Authors: Walter Greatshell

Mad Skills (9 page)

BOOK: Mad Skills

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“Well, I mean, we’ve always spent so much time in the car. You’re both always complaining about the traffic and the gas prices. I kind of think that even had something to do with the divorce, right? The fact that you guys never had any time together? What with commuting to work and driving me everyplace. Couldn’t we have just lived a little closer to the city?”

Caught off guard by this peculiar non sequitur, her parents fumbled for a reply. Her dad was first to come up with something:

“Maybe, but your mother and I decided even before we got married that the first thing we wanted to do was make sure we lived in a place where it was healthy to raise a child. A real neighborhood, away from all the crime and pollution, with decent schools and a sense of community—like we had when we were kids. We wanted you to be safe.”

He said these last words with a crack in his voice, sad eyes welling up in the rearview mirror.

Sidestepping the emotion, Maddy pressed on.

“Okay, but what about the larger issues? I mean, don’t crime and pollution just get worse if people like us bail out? What happens to those people who can’t leave? Is that fair? I mean, how safe are we in the long run if millions of kids grow up without a stake in perpetuating the culture? No wonder there’s crime. And you guys are always complaining about taxes, but isn’t it taxes that subsidize this suburban lifestyle—all the roads and utilities and everything? Wouldn’t it be more patriotic to all work together to make better cities and schools for everybody? Leave nature alone? Look how dead it is out here—there’s no creativity, no individuality. No sense of history. And speaking of pollution, just think how much carbon dioxide we’ve generated driving a hundred miles a day for all these years. Plus the oil spills. And isn’t it ultimately people like us who are responsible for this war? If not for oil, we wouldn’t even be in the Middle East. We should have a bumper sticker that reads, Support the Sheiks.”

Her parents listened with baffled unease, then her father said, “Well, honey, that’s true I suppose … but our whole economy depends on oil. It’s because of oil that we have the standard of living we have in this country. Would you rather live like this or like someone in the Third World, with no car, no television, no refrigerator or air conditioner? No cell phone or modern convenience of any kind?”

“But Dad, that’s not the choice. There are plenty of alternatives to oil. And for sure better technologies than this primitive, internal-combustion deathmobile. The basic mechanism hasn’t changed for over a hundred years—obviously it’s all about money! I can’t even believe we still drive these things. We might as well still be hand-cranking an old Model T.”

“Well, Maddy, what would you have us drive? A bicycle?” Her folks laughed at the absurd notion.

Maddy considered the question, and immediately began assembling materials in her head.

“No. But something clean. Preferably that flies. That way, you not only eliminate traffic but the need for roads.”

“Flies! That’s good. Hey, I’d like that, anytime we ran into traffic, we could just—zoom! Up in the air.”

They were humoring her; Maddy barely heard them. An ideal city rose from the plains of her mind—a city swarming with clean, green, bubble-topped vehicles.

“Something solid-state,” she continued. “Without moving parts to wear out. Frictionless … silent. Okay: Redundant contrarotating turbines with piezoelectric actuators, magnetic-repulsion bearings, universal GPSBASED guidance algorithm so nobody needs a pilot’s license. Hydrogen-biofueled using on-demand electrolytic solar nanoconverters—it’d be easy.”

“Easy!” Her folks hadn’t understood anything she’d just said.

“Sure. The technology’s pretty much available in one form or another. It just has to be put together and mass-produced.”

“Oh, is that all?”

“Well, if we don’t do
something
, we’re screwed.”

They were quiet the rest of the drive into Denton. For some reason, their street was blocked off, but the cop waved them through the barricade. At last they pulled up into the driveway of their house, a prefabricated split-level ranch on a hump of lawn, sweating under a veneer of powder blue vinyl siding. So familiar and yet so … not.

It had never really felt like home after her dad moved out. During the divorce, he’d bought a small condo in a nearby town. Feeling needy, Maddy hoped he would stay—maybe her folks could be persuaded to set aside their differences for one night. Under the circumstances. Attempting to broach the subject, Maddy realized that her mom was crying again, weeping quietly into a handkerchief—not at all like the sobs of gratitude and relief she had been crying earlier. Clearly, she was upset about something.

“Mom? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Don’t worry, honey. It’s just … everything that’s happened today. It’s been a little much for me—I’m a bit overwhelmed. Don’t pay any attention, I’m being silly. Come on, let’s go inside.”

They unloaded her hospital things from the car and went up the walk, her parents on either side as if ready to catch her. Dad unlocked the door and held it open. The living-room drapes were pulled; it was dark inside. As Maddy stepped over the threshold, the lights suddenly came on, and fifty voices shouted in unison,
“SURPRISE!”

NINE

HOMECOMING QUEEN

IT seemed as if everyone in the neighborhood was there, as well as her entire extended family: all the distant cousins and nieces and nephews and great-great-aunts, most of whom she barely knew, all rushing up to greet her. There were balloons and streamers and a mountain of presents. A table loaded with pink cake and lime sherbet. From one end of the room to the other hung a banner reading, WELCOME HOME, MADDY!

Her legs weakened, and she was helped to sit down.

What was there to say about the party? The best thing about it was that it didn’t drag on too long—everybody had obviously been told in advance that she still needed time to recover. That she might be a little … off.

Actually, after the initial weak spell, Maddy felt pretty good. She knew she looked like death but began to enjoy playing it up a little bit—why the hell not? Hadn’t she earned it? For the first time all day, she actually had an appetite. People jumped to fetch whatever she asked for; she hardly had to lift a finger.
Cake? Sure. Chips? Okay, and could I also get some of that dip? Pizza? Oh, thanks. How about a nice lime float? Sure, why not?

They were all so eager to help, she felt like Snow White among the Seven Dwarfs. It was fun being the center of attention, basking in public sympathy: Drama Queen for a Day.

They didn’t crowd her, but most folks were clearly amazed by her “miraculous” recovery—Maddy was reminded that for over a year they had been accustomed to seeing her as a near vegetable. She knew she had been home a number of times during the course of her rehabilitation, staying at a nearby hospice and even attending special-needs classes at her high school. Apparently these outings had made her something of a local celebrity: That poor Grant Girl. Ugh. While she hated the idea of everybody gawking at her in such a helpless, unattractive condition, it did amuse her at first how freaked out they were by her unexpected return to the living. Then it started to become annoying:

People cooing and petting her as if she were a cat, or talking too loud, enunciating each syllable as if communicating with a deaf foreigner. Being overly hearty, bellowing how
terrific
she looked … or the opposite, clucking about how
awful
she looked—right in front of her! And then practically jumping out of their skins when she said, “
Hello
, I’m right here.” The one person she would have liked to talk to was Ben’s dad, Sam Blevin, but he wasn’t at the party.

“Weh-heh-hell. If it isn’t the unsinkable Maddy Grant. Hello there, young lady. Welcome home.”

It was burly Leo Batrachian, principal of her school and deacon of her church. Maddy had rarely ever spoken to him before.

“Thank you, sir.”

“I’m delighted to see you doing so well. It’s really quite remarkable. The difference.”

He was studying her as though appraising a piece of furniture.

“I know. That’s what they tell me. I don’t really remember much that happened while I was … out.”

“No, I wouldn’t think so. It’s such a shame what happened to you and that poor young man … but we can take comfort knowing he’s in a better place. As for yourself, it would seem your work on this Earth is not finished. Incredible what they can do now. A new medical procedure, I understand. Something experimental, using wires?”

“I guess.”

“Well, however it’s done, I’d go so far as to call it a miracle. And I’ve seen a few! On the news they said it could revolutionize the treatment of a great many mental disorders, from Alzheimer’s to—”

“It was on the news?”

“Oh yes. Of
course
. And now that you’re home, they’ll certainly want to interview you. I know Eyewitness News and Action Six both wanted to have camera crews here today, but the hospital prevailed upon them to allow you a quiet homecoming with family and friends. No doubt they’ll be out in force two weeks from now, recording your return to school. Having seen you myself, I can understand their interest—it’s truly a marvel.”

“School? What do you mean, two
weeks
?”

“Yes, didn’t you know that? Your parents were encouraged by your doctor—Dr. Plummer, I believe—to enroll you in classes at once, as a matter of helping speed your adjustment. Immersion Therapy. Back on the horse, as they say! I apologize; I thought you knew. You’ve been given a clean bill of health, and having spoken to you now, I can’t think of any reason you shouldn’t return to us posthaste. All your friends are eager to see you. You’ll be a year behind the rest of your classmates, but I think that’s a small enough price to pay, don’t you? Holiday’s over, my dear!”

He chucked her playfully under the chin without actually touching her.

Maddy could tell from the principal’s demeanor that there were things he was holding back. He was a very large man, stout but not flabby, and she had always thought of him as a powerful, intimidating presence, someone to be given a wide berth. You did not want to be called into his office. The horror stories were legion.

Yet hunkering before her now, his head bared as though paying obeisance, Principal Batrachian wasn’t nearly so imposing. In fact, he was utterly without substance, a plus-sized empty suit. His respiration, dilated pupils, rapid eye movements, and awkward posture all suggested he was deeply anxious about something. Studying her.

Maddy didn’t press it—most of her well-wishers were equally reticent, equally strange. It had to be unnerving to see someone you knew go from being a human to a zombie to a human being again—she was getting used to the reaction. But the principal had always been such a larger-than-life, almost God-like figure, that Maddy was disturbed to see through him.

“Mr. Batrachian, did you know that stars are like carbon factories? That’s where the carbon in our bodies comes from. It’s what makes life possible.”

“Oh … yes?”

“And when a star collapses into a white dwarf, those carbon molecules inside it crystallize to form a diamond. Imagine that: a single diamond with more mass than our whole planet.”

“That’s … very interesting.”

“I think so, too. Eventually, of course, the white dwarf cools off and becomes a brown dwarf. Goes dark. For all we know, there are millions or billions of these giant diamonds floating around the universe.”

“Really. Hmm.”

“Yup.”

“Well, the Lord moves in mysterious ways,” he said. “It certainly wouldn’t surprise me.”

“Why do you think God would make these diamonds?”

“I couldn’t begin to say.”

“Do you think God works according to the laws of physics?”

“God works according to His own laws.”

“Are those the same as the laws of physics?”

“I wouldn’t say so, no.”

“Did God make us according to the laws of physics?”

“No. He made us by an act of Creation.”

“Just like the rest of the universe?”