groovygamers.com

It took Sylvia almost an hour to find out where Fern Rogers lived.  Even though she had changed social circles more then once since grade school, Sylvia had managed to find someone that had known her when she still skipped rope and played with Jacks, and they knew right where her house was.

Like most of the students at Oak Park Fern lived in a nice area.  There weren't really any bad parts of Oak Park though, so it wasn't really a suprise.

She got lucky when her knock at the door was answered by Fern herself, "Yes, can I help you?"

Sylvia's nervous.  She's learned to be wary of strangers in this unfamiliar city, and the perky, confident girls on the pep squad unsettle her as much as the homeless guys who stare blankly from the mouths of Chicago alleys.  "Hi," she starts weakly, then tries to bolster her tone.  She's a cheerleader now.  She can do this.  She can be peppy.  She can be this girl's best friend if she has to.  Sylvia turns on like a stadium light.  "I'm Sylvia, from school.  I was hoping I could talk to you about some stuff, if that's okay."

Fern sticks her head out the door and looks up and down the porch.  "What's this about?"

Sylvia looks around the porch, too, and sees, well, porch.  "I was hoping I could talk to you about what happened in the lunch room.  There's been some weird stuff going on lately, and I was wondering if maybe you were a victim of it."  She had that planned out:  she hopes that by offering Fern the chance to be the victim of forces beyond her control the girl will feel free to tell Sylvia all about it.

Fern seems to loosen up some.  She glances back into the house and then quietly comes out onto the porch, closing the door behind her.

"It was all so wierd.  I mean, one minute I was drinking my soda and the next I'm kissing this...this freak, and he's all like kissing me back.  Then I just felt sick, and I wanted to kill him.  His hands were all over me and stuff.  I told the principal I didn't start it, cause the freak so tottally said I did.  Everything looked okay, until all these people in the lunch room lied and said I walked over to him and started kissing him, which is so completly not possible.  Ewww."  A shiver runs through Fern as she relates the events to Sylvia.  "I bet that little freak has like mind control powers or something, and, that has to be totally illegal right?"

"It's awful," Sylvia sympathizes.  "You didn't feel anything weird before it happened?  It was like blacking out?"

"Nothing.  I don't ven remember getting up from my table.  The Principal was so messed up suspending me.  This cost me my slot on the pep squad.  That's got to be the worst part."

"That's not fair," Sylvia says.  She keeps it to herself that she's in that spot now.  "You don't think it was something in your drink or anything, do you?"

Fern sits down on the porch steps, running her hands through her hair.  "I don't know.  Maybe.  I didn't feel ierd or anything, I just blacked out I guess.  Well, I did feel warm.  I think it was right before I blacked out."

Sylvia slides her back down a newel post, facing Fern.  "Like warm all over or warm in a spot?"

"All over I guess."  A voice can be heard from inside the house calling to Fern.  "I gotta get back inside."  she says getting up.  "Let me know if you find anything out, okay?"

"I will," Sylvia says.  "Thanks."

She watches Fern go back inside and thinks about how, of all the weirdness going on at school, this is the worst of it.  There's something squirmy and nasty about manipulating a person's free will, more monstrous even than Rory's inexplicable transformation.  She leaves Fern's to see if the slacker is the monster she's looking for.

The slacker had been easier to find.  He still had plenty of friends that Sylvia felt comfortable talking with.  When she knocked on the door she had to go through the little sister to get to the guy she wanted.  Preston Broadus was not an overachiever by any stretch of the imagination.  He was a 'C' student and the son of upper middle-class parents.  Sylvia could imagine that his sister would be a Goth before long, trying to get some attention from her parents.  Preston, who was known as "Broadie" to everyone that wasn't required to call him by his first or last name, came to the door in a t-shirt and jeans.  He smelled of cigarette smoke and hair gel.

"Yeah, what?"

Sylvia doesn't try as hard with this guy, but she does try to draw on any innate slacker vibe she has.  "Hi.  You're Broadie, right?  The guy with the cheerleader stuck to him in the lunch room?  I was hoping I could talk to you about that."

Brodie's stance changes some, "Why dat, you wanna be stuck to my face too?  Don't play me girl, what'chu want, just out wi'it"

Although not even remotle of African descent, Brodie is trying his best to be black, which is not totally uncommon for a boy his age.

Sylvia couldn't even play that game if she wanted.  "I just wanted to know what happened that day."

"I'll tell you what happened.  I'm hav'in some grub and this bitch glides up to me with her big smil'in mouth and lays one on me.  I ain't no fool, I get into that shit.  Bitch was totally hot, like middle of summer hot.  Man, it was sweet, taste'in all like strawberried and shit.  Then, POW."  He smacks his fist in to the palm of his hand for emphasis, "Bitch is slapp'in me all in the face and shit screaming like I came onto her or some shit like dat."

"Did you notice anything weird before it happened?  Was anyone looking at her?  Or you?  Did you feel hot?"  She pauses.  "Like, temperature hot, I mean."

Brodie's head cocks in that way a dog might look at something it's not sure about.  "Yeah, it got real warm right before she came over."

"Did you notice someone looking at you?  Anything weird at all?"

"Look here girl, do you go to Oak Park, hello!  Wierd shit happen'in all the time there.  I didn't notice no one look'in at me, and if someone was they'd a gott'en some shit from me, ya'know?"

Sylvia nods slowly.  Oak Park has become a festival of weird, so much so that it's hard for her to sort one piece of weirdness from another.  "Thanks," she tells him and makes her exit.