You'll Never Know

Part 5: Chapter 2

- EARLIER -

With the school day over, a kid is free to do whatever he wants for the rest of the weekend. Now that it's Friday, he can do what he's passionate about.

Sitting on the couch and eating.

This passionate young man, Campbell Lynn, lays sprawled out on the couch with an open bag of cheetos resting on his stomach and a slapstick movie ahead on the TV. He takes another handful of the cheesy mess to stuff his mouth just as the front door unlocks and opens.

"I'm home, sweetie."

He chews and swallows. "Aye mom." Technically Mrs. Lynn. Unlike her son, her passions lie with productivity. "Anything cool at work today?"

"Funny you said that." A flier is flutters down to land on top of the Cheeto bag before he can take another handful. Campbell sighs and picks it up before looking over skeptically at his mother.

"Take your daughter to work day." He says.

"Well, you're an exception." Mrs. Lynn laughs. "It's tomorrow at the labs, if you want to skip school."

That part clicks, making Campbell sit up to face her. "I'll go, no big deal."

She presses a pleased smile. "We leave at eight tomorrow."

- - -

Oversleeping for two hours was still not enough as the alarm clock sounds off loudly that morning. Campbell rolls over to slap his phone into silence before sinking back into his pillow.

"Camp! Get up, it's eight!" Mrs. Lynn hollers down the halls.

Campbell looks up from the cushions at his phone. He set his alarm for eight o'clock instead of twenty minutes before. He groans and pulls himself out of bed to get ready as fast as possible.

"Coming . . . ."

He pushes his mess of hair off his face and tugs on pants, but keeps the shirt he slept in on. He weasels his feet into his shoes instead of untying them and takes a mint from the dresser.

In record time, Campbell trots out the door right behind Mrs. Lynn before slamming it shut.

They both walk down the lawn. "You just woke up, didn't you." Mrs. Lynn sighs.

"No." Campbell self consciously finger combs his hair.

"Uh-huh." She hints a smirk, unlocking the car and climbing in. "So you excited for this?"

He steps into the passenger side. "I uh, get to skip school, so."

"Mmm, that's what counts." Mrs. Lynn starts the car. "Nothing else?"

"Er . . . you said there'd be free snacks there." Campbell recalls. "That's cool."

The car drives off at last. "Nice to know your priorities."

"Could've turned out worse." He replies. "Could've been into drugs, but no, I'm into food."

Mrs. Lynn is quick to be sarcastic. "Yeah, I'm truly blessed."

- - -

After somehow finding a parking spot through the mess of traffic, the two trail through the halls and into the main room where Mrs. Lynn works. Other people Campbell's age soon gather in the spacious room, all listening keenly to Mrs. Lynn talk about what it's all for.

"See, what we do here is handle medical prototypes. Medicines, equipment, anything. We test it all and write down only the facts of results." Mrs. Lynn says. "We test these things a little more on people recently, as there are plenty of animal cruelty rights nowadays . . . not that I find anything wrong with that, but it's harder to explain why somebody's father is now allergic to air conditioning rather than saying Old Yeller has to be an outside dog."