Episode Six: Pheromones

In our last episode: Taylor teamed up with his fellow Geek Guard friends, Chris and Brett, to discuss his plan for getting Bethany Coulter to come home with him after school. Finally, Taylor said…

            “Okay, Chris… what do I have to do?”

            “One word, my friend,” Chris replied.

            “You’ve summed up my entire misbegotten love life in one word?” I asked.

            “You’re not that complicated, Taylor,” Chris explained.

            “Okay… hit me.”

            “Pheromones.”

            “Pheromones?”

            “They’re the scents we secretly give off when…”

            “I know what pheromones are. The question is, what does this have to do with Bethany?”

            “It’s quite simple, really,” Chris replied. “Assuming that the numbers add up.”

            Chris turned to Brett. After a second Brett looked up from his laptop and begrudgingly gave Chris a thumbs up.

            “Okay, here it is in a nutshell,” Chris explained, “You have been pining after Bethany for your entire male sexual life and you’ve never even talked to her. Why?”

            “Duh! I mean just look at her…”

            “Fear!” Chris stated, raising a single finger in the air as emphasis. “You, my friend, are scared of her and of what she represents. And Bethany, likely, senses that fear and wants nothing to do with you. Women are genetically designed to react poorly to cowards. She senses that fear pheromone you give out and she finds you disgusting as a result.”

            “This is not helping,” I noted.

            “We need to change your pheromone,” Chris countered.

            “With like body spray or something?”
            “No, nothing so mundane.” Chris countered. “Listen, you leave the details up to us. Just come back here at lunch and we’ll get you all straightened out.”

            “Why do I feel like I’m going to regret this?”

            “Well, there’s still a 70% chance of failure, my friend. But if you fail it won’t be because of the science.”

            Just then, the bell for the first class rang. Before I could continue the conversation, I had to run off to my first and worst class – U.S. History.

            Despite the fact that I was a straight A student in all my other subjects, I had a real blind spot for History. I studied and studied and studied – truth be told, I found the subject quite exhilarating. But for some reason, whenever I took the test I completely blanked. Some of the questions made no sense to me.

            I rushed in and took my seat.

            As I set my bag on the ground, Mr. Freebird turned around and pointed directly at me, “Mr. Banks, I trust you studied for today’s pop quiz?”

            “Yes sir,” I replied. “I studied for three hours last night.”

            “So you feel that you are prepared?”

            “I know everything there is to know about the end of the Vietnam war,” I countered.

            “We shall see, Mr. Banks,” Mr. Freebird replied.

            He passed out the quiz facedown. I looked at the back of the test with a sense of dread and hope – might this be the first quiz that I actually aced.

            “Turn your papers over and begin,” Mr. Freebird said.

            I flipped over the paper and read the first question: Name Three Factors that lead to the end of the Vietnam War.

            I quickly wrote about the growing Anti-war movement and Watergate and the lack of support from other nations. I nailed the first question. Then I read the second question.

            In your opinion, did the guilty verdict of Hanoi Jane’s treason trial have an impact on the Kent State riot and the end of the anti-war movement? And if it did have an impact, should President Mondale have pardoned Hanoi Jane and did that mistake lead to his ouster before his second term in 1980?

            I blinked and re-read the question. Was this a trick question? I didn’t remember reading anything like this in my history book the night before. I skipped question two and moved on to the following questions.

            What percentage of Hanoi was destroyed by nuclear fire during Operation: Torch?

            Why did the destruction of Hanoi not stop the Vietcong from fighting the U.S.?

            What was the outcome of the war crimes trial of Ho Chi Minh?

            How did the unification of a democratic Vietnam deal a setback to growing Chinese hegemony in the area?

Did it have an effect on the official ending of the Korean War and the reunification of Korea?

            I blinked. I had studied for three hours and none of this made sense to me. Frustrated, I snapped my pencil in two. I looked up and saw Mr. Freebird shaking his head at me. I had failed again.

            After the bell rang, I wandered to my next class and my next after that in a blur. I don’t remember much of what was going on. I was dazed.

            But when I walked into the cafeteria at lunch and saw Chris standing there with a canary grin on his face, I suddenly remembered that I had bigger problems than just a bad head for American History.

            My appointment with Bethany Coulter could no longer wait.

To be continued...