Signal to Noise Read Online Free PDF Page A

on the couch, propping his feet up.
    “So now you believe me about the magic?”
    “I think you are cr-aaaa-zy,” he said. “But what the hell. Life can’t get any crappier, can it?”
    “Was your dad home last night?” Meche asked, frowning.
    Sebastian’s dad wasn’t living with them, but he came around periodically to collect money and beat the kids. For old time’s sake.
    “It’s got nothing to do with him,” Sebastian said, meaning it probably had everything to do with him.
    She shoved his feet away and sat on the couch. Sebastian had the backpack pressed against his chest and was staring at the ceiling.
    “What’s it got to do with?” she asked.
    “I don’t know. I just wish it was all different. You know?”
    “Yeah.”
    Meche scratched her leg and sat quietly, thinking about all the things she would change if she could. She’d get rid of the pimples. She’d get nice, new clothes. Not Jimena’s hand-me-downs. Her mother would yell less. She’d go out on a date with Constantino.
    “How do we do it?”
    “I don’t know,” Meche said. “I haven’t thought about it too much. I mean, we need a turntable and lots of records, I guess. We have to figure out the formula.”
    “So you’re saying you have no idea?” he asked flatly.
    “I have some idea,” Meche said, feeling offended. “It’s just going to take some experimenting. I need to do more research. I wonder if there are any books I can use at the school library...”
    “Aha.”
    “We need to convince Daniela. I figure we need three people.”
    “Why three?”
    “Because it’s the first lucky prime number.”
    Sebastian looked at her blankly, as though she had just spoken in Dutch. She sighed.
    “Stuff always comes in threes. Like there are three notes in a triad, which is your basic chord. Or the holy trinity.”
    “‘Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble’,” he said.
    “What?” Meche asked. She had no idea what he was talking about.
    “Macbeth’s witches,” Sebastian said, frowning. “Hey, I’m not a girl. Does that matter?”
    “I don’t think it does. You can be a warlock, can’t you?”
    “I suppose. We don’t have to wear capes, do we? I don’t think I’d look good in one.”
    She felt like telling him that, yeah, they most definitely had to use capes and pointy hats, and then watching what face he made at that, but Meche decided to spare him the unnecessary cruelty.
    “No.”
    “Good. Do you have any food? I didn’t eat breakfast.”
    He never ate breakfast. He also tended to eat Meche or Daniela’s lunch. Meche’s, usually, because Daniela was less generous with her food allocations. Meche figured that if half a cheese and ham sandwich was what it took to convince Sebastian to join her cause, it would be a small price.
    She took out her battered tin lunchbox and scooped the sandwich, giving him half. Sebastian munched on it and grabbed her thermos without even asking for permission, taking a big gulp.
    “What are Macbeth witches?” she asked, punching one of the lumpy cushions and putting it behind her head.
    “I really can’t believe you are like half-illiterate.”
    “I’m not half-illiterate.”
    “You are clueless when it comes to books. Rodriguez is so going to fail you in Spanish and World Literature.”
    “You are going to fail all the sciences, so who’s talking?”
    “Blah blah,” he said, opening and closing his left hand. “That’s what remedials were made for.”
    “What are Macbeth witches?”
    “ Macbeth is a play by Shakespeare,” Sebastian said, grabbing the sandwich crumbs that were left and stuffing them into his mouth. “It’s about this guy who meets with these three witches and they prophesize that he’ll be king. So he begins to think about it all the time and then ends up killing the guy in charge and becomes king. It’s a tragedy.”
    “It doesn’t sound too tragic to become king.”
    “Obviously things don’t go as planned. You