The Last Invention Read online

  “So, when you’re 95, I’ll be 92, it doesn’t seem so bad when you think about it like that.” She laughed.

  “Some 7th grade girl is going to be really lucky to be your girlfriend.” She patted my cheek.

  “At least if you’re going to touch me so much, give me a kiss,” I said desperately. It was all spiraling out of control. I had traded our entire relationship for the chance at a single kiss—which would most likely kill me anyway.

  “I didn’t realize I was leading you on this much,” she said, standing up. “I have to go.” Then she said the words that are still echoing through my head: “I don’t think I can be your tutor anymore, Adrian.”

  Before I knew it she was gone.

  I slammed my head down on the table and cried for a long time. The salty tears dripped onto my contact lens and made it moist again, except it mixed with some dirty crumbs from the table. Three stupid years. If I was three stupid years older it would all be different. Melanie already thought I was cute and funny—I had it all, except I was twelve.

  I gently picked up my contact lens and walked upstairs. When I got to my bedroom door, I kicked it open and trudged inside. I dumped the contact lens on my desk, flopped onto the bed, and took a nap.

  At dinner I gave Mom and Dad the complete silent treatment. Normally, when they asked me what I did at school, I just said, “Nothing.” But suddenly that word was too painful because it stood for what my life was worth without Melanie. If Melanie dumps Adrian and flees the house at 11 miles per hour, what does Adrian have to live for now? Answer: Big fat nothing.

  Dinner lasted forever, mainly because it took me a half hour to mime, “Pass the corn, the butter, and the salt, but not the pepper, Dad.” Whenever they asked me what was wrong, I just shrugged my shoulders, until I excused myself with a grunt, grabbed my book bag and the box from the garage sale, and walked upstairs. Mom and Dad mumbled quietly as my knapsack thumped on each step behind me.

  I slammed my door and flopped onto my bed holding the small black device I had bought. I wondered what stupid electronic game that crusty old Ricky had dumped on me for a buck—probably the original Pac Man from the Middle Ages. What a rip off. But then I remembered the words on the small black case—“The Body Builder.” That didn’t sound like any portable video game. I pressed a small black button on the spine of the case, causing the unit to flip open. The two halves of the unfolded device formed a large blue screen that displayed the words, “The Body Builder. Touch anywhere on the display to begin.”

  I pressed my finger against the screen, and it immediately went black. A red laser beam came out of a tiny hole above the screen, scanned across my entire body, and then disappeared. At once a picture of me appeared on the screen! NAKED! My heart started beating fast. This was way more advanced than anything at Best Buy. Suddenly, a female voice said, “Select body part to build.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Select body part to build,” the voice said again.

  I touched the image of my arm.

  “You have selected your left arm,” the female voice said.

  This was kind of fun. At least some girl was talking to me. Only it was kind of embarrassing that she knew what I looked like naked. The image of my full body disappeared, and only my arm remained in a box in the corner, twirling around in 3d. A bunch of icons appeared, labeled, “SIZE, COLOR, MUSCLE FORMATION, HAIR CONFIGURATION, FEATURES, DATABASE, and DONE.” I touched the SIZE icon, which opened another window filled with two more icons: “INCREASE SIZE, DECREASE SIZE.”

  I pressed the INCREASE SIZE button, making my arm grow bigger in the little 3d picture. I touched it a couple of more times, and it grew even bigger. What happened next was the most bizarre thing ever—I pressed the DONE button, and immediately the lights in the house dimmed. There was a ripping sound. I didn’t feel anything at all, but when I looked down at my left arm, I noticed that it was three times as big as before! Like I was Popeye or something. My shirt sleeve was in tatters.

  Was this for real? I immediately dropped the Body Builder and jumped out of bed, pacing around my room. It felt weird because my left arm weighed so much now—I had to hold it up with my right arm. I paced back and forth, rubbing my left arm, like I do when I wake up in the middle of the night with a dead arm from sleeping the wrong way. With my heart racing, I lugged my arm back to the bed and grabbed the Body Builder again. I selected my left arm and decreased it back to normal size in the little 3d picture. Then I pressed DONE. The lights dimmed again, and my arm returned to normal size.

  I immediately shut the device and shoved it under my pillow. I had bought the greatest invention in history—dug up at the cemetery by a smelly green pig—for only a dollar. I pinched myself to see if I was stuck inside one of my bizarre, totally awesome dreams that I often have.

  I guess there’s no chance of that, since I’m sitting here in this padded jail cell narrating this story. My Mom came to visit me a little while ago, and she sobbed the whole time. I sank into her arms and cried too. Her clothes smelled like laundry detergent—she never wears anything that hasn’t been washed that same day. It was our first hug in a long time. We didn’t even say two words to each other for over an hour. My whole body was shaking.

  Every night I cry myself to sleep knowing I’ll never wake up in my warm bed and smell bacon on Saturday morning. I’ll never talk to Melanie again as long as I live. I even miss school.

  And every day that ugly psychiatrist lady with the hairy mole comes in and asks me questions.

  “Adrian, tell me why you’re in here?”

  “I did something bad.”

  “Why did you do that bad thing, Adrian?”

  “Please go away and leave me alone. I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Did you have feelings that you couldn’t control?”

  “I said I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “What you tell me will be completely confidential.”

  “I don’t care, what’s the difference why I did it?”

  “I just want to know the truth.”

  “You can’t handle the truth.”

  I don’t think they like me very much here. I get strange looks through the bars in my door, like I’m an alien in a zoo or something. I’m not even allowed to see the other prisoners. I don’t even know if they’re kids like me, or maybe this is death row. But I’m getting ahead of myself again. Let’s go back to the story when things were still good …

  Of course, I knew better than to believe that intelligent green pigs existed, and magical caves, and cottages that transform before your eyes. But as I lay there in bed that night, I didn’t care one bit about any of that. I had the device that was going to save my relationship with Melanie. All I had to do was come up with a plan. So I opened my candy drawer and pigged out—sugar always makes me think more clearly.

  When I got the courage to open the Body Builder again, I did it with a mission: to make myself look fifteen years old and super handsome so that Melanie would fall in love with me. The first thing I did was choose my face this time, because I wanted to see if I could make it look different. She couldn’t recognize me, or she would know something messed up was going on. Sure enough, when I pressed the picture of my face, a bunch of new icons appeared labeled, EYES, NOSE, MOUTH, EARS, FACIAL HAIR, CHEEKS, CHIN, DIMPLES, FRECKLES, EYEBROWS, LIPS, FOREHEAD, and a bunch of others. When I pressed any of the icons, each one opened dozens of more icons. It could take forever to program a new face!

  I hopped out of bed and looked in the mirror, trying to figure out what to change. What made me look twelve, anyway? The mop of black hair that covered my eyes unless I shook it away, my small freckled nose, red lips, dimples, round head? I would be glad to change any of that stuff—mainly because I didn’t look anything like Mom or Dad. Mom has red hair and dad has brown hair. I used to worry that I was adopted, or they just mixed me up at the hospital with another kid, or maybe I was the spawn of Satan.

  It
was impossible to tell what would make me more handsome without doing some serious research. So that’s just what I did. I went on my computer and looked up all the most popular teen boy celebrities so I would know what girls liked. Then, using the Body Builder, I experimented with each feature, posing in front of my mirror until I got it all right—the perfect celebrity nose, dreamy red lips, squarish chin, small forehead, and everything. I made myself taller and more muscular (but not too much), with blonde hair, blue eyes, and high cheekbones. I even changed some body parts that I can’t tell you about. I was really nervous while changing those parts because I thought Dad might walk in.

  “Son, did you brush your teeth,” I imagined him saying. “Oh my, what are you doing? Do you want to talk about the birds and the bees? Oh, never mind, you’re a freak. FREAK!” And then he would slam the door.

  Fortunately, the only company I had were the crickets and the strange female voice that guided me through all my body choices. Oh, and some friends on computer chat.

  “’Sup Adrian1279ttp, wut u doing up so late?” they would ask.

  “Nuthin, just giving myself some leg hair.”

  When dawn’s rosy finger delicately tapped the horizon, I was the most handsome boy in the history of the world. I made myself about fifteen, stealing a little from just about every teen idol that I could find on the computer. When I looked in the mirror, I even fell in love with myself. My blue eyes could light up a room, and my hair was as shiny as a treasure chest full of ancient gold coins. Don’t even get me started about my eyebrows. I even had a bigger brain. Everything was perfect, and there were even dozens of features that I didn’t mess around with.

  “37 features remaining to build,” the female voice said.

  “Not now, it’s time to go to high school,” I said, snapping the Body Builder shut. I shoved it under my bed. I planned to program the rest of the features later. It was more important to figure out how I was going to get dressed. The clothes I’d been wearing dripped off me in tatters. I had burst out of them like the Incredible Hulk as my body parts rapidly grew (note to self: you should have taken your clothes off first, moron). Anyway, it wasn’t really a problem at all. I just got my slacker clothes out of my drawer—the ones I wore when I skateboarded behind the school with my friends. They used to be five sizes too big, hanging down all over the place, but at that moment they fit perfectly, even a little tight. So I got dressed, and then waited patiently until Mom and Dad left for work. Then I grabbed my backpack and headed out the door.

  Off to high school. I was already really late, but what did it matter? I was handsome, and Melanie was going to fall in love with me.

  As I walked through the peaceful suburban streets toward JFK High, things seemed way different to my fifteen-year-old brain. Like, did I even mention to you yet that I lived on Long Island? My dad’s an accountant, and my Mom works in a party store. We were a pretty ordinary middle-class family living in a town called Edgeview, which is about as exciting as its name. My new, more advanced mind was way more aware of where and when I existed in the universe—Edgeview, Long Island, New York, North America, Earth, the Solar System, Milky Way Galaxy, The Universe. It was October, a couple of months into the school year. The twelve-year-old-me had mostly thought about stupid things, like what candy I was going to eat next, or what nickname would make my life great.

  And then there was Melanie. I thought about how I tried to ask Melanie out the day before. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. You don’t ask a girl out to coffee while she’s drinking tea. That was such a twelve-year-old thing to do. And Oprah. Ugh. Of course she didn’t want to watch—that’s the type of stuff that’s on Oprah anyway. On today’s Oprah: How a forbidden love affair has sent shock waves through an otherwise-boring suburban town. Our relationship was unacceptable. Society and the universe had destroyed my chances with Melanie. It wasn’t her fault at all.

  I got lost in all my new, weird thoughts until I made it to the high school. I checked my perfect hair in the reflection of a car window and then burst through the front door.

  “Nice backpack, dork,” some boy said to me.

  That’s when I realized that I still had my dumb old middle school backpack covered with Spongebob Squarepants stickers! I ran back outside and tossed it in the green dumpster on the side of the school. No problem. It would be way cooler to show up to class with no books at all.

  I ran back into the school and tried to find Melanie’s classroom. I didn’t know her schedule, or my way around, so I just peeked into every single classroom. I finally found the right one. Melanie was sitting in the front row—just the sight of her golden hair made my adrenaline rush. A woman with a bun of black hair and thick green glasses was writing on the blackboard. I walked into the classroom and just stood there, waiting for people to notice me. The students turned to me, and some of the girls gasped. I lightly flicked my golden hair back so it didn’t cover my eyes. More gasps.

  “Are you a new student?” the teacher asked.

  “Yes, Ma’am,” I said. “I just moved here from Kansas. Tornado destroyed our trailer. They never did find my cow, Betsy. She just flew off into the sky. Landed somewhere in Maine, Pa said.” Was Maine near Kansas? Darn, I didn’t make my brain big enough after all. It didn’t matter. I was beautiful. Poor farm boy. Nice touch, Adrian.

  “Well, take a seat,” the teacher said as some of the girls whispered to each other.

  “Would you mind getting up,” I said to a freckle-faced girl who sat behind Melanie. “I need to sit near the front. The tornado also wrecked my eyesight.”

  A few seconds later I was sitting behind Melanie, and that wonderful warm blueberry smell wafted over to me. The teacher continued her lesson, but I could tell that everybody was staring at me. I needed to make Melanie fall in love with me at first sight, so I politely asked her for a pen, and paper, an eraser, and a compass (that was embarrassing after I realized it was Spanish class) just so she would keep turning around to look at me. Finally, when I asked for some Wite-Out (which was dangerous because I hadn’t written anything yet) she looked me in the eyes, and I could tell that she was utterly lost in them. I had made them bluer than is even humanly possible. The Body Builder had warned me whenever I configured a body part beyond human comprehension, but I stubbornly did it anyway. I was even able to successfully hold in my sneeze while looking at her! The teacher had to yell at Melanie to turn around again, and she’s a perfect student normally!

  “Does anybody, like, got any gum for me?” I asked, looking around.

  A few girls reached out and offered me some chewing gum.

  “No grape? Anyone?”

  When the bell rang, I asked Melanie if she would show me around because it was my first day, and I didn’t know where anything was. When I spoke, I saw the hairs on her neck stand on end. I had programmed my voice to “Gravelly, yet melodic, with a twist of romantic twang” and obviously it was paying off. There weren’t too many options for my voice, though—nothing beyond human comprehension. The Body Builder said that I needed an add-on called The Voxinator to unlock over 100 different voice modules. I didn’t care.

  “Do you have the same schedule as me,” Melanie asked.

  “Yep,” I said confidently.

  “But I didn’t show you my schedule yet.”

  “I was just being confident,” I assured her. “Because if I don’t have the same schedule as you, I think I’ll die.”

  I looked her in the eyes again, and she dropped her books. I had to stop her from falling down and fainting right there in the Spanish classroom.

  “What’s your name,” she asked. “I’m Melanie.”

  “Um,” I stuttered. I hadn’t thought of a name! I couldn’t be Adrian because I didn’t want to remind her of that sniveling little brat I once was. “Logan,” I said, and then I blinked my eyelashes, each with 104 individual hairs.

  “Looks like Melanie and the new kid have hit it off,” I heard some girl say in the hallway.

  The res
t of the day went pretty well. I fell asleep in math class because staying up all night had made me really tired. The teacher had to wake me up by banging a yardstick against the blackboard. By then all the kids thought I was totally chill.

  At lunch I sat with Melanie (duh). We had a table by ourselves. I was amazed that the high school served the same crappy food as the middle school. Tater tots with Salisbury steak. I sneezed all over hers when I looked her in the eye for too long, but it didn’t matter. She seemed lost in a dazy dreamworld whenever she was near me. I could say anything, and she would agree to it.

  “So, I think you and me are hitting it off,” I said. “Do you want to go to the movies with me on Friday night?”

  “Ok.” She stared at me without blinking.

  Success! It was the moment I had been waiting for since I was nine—Melanie and me on a date. My whole body surged with energy. There was no doubt that I was going to get that kiss I had always dreamed about. I could have probably gotten it right there in the cafeteria, but it was way too risky. Plus it wasn’t romantic to do it over tater tots with snot in them. The dream kiss had to happen just right, and I had to figure out how to not melt when it happened. Maybe I could chew on some cool mint gum or something.

  “Good, do you want to go see Freddy Krangsprockets and the Orb of Doom?” I asked. “I hear it’s good.”

  “You’re so funny,” she said, laughing. “That’s rated G.”

  Dumb Adrian, dumb.

  “I was just kidding. I meant to ask if you wanted to see Fatal Death.”

  “But that’s rated R.”

  “I’ll cover your eyes so you don’t see any of the naughty scenes,” I said.

  Melanie laughed. I reached my arm out, picked up her orange juice box, and fed some to her. “Have you ever heard of Ganymede?” I asked.

  Melanie shook her head.

  “In ancient Greek times he was an ordinary boy who was turned into a god, so he could serve drinks to all the other gods on Mount Olympus for eternity. He was lucky because he became immortal, and he got to hang out with all those beautiful goddesses. Except Hera, she was uggo.”