Sam turned on his computer.
Max glanced at it, and, before Sam could do anything else, said "Boring!"
"You haven't even seen it yet," said Sam, glaring at him.
Max raised a finger. "You should be outside playing in the fresh air, not staring at a computer all day," he recited. "Tut tut."
Sam glanced out the window of his room, where the late afternoon sun had turned the smog a pretty yellow colour, then looked back at his computer. "I just wanna show you a program I wrote." He glanced around to make sure that the book he'd copied the program out of was still under his bed where he'd kicked it.
Tonight was going to be interesting. The school was holding a dance, and Sam had been given money to spend. But before then, he really wanted Max to see his computer program. He ran it, and the computer began shaking and emitting unearthly howls.
"Awesome!" said Max. The computer started displaying a long list of letters, numbers and symbols. "Your computer is possessed! Just like my brother Rich's tape deck!" The random symbols became real words, and Max leaned forward. "Prize..."
"Praise," Sam corrected him. He'd run the program several times before, and it was the same every time. If it hadn't been so interesting, it might have worried him.
"Praise to the... lord... satin... wait! Satan! He w-ho... who will..." Max lost interest and sat back. "Let's do an exorcism now! I'll get the priestly water!"
"Nah," said Sam. "My mom already tried that. I think I made a mistake in the program." He kicked the computer a few times to stop the program from running, and had a look at the source code.
After a few seconds, Max said "Sam?"
"I'm still thinking," said Sam. He wrinkled his forehead. One day he was going to figure out what all those dollar signs meant. Then he dived under his bed and consulted his book. He was lucky that Max didn't know how to use a keyboard, he thought.
"Ooh!" said Max. "Letters!" Sam tried to block him out. "Are you eating dust bunnies? That's racist, Max. They're Dust-Lago-Americans."
Sam dropped the book. Ever since they'd gone camping, Max had been weirder than usual. He'd thought he was imagining it because of his concussion, but he didn't have that anymore, and Max was still being weird. He looked out at Max. "Did you lick another hippy?"
"Every time I go to sleep a big furry squelch monster eats me!" said Max, grinning as widely as he always did.
Sam took another look at his book, which was turning out to be very hard to read without a light source, and crawled out. "You go to sleep, and I'll watch out for dream monsters." That way Sam would be able to fix his program without letting Max know he didn't write it, and Max would be able to sort of think, a little.
Max looked at him shrewdly. "You can't watch out. You don't even have a dream gun!"
"No," said Sam, "but I have a dream rocket launcher." Sometimes he wished he had a real rocket launcher.
"Ooh, now I see!" said Max. "It's in your jacket!"
Sam looked down. He was wearing a t-shirt. "Yeah. You should sleep"
"Okay!" said Max. He jumped onto Sam's bed and closed his eyes.
–
Sam shook Max awake. "Guess what, Max! I fixed my program!"
Max opened his eyes and looked around, blinking. "Shut up, Robbie," he said eventually.
"I'm Sam," said Sam, and felt his face to make sure he hadn't turned into a rabbit while he wasn't looking. "Robbie is your brother."
"You're kid Robbie," insisted Max. He shook his head violently. "Oh, hi Sam!"
"My program works!" said Sam, eager to get back to the topic. "I put in a greater than sign when it should have been a less than sign." He ran the program once more.
Max stared.
"That's lame," he said. "I want the Satan one back."
"But it's a bouncing percent sign!" said Sam. "You can change the direction, see?" He pressed some keys, and the percent sign bounced off a different side of the screen.
"Lame," insisted Max. "I thought we were going to a dance."
"That's not for..." Sam looked at his bedside clock. "Uh... five minutes." When had that happened? He was sure he'd only sat down a couple of minutes ago. "Uh... I have to take my cousin. She wanted to go." He'd been putting off bringing this up.
"You have a cousin who's a girl?" said Max.
"Yeah," said Sam. Max was reacting a lot better than he'd feared.
–
Sam's cousin was waiting at the bottom of the apartment building, passing the time by poking things in the gutter with a stick. "Hi Sam," she said, looking up.
"Hi Sam," replied Sam.
"Go away, Sam's girl clone," said Max. "We're waiting for Sam's cousin!"
"She is my cousin," said Sam. He almost wanted to apologise for Max, something he'd never thought of before. He liked his cousin.
"I'm Sam," said Sam's cousin. "It's short for Samantha. You're Max, right?"
"That's just like a girl," said Max to Sam. "Pretending her name is the same as your name when it isn't."
"My full name is Samuel," said Sam. He could never tell if Max was joking or not.
Max looked from Sam to Samantha and back to Sam again, reminding Sam of a rubber band that was about to snap. He should probably say something.
"Just forget it," he tried.
"Okay!" said Max, and snapped out of it.
–
The walk to the school was mostly uneventful. Sam and Max walked ahead and discussed whether or not space rangers were better than space smugglers, and Samantha walked a few paces behind, thinking about whatever girls thought about. They were nearly there when they walked past an alley, and heard somebody pleading for their life.
Once they were safely out of range, Samantha said, "Maybe we shouldn't be cheerfully trekking through the mean streets so late in the day."
The mean streets. That was from a movie or a TV show or something. "It's okay," said Sam. "Max acts as a more than adequate line of a defense against would-be assailants."
"You guys suck," said Max, who was confused again. "Use real words!"
"Sorry," said Sam, who had forgotten that not everybody read the dictionary for fun. "We always use big words."
"The best word is "loquaciousness," said Samantha, making Sam laugh and Max scowl.
–
They arrived at the school and went into the gym, which where the dance was being held. Immediately after walking in, they were assaulted by the loudest sound Sam had ever heard. He cringed, and put his hands over his ears, which didn't block out the noise at all. It did allow him to hear it clearly, however. It was... music? It reminded him of his dad, who was always listening to the radio when he was home. So it was probably music.
The gym was a dim haze of flashing purple and blue lights, and kids standing around awkwardly. Next to Sam, Max and Samantha were covering their ears as well, which was good. Sam had been worried that it was just him.
After what felt like a long time, Paul, a curly-haired boy in Sam's class, walked by and said something mean. Sam couldn't hear him. Max said something mean back, but Sam couldn't hear him, either. Finally, his head stopped hurting enough for him to take his hands away. Now he didn't feel like those tiny bones in his ear were breaking anymore. Maybe they already had. And the sound almost sounded like music, even without covering his ears.
"That was fun!" said Max loudly. "Let's dance now!"
Sam looked him strangely. Maybe he'd misheard. His ears still didn't feel very good. "Dance?"
"Aren't we at a dance?" said Max, looking around at the nobody who was dancing.
"Let's get snacks!" suggested Samantha.
"Yeah!" said Sam. He hadn't come to dance. He had money, and they were selling candy in the corner of the room. To Max, he said "You dance, and we'll get candy."
Max started making a strange hopping motion. Sam stared for a second, then he and Samantha went to get candy.
–
"Are you sure you're happy with all that, mate?" said the purveyor of sugary delights, who was probably someone's dad. He sounded British or something. "You'll be sick tomorrow."
Sam looked down at his bulging pockets and nodded. His mother wouldn't have given him so much money if she hadn't wanted him to use it. He still had a little left, and he eyed the squares of what looked like chocolate wrapped in paper. He loved chocolate. Unfortunately, it didn't like him very much. "What kind of chocolate is that? My mom says I can't have dark chocolate." Or cocoa. Or baking chocolate, but he wasn't exactly sure what that was.
"It's cooking chocolate," said someone's dad.
"That should be okay," said Sam, and handed over some more money. To Samantha, he said "Do you want any?"
"I'm not allowed to have chocolate..." said Samantha, looking hungrily at the wrapped squares.
Sam put it in his pocket and pulled out a box of Milk Duds, which he opened. "I'll show you around," he said with his mouth full.
They walked around the outskirts of the gym. "That's a window," said Sam, pointing. He pointed down. "That's stripes." He pointed up. "That's ropes."
Samantha nodded.
A couple of boys emerged from the crowd of people. "Hey, Sam!" said one.
"That's Tris and that's Paul," said Sam. "Tris used to be a bully but he's not anymore." At least, he didn't hit people as often anymore.
Tris scowled. "You don't have to say that to everyone."
Sam ignored him. "And Paul is from Base 12. I think it's on the moon."
"It's not a place!" snapped Paul. "It's a way of counting!"
"Why do you go to the moon to count?" said Samantha, sounding interested.
While Paul was growling with frustration, Tris said "Paul said you and Max were covering your ears like little girls."
"We were not!" said Sam. He realised what Tris was talking about, and added, "The music was loud!"
Tris laughed. "You're such a baby, Sam."
"Leave him alone," said Samantha. "It really is loud!"
Sam winced. Now everyone was going to pick on him for needing a girl to defend him. Then he remembered that everybody picked on him already, and stopped wincing.
"What would you know?" said Paul. "You're a... Are you a girl?" He squinted.
"Yes!"
Sam didn't know what Paul was talking about. She was obviously a girl. It was obvious from her face.
"What would you know?" repeated Paul. "You're a girl!"
Sam had had enough of this. "Let's go find Max, Sam," he said.
"Yeah, okay," said Samantha, still looking at Paul weirdly.
They wandered through the surreal wonderland of flashing lights and rhythmic thumping for a bit longer. Eventually, they found Max hiding behind a set of chairs.
"What happened?" said Sam.
"Weren't you dancing?" said Samantha.
"Jennie keeps asking me to dance with her," said Max. He shivered. "She keeps looking at me funny. I don't wanna dance with her. You have to tell her to stop bugging me!"
"Who's Jennie?" said Samantha.
"Just a girl," said Sam. He remembered who he was talking to and added "The bad kind of girl." He didn't want to talk to her any more than Max did, so he just poured some more Milk Duds into his hand.
Max jumped out from under the chair. "Did you get any candy for me?"
"Uh..." said Sam. He unwrapped the chocolate, which turned out to four blocks in size, and gave half to Max. "Here." The less chocolate he ate, the less around his mouth for his mother to see when he got home.
"Oh boy!" said Max, and ate it in one gulp.
Sam ate his chocolate more slowly. He sat down, looking around nervously for Jennie. "Look," he said. "There's one of Jennie's friends."
Max looked. "Yeah!" he said. "Hey, Pelanie!" he called. "Pelanie!"
Pelanie came up to them and Samantha said "Did you say 'Pelanie'?"
"You have to tell Jennie to stop being so weird to Max," said Sam.
"We're not friends anymore," said Pelanie, and walked away again.
"Aww," said Max, then said some words that Sam pretended he didn't know. Max didn't sound angry enough to be using them, so he probably didn't know what they meant at all.
"Is her name really Pelanie?" said Samantha.
"Yeah," said Sam. "So?" He swallowed. He was beginning to feel a bit sick. Maybe he'd bought too much candy.
"It's Jennie!" said Max suddenly. "Hide me!"
"Uh..." said Sam. He stood up unsteadily and walked in front of Max, which didn't really do much to hide him.
"Get out of the way, Sam," said Jennie, with her hands on her hips.
"Max is hiding," said Sam. He frowned. That sounded wrong, somehow.
Jennie reached around Sam and took Max by the hand. "May I have this dance?" she said, as sweetly as was possible while still yelling to be heard over the music.
Sam sat back down on an empty chair. He needed to sit down.
"Okay," said Max.
Sam's head was pounding in time to the music. That was weird.
Jennie let go of Max's hand in surprise. "Really?"
"Yeah," said Max. "Go ahead and take it away."
Jennie made an aggravated noise and said something else, but Sam wasn't paying attention. The lighting had turned into new colours that he'd never seen or thought about before, which was strange, because because they made perfect sense if he thought about. It made all the chairs look like... or alpacas, maybe llamas solenodonodons. He slid off his chair, into the water.
"Sam?" said the sky.
"Max was right about the dust," replied Sam. He thought about that for a second. "Am I on Eris?"
Someone hit him.
Sam realised that he was lying on the floor of the gym during a school dance.
"Are you okay now?" said Max, his hand still raised. "Should I hit you again?"
"I think so," said Sam. He looked around. Jennie was gone. Samantha was eating something. "I think- Ow! Hey!"
Max had hit him again. "I had to do it," he said to Samantha. "He was still talking crazy talk."
"Hey!" said Sam, realising what she was eating. "My Milk Duds!"
"It's for your own good," said Samantha, with her mouth full. "I think you're poisoned. You shouldn't have any more chocolate."
But... his Milk Duds... Sam opened his mouth to mention them again, and nearly threw up. "I feel sick..." He stood up, clutching at the chair for support, and looked out the door that led to the playground. He really didn't want to use a public bathroom again. Not after summer camp. But maybe it would be okay if Max was with him.
Max and Samantha helped him outside, and the music faded, leaving a loud ringing in Sam's ears.
"Hey Sam, are you dying?" said Max. "I hope not."
Sam thought about it. He wasn't hallucinating anymore, and even if cooking chocolate was the same as baking chocolate, which he was beginning to think was the case, he'd only eaten two blocks. There couldn't be enough to kill him in two blocks. "I don't think so..."
"Oh, good," said Max. "Your mom would kill you if you died."
"That's not funny," said Sam. It really wasn't.
Sam and Max went into the boy's bathroom, and Samantha stood guard outside.
"Watch out for bullies," Sam told Max, and stared at a toilet bowl for a while. It was weird, but getting outside, out of the noise, had made him feel a lot better. He barely felt sick at all now. "I think..." The sight of the toilet bowl brought back horrible memories of summer camp. That did it. He threw up.
"I give it a 6 out of 10," said Max, who was watching him instead of keeping a look out for bullies. "Good force, but you need to work on your technique."
"Shut up, Max," said Sam. Then he frowned. The ringing in his ears had nearly gone, and he could hear girls' voices. "Do you hear that?"
Max listened. "Yeah," he said. "I guess I caught chocolate off you while you were puking."
"I think they're coming from the girls' bathroom," said Sam, trying to make out the words. He used his hand to lift up his right ear.
"I'm so glad they rebuilt the bathroom walls out of cardboard after the Luke Sywalker Incident," exposited Max.
"Shhh!"
"Just give it to him, okay?" said someone who either was Jennie or sounded exactly like her. Either way, it was an amazing coincidence.
"You promised!" said Pelanie, or maybe Melanie. They sounded almost exactly the same, so it was hard to tell.
"I'll give you the... you know what... when you give Max the candy!" snapped Jennie.
Max turned to Sam. "Did you hear that! I'm getting more candy!"
"I thought Pelanie and Jennie weren't friends today..." said Sam. Nobody ever bribed anyone to give him candy.
Through the wall, Pelanie said "Where did you even get a love potion, anyway?"
"Did she say love potion?" said Max. Sam nodded. "I feel sorry for whoever she gives that to."
"I think she wants to give it to you," said Sam thoughtfully. "If she gives you candy, don't take it." He didn't think Max would remember him saying that because he never did, but he should at least try. He'd seen people who'd been given love potions on TV, and he didn't want that to happen to his best friend.
"Huh?" said Max. "Me? Why?"
"Let's get back to the dance before they hear us," said Sam. If Max still hadn't figured it out, he wasn't going to tell him. It was too much fun waiting for him to realise.
They went back outside, and Max said, "Guess what, girl Sam! Jennie's got a boyfriend!"
"Doesn't she..." began Samantha.
Sam shook his head. "Don't tell him," he said. Then he added "She's going to brainwash him into loving her with love potion candy. We should stop her." An idea was beginning to form in his head, but it wouldn't be easy to do.
Samantha leaned against the wall and sighed. "Isn't that illegal? We should tell a grown up."
"Girl you is a tattletale!" Max complained.
Sam shook his head. "I have a plan." Besides, all girls were tattletales. It was one of the laws of physics, probably.
–
They were ready for the music this time, but it was still shockingly loud. Sam covered his ears again, and tried to steel himself for his plan. First he had to... They were coming this way. Paul and Tris. They were probably going to pick on him again. Sometimes they were nice, but tonight they were picking on him. Sam smoothed down his shirt a few times, and said "Hi."
"You're still..." began Paul, in a mocking tone of voice.
"Shut up, not Tris!" said Max. "Shut up, Tris!" he added just in case. He adopted a threatening pose.
Tris looked confused. "At least we don't keep setting the cafeteria on fire," he said, recovering.
"That only happened once," said Sam. The other times were accidents.
At the same time, Max said "I said, shut up!"
"We're talking to you," said Paul. "Talk talk talk talk talk ta-"
Max leapt at them.
Sam and Samantha watched.
"Your friend is a good fighter," said Samantha, as Max knocked Tris and Paul's heads together. She smiled.
"Yeah," said Sam. "He's teaching me how to... Huh?"
Tris and Paul walked away, leaving Max tied to the bottom of a chair. Sam wasn't sure how he'd got there. He should have paid more attention. "They tricked me!" said Max. "Let's put itching powder in Tris' hat, and set it on fire!"
That was tempting, but... "I have a better idea," said Sam, untying him.
"Tell a grown up?" said Samantha, hopefully.
Max dusted himself off. One of his ears was stuck down the back of his head, but he didn't seem to notice.
"No, we..." Sam trailed off when he saw Pelanie approaching. She was holding something behind her back. The love potion candy?
"Uh..." she said to Max. She pulled a giant blue lollipop out from behind her back. "You can have this because you're the only one with a mouth big enough to eat it."
Max took it, and Pelanie walked away. "Wow!" To Sam, he said, "Look, people are giving me candy!" He opened his mouth wide.
"No!" said Sam and Samantha in unison.
"If you eat that, you'll fall in love with Jennie!" said Sam.
Max closed his mouth and looked at the lollipop in revulsion. "Ew. Gross. You eat it, Sam." He rubbed the back his head, and his ear returned to its normal position.
"Let's give it to Tris or Paul," suggested Sam. That was his big plan. They deserved it for picking on them.
"Yeah!" said Max. "Great idea!"
Samantha didn't look happy, but she didn't say anything.
They found the two boys standing awkwardly in the middle of the room. Some kids really were dancing by now, but only the lame ones.
Sam took a deep breath and said, "Max says he's sorry for biting your heads."
"No I'm-" began Max. Sam elbowed him in the neck.
"And he wants you to give you this," said Sam, signalling Max. Max handed over the lollipop, holding it as far away from his body as possible.
Paul took it, and squinted. "I heard someone had a love potion lollipop."
"Uh..." said Sam. He hadn't thought of this. He began to panic. "I uh... It's..."
"Love potions can't be blue," interrupted Samantha. "Everyone knows that!"
"What would a girl know?" said Paul.
"Yeah!" said Tris.
Sam took a few deep breaths. "She's right," he said. "Love potions can't be blue. Even... Even girls know that!"
Tris snatched the lollipop off Paul and glared at his friend. "We know! We were just seeing if you knew." He grabbed the top part of the lollipop in both hands and tried to break in half.
Satisfied, Sam, Max, and Samantha walked away.
"That was great, Sam!" said Max. "You hardly started to cry at all."
Sam smiled. "I've been practicing," he said. He pulled some Smarties out of his pocket and offered them around. He'd really got revenge on someone, with barely any help.
It was fifteen minutes of candy and yelling above the music before they saw Tris and Paul again. They were trailing after Jennie with blank looks on their faces. Sam nudged Max. "Look!"
"What happened to them?" said Max.
"They ate a love potion," said Samantha. To Sam, she said "Is he always like this?"
Sam nodded. "Aren't you glad you didn't eat the love potion, Max?" he said, to demonstrate.
"What love potion?"
"I guess you want to dance with me now," said Jennie, holding out her hand.
"I want to dance with her," said Tris in a monotone, staring straight ahead.
"No," said Paul, equally blankly. "I want to."
"Quiet, boys," said Jennie. "I'm talking to Max."
Max stared at them for a few seconds. "Uh... oh yeah. We foiled your evil plot! Is foiled really a word?"
"Don't tell her that!" said Sam. She couldn't beat them up, which was good, but she could tell on them and get them into trouble.
Jennie laughed. "You did not. You did everything I wanted you to."
Max said "Huh?"
Samantha said "What?"
Sam said "You can't end a sentence with 'to' it's a preposition."
"I knew you had good hearing when you walked in, because you covered your ears," said Jennie to Max. "I donated those chocolates to the snack bar because your weird friend will eat anything, and my dog ate one square of baking chocolate and nearly died."
"Hey..." began Sam. He didn't like being compared to people's pets.
"Don't butt in, Sam!" yelled Jennie. "It's rude! Like I was saying, I waited until you went to the bathroom, and told Pelanie about the love potion in the girl's bathroom. I knew you'd be too smart to take it after that, Max, so you'd give it to people you didn't like instead. And you did! I win!"
Sam had a lot of questions, like how this made her win or why she didn't just give the potion to Max in the first place, but he asked the first that came to mind. "What did you tell Pelanie you'd give her if you helped her?"
"I can't tell you," said Jennie, rolling her eyes. "You're a boy."
"You can tell me," said Samantha suddenly. "I'm a girl."
Jennie looked at her skeptically. "You are?" Then she shrugged, and whispered in her ear.
Samantha gasped. "A training bra?"
Sam didn't even know what that was, except that it was a girl thing.
"Thanks a lot, um... Thanks a lot, girl Sam!" said Jennie, stamping her foot. "Now the whole school knows!"
"Don't worry I'll beat them up for you," said Tris.
"And I'll do it better," said Paul.
They were acting so... creepy. And didn't people on love potions know what was happening to them? The whole time? Sam almost felt bad, but then he remembered that Jennie had manipulated them into doing it. So it was technically her fault. Not his. He wondered if Tris and Paul would feel that way when it wore off.
Jennie smiled. "Aren't you just so jealous, Max?"
Max thought very hard. "Uh... no?"
There wasn't a long silence because the music was still thumping in their ears, but the way Jennie look at him, there should have been. "But... seeing me with these boys you don't like? Doesn't that make you a little jealous?"
"Maybe I don't wanna hang out with a girl all day," said Max. "Girls are dumb."
Jennie stared with her mouth open for a long moment.
"Are you okay Jennie," said Tris.
"Yeah are you okay," said Paul.
"Go away I was here first," said Tris, raising a fist mechanically.
"This is all your fault, Melanie!" yelled Jennie.
"Melanie wasn't in this..." began Sam.
Without warning, Jennie pushed him over and ran away to the other side of the gym.
"Wait up Jennie," said Tris, chasing her.
"Wait for me first," said Paul, doing to the same.
Sam got up and rubbed his back. He hadn't been expecting a girl to push him. That was probably why he'd hit the floor so hard. She wouldn't have been able to do it otherwise.
"That was exciting," said Samantha.
"This kinda thing pretty much happens every week," replied Sam. Usually nobody gave him enough poison to kill himself with, but other than that it was a pretty standard evening.
Samantha thought about this. "I wanna go to your school."
"Me too!" said Max, who'd apparently lost track of the conversation.
Sam was getting really sick of yelling to be heard above the music. He wished they'd turn it off.
