The Accidental Siren (12 page)

* * *

“I call your house three times a day and your
sister tells me you’re too busy to talk. Now you need help with a
science project and you come crawlin’ back. You think I’m that
easy, James Parker?” Whit spun his chair to face Mara. “What’s a
cute girl like you doin’ with this doofus? You can do better. I’m
Whitney, by the way. Whitney Morris Conrad the Third. And welcome
to my bedroom.” He held out his hand.

Mara took it. She was smiling.

This is eaxactly what I was afraid of.

“Dude,” I said, “I’ve been super busy–”

“Don’t ‘dude’ me. And I don’t want your
excuses. Mom thinks we’re not friends anymore. I told her you
dumped a cripple for a silly girl.” To Mara, “No offense,
darling.”

She giggled.
Giggled!

Whit rolled to his desk and pointed up to
shelves that displayed three rows of ribbons and trophies. “Top
shelf is spelling bees, geography bees and Quiz Bowl,” he said.
“Middle shelf is science fairs. Bottom shelf is miscellaneous:
Odyssey of the Mind, Science Olympiad... crap like that.”

“Whoa,” Mara said.

I rolled my eyes.

A string drooped from one end of the shelf to
the other, displaying an unbroken row of Pizza Hut Book-it pins
with five stars each. Whit’s desktop was laid out like a grid with
writing utensils, measuring tools, stationary, and a bin of cubbies
with red labels. A computer monitor dominated the center of the
desk with cords leading to a blocky tower at our feet.

He opened the lefthand drawer and
removed–from a heap of fun-sized candy bars–our production
notebook. “James tells me you want to test your superpowers.”

“He thinks I’m special,” Mara said. “I think
he’s crazy.”

“I rarely agree with a man who abandons his
friends, but I think his hypothesis is right. Heck, you’re the
prettiest girl
I’ve
ever seen.”

I scoffed.
When did Whit become a ladies
man?
“Just show us your plan, Romeo.”

He opened the notebook to a list of
meticulous bullet points and flipped on the computer monitor for
even more information. “Part one,” he began, “asks the question: is
Mara prettier than other girls? Part two is the hypothesis: if we
compare her to twenty other girls, we believe that Mara will be the
prettiest. Part three, the experiment: I propose we find yearbook
photos of the hottest girls in school–maybe add some pictures of
girls from our families–and show them to a diverse group of
strangers who will rate the overall attractiveness of each girl.
Part four: we analyze the data and draw conclusions.” Whit closed
the notebook and turned himself around. “Well?”

I looked at Mara. “Whaddya think?”

She shook her head. “I think you’re both
nuts!”

* * *

“Tell us! Tell us!” Mara said, bouncing on a
quilt of beautiful photographs.

Whit tore a page from a Reader’s Digest
magazine and pressed his hobby knife around the “after” picture of
a successful weight-loss program. “I’m working on a new
invention.”

Mara clapped. I rolled my eyes.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Well, everybody knows that the best part of
Lik-M-Aid Fun Dip is the candy stick–”

“Duh,” she said.

“So I thought to myself, ‘Why dip a perfect
stick into inferior sugar?’ And the Candy-Stick-Flavored Fun Dip
was born.”

“Whoa...”

Whit noticed Mara’s genuine interest and
embellished his pitch with flamboyant hand gestures. “I’m going to
pulverize two candy sticks into powder, then repackage the dust
into miniature baggies. When I distribute the candy at school, I’ll
include an uncrushed candy stick for dipping.”

I scoffed. “You think kids’ll dip their candy
stick into more candy stick?”

Mara licked her lips. “I’m already
drooling.”

“The trouble is turning a profit. The extra
sticks are expensive. But then I realized I can sell the unused
flavor packets for ten-cents apiece to hardcore sugar junkies
looking for a cheap rush. For my high-end clients, I’ll push the
Candy-Stick-Flavored Fun Dip as ‘the purest candy high without
sucking a sugarcane.’ If I market this right, I can charge two
bucks per baggie, save enough to buy the sticks in bulk... and
we’re lookin’ at massive profit margins.”

“That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever heard,”
gushed Mara.

“Would you buy Candy-Stick-Flavored Fun Dip?”
he asked.

“I would
totally
buy
Candy-Stick-Flavored Fun Dip.”

I held the cardboard package for a Star Wars
action figure and worked my scissors around a photo of Princess
Leia in her bronze bikini. “Whit’s a nerd,” I said.

“That’s why James and I get along,” he
quipped, “we’re both nerds.”

“That’s what we call a ‘Whitty remark.’”

Mara laughed. “How did you nerds get to be
friends?”

“Ha!” Whit exclaimed. “We’re friends because
moms talk.”

I placed Leia in the “hot” pile and continued
the story. “I invited Whit to my eighth birthday party at the
roller rink. Because I was a nice guy and didn’t exclude him, our
moms assumed we were best buds.”

“They set up another play date–”

“And the rest is history.”

Mara grinned. “Neat.”

Minutes later, she excused herself to the
bathroom (to check her lipgloss, I assumed since I couldn’t imagine
her doing anything else in there) and Whit and I continued our
project.

“I can’t believe she’s actually sitting on my
bed!” he said. “I’m never washing these sheets again.”

“Get over it, butt munch.”

“I know, I know... you saw her first.”

“Better believe it.”

Whit exchanged his knife for a pair of lefty
scissors to cut his aunt from a family photo. “We’re both only
children. We both like Snickers bars. We both think Luke Skywalker
is a whiny little brat... That’s a lot to have in common, don’t you
think?”

“I think you better keep your grubby little
hands off her.”

“I can’t believe you let the three stooges
meet her before me. Thanks a lot, buddy.”

“They didn’t ‘meet’ her. They tried to kill
her. A.J. went back to the Grisham house. Stole a tape of her
singing.”

“Let the redneck have it. He’ll wear out the
tape in a couple of days. Hot damn, Mara’s good lookin’.”

“Yeah...”

“And what a fine pair of melons!”

“Melons?”

“Boobs.”

“I know what melons are. But she doesn’t even
have–”

“Welcome back, darling!” Whit exclaimed in
time to shut me up.

Mara struck a pose in the doorframe and
showed off a pair of Whit’s Batman boxers pulled over her shorts.
She deepened her voice. “How do I look, boys?”

“Holy Hannah,” Whit said. “You with those
curves, and me with no brakes!”

She rolled her eyes and sauntered in. “What a
goof!”

I shook my head. “My friend here has a
disgusting sense of humor. It makes up for his missing legs.”

Whit shrugged and nodded. “You know how blind
people have better hearing? It’s sorta like that.”

Mara lowered her head like a hyena, eyed the
pile of photos, grinned an evil grin, and charged. “Cannonball!”
she screamed and dove knees-first onto the bed, sending photos of
pretty girls into all corners of the room. Upside down, she
overtook the bed and her knee came to rest against my thigh.
“What’s next?”

* * *

It was my idea to perform the experiment at
the beach. Four miles of coastline separated the castle from the
tourist trap called Grand Harbor State Park, but there were enough
local lakeside homes to populate our sand with visitors.

The sandy staircase presented a problem for
Whit. He made Mara cover her eyes, then scooted down the steps
while I followed with the chair.

Twelve years in Michigan and Mara had never
been to the beach. Mom bought her a teal one-piece for the occasion
which she wore beneath a summer dress. For the experiment, she
donned the blue shades from the costume bin, secured her hair
beneath a backwards cap, and stormed the shore with kinetic
enthusiasm.

“Excuse me, sir, do you have a moment to look
at some pictures?”

Nobody could deny her pep. When they agreed
to help, I pulled out my Canon A-1 camcorder, Whit snapped open the
notebook, and Mara fanned twenty photos for the victim to peruse.
“Take a look at these pictures and tell me which person you think
is the most attractive.”

We scored fifteen interviews in the first
hour and captured on tape a variety of responses.

Male, thirty-two years old: “I think this
one’s adorable.”

Female, asian, thirty-five years old: “She
looks just like my daughter!”

Male, sixty-eight years old: “This girl has
an old-world charm. Reminds me of a young Veronica Lake.”

Male, nineteen years old: “You’re kidding me.
I swear she looked legal!”

Female, twelve years old: “I want this girl
to be my best friend.”

One boy slipped his arm around Mara and told
her she was prettier than anyone in the photos.

Another guy was walking the beach with his
girlfriend. When Mara pulled out the pictures, he exclaimed, “Do I
look like a pedophile?” then noticed the picture of Mara... “That
one,” he said. “Definitely that one.”

Another boy snatched the Polaroid of Mara,
bolted down the shore, and put an end to the first half of our
beach experiment.

On the steps, Whit scanned the results.

“What is it,” I asked. “Like, a hundred
percent Mara?”

He sighed. “I think we need to up the
ante.”

We returned to the house for peanut-butter
sandwiches and lemonade, then scoured Mom’s “Good Housekeeping” and
Livy’s “Seventeen” to give Mara tougher competition. Child models,
lingerie models, Sharon Stone, the girl from “My Girl” (my pick),
Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman (Whit’s pick), the robot girl from
“Small Wonder” (Mara’s pick), and more. We snapped a new Polaroid
of Mara to replace the stolen picture, then spent the rest of the
afternoon at the beach.

Thirty-eight people were interviewed.
Thirty-eight people selected Mara as the most attractive. Some
called her “pretty” or “cute.” Others called her “precious.” A few
called her “sexy.”

Around 5:30, a pinpoint of light caught my
attention from the castle tower. It was a pocket mirror; Dad’s
nerdy way of calling us in for dinner.

We kept the results to ourselves at Mara’s
request. It was “weird,” she said, and explained that she didn’t
want to make Livy feel bad, especially since we used her photo for
comparison. “Your parents’ll think I’m crazy.”

Whit slept over. At 10:30 the boys and girls
were sent to separate rooms, but parents forget that bedtime only
marks the beginning of a twelve-year-old’s imagination. The proof
of Mara’s ability spurred more and more questions, and we stayed up
until three o’clock hypothesizing other powers and inventing ways
to test them.

“Her voice!” Whit said, and I told him
no.

The next morning, we proposed our ideas to
Mara. She loved the prospect of superhuman abilities and
participated fully in our barrage of silly experiments.

We tested for a sixth sense: telepathy,
telekinesis, bending spoons, something Whit called “omni-linguism,”
mental projection, teleportation... even flying. I don’t need to
tell you she failed every test... but not without an abundance of
bonding time and scores of laughter.

“I bet you’ve got more powers,” I said, “you
just gotta figure out how to control ‘em.”

In the end, Mara was satisfied with her gift
of “cuteness,” but asked to set aside the experiments to focus on
the fairytale. Whit and I agreed. It was time to make a movie.

* * *

“Are you kiddin’ me?” Whit zipped from his
hiding spot in the closet to the safety of the folded ping-pong
table. He took a shot with his suction-cup dart gun, but missed.
“You’re a real buzz-kill, Jamesie-boy.”

I poked my head from the trench of pillows
and worked another Nerf arrow onto my plastic bow. “All I’m saying
is that we know what happens when other boys find out where she
lives. They broke into her house! I just don’t see how we can shoot
the war scene without–” Another dart whizzed by my head.

“She’s gonna get us friends!” Whit said.
“She’ll make us popular! It’s perfect timing!”

“Yeah, but–”

“Shut up and listen.” He rolled into the
open–unarmed–and made a “T” with his hands. “We need to show this
girl off. For once in our lives we have something totally awesome
that nobody else has, and you wanna giver her a suit and glasses
and turn her into Clark Kent!”

“She’s too special.”

He sighed. “Don’t rule it out, okay? We’ll
move the war scene to early August. That way we can see how the
first scenes go, then if there’s nothing out of the ordinary, we’ll
invite a few kids to your house for a film shoot and sleepover.
That was your idea, remember? Your parents’ll be there, Livy’ll be
there, and we won’t make Mara do anything she doesn’t want to do.
Just don’t rule this out yet, okay?”

I nodded, “We’ll see what happens.” I grabbed
my bow, pulled back the plunger, and shot Whit in the chest.
“Gotcha.”

* * *

There was one more experiment I proposed to
Mara alone in the cave between the walls. “What if you can heal
yourself?” I asked. “What if you can never get sick, never get
hurt, or never die?”

Mara looked at me with an expression so
devoid of emotion that I feel her pain today. Without a word, she
removed her left tennis shoe and rolled down her sock to reveal a
mark so obvious that I wanted to shoot myself in the head for the
suggestion. A ring of flaky tissue encircled her ankle where the
handcuff held her to the stage, emphasized by a fading rim of green
bruise.