Excerpt from the Short Story - Foiled Plans
Warning: Spoilers ahead!
Excerpt from
Peter would have raised an eyebrow at Zeke’s comment, but
instead, his eyes were on the hallway. His heart sped up as he wondered if
Chiara was talking about him. He hoped she wasn’t.
Yet, in another way, he hoped that she was. He didn’t like
the idea of her spilling his secrets, but he did like thinking about how much
fun they had had at the dance. He didn’t think a party could be so fun.
Being with her had confirmed his suspicions: against all his
plans, he had fallen. And hard.
“Anyway,”
Zeke said, craning his head to make sure the girls were gone and behind closed
doors. “I’m guessing they’ll be busy for a while, right? Probably talking about
‘how does my hair look?’ and ‘Do you like this outfit?’” He spoke in a poor
imitation of a girl’s voice. “I bet we’ll have enough time.”
Cosmo
paused the game immediately and put down his controller.
“Let’s
do this,” he said.
“Do
what?” Peter asked, a little disappointed that the game had stopped.
“Don’t
you worry your pretty little head,” Zeke told him as he pulled out a backpack
and started removing multiple packages of foil. “We just have a thing planned.”
Cosmo
was unpacking his own bag.
“It’s
not that big of a deal,” he said. “We’re just going to cover everything with
foil before the girls get back.”
“But
you’re probably not into this kind of thing,” Zeke added. “We know you’re more
of a serious guy.”
In
a single moment, Peter was sick of his original plans. Sick of keeping his
distance. And sick of being serious and boring.
He
laid down his controller decisively.
“We’re
wrapping everything individually?” he asked.
“Yes!”
Zeke rejoiced.
“Also,
I think we should seriously consider drawing goofy eyes on everything,” Peter
added.
Cosmo
and Zeke exchanged an amused look with each other.
“Sounds
like you just signed up for the job,” Cosmo said, tossing a permanent marker at
him.
They
worked feverishly, moving as quickly as possible, each starting in a different
corner of the room. Almost without communicating, they seemed to work in
seamless cooperation. Peter was marveling at how fun it was to be united in a
single purpose with his friends.
My
friends? he stopped himself. I really
should stop myself.
But
even as he thought it, he wasn’t sure he believed it anymore. He had spent so
much time on his own, he felt like he was starved for companionship.
“Foil
me!” Zeke demanded when he had used up one package.
Peter
tossed a new box behind his back. Zeke caught it with one hand while not even
looking.
“Dude!
Did you see that?” he praised himself.
Peter
chuckled. “That was pretty cool.”
“That’s
what martial arts training gets you,” he boasted, mainly directed at Cosmo.
“I’m almost a ninja!”
Peter
laughed again. Cosmo released a heavy sigh and mumbled something to himself.
“Sorry,”
Peter told him. “We should make more of an effort to talk about stuff we all
have in common.”
“It’s
okay,” Cosmo said. “I’m used to it. I usually tune Zeke out when he talks a
lot. I use the time to think about something he wouldn’t want to talk about, so
it’s a win-win.”
“I
knew it!” Zeke said in mock outrage. “You never listen.”
“So
what were you thinking about just then?” Peter asked.
“I
was thinking about Ernest Rutherford, who shot particles at a thin piece of
gold foil, expecting most of them to ricochet back. But nearly all of the
particles passed straight through as if nothing was there.”
“What
does that mean?” Zeke asked.
“That
means that all matter – even solids are mostly empty space, because atoms are
ninety-nine point nine, nine, nine percent empty space.”
“So…
everything is mostly… air?” Peter asked.
He
felt like there was something revolutionary buried in that fact – something
that applied to Peter and his deva.
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