Page 1 of Wishes and Research

Chapter 1

Paxton

How were there never any normal questions from anyone in the entire town?

“I’m…I don’t know?” I wasn’t even sure what the question meant, much less how to answer it.

The old man sighed and looked at me almost sadly, like he thought I was stupid. Some people said I was too cute to be a scientist but no one had ever said I looked like an idiot.

But this one was shaking his head.

“What flavor of little are you?” Enunciating the words slowly, he kept going with the strange topic. “We just need to know your category so we can make sure we match you up right.”

I knew we weren’t talking about work and I knew he wasn’t taking my lunch order, but that was all I could narrow it down by.

Was he senile?

Half the diner was staring at us like they were waiting for my answer, so to me, that said they thought he was still fully functioning.

But how was that possible?

“Do you have a list I can choose from?” I wasn’t sure if I was being smart or rude, but my question had him freezing in place.

Was I supposed to apologize?

After a few seconds, he came back to life and turned to the rest of the room. “He’s new. He doesn’t know where to start. We should’ve realized that.”

Oh.

That sounded dangerous.

I’d somehow made it worse.

I’d traveled all over the world. I’d eaten insects and bugs in strange places. I could explain US politics to a variety of cultures and have it make sense.

But I had no idea what the people in a small town in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina were doing.

Maybe the reason they had such unique flora and fauna was because the water was poisoned?

Too many toxins in the water could explain a lot.

Right?

“He’s not educated like our Kenzie or Lorne.” The old man continued to shake his head. “He doesn’t even read those educational dirty books like Stefan.”

There were educational dirty books?

No, that wasn’t what I was supposed to be paying attention to.

It was what caught their attention, though. Half the room started shaking their heads and most of them kept shooting looks of pity my way.

Not sure how I’d ended up in this situation when I’d just been looking for lunch and to ask about the local insect population, I watched the strange scene unfolding in front of me. There were a few people who didn’t seem to notice or care about what was going on but everyone else was riveted.

It was like that Amazon trip all over again.

But that’d made more sense.

“Where do we start?” Another older man with a woman who seemed to be his wife or partner frowned and crossed his arms, but he seemed to be taking the situation as a challenge if I was reading his body language right. “If he’s this confused, we can’t just send him to the library to get books on the subject. He won’t even know where to begin.”

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