DEAD HORIZON — Chapter 14: Friday
Arthur's alarm went off at 6:30 AM.
He'd set it. Himself. Willingly. That felt like a felony.
He stared at the ceiling. Museum day. No school. Bag check at 7:45. Bus 3. Sophia.
He got up before his brain could file a motion to dismiss.
Phone buzzed. Discord.
Aiko: u alive
Arthur: yeah
Aiko: field trip today right
Arthur: museum
Aiko: nerd
Aiko: get pics of the dino bones or i'll replace ur entire minecraft base with gravel
Arthur: it's a natural history museum
Aiko: same thing
Aiko: don't die of boredom
Aiko: scrims 8pm if ur not dead
Arthur: i'll be on
He put the phone down. He owned four shirts without video game logos. He picked the dark blue one with a pocket. Pockets were tactical.
His mom was in the kitchen with coffee and concern. "Sunscreen," she said, handing him the tube. "And eat something. You passed out at the blood drive and I had to explain to the nurse that your diet is 90% Mountain Dew and denial."
"I'm not gonna pass out."
"You said that before the blood drive." She pushed a granola bar and a banana into his hand. "Friends?"
"What?"
"Make friends today, Arthur. Not just Maggie. Real, in-person, can-help-you-move-a-couch friends. Online friends don't count on field trips. The museum Wi-Fi password is probably 'dinosaurs123' and it won't even load Google."
He took the banana. "I have friends."
"Name three that don't live in your computer."
"Maggie."
"That's one."
"Uh… Jared?"
"Jared who?"
"Chen. He presses the volcano button a lot. We're bonding through geology."
His mom kissed his forehead. "Have fun. Be normal. Don't get arrested. Text me when you get there so I know you didn't get kidnapped by paleontologists."
"No promises on the last two."
---
LHHS at 7:31 AM was organized chaos with a dress code.
Three yellow buses idled in the loop, diesel fumes mixing with morning dew and Lynx Africa. Mr. Delgado stood by Bus 3 with a megaphone he absolutely did not need but loved like a firstborn. "SINGLE FILE! PERMISSION SLIPS OUT! NO, MATHIS, YOU CANNOT DUCT TAPE YOURSELF TO THE LUGGAGE RACK FOR 'IMPROVED GAS MILEAGE'!"
Kevin had a backpack that said Tactical Snacks in Sharpie and the manic energy of a raccoon that found an energy drink. He was arguing with Delgado. "It's trail mix! It's literally in the name! Trail! Like hiking! Like Lewis and Clark! This is educational! I'm being academic right now!"
"No food," Delgado said. "Museum rules. Not my rules. If the T-Rex comes to life and eats you because you smell like nacho cheese dust, I'm not writing 'death by Cheetos' on the incident report. My penmanship is bad enough."
"The T-Rex is a skeleton!"
"SO WILL YOU BE IF YOU DON'T GET ON BUS 2."
Sophia was at the front doors with her binder, her clear umbrella even though the weather app said sunny and 74° with 0% chance of rain, and a folding table. A laminated sign: BAG CHECK — BUS 3 — NO EXCEPTIONS — SERIOUSLY — I MEAN IT.
She saw Arthur. Checked her watch. 7:44.
"You're early," she said.
"You said 7:45."
"I know." She handed him a roll of red dot stickers. "Bags that pass get a dot. Bags that fail go back to lockers. No exceptions. Not even for Kevin. Especially for Kevin. Double especially for Kevin with extra steps."
Kevin walked up right then. Backpack jingling like he'd packed a set of car keys, a tambourine, and maybe a small dog. "Evans! My favorite hall monitor. My favorite tyrant. My favorite bureaucratic nightmare. Did you miss me? I missed me."
"Backpack," Sophia said. No inflection. No emotion. Pure function. Like a robot.
Kevin unzipped it with a magician's flourish. "Behold. Water bottle. Notebook for learning. Emergency gummy bears for hypoglycemia. Very medical. Very necessary. I could faint. Like in a Victorian novel."
"No food," Arthur said.
Kevin blinked at him. "Johnson. Wow. They gave you power. Congrats on the promotion from Mold to Mold With Authority. How's the view from middle management? Taste the bureaucracy yet? It's bitter."
Sophia took the gummy bears. Set them on the table like they were crime scene evidence. "Locker. Now."
"But—"
"Now, Mathis. Or you're on Bus 1 with the freshmen and Mr. Delgado's folk music playlist. Three hours of banjos and songs about coal mining and the crushing weight of existence. Your choice."
Kevin grabbed the gummy bears. "You're both heartless. This is discrimination against snack-havers. I'll be writing to my congressman. And the UN. And your mother." He stomped off toward the school, muttering.
Maggie appeared next to Arthur, already wearing a red dot on her bag and a grin that meant she'd been listening and enjoying it. "Bag Check Boy," she said. "Look at you. Enforcing justice one Haribo at a time. I'm so proud I could cry. Fake cry. With no tears and lots of drama."
"I'm enforcing museum rules."
"Sure." She leaned on the table. "General Evans, permission to tease the staff before 8 AM? It's for team morale. And my personal amusement. And the good of the nation."
"Denied," Sophia said, but her mouth twitched. Not a smile. The blueprint of a smile. "Reyes, you're on my bus. Be useful or be silent."
"Aye, Captain." Maggie saluted and stole the sticker roll from Arthur. "I'll handle the dots. You handle… standing there looking like you know what a spreadsheet is. It's a good look for you. Very adult."
Sophia checked her list. "We're at twenty-nine. Two missing. Chen and…" She looked up. "Chen's here."
Jared Chen ran up, wheezing, soccer cleats clacking on concrete. "Sorry! Coach made us do sprints at 7! Said it builds character and ankle injuries and regret!" He held out his bag.
Arthur checked it. Cleats. Deodorant that had given up on life years ago. Notebook with CALC = PAIN = WHY = COLLEGE = DEBT written on it in different colors. He put a red dot on it.
"Thanks, man," Jared said. "You're a hero. A hero who stops snack crimes. The city needed you. Gotham has Batman. We have you."
"He's a hall monitor with a superiority complex and a sticker gun," Maggie corrected.
"Same thing in this school district. We take what we can get. Standards are low."
---
7:58 AM.
Bus 3 was full. Sophia did a final count, finger tapping each head like she was counting very expensive, very annoying cash. "Thirty-one. We're good." She turned to Delgado. "Bus 3 ready, Mr. Delgado."
"Copy that, Evans." Delgado raised his megaphone. "BUS 3, LOAD UP! LET'S GO SEE DEAD THINGS AND NOT BECOME THEM! HOPEFULLY! NO PROMISES! LIFE IS PAIN!"
Kids cheered. Mrs. Park put her head in her hands and made a sound like a dying balloon animal.
Arthur got on last. Maggie saved him a seat three rows back. Not next to Sophia — Sophia was in the front with Mrs. Park, clipboard out, already doing a second count because she trusted no one and nothing and that was probably smart.
"Window or aisle?" Maggie asked.
"Window."
"Good. You can stare longingly at the 405 freeway. Very romantic. 'Oh, cars, take me away from my problems and my crush.'" She sat down and immediately unwrapped a piece of gum. "Bus ride game: count how many times Kevin gets yelled at before we get to the museum. Loser buys lunch. I'm gonna win so hard I'll need a trophy."
Kevin was on Bus 2. They could hear him through the open windows. "MR. DELGADO, IS IT ILLEGAL TO HAVE A BIG PERSONALITY AND A SNACK? IS THIS AMERICA?"
"ONE," Maggie said. "We're gonna hit double digits before we merge onto the freeway. This is the easiest bet of my life. Like taking candy from a baby. A very loud, annoying baby."
The buses pulled out at 8:03.
Arthur watched Riverside go by. Houses with sprinklers on even though it wasn't hot. Gas stations. A guy washing a red pickup with the focus of a surgeon. A billboard for a dentist with too many teeth and too much confidence. Normal. Boring. Safe. The kind of safe you don't notice until someone takes it away.
---
The Riverside Natural History Museum was a giant block of glass and concrete with a blue whale skeleton hanging in the lobby like it was still swimming and judging everyone for being late.
Kids filed off the buses. Phones out. Pictures of the whale. Someone yelled "IT'S BIGGER IN PERSON THAN ON GOOGLE MAPS" and got shoved by his friend for stating the obvious.
"Alright, Lions!" Mrs. Park shouted. "Group 3 with me! That's Evans, Reyes, Johnson, Chen, and—" She checked her list and sighed like her soul left her body and went to Florida. "—Mathis. Kevin, if you leave my sight for more than ten seconds, I will personally feed you to the whale, and it doesn't even have a digestive system anymore, so you'll just be stuck in there forever with my disappointment and the echoes."
"It's a skeleton!" Kevin yelled back.
"It's still hungry for justice and quiet and for you to shut up!"
Sophia had a printed itinerary and a look that said I have been planning this since September and if one person ruins it I will become a problem for the FBI. She held up the paper. "Group 3. We start in Disaster Hall at 9:15. Then Robotics at 10:00. Planetarium at 11:30. Lunch at 12:15. Free roam at 1:00. We meet back here at the whale at 2:30 sharp. Not 2:31. Not 2:29. Sharp. Any questions that are not stupid will be considered and then probably ignored."
Jared raised his hand. "Can we touch the Pompeii guy?"
"No."
"Can we lick the—"
"No, Chen. No licking anything. This is a museum, not your house, and I'm assuming you don't lick things at home either. If you do, don't tell me." Sophia looked at Arthur. "Johnson, you're with me for headcount at 10:00 and 12:15. Reyes, you're my backup."
"Backup what," Maggie said.
"Backup person who yells at people when I'm busy yelling at other people. It's a specialized role. Requires lung capacity and a lack of shame and the ability to project." Sophia started walking. "Disaster Hall. Let's move. Single file. Like we practiced in the fire drill. That you all treated like a joke and a social event."
"We didn't practice," Kevin muttered.
"We did in my head, and my head is the only one with the master schedule and the will to live."
---
Disaster Hall was dim. Spotlights on glass cases. A giant volcano model in the center with a big red button kids could press to make fake lava glow and rumble like the Earth was mildly annoyed. Walls covered in photos — San Francisco 1906, buildings folded like bad origami and regret. Mount St. Helens, before and after, like a haircut gone wrong and then sued. Katrina, rooftops in water.
The Pompeii cast was behind glass. Two bodies, curled together. The plaque read: Ash mold. Plaster poured into voids left by decomposed bodies. c. 79 AD. Estimated ages: 13 and 17. Cause of death: Pyroclastic flow. That's hot gas and ash. Very fast. Very final. Very ouch.
Kids crowded around.
"Dude," Kevin said, pressing his face to the glass and fogging it up. "They're cuddling. That's kinda sweet. In a horrifying, I'm-gonna-have-nightmares-and-tell-my-therapist-and-she'll-raise-her-rates way."
"It's tragic," Jared said.
"It can be both. Life's complicated. Death's complicated-er. Undeath isn't a thing. Yet." Kevin tapped the glass with his knuckle. "Yo, Pompeii bros. You good? Blink twice if you need me to call someone. Oh wait. Too soon? Too late? I'm bad at history."
"Kevin," Sophia said. Her voice didn't go up. It didn't need to. The lack of inflection was the threat. The absence of emotion was the weapon.
"What? I'm paying respects. Historical respects. I'm a historian now. Kevin Mathis, PhD in Being Annoying and Also History."
Maggie leaned toward Arthur and whispered, "Ten bucks says he tries to take a selfie with them, sets off an alarm, and gets us all banned from museums in the tri-county area forever and also space museums."
Arthur wasn't looking at the Pompeii cast. He was looking at Sophia.
She had her binder open, checking her watch, doing a headcount with her eyes. She wasn't looking at the exhibits. She wasn't here for fun. She wasn't here for extra credit. She was here to execute a logistical operation with thirty-one moving parts that all had phones and no impulse control.
She felt him look. Some people have that. A sixth sense for being stared at. A spider-sense but for cringe. She glanced over. "Johnson. You've got Chen?"
"Yeah." Arthur pointed. Jared was pressing the volcano button for the twentieth time. The fake lava was now stuck on and the park ranger looked like he was considering murder. "He's right there. Committing geologic arson. Again. He's dedicated."
"Good." She made a check mark. Turned back to her list. Didn't smile. Didn't frown. Just… noted. Data recorded. Subject: Chen. Status: Annoying.
Maggie elbowed Arthur in the ribs. "Smooth. 'He's right there.' Poetry. She's gonna write that in her journal tonight. 'Dear Diary, A. Johnson said three words to me. I'm swooning. My heart is a volcano.'"
"Shut up."
"You shut up." She grinned. "You're staring."
"I'm observing crowd flow for safety compliance."
"You're observing her. Her crowd flow. Her hair. Her binder. Her soul."
---
10:00 AM. Robotics Wing.
Way better.
The Mars rover prototype was the size of a golf cart. Six wheels, cameras on a mast, a little American flag sticker on the side, and a layer of dust that said I cost more than your future house and your future kid's house. JPL LOAN — DO NOT TOUCH — SERIOUSLY, WE HAVE CAMERAS — AND LAWYERS — AND SNIPERS signs were everywhere.
Sophia actually stopped walking.
She stood in front of the rover for ten seconds. Then twenty. Then thirty. She didn't take pictures. She didn't talk to Priya or Lisa, who were with her. She just looked.
Maggie noticed. She nudged Arthur with her elbow. "Look. She's human. She has emotions. About robots. This is huge. Write this down. Text the newspapers. Call NASA."
Arthur watched. Sophia wasn't smiling. But her shoulders were lower than they'd been all day. Like she'd taken her backpack off for the first time since 7:44 AM. Like she was off-duty. Like she was just a kid who liked space and was allowed to like it for sixty seconds without someone needing her.
Kevin reached over the rope.
"Mathis!" Mrs. Park's voice cracked across the room like a thunderclap. Half the room jumped. A little kid dropped his juice box and started crying.
"I was just seeing if it was real! For science! For the youth of America! For the children!"
"It's real. Your detention on Monday is also real. Touch it and you'll be writing 'I will not touch the Mars rover, which is worth more than my entire extended family and their pets' five hundred times in calligraphy. With a quill. Made from an eagle."
Sophia turned away from the rover. Clipboard back up. Face back to General Evans. "Headcount. Johnson?"
"Thirty-one," Arthur said. He'd counted three times. Once for him, once for her, once because he was nervous and counting things helped his brain stop screaming about Sophia and failure.
"Good." She checked her watch. "Planetarium in twenty minutes. Stay together. If you get lost, I will find you, and the lecture you receive will be worse than being lost. It will be educational. It will have citations."
---
11:30 AM. Planetarium.
Forty minutes. Dark. Reclined seats that went back so far you were basically lying down in public with thirty classmates and your crush.
The show was about black holes. Big narrator voice like God did the trailer and took it seriously. Stars swirling on the dome. Music that made your chest feel hollow and huge at the same time, like you were sad about space and also amazed by it.
Arthur sat between Maggie and Jared. Sophia was two rows up with Mrs. Park, a silhouette with a binder on her lap. Even in the dark. Even in space. Commitment issues, but the good kind.
Halfway through, when the screen showed a star getting ripped apart into spaghetti by gravity, Maggie leaned over and whispered, "You know Sophia's favorite planet is Mars."
"How do you know that."
"She did a presentation in 7th grade. 'Why Mars Is Better Than Earth: A Thesis with Citations and Pie Charts.' She had slides. And a bibliography. And she got mad when Tommy asked if Mars had Wi-Fi because 'that's not the point, Tommy, the point is radiation and dreams.'" Maggie smirked in the dark. "You two could talk about rovers and red dust and the inevitable heat death of the universe and dying alone on a planet with no cell service. Real romance stuff. Hallmark movie. Nicholas Sparks would cry."
"Maggie."
"Kidding. Kinda." She settled back. "Relax. It's dark. She can't see you sweating through your totally normal, not-trying-too-hard shirt that you definitely picked for her."
"I'm not sweating."
He was. A little. The planetarium was warm. Or he was broken. Or both.
The black hole on screen ate the star. The music got louder. Jared whispered "Cool" and Mrs. Park shushed him so fast he choked on air and almost died.
---
12:15 PM. Lunch.
Museum cafeteria. Smelled like fries, chicken tenders, and whatever industrial cleaner they used to mop the floor that was probably toxic and causing cancer. Chicken tenders, pizza, a sad salad no one bought that was mostly lettuce and regret and ice, and cookies that looked like hockey pucks and probably tasted like them and despair.
Kevin had somehow smuggled in Takis. He was eating them under the table like a gremlin, red dust on his fingers, on his shirt, on his soul, probably in his lungs, definitely in his future.
"Mathis," Sophia said, walking past with her tray. She had a water and a turkey sandwich on wheat. No chips. No cookie. No fun. No joy. Efficient. Optimized. A machine.
Kevin froze mid-crunch. "These are… emotional support Takis. I have a doctor's note. From the internet. WebMD said so. It's peer-reviewed."
"Locker. Now."
"There are no lockers! We're at a museum! Do you want me to go back to the bus? Because I will. And I'll eat them there. And think about you."
"Then throw them away or I will tell Delgado you're 'creating an international incident with a hostile snack nation' and he'll make you write an essay about the Geneva Convention and cite your sources and use MLA format." She kept walking. Didn't wait for an answer. Didn't break stride. Didn't blink. Didn't feel.
Maggie watched her go, then looked at Arthur with respect and fear and maybe love. "I want to be her when I grow up. Organized. Terrifying. Hydrated. My back hurts just watching her carry that binder. She's Atlas and the binder is the world."
"You are growing up."
"Yeah, but wrong. I'm growing up into me. With back problems and a C in math and no binder and too many feelings." She ate a fry. "So. Post-museum plan. You gonna ask her to look at rocks with you? Very romantic. 'Hey Sophia, this is granite. It's igneous. Like my feelings for you. Hard and old and formed under pressure.'"
"No."
"Because she's going to the mall after." Maggie said it casual, like she was commenting on the pizza quality, which was bad and a crime. "Her and Priya and Lisa. The Oakridge complex next door. They're gonna get boba and hit Sephora and take photos for Instagram that will haunt us forever and be in our nightmares. Mrs. Park approved it. Free roam until 2:30, as long as we stay in the museum or the attached mall. Educational enrichment. Cultural exposure. Capitalism. America."
Arthur kept eating his chicken tender. It tasted like warm cardboard with salt and sadness. "Okay."
"Okay?" Maggie raised an eyebrow so high it almost left her face and achieved orbit. "You're not gonna… I don't know… also go to the mall? By accident? Because you suddenly remember you need new socks? Or deodorant? Or a life? Or dignity? Or a brain?"
"Why would I."
"Because you're a seventeen-year-old boy with a crush and the decision-making skills of a potato that's been left in the sun and is now growing eyes and making bad choices." She stole his water and took a sip. "Just saying. Oakridge has a GameStop. And a food court. And girls who drink DEAD HORIZON — Chapter 14: Friday
Arthur's alarm7:58 AM.
Bus 3 was full. Sophia did a final count, finger tapping each head like she was counting very expensive, very annoying cash. "Thirty-one. We're good." She turned to Delgado. "Bus 3 ready, Mr. Delgado."
"Copy that, Evans." Delgado raised his megaphone. "BUS 3, LOAD UP! LET'S GO SEE DEAD THINGS AND NOT BECOME THEM! HOPEFULLY! NO PROMISES! LIFE IS PAIN!"
Kids cheered. Mrs. Park put her head in her hands and made a sound likedying balloon animal.
Arthur got on last. Maggie saved him a seat three rows back. Not next to Sophia — Sophia was in the front with Mrs. Park, clipboard out, already doing a second count because she trusted no one and nothing and that was probably smart.
"Window or aisle?" Maggie asked.
"Window."
"Good. You can stare longingly at the 405 freeway. Very romantic. 'Oh, cars, take me away from my problems and my crush.'" She sat down and immediately unwrapped a piece of gum. "Bus ride game: count how many times Kevin gets yelled at before we get to the museum. Loser buys lunch. I'm gonna win so hard I'll need a trophy."
Kevin was on Bus 2. They could hear him through the open windows. "MR. DELGADO, IS IT ILLEGAL TO HAVE A BIG PERSONALITY AND A SNACK? IS THIS AMERICA?"
"ONE," Maggie said. "We're gonna hit double digits before we merge onto the freeway. This is the easiest bet of my life. Like taking candy from a baby. A very loud, annoying baby."
The buses pulled out at 8:03.
Arthur watched Riverside go by. Houses with sprinklers on even though it wasn't hot. Gas stations. A guy washing a red pickup with the focus of a surgeon. A billboard for a dentist with too many teeth and too much confidence. Normal. Boring. Safe. The kind of safe you don't notice until someone takes it away. The Riverside Natural History Museum was a giant block of glass and concrete with a blue whale skeleton hanging in the lobby like it was still swimming and judging everyone for being late.
Kids filed off the buses. Phones out. Pictures of the whale. Someone yelled "IT'S BIGGER IN PERSON THAN ON GOOGLE MAPS" and got shoved by his friend for stating the obvious.
"Alright, Lions!" Mrs. Park shouted. "Group 3 with me! That's Evans, Reyes, Johnson, Chen, and—" She checked her list and sighed like her soul left her body and went to Florida. "—Mathis. Kevin, if you leave my sight for more than ten seconds, I will personally feed you to the whale, and it doesn't even have a digestive system anymore, so you'll just be stuck in there forever with my disappointment and the echoes."
"It's a skeleton!" Kevin yelled back.
"It's still hungry for justice and quiet and for you to shut up!"
Sophia had a printed itinerary and a look that said I have been planning this since September and if one person ruins it I will become a problem for the FBI. She held up the paper. "Group 3. We start in Disaster Hall at 9:15. Then Robotics at 10:00. Planetarium at 11:30. Lunch at 12:15. Free roam at 1:00. We meet back here at the whale at 2:30 sharp. Not 2:31. Not 2:29. Sharp. Any questions that are not stupid will be considered and then probably ignored."
Jared raised his hand. "Can we touch the Pompeii guy?"
"No."
"Can we lick the—"
"No, Chen. No licking anything. This is a museum, not your house, and I'm assuming you don't lick things at home either. If you do, don't tell me." Sophia looked at Arthur. "Johnson, you're with me for headcount at 10:00 and 12:15. Reyes, you're my backup."
"Backup what," Maggie said.
"Backup person who yells at people when I'm busy yelling at other people. It's a specialized role. Requires lung capacity and a lack of shame and the ability to project." Sophia started walking. "Disaster Hall. Let's move. Single file. Like we practiced in the fire drill. That you all treated like a joke and a social event."
"We didn't practice," Kevin muttered.
"We did in my head, and my head is the only one with the master schedule and the will to live."Disaster Hall was dim. Spotlights on glass cases. A giant volcano model in the center with a big red button kids could press to make fake lava glow and rumble like the Earth was mildly annoyed. Walls covered in photos — San Francisco 1906, buildings folded like bad origami and regret. Mount St. Helens, before and after, like a haircut gone wrong and then sued. Katrina, rooftops in water.
The Pompeii cast was behind glass. Two bodies, curled together. The plaque read: Ash mold. Plaster poured into voids left by decomposed bodies. c. 79 AD. Estimated ages: 13 and 17. Cause of death: Pyroclastic flow. That's hot gas and ash. Very fast. Very final. Very ouch.
Kids crowded around.
"Dude," Kevin said, pressing his face to the glass and fogging it up. "They're cuddling. That's kinda sweet. In a horrifying, I'm-gonna-have-nightmares-and-tell-my-therapist-and-she'll-raise-her-rates way."
"It's tragic," Jared said.
"It can be both. Life's complicated. Death's complicated-er. Undeath isn't a thing. Yet." Kevin tapped the glass with his knuckle. "Yo, Pompeii bros. You good? Blink twice if you need me to call someone. Oh wait. Too soon? Too late? I'm bad at history."
"Kevin," Sophia said. Her voice didn't go up. It didn't need to. The lack of inflection was the threat. The absence of emotion was the weapon.
"What? I'm paying respects. Historical respects. I'm a historian now. Kevin Mathis, PhD in Being Annoying and Also History."
Maggie leaned toward Arthur and whispered, "Ten bucks says he tries to take a selfie with them, sets off an alarm, and gets us all banned from museums in the tri-county area forever and also space museums."
Arthur wasn't looking at the Pompeii cast. He was looking at Sophia.
She had her binder open, checking her watch, doing a headcount with her eyes. She wasn't looking at the exhibits. She wasn't here for fun. She wasn't here for extra credit. She was here to execute a logistical operation with thirty-one moving parts that all had phones and no impulse control.
She felt him look. Some people have that. A sixth sense for being stared at. A spider-sense but for cringe. She glanced over. "Johnson. You've got Chen?"
"Yeah." Arthur pointed. Jared was pressing the volcano button for the twentieth time. The fake lava was now stuck on and the park ranger looked like he was considering murder. "He's right there. Committing geologic arson. Again. He's dedicated."
"Good." She made a check mark. Turned back to her list. Didn't smile. Didn't frown. Just… noted. Data recorded. Subject: Chen. Status: Annoying.
Maggie elbowed Arthur in the ribs. "Smooth. 'He's right there.' Poetry. She's gonna write that in her journal tonight. 'Dear Diary, A. Johnson said three words to me. I'm swooning. My heart is a volcano.'"
"Shut up."
"You shut up." She grinned. "You're staring."
"I'm observing crowd flow for safety compliance."
"You're observing her. Her crowd flow. Her hair. Her binder. Her soul."10:00 AM. Robotics Wing.
Way better.
The Mars rover prototype was the size of a golf cart. Six wheels, cameras on a mast, a little American flag sticker on the side, and a layer of dust that said I cost more than your future house and your future kid's house. JPL LOAN — DO NOT TOUCH — SERIOUSLY, WE HAVE CAMERAS — AND LAWYERS — AND SNIPERS signs were everywhere.
Sophia actually stopped walking.
She stood in front of the rover for ten seconds. Then twenty. Then thirty. She didn't take pictures. She didn't talk to Priya or Lisa, who were with her. She just looked.
Maggie noticed. She nudged Arthur with her elbow. "Look. She's human. She has emotions. About robots. This is huge. Write this down. Text the newspapers. Call NASA."
Arthur watched. Sophia wasn't smiling. But her shoulders were lower than they'd been all day. Like she'd taken her backpack off for the first time since 7:44 AM. Like she was off-duty. Like she was just a kid who liked space and was allowed to like it for sixty seconds without someone needing her.
Kevin reached over the rope.
"Mathis!" Mrs. Park's voice cracked across the room like a thunderclap. Half the room jumped. A little kid dropped his juice box and started crying.
"I was just seeing if it was real! For science! For the youth of America! For the children!"
"It's real. Your detention on Monday is also real. Touch it and you'll be writing 'I will not touch the Mars rover, which is worth more than my entire extended family and their pets' five hundred times in calligraphy. With a quill. Made from an eagle."
Sophia turned away from the rover. Clipboard back up. Face back to General Evans. "Headcount. Johnson?"
"Thirty-one," Arthur said. He'd counted three times. Once for him, once for her, once because he was nervous and counting things helped his brain stop screaming about Sophia and failure.
"Good." She checked her watch. "Planetarium in twenty minutes. Stay together. If you get lost, I will find you, and the lecture you receive will be worse than being lost. It will be educational. It will have citations."11:30 AM. Planetarium.
Forty minutes. Dark. Reclined seats that went back so far you were basically lying down in public with thirty classmates and your crush.
The show was about black holes. Big narrator voice like God did the trailer and took it seriously. Stars swirling on the dome. Music that made your chest feel hollow and huge at the same time, like you were sad about space and also amazed by it.
Arthur sat between Maggie and Jared. Sophia was two rows up with Mrs. Park, a silhouette with a binder on her lap. Even in the dark. Even in space. Commitment issues, but the good kind.
Halfway through, when the screen showed a star getting ripped apart into spaghetti by gravity, Maggie leaned over and whispered, "You know Sophia's favorite planet is Mars."
"How do you know that."
"She did a presentation in 7th grade. 'Why Mars Is Better Than Earth: A Thesis with Citations and Pie Charts.' She had slides. And a bibliography. And she got mad when Tommy asked if Mars had Wi-Fi because 'that's not the point, Tommy, the point is radiation and dreams.'" Maggie smirked in the dark. "You two could talk about rovers and red dust and the inevitable heat death of the universe and dying alone on a planet with no cell service. Real romance stuff. Hallmark movie. Nicholas Sparks would cry."
"Maggie."
"Kidding. Kinda." She settled back. "Relax. It's dark. She can't see you sweating through your totally normal, not-trying-too-hard shirt that you definitely picked for her."
"I'm not sweating."
He was. A little. The planetarium was warm. Or he was broken. Or both.
The black hole on screen ate the star. The music got louder. Jared whispered "Cool" and Mrs. Park shushed him so fast he choked on air and almost died.
Still waiting is not completeBecause she's going to the mall after." Maggie said it casual, like she was commenting on the pizza quality, which was bad and a crime. "Her and Priya and Lisa. The Oakridge complex next door. They're gonna get boba and hit Sephora and take photos for Instagram that will haunt us forever and be in our nightmares. Mrs. Park approved it. Free roam until 2:30, as long as we stay in the museum or the attached mall. Educational enrichment. Cultural exposure. Capitalism. America."
Arthur kept eating his chicken tender. It tasted like warm cardboard with salt and sadness. "Okay."
"Okay?" Maggie raised an eyebrow so high it almost left her face and achieved orbit. "You're not gonna… I don't know… also go to the mall? By accident? Because you suddenly remember you need new socks? Or deodorant? Or a life? Or dignity? Or a brain?"
"Why would I."
"Because you're a seventeen-year-old boy with a crush and the decision-making skills of a potato that's been left in the sun and is now growing eyes and making bad choices." She stole his water and took a sip. "Just saying. Oakridge has a GameStop. And a food court. And girls who drink mango boba and don't know you exist and that's probably for the best for everyone involved."
Arthur didn't answer. He drank his water back and wished it was acid or at least Mountain Dew. 1:00 PM. Free roam.
The museum split up like a cell dividing. Mitosis, but with teenagers and hormones.
Kevin went to the gem room. "GONNA STEAL A DIAMOND AND BECOME A SUPERVILLAIN NAMED KEVINITE," he shouted. "FEAR ME. MY POWER IS BEING ANNOYING."
"YOU'RE GONNA GET ARRESTED AND BECOME A CAUTIONARY TALE IN THE NEXT ASSEMBLY ABOUT BAD CHOICES AND WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS," Mrs. Park shouted back. "FEAR ME. MY POWER IS DETENTION."
Sophia went to the robotics wing again. She had a notebook this time, not her binder. A real sketchbook. Black cover. She was drawing the rover. Actually drawing. With shading. With perspective. With a mechanical pencil. She sat on a bench and didn't look at her watch once. For four minutes. A new world record. The guards were worried.
Maggie went with Priya to the gift shop. "Gonna buy a stuffed T-Rex," she told Arthur. "You should come. Be social. Touch grass. Make eye contact with someone who isn't me or a video game NPC or your own reflection in a spoon. Growth. Personal development. Therapy."
"I'm gonna…" Arthur looked at the big map on the wall. You Are Here. Big red arrow pointing at a dot. Oakridge Shopping Complex — Connected Via Skybridge — 2 Min Walk — Food Court, Retail, Freedom, Bad Decisions, Consequences.
"I'm gonna walk around," he finished. "See the rest of the museum. The… other bones. The ones we missed. For education. For my future."
"Mmhmm." Maggie didn't buy it for a second. Her eyes narrowed to slits. "Walk all the way to the boba place. For science. To study… liquid dynamics. And bubbles. And girls who are out of your league and your species and your tax bracket and your galaxy."
She left, shaking her head and muttering "idiot" under her breath loud enough for him to hear and for God to hear and for the museum security cameras to hear and for the dinosaurs to hear. She went toward the gift shop. Toward the dinosaurs. Toward staying in the museum.
Arthur waited five minutes. He counted to three hundred. He looked at the dinosaur bones. He looked at the space rocks. He looked at a display about soil. Soil. He was so desperate he was interested in soil. Sedimentary. Igneous. Metamorphic. Words.
Then he walked to the skybridge.
He told himself it was because the museum was boring now. He told himself he wanted Cinnabon. He told himself he was just exploring. He told himself he had legs and they worked and it was a free country and he was an American.
All of them were lies.
He was seventeen. He was stupid. He had a crush on a girl who knew how to use a clipboard and a mechanical pencil and her brain.
That was the whole reason. The only reason. The dumbest reason. The most human reason. 1:47 PM. Oakridge Shopping Complex.
It was a normal mall.
Normal mall smells — Cinnabon, pretzels, new shoes, that weird perfume they spray at the entrance of department stores that smells like someone's grandma and regret and youth fading. Normal mall sounds — music playing from ceiling speakers, some pop song Arthur didn't know and would never know, kids screaming about the carousel, a baby crying, the escalator making that whirr-clunk noise like it was dying and wanted everyone to know and suffer with it. Normal mall sights — Cinnabon, GameStop, Bubble Tea King with a line, a kiosk selling phone cases, a guy cleaning a window and wondering where his life went wrong and if it was too late to join the circus.
Sophia was already there. She had her binder finally zipped in her bag, a mango boba in her hand, and she was laughing at something Priya said. Not her General Evans laugh. Not her I'm being polite because you're my teacher and I need an A and my future laugh. A real one. Small. Quick. There and gone in a second, but real. Like a glitch in her system. Like proof she was human and not a machine. Lisa had her phone up. "Group selfie. Come on, one where we don't look like we just escaped a standardized test or a hostage situation or math class or our parents."
Sophia rolled her eyes. But she leaned in. Click.
Arthur stopped at the kiosk by the entrance. Phone cases. He picked one up. Dragons. Red, scaly, stupid. Breathing fire. He hated dragons. Dragons were lazy fantasy design. No internal consistency. No evolutionary reason. No tax returns. No mortgages. Just rawr fire and bad writing and cliché. He put it down.
He didn't go closer.
He didn't wave.
He didn't do anything except stand there, by a kiosk, holding a dragon phone case he hated, watching the girl he liked laugh.
Like a complete, total, seventeen-year-old idiot with no plan and no chill and no self-preservation instincts and no brain cells and no dignity.
The food court was filling up. Kids from school everywhere. Jared and Chen were sharing curly fries at a table, arguing about whether the planetarium was better than the rover and if black holes were real or "just math being dramatic and extra." Priya waved at a group from Bus 1. A field trip of elementary kids in red shirts ran past screaming "CAROUSEL CAROUSEL CAROUSEL" and their teacher looked like she was reconsidering her entire career and maybe her marriage and definitely her birth and the existence of children.
Kevin came around the corner with a massive pretzel and a soda that was 90% ice, 10% soda, 100% bad decision and diabetes and regret. He was in the middle of the food court, weaving between tables, right where the crowd was thickest. The security guard by the escalators — name tag DAVIS — was already watching him with the universal I am not paid enough for this and it's only 1:48 PM and I have six hours left and I want to die and go to heaven or hell, anywhere but here expression.
"Yo!" Kevin shouted when he saw the world. He didn't see Arthur. He saw the world, and it was his stage, and he was the worst actor, and he was proud. "Museum's boring! Mall's where it's at! They got pretzels! EDUCATIONAL PRETZELS! WITH SALT! SODIUM! NA! CHEMISTRY! I'M LEARNING! I'M A SCIENTIST! GIVE ME A NOBEL PRIZE!" He took a huge bite. A piece fell on the floor. "Five second rule! No, ten second! I'm negotiating with the health department and the floor! We're in talks! It's going well! I'm a diplomat!"
Mrs. Park's voice came from the skybridge entrance. She was herding freshmen who looked lost and overwhelmed and like they'd seen things no freshman should see and now needed therapy. "MATHIS! IS THAT FOOD? IN MY SIGHT? IN THIS PUBLIC SPACE THAT I AM LEGALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR AND WILL GET SUED OVER AND LOSE MY HOUSE?"
Kevin looked at Davis. Looked at Mrs. Park. Looked at the soda like it was the One Ring and he was Gollum and this was his moment and his precious and his destiny.
"Worth it," he said, and kept walking toward the center of the food court, taking another bite, leaving a trail of crumbs like Hansel and Gretel if they were terrible at planning and also didn't care and also wanted to die and also had no future.
The music played. A pop song Arthur didn't know and wouldn't remember and didn't care about and would never hear again. The baby kept crying. The carousel music started up in the distance, calliope and creepy and like a horror movie and like death.
Sophia was three stores down at Bubble Tea King, taking a sip.
She didn't see Arthur.
She didn't sense him.
She didn't care.
And that was fine.
She took a sip of her boba and made a face. Brain freeze. She put her hand to her forehead for half a second, eyes squeezed shut, then shook it off like it was nothing. Like it was normal. Because it was. Priya laughed and said something Arthur couldn't hear. Sophia laughed again and bumped Priya's shoulder with her own.
It was normal.
She was normal.
She wasn't Student Council President Sophia Evans, keeper of binders and destroyer of Kevin and enemy of fun and fun.
She was a girl who got brain freeze and laughed with her friends and had a mango boba and existed and was real.
Arthur just stood there. By a kiosk. Holding a dragon phone case.
Watching her laugh.
And it was a good day.
