Free The Subatomic Kid by George Earl Parker

stunned secretary stared at them as they tumbled in.
    “Did you see a fly go this way?” Doctor Leitz blurted out.
    She gazed at them silently, blinking, until Leitz laughed nervously. “Of course you didn’t, just a joke,” he said.
    Hunter laughed out loud in support of the lie and slapped his partner in crime on the back, knocking the wind out of him. The two men turned and reentered the meeting room, breathing heavily and feeling ridiculous.
    Miss Moon watched them return with a cold eye, and for a long time she stared at them both in silence. Deep inside she felt a hint of satisfaction, for she had very nearly joined in with the idiocy until common sense had prevailed and steered her back to sanity. “We shall say nothing further about this incident,” she whispered. “As far as I am concerned, it never happened.”
    Hunter was pleased; his collusion in the affair was forgotten, his slate was wiped clean and he was guilt free. Doctor Leitz, on the other hand, was convinced he was correct and nothing on earth could change that conviction. He gazed back at Miss Moon; she was beautiful all right, but beauty always hides danger. Beautiful or ugly, human nature is always focused on one thing: getting its own way. “Forgive me, Miss Moon,” he lied, “I don’t know what came over me.”
    She smiled at him; he had given her what she wanted and she was happy. “Mr. Hunter,” she said with authority, “You will find the boy, if he is still alive, and bring him in. Meanwhile, Doctor Leitz will prepare to run the experiment again.” She was satisfied, sanity had prevailed and things were back in order.
    ***
    The secretary had returned to her work, mystified by the strangeness of the intrusion, when suddenly a teenage boy fell down from the wall and crashed to the floor. She knew that she saw what she saw, but somewhere deep in the back of her mind, she was already beginning to erase the memory.
    “What are you doing in here?” she asked John with authority.
    “I’m not sure,” John replied, rubbing his head.
    My job should not involve this level of mystification , she thought. Life was complicated enough, and she definitely wanted to ignore the last ten minutes of it.
    “Well, you’re not allowed in here, get out,” she said forcefully. The sooner she got rid of him, the sooner she could forget the whole unfortunate incident.
    John scrambled up from the floor, smiled at her confidently and left the room. She turned back to her computer, sighed deeply, shook her head, and began typing.
    ***
    John slipped out of the office and out of the school without being seen. Outwardly, he looked like any normal teenage boy walking down the street, but inwardly he was seething in complete and utter turmoil. He knew nothing more now than he did when he had climbed into the back of the limousine, apart from one obvious and undeniable fact; he had been a fly, and at the same time he had been himself.
    It horrified him to think that at any moment he could change into something else. He wanted to go away somewhere and hide, but there was nowhere to go to get away from himself, because wherever he went he would be there. There was only one thing he could do; he had to learn to understand the nature of change, and perhaps how to control it. He had to come to terms with his mysterious new talent, because it obviously wasn’t going away, and at the same time he needed to conceal it from the world.
    He was acutely aware of the fact that nothing would ever be the same in his life again. The safety and comfort of childhood was over, and any thought he’d ever had of being normal had ebbed away on the tide of time. He was alone, utterly and completely alone, as we all are. Even standing in a crowd, we stand alone.

Chapter 7
    THE DATE
     
    It was a Saturday morning for those who dealt in days of the week, but for the birds it was another sunrise and an opportunity to compose an entirely new dawn chorus. Maple Street was indeed lined