The Seven Wonders +1 (Part 2)

The screen flared to life again. On it appeared a title card that read “1. The Red Head.” Then, we were in what looked like a school hallway in grainy monochrome. Images of a balloon bobbing up the hallway and down again flashed quickly onto the screen, and just as quickly off of it again. The curved face of the balloon had a face drawn on it in thick black marker, a face so annoyingly smug that I almost couldn’t help but crack a smile.

The editing was amateurish at best. The scene ended abruptly and the next title card appeared. “2. The Orange Door Hinge” it read. This time around, we were treated to a lovely, picturesque shot of a door hinge. As picturesque as a door hinge can be, anyway.

“‘Orange’ you getting a little ahead of yourself here?” I sincerely wanted to ask whoever had penned these title cards. They may as well have called it the The Chartreuse Door Hinge. or The Pink Polka-Dotted Door Hinge, or the Infra-Black Door Hinge, because the whole film was in black and white.

The next title card was “3. The Yellow Jello,” which was about as gross as you’d imagine. So, very. It was squirming of its own accord, a congealed mass with a mind of its own, inside a smallish cup.

Next up was part four: “4. The Blue Glue.” Nothing weird about that. A lot of glue, of both liquid and stick varieties, was blue.

The count kept increasing. Section five came with the evocative title of “5. The Green Scream,” and the tape wrapped up with parts six and seven, “6. The Indigo Wendigo” and “7. The Violet Trilobite,” respectively.

If the editing was bad, the cinematography was even worse. By the end, the camera was shaking all over the place and kept panning up constantly for no apparent reason.

A million questions were bouncing around inside my head like a million superballs. The screen faded to black and the blurry white silhouettes of letters sharpened into focus. It was the title of the video, it seemed like. The name of our school followed by:

The Seven Wonders

As if on cue, the light bulb flickered back to life just as the tape clicked to a stop and the player spit it back out.

Greg was shivering so hard you would’ve guessed that he’d just spent an all-expenses-paid night in an igloo, and that the expenses paid didn’t cover clothing. He was positively frightened.

I was positively massively disappointed.

“Uh, Greg… what the hell was that?” I asked. Only 999,999 superballs left.

“What do you mean ‘what the hell was that?’”

“What do you mean ‘What do you mean ‘what the hell was that?’”

“Not this again,” said Evan. I guess he was fed up with my and Greg’s usual stupid exchange.

“Well, whatever.” I shrugged. “Thanks for nothing, dude. That video was a complete waste of time. Why did you hype it up so much when it was just a list of stupid junk lying around the school? You don’t even need a video. We could just go see all this stuff in like five minutes if we wanted. And what’s with you being such a scaredy wuss? This was about as scary as a cute and cuddly kitten.”

Speaking of cute and cuddly kittens, the opposite of one was purring in a soft sleep at my feet, rolled into a black ball.

“See?” I said. “The thing even put Black Lightning to sleep. That’s how dull it was.”

“Wait a second,” Greg said. He looked confused all of a sudden. “Scary? You thought that was supposed to be scary?”

“What?” My turn to be confused. “No. I mean yeah. I mean… you know what I mean. No, I didn’t think it was scary. But it was supposed to be, right? Wasn’t that why you were sweating your pancreas out before you put it on?”

“No way. I’m not that big a scaredy cat, I’ll have you know.” He turned to Black Lightning. “No offense.”

“Uh… sure.” Images of Greg, aged seven, jumping onto my bed like an electric shock, and then proceeding to wet it — all at the sight of me wearing a white sheet with two eyeholes cut out of it — flashed through my mind. “Whatever you say, man.”

“Hey, I’m serious, you know. I’m really not scared.”

“Then explain the shaking?” He was still shivering like mad where he sat, like a water molecule getting nuked in a microwave. Kind of like how this whole exchange was making my brain feel.

“Excitement.”

“Excitement? About…?”

“Come on, Wallace. Do I have to spell it out for you? What do I look like, a walking can of alphabet soup?”

“With your circumference and the incomprehensible garble this conversation has been? Yeah.”

“Shut up.”

“Then fess.”

“Man.” Greg hung his head and let it fall into a disappointed hand. “You guys really are something else. It’s the adventure, man. The adventure. Doesn’t seeing the seven wonders on this tape make you want to uncover their secrets? Go on a journey to discover the truth? Get to the bottom of all of this? Investigate the mysteries and suss out the secrets of the seven wonders? Now, are you with me or are you with me?”

I sunk back into the comforting embrace of the couch pillows. It was an impassioned speech, I’d give Greg that. But all it really roused in me was the desire to sit back, relax, and be as lazy as absolutely possible. After the whole violin mishap, word of Lily and me had spread like brushfire, landing us about a million requests to solve everyone’s stupid problems. Now that we had finally taken care of most of them, I was kind of enjoying my newly established routine of doing nothing for a change. “Have fun with that. I’ll be here.”

“Same,” said Evan.

“Wow! Could you guys be any less enthused? What’s with you? Where’s your spirit of adventure, Evan? And Wallace, for Pete’s sake. You’re a detective! Where’s that insatiable thirst to know the unknown? To go where no one’s been before?”

“Literally hundreds of people go to all the places in the video every single day.”

He just ignored me and kept talking. “Aren’t you curious? Don’t you want to know? Isn’t it eating you up inside knowing that seven whole mysteries are out there just waiting to be solved? Doesn’t it set your blood aboil till you can hardly sit still anymore?”

His voice was getting louder and louder and his tone fierier and fierier until, in one motion, he stood up and started pumping his fist for some reason. Unable to contain his sheer enthusiasm at the prospect of seeing the Seven Wonders up close, no doubt.

Well, if Greg thought I was as pumped as he and his fists were, he had another thing coming. I could confidently say that my blood was about as far from boiling as you could get. In fact, it was absolutely, positively on ice. Frozen stiff and solid. Zero kelvin.

“Pass,” I said. “Plus, all seven of those so-called ‘wonders’ looked totally boring.”

“But that’s the appeal,” Greg continued. “The seven wonders may look like the most mundane of mysteries at first glance, but scratch ‘n’ sniff the surface and I’m sure we’ll uncover mysteries deep and dark. Go where no man, no woman, no uh…” — he looked directly at me — “Wallace has gone before."

I couldn’t put my finger on exactly how, or why for that matter, but I was pretty sure I had just been insulted.

The end of The Seven Wonders +1 (Part 2)!
To be continued in Part 3!