Elle was in heaven.
During the last hour, the eccentric astronomy teacher, Mr. LaPlume, currently decked-out in cowboy gear, complete with the boots and giant copper belt buckle, had just covered some topics which he called “the basics,” which turned out to be some of the most fascinating concepts Elle had ever heard. He talked about the moons of Jupiter, the exploration of the moon and the quest to find water on Mars. The richness and intensity of his voice fascinated Elle. She would bet that even boring topics would sound riveting coming out of his mouth. He could probably even make math sound interesting.
When the bell rang, Elle slowly packed-up her papers, her mind wandering back to earlier this morning. After getting home from Operation Black Box, Elle had done everything to try to open the box, but with no luck. It was a real puzzle. If only she could get a look inside, she might get a clue about the origins of the box and the little dead frog. She debated asking someone for advice. Not Barnabus! Never that guy. Maybe Grandpa….but he had been worried when Elle showed him the bone, who knows what he would say about the box. Although, he had been totally fine with the dead frog, so who knew. Maybe she could ask LaPlume….?
By the time Elle got to LaPlume's desk, however, Juan was already there asking him about their assignment, so she headed towards the door instead. As she put her books away in her locker, she saw Mr. LaPlume and Juan leave the classroom. Mr. LaPlume headed down the hallway in the opposite direction. Juan stopped by his locker down the hallway and glanced in her direction. Elle quickly shut her locker door and headed towards the lunch room. She wasn’t in the mood to talk to Juan, especially after the Lunch Room Fiasco of yesterday.
It was raining outside, so Elle was resigned to eat in the lunch room. The Contagious Table was especially busy, but there was an empty seat in the corner. She sat down one seat away from a thin, pale boy who was engrossed in a conversation with the red-head from Elle's astronomy class—Juan had called her Alicia- and a large girl with glasses and a stack of books near her tray.
Elle was happy to have a few moments alone to think to herself about the box. She could attempt to perform minor surgery on it later today after school. All she needed was some tools…. unfortunately, all she had available was a few rusty shovels and a hand-trimmer for gardening, less than ideal tools for the operation. Hopefully Grandpa had a crow-bar somewhere in the shed.
At that moment, Juan plopped into the seat between her and the pale boy. "Hi Jimmy," he said to the boy who smiled and made room for him. Juan jovially poked at his macaroni and cheese with a fork. "So what did you think of class?" he asked, carefully tasting the mac 'n cheese. "He's a character, right?"
"Did you see his clothes?" Alicia joined-in from across the table, "Why does he always wear such crazy outfits?"
"I know! I want some boots like that!" Juan said while Alicia giggled.
"Wasn't it great when he told Kat to sit down and be quiet when she tried to leave?" She smiled, "That was the best thing that happened all year!"
"Wait- rewind. What happened? Why was Kat trying to get out of class?" JImmy broke into the conversation.
“Well...” the girl with the glasses interrupted before Alicia could response. "According to Lexi, who heard it from Becca who is friends with Hailey, Kat's mad that she got put into the astronomy elective after they messed up our schedules with the free-period. She tried to get Principle Burke to change her elective, but it's too late--all the other classes are filled," she finished.
And that is Highly Reliable Middle School Gossip in action, Elle thought.
"Serves her right for being so bossy. What elective did you get, Jimmy?" Alicia asked Jimmy.
"I'm in home economics. It's awesome. All we've done so far is bake cookies," he said.
"No fair! I want that elective!" Juan said. The other three laughed and agreed. "Yeah, you better share with us, Jimmy," Alicia said.
"I'm taking psychology of the adolescent mind with Dr. Dismel," the girl with glasses said, even though no one had asked.
"Really? That's cool. So are you gonna psychoanalyze us?" Juan asked. "Come on--what's wrong with me, Susanna?"
"No Juan, that comes later. Right now we're on the sleep chapter, discussing dreams and dream interpretation," Susanna said, haughtily.
Elle's mind flashed back to the nightmare she had a few nights ago, with the strange, creepy figure. What was her subconscious trying to tell her with that dream? Then she thought about two nights ago and the strange flash of light.
“Hey," Elle said quietly, turning towards Juan, “remember that meteor or whatever we saw the other night?” Juan nodded. "Well, LaPlume said there wasn’t a meteor,” Elle said, studying his expression.
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“So… what was it?” Juan asked. "A comet?"
Elle shrugged, and said in a low voice, “He said there was absolutely no astronomical events that night. Maybe it was just a dream?”
“No way, man. I was wide awake, working in my dad's shop,” Juan said, shaking his head. “I totally saw something. Besides, how could we both have the exact same dream? LaPlume is wrong.”
“If you dreamed about a meteor, that means something big is about to happen in your life,” Susanna interjected loudly, looking up from her book, clearly eavesdropping on their conversation.
“Oh yeah? What if you actually saw a meteor, and your astronomy teacher doesn't know anything about it? What does that mean?” Juan asked. “Is he a pathological liar or just bad at his job?”
"He's not bad at his job," Elle said defensively.
“You're just upset with LaPlume. It's classic teenage angst, Juan,” Susanna said, knowledgeably.
“I thought you weren't going to psychoanalyze me,” Juan shot back.
“Don’t need to—It's totally obvious,” Susanna responded sagely. “Probably your mistrust of authority figures from past trauma.”
Everyone giggled. Juan just smiled and shook his head. “If you say so, Susanna.”
“By the way, why were you working in the middle of the night?” Elle asked Juan. She didn’t mean to be so nosy, but fortunately, Juan didn’t seem to mind.
“My dad's a mechanic, and sometime he asks me to help him with big projects so he doesn’t get behind.”
Elle’s ears pricked up, “A mechanic….that’s cool! Mechanics have lots of tools, right?” She asked.
“Yeah, it helps,” Juan said, chuckling. “Hard to fix cars without ‘em.”
“Do you have any blow torches?” Elle asked eagerly.
“Um yeah, why do you ask? Should I be concerned?” Juan raised his eyebrows.
“Nah, it’s just for a project,” Elle said, blushing.
"So….you're not going to use it on Kat?" He whispered, conspiratorially.
"NO!" Elle said aloud. "Well…maybe…but only if she doesn't stop harassing you," Elle added.
Juan laughed, “Well, don't let Susanna hear you... she'll tell you that you must be suffering from “classic teenage homicidal rage” or "power tool dysfunctional disorder" or something crazy like that,” Juan said.
Yeah, something crazy like that Elle thought, smiling to herself as the bell rang for the next period. A blow torch would be the perfect tool for Operation: Black Box Break-In.
As she settled into her seat in science class later than afternoon, Elle thought about how to teach herself how to use a blow torch. Surely it couldn't be that difficult to figure out. The second bell rang, and Ms. Schmidt materialized in the doorway with her hands on her hips. “Well, what are you all waiting for? You should be on chapter 3 in the lab book.”
Ms. Schmidt was blunt and direct, which is part of the reason that Elle liked her so much. There wasn’t a lot of hand holding in her class, and she expected her students to think for themselves. She usually started class with a directive and would end most classes with “Go home and read.” Elle wondered how she got to be so confident. Not only was she intelligent, but she was ceaselessly stylish. Today she was wearing a long black dress with her thick black hair pulled into a bun at the nape of her neck.
“We’ve got a lot to do today. But before we get started, I have a few announcements. I know that Mr. Winder encouraged you all to participate in the school science fair," there were a few groans from the students. “Well, this year it’s mandatory for all students,” now she had to practically yell over the uproar of protests. "So pick a partner and pick a project. You have one week to work on it," she said, ignoring the babble of excitement and irritation. Elle couldn’t hear herself think as the students in every aisle started chatting excitedly with their neighbors.
Ms. Schmidt swept by Elle's desk that moment. “I need to talk to you after class, Elle,” Ms. Schmidt said. Elle panicked. She had forgotten about running out of school yesterday. Would Ms. Schmidt try to flunk her? Elle couldn’t help but notice that Kat and her entourage were giggling together. She avoided looking at them and shuffled her papers and notebook around on her desk.
"Now, we're going to continue with Chapter 3," Ms. Schmidt continued, walking down the classroom aisle. "Last week we discussed DNA, and the portion of DNA that codes for proteins--the exons. Now, you'll remember that exons account for only about 2% of DNA. So what about the other 98% of the 3.2 billion bases of DNA? What does it do? Some scientists used to call it 'Junk DNA'," she said. A few people giggled. "No, really. They called it JUNK because they didn't know what it was for."
Elle's phone buzzed. She glanced down at it. Someone had air-dropped a note to everyone in the class: Know what else is JUNK? This class 😊 😊
Others started giggling. Elle was totally annoyed, but luckily, Schmidt didn't seem to notice or care, and she went on smoothly, "But we now know that there are many other functions for DNA, like coding for regularity elements, etc. This part of DNA is not "Junk", but a treasure trove of unexplored material that we are continuing to learn about," she continued. "Today we're going to talk about something truly amazing: Transposons, or "jumping genes," which are evolutionarily unique sequences of DNA that can actually transpose, or "move" around in the genome."
Elle's phone buzzed again with an anonymous text: Sooooo boring. Then someone shared a picture of a dead smiley face with Xs for eyes followed by a sleeping emoji. I’d jump your genes another text read. Elle shut off her phone and tried to focus on class.
"…so I want you to read the first page of chapter 3," Schmidt continued, "and get into your small groups and answer questions 1-5 on page 65. Then we'll get back together as a class to discuss."
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After the bell rang, Elle timidly approached Ms. Schmidt's desk. Ms. Schmidt glanced up and said, “Oh, yes, Elle. I wanted to ask you about your classes. Is everything going ok?”
“Yes, fine,” Elle said, noncommittedly.
“Getting enough sleep?” She asked. Elle shrugged.
Ms. Schmidt nodded. “And how’s astronomy?”
How does she know my class schedule? Elle thought. Oh, wait, this is Clarksville, where everyone knows everything about everyone. “Great,” she said.
“Well, enough chit-chat,” Ms. Schmidt said. “I look forward to seeing your Science Fair project. You have a natural talent. Now go home and read," she said. She bowed her head, and continued writing.
Elle shrugged, happy to avoid detention. She wandered down the semi-deserted hallway towards Juan's locker. She wanted to invite herself over to his dad's mechanical shop to borrow his power tools. She waited for five minutes, with no luck. She started getting antsy, worried that she would miss the bus.
Soon she noticed a group of kids coalescing around Kat's locker. Several of them were holding posters and signs for the upcoming homecoming events. Elle couldn't help but notice that Kent was amongst the herd. Kat was talking, giving them instructions, and they started hanging up posters in the hallway. Elle tried to look as non-existent as possible.
After a few more moments, Elle decided to give up on catching Juan. The bus driver, Mr. Ron, had a reputation of waiting for no one. Besides, the building was now nearly completely empty, and she was getting nervous about being in the same vicinity as Kat.
The Janitor surfaced from the basement, slowly pushing a large broom down the hallway. Elle noted that he was heavily limping, favoring his left leg. Kat and a few of her groupies followed him down the hallway, chatting excitedly. As the Janitor slowly turned the corner, Kat mimicked his limp, with exaggerated movements, getting a huge squeal of laughter from Tia and Hailey. Even Kent was laughing, Elle noted.
Elle looked away, feeling a flash of anger. Suddenly, Kat tripped and spilled the soda she was carrying all over the floor. Elle quickly tried to repress a giggle, but she wasn't quick enough. Kat flashed her a look of defiance. "What are you looking at?" She asked, spitting out the words. Elle looked away, but Kat approached her and gave her a rough shove.
"You know, I think you should try to be more like your mom. Make yourself disappear. Permanently," she said spitefully. Elle turned and walked away, trying not to hear the peals of laughter following her.