A Problematic Paradox Read online

  Miss Giant Longarms, who wore a too-tight sequined guitar T-shirt above a denim miniskirt, finally broke the silence. “Hi, Nikola,” she said. Her excessively high and girlish voice didn’t match. It was like a tiny junior cheerleader talking to me from inside a mailbox made of beef. Rotten beef. The smell of bad meat hit me the moment she spoke, and it was all I could do to keep from retching. She was smiling broadly, I think. I distinctly remember teeth.

  “Can I help you?” I said, cursing the lack of adult supervision on the playground that afternoon. Where was everyone?

  “Yes!” she said cheerfully. “I’m sooooooo glad you asked! We love it when people want to help us, don’t we, girls?” Her friends nodded. The girl reached out to shake my hand. Her hand looked moist.

  I recoiled, which is rude, but I really did not want to touch her. “Who are you? How do you know my name?”

  “My name is Tabbabitha. And we, my dear,” she said as she spread her arms to include her friends, “are going to get you out of this place! You’re going to join our team. Isn’t that great, girls?”

  “Yup,” said the first thing.

  “Uh-huh,” said the second thing.

  “Yah,” said the third thing.

  “Yeeeeah,” I said, marking a narrow opening between the first and second thing I might be able to duck through. “Look, I think your team is great. Big fan, seriously. Whatever you guys are into, I think you’re the best in the world at it.”

  I googled dealing with bullies once. It said to empathize with them, defuse situations with humor or distraction, and, if those fail, get help. Something told me none of those options was going to work. I got the instant impression Tabbabitha wasn’t the kind of girl who even understood jokes that didn’t involve someone getting hurt. I was pretty sure I would have problems summoning empathy for her, anyway. I decided for the immediate yet polite exit plan.

  “Well, hey!” I said, looking at where my watch would be if I wore a watch. “It was great meeting you, Tabitha, but I should be getting—”

  She smiled again, baring teeth that seemed better suited to taking down an antelope than making friends. “It’s Tabbabitha. You’re a lot like your daddy, you know. Very smart, and rather stupid at the same time. It’s irritating, trying to reason with people like you. You don’t listen. Most of you people are smart enough to take directions.”

  I didn’t like the way she’d said “you people.” I didn’t like the rest of what she’d said, either. My fear was fading and I was starting to get mad again. “Look, I don’t know what your problem is,” I said, raising my voice in hopes it might bring an adult, or at least another student, “but I think you should leave me alone.”

  “My friends and I have come to extend an offer,” she said. “We think you’re a bright girl. We’d like you to join us, help us work out a few simple . . . projects, and we promise to leave you and your father alone afterward. That’s all! Don’t you want to get out of this . . . town? Your dad must have oatmeal in his head living in a dustbin like this. It took us forever to find you, in fact.” She leaned unnervingly close. Things were getting creepy. A breeze whirled around us. A dry leaf shook in the air as it fell. “You’ll have fun. Trust me, you want to come with us. Let’s go.”

  As she talked, I was hit with a wave of unease—kind of like the way you feel the day after you’ve gotten over the flu. Normally, the big, ugly moose of a girl could have shut my mouth with a glare, never mind the creepy way she was talking to me, and I actually agreed with her about West Blankford, but nobody insults my dad. That was over the line.

  I leaned in through the eye-watering stench until we were only about an inch apart, and looked her straight in the . . . face? “Listen, Tabbabitha. I don’t know why you want my help. But you’re acting like a real creep, and I can’t help noticing that you smell like microwaved roadkill. I want nothing to do with you, and I’d like to leave now.”

  Tabbabitha stepped back. “I won’t pretend I’m not disappointed, but I am impressed. You’re quite the little firecracker. Normally I take what I want, but it’s better if you offer your assistance willingly. Long story. I’m sure you’ll have a different perspective later. Talk soon!” She shouldered me aside as she shuffle-waddled off the playground.

  Was she using her hands and feet to walk?

  No. That would be weird.

  2

  MR. HAPPYBEAR’S EMERGENCY BACKUP PLAN

  I spent most of the ride home being struck again and again by just how creepy all the things Tabbabitha had said were, especially that last comment—Talk soon. I’d have called my dad, but he never had a phone on him for more than a couple minutes before it was good and lost. I found myself wishing, for the first time ever, that I knew where my Happybear Bracelet was.

  My Happybear Bracelet was some kind of tracking system that was connected to a wireless implant in his ear. It would transmit a message if I pushed a button on the bear’s nose or if I went outside the geographic area I was supposed to be in on any given day. It would also tell him where I was in real time and play audio of what was going on in the room if he wanted to turn it on. You know how every young girl wants to have her parents essentially listening in on everything she says and does and watching her every move? Yeah, me neither. Plus the bracelet was ugly. It was made from thick electrical cable with fabric insulation, attached to a cartoonish bear’s head pendant that was supposed to look happy but looked more like what an evil clown would think a happy bear was supposed to look like. The thing had always struck me as paranoid and overprotective, considering crime in West Blankford was almost nonexistent. Long story short, as soon as my dad had forgotten he wanted me to wear it at all times, I stopped wearing it.

  Besides, what would I tell him? Hey, Dad, I ran into some bullies at school, so keep an eye out for teenage girls asking for favors? What favor had Tabbabitha wanted anyway? She wanted something from me, but she hadn’t said what it was. Maybe she was running some kind of study. Or selling Ghoul Scout cookies. Whatever she’d wanted, it was something she could take, but wanted me to give instead. A kiss? I shuddered at the thought.

  I got the idea that Tabbabitha was probably used to failure in endeavors that didn’t involve intimidation. Maybe boxing was her calling. Or some other activity where long arms and a personality as charming as a garbage disposal would be an asset.

  In the end, I decided life is too short to worry about every little thing strange bullies say. Instead, I worried about what to do when I got home. Maybe I’d try to get the software for version two of my fake UFO up and running. The last one had caused a bit of a problem with the air force, so I was using radar-dispersing materials on the new version, which made it a lot heavier and more difficult to pilot. After that, I thought I might play some video games. Maybe the new Scientific American had come. I had every expectation that the afternoon would be a pleasant one.

  I’ll go ahead and tell you: I’d just completed my last day at West Blankford Middle School. I’m telling you because nobody told me, and I kind of wish someone had. I would have enjoyed riding the bus a lot more if I’d known I’d never do it again.

  The bus let me off in the vast parking lot of an abandoned SuperMart. Did I mention that my home was an old discount warehouse store? No? Well, it was. Dad loved the place—it already had a dedicated data line, so we got great Internet service, the power system was able to support the unreasonable demands we placed on the grid, and the store had enough room for Dad’s equipment and supplies.

  Our living quarters were a pair of mobile homes set up in the back corner of the building where the electronics section had once been. They had been redone, so the accommodations were pretty swanky, if you ask me. One of the homes was for me and held my bedroom, a small living room, and our dining room. The other was for Dad and contained his bedroom, our computers, and a library. It might sound miserable, living alone inside an abandoned warehouse sto
re, but it was pretty great. I almost never had to clean, my front yard was tiled, and I could crank my music as loud as I wanted.

  The bus groaned and drove away the moment my feet touched the concrete. I noticed that Dad had left the front doors wide open, which was not entirely unusual. Dad might be a scientific genius, but if he wore all clean clothes and remembered to make sure his shoes were tied and his socks matched, he was doing pretty good. I made sure to lock up the moment I was inside. You think your dad complains about the heating bill? Imagine heating a building that could hold a couple medium-sized airplanes.

  Our entryway still had a claw game left over from its previous life. I pulled off my shoes and coat and tossed them into the bin, then kicked back onto the sofa, nestled where shopping carts had once been stored. As I’d programmed it to do, the claw grabbed my coat and shoes from the bin, pulled them inside the glass box, and hung them on hooks. It then retrieved the steel-toed boots I liked to wear around the house. I’m particularly proud of that machine, but a lot of good shoes and coats lost their lives to it before I got it right.

  Once my boots were laced, I picked up the megaphone we keep by the sofa.

  “I’m home,” I called.

  The lights were still on, which was typical during the day, and Dad’s golf cart was still where he had parked it to drop me off that morning. We had golf carts because the front doors are a fifteen-minute walk from the trailers due to the labyrinth-like arrangement of equipment and materials inside the building. It was weird that the cart was unattended, but not unheard of. One time, Dad decided to take a walk in the field behind the building because he thought he had seen some rare butterfly. By the time he discovered it had actually been a cheeseburger wrapper and a rather cunning breeze, he was deep into some farmer’s soybean field and needed to hitch a ride home. In his defense, it was a very pretty cheeseburger wrapper. He kept it pinned to a board in the dining room.

  I pointed the megaphone into the middle of the store. “Dad!” I called. “Can I borrow this fuel rod?” I listened to my request echo through the building and die. Me playing with a fuel rod is just the sort of thing that should have freaked him out, but . . . nothing. Peering out the doors, I could see our minivan still parked in the EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH spot. The forklift, delivery truck, and bicycles were still where they belonged, too. He was probably home. Wherever he was, he had wandered off without his trusty golf cart. This situation could mean only one thing: I had an excuse to drive the cart.

  Golf carts are faster than they look, and harder to control, too. I got to the trailers without doing any damage apart from a tiny dent in a copper cylinder marked DANGER CORROSIVE HAZARD. Nothing was leaking or on fire, so I marked the trip a success. My silvery mobile home was just as I’d left it, as shabby and familiar as a pair of old jeans.

  I was feeling a bit peckish, but all I had for food was a dozen leftover Pizzatillos from breakfast. The breakfast dishes were still out, and a pitcher of milk had started curdling on the counter from either the night before or the night before that. I made a mental note to rinse it out in the next few days.

  When a person leaves home and strikes off into the unknown to have adventures, face mortal peril, and perform remarkable feats of daring, I feel they are entitled to a good meal beforehand. At least something warm. Or a granola bar. Really, anything but a dozen cold Pizzatillos would be okay. They’re little tortilla chips wrapped around spaghetti sauce, cheese, and a meat-like substance. The product is microwaved until it’s good and soggy, resulting in something the ads call The Tasty Snack Your Kids Crave! This is mostly true, except for the part that is a lie, which is all of it. Pizzatillos are not tasty, and kids don’t crave them. I think Pizzatillos are referred to as a “snack” in the ads because to call them “food” would count as false advertising.

  I ate all twelve.

  When I checked Dad’s trailer, I found his clothes for the day laid out on his bed. This meant he was still in his pajamas, wherever he was. He was never that forgetful. I wondered if something might actually be wrong.

  One of his cheap cell phones was still on the table (he kept losing them and buying new ones, so we had dozens lying around). I grabbed it, got back in the golf cart, and drove to the security office at the front of the building, dialing every number I had for him, just in case. I heard phones ringing here and there in the building. None picked up.

  My dad is a bit of a nut about security. When you keep several million dollars’ worth of equipment, dangerous chemicals, radioactive isotopes, and proprietary designs inside your house, a dead bolt on the front doors doesn’t cut it. I took the stairs two at a time and found myself in the dim gray office that had once been used to catch shoplifters and now housed the most advanced security system this side of the White House. A bank of green lights on the wall confirmed the video logs from the day were still recording. I’d last seen Dad when I left for school, so I pulled up the video from that morning and watched myself leave on the bus while Dad waved by the front doors.

  The bus passed out of the camera’s sight, and my dad went back inside. Not long after, a single black SUV pulled into the lot and parked in a far corner, as far from the doors as possible. Someone parking in our lot wasn’t unheard of—sometimes people pulled over to mess with their phones, eat lunch, or have a nap, if they had been on the road for a while. Dad hated it and was always strangely worried about anyone on the property. When he saw someone out there, he’d wander out and kindly ask them to get lost after a minute or two. He didn’t make an appearance, but that was probably because he didn’t know they were out there yet.

  I ran the tape forward, zooming through a lot of nothing until I saw something move. I resumed playback and saw Dad walking across the parking lot toward the SUV. How long had it been there at that point? I checked the time on the playback: 3:51 PM. That would have been about ten minutes after my conversation with Tabbabitha. The vehicle had been sitting there for about eight hours at that point. I was trying to see if the SUV was even occupied when the other cars arrived.

  Four black SUVs pulled into the lot and circled past the stopped vehicle, which started and joined the back of the line. The SUVs made a wide, lazy turn and came to a stop by the front doors. This left my dad in the middle of the lot, with five black vehicles blocking his path back inside. Seeming more annoyed than worried, Dad approached the first vehicle, trying to peer through its window. A second later, the window rolled down, and he appeared to be engaging in conversation.

  Four seconds later, Dad stepped back from the door of the SUV and looked around nervously. It wasn’t hard to recognize the universal gesture of checking for witnesses. He was scared or in trouble. My heart began to pound slightly, and I leaned in close. Then I had to lean away because I was fogging up the monitor. Dad was still talking, but at the same time he was edging around the front of the SUV and furtively pulling a phone from his pocket. The passenger door on the front car swung open. A bulky woman flopped gracelessly out into the parking lot, like someone had decided to dump a pile of dead squids on our property. When she straightened, the woman was impressively sized—she looked about a foot taller than Dad. She had long light-colored hair braided into pigtails and unnaturally long arms. The camera resolution was poor, but I knew exactly who it was.

  I called her some names then, but I can’t put them down here, because I’m not allowed to use those words except in special circumstances. Instead, I’m going to tell you the exact opposite of what I said: I called her a little friendly ray of sunshine. I said she was a real peach, and that I hoped she would live a long and happy life, and would end up in heaven someday.

  Seeing Tabbabitha seemed to change Dad’s perspective, too. He stared goggle-eyed at her while she spoke to him. Then she extended her arms like she wanted to give him a hug, which took a minute, because extending those arms was a considerable task. And then Dad ran straight into her embrace like they were old friends! She
wrapped her arms all the way around him twice. Well, it looked like twice, but I figured that was impossible.

  “What are you doing?” I shouted at the screen, which did not respond.

  Dad stepped back and gestured toward the building. It looked like he was inviting her inside. She nodded, and the two of them walked toward the front doors, his arm over her shoulder. A terrible thought occurred to me. What if I was about to see them walk inside and not come out? Was she still in the building?

  Just in case, I grabbed a stapler from the desk, opened it wide, and held it like a weapon while I watched the video. In retrospect, this wouldn’t have been all that useful, unless she came at me with a sheaf of papers she wanted to keep separated, but it was something. If I had been a little more clever, I would have remembered that I met her in person shortly after the video had been recorded, so she couldn’t have hung around long.

  “STOP!” I shrieked at my father. “Don’t let her in! Where’s your brain?”

  As if he heard me, Dad halted and took a second look at Tabbabitha, carefully withdrawing his arm from her shoulder. He smiled quizzically at her; then his expression changed into one of absolute horror. He ran for it, bolting across the parking lot like an Olympic runner, albeit an Olympic runner in fuzzy slippers.

  “Go! Go!” I shouted at the monitor. “Don’t let her get you! Run! Move, Dad!” I was gripping the stapler so hard that it ejected a single staple, which bounced harmlessly off the screen.

  Frightened scientists can move quickly, but unfortunately, so can SUVs. A moment later, the cars had cut him off, and several burly figures “helped” him into the back of one. He didn’t fight them, but there wouldn’t have been much point if he had. Tabbabitha strolled to the cars, looking quite put out, either at being rejected or having to walk that far, and the vehicles left in single file again, as unceremoniously as they had arrived. I fast-forwarded. The tape was nothing but empty parking lot video after that until the bus pulled up to drop me off.