Stones and Spark by Sibella Giorello Read Free Book Online Page A

Chemistry was a passing phase—literally—for Drew, but she liked it enough to try soaking her jean jacket in various relative percentages of alum, vinegar, and grape juice. The result looked metamorphic, like the denim boiled inside the earth's molten layer before it was coughed up by some tectonic disaster. But she loves this jacket. And she would only leave it if she were coming back.
    Like the pencil in her notebook, holding her place.
    “Drew, are you hiding in here?”
    I feel stupid waiting for a response.
    I flip open her notebook. Yes, I’m violating her privacy, but too bad. This has gone on long enough.
    Under the heading, “Burgers & Brains,” I see her calculations from two weeks ago when she wanted to test the hypothesis: which will freeze faster, boiling water or cold water? It sounded like a stupid question to me—of course cold water would freeze faster. But she did the experiment at Titus's—and took bets. Everyone picked cold water. Except Titus. Turns out, boiling water freezes faster than cold water. Drew won $18. She told me there’s no rational theory that explains why water behaves like that. But her notes hypothesize: “evaporation affecting mass measurements.”
    “Hey!”
    My voice echoes back.
    The clock ticks.
    So I flip through more pages, feeling a little bad when I see how she’s spared me some baseball stuff. Wooden bats versus aluminum. Something called the “Center of Percussion.” Or COP. My eyes are already glazing over, but she’s drawn stick-man diagrams to show how the bat behaves with the COP. If the batter grips too far away from the center of percussion, he might feel the bat pushing against his finger, “possibly with enough force to lose control of the bat,” she notes. “But, crucially, when the bat connects with a pitch precisely at the COP, the batter will experience zero force in his hands. This is key to understanding the mechanics of powerful hitting.”
    How can someone so interesting be obsessed with something so boring?
    I flip all the way back to the front cover. She’s handwritten that Feynman quote, the same one she highlighted in that book stacked in the sunroom.
    "Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts."
    I replace her pencil. Give the room one more glance and see a shadow falling between the closet's double doors. The neat freak Mr. Straithern only allows one student to use his supplies. That rat.
    She must’ve heard me coming down the hall and jumped into the closet.
    That skinny rat.
    And now I feel the need for revenge. Tiptoeing over, holding my breath, I yank open the door.
    “Gotcha!”
    Dull, black magnets. Iron levers. Dowel rods swinging in the breeze I've just created.
    “Drew.” My throat feels hoarse. “This is so not funny.”
    But the only reply is the clock, ticking away the silence.
    ***
    When I step into the hall, there's an unmistakable sound. Like a horse whinnying.
    “Oh, Herb, stop!”
    Parsnip.
    I am immobile with shock. Herb is Sandbag’s first name.
    “Will you please be patient!” she whinnies.
    I sneak down the hall in the opposite direction, skirting the litter, until I reach the girls’ bathroom. It’s as dark as the Physics lab. When I flick on the light, I see three stall doors are closed.
    “If you're hiding in here, I'm going to kill you.”
    No response.
    I have to crawl under the doors because you can’t really see under them. And because Drew never gives up. But what I find are toilets clogged with stuff that triggers my gag reflex. I’m coming out of the third stall when the bathroom door opens. I have a moment of hope versus panic—is it Drew, or Parsnip?
    Neither.
    The janitor gapes at me. “What in blue blazes?!”
    “Hi.”
    “What’re you doing?”
    “Nothing.”
    “Nothing?” He keeps the door propped open, with one hand on the rolling cart that holds his cleaning supplies. “You're not supposed to be in here.”
    “I know, I was . . . ”
    But I don’t know what to