when they got to the top. “Step on that red rock and reach for the yellow.”

She took his advice, and as she passed him, he touched her back to steady her. There was something so gracious about this simple movement that her heart wanted to break. Maybe other people thought she was weird, but Kris didn't. And realizing that, she was overcome with such a boost of confidence that with a burst of energy, she took the next, precarious step and slapped the ceiling.

“Done!”

“Booyah!” Kris said, giving her a fist bump. “And you did it all yourself. No support.”

“Except the moral kind,” Addie said. “From you.”

“Oh my god. Two hundred and twenty!” Dexter shouted.

“That's my pulse?” Addie asked.

“No. That's Kris's. It's gone . . . off the charts.”

But Kris wasn't even panting or out of breath. Hadn't broken a sweat, either. So that heartbeat made no sense,
Addie thought. Unless it had nothing to do with the wall climbing . . . ?

He winked. “Damn monitor.”

Lauren let out a scream. That was how Addie realized that she must have let go of the wall, because suddenly she was dangling in midair, Lauren valiantly holding on to her end of the rope.

“Let her down slowly,” a man's voice said. “Hand over hand.”

Addie swung around to see Carl standing at the computer next to Dex and Dr. Brooks. No one seemed especially pleased—especially Dr. Brooks.

“In my office,” she said once Addie's feet touched the mat. “Now!”

“I
'll take that,” Carl said, removing the rope from Lauren's hands. “You kids had better move along. My group is almost here.”

Lauren watched incredulously as Dex and Addie gathered their laptop and notes and disappeared around the corner with Dr. Brooks. “Hey! What about my extra credit?” she hollered.

Too late. They were out of earshot. Either that or they were simply blowing her off. “Can you believe that?” she cried. “We agree to do their stupid experiment and they just walk away as if we're chump change. It's so disrespectful.”

Kris sat on the floor, removing his climbing shoes,
only half paying attention to Lauren's bitching. Wow, total complainer.

“I would have climbed the wall. Really, I would have. I just wanted them to see what it was like first. Oh, hi, Alex!”

In a flash, her lips reformed from pout to a beaming grin as a poster boy for high-school jock entered the gym. Alex was about Lauren's height—which was, granted, tall—with black hair and deeply tanned skin. Judging from his cocky walk, he played either soccer or lacrosse. Kris put his money on lacrosse, since he was guessing this Alex was his counterpart in Lauren's other experiment.

“Whoa, hey!” Alex returned Lauren's dazzling smile. “What are you doing here?”

“Getting royally screwed.” Whereupon she launched into a tirade about the stupid experiment and how Dex and Addie had “totally lied” about it being a measurement of male versus female reactions to certain situations because they were a couple of “psychos” who made them do things like eat fried Mexican worms. Seriously.

“So, wait, they were going to make you climb that?” Alex chucked his chin to The Beast. “No. Way. Without a spotter? You could have gotten seriously hurt.”

“That's what I told them and they didn't care, even when I explained about making sure I didn't get injured
before field hockey started up and the scholarship and all that.”

“They never make us do stuff like that when it's you and me.” Alex took this as an excuse to touch her, reaching out. “So what's up?”

“I know, right?” Lauren smoothed an errant strand of blond hair behind an ear. “We just stare into each other's eyes and write down our observations. I have no idea why they put me together with . . . oh, sorry, Kris, forgot you were still here.”

Kris had forgotten he was there, too. He had rewound to minutes before, watching Addie biting her bottom lip in focused concentration, bravely forcing herself to finish the climb. He was more nervous for her than for himself, even though he was the one without the lifeline, and the world fell away as he guided her to the top, mentally willing her his strength.

And yet, today's crisis was but one of a series he and Addie had survived in less than a week. They started off with the gut-churning turbulence, then the “shark” attack, and now this. Through it all, Addie had been upbeat, positive, even giddy after the shark incident. Now he wondered if she'd be disappointed to learn that the “thrill” had come from a theater prop.

“Kris?” Lauren snapped her fingers in his face. “Get with it. This is Alex. Your counterpart.”

He stood and greeted him with a quick nod. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Alex nodded back. “You go to school here?”

“That's kind of a loaded question at the moment,” Kris said. “We'll see in a couple of weeks.”

Lauren grabbed her backpack. “Gotta go. Class in twenty minutes. You headed out, Al?”

Alex was so not headed out. He'd just arrived with his gym bag and was obviously at the gym for a workout. But he didn't even hesitate.

“Yeah. Sure. You have lunch yet?” Alex thumbed to the exit.

“No, and I'm starved.” Lauren let him open the door and passed through. “You?”

“Not really.”

Which, in guy speak, meant that of course he'd eaten. Well, good for him. And good for her, Kris thought, tossing his climbing shoes in the bin. Glad some people were happy.

He picked up his phone from the corner, where it was mixed up in his groundskeeper uniform, and winced. Seven messages from Kara. He was in the process of deleting every one when the group Carl had mentioned tromped in, six summer students led by Ed.

Exactly the person he was looking for.

Ed was listening to Carl lay down the rules with the group when Kris strolled over casually, the pack holding
his uniform and work boots slung over his shoulder, and clapped him on the shoulder. “Yo. What's up?”

He turned and nodded, his expression hard to read, though Kris went with wary. “All right, all right. How you doing, man?”

“Not bad.” Kris motioned for them to step away so they wouldn't interrupt Carl's presentation. “Listen, I just want to thank you for what you did yesterday, coming back for Addie and me. That was really solid of you.”

“No problem. Lucky I was in the area. Who'd have thunk there'd be a great white shark in the inlet? When I told Tess, she freaked.”

Kris toed the edge of a mat. “Freaked, huh?”

“Oh, yeah. She lives in fear of those things. Beach girl.” Ed rolled his eyes.

He was slightly shorter and stockier than Kris, light blond where Kris was dark, short hair where Kris's was long, and probably pound for pound packed more muscle. That said, Kris figured he could take him. If forced.

“Now that's surprising,” Kris said, reaching into his pocket.

“Yeah? Why?”

“Because I found this in your boat when I was cleaning it out last night.” He placed the black remote control in the palm of Ed's hand and took a step back for a complete view of his reaction.

Ed turned it this way and that, frowning. “What is this?”

“A remote control. But you know that.”

“I do?” He did an excellent imitation of a confused person. Tess, the thespian, must have taught him well.

“Don't play dumb. I found the shark.”

Ed squinted at Kris like he was insane. “What are you talking about?”

“The mechanical shark? The one Tess's parents got for her from Spielberg when she put on
Jaws
last summer? Seriously. Don't BS.”

“I wasn't here last summer. Tess and I started going out in October.”

A frisson of doubt surfaced in his mind. Kris dismissed this and plowed forward. “It was still wet, dude. It was in the water yesterday and you operated it with that. That's why you happened to be in the exact location where the shark was. It wasn't ‘luck.' It was a prank.”

The tips of Ed's ears turned red, and Kris expected steam to blow from them at any minute. “Look.” He kept his voice low, out of eavesdropping range. “I don't know what the hell is wrong with you, but clearly, you have issues.”

Kris took a step. “I don't have . . .”

Ed put up both his hands for him to back off. “Tess said I should give you a second chance for Addie's sake
even though, you know, why would I do that when you were the one who wrote—”

“I didn't . . .”

“Shut. Up.”
Clearly, Ed's temper had crossed an invisible line, and there was no reeling it in. “Let me finish. The only reason I'm not knocking you flat is because Tess would kill me if I did. But I'll tell you this. I did not put a shark in the water; I wouldn't have done that to Addie. Tess'd kill me if I had.”

When Ed phrased it that way, it all made sense. Of course he wouldn't have teased her with the shark. He and Tess treated her like their kid sister, and they were her self-appointed bodyguards. Kris realized then that he'd made a terrible mistake, one from which there was probably no coming back.

One that could forever turn Addie against him. He needed to set the record straight, fast, before it was too late.

“Hold up,” Kris said as Ed stormed off.

He spun around, fists still clenched.

“I just want you to know that it was Addie that I was worried about. I don't care about me getting pranked. Heck, after what I've done, I deserve it.”

“Got that straight.” Ed flexed his fingers.

“It's just that . . . I like Addie. A lot. And . . . if you were coming after me, whatever. But her . . .” God, what was he saying?

Ed just stood there, sizing him up. Kris braced for the inevitable punch in the gut, to be followed by Carl pulling them apart with a stern lecture and, finally, the meeting with Headmaster Foy, who would present him with a bus ticket back to Boston and a warning never to return.

All because he'd been worried about Addie.

“Look, man, I'm sorry.” Ed uncurled his fists.

Kris shook his head. “Huh?”

“I can understand how you thought I might have done that thing with the shark, but I didn't. Swear I didn't.”

“Okay. Good to know.”

“The thing is, thanks to Tess, when it comes to Addie, I . . . I get kind of protective. It's like . . .” He scratched his military-short cut and winced. “I don't know. I can't explain. It's complicated.”

Ooookay, Kris thought. “No big deal. We're cool.”

“Look, I'll ask Tess if there's a sign-out sheet for props so she can track down whoever took the shark. But I never saw that remote control before in my life, so I don't know where that came from.”

The prop room, Kris thought. Obviously.

Ed walked off, paused, and turned back to Kris. “You might want to give Addie a heads-up, though. I think my guys are planning to get her back for the spike that nearly took you out. They're still claiming that they should have
won by default for that.” Ed nodded to his group, which was suiting up for the climb. “Might be wise for her to sleep with one eye open for the next few nights. I'm just saying.”

Kris felt bad. He didn't want Addie paying for his poor reflexes. “They shouldn't take it out on her. Wasn't her fault; I didn't get out of the way fast enough.”

“Whatever.” Ed shrugged. “Everyone likes a good prank. See ya.”

Kris checked his phone. He had ten minutes to sneak the remote back to the prop room and then report for duty at the lab for a fun-filled afternoon of cleaning gerbil cages and fish tanks, the bathrooms, and mopping all the floors. Pure hell . . . if he didn't have a chance of running into Addie.