A/N – Hope everyone had a happy holiday! Things got a bit hectic, as expected, but I did steal an hour or two to tap away at the ol' keyboard. Thanks to everyone for their warm Christmas wishes, and here's hoping that we all have a bright and prosperous new year.
Countdown to Mindshatter
A "My Life as a Teenage Robot" Fanfic
Chapter Five – The Hunchback of Tremorton High
Drew smiled down at the soft, curved lines of Allison's face, spellbound by the way the swollen red disk of the setting sun cloaked her in a rose-colored aura. Violet hair-foil shimmered in the day's dying fire like a thousand twinkling embers, its texture reflecting the sunlight like a thousand tiny diamonds, giving the impression that a river of stars was flowing down her back. And she was staring at him with those eyes, those mesmerizing ebony pools that seemed to stare right through into his very soul, the one he wasn't sure even existed until that night on the balcony when they first kissed. It all seemed so wonderfully ridiculous to him; standing here next to Allison finally made him thankful to be a robot, yet at the same time, it made him feel more human than he had at any time since the accident. He plucked a strand of foil away from her eyes and let his hand loiter on her cheek; being close to her made him feel like he could cross the gulf between Earth and Cluster Prime in a single stride. "It's okay," he whispered, "it's okay. We'll be safe soon, and then you'll never have to worry about the queen or her goons again."
"Drew, I know we just met …" – she slid her slender fingers around his hands, which sent a tingling ripple of silver-green shimmering down his spine – "… and we barely know each other … and the smart thing to do would be to just go plug myself into the backup system and forget I ever met you … but for some reason … I trust you …"
"Don't worry," he whispered, lowering his face to her waiting forehead, "as long as I live, Vexus will never, never lay a finger on you. I won't let her hurt you, Ally …"
Then the ground erupted in a fountain of twisted steel and shattered concrete.
Drew flew backwards in a sickening tumble, his malleable body twisting through the air like piece of driftwood caught in a monster wave. He splattered against a metallic wall and landed in an undignified position, gaping in amazement as a set of enormous daggers shot up out of the earth. A quartet of giant fangs, black as midnight and sharper than an executioner's axe, formed a cage of teeth that encircled a bewildered, panicked robot girl.
"If I decide to hurt her, fool," boomed a sinister voice, "there is nothing you can do about it."
He shuddered with a primal fear; the voice thundered down from the churning, orange storm clouds like a dictum from an angry god. A flash of lightning lit up the heavens, revealing a pair of glowing serpent-eyes that bathed the surreal landscape in an evil light. Then a horrible sound pierced his pseudo-heart like a blow from a poison spear. It was Allison, screaming a high-pitched screech of terror as the giant fangs closed around her body, and lifted her into the air. For they weren't fangs at all, they were fingers. She was in the clutches of a enormous, twisted hand – the demonic hand of Queen Vexus.
Vexus loomed miles and miles into the writhing sky, gazing down at the pathetic silver-green android that cringed at her feet. "You? You would oppose me, insect?" Sadistic laughter rolled down from the stars, almost loud enough to drown out Allison's pleas for help. "You would protect this traitor from the punishment she so richly deserves?" Vexus increased the pressure of her grip, and Allison howled with fresh screams of agony as bolts of electricity raced through her body.
Drew dropped to his knees and begged the queen for mercy. "No! No! Stop it! Please, STOP!"
"You said you would protect me!" screamed Allison, as blue tongues of high voltage danced across her battered chassis. "Drew, how could you let this happen?!? I trusted you! I trusted you …"
"Noooooo! Vexus, stop it, I'll do anything! Stop it! STOP …"
"Poor, pathetic girl … she trusted you, nanodroid, and instead of saving her – you threw her away, and ran back to Earth like a coward." Vexus sneered down at him, her voice filled with equal parts hate and disgust. "Sigh, and I had such a magnificent eternity of torture all laid out for you. I do hate to let good torture go to waste … although, I suppose I could just give it to your sweetheart here." The evil queen squeezed harder, and crooked black vines sprouted from her fingers, coiling around Allison's struggling body – then they wrapped around her head, and delivered another blast of high voltage that turned her beautiful eyes a hideous blood-red. Vexus smirked with satisfaction. "Dwell on this, nanodroid … while you sleep safe and sound tonight, she will be living out the endless nightmare I had planned for you. While you trot off to your silly high school, she will be writhing in eternal agony, forever wondering why she threw her life away for someone as pathetic as you …"
"Why did you abandon me? Why, Drew? WhyyyyAIIIIGHHHH!!!" With a final howl of agony, the last of Allison's mind was drained away, and she slumped in Vexus' hand, limp as a broken puppet.
"NOOOOO!!!" screamed Drew, insane with desperation and grief. "NO, for God's sake, NO! I'll do anything!" He flung himself at Vexus' massive feet, losing his last remnants of self-control as he wrapped his arms around her heels. "Please, stop hurting her! Stop it! STOP! STOOOOOOOOOOOOP!"
Sheldon slumped against his workbench in exhausted frustration, snapped off his rubber gloves, and tossed them over the back of his metal stool. He slid his goggles back against his sweat-soaked hair, and glared at the wisps of vapor rising from yet another sinkhole in the concrete floor of his garage. After his first batch of nanobots had resulted in failure, he'd decided it might be a good idea to run some tests before rushing to inject himself with what was, after all, highly experimental and extremely dangerous reverse-engineered alien technology. Even though he was sure that his new software – which used algorithms grafted from Drew's downloaded brain – would work perfectly the first time, caution won the day over blind optimism. By creating four new batches of nanobots, and testing each one on a strand of his jet-black hair, he was certain that at least one batch would merge with his DNA and create the same kind of living, oozing nano-sludge that made up Drew's unusual body. He was sure of it. Or at least … he had been, three hours ago. Now he was all out of nanobots, and all he had to show for his efforts was five incredibly deep holes in the middle of the garage.
Five bottomless pits of failure.
He slid another rubber mat over the newest sinkhole and rubbed his tired eyes. "I know the software is right this time," he mumbled to himself. "I know it's right. So that can only mean that my nanobot design is flawed! Arrrghh, that could take months to fix!" And he couldn't simply use a sample of Drew's body; he needed an original batch of nanobots, ones that hadn't self-evolved yet. Three hours ago, he'd been certain that his dream of becoming a robot was firmly within his grasp. Now … now it seemed like he had a better chance of becoming the starting quarterback for the Tremorton High football team.
The tired genius glanced up to Jenny's portrait, hanging in the spot of honor of his makeshift shrine, with a look of defeat and sadness in his eyes. "I'm sorry, Jenny," he sighed. "I know there's nothing you want more in the whole world than a robot boy to love you. And … and there's nothing I'd like more in the whole world than to be that robot boy for you. I wouldn't care what people said about me. You're worth it, Jenny. Man … I was so close this time …"
Suddenly, in the middle of his self-pity, Sheldon's was distracted by a strange harmonic tone coming from somewhere in the garage. At first he thought it might be some random feedback from his oscilloscope, or a warning message from one of his computer monitors. But he gradually came to realize that the mysterious sound was coming from the corner … from inside an ordinary plastic wastebasket, sitting next to the garage door. That piqued his curiosity, because that's where Drew was sleeping.
After Sheldon had downloaded a copy of his brain-software, Drew had insisted on sticking around until the "anti-virus" program was finished. Sheldon hadn't wanted the company, but once Drew got tired and asked for permission to "crash" for a while, Sheldon realized that he could safely continue his nanobot experiments while Drew slept. The teen android poured himself inside a spare wastebasket, and powered down for a few hours of much-needed sleep. At least Sheldon assumed it was much-needed; Drew didn't look very well, and he hadn't been very friendly or coherent lately. Not since they'd gotten back from Cluster Prime … well, there were reasons for that, he reminded himself.
Sheldon tiptoed over to the wastebasket, where gallons of thick, gooey syrup were softly gurgling like a giant pot of silver-green porridge. Ripples on the surface formed concentric circles, humming with vibrations like a stereo speaker. Eerie, harmonic tones reverberated from the wastebasket, soft tones which began to blend together into something approaching speech. Nooooo … pleeeeease … stooooop …
"Wow … that's cool!" snorted Sheldon, watching the waste-basket speaker vibrate. Drew was talking in his sleep – he must be dreaming! Sheldon's scientific mind briefly pondered whether the dreaming ability was natural or not … then he realized that the voice actually sounded pretty miserable. "Uh … hey … Drew? You okay there?" Yeeesh, how did you wake up a bucket of pudding, anyway? Sheldon tried rapping on the wastebasket like it was a fish tank, then he tried rapping it a little harder, then he dipped a hand in the sludge to splash it around …
A tentacle of nano-sludge leapt out of the basket like something from a cheap horror movie and grabbed Sheldon's hand. "ALLY, NO!" shouted a haunting, tormented voice.
"GAAAHHHHHHH!!!!" screamed Sheldon.
"AIIIIGGGHHHHH!!!" screamed Drew's voice, at the same time.
Sheldon picked himself up off the floor and checked to make sure that his heart was still beating – it felt like it was going to explode out of his chest cavity. "Drew, take it easy! Take it easy! It's just me!"
"Whazza? Huh? Wha?" The pillar of sludge grew a horribly embarrassed face, and stumbled out of the wastebasket with the coordination of a drunken sailor. Drew was disoriented and totally flustered, and had to struggle for a few seconds to regain his bearings. "Oh, crap, I'm really, really sorry, Sheldon. Are you all right? I didn't mean to … oh, crap … how long was I out? What time is it?"
"Ah, let's see … it's almost three-thirty in the morning," said Sheldon, straightening out the wrinkles in his hoodie. "Don't worry about it. I wasn't going to wake you up, but you were freaking out a little bit. Sounded like you were having some kind of a nightmare …"
"Nightmare? I, uh … geez … nightmare …" From the look on his face, it had been a doozy.
"Yeah, you were yelling something about Ally ... isn't that the name of …"
"Funny, I don't remember a thing," said Drew, entirely too quickly. Sheldon cocked a curious eyebrow at him; it was obviously a blatant, and terrible, lie. Drew rubbed at his face as if he were trying to knead it back into its proper shape. "Three hours of sleep. Well, that's three more hours than I managed to get last night. Ah … hey, Sheldon, did you have any luck with that …"
"Oh, right, the program!" Sheldon hadn't had any luck writing a new self-evolving operating system for his home-grown nanobots, but whipping up an anti-virus program had been child's play by comparison. One of his old lab computers spat out a freshly burned data disk. "Order up! Heh-heh-snort! One Cluster anti-virus program, coded and burned and ready to go. Just load this program into a computer or a robot's brain, and it'll be totally protected from the Cluster assimilation virus. So, you're going to give it to Jenny before the big invasion, huh?"
"Huh … wha?" Drew still didn't seem fully awake. "No, I'm not … I mean, uh … huh?"
"Well you don't need it for yourself," chuckled Sheldon. "And all my Internet hacker buddies know about the big Cluster invasion coming Thursday afternoon. That's why you asked me for the program, right? You're giving it to Jenny before the big invasion?"
"I'm not giving it to … I'd just as soon not talk about it, if that's okay," croaked Drew, as he bathed his eyes in a fresh layer of nanobots. "Listen, Sheldon, it's late, and I really oughta be going … thanks for letting me crash in your … uh … garbage can, and thanks for the anti-virus program. It's really, really going to come in handy … I hope."
And just as suddenly and mysteriously as he had arrived, Drew slipped out of Sheldon's garage, and disappeared back into the night. Sheldon scratched his head, finding himself increasingly baffled by Drew's puzzling behavior. His brain liked to solve puzzles, and he began to consider the strangeness of Drews's special request. His prized Captain Crush limited-edition action figure made an excellent listener when he was thinking aloud.
"He bursts in here, doesn't even notice all of the nanobot experiments I'm running, and then asks for a Cluster anti-virus program that he doesn't need." Sheldon took a bite from a stale Twizzler, and thought about that for a second. "The most obvious answer is, he wants to give it to Jenny as some kind of present … but he denies that. And he's acting really shifty, like he's hiding something." Hmmm. Was Drew planning to give the program to Jenny as a present anyway? Maybe so she'd go to the prom with him? That was the first possibility that his paranoid, jealous mind served up, but Sheldon didn't think it seemed likely. By now it was common knowledge that Drew had feelings for that alien robot girl; in Sheldon's Jenny-centric universe, that removed him as a competitor for Jenny's affections. But if he wasn't going to give the anti-virus program to Jenny as a gift, what other possible reason could he want it for?
Because, Sheldon realized with a toothy grin, giving Jenny a gift was a fantastic idea! Okay, it wasn't as good as giving her the present she really wanted – a studly, mechanized robot boy – but maybe the right present, hand-crafted with tender genius and obsessive love, could win her over and convince her to go to the prom with him. Sheldon quickly cleared his workbench, unrolled a fresh piece of blueprint paper, and cracked open six more cans of over-caffeinated cola. He took a long, invigorating drink as he tapped a pencil to his temple. He had at least five more hours before school started to come up with a great idea for Jenny's gift. Fingers began to dance over the keys on his keyboard. Plenty of time.
Jenny dug in her heels and braced herself against the doorframe, desperately straining with every ounce of strength in her metallic body. "I'm not going out there. No way. You can't make me!"
Mrs. Wakeman leaned her shoulder into her daughter's back, and pushed as hard as she could manage with her diminutive legs. "XJ-Niyun, stop this preposterous behavior this instant! You will be late … unghh … for your first scheduled scholastic lesson … unghh … if you don't get going!"
"Well, I wouldn't be late for first period if we hadn't wasted half an hour bolting this stupid pressure cooker onto my back!" Jenny glared at her mother with a harrumph, and bumped up the settings on her eyes to maximum sarcasm level.
With a final grunt of effort, the doctor shoved Jenny out of the van and onto the sidewalk. "The Z-Pack is not stupid, young lady," she growled, leaning against the door to catch her breath. "It represents a quantum leap in mobile power generation technology! And I worked very hard to develop these conduits that will enhance your power output by three orders of magnitude! The least you could do is stop being so stubborn, and give the Z-Pack a trial run!"
But Jenny grimaced in horror as she glimpsed her reflection in the side window of her mother's van. The Z-Pack had not been designed with any consideration for the wearer's appearance. Her mom had calculated that the best place to attach the new zero point energy generator was right in the middle of her back, and that's just where she had bolted it, right after breakfast this morning. It looked like a miniature version of the school's boiler; an ugly, squat cylinder of discolored steel that made her feel like she was wearing a trash can for a backpack. And if that wasn't bad enough, five thick black cables ran out of the Z-Pack and into a set of energy couplers on her torso, shoulders … and one in the back of her head. She'd been transformed into a robotic Quasimodo! Jenny winced with anguish as she remembered back to her first week of school, and all the horrible looks and cruel names that had been hurled at her. It had taken so long to even begin to be accepted, and get the kids used to her … and now she was a freak all over again, with just three days to go before Junior Prom! "Why did we have to put this thing on now?" she whined to her mother. "The big Cluster invasion isn't due until tomorrow afternoon!"
"It is of paramount importance that you give your circuitry time to adapt to the Z-Pack's power levels, sweetie," answered Mrs. Wakeman, as she hopped behind the wheel of her black-and-white van. "Now, I have to hurry back to the laboratory … I think I left the free-electron plasma oven turned on. Do keep your telemetry recorder running so I can review the Z-Pack's performance when you get back home. Oh, and don't forget about the Global Defense Review Meeting after school, dear! As soon as the bell rings, you're to go straight to the Starship Camp at the edge of town. Do you want me to call later and remind you to bring Andrew with you? Or shall I swing by to pick you both up after school?"
"No! No! I mean …" Jenny buried her face in her hands … sure, Mom, on top of everything else, I want you to pick me up after school like I was a kindergartener. "Mom, I can remember just fine on my own, thank you. Good-bye."
Her mother's van sped off with a too-cheerful double-tap on the horn, and Jenny began the long, horrible walk to English class, cringing as she passed through the front doors of Tremorton High School. Not ten seconds inside, she could already hear murmurs and giggles sprouting up behind her as she trudged down the west corridor towards her locker. And this was coming from the kids that had been acting friendlier towards her, especially since the big escape from Cluster Prime last Saturday. Yesterday, the walk to class had been all smiles and waves, and she'd hoped that the new surge of goodwill would last all the way through prom weekend. Now, she ducked her head and quickened her pace, wishing she could just melt into the floor like a certain nanodroid friend of hers. Thanks a lot, Mom, I look like a walking cement mixer! If I can just make it to my locker without running into anybody I know …
But as she passed Wood Shop and turned the corner, disaster loomed. The school hunk, Don Prima, was walking right towards her … and he was chatting with his friend Justin, the captain of the boy's swim team! She slapped her hands over her mouth to hold back a squeal of terror, and zipped back around the corner. Omigosh. Justin. Oh, my, gosh. He's such a hottie, he's radioactive! Those broad shoulders, the dark wavy hair – Justin Spitzer looked dreamier than should be allowed by law. Don and Justin! I can't let them see me looking like this. I can't let ANYONE see me looking like this. What could she do? Hide in the wood shop until school was over? Dive into the supply room and transform into a photocopier? Chill out in the basement by passing herself off as a piece of air conditioning equipment? The guys were getting closer. She had to get out of there fast …
Her motor-skates deployed from her feet, their engines screamed to life … and she heard a mysterious thrum as unbelievable amounts of energy flowed through her circuits. Suddenly the corridor smeared into a blur of color. The skates erupted with a blast of power and nearly ripped themselves clear off her feet as they launched her to warp speed. Jenny barreled out-of-control towards the end of the corridor, barely having time to shield her face before she blasted through the wall in an explosion of drywall and plaster. Her legs flailed about wildly as she fought to keep her balance – something she'd never had to do before – and she became vaguely aware of a hardware floor and basketball nets. The gym? How did I wind up in the gym? She slalomed around a dozen stunned girls from the badminton team, ripped through their net, and almost ran over their coach, leaving a trail of burned rubber scorched into the floor behind her. Jenny finally lost control and spun into a pale blue tornado, shredding through the gym's far wall, the equipment room, and into another corridor before she managed to bring herself to a stop.
The poor robot girl sat in the middle of a pile of dusty debris, shattered lumber, and field hockey sticks, trying to figure out just what the heck had transpired in the past ten seconds. Her cheeks blazed blue with embarrassment under the uncomfortable gaze of snickering students, and the lethal stare she was receiving from the school janitor, who had just finished sweeping the hallway. She gave him a nervous smile, and as an act of apology, she converted her legs into a floor polisher … which promptly squealed like a drag-racer and sanded a six-foot-wide hole into the floor. Everyone within fifteen feet of Jenny was coated in a thick layer of smoke and sawdust. "What's the matter with me?!?" she wailed, tugging frantically at her pigtails. It had been weeks – months – since she'd had an incident with her super-strength! Now all of the sudden she was as clumsy as the first week she was activated! "Can this possibly get any worse?!?"
"I say, dear cousin, the filth in this school is an absolute disgrace," huffed a singsong, cultured accent. "I must make a point to have Daddy give the Health Department a call … ugh, I might have known."
Oh no, Jenny squeaked to herself, not them. She stepped away from the gaping hole, brushing the sawdust and rubble off of her shoulders, to see the critical faces of Brit and Tiff Krust surveying the destruction that she'd wrought upon the hallway. Jenny became even more painfully aware of her appearance as she saw that once again, the Krust cousins looked like they'd just stepped off the cover of Fashion Fantasy magazine. Today's theme was Tokyo Punk: the high priestesses of the Tremorton High social scene were decked out in a riot of fluorescent pinks and greens, from their vinyl boots and mini-skirts to the neon color highlights in their hair. Jantrice, Stephanie, and Pteresa hung back a respectful step behind the Krusts, looking on in bewilderment at the disheveled teen heroine.
"H-h-hey there, girls," stammered Jenny, cracking an uneasy smile under the withering glares of the social elite. "I … uh … I just had a little … um … see, I was just trying to get in a little workout before class … in the … gym … and … uh … eh-heh-heh …"
Another chunk of wall plaster fell to the floor, sending up a billowing cloud of fine white powder that made Brit's eyes water with irritation. She coughed a few times, rubbed the grit from her eyes … and wound up smearing electric pink eye shadow all over her gloves. "You miserable metallic miscreant!" she wailed. "My eighty dollar mascara! It's ruined! You stupid, clumsy …"
Jenny grimaced in horror. I am so dead … just carve my tombstone now, I am beyond dead. I'm mega-dead. "Oh, no, I am so sorry! I'm so, so sorry about the mess, Brit! It was an accident! I honestly don't know what could have gone wrong …" Maybe I could just drill down into the earth's core and melt myself. It would be over sooner, and it'll be a lot less painful …
Tiff brushed a chunk of plaster off of her flame-red jacket. "Okay, this is too freaky even for you, Robo-Loser." Her eyes bristled with anger, and her mouth curled into a nasty grin as she got a better view of Jenny's "new look". "What the blazes is that thing you got stuck in the middle of yo' back?" she laughed. "Are you expectin' a flood? Cause it looks like you're wearing a scuba tank." The popular girls took their cue and laughed in unison as Jenny blushed furiously, and awkwardly ran a polishing tool over her arm. Between the unforgivable social faux-pas, the filthy hallway wreckage, and the giant metal attachment on Jenny's back, she was an easier target than she'd ever been before. Tiff rubbed her hands in sadistic anticipation; she could reduce a cheerleader to a quivering mass of jelly with her endless repertoire of verbal putdowns. Jenny would be too dang easy. "Yo mama so …"
But Brit tapped her cousin on the elbow, and wagged a cautionary finger. "Wait, wait, Tiff, perhaps I did let my emotions get the better of me. We mustn't rush to condemn our old pal Jenny."
Old pal? Tiff's face twisted into a look of utter confusion. "Huh?"
Jenny blinked a few times in disbelief herself. "Huh?"
"Well, accidents happen," smiled the fashion queen, baffling her cousin and their legion of followers. "I'm certain that Jenny didn't mean any harm by this little bout of roughhousing. Why, the least we can do is extend her the benefit of the doubt, after she so heroically rescued us all from a life of slavery on that horrid, horrid robot planet."
Tiff scratched her pink-streaked hair, suddenly feeling somewhat lost. "But you told me we wouldn't have gotten kidnapped in the first place if those alien robot creeps hadn't come for that stupid tin-plated …"
She was cut off by a firm elbow to the ribs from her cousin, along with a scheming glance that said trust me. "Nonsense, Tiff! In fact, we should consider ourselves fortunate to have a bona fide hero in our midst! If our friend Jenny is having some kind of a problem, why, we should be there for her! I'm sure you all agree with me … don't you, girls?" After a moment of indecision and some nonverbal coaching from Brit, Tiff and the popular girls nodded their heads like trained seals.
Jenny gulped in amazement, and a flustered smile came to her face. "Wow … I … I don't know what to say! That's really sweet of you, Brit! Thanks! I'm sorry again for the mess … I'm just having a some trouble testing this new gizmo that my mom installed on my back this morning. It's supposed to boost my strength, and I guess it does it a little too well …"
"See, I knew it was something like that," cooed Brit, as she straightened out her scarves. "And you were testing your new power by … what, seeing how fast you could wax all the floors in the school?"
Jenny glanced back at the hole in the floor, feeling a huge sense of relief that Brit and Tiff weren't mad at her, and started to jabber as if the Krusts were her new best friends. "Oh, that! Heh-heh … no, I blasted through the gym because I almost bumped into Don Prima and Justin Spitzer on the other side of the school and I was totally spazzing out over this Z-Pack thingy and Justin was like looking so amazingly hot and I was like freaking out and …"
A gleam of opportunity flashed in Brit's eye, and she fought to maintain her poker face as her plotting mind kicked into high gear. "Oh, Jenny, how very coy of you! Well played, dear, well played indeed. It never hurts to leave the boys wanting a little more …"
"Huh?" said Jenny, as she finally finished cleaning the dust off her torso. "I … I don't …"
"Come on, there's no secrets between us homegirls," laughed Brit. "Why, Tiff was just filling me in this morning on the latest buzz about you and Justin."
"I was? … Ow!" Another subtle elbow to the ribs, and Tiff finally began to catch on. "I mean … oh yeah, I was! Mmmm-mmm. Girl, it's all over the grapevine. Justin got it somethin' bad for you!"
"He … does?" Jenny's eyes shrank to the size of pinpoints, and she was overcome by a dreamy sense of awe. Justin Spitzer, captain of the swim team, Grade A Prime beefcake, and one of the most popular boys in the entire school … had a crush on her? It was too much to hope for. She had been getting worried as prom approached, and she had remained dateless – but she also remembered the rumors that had been circulating a couple of weeks ago. Rumors that some mystery guy was going to ask her to the prom. She'd held on to that hope … and the mysterious admirer turned out to be Justin Spitzer?!? Jenny let out a high-pitched squeal that shattered every glass light fixture along the length of the hallway.
Brit shielded herself with her history textbook and went on. "Heh … yes. Why, when you think about it, it makes perfect sense! Justin is an athlete, so it stands to reason he would be attracted to … an athletic girl like yourself, Jenny! In fact, now that you have that … um … Z-Pot on your back, or whatever it's called, and you're even more powerful, he's probably chomping at the bit to take you to the prom! I'm sure it's only a matter of time before he asks you."
"Yep. That's right," said Tiff, snapping her fingers for emphasis. "Then again, maybe you should help the boy along a little. You know, give him a little encouragement, if you know what I mean. Right, cuz?" Tiff swung her ample hips from side to side, and gave Jenny a knowing wink.
"Uh … encouragement?" said Jenny, perplexed.
"Intriguing suggestion, dear cousin." Brit wrapped a hand around Jenny's shoulder, and spoke in a hushed whisper. "I hear that Justin is terribly shy. I know, it's surprising, but think about it – he hasn't even worked up the courage to speak to you yet, has he? He's probably intimidated by you. You see, Jenny dear, nowadays boys often expect the girl to make the first move. Normally, I would chafe at such tactics but under these circumstances … it might not be a bad idea to be a little aggressive. Use your feminine wiles on him, dear. Only three days till the prom, can't afford to take any chances!"
"Right … aggressive!" Jenny's head was swimming with giddiness; everything that poured forth from the Krusts' mouths seemed to make perfect sense all of the sudden. "I can't believe it … thanks for all the great advice, Brit, Tiff! Oh wow … it's almost time for class. I'm gonna be late! I gotta go … thanks again, girls! Maybe I'll see you later? At lunch?" Jenny ran off in a blast down the hall, with the hideous Z-Pack and its thick black cables bouncing behind her, so caught up in daydreams about Justin Spitzer that she didn't even realize she was ripping up chunks of floor tiling with every step she took.
"I guarantee it," Brit snickered to herself, as she watched the janitor shake his fist at Jenny. "I wouldn't miss this for the world." The popular girls joined together in an enjoyable round of evil chuckling, and casually made their way to class, anticipating the entertainment they were about to enjoy.
Continued in Chapter Six / Thirty Hours to Cluster Dawn
