The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady - Elizabeth Stuckey-French [42]
Otis felt anxiety bubble up in his stomach, the way it did every morning when he went into Sunny Side High School, a horrible feeling he was used to and had learned to hide. He gravitated toward the teachers because most of them were patient with him and didn’t openly laugh at him or whisper about him or ignore him. Except his English teacher, Mr. Lennon, who seemed to find everything Otis said side-splittingly funny. The teachers were getting paid to put up with him, it was true, but for Otis the knowledge of this fact was only a small humiliation compared to the myriad other humiliations visited upon him, either on purpose or not, by his fellow classmates. Fresh in his memory was yesterday’s history class, when, toward the end of the hour, he’d opened his mouth and began to speak—offering up tidbits about World War II bombers—information he’d read somewhere—and as he was talking about P-51 Mustangs, and P-47 Thunderbolts and B-29 Flying Fortresses he saw the teacher, Mr. Fusek, shaking his head at someone, so Otis looked around. Half of the class was rolling their eyes or covering their ears, and the other half was snickering. This was bad enough, but even worse was the realization he’d had later, on the bus going home, that they’d probably been doing this all year long and he just hadn’t noticed.
There was just one more week of his junior year to endure until they got out for the summer. And this would be a great summer. This summer would be his summer! The summer of his triumph! Surely he could handle Rusty for a few minutes, since she wasn’t attached to Royce and they were in a totally different place than usual.
He switched off his Geiger counter and glanced around the big room—a huge walnut bed, a red dinette set, a glassed-in bookcase, racks of what looked like old prom dresses, but no clocks. “What kind of comic books are you reading?” he asked Rusty, just to stall.
“Radioactive Man. From The Simpsons. Ever seen him?” Rusty held up a comic book with a Bart Simpsonish–looking character on it, dressed in a superhero suit.
Otis had never heard of Radioactive Man. Was this just a coincidence? Or was Rusty mocking him? Was this a planned prank? But Rusty hadn’t known he’d be coming in here. Like usual, Otis was taking too long to reply to someone, which made him seem even more gooney. He needed to say something quick, something safe. “There was a big earthquake in Indonesia. Six thousand people were killed.”
Rusty tossed her dyed black hair. Even from here, Otis could smell cigarettes. She mimicked Otis. “I heard about the earthquake in Indonesia.” Then back to her own voice. “Is that an alien detector you got there? The only alien in here is my grandma. Did she give you a hard time? She doesn’t like men, only horses. Hey, isn’t unguent a great word? It’s my new favorite.”
“I’m looking for clocks. The old kind, with glow-in-the-dark dials. The bigger the better.”
Rusty did her smirk. “You’re so twisted. Hey. Want to come to a party with us tonight? Me and Royce. FSU party. Free beer and other stuff, if you get my drift.” Instead of lowering her voice, she’d raised it. Her grandma would hear!
“Can’t, I got plans,” Otis said. He’d learned that most invitations he received weren’t sincere, so it was best to say no straightaway just to be safe. And he really did have plans. When he was done building his model breeder reactor—the youngest person ever to build one, the only civilian to ever build one—then he could take time out to go to parties. People would be having parties in his honor!
“What plans? Jerking off to Internet sites about aliens?”
“I don’t believe in aliens,” Otis told Rusty. “There’s no definitive proof, from any reliable source, that any so-called alien beings or their crafts have ever visited Earth.”
“Whatever.” Rusty slouched back in the chair. “You