“I don’t care who started it,” said Coach Oldtimer. “Warm-ups, let’s go.”
“Coach said warm-ups, nerds,” sang Gunner, who caught up with Coach Oldtimer to share a side-hug and a laugh.
I heaved myself up. “Right as I was pitching my idea.”
“Asswipe,” said Milo, loud enough to make Gunner glance back and make Milo cower. This made as much sense as a pit bull backing down to a Chihuahua—Milo was big and strong enough to easily kick Gunner back into first grade if he wanted.
“To be continued, you guys,” I said. I broke into the world’s slowest jog, still rubbing my temple. “To be continued!”
I ran my long jumps and averaged three meters, a new personal low.
Milo threw the shot put n meters, n being a number Milo neither remembered nor cared about, because shot put meant about as much as playing Frisbee in the dark with a corpse.
Jamal got the high bar stuck between his legs while midair and abraded the groin muscle next to his right testicle.
But who cared? Who cared about track, or Gunner, or his football? What was important was that DIY Fantasy FX had reached some kind of tipping point. Its next phase was about to begin.
* * *
—
The week accelerated until it became a multicolored blur smearing across time and space. This happened whenever I focused hard on a new prop project. You could say this was what I loved most about DIY Fantasy FX: the effect it had on time.
I spent my school day sketching prop ideas on the sly, then holding my phone under my desk to text photos of those sketches to Milo and Jamal. In this way we held our design meetings.
Materials too expensive and not common enough, Milo would say.
Totally fun FX but maybe not quite feasible for a real-world use case? Jamal would say.
No but how about this one, I would counter, moving my previous concept into a cloud folder named Idea Archive. The folder contained more than a hundred note clippings spanning my entire friendship with Milo and Jamal.
Milo was the Production Adviser. Jamal was the Promoter.
I was the Idea Guy.
Our group chat was named the SuJaMi Guild, for Sunny, Jamal, and Milo.
In Chemistry, we three huddled in the back of the classroom and drew on notepads while the rest of the students boiled strips of balsa wood or whatever those bucktoothed lemmings had been told to do.
Me and Milo and Jamal were strictly B students.
“Excuse me,” said Ms. Uptight Teacher. “What do you three think you’re doing back here?”
I thought fast. “It’s STEAM.”
STEAM referred to any activity that involved Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math. Falling off a skateboard could be STEAM. Eating tacos could be STEAM.
Ms. Uptight Teacher peered at my scribbles. “Huh?”
“STEAM,” I insisted.
“STEAM,” said Jamal.
“Okay, but—” said Ms. Uptight Teacher.
“STEAMSTEAMSTEAM,” said me and Milo and Jamal.
She left us alone to brainstorm in peace.
While picking clover in the golden Friday afternoon light of another track practice, me and/or Milo and/or Jamal—it was hard to remember who said what first—came up with Raiden’s Spark: electroluminescent wires spring-launched from a wrist-mounted device.
“It fulfills our CREAPS requirement,” said Milo.
“Cheap parts,” I said, counting on my fingers.
“Readily available,” said Jamal, counting on his, too.
“Easy to assemble,” said Milo, nodding.
“Awesome effect,” said Jamal, nodding, too.
“Portable,” I said.
“Safe!” cried Milo.
“We got ourselves a plan, Karaan,” I said, referring of course to the god of all lycanthropes.
I reached out both arms to exchange high fives with Jamal and Milo at the same time. Jamal’s was gentle as a baby’s kick. Milo’s could break a cinder block.
“Hey,” yelled Coach Oldtimer. “Let’s get lined up for sprints, pronto.”
“In a minute, beef strokinoff,” I snapped, irritated.
“Jeez, you guys, come on,” said Coach, waving his clipboard in vain.
I turned back to Milo and Jamal. “I’ll get building over the weekend.”
“Early start,” said Milo. “Bravo.”
“The early bird rips the worm from the safety of her underground home and bites her in half while her children watch in horror,” I said.
I spent all Saturday shuttling back and forth between home, Hardware Gloryhole, and Lonely Hobby in Dad’s sapphire-blue-for-boys Inspire NV, an electric car that cost triple the average annual American salary and was crucial to looking the part. Mom had one, too, in burgundy-red-for-girls. She was forever taking it in for service because The more expensive the car, the more attention it needs—but the more attention you get.
Armed with supplies, I holed up in my room.
Here in my room, I felt safe. I felt free. Free to be 100 percent me. I had all the things I loved surrounding me, all hidden away in Arctic White airtight storage containers.
In my room were maces and shields and swords. There were dragons and dice and maps and pewter figurines, all painted in micro-brush detail. There were elven dictionaries and fae songbooks. There were model pliers and glue and solder guns and electronics and wood.
I banged containers open and closed, and gathered the tools I’d need. I had a whole system. I preferred opaque containers because I did not want anyone to see, and therefore judge, the things I cared deeply about. The things that made me me.
I flipped my face shield down and got to work. I soldered. Glued. Test-fired. Live-fired. I took notes in my lab book. I crashed asleep, sprang awake the next morning, and kept right on going. I fell into a fugue state deep enough to alarm even Mom, who took a full ten-minute break from her twenty-four-hour workday to cautiously offer a plate of simple dry foods to keep her younger son alive.
Mom tapped her ear to mute her call—a gesture gone automatic over the years. “Even nerds gotta eat,” she said. She was working, even though it was a Sunday. She wore a cream-colored work blouse incongruously paired with yoga pants and horrible orange foam clogs, because Video meetings are from the waist up.
“I’m not a nerd,” I said from behind my face shield. “I’m an innovator for nerds.”
“Right, Jesus, okay,” said Mom, hands raised.