“Hey, Nick.” Nick looked up from his food court meal. His friend Clark was coming over, a piece of paper in hand.
“I thought you were going to get something to eat,” Nick commented. Clark sat at his table.
“I was, but then I saw this.” Clark slid the paper over to Nick. Nick raised an eyebrow.
“This is a flier for a science fair.”
“You’re a scientist!”
“This says it’s for kids ages five through eleven.”
“So?”
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed this about me, but I’m more than eleven.”
“Not necessarily.” Clark leaned in. “You keep wanting to get a proper test of that age reversing gun of yours. Why not try it?”
“Competing in a science fair is higher stakes than I planned for the first time I’d use the gun on myself in public,” Nick said.
“Did you see the cash prize?”
“There’s a cash prize?”
“Yep.” Clark grinned as he watched Nick look at the flier. “A thousand dollars.”
“Whoa.” Nick leaned back. “That’s a lot of money.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Okay,” Nick said after a moment. Clark fist pumped in excitement. “I’ll compete in this competition. Should be pretty easy, since I’m going up against a bunch of kids.”
“Yeah. But you can’t just do some baking soda volcano, okay? You’ve got to do something that would really wow the judges.”
“I’ve got a few things that I think might work,” Nick said idly. “Definitely would be better than whatever my competitors will come up with.” He looked down at the flier again. “It looks like there are three age groups.”
“Yep.”
“Which one should I compete in?” Nick asked. Clark frowned thoughtfully.
“Hmm…”