"Hands-On Science" by Nindulgence (School Challenge)
Title: "Hands-On Science"
Author: nindulgence
Characters: Sheppard, McKay
Genre: alternate history
Summary: The guy's name was Rodney McKay and touring the Science Centre with him was like having a backstage pass.
"Okay, everybody? Go!"
John sat back and waited out the pandemonium. Mr. Cray, with his usual obliviousness, had chosen the worst possible moment to order the Champlain High students out of the front lobby of the Ontario Science Centre and towards the long, narrow entrance hall leading into the museum itself. Somehow failing to notice the hundred local private-school kids already being herded in the same direction, Cray shooed John's classmates straight into them: there was a brief Who-concert moment as the two school groups collided and tried to edge past each other--so much for that fabled Canadian politeness, thought John--followed by a chorus of shrieks and giggles from the Champlain girls as they found themselves shoulder-to-shoulder with clean-cut Toronto boys in navy-blue blazers and grey flannel.
John glanced at the dittoed page in his hand. Mr. Cray had prepared question sheets for each stop on the senior class's Toronto trip, but John was beginning to seriously doubt the man's research skills, as so far the assignments had proven to be full of misinformation and dead ends. Yesterday, at the Royal-Pain-in-the-Ass Ontario Museum, John had spent an hour looking for an exhibit that no longer existed: he was not falling for that again.
John yawned, stretched, followed the last few stragglers out of the low, concrete-walled lobby--and stopped. The Science Centre's entrance hallway was actually a bridge, windowed all along one side, spanning a wooded ravine that came as a complete surprise to John after the concrete wastelands of the museum's parking lot and front building. Leaning his forehead against the cool glass, John watched a black squirrel dash, pause, and twitch its way up a tree trunk. On John's side of the window, the last of the laughter and shouting faded in the distance, and the long hallway went silent.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see one of the private-school kids farther down the hall--forehead to the glass like John's--darting a sidelong glance in his direction and looking as irritated as John felt to find that he wasn't alone on the bridge. John was debating whether to wait the guy out or move on when Private School turned his head and glared.
"What?" he snapped.
Whoa, thought John, and then, Best defense... Assuming his best charm-the-English-teacher grin, he strolled over to the other guy and stuck out his hand. "Hey. I'm John."
Private School just stared at him for a moment--like John was something those squirrels outside had dug out of the undergrowth--before whatever training went with the uniform kicked in and he took the hand extended to him. "Hey, John," he replied, politely enough if you ignored the twitch of his wide mouth and the slight rising inflection on the Hey. "You can't possibly be lost already."
"No, I'm good," said John, leaning casually against the window-wall, grin undisturbed, "But I was wondering...do you come here often?"
It was surprisingly satisfying to see that cocky jaw drop, to see the floored look in those startled eyes. Also a bit of a relief, since John had belatedly realized--just as the words left his mouth--that Private School was actually kind of pretty in a Drama-Club, poetry-writing sort of way, with a Duran-Duran-ish fall of hair over one eye, and it was entirely possible he might have reacted differently to that question.
But no, the guy was clearly thrown for a loop. "Are you kidding me?" he protested. "Are you dyslexic? It's in the left ear, you...Look, I don't know what that means where you come from, but--"
John hadn't noticed the tiny gleam of silver from the guy's earring: it didn't look like a plain stud, but he wasn't close enough to make out what it was. "Because if you have been here before," he continued smoothly, in his most innocent voice, "I could really use some help with this." He waved the assignment sheet, and watched Private School's pale cheeks flush deep apple-red.
"Oh," he said, in a small voice, and then, rallying, "What, do I have a sign on my forehead? Do you jocks have radar or something?" Snatching the sheet out of John's hand, he reached inside his blazer for a pen, flattened the paper against the glass and scrawled the first answer.
Man, he was easy to wind up. Then again, the guy didn't exactly look like a science geek, so why had John thought he'd know something about this place?
"You seemed...comfortable here, I guess. At home. What makes you think I'm a jock?"
"Hello, football jacket."
"Huh." The jacket was from two high schools ago: it had been a while since it signified anything to John but not-really-belonging.
Private School hadn't glanced up. He was on question three already.
"Actually," said John gently, "I wasn't asking you to do those for me. It's just that some of the questions there are probably wrong or out of date, and I was kind of hoping you could tell me which ones."
Private School stopped mid-word, and cocked his head, really looking at John for the first time. With an odd little huff, he turned back to the assignment sheet, scanning the rest of it rapidly, crossing out a few lines and marking large Xs in the margin beside others. "That's gone...that's moved...you'll never find that one based on this description...okay, that's just plain wrong..." He handed it back to John with a snort. "It's a stupid assignment sheet. Apart from the numerous errors, it's got you following the main traffic flow, so you'll spend the whole day fighting off packs of feral ten-year-olds to get at the exhibits."
"So...what? I should try doing the questions back to front?"
Private School looked pained at what he clearly considered to be the unsatisfactoriness of that suggestion. "I'd really have to show you..." he demurred.
John raised an eyebrow.
"Come with me," said Private School finally. He strode down the corridor and stopped at the far end, spreading his arms wide and reciting in a brisk tour-guide sing-song, "The bridge between the front lobby and the museum itself was designed as a transition-space from the mundane world to the amazing realm of hands-on science. Take a deep breath," he instructed. "Are you feeling the transition to the amazing realm of hands-on science?"
"Oh, I'm feelin' something," John eye-rolled.
He was really starting to enjoy that annoyed little huff.
~
The guy's name was Rodney McKay and touring the Science Centre with him was like having a backstage pass. For the first hour, Rodney led John over the whole huge building at a run, whizzing him up and down escalators and through all the most popular exhibits--before the ten-year-olds had a chance to discover them, he explained. Then, after a quick snack break at a dingy cafeteria just outside the Hall of Communication, Rodney took John through the museum again, this time pointing out hidden treasures and the best out-of-the-way filmstrips, or coaxing the white-coated Science Centre staff to open up strange little labs or rooms full of puzzles for them. The staff had mixed reactions to Rodney: some of them looked panicky and dove for cover when they saw him coming; others greeted him by name and fell into long conversations about insects, photography, solar power, and robotics--all of which seemed to be combined in Rodney's current science-fair project. The woman running the tiny planetarium in the Hall of Space lingered with them after her show, pointing out stellar distances and locations of galaxies as the starscape slowly rotated across the curved screen overhead; the guy in the Hall of Chemistry brought out an assortment of combustibles the moment he spotted Rodney and spent the next fifteen minutes cheerfully demonstrating the fine art of blowing things up.
Rodney proved surprisingly easy to be around, mostly because he took almost the entire burden of the conversation on himself, showing a sublime lack of interest in John as anything but an appreciative receptacle for his expertise. There was nothing to evade with Rodney, because he didn't ask any of the usual questions: instead of "How do you like it in Michigan?" or "What colleges are you applying to?" Rodney's idea of getting-to-know-you fell more along the lines of "You've heard of the Drake equation, right?" or "Have you covered fractals at all?" Alternatively, on their frequent snack breaks, Rodney would jam a Walkman onto John's head and play him snatches of British bands he'd barely heard of, or Canadian ones he hadn't heard of at all.
If the mile-a-minute bluster was weirdly engaging, the occasional breaks in it were even more so: Rodney was so obviously a soft touch underneath it all, John realized, yet so blissfully unaware of the fact. Despite his frequent kvetching about anklebiters and the general perniciousness thereof, Rodney nevertheless dutifully intervened whenever he spotted tiny blue-blazered urchins elbowing their even tinier counterparts away from the best exhibits. ("What?" he said defensively when he saw John's face. "I'm a prefect. I happen to be extremely skilled at ordering smaller people around.") And, though he would sigh impatiently and mutter "wasting time, wasting time..." whenever John's attention was captured by what he considered to be a lame or outdated exhibit, Rodney was comically sensitive when it came to his own favourites: he went very stiff and tight around the mouth when John pretended to be unimpressed by the shadow tunnel, and he lit up with the goofiest grin ever when John conceded that the ancient voice-synthesizer machine was pretty cool, even though all it did was say "coffee" over and over with different inflections.
It was during their second lunch break that Rodney got dragged away temporarily to solve a problem for a table of youngsters who were frowning over their programmable calculators, leaving John to the conversational mercies of a couple of his private-school classmates: Max, an intense young politician-in-the-making who did his best to explain to John why their school was called Upper Canada College when, as far as John could tell, it was pretty clearly in the lower part of the country; and Goran, who confided that ever since a certain incident five years ago, it had become something of a tradition in the Physics Club to try to provoke the CIA--or at least the RCMP--into showing up at the annual Science Fair, though so far they'd only succeeded once.
"But there's a new Canadian Intelligence Service now," put in Max helpfully, "so maybe they'll start checking us out."
John leaned back and listened to them discussing the chances of it--evaluating the potential of this year's crop of projects, discussing rumours of the competition underway at rival schools, quoting statistics and precedents and debating how best to set up an odds-calculating program on Max's new Macintosh computer. John wondered what it would be like to be that confident about being smart--never to have to dog-ear your test papers so as to hide the As on them, never to have to keep your hand down and pretend to be falling asleep when you knew exactly what the teacher was talking about and what the answer was, never to have to limit your conversations to the same old who-scored-what and who-scored-with-who gossip.
"So, John, what's it like living in Michigan?" asked Max politely.
John groaned inwardly. "Okay, I guess. I really haven't been there very long."
"Oh? Where were you before that?"
"Uh...Colorado, New Mexico, Hawaii, California. My dad's in the Air Force--we move around a lot."
"An Air Force brat! I'm a diplomatic brat myself," said Max heartily. "Which was your favourite?"
John shifted in his seat. "Well, California's where I really grew up. It's where I learned to surf. Hawaii was pretty incredible, though."
"Dude!" exclaimed Goran. "And now you're stuck in Michigan?"
"So what's next, then?" asked Max. "Are you planning to--" but luckily Goran jumped in just then with a barrage of questions about California girls vs. Hawaiian ones, which John was more than happy to field. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Rodney watching him sidelong from the other table, frowning a little.
Rodney was strangely quiet after rejoining them, slouching back in his seat beside John and staring fixedly at the table in front of him, which--unusually for Rodney--didn't have any food on it. Trying to catch his eye, John noticed that this was the best view of Rodney's ear that he'd had all day, and reached out to tug on his earlobe for a closer look.
"So what is this thing, anyway?" John asked, ignoring Rodney's outraged protests. The earring was a tiny silver sphere with an even tinier off-centre dent in it. "Is it the Death Star?"
"Were you raised in a barn?" squawked Rodney. "And no, it's not the Death Star."
Across the table, Goran was laughing and shaking his head, while Max suddenly checked his Swatch and said, "We'd better get moving if we're going to make the Electricity show."
Rodney rolled his eyes. "Oh, please, not the Electricity show..."
"What?" said Max. "You can't show John the Science Centre without taking him to the Electricity show. That's like seeing Paris without going to the Eiffel Tower."
"You never go to the Eiffel Tower when you're in Paris: you say it's always too touristy."
"Come on, Rodney," said Goran. "We have to touch the ball that makes your hair stand on end."
"Okay, first of all, you know perfectly well what it's called--"
"It's a Van de Graaff generator, right?" said John.
"--and second of all, it's nothing special, we made one in class last year."
"Only a little one," objected Goran.
"Size does matter," said John, when Rodney shot him a pleading look.
"Oh, fine. Although I warn you, you all have the wrong hair for it, so don't expect to get picked as a volunteer or anything."
Goran leaned in towards John as they gathered up their litter, whispering, "Rodney, on the other hand, looks like something out of Flock of Seagulls when he gets electrostatified, which is why you have to get him to go up with you after the show."
"Done," whispered John.
~
"So why don't you like talking about your plans for after high school?"
John and Rodney were standing at the back of the Electricity-show audience--an audience Rodney had stacked beforehand by striding purposefully around the Science Arcade and informing every girl there with shoulder-length or longer fine-textured hair that her presence was urgently required over by the Electricity-show stage for the purposes of scientific demonstration. ("That line always work for you?" John had murmured.)
"Who says I don't?" countered John.
"Oh please, I've never seen anyone look so uncomfortable as when Max started to ask you what you wanted to be when you grew up."
"Maybe I just haven't decided yet. Have you decided yet?"
"Oh, you're just a master of evasion, aren't you? I'm still considering offers, but at the moment I'm leaning towards Caltech and then JPL."
"You're being recruited?"
"Universities have been recruiting me since I was twelve. I'd already be in one if my mother didn't insist on me staying with my age group. But this is beside the point, which may I remind you is what you're planning to do when you graduate."
John shrugged. "Back when I was a kid, I had it all figured out. I was going to go to the Air Force Academy like my dad, then I was going to be an astronaut."
It was an ambition John hadn't told to anyone for a long time, not since he'd got tired of hearing the amused responses--the knowing chuckles, the stories of his friends' crazy childhood dreams of being cowboys or pirates or Superman.
"What changed your mind?" asked Rodney.
"I don't know. The space program got...smaller, I guess, and I realized that I didn't so much want to orbit as fly. Some days, I still think I should go to the Academy for that, and others..."
Rodney waited.
"Other days, I think I should just go back to Hawaii and live on the beach and surf. Maybe go for my pilot's license there, get a little plane to beat around in. You know?"
Rodney stared at John, aghast.
"How exactly are you planning on deciding between these two career paths?"
John shrugged. "I don't know, flip a coin or something?"
Rodney took John by the arm and dragged him away from the crowd, which was now oohing and aahing over the arcing and crackling of the stage's big Tesla coil.
"Look, you're not the only one who wanted to be an astronaut when he was a kid," Rodney hissed. "It was my quite logical desire to prepare for that destiny by trying out the confines of a capsule-like-environment that led to my locking myself into Mrs. Callaghan's old fridge when I was three--which ironically enough made that particular career plan impracticable by giving me a highly inconvenient phobia of enclosed spaces--but my point is--" He paused for breath. "My point is, that even if that hadn't happened, even if I were still aiming to be the guy up in orbit rather than the one designing probes on the ground, I still would have been looking at payload specialist or something at best, not pilot, not commander, because when it comes to the Right Stuff, some people have it and some don't and for all my other admittedly exceptional abilities I know that I don't have it, but you..."
Rodney ran out of words for a moment, gesturing at John in frustration. "You have it," he said finally. "You must know you have it. Yes, NASA's all about shuttles at the moment, and they're actually talking about sending a teacher up on a mission...but they can't put off going to Mars forever and anyway, it's still space. You're the kind of guy who could fast-track into the program, be an honest-to-God national hero, one of the few people in human history to reach beyond the bounds of your own planet, and...and you're seriously considering throwing that all away to go lie on a beach somewhere?"
"Okay, first of all, if you'd ever actually surfed, Rodney, you'd understand, and second...you hadn't even met me six hours ago. Where do you come off--"
"I've met you now," said Rodney, folding his arms and glaring at John. "I've been throwing stuff at you all day that should have made your eyes glaze over but it never did. You're way brighter than you let on. When you're in class back home in...wherever it is you are now, I'm betting that you just keep quiet and sit in the back and charm everyone with your easygoing drawl and never, ever let anyone see just how good you are--which is ludicrous, because not even girls do that any more--"
"Maybe not the ones you know--"
"--and that may be enough to coast you through high school, but if that coin you flip to determine how the rest of your life is going to go turns up heads, you're going to need a little more on your CV than good looks and charm--or football, for that matter--"
"I know, I know, join the chess club, join the math club, run for student government. Well, you know what, Rodney?--I did all that. And then, when we moved? I did it all over again at a new school. And again at another school. And again at another one. Until maybe I just got tired of all the starting over."
"So, what, you've decided you're finished now?"
Over Rodney's shoulder, John saw a few guys from Champlain standing at the edge of the Electricity-show audience, eyeing the two of them curiously.
"Look, it's not a big deal, Rodney. Let's just watch the show, okay?"
Rodney followed John's gaze and nodded, his jaw still set as they rejoined the crowd just in time to see a couple of Chinese girls step onto the raised platform next to the gleaming, spotlit Van de Graaff generator. After instructing the two to hold hands--and telling the one closest to the ball-shaped top of the generator to hold onto it and not let go--the presenter started up the machine. As the girls' fine black hair shot up from their shoulders to stand straight out from their heads, both they and the audience shrieked in unison.
"We are so doing that," said John, as the presenter wrapped up the show and called for anyone who wanted to try the Van de Graaff to form an orderly line.
"Who is this 'we' you speak of?" answered Rodney, but John coaxed him up in the end--and at the look on his face once the Van de Graaff started, John laughed so hard that he let go of the ball and shocked them both.
~
"So..." said John, as he looked out the long window of the entrance bridge once again, feeling the transition back to the outside world and trying to think of a way to thank Rodney without sounding too much like they'd just been on a date together. I had the best day was out, and he couldn't just say See you later because he wasn't going to. Rodney was going to go back to his think-tank full of privileged, blue-blazered Brainiacs, and John was going to go back to trying to make it through high school without getting too invested in anything or anyone, and their paths were never going to cross again.
"So, this was cool," said John finally.
"They're only giving you an hour at the Eaton Centre before you have to go back?" said Rodney. "Even if it were just two hours, you could make it out to the model shops on Queen Street...but at least you can get across to Sam the Record Man..." He looked up from the map he was drawing on John's by-now-thoroughly-spindled-and-mutilated assignment sheet, said, "Wait, you're going to have to hand this in, aren't you?" and started inking the map onto the back of John's hand instead, complete with arrows and labels and an assortment of helpful landmarks.
"There are geese at the Eaton Centre?" asked John, reading over Rodney's shoulder. A couple of guys from the Champlain basketball team walked past, heading for the lobby, and shot the two of them a look as they went by. John waved at them with his free hand.
"Not real ones," answered Rodney. "But you'll like them anyway." He straightened. "That's it."
"So...I'm all set, then?"
"You're all set." He paused, and they watched a few more of John's classmates straggle past.
"So," said John.
"So," replied Rodney. "See you in the space program." He reached out to shake the hand that was still map-free. "Or, alternatively, in a shack on a beach somewhere. Depending on the workings of chance, of course."
"Of course," said John. Rodney smiled, but he had that tight-around-the-mouth look to him again. Thinking, Oh, the hell with it, John pulled him into a one-armed hug.
"Hey, left ear, left ear!" protested Rodney, but he was smiling for real this time, that goofy grin tugging at the corners of his eyes as well as his mouth. John gave him a bit of a noogie for good measure.
"So, what is that in your left ear, anyway?" asked John. "Because it sure looks like the Death Star..." John leaned in, peering closer. "It's Mimas, isn't it? With the big impact crater, from the Voyager photos."
"Stop showing off and go catch your bus," beamed Rodney.
~
It was ten days later that John got a hand-delivered message asking him to drop by the guidance counsellor's office that afternoon. Since, over the past year or so, John had become something of a master at avoiding such appointments, he wondered what he'd done to make it onto Mr. Harding's radar.
"Mr. Sheppard!" he smiled as John sidled warily into the office. "I've just received a very interesting letter about you."
"You have?" John glanced at Harding's desk: in the centre of it lay a huge brown envelope, addressed to Office of the Guidance Counsellor, Champlain High.
"Sit down, sit down. It seems you made quite an impression on one of my pedagogical counterparts during the senior class visit to Toronto."
"I did?"
"I have here a letter from a Professor McKay of Upper Canada College--"
"Professor...McKay?" John looked at the envelope's return address. It read Pref. R. McKay, with the "e" drawn to look like an "o" at first glance while maintaining deniability on a closer inspection.
"He says here that you expressed to him a strong interest in applying to the Air Force Academy--perhaps even the space program--and based on the aptitude you displayed in math, science, and engineering, he thinks you have the potential to do it. However, he's made some suggestions as to your current academic program and extra-curricular activities--"
I'm going to kill him, thought John. I'm going to go back to Canada and kill him.
"--there are some specific aptitude tests I'd like you to come back here and write, and following those, I've set up an in-depth appointment with you, me, and the heads of the Math and Science departments so that we can discuss how best to help you achieve your very worthy goals." Mr. Harding held out a handful of appointment slips and John took them, dazed.
"In the meantime, Professor McKay has asked that I pass on to you this resource package that you requested..." Mr. Harding pulled a sealed brown envelope out of the larger one on his desk and handed it to John, before sitting back and staring at him bemusedly. "I'm afraid I've been remiss in my duties since you've joined us, John," he said earnestly. "I had no idea you had this kind of plan for the future. I should have been working on this with you from your first day here."
"Really, it's okay," said John.
~
Fleeing to his usual table in the quiet corner of the cafeteria, John tore open the envelope. Inside, Rodney had stuffed a four-page letter, photocopies of notes and diagrams in his own handwriting, annotated bibliographies on UCC letterhead, The Young Person's Guide to Canada-U.S. Relations--which confused John until he saw the note from Max tucked inside the cover--a science fiction novel that began The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel, two black-and-white comics John had never heard of, and three mix tapes.
The letter began, Yes, yes, I know, but your education was so sadly lacking in direction and so deplorably riddled with gaps that someone had to take responsibility for it and since neither you nor the American public-school system seemed up to the task...
"Where's an abandoned fridge when you need one?" sighed John. Opening the mix tape labeled ME FIRST, he popped it into his Walkman and leaned back to read the rest of the letter.
~~~
Author: nindulgence
Characters: Sheppard, McKay
Genre: alternate history
Summary: The guy's name was Rodney McKay and touring the Science Centre with him was like having a backstage pass.
"Okay, everybody? Go!"
John sat back and waited out the pandemonium. Mr. Cray, with his usual obliviousness, had chosen the worst possible moment to order the Champlain High students out of the front lobby of the Ontario Science Centre and towards the long, narrow entrance hall leading into the museum itself. Somehow failing to notice the hundred local private-school kids already being herded in the same direction, Cray shooed John's classmates straight into them: there was a brief Who-concert moment as the two school groups collided and tried to edge past each other--so much for that fabled Canadian politeness, thought John--followed by a chorus of shrieks and giggles from the Champlain girls as they found themselves shoulder-to-shoulder with clean-cut Toronto boys in navy-blue blazers and grey flannel.
John glanced at the dittoed page in his hand. Mr. Cray had prepared question sheets for each stop on the senior class's Toronto trip, but John was beginning to seriously doubt the man's research skills, as so far the assignments had proven to be full of misinformation and dead ends. Yesterday, at the Royal-Pain-in-the-Ass Ontario Museum, John had spent an hour looking for an exhibit that no longer existed: he was not falling for that again.
John yawned, stretched, followed the last few stragglers out of the low, concrete-walled lobby--and stopped. The Science Centre's entrance hallway was actually a bridge, windowed all along one side, spanning a wooded ravine that came as a complete surprise to John after the concrete wastelands of the museum's parking lot and front building. Leaning his forehead against the cool glass, John watched a black squirrel dash, pause, and twitch its way up a tree trunk. On John's side of the window, the last of the laughter and shouting faded in the distance, and the long hallway went silent.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see one of the private-school kids farther down the hall--forehead to the glass like John's--darting a sidelong glance in his direction and looking as irritated as John felt to find that he wasn't alone on the bridge. John was debating whether to wait the guy out or move on when Private School turned his head and glared.
"What?" he snapped.
Whoa, thought John, and then, Best defense... Assuming his best charm-the-English-teacher grin, he strolled over to the other guy and stuck out his hand. "Hey. I'm John."
Private School just stared at him for a moment--like John was something those squirrels outside had dug out of the undergrowth--before whatever training went with the uniform kicked in and he took the hand extended to him. "Hey, John," he replied, politely enough if you ignored the twitch of his wide mouth and the slight rising inflection on the Hey. "You can't possibly be lost already."
"No, I'm good," said John, leaning casually against the window-wall, grin undisturbed, "But I was wondering...do you come here often?"
It was surprisingly satisfying to see that cocky jaw drop, to see the floored look in those startled eyes. Also a bit of a relief, since John had belatedly realized--just as the words left his mouth--that Private School was actually kind of pretty in a Drama-Club, poetry-writing sort of way, with a Duran-Duran-ish fall of hair over one eye, and it was entirely possible he might have reacted differently to that question.
But no, the guy was clearly thrown for a loop. "Are you kidding me?" he protested. "Are you dyslexic? It's in the left ear, you...Look, I don't know what that means where you come from, but--"
John hadn't noticed the tiny gleam of silver from the guy's earring: it didn't look like a plain stud, but he wasn't close enough to make out what it was. "Because if you have been here before," he continued smoothly, in his most innocent voice, "I could really use some help with this." He waved the assignment sheet, and watched Private School's pale cheeks flush deep apple-red.
"Oh," he said, in a small voice, and then, rallying, "What, do I have a sign on my forehead? Do you jocks have radar or something?" Snatching the sheet out of John's hand, he reached inside his blazer for a pen, flattened the paper against the glass and scrawled the first answer.
Man, he was easy to wind up. Then again, the guy didn't exactly look like a science geek, so why had John thought he'd know something about this place?
"You seemed...comfortable here, I guess. At home. What makes you think I'm a jock?"
"Hello, football jacket."
"Huh." The jacket was from two high schools ago: it had been a while since it signified anything to John but not-really-belonging.
Private School hadn't glanced up. He was on question three already.
"Actually," said John gently, "I wasn't asking you to do those for me. It's just that some of the questions there are probably wrong or out of date, and I was kind of hoping you could tell me which ones."
Private School stopped mid-word, and cocked his head, really looking at John for the first time. With an odd little huff, he turned back to the assignment sheet, scanning the rest of it rapidly, crossing out a few lines and marking large Xs in the margin beside others. "That's gone...that's moved...you'll never find that one based on this description...okay, that's just plain wrong..." He handed it back to John with a snort. "It's a stupid assignment sheet. Apart from the numerous errors, it's got you following the main traffic flow, so you'll spend the whole day fighting off packs of feral ten-year-olds to get at the exhibits."
"So...what? I should try doing the questions back to front?"
Private School looked pained at what he clearly considered to be the unsatisfactoriness of that suggestion. "I'd really have to show you..." he demurred.
John raised an eyebrow.
"Come with me," said Private School finally. He strode down the corridor and stopped at the far end, spreading his arms wide and reciting in a brisk tour-guide sing-song, "The bridge between the front lobby and the museum itself was designed as a transition-space from the mundane world to the amazing realm of hands-on science. Take a deep breath," he instructed. "Are you feeling the transition to the amazing realm of hands-on science?"
"Oh, I'm feelin' something," John eye-rolled.
He was really starting to enjoy that annoyed little huff.
~
The guy's name was Rodney McKay and touring the Science Centre with him was like having a backstage pass. For the first hour, Rodney led John over the whole huge building at a run, whizzing him up and down escalators and through all the most popular exhibits--before the ten-year-olds had a chance to discover them, he explained. Then, after a quick snack break at a dingy cafeteria just outside the Hall of Communication, Rodney took John through the museum again, this time pointing out hidden treasures and the best out-of-the-way filmstrips, or coaxing the white-coated Science Centre staff to open up strange little labs or rooms full of puzzles for them. The staff had mixed reactions to Rodney: some of them looked panicky and dove for cover when they saw him coming; others greeted him by name and fell into long conversations about insects, photography, solar power, and robotics--all of which seemed to be combined in Rodney's current science-fair project. The woman running the tiny planetarium in the Hall of Space lingered with them after her show, pointing out stellar distances and locations of galaxies as the starscape slowly rotated across the curved screen overhead; the guy in the Hall of Chemistry brought out an assortment of combustibles the moment he spotted Rodney and spent the next fifteen minutes cheerfully demonstrating the fine art of blowing things up.
Rodney proved surprisingly easy to be around, mostly because he took almost the entire burden of the conversation on himself, showing a sublime lack of interest in John as anything but an appreciative receptacle for his expertise. There was nothing to evade with Rodney, because he didn't ask any of the usual questions: instead of "How do you like it in Michigan?" or "What colleges are you applying to?" Rodney's idea of getting-to-know-you fell more along the lines of "You've heard of the Drake equation, right?" or "Have you covered fractals at all?" Alternatively, on their frequent snack breaks, Rodney would jam a Walkman onto John's head and play him snatches of British bands he'd barely heard of, or Canadian ones he hadn't heard of at all.
If the mile-a-minute bluster was weirdly engaging, the occasional breaks in it were even more so: Rodney was so obviously a soft touch underneath it all, John realized, yet so blissfully unaware of the fact. Despite his frequent kvetching about anklebiters and the general perniciousness thereof, Rodney nevertheless dutifully intervened whenever he spotted tiny blue-blazered urchins elbowing their even tinier counterparts away from the best exhibits. ("What?" he said defensively when he saw John's face. "I'm a prefect. I happen to be extremely skilled at ordering smaller people around.") And, though he would sigh impatiently and mutter "wasting time, wasting time..." whenever John's attention was captured by what he considered to be a lame or outdated exhibit, Rodney was comically sensitive when it came to his own favourites: he went very stiff and tight around the mouth when John pretended to be unimpressed by the shadow tunnel, and he lit up with the goofiest grin ever when John conceded that the ancient voice-synthesizer machine was pretty cool, even though all it did was say "coffee" over and over with different inflections.
It was during their second lunch break that Rodney got dragged away temporarily to solve a problem for a table of youngsters who were frowning over their programmable calculators, leaving John to the conversational mercies of a couple of his private-school classmates: Max, an intense young politician-in-the-making who did his best to explain to John why their school was called Upper Canada College when, as far as John could tell, it was pretty clearly in the lower part of the country; and Goran, who confided that ever since a certain incident five years ago, it had become something of a tradition in the Physics Club to try to provoke the CIA--or at least the RCMP--into showing up at the annual Science Fair, though so far they'd only succeeded once.
"But there's a new Canadian Intelligence Service now," put in Max helpfully, "so maybe they'll start checking us out."
John leaned back and listened to them discussing the chances of it--evaluating the potential of this year's crop of projects, discussing rumours of the competition underway at rival schools, quoting statistics and precedents and debating how best to set up an odds-calculating program on Max's new Macintosh computer. John wondered what it would be like to be that confident about being smart--never to have to dog-ear your test papers so as to hide the As on them, never to have to keep your hand down and pretend to be falling asleep when you knew exactly what the teacher was talking about and what the answer was, never to have to limit your conversations to the same old who-scored-what and who-scored-with-who gossip.
"So, John, what's it like living in Michigan?" asked Max politely.
John groaned inwardly. "Okay, I guess. I really haven't been there very long."
"Oh? Where were you before that?"
"Uh...Colorado, New Mexico, Hawaii, California. My dad's in the Air Force--we move around a lot."
"An Air Force brat! I'm a diplomatic brat myself," said Max heartily. "Which was your favourite?"
John shifted in his seat. "Well, California's where I really grew up. It's where I learned to surf. Hawaii was pretty incredible, though."
"Dude!" exclaimed Goran. "And now you're stuck in Michigan?"
"So what's next, then?" asked Max. "Are you planning to--" but luckily Goran jumped in just then with a barrage of questions about California girls vs. Hawaiian ones, which John was more than happy to field. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Rodney watching him sidelong from the other table, frowning a little.
Rodney was strangely quiet after rejoining them, slouching back in his seat beside John and staring fixedly at the table in front of him, which--unusually for Rodney--didn't have any food on it. Trying to catch his eye, John noticed that this was the best view of Rodney's ear that he'd had all day, and reached out to tug on his earlobe for a closer look.
"So what is this thing, anyway?" John asked, ignoring Rodney's outraged protests. The earring was a tiny silver sphere with an even tinier off-centre dent in it. "Is it the Death Star?"
"Were you raised in a barn?" squawked Rodney. "And no, it's not the Death Star."
Across the table, Goran was laughing and shaking his head, while Max suddenly checked his Swatch and said, "We'd better get moving if we're going to make the Electricity show."
Rodney rolled his eyes. "Oh, please, not the Electricity show..."
"What?" said Max. "You can't show John the Science Centre without taking him to the Electricity show. That's like seeing Paris without going to the Eiffel Tower."
"You never go to the Eiffel Tower when you're in Paris: you say it's always too touristy."
"Come on, Rodney," said Goran. "We have to touch the ball that makes your hair stand on end."
"Okay, first of all, you know perfectly well what it's called--"
"It's a Van de Graaff generator, right?" said John.
"--and second of all, it's nothing special, we made one in class last year."
"Only a little one," objected Goran.
"Size does matter," said John, when Rodney shot him a pleading look.
"Oh, fine. Although I warn you, you all have the wrong hair for it, so don't expect to get picked as a volunteer or anything."
Goran leaned in towards John as they gathered up their litter, whispering, "Rodney, on the other hand, looks like something out of Flock of Seagulls when he gets electrostatified, which is why you have to get him to go up with you after the show."
"Done," whispered John.
~
"So why don't you like talking about your plans for after high school?"
John and Rodney were standing at the back of the Electricity-show audience--an audience Rodney had stacked beforehand by striding purposefully around the Science Arcade and informing every girl there with shoulder-length or longer fine-textured hair that her presence was urgently required over by the Electricity-show stage for the purposes of scientific demonstration. ("That line always work for you?" John had murmured.)
"Who says I don't?" countered John.
"Oh please, I've never seen anyone look so uncomfortable as when Max started to ask you what you wanted to be when you grew up."
"Maybe I just haven't decided yet. Have you decided yet?"
"Oh, you're just a master of evasion, aren't you? I'm still considering offers, but at the moment I'm leaning towards Caltech and then JPL."
"You're being recruited?"
"Universities have been recruiting me since I was twelve. I'd already be in one if my mother didn't insist on me staying with my age group. But this is beside the point, which may I remind you is what you're planning to do when you graduate."
John shrugged. "Back when I was a kid, I had it all figured out. I was going to go to the Air Force Academy like my dad, then I was going to be an astronaut."
It was an ambition John hadn't told to anyone for a long time, not since he'd got tired of hearing the amused responses--the knowing chuckles, the stories of his friends' crazy childhood dreams of being cowboys or pirates or Superman.
"What changed your mind?" asked Rodney.
"I don't know. The space program got...smaller, I guess, and I realized that I didn't so much want to orbit as fly. Some days, I still think I should go to the Academy for that, and others..."
Rodney waited.
"Other days, I think I should just go back to Hawaii and live on the beach and surf. Maybe go for my pilot's license there, get a little plane to beat around in. You know?"
Rodney stared at John, aghast.
"How exactly are you planning on deciding between these two career paths?"
John shrugged. "I don't know, flip a coin or something?"
Rodney took John by the arm and dragged him away from the crowd, which was now oohing and aahing over the arcing and crackling of the stage's big Tesla coil.
"Look, you're not the only one who wanted to be an astronaut when he was a kid," Rodney hissed. "It was my quite logical desire to prepare for that destiny by trying out the confines of a capsule-like-environment that led to my locking myself into Mrs. Callaghan's old fridge when I was three--which ironically enough made that particular career plan impracticable by giving me a highly inconvenient phobia of enclosed spaces--but my point is--" He paused for breath. "My point is, that even if that hadn't happened, even if I were still aiming to be the guy up in orbit rather than the one designing probes on the ground, I still would have been looking at payload specialist or something at best, not pilot, not commander, because when it comes to the Right Stuff, some people have it and some don't and for all my other admittedly exceptional abilities I know that I don't have it, but you..."
Rodney ran out of words for a moment, gesturing at John in frustration. "You have it," he said finally. "You must know you have it. Yes, NASA's all about shuttles at the moment, and they're actually talking about sending a teacher up on a mission...but they can't put off going to Mars forever and anyway, it's still space. You're the kind of guy who could fast-track into the program, be an honest-to-God national hero, one of the few people in human history to reach beyond the bounds of your own planet, and...and you're seriously considering throwing that all away to go lie on a beach somewhere?"
"Okay, first of all, if you'd ever actually surfed, Rodney, you'd understand, and second...you hadn't even met me six hours ago. Where do you come off--"
"I've met you now," said Rodney, folding his arms and glaring at John. "I've been throwing stuff at you all day that should have made your eyes glaze over but it never did. You're way brighter than you let on. When you're in class back home in...wherever it is you are now, I'm betting that you just keep quiet and sit in the back and charm everyone with your easygoing drawl and never, ever let anyone see just how good you are--which is ludicrous, because not even girls do that any more--"
"Maybe not the ones you know--"
"--and that may be enough to coast you through high school, but if that coin you flip to determine how the rest of your life is going to go turns up heads, you're going to need a little more on your CV than good looks and charm--or football, for that matter--"
"I know, I know, join the chess club, join the math club, run for student government. Well, you know what, Rodney?--I did all that. And then, when we moved? I did it all over again at a new school. And again at another school. And again at another one. Until maybe I just got tired of all the starting over."
"So, what, you've decided you're finished now?"
Over Rodney's shoulder, John saw a few guys from Champlain standing at the edge of the Electricity-show audience, eyeing the two of them curiously.
"Look, it's not a big deal, Rodney. Let's just watch the show, okay?"
Rodney followed John's gaze and nodded, his jaw still set as they rejoined the crowd just in time to see a couple of Chinese girls step onto the raised platform next to the gleaming, spotlit Van de Graaff generator. After instructing the two to hold hands--and telling the one closest to the ball-shaped top of the generator to hold onto it and not let go--the presenter started up the machine. As the girls' fine black hair shot up from their shoulders to stand straight out from their heads, both they and the audience shrieked in unison.
"We are so doing that," said John, as the presenter wrapped up the show and called for anyone who wanted to try the Van de Graaff to form an orderly line.
"Who is this 'we' you speak of?" answered Rodney, but John coaxed him up in the end--and at the look on his face once the Van de Graaff started, John laughed so hard that he let go of the ball and shocked them both.
~
"So..." said John, as he looked out the long window of the entrance bridge once again, feeling the transition back to the outside world and trying to think of a way to thank Rodney without sounding too much like they'd just been on a date together. I had the best day was out, and he couldn't just say See you later because he wasn't going to. Rodney was going to go back to his think-tank full of privileged, blue-blazered Brainiacs, and John was going to go back to trying to make it through high school without getting too invested in anything or anyone, and their paths were never going to cross again.
"So, this was cool," said John finally.
"They're only giving you an hour at the Eaton Centre before you have to go back?" said Rodney. "Even if it were just two hours, you could make it out to the model shops on Queen Street...but at least you can get across to Sam the Record Man..." He looked up from the map he was drawing on John's by-now-thoroughly-spindled-and-mutilated assignment sheet, said, "Wait, you're going to have to hand this in, aren't you?" and started inking the map onto the back of John's hand instead, complete with arrows and labels and an assortment of helpful landmarks.
"There are geese at the Eaton Centre?" asked John, reading over Rodney's shoulder. A couple of guys from the Champlain basketball team walked past, heading for the lobby, and shot the two of them a look as they went by. John waved at them with his free hand.
"Not real ones," answered Rodney. "But you'll like them anyway." He straightened. "That's it."
"So...I'm all set, then?"
"You're all set." He paused, and they watched a few more of John's classmates straggle past.
"So," said John.
"So," replied Rodney. "See you in the space program." He reached out to shake the hand that was still map-free. "Or, alternatively, in a shack on a beach somewhere. Depending on the workings of chance, of course."
"Of course," said John. Rodney smiled, but he had that tight-around-the-mouth look to him again. Thinking, Oh, the hell with it, John pulled him into a one-armed hug.
"Hey, left ear, left ear!" protested Rodney, but he was smiling for real this time, that goofy grin tugging at the corners of his eyes as well as his mouth. John gave him a bit of a noogie for good measure.
"So, what is that in your left ear, anyway?" asked John. "Because it sure looks like the Death Star..." John leaned in, peering closer. "It's Mimas, isn't it? With the big impact crater, from the Voyager photos."
"Stop showing off and go catch your bus," beamed Rodney.
~
It was ten days later that John got a hand-delivered message asking him to drop by the guidance counsellor's office that afternoon. Since, over the past year or so, John had become something of a master at avoiding such appointments, he wondered what he'd done to make it onto Mr. Harding's radar.
"Mr. Sheppard!" he smiled as John sidled warily into the office. "I've just received a very interesting letter about you."
"You have?" John glanced at Harding's desk: in the centre of it lay a huge brown envelope, addressed to Office of the Guidance Counsellor, Champlain High.
"Sit down, sit down. It seems you made quite an impression on one of my pedagogical counterparts during the senior class visit to Toronto."
"I did?"
"I have here a letter from a Professor McKay of Upper Canada College--"
"Professor...McKay?" John looked at the envelope's return address. It read Pref. R. McKay, with the "e" drawn to look like an "o" at first glance while maintaining deniability on a closer inspection.
"He says here that you expressed to him a strong interest in applying to the Air Force Academy--perhaps even the space program--and based on the aptitude you displayed in math, science, and engineering, he thinks you have the potential to do it. However, he's made some suggestions as to your current academic program and extra-curricular activities--"
I'm going to kill him, thought John. I'm going to go back to Canada and kill him.
"--there are some specific aptitude tests I'd like you to come back here and write, and following those, I've set up an in-depth appointment with you, me, and the heads of the Math and Science departments so that we can discuss how best to help you achieve your very worthy goals." Mr. Harding held out a handful of appointment slips and John took them, dazed.
"In the meantime, Professor McKay has asked that I pass on to you this resource package that you requested..." Mr. Harding pulled a sealed brown envelope out of the larger one on his desk and handed it to John, before sitting back and staring at him bemusedly. "I'm afraid I've been remiss in my duties since you've joined us, John," he said earnestly. "I had no idea you had this kind of plan for the future. I should have been working on this with you from your first day here."
"Really, it's okay," said John.
~
Fleeing to his usual table in the quiet corner of the cafeteria, John tore open the envelope. Inside, Rodney had stuffed a four-page letter, photocopies of notes and diagrams in his own handwriting, annotated bibliographies on UCC letterhead, The Young Person's Guide to Canada-U.S. Relations--which confused John until he saw the note from Max tucked inside the cover--a science fiction novel that began The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel, two black-and-white comics John had never heard of, and three mix tapes.
The letter began, Yes, yes, I know, but your education was so sadly lacking in direction and so deplorably riddled with gaps that someone had to take responsibility for it and since neither you nor the American public-school system seemed up to the task...
"Where's an abandoned fridge when you need one?" sighed John. Opening the mix tape labeled ME FIRST, he popped it into his Walkman and leaned back to read the rest of the letter.
~~~