It was so unlike David to freak out over anything, but here he was on the verge of melting down. Laurel sighed. She took a deep breath and put her fingers over the steaming beaker, far enough away that it didn’t burn her fingertips. “It’s just supposed to turn blue?”
David looked up at her even tone. “Yeah, why?”
Laurel shushed him as she concentrated, wiggling her fingers in the steam for a few more seconds. After a quick glance at David, still bent over their calculations, Laurel closed her eyes and took several deep breaths, trying to clear her mind the way her instructors in Avalon had taught her. Her fingers tingled vaguely as she tried to sift through the elements of the solution, but there was no plant material to identify. This was going to be tricky.
“Laurel,” David whispered close to her ear, “what are you doing?”
“You’re distracting me,” Laurel said levelly, trying to maintain her tenuous hold on her concentration.
“Are you doing faerie stuff?” he asked.
“Maybe.”
David’s eyes darted around the room. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why, because I might ruin our perfect experiment?” she said sarcastically.
“I’m a little concerned you’re going to blow up the school,” he said, his voice still a low murmur.
She yanked her hand out of the steam. “I’m not going to blow up the school,” she said, just a little too loudly. The team at the table behind them looked up and exchanged amused glances.
“Come on,” David said, his hand on her arm. “Things haven’t exactly been going well in the potion-making department.”
He had a point. She didn’t feel like she’d made any progress since returning from Avalon, despite practicing for at least an hour every day. Jamison had told her to be vigilant, and she was doing the best she could. But it wasn’t working. Yet. “So I should just give up?”
“No, of course not. But should you really be experimenting here at school, and on a graded assignment?”
Laurel wasn’t listening. “Be my lookout, okay?”
“What?”
“Just tell me if Ms. Pehrson looks over.”
“What are you doing?” he asked, but his eyes stayed locked on their teacher.
Laurel reached into her backpack and unlatched the lid of her kit — a permanent fixture at the bottom of her bag. She sifted through its contents and unscrewed a small bottle of valerian oil and squeezed a drop onto her fingertip. She grabbed another bottle and shook a sprinkle of powdered cassia bark into her palm. After blowing on it, Laurel rubbed the oil onto the palm of her hand, mixing it with the gritty powder. “Give me our little spoon thingy,” she whispered to David.
“Laurel, you can’t do this.”
“I can! I really think I’ve got it this time.”
“That’s not what I meant. This is an assignment. We’re supposed to—”
Laurel cut him off by reaching across the table for the long-handled, stainless-steel spoon he’d refused to hand her. She scraped the mixture off her palm and, before David could stop her, popped it into the boiling mixture, stirring carefully in one direction and then the other.
“Laurel!”
“Shh,” Laurel ordered, concentrating on the mixture.
As she watched, the mixture slowly began to take on a bluish tinge. The longer she stirred, the bluer it became.
“Is that good?” Laurel asked.
David just stared.
Laurel glanced behind her where two other students had completed their project. The blues looked about the same. She went ahead and stopped stirring.
“See if you can get her to come to our table next,” Laurel said. “The mixture’s too hot for the color to hold very long.”
David stared at her with an expression Laurel couldn’t quite identify, but he didn’t seem pleased.
“Very good, David and Laurel,” Ms. Pehrson said, catching them both off guard as she walked up behind them. “And just in time. Bell’s about to ring.”
David looked up as Ms. Pehrson marked something down on her clipboard and turned away. “Wait, Ms. Pehrson!”
Ms. Pehrson turned, and Laurel shot David a warning look.
“Um…”
Laurel and Ms. Pehrson both stared at David.
His eyes looked determined for a second, then relaxed. “I just wondered if it’s safe to dump this stuff down the sink.”
“Yes. Didn’t I put that on the handout? Just make sure you don’t burn yourself,” she said, moving on to the next lab table.
Laurel and David cleaned up in silence, both jumping when the bell rang. As they walked into the hall Laurel slipped her hand into David’s. “Why are you mad?” she asked. “I just got you an A.”
“You cheated,” David said quietly. “And I let her give me an A for it because there was absolutely no way to explain why it was cheating.”
“I didn’t cheat,” Laurel said, offended now. “I figured out how to make the solution turn blue. Wasn’t that the whole point?”
“The point was to follow the directions.”
“Was it? I thought the point was to figure out what to mix together to get blue stuff. Isn’t that just as important?”
He sighed. “I don’t know. I suck at chemistry.”
“No, you don’t,” Laurel said, but her tone wasn’t very convincing.
“I do. I just don’t get it like I get biology. It doesn’t make sense to me. We’re two weeks in and I already feel overwhelmed. What’s the rest of the semester going to be like?” He sighed. “I study so much for this class.”
“I know you do,” Laurel said. “And you deserve a good grade. So what if I helped a little? I think all the studying you put in justifies a little tampering. Besides,” she added after a pause, “you’re the only reason I got into AP chemistry. I think it’s only fair that I help you get into AP physics.” They were silent for a moment before Laurel elbowed his ribs gently. “She did say that we should think of our lab partner as a team member.”
“Are you sure it’s not really cheating?”
“David, for all I know, the reason the experiment failed is because something about my”—she lowered her voice—“Fall faerie abilities was interfering. She said she gave us an easy one for the first lab. All we had to do was follow the directions. It should have worked. I really think I made it not work.”
He stared at her for a long time. “You may have a point,” he said. “The directions have never failed me before.”
“See?”
Now David started to laugh. He backed up against his locker and slid down onto the floor. Laurel joined him warily. “How bad is it that I don’t know whether to be mad or think that’s the coolest thing ever?” David asked. He slung an arm around her. “You did it, though. You did it right.”
Laurel smiled. “I did, didn’t I?” She laughed now. “I don’t suck.”
“You don’t suck,” David agreed, then pulled her in, kissing her forehead. “Good job.”
“Get a room!”
David’s head jerked up, but it was just Chelsea, who grinned at them from across the hallway before turning back to Ryan.
“I’m still not used to that,” David said, shaking his head with a smile.
“I know,” Laurel said, feeling intrusive watching someone else kiss, but unable to tear her eyes away.
“I wonder how long before they have to come up for air.”
“Be nice,” Laurel said, just a touch of seriousness to her tone. “She’s happy.”
“I hope so.”
“We should do something with them. I mean, the four of us.”
“Like a double date?”
“Yeah. We haven’t done anything all together since they hooked up. I think we should. I like Ryan. He has great taste in girls.”