The Papers of Victoria Frankenstein, Part II: 40

I crept right up behind him—he had no idea I was there!—and looked at the screen. I’m not sure what I expected to see there—my house again?—but I certainly was surprised when I saw the image he was staring at.

 “Niagara Falls!” I cried.

Gil squealed in alarm.

He whirled around in his seat, saw me, and slumped back down. “You’ve really got to stop doing that,” he said. “Sneaking up on me. One of these times—”

“I’m going to give you a heart attack? Shock you to death with surprise?”

“No. I’m not going to die of fright,” he said.

“You’re not? And how do you know that? I mean, how can you possibly know that? On the way home tonight—who knows?—you might see a monster … an alien. Something like that. And be frightened to death.”

Gil laughed half-heartedly. “All I meant was,” he said, “is that it’s not likely. There’s not too many scary things in Franconia, Ohio.”

“True.” I plopped down in a chair beside him. “So why are you looking at articles about Niagara Falls?”

Gil flipped off the light that illuminated the news story. “No reason, really,” he said.  “I’ve just always been interested in the falls.”

“Have you ever seen them?”

“No. But we’re not that far away from them here, are we?”

“A few hundred miles,” I said. “People from here go all the time.”

“Have you seen them?”

“No … not yet. But I’ve always wanted to go, too.” I paused a minute. “And I just read a book about the falls.”

“Oh yeah? Which one?”

“Pierre Berton’s Niagara.”

“That’s a good one.”

I couldn’t control quickly enough my look of surprise, and Gil picked up on it immediately. “What, you think you’re the only one who can read a book?”

“No, of course not. It’s just that, you know, there are so many books—and the chances of any two people reading the same one …”

“That was actually a pretty good try,” Gil smiled. “Amazing how quickly you can lie.”

“It’s a gift,” I said.

We sat in silence for a few breaths. “So,” I said, “are you ready to plan our science fair project?”

“Can’t wait!”

We moved over to one of the circular tables in the room so we could spread out our materials.

“Any ideas?” he asked.

“One,” I lied. I had hundreds of ideas, but I was not about to waste them on a stupid school science fair.

“Well, what is it?”

“I have a name for it,” I said. “See if you can guess what it is from the name.”

“I’m not good at guessing things,” Gil complained mildly.

“Just try,” I said. His shrug told me he was willing. “Here goes,” I said. “Pay close attention.” I paused dramatically. “The title of our proposed science fair project is … Fridge Goop.”

“Fridge Goop?”

“Fridge Goop.”

“You mean, like junk left in the fridge too long?”

“Right.”

“That’s gross.”

“Yeah, really gross.”

“I love it. We don’t have to do much of anything for that, do we?”

“No. That’s the beauty of it. We’ll just decided on what junk we want to leave in our fridges—and for how long—and then just, you know, record our findings.”
          “Stop, you’re making me hungry.”