by Eve Paludan
She may have been taken aback by my random comment. “I think all alchemists can make fire happen. Don’t get addicted to it. We don’t need any fire accidents at our school.”
“No, I mean, I can make fire by myself. Without alchemy. Or matches. With only my hands. Nothing else.”
“Just with your hands?” she repeated, waiting and listening. I could hear the doubt in her voice.
“Yeah. I’ll show you sometime, when you have a minute. It’s pretty cool.”
I mentally kicked myself for saying cool again.
“Sounds intriguing. I look forward to an outdoor demonstration in person.” She paused. “Did you want to ask me anything else? Maybe about crystals?”
I sighed. “Thanks, but I’ll save my questions for crystals class.”
“All right, Anthony Moon. Ask me anytime you have an alchemy question about crystals. I love answering them.”
“I will.”
“I’ll see you at the welcome dance, then?” she asked with that Scottish lilt in her voice that about killed me.
If I even go. “Probably. See ya. Bye, Melody.”
“Cheerio the nou,” she said softly in her Scottish accent.
“That means goodbye in Scottish?” I asked.
“It does. You’re clever, Anthony Moon.”
“Only sometimes,” I said, knowing that wasn’t even near true, but I said, “Cheerio the nou” back to her and hung up.
I felt like I had a fever. I was really, really angry at Tammy. And she’d totally messed me up with Melody. Even though I couldn’t technically date Melody because she was the T.A. in one of my classes, now, I had no chance to even get in her personal universe, thanks to the cringe-worthy stuff Tammy said about the state of my boxers and hinted about my other very personal habit that I didn’t want anyone to know about.
No doubt about it, in our ongoing battle of the siblings, Tammy had just declared war.
Short of setting my sister on fire with my Fire Warrior flame-arms, I didn’t know what I should do to the mind-reading busybody named Tammy. I knew Mom would be mad at me if I made Tammy sizzle like bacon, even if she was sort of turning into the devil’s plaything.
“I heard that, Anthony!” she called from her room.
“Stay out of my mind, you snoopy sister!” I shouted back.
I shot a nasty thought up to the surface of my brain about a movie star I had the hots for. Apparently, that worked to get Tammy out of my brain because she screamed in horror and ran out of her room, to tell Mom on me. She didn’t have to be a mind reader to know I was furious with her. And that I have a filthy, filthy mind.
Not to worry, I would get Tammy back for what she did to me. And I would get her back good. Really good.
***
Tammy had book smarts, but common sense? Not so much.
So, the next day, I was walking past her chemistry lab when I saw her alone and truly struggling with an experiment that she’d had to repeat because it didn’t work right the first time. Or the second time.
I opened the door of the chemistry lab and walked in.
“Hi, Tammy,” I said. “Hey, I heard that oxygen and magnesium were doing it. O. Mg. Get it? Like OMG? It’s a chemistry joke.”
She looked up from her papers, her face confused. “No, I don’t get it because I am not a chemistry geek. Go away, Anthony,” she said, big tears filling her eyes. Spread out in front of her was the result of her previous experiment with a big fat red zero inked on it from her asshole teacher. And the words: Try again. By Friday.
“I thought I might be able to help you. Alchemy and chemistry, too, are kind of my things that I’m really good at.”
She looked at me in shock. “Why would you want to help me after what I did to you with Melody?”
“Because you’re my sister.” I pasted an innocent expression on my face, hoping she wouldn’t read my mind right now. I pressed on. “What are you trying to do here?”
She blew out air through her lips in exasperation. “I’m supposed to make hydrogen gas.”
“Piece of cake,” I said and inwardly laughed—it was a mean laugh, one I had heard her use before and aim in my direction.
“Really? It’s that easy?” she asked, not really believing that I would offer to help her.
“Sure. I know you’re really good at English and stuff like that, but chemistry and alchemy have certain methods to them and you can’t deviate from the known experiment steps. Everything has to be done in order. And precisely. I can help you make hydrogen. Heck, I can make hydrogen in my sleep.”
“Very funny, my farty brother, but I’m supposed to do the experiment by myself.”
“We saw where that got you so far,” I said drily.
Her lower lip trembled. “If I don’t turn in the results of my successful experiment to Mr. Hardesty’s satisfaction by Friday, he’s going to lower my semester grade by one letter. I’ve never gotten a ‘C’ in anything on my report card!”
“A ‘C’? That’s harsh,” I said sarcastically. I’d gotten plenty of C’s while I was going to regular public school. Alchemy school had a different grading system. “Is the teacher a good guy?”
“No. We call him Harsh Man Hardesty. I hate him. It’s all I can do not to plant some horrible thought in his mind to make him trip and fall down the stairs.”
Shocked, I shook my head. “You can’t use your gift like that, Tammy. It’s wrong.”
“Calm down. It’s just a thought, not a crime. I wasn’t really going to do it!” And then, she did dissolve into tears.
“I don’t have to be a mind reader to know that you were totally going to do that,” I accused her. “If you haven’t already.”
“I was only going to do it if he lowered my grade. I was going to do it to him on Friday if I turned in another experiment paper and he failed me again.”
“Tammy! That’s so evil!” I felt sick and even scared of her. “You’re evil!”
“Shut up, Anthony!” She cried even harder because she knew I had caught her plotting to do something horrible. “Did the devil send you to torment me?”
“No, I don’t listen to him. He’s a jerkwad.” I waited for her to run out of sob strength and when she looked up with her eyes all red and swollen, I said, “If you’re done crying—you’ve got a booger dangling, by the way—tell the devil to get behind you because you have stuff to do for your grade! Now, where’s the protective gear?”
“Do we need it?” she asked, going to the cabinet that was labeled: Goggles and Gloves. She also blew her nose on a paper towel.
“Yes. Always use protection. You’re in a chem lab! It’s freaking dangerous in here.”
We put on face shields, white lab smocks, and heavy chemical-resistant gloves.
I asked, “So, how are you supposed to make hydrogen? By electrolysis or some other method?”
She said, “Some other method. I already turned in my electrolysis module and my geek-girl lab partner actually did it, the whole thing, and we got a B. This time, we are supposed to use another method of our choice, and do it on our own, without our lab partners.”
“Fun!” I said.
“Fun? Surely you know that I hate chemistry. Why do you think it’s fun?” she whined.
“Because in chemistry, and in alchemy, you can transform matter. It seems like magic to me.”
“It’s supposed to be science.”
“What if I told you that science is part magic?” I asked her.
“I’d say you were a big dork,” she complained. “Can you please, please just tell me the secret to make hydrogen? And don’t give me the number of molecules because that stuff is meaningless to me.”
“It’s not like we’ll be making instant mashed potatoes, sis. It takes time to make hydrogen, so be patient. Do you want me to help you with the experiment or not?”
Tammy chewed on her lip. “Please. This one time only. I can’t figure out this chemistry stuff to save my life. Anthony, it galls me to say t
his, but you’re my only hope.”
I swaggered over to her, happy to “rescue” her. “Okay, since electrolysis has already been used, what other choices do you have to make hydrogen?”
She shrugged. “I dunno. Should I Google it?”
“Come on, try. Just give me a wild guess,” I teased her.
“I don’t have any freaking idea! Anthony, did you just come back to my school to mock me?”
“No, I left my alchemy school to come back here and visit my baseball trophy in the lobby.”
“That trophy was for your whole team last year. It’s not yours.”
“It’s all of ours and I was MVP.”
“You were the team manager because Mom wouldn’t let you play because it isn’t fair for supernatural weirdoes to compete with humans in sports.”
“I was team manager, but I was still voted MVP.” I paused. “I miss baseball. It sucks, but when I signed up for alchemy school, I had no idea that the school was completely lacking in a team sports program.”
“Well, goody, goody for you, Anthony. You’ll actually have to learn alchemy instead of focusing on some sport that involves chasing a ball.”
“I like alchemy, but I like sports, too. I want both in my life.”
“Can we please make hydrogen before the bell rings?” Tammy asked.
“Okay,” I said, paying attention to where the fire extinguisher was.
She saw where I was looking and said, “Oh, no, you don’t! Promise me you aren’t going to light your farts on fire and make me write that down as my procedure because if you do, I will probably get another zero!”
“That was going to be my first choice, but these jeans are new, so no, we’re not making hydrogen that way today. And Mom would kill me if I blew out the butt of these jeans. They cost her a lot.”
“Then how?” Tammy asked, her eyebrows crinkled almost all the way together. She was truly clueless. She’d always had trouble with the practical world of science, chemistry, and math, so I decided to offer my “help.”
“First, we need some aluminum foil,” I said.
“That isn’t on the approved materials list,” she said, going through her papers.
“But do you have any foil? If we do, we can make hydrogen with only one other ingredient.”
“Fine. Let me look in the teacher’s mini-fridge behind his desk.” She rummaged around in there and held up a foil-wrapped cylinder. “There’s a burrito in here.”
“Perfect,” I said. “Leave the burrito. Bring the foil.” I paused. “On second thought, bring the burrito, too. I’m hungry.”
“Are you sure about this, Anthony?”
“Yep, I’m always hungry.”
“No, I mean about the foil, you dorkasaurus!”
“Dorkasaurus? You haven’t called me that for years, not since my Halloween dinosaur costume in fourth grade.”
“Well, I’m desperate, so I’m reaching back years for inspiration for insulting you better.”
“Insults aren’t needed to goad me into helping you.” I laughed. “Trust me, I know how to make hydrogen using foil.”
And then, I had her round up another key ingredient that she again said wasn’t on the approved materials list. There just happened to be some under the sink. Wow, this teacher was some kind of fool. He didn’t lock up anything!
She grabbed her notebook. “Wait, I need to write this down, my methods and stuff.”
“Go ahead and write it all down, how you are making hydrogen, all by yourself.” I turned my face, so she couldn’t see the smirk on it. I didn’t usually seek revenge, but when my sister messed around in my sandbox—when she screwed up everything with Melody—then everything in that sandbox needed to fly.
And fly, it will, big sister…
A few minutes later, BOOM! We had hydrogen. Boy, did we have hydrogen!
Tammy screamed when the tabletop caught on fire. “Fire! What do I do?”
“Pull the fire alarm on the wall,” I said firmly. After she did so, I calmly put out the fire with the nearby fire extinguisher and slipped out of the chemistry lab, leaving Tammy standing there to take the rap.
Chapter 4
SAMANTHA MOON
“What do you mean, my daughter made an ‘incendiary device’? Is she all right?” I asked Tammy’s principal over the phone after he gave me his version of what had happened in the chemistry lab.
“She’s fine. She was wearing protective clothing. And the fire was out by the time we got to the room. She pulled the fire alarm and put out the fire herself. And she waited there, didn’t run or anything.” The principal paused. “However, I’m going to suspend her for a couple of days. And our policy says I need to call the police.”
“Now wait just a minute!” I stuck up for my daughter. “I don’t agree that she should be suspended for ‘creating an incendiary device,’ which goes on her permanent record and she could even do time, in jail, for what amounts to a lab accident. So, you can just forget what you’re proposing.” I paused, listening to Mr. Stryker drone on about what Tammy did.
I interrupted him when I had heard enough. “No, no way. She did the lab experiment, which, by your own admission, lacked proper instructions or teacher supervision! And, by the way, I am very close to a successful defense attorney who would just love to know what kind of slipshod science department you’re running at the high school. What kind of school doesn’t even have the teacher present in the chemistry lab when students are scheduled to use it for make-up work on lab experiments?”
I heard Stryker sigh and then he told me, “Her teacher was on the way to the lab when he tripped and fell down the stairs. Nobody knew where he was for ten minutes or longer. He’s been transported to the ER by ambulance and we’re waiting to hear how he’s doing.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, but that part had nothing to do with Tammy.”
“Of course not. They were nowhere near each other.” There was silence for a few moments. “Tammy has to pay some sort of consequences for her actions.”
“Her actions included saving the entire school from burning down. Any other kid would have cut and run.” I used my vampire powers to send him a mental suggestion to accept what I was saying and not to suspend her.
“That’s true. She did act responsibly in the wake of disaster,” Stryker choked out against his will and with unveiled surprise in his voice.
“Thank you. So, did my daughter finally make hydrogen?”
“Obviously.”
“I expect that she will be credited for completing the assignment. This is her second try at it.”
“I’ll see to it that she gets a passing grade,” he said tightly.
“You mean a B?” I sent the suggestion to his brain.
“She will get a B,” he said robotically. Thanks to my vampire powers, her grade would not be affected.
“How’s the science lab?” I asked, a bit nicer now.
“We just have to replace a lab table. It’s $945.”
“That’s what insurance is for,” I told Mr. Stryker.
“Right.” He clicked a ballpoint pen open and closed a bunch of times and asked, “How about this, then? No call to the police and I’d like Tammy to attend a night class twice a week for the rest of the semester. Except not during Spring Break, obviously.”
“What kind of night class?” I asked, leery.
“It’s more of an attitude-adjustment class for at-risk kids than anything else. And that will be the sum total of her consequences for her actions. I think it will help her.”
“The fire was an accident, pure and simple,” I said firmly. “We both know that, and I know my daughter. She stuck around waiting to explain what happened, didn’t she?”
“Yes, but she also stole a burrito from the teacher’s personal fridge and used unapproved lab materials for the experiment. Stealing, even petty stealing, calls for at-risk treatment.”
“All this over a 99-cent burrito? Fine. A night class, two times a week for the re
st of the semester. She was using easily available materials in the classroom to make hydrogen that exploded. That’s on you and on her teacher for leaving that dangerous crap unsecured. Not on her! She could have been killed or burned to a crisp.”
“Nice talking to you again, Mrs. Moon,” he said rather dismissively.
“That’s Ms. Moon.”
“Right. I forgot you were divorced.”
“Ouch,” I said.
“Sorry. Hey, I’ll let Tammy know the details of the class, so you can give her a ride every Tuesday and Thursday evening.” He paused and changed the subject. “How’s Anthony doing at the new school? The baseball team sure misses him.”
“He’s doing great.”
“What kind of school did you say he was going to now?” he asked.
“I didn’t say.” I sure wasn’t going to tell this jerk that Anthony was in alchemy school now. I was positive that he would not approve.
I texted Tammy: I’m talking to your principal right now. Really, Tammy? Really?!!!
She texted back: Sorry, Mom. I didn’t know that would happen. You know I suck at science!
I replied in another text: And now, you’ll suck even more in a night class for juvenile delinquents, two times a week for the rest of the semester.
Aww, Mother! she texted back. Thanks! I thought I would have to go to jail and never go to college.
Save your thanks. You’re grounded, young lady.
She did not text back. I knew she was crying her heart out, but at least the night class for stealing a burrito was instead of her getting arrested and sent to juvenile jail for creating an explosion at school. I could live with these lesser consequences. She did occasionally need an attitude adjustment, but I also believed the school was at fault for not supervising the chemistry lab.
Suddenly, I heard a double-beep in my ear that was the sound over the complaining, whiny voice of the principal. “Mr. Stryker, are we done here? Because I have another call coming in. Sorry.” Not sorry.