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“Hey!”
Lloyd didn’t answer the other kid. Probably just someone else who wanted to see his face when they called him Four-Eyes. Real original.
“C’mon, aren’t you in there?”
Didn’t sound like anyone Lloyd knew… not that he wanted to come across anyone new, either.
“I heard ya like blowin’ things up.”
That got Lloyd’s attention. The boy said that in a tone that made it sound like he was trying to be nice… not teasing him. Huh?
“I snuck in and stole somethin’ for ya.”
Lloyd lifted the lid--just a little bit--and looked through the narrow opening of light.
He had no idea who this boy was, but he looked like he was the kind to climb trees and explore in the woods. After all, he was covered head-to-toe in little scratches and bruises, and his hair looked like it hadn’t been combed in days, at least. Why didn’t his mother make him comb his hair?
“Hi!”
Lloyd let the lid drop down again with a clatter. The boy had looked him right in the eyes!
“Aw, I don’t bite or anything!”
Well, there were two options here: stay inside and safe, and don’t ever see this kid again; or talk to him and find out what he’d brought with him. After all, he never said where he snuck into, and the factory was right there…
After a few seconds to think about it, curiosity won over, and Lloyd lifted the lid again--even less than before.
“What’d you take?” he asked.
“Well, come out and see!”
The kid hadn’t said a mean word yet, and he could’ve stolen something cool…
“All right, but don’t laugh!”
“Swear I won’t.”
Lloyd lifted the trash can lid all the way and squinted at the sunlight. He could hardly make out the boy in front of him.
“Hey, your glasses are all bent outta shape!”
“You said you wouldn’t laugh…”
“No, I’m not laughin’! Hey, I can fix ‘em up for you. If you want.”
“I don’t think you can, they’re really messed up.”
As Lloyd’s eyes adjusted, he made out the image of a hand in front of him--probably waiting for the glasses. He looked up to see the boy’s eyes trained on him, and a genuine smile.
“I can try!” the boy replied cheerfully. “And I might surprise you.”
“All right,” Lloyd said, and reluctantly dropped his glasses into the other boy’s hand.
Everything was blurry without the glasses, but Lloyd was pretty sure he just saw the boy hold them in his hand for about five seconds before handing them back.
“Are you trying to trick me?” Lloyd asked.
“I’m not, honest! Put ‘em on.”
Lloyd lifted them up to his face and, to his surprise, they felt like new as they sat on his ears and nose.
“Whoa! Thanks! How’d you do that?”
“Psychic powers.” The boy grinned. “Runs in the family.”
“...Huh?”
“You’ll get used to it, if we stay friends! Oh, and my name’s Ninten.”
Lloyd didn’t think that was a normal name, but if Ninten wasn’t from around here, maybe that was why. He talked weird, too.
“I’m Lloyd.”
“Nice to meet ya!”
“So, what’d you come here with?”
Ninten blinked, and it looked like he’d forgotten what it was Lloyd was asking about--and then his face brightened. “Oh! Right!” He slung his backpack off of his shoulders and dug around. “Let’s see…”
Lloyd gasped when Ninten pulled out one of the bottle rockets he’d been coveting. Rocket in both hands, he stood up straight and held it out like a grand offering. “Here ya go! Figured you'd like it."
"Yeah!" Lloyd said. "How'd you know?"
"The other kids said you were constantly doin' all kinds of experiments. And I've been explorin' around here, and I found that old factory south of town--came across this rocket, and I thought, "hey, there was that kid at the school, right?" So I decided I'd give it a shot."
Lloyd took the bottle rocket from Ninten's outstretched hands, and was about to thank him--but then Ninten sneezed, decently loud.
"You okay, Ninten?"
"It's no big deal. Think someone in one of those classrooms might'a been sick." Ninten smiled. "But I'm used to it! I've been walkin' around lotsa places, gotten a few bumps and bruises here and there. I'm a tough kid!"
As believable as Ninten tried to sound, he sneezed again at the end of his speech, and stared down at the ribbon of snot stretching from his nose. When he focused in on it, his eyes crossed.
"Gross." Lloyd still laughed.
"Hey, who's laughin' at who now?" Ninten's voice had gone a little stuffy, and he untied the bandana around his neck to blow his nose.
"Sorry. You know, I can walk home with you, if you want. Then your mom can give you medicine!"
Ninten balled up the dirty bandana. "Naw, my mom's back in Mother's Day. I'll just buy some medicine here in Thanksgiving."
"Mother's Day?! What're you doing here?" Lloyd asked. "Don't you go to school back home?"
"See, that's the thing."
Ninten reached into his backpack and pulled out an old book. He showed Lloyd some of the writing inside, but didn't hold it out long enough for Lloyd to actually put together any sentences.
"My great-grandpa studied psychic powers, and that’s where I got ‘em. He did all this research. I left home to go on this huge adventure. I'm tryin' to save the world! 'Cause everything's possessed, and…" Ninten glanced back at the door to the rooftop, then leaned closer to Lloyd. "I've seen aliens."
"No way. I'd know if aliens came here, I've got a telescope!"
"Well, I don't know where they landed. Maybe it wasn't Thanksgiving."
Ninten almost sneezed again, but he shoved his bandana against his nose and held his breath until it passed. He sighed… then sneezed.
"Hey, why don't we go downstairs?” Lloyd offered. “I think I can make up a cure for your cold in one of the science labs, and then you don’t have to walk all the way to the store!”
Ninten’s eyes widened. “Ya think you can do that?”
“Positive! I am a scientist, after all.”
“I’ve never been friends with a scientist before,” Ninten replied with a grin.
Ninten was a funny kid. Lloyd hadn’t ever met someone who didn’t tell him that ‘kids can’t be scientists’. Then again, he’d never met anyone with psychic powers, either. Now, he knew someone who fit both of those criteria.
Wait--Ninten said “friend”?
“Do you mean… we’re friends now?”
“Yep!” Ninten popped the ‘p’, casual as can be. “You wouldn’t sneak any old kid into the science lab, right?”
“I guess not,” Lloyd agreed. “Friends we are, then!”
“Awesome!” Ninten waved Lloyd over to the door on the rooftop and grabbed a baseball bat that sat propped up against the wall.
“Why do you have a bat?”
“Beatin’ up the weird-ified creatures,” Ninten explained.
“That’s not a word.”
“It wasn’t a word before, ‘cause nobody ever had to fight possessed stuff. I’m the first! And I’m callin’ ‘em “weird-ified”.”
Lloyd stared at Ninten’s bright, eager expression for a moment, then sighed in defeat. “All right, but I’m not going to use that word.”
“You don’t have to! I’ll be the one whackin’ sense into ‘em!”
Ninten swung the door open and stepped through, then held it for Lloyd. Lloyd blinked behind his Coke-bottle glasses, then smiled and walked through. Having a friend was already making him feel warm inside.
“The science labs are on the first floor,” Lloyd said.
“Awesome. Race ya!” Ninten broke into a sprint for the stairs.
“You’re gonna get us in trouble!” Lloyd yelled after him, but he started running, too.
The two got down the stairs, and Lloyd went straight for the lab room. He could hear Ninten’s shoes slamming on the floor behind him--then a stumble to a stop, and a sneeze--and then more running. He couldn’t stop the smile on his face.
When Lloyd skidded into the lab, Ninten was quick to follow. He was out of breath, and let out a nasty cough, but he still grinned at Lloyd.
“You win,” he puffed.
“All right. Number one cold remedy, Lloyd-style!”
Lloyd started mixing together all of the ingredients for a potent cold medicine, dashing between cabinets to find them.
“How’s all this science work?” Ninten asked, leaning against the wall.
Lloyd grabbed a flask and two test tubes. “When you mix the right chemicals, they react. It isn’t always dangerous--sometimes it just means that when you mix them, a new chemical pops out.”
“Like cough syrup,” Ninten said.
“Yeah.” Lloyd only stopped moving quickly when he had to carefully pour things--like the blue liquid he was transferring to one of the test tubes.
“You’re makin’ cough syrup at school?”
“Pretty much.”
Ninten sneezed, then adjusted his cap. “Do ya make medicine for all your friends, Lloyd?”
“You’re the only one I’ve got,” Lloyd replied as he carefully swirled the liquid in the flask.
“Oh! Well, I’m honored.” Ninten opened his mouth to say something else, but then shut it as his eyes focused on Lloyd’s creation. “Is that supposed to happen?”
Lloyd’s eyes widened as the contents of the flask in front of him started to smoke and foam. “Ninten, duck and cover!”
Lloyd dove beneath a table, and Ninten slid into the space with him.
“PSI Shield!” Ninten shouted.
As the contents of the flask exploded, Lloyd cringed in preparation for impact. However, it never came, and when he opened his eyes, he and Ninten were surrounded by what looked like a force field. Ninten’s eyes were open and watching the debris fall around them.
“Whoa…”
The shield held out through the worst of the event, but Ninten couldn’t keep it up for very long. It dissipated slowly, and the fumes started to leak in. Chemical fumes, the kind that could kill both of them.
“C’mon, we’ll choke!”
Ninten dashed to grab his bat, then let Lloyd drag him out by the arm. Once they were safely outside the building, Ninten sat on the ground and stared at the mess they’d made through a window, coughing.
“Sorry… I guess I should’ve just taken you to the store,” Lloyd said sheepishly.
“And miss out on an explosion like that?!” Ninten laughed and coughed again. “Never!”
“You’re really odd, you know that?”
“That’s a good thing.” Ninten reached into his backpack and pulled out an asthma inhaler, then took in a breath from it.
Lloyd sat on the grass with Ninten, watching the other students at the school file out of the doors. Some of them were cheering, some screaming. A few were carrying conversations with their friends.
“Look at them,” Ninten sighed. “They’ll never know what it’s like to be a scientist, or fight the Weird-ified. Isn’t that sad?”
Lloyd hadn’t ever thought about it that way. Maybe he wasn’t like other kids, but they wouldn’t know what it was like to run his experiments. They were missing out on all of that fun, after all.
“Do I need to learn a secret handshake?” Lloyd asked.
“What?”
“You know, all the cool kids have those secret handshakes to get into their clubs. Is there a handshake?”
Ninten laughed. “Naw! Why would I make you learn some dumb handshake?”
Lloyd felt silly for bringing it up in the first place. He ducked his head.
“Hey, I didn’t mean it like that. I just never thought up a handshake or nothin’.” Ninten paused. “How about we take an oath instead?”
“An oath?” Lloyd looked up at Ninten.
“Sure! Lemme think one up.”
Lloyd watched Ninten sit with his eyes shut for several seconds. He had a particularly violent sneeze, and then looked at Lloyd with wide eyes.
“I got it!” Ninten cleared his throat. “‘I solemnly swear to join with my friend in defeating the Weird-ified and exploring every corner of the world. Should I turn against my friend, I’ll gladly die.’ How’s that?”
“Can we take out the part about dying?” Lloyd asked, starting to fear this new friendship.
“Well, you’re not actually gonna die,” Ninten clarified. “It’s just there to sound cool. Ya know?”
Lloyd shrugged. “As long as you can promise that.”
“Swear it!”
“And while we’re out in the world… I don’t have to go to school?”
Ninten grinned and threw his arms out to the side. “Lloyd, you’re saving the world from an alien invasion! No one’s gonna get mad when ya miss a few days of school. You’re gonna be a hero!”
Usually, kids who told stories like these were just giving in to their imaginations. But Lloyd couldn’t forget Ninten’s magic shield. And he’d heard about some weird events recently… weird-ified events?
“All right, I’ll take the oath.” Lloyd cleared his throat. “I solemnly swear, uh…”
“To join my friend.”
“To join my friend Ninten in defeating the Weird-ified, and…”
“Exploring…”
“Exploring every corner of the world. Should I turn against my friend, I’ll, uh… I’ll gladly die.”
Ninten nodded. “I solemnly swear to join my friend Lloyd in defeating the Weird-ified and exploring every corner of the world. Should I turn against my friend, I’ll gladly die.”
Ninten held out a hand, and Lloyd shook it.
“All right, that does it! We’re officially a team.” Ninten sniffled loudly, and Lloyd realized they still hadn’t gotten him any medicine.
“Hey, we should probably get some real cough syrup now,” Lloyd suggested.
Ninten nodded and hopped to his feet, then extended a hand to Lloyd. Once they stood facing each other, Lloyd realized Ninten was still wearing a wide smile--missing a couple of teeth, but cheerful as it could’ve ever been. Even if this whole Weird-ified thing was a little bit scary, Ninten had already proven himself as a great friend with plenty of optimism to spare.
“Hey, uh, thanks for the glasses. By the way.”
“Happy to help! If ya ever want to get back at the bullies, I’m workin’ on my hypnosis PSI,” Ninten joked.
“Maybe after we stop the aliens.”
“That’s the spirit!”
“The store’s in town--do you know which way that is?”
“Not yet, but I’ll find it!”
Lloyd gave Ninten a strange look. “Or… I could just show you.”
“And that’s why you’re the brains of this operation, Lloyd. Lead the way!”
Ninten let out another ferocious sneeze, and Lloyd laughed and waved him along the path to town.