Cold Wind - Spring Jubilee (3)

SATURDAY MORNING – 2 DAYS BEFORE THE SPRING JUBILEE

Roy plopped down in one of the dining room chairs. Kamek had woken him up early to start on the crystal radio, so he was still drowsy and, frankly, somewhat irritable. That paired with Kamek's incessant enthusiasm for the project inevitably meant that Roy wasn't going to make it through the morning without some sort of mishap.
“I've got all of the parts!” Kamek said, motioning toward the various items neatly organized on the dining room table.
“'Kay,” Roy muttered, “What first?”
“Oh,” Kamek started, “Uh, you should probably leave this first part to me. It might be a bit too complicated to you.”
“Fine by me,” Roy said, putting his head down on the table and promptly falling asleep. The less work he had to do and the more sleep he could get, the better.

SATURDAY AFTERNOON

“Hey, Wendy?” Lemmy said, poking his head into Wendy's room, “Do you happen to have a small thumbtack and a balloon?”
“Huh?” Wendy replied confusedly, “Why are you asking me about that?”
“Well, since Kamek's busy right now doing Roy's science project...”
“Figures Roy would find some way to worm out of it.”
“So do you have them?”
“No, but do you happen to have any glue?”
“Glue?”
“Yeah. For my collage.”
Wendy gestured to the various scraps of paper laid out in front of her. Lemmy then remembered the collage contest.
“Sorry, Wendy,” Lemmy answered his sister, “I don't have any.”
“Ugh,” Wendy groaned, “Now I have to try to pry Kamek away from Roy's project.”
“Sorry,” Lemmy apologized again.
“That's okay,” Wendy replied.
“So,” Lemmy said, sitting down on the floor with Wendy, “What are you doing for your collage?”
“Well, since the theme is 'nature', I thought I'd make a collage of a tree. Of course, I still need the glue.”
“Of course!”
Wendy snatched up a green piece of paper and began cutting out a few leaf shapes.
“If you want, I can ask Kamek about the glue for you,” Lemmy offered.
“Thanks, Lemmy,” Wendy said with a smile. Lemmy smiled back before racing out of the room to talk to Kamek. Maybe he could get the supplies that he and Iggy needed as well.

SATURDAY AFTERNOON

Larry ducked quickly as a bright red Lego whizzed right over his head.
“I told you to quit flinging the Legos everywhere, Morton!” Larry shouted.
“I've gotta find the pieces fast!” Morton cried.
“Well, you're never gonna find them if they're scattered all over the room!” Larry retorted.
“What are you two doing in here?” Iggy said, poking his head into the room, only to promptly get beaned in the head by a stray Lego.
“Who's that?” Morton inquired, trying to look around despite having a blindfold obscuring his vision.
“Sorry about that, Iggy,” Larry apologized, “I'm just trying to help this blockhead get ready for the blindfolded building contest for the Spring Jubilee.”
“Hopefully you're having better luck with that than I am with Ludwig...” Iggy groaned.
“What's up with Ludwig?” Larry asked.
“He's trying to get me to help him get better at checkers so he can beat 'Ellie Vinkenheimer' or something like that,” Iggy explained, emphasizing the name of Ludwig's rival with a crude impression of his accent.
“Can't be as bad as working with Morton,” Larry said, “He's absolutely hopeless...on both ends, in fact.”
“You think working with Morton is worse?” Iggy began, “That's nothing! Morton doesn't act like a kicked puppy whenever he loses, which, by the way, Ludwig does a LOT. Plus, Ludwig won't leave me alone! We've played probably twenty or thirty games of checkers over the course of a day and a half! He doesn't even get any better! He's absolutely HORRIBLE at checkers and he won't stop bugging me about it!”
“Have you been trying to encourage him?”
“Of course. What else am I supposed to do? I've never seen him so close to tears before. I don't want to hurt his self-esteem any more than it already has been.”
“There's your problem right there. You know how Ludwig is: if you don't shoot him down, he'll just keep going.”
“But, if I don't do this for him, I'm afraid of what the consequences will be later. You know how Ludwig is: anyone who hurts him ALWAYS pays for it sooner or later.”
“Then don't hurt him.”
“Huh?”
“Look at it this way:” Larry said, quickly sidestepping to dodge another flying Lego, “You have two options if you want to get out of this. You can either let him down gently, which you'd probably be terrible at, or you can bolster his self-esteem. I think you know how to go about that one.”
Iggy was quiet for a moment, likely thinking about what Larry had told him. His face then lit up in realization.
“Yes!” Iggy cried, “It's perfect! You're a life-saver, Larry!”
“No problem,” Larry replied, flashing Iggy a smile.

SATURDAY NIGHT

Roy stared wide-eyed at the scene in front of him. Kamek had his head in his hands, mumbling curses at himself while a finished crystal radio lay on the table in front of him. Roy couldn't even figure out how Kamek had done it.
“Stupid Kamek!” Kamek growled, scolding himself, “How could you let yourself get carried away and do the entire thing?! How's Roy ever going to learn anything if you do everything for him?!”
Roy could only laugh at this point. Kamek had actually done everything for him and he didn't even have to lift a finger.
“Listen,” Roy said, “I'm just gonna go upstairs for the rest of the night, 'kay?
“Oh, you're not off the hook yet,” Kamek snarled, his face red, “You still have the presentation and the report to do, and you're doing your own research. Got it?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Roy replied callously, “I'll do that tomorrow, all right?”
Roy could tell Kamek was trying his hardest not to scream. At this point, the mage was both embarrassed and enraged. Anyone with a brain wouldn't try to push his buttons now, which is exactly why Roy felt the need to flash a coy grin before leaving the room. As he made his way upstairs, he could have sworn he heard Kamek storm into the living room and scream into a pillow.

SUNDAY MORNING – 1 DAY BEFORE THE SPRING JUBILEE

“Did you ever find a thumbtack yesterday?”
“No,” Lemmy replied, slumping back against the wall, “Sorry.”
“Ugh,” Iggy scoffed, “I would've tried to help, but Ludwig was all over me again.”
“Checkers?”
“Yeah.”
“What are we going to do now?” Lemmy cried.
“The only thing we can do: wait until tomorrow and see if Ji-Min's tack did any good.”
“Okay.”
Lemmy could see the distressed look on Iggy's face. He was the one who'd suggested they test out the thumbtack themselves for good measure, but, without the right kind of tack, they wouldn't be able to do anything about it. Iggy really seemed worried.
“Well,” Lemmy said, “Whatever happens, it's not about whether we win or lose, right?”
“Sure,” Iggy sighed.

SUNDAY AFTERNOON

Roy stared blankly at the computer screen in front of him, the same webpage plastered onto the screen as had been pulled up an hour ago. It was a webpage that was supposed to explain how the crystal radio worked, but it was so incredibly complicated that he couldn't make any of it out.
“How in the crap is anyone supposed to be able to understand this?!” Roy shouted. He then decided to go back and do another search on Google, but every page he found was filled with information he couldn't for the life of him even begin to comprehend. Plagiarism was out of the question as well. His teacher would know for sure that he had no idea what he was talking about. There was only one thing to do: legitimately try to understand what a crystal radio was all about.

SUNDAY NIGHT

Iggy slid his black checker across the board to the next space. He then stared at Ludwig, who was contemplating his next move. Suddenly, a look of realization appeared on Ludwig's face as he took his own checker and proceeded to jump three of Iggy's checkers in a row and make it to Iggy's end of the board to be kinged.
“Wow!” Iggy marveled, “You've really been getting good at this, Lud!”
“Naturally,” Ludwig said with a cocky grin.
“Think you're ready to take on Ellie Vinkenheimer tomorrow?”
“I'm more zan ready now,” Ludwig said, getting up from the table, “I'll be sure to sank you once I receive first prize.”
“No problem,” Iggy replied, watching Ludwig walk away. As Iggy began packing up the checkers, Larry walked into the room.
“Did you follow my advice?” Larry asked.
“Yeah, but...” Iggy trailed off.
“Let me guess,” Larry interrupted, “You feel really wrong for doing it?”
“No,” Iggy said, “It was actually the most painful thing I've ever had to do...for other reasons.”
“Ah,” Larry said, “I get it.”
“Yeah,” Iggy said, cringing. Larry laughed.
“So,” Iggy said, trying to change the subject, “How'd it ever work out with Morton?”
“It didn't,” Larry groaned, “I ended up just quitting on him. There comes a point where you just have to call it quits. His team is going to hate him.”
“I'd hate it if I were on his team too,” Iggy replied with a chuckle.
“Well, that's two hopeless nutcases down,” Larry said with a grin, “Now there's just Roy downstairs...”
“No way,” Iggy said, “He already asked me to help him with his stupid paper and I turned him down. I'm done with hopeless nutcases for today, thank you very much.”

SUNDAY NIGHT

Roy looked at the finished posterboard in front of him. It certainly wasn't a masterpiece, but it would have to do. That paired with the report and the project itself made for a finished science fair project.
“Well, that only took me all day to do...”
He now knew more than he ever wanted to know about the crystal radio. The only thing left now was the oral presentation tomorrow morning. In theory, it was simple. All he had to do was explain the concept of the crystal radio to the judges, then demonstrate how it worked. The only thing was, no matter how much he tried, he couldn't get it to work at home. He could only hope it would be different during the presentation.