chapter thirteen: Conner, Mrs. Hazelton's grandson, seems very upset to discover that Reverend Paulson is dead.
Is the Reverend Dead?
Chapter fourteen
“How was I supposed to know that he would die? I just wanted to make sure it worked.” A girl’s voice is coming from the spare room. “It’s not my fault that he’s dead.”
Conner is a good boy. He wouldn’t be alone with a girl in his room. It must be the radio. Yes, it’s the radio or his computer or...something.
“But he’s dead, and it’s because of what you made.” Conner is so starved for company that he’s talking to...it.
“What we made. It’s your fault too.” It’s talking back...or?
I push the door open. A blonde floozy is sitting on my grandson’s bed. Her leg is touching his. Arthur must have let her in.
“Granny, this is Paisley and we’re in—.”
“No, don’t tell her,” the floozy says.
“A lot of trouble.”
It takes him a while to tell me the whole story, but eventually, the truth comes out. “It’s hard to go to high school on the big island. They think we’re freaks just because we live on Plumper. They think we’re stupid just because our island is so small. We had to prove them wrong. We had to come up with something big for the Science Fair. And when Paisley said she had a killer idea, I didn’t think she meant murder.”
“Hey, don’t shove this all on me. I didn’t want to kill anyone. I wanted to show them the risk. I wanted to show them what bad people could do. I wanted to show them that they needed to do something about the problem. And...and...besides you helped make it too.”
“What did you make?” I ask.
“It’s just a device for opening garage doors.” His voice falls to a whisper. “That, unfortunately, shuts off pacemakers. I didn’t think it would work, if I had I wouldn’t have tested it.”
“Or made it,” I say.
“Yeah, that too,” he agrees. “But we did test it at the church. We figured there’d be lots of old people with pacemakers there. And that the signal would be too weak to do any real damage. I mean, it was coming through a thick wall. Nobody would get hurt. They’d just feel a little faint or something like that. We never thought there’d be any danger. But the Reverend d… We didn’t mean to. Please, you have to believe me.”
All I can see is my kind, thoughtful, loving, lovable grandson. It wasn’t his fault. It was… It was… Science is evil. “Where is the...thing?” I ask.
“I threw it away,” Conner tells me.
“No, you didn’t.” Paisley drags her backpack out from under the bed. She pulls out a black metal box about the size of a paperback. Really, the thing looks as dangerous as a TV remote controller.
Are you following me?
