The Number on the Thing

THE NUMBER ON THE THING

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“Hey, there’s a bathroom scale in here…!” cried Lisa.

“What? Let me see…” Janice rushed into the bathroom. She peered down at the object that Lisa was bending over just now. “So you think the last group left it here?”

Lisa shrugged. “I guess. I mean, I didn’t bring it here today.”

The scale they were staring at was a rusty old thing. It sat lonely in that big, white empty bathroom, like it was pining for all its friends but they had all conspired together and gone away. All metallic and tinny, it was rimmed in pasted-on chrome that had clearly lost its shine and glory a long, long time ago. It was rectangular and had a scratched up, plastic read-out window near the top of its face, with dog-eared rubber pads where your feet were supposed to go.

Janice bent down too. She stared and studied it but didn’t dare to touch it. “Where’s the cord for it? Maybe it runs on batteries?”

Lisa laughed. “No, you idiot! It’s not electronic…” She poked at it with her finger. “My grandpa had a scale like this. It’s mechanical. There’s like…gears and stuff inside it. You see the read-out? It’s just a needle with a circle of numbers underneath. You step on it and it tells you your weight. Simple.”

There was a notched wheel on the side.

Janice frowned and pointed at it. “What’s that for?”

Lisa paused for a second and then her eyes brightened. “Oh, I know…! You turn that wheel-thing to adjust it, like when it’s not reading right and you could move the number up and down to calibrate it.”

“…‘calibrate’?” Janice laughed. She straightened up.

“What?” Lisa stood up too.

“You think you’re so smart.”

“Smarter than you…!” Lisa slapped her friend on the arm.

“Ow…!”

An older woman poked her head into the bathroom. “Hey, what are you girls up to? Checking out your new residence on the first day? Did you find anything?”

“Nothing, Mrs. Bailey.” Lisa spun around but managed one last pinch to Janice’s arm behind her back.

Mrs. Bailey marched over to Janice and planted a set of keys into her daughter’s hands. “Now, what did I just tell you not five minutes ago? You have to hang onto these…!” She closed Janice’s fingers over the keys. “You know the security on these campus dorms are next to nothing. And you left the front door wide open! Anybody could have waltzed right in here, picked up those keys and…”

“Right, Mom!” Janice tossed her mom’s hands away and marched out into the living area. The other two followed her out.

“And then later at night,” Janice went on, “they could sneak in here and rob us…”

Mrs. Bailey frowned. “Janice…”

“…or worse! They could rape us first…”

“Janice!” Her mom rushed over and took Janice by the arm in a firm grip. “Why do you say things like that? You always do that on purpose…!”

Janice tossed her head back and laughed.

Mrs. Bailey shook her head.

Janice settled down. “Okay, Mom. You promised.” She began to shove her mom toward the door. “You said you would go as soon as we were moved in.”