Chapter 3: Worth
"Baby, you're a Firework!"
For the fifth time since the date started, Moze thought to herself how dreamy he was. Faymen Phorchin was the Brazilian exchange student, and if there were empirical criteria for being dreamy, Faymen would have them. He was the tall, dark, and handsome archetype with a bonus accent.
Tonight he had followed the dream date script. Doors were held open. Chairs were pulled out. He looked at her eyes when she was talking. Now, he was walking her to her front door.
They had never kissed before. Something always got in the way: he had a cold, her dad was there. Her father had a deep suspicion of all the boys who weren't Ned or Cookie. Here, at her front door, they looked deep into each others' faces, and she new this was it.
"I had a great time tonight, Jennifer." he said, leaning in gently. Moze, who was a strong believe in being direct, jumped the rest of the distance and kissed him. When they separated, Faymen smiled hugely.
"Good night, Jennifer." he said and walked away.
Moze went inside, made her way to her room, and fell back onto her bed. She gently fingered her lower lip, pondering what just happened.
"Huh." she said. That had been utterly...dull.
"Have you ever considered the wealth of insects?" Ms. Frizzle asked her first hour class. They were all thinking about insects right now. If for no other reason that her touch screen wall was covered in video feeds of various creepy-crawlies. For reasons they could not quire fathom, she also had a Hercules Beetle crawling across her shoulder.
"If we," Ms. Frizzle continued, "the human race, and all the other vertebrates disappeared overnight, planet earth would carry on. If all the insects were gone, life on earth would start circling the drain. Insects convert dead plant matter, and dead animal matter, into base nutrients that can nourish new life. All the fertile farmland you grow your food on, you have earthworms and flies to thank for that. If you have a favorite fruit, it was a flower that was impregnated by a bug at some point. Of course, you all know that storms are caused by butterflies."
"All these things," Ms. Frizzle said, "we owe to creatures we often disregard. We are also guilty of disregarding our own people. We consider others unworthy who do menial or common jobs. Some sad people even discount themselves. Undoubtedly, some of your parents have warned you that if you don't apply yourself now you will be a garbage man when you grow up. Well, that very well may be so, but what kind of a world would it be if we didn't have any garbage men? If tomorrow there was no sanitation service then within the week you'd be wading knee deep in old banana peels to get to school. Before the month was out we'd all have cancer!"
"Every task is important. Anything worth doing is worth doing well. Do your duty as if the President himself gave you the assignment. If it falls to you to sweep the halls of a school building, then you are to sweep like Michelangelo sculpted, like Shakespeare wrote poetry, or like Eminem busts a rhyme. Sweep it so well that if the Supreme Being were passing by he would say to himself 'That is the best swept hall I have ever seen.'"
"This is the worst swept hallway I have ever seen." said Ned as he passed Gordy.
"I save my 'A game' for when when Crubbs is inspecting." said Gordy.
"I think I might be staring at my future." said Ned to Moze. "And it looks like an advert for the Salvation Army."
"Why are you depressed again?" asked Moze.
"Ms. Frizzle says that everyone should contribute as best they can, but I don't know what I'm even good at." said Ned.
"The Macadamia Nut cookies you made yesterday put a strong punt in for confectionery." said Moze.
"Yeah, but can you make a career out of it?" asked Ned, sinking slowly into freak-out mode. "Will I get benefits? Do I need a degree or a license? Will I be able to support my mother in her old age and start up a 401K?"
"Uh, I don't know the answers," said Moze, "but, you seem to be asking the right questions. I don't even know what I should be asking about Faymen."
"What's wrong with Faymen?" asked Ned. "Did he do something to you?"
"No!" Moze answered quickly. "Well, yes. He kissed me, but it was like kissing a wall."
"A wall that didn't know how to kiss?" Ned asked coyly.
"Don't make me stuff you in your locker." Moze threatened.
"You should talk to Dr. Xavier." suggested Ned. "If anyone can reduce love to a basic mathematical formula and balance the equation, it's her. And Cookie says she's always reading romance novels."
"Thanks," said Moze, brightening up. "If you make a list of things you want to know about a job you can look them up in the career section of the library."
"Thanks," said Ned. "Go for Plan Library!"
"Time for Plan Xavier!" said Moze, and they were off.
"So, there are no fireworks when you kiss?" Dr. Xavier repeated back to Moze, trying to be sure she understood the problem.
"Yeah," confirmed Moze. "I don't know what's missing. He's cute, he's nice, he's got an accent...really great teeth."
"No worry," said Xavier, making her way to the blackboard. "Class!" she called out to her students. They looked up from their logarithms. "We are going to analyze the dynamic of kiss on mathematical level! Here are the variables..." She began copying down the variables on the black board. These variables were facts about Moze and Faymen: Age, Shoe Size, Favorite Color, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Later that day, she would wonder how Xavier knew what shampoo she used.
As soon as all the variables were written out, the more eager students swarmed to the blackboard armed with chalk and formulas. They began writing out equations and calling out esoteric phrases that were known only to the mathematical elite. Moze was vaguely reminded of wizards making up a spell to summon a demon.
"Let x equal the weight ratio...The sum of all numbers between variable hotness...extrapolate using the MacLagan Retroactive Forecast formula...round to the nearest iterant of Dalke's Progression of Random Constants..." There was a small explosion at the front of the group and a few students were blown backwards.
"Alright, which one of you divided by Zero?"
A few more explosion and an animal sacrifice later, and the solution had been simplified. Dr. Xavier was making the final calculations.
"And final answer is:" Dr. Xavier swept back from the board with a flourish, "42!"
"Great," said Moze, unimpressed. "What was the question?"
"That night on your porch." Dr. Xavier clarified "Kiss firework were at level of 42 out of possible 100. When we calculate father giving good-night kiss, Firework level at 43."
"Amazing." said Moze. "I've just been scoring them as 'good' or 'bad'."
"Fortunately, we can alter variables to get better score." Dr. Xavier said as she circled a group of numbers in the longhand equation. "These variables are for environment. Your front porch had no atmosphere."
"So," said Moze, "all we need to do is set the scene for the perfect kiss. Crank it up to 11!"
"Everyone!" cried Dr. Xavier. "To Gymnasium!"
Ned was sitting between shelves in the library perusing every book he could find on careers. Oyster Farming: Is It For You? wasn't much of a page turner. Futures In Horoscope Reading didn't offer much in the way of job security. How To Be A Millionaire By 20 had seemed promising, but, when he opened it, all the pages were blank and there was a note in the front: Please fill this out after you make a million dollars.
In spite of the setbacks, Ned was resolved. He was going to figure out exactly how the rest of his life was going to play out. And he was going to decide today.
Faymen made his way towards the Gym. As Mr. Sweeney's science class was ending he had gotten a message to go to the Gym post haste for an emergency soccer game. It seemed odd, but it wasn't for him to pass judgement on another culture, and soccer was soccer.
He opened the gym's door and sand came pouring out into the hall. The floor of the gym was covered in white sands. Hesitantly he made his way inside. As he walked across the sand he noticed something very peculiar about the gym. He was very sure that it had a ceiling a when he was in here this morning. Right now, he saw the Sun in a clear blue sky. The gym had previously been enclosed by four walls, but now he could swear he was on a beach, complete with gently swaying palm trees, crashing waves, and a flock of seagulls.
There on the shore, stood Jennifer. She was wearing a long white gown that was flowing gently through the breeze. Her hair was falling in waves. Faymen was utterly stupefied by her beauty.
"Jennifer," he breathed, "you're beautiful." He walker right up and kissed her with more passion than he knew he had in him.
He blacked right out. He fell back onto the sand, a smile frozen on his face.
Moze kept her eyes closed, basking in the moment, trying to soak up every stimulus. And finally:
"Nothing!" she said frustrated and stormed out of the gym.
All around her, the beach disappeared and was replaced by green screen. The green screens came down and the people standing behind them were revealed.
"Okay, everyone!" shouted Dr. Xavier from her hiding place behind the base fan. "That is wrap! Tear it down!"
While they were using push-brooms to clear away the shore, Moze was storming down the hallway to her locker. They brought a beach to the school and their was nothing to show for it. That kiss had been a 44, at most.
"That's a nice dress, Jennifer." said Ms. Frizzle who was walking the other way down the hall carrying a leaf blower. "Dr. Xavier said she needed help at the gym clearing away a beach. Do you know what she was talking about?"
"She was trying to help me feel the fireworks." said Moze gloomily.
"As your teacher, I should point out that feeling fireworks has a serious risk of injury." said Ms. Frizzle cautiously.
"No," Moze said, "I mean with Faymen."
"The Buddy System doesn't really help in this case." said Ms. Frizzle.
Moze finally lost patience. "When we kiss I don't feel any fireworks!" she groaned impatiently.
"Oh, those." said Ms. Frizzle following her to her locker. Moze banged her head against her locker and gave a sniff. "Do you have any tips?" she asked hopefully.
"Every kiss feels different." said Ms. Frizzle blushing slightly. "The same way each person is different. Some people mix like oil and water. Of course, how you feel about that person affects how much static you feel. Honestly, Jennifer, at your age it's unlikely you like anyone enough to feel the..." she stopped suddenly as a thought crossed her mind.
"Hang on," Ms. Frizzle said, "you didn't feel fireworks with Faymen?"
"No." Moze reiterated.
"How do you know what fireworks feel like?"
"Uh," Moze was stumped.
"Did you feel fireworks when you kissed someone else?" Ms. Frizzle asked.
"Yeah," Moze said brightening up. If she could just remember then she'd know what was missing. She just had to think. "It was with..."
The memory played bright and clear in her mind. Ned sitting next to her at the back of the bus. Laughter on his face. His expression changing to uncertainty. Then his lips against hers.
"Oh," she said. The realization had actually raised more questions than answers. "Gotta go!" she said to Ms. Frizzle. She hitched up her skirt and ran for the girl's bathroom.
Ms. Frizzle raised her eyebrows, gave a shrug, and continued to the Gym. As she was passing the library a book on platypus breeding flew past her head. She looked inside to see Ned lying supine in the career section. She walked over and gave him a nudge with her toe.
"This library doesn't have any answers." he groaned from his place on the floor.
"They cut those first when the budget was revised." Ms. Frizzle joked. "What's your question?"
"I want to know what I'm going to do." said Ned, sitting up.
"You're going to worry yourself into conniption fit." said Ms. Frizzle
"I have to decide what I'm going to do with my life." said Ned.
"In one afternoon? That takes at least a weekend." said Ms. Frizzle. "Look, you have time. You can spend whole years getting the information to make this decision. Dabble in things. Take up hobbies. Take chances. Get Messy. Make Mistakes. Get out there and explore. The job you end up choosing might not even exist yet. A few short years ago there were no such things as cell phones. Now there are oodles of cell phone companies that are in a bidding war for the best programmers and electronics designers. If your guide is anything to go by, I think you have the makings of a teacher gestating within you."
"I'm afraid I'll turn into some nobody." Ned admitted.
"Like I said earlier: every job is important." said Ms. Frizzle. She knelt down beside him and whispered conspiratorially. "I can guarantee there's someone out there who thinks you're a firework."
"Crab Parmesan." Ned said with a flourish. He put two bowls of the dip on the table. Moze tore off a piece of bred and dug in. They were both in Ned's Kitchen again to sample his latest recipe.
"I'm still not sure what I want to do." Ned admitted between mouthfuls. "Whatever it is, I'm going to need all the knowledge I can get my hands on. Starting tomorrow, I'm going to pull all the stops at school."
"So, you'll get straight A's this semester?" asked Moze doubtfully.
"I can give you my written guarantee." said Ned confidently.
"I'll hold you to it." said Moze. "And I can help you every step of the way."
"Thanks, Moze." said Ned. "Hey, how did things go with Faymen?"
Moze gave Ned a very calculating look. Ned was starting to wonder if he had something on his face. Finally, she answered.
"I think we're just going to have to keep practicing." she said and returned to her dip.