Nightlight by The Harvard Lampoon Read Free Book Online

you socially deter people from being bigoted by frowning at their ignorant remarks. I got up real close, looked that poster straight in the eye, and frowned until I could feel the power of my moral triumphrushing through my circulatory system. I grabbed that poster, turned it around, drew a skull and crossbones and ripped it up. I would become a table-booth pirate. Who would be the first to know my cunning?
    I saw a table with a sign that read: “The Beauty of Price Elasticity and Free Pizza!” I resented the beauty of price elasticity, but I kind of liked free pizza. I drew closer to the booth to pirate a slice, suddenly discerning the figure manning it.
Edwart was back!
    “Belle?” Edwart asked as my hand reached up for a slice from my hiding spot beneath the table.
    “Huh? Oh …
Edwart
. I didn’t recognize you. Thanks for the pizza! Listen, I’d love to join your club sometime, but I’ve gotta do things. Make some toast for Jim. He’s an idiot!”
    “Stay! If you like pizza, you’ll love the Price Elasticity Club—a club devoted to giving students the free pizza they’ve earned by clicking the ads on the website I made for my economics class.”
    I eyed him suspiciously. Except for the mud on his face and his missing right pant leg, he had returned from his storm-chase in pristine condition. “Riddle me this
Mr. Internet Guy,”
I said, crossing my arms detectively. “How is it that you, allegedly completely mortal, are here
without a car?”
    “My car had to be sacrificed for a greater cause.” His face clouded with the haze of an ideal. “A muddy ditch right outside of this campus. I had to hurtle my car into the ditch before a looming cloud could get me. Nobody said being aventure-meteorologist with a bent for slowly accumulating money from .0001-cent web-ads would be easy. Nobody says much about that type of person at all.”
    “What would I have to do if I joined this ‘club’ of yours?” I asked suspiciously. I had noticed that he had artfully left out the adverse effect price elasticity had on consumer demand in his propagandizing.
    “You
would consider joining my club? Wow. No one has ever shown an interest in appreciating price elasticity with me before. For a while there, I thought it was me and price elasticity against the world. This is all happening so fast. I … I’m not sure what another person would do in my club. Let me think about it for a second.” He started pacing behind his display. His body seemed to flash in excitement.
    Or was that me, blinking really fast?
    “I know! You would have to spend every lunch period with me—”
    “Yes.”
    “—making a fortune.”
    Ooh
. If only I could travel back a few clauses. If only I had said “yes” when that scientist asked if I wanted his extra time machine.
    “At the end of the year we use that fortune to try to communicate with deep-sea cetaceans.” His eyes sparkled with zealous determination. “I know the truth is down there.”
    He was so perfect it ached.
    “So I just sign here?” I asked.
    “Yes—right below the words, ‘Edwart hereby possesses the soul of:’”
    “Okay!” I signed my name:
    B-e-l-l-e
    I flipped the paper over for more space, then squished in the rest in tiny print:
    Goose
    “There,” I said, scrawling the last letter with a flourish that continued off the page into a loop-de-loop in the air as my signature entails. I’d deal with the soul provision when the time came.
    “Belle!” someone shouted from the next booth. It was Laura—a girl who sat across from me everyday at lunch, giving her the privilege of having a name. Angelica was signing the club sheet and Lucy was signing fake sheets Laura gave to her so the wait would seem shorter. Lucy was based on a particularly impatient character.
    “Join our shopping club—our first meeting is today after school!” one of them said. You can pick which one—they’re pretty interchangeable.
    “No, join our club,” said Tom from the booth