Yet another adult shocked by the sight of me.
“Kyra?” she gasped.
“Um, Jul,” I said. “Jul Graham?”
With a nervous laugh, she put a hand to her chest. “Oh! Oh, yes, of course! I should have known, I’m sorry. They did tell me you were coming. You must hear it all the time, but you look exactly like your mother. It’s uncanny.”
I blinked. My... “I didn’t know that,” I murmured.
No one mentioned my mother. No one ever mentioned my mother. Dad went into a rage if you even got close to the topic...
“I went to high school with her. Simon and John too,” Ms. Miller explained, in a pronounced southern accent. “The last time I saw her, she was about your age, so, you can imagine it’s a little like seeing a ghost. I see the difference now, though. Something about the eyes. And you’re taller, I guess. Hayley, would you be a dear and pass out these instructions?” She handed her a stack of papers.
Hayley’s immediate reaction was disdain, but she forced her face into an acquiescing smile. “Sure thing,” she said, moving to lay them out on the several two-person lab tables.
“Thank you. Oh, I’m Charlotte Miller, I should have said. This is chemistry,” she said, with a sweeping gesture. “I also teach theatre, if you end up taking that. How has your morning been? Not too bad, I hope?”
“She got Tailor’d,” said a familiar voice.
I turned; Mac and Destin had entered. His enthusiasm had tempered in the interim.
Ms. Miller huffed, one hand going to her waist. “I told him not to do that to new students.”
“I think he was just...um...surprised, is all,” I said.
“Hmm, that’s probably true,” she mused. “He and Kyra never did get along. Ah, and here’s Camille,” she said, smiling as the foreign girl entered the room.
I’d never seen anyone look simultaneously lost and calm, but Camille managed it. When her eyes lit on Ms. Miller she seemed to recognize she was in the right place.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I think new people should stick together, so I’ve put you at an empty lab table together,” Ms. Miller said, pointing toward a table near the back. “Across from Hayley, there. Will that do?”
“Um, sure,” I said. Camille shrugged.
“Go get settled in, we’re just waiting on a few stragglers,” Ms. Miller said.
Camille and I made our way to the back of the room. Our table was in the middle of three rows of two-person lab tables. Hayley and Amity were already seated at their table next to us. Mac and Destin apparently had a table up front.
Hayley turned her chair towards me, apparently not done with her interrogation. She ignored Camille entirely; the foreign girl was hunched over a notepad, scribbling aimlessly in one corner.
“So you’re from New York?” Hayley asked. “You must know where all the good stores are.”
“Not really,” I admitted.
“Oh.” She made a delicate frown. “How about plays? Do you see many of those?”
I shook my head.
“You live in New York and you don’t see plays?” she exclaimed. “Isn’t that the whole point?” She gave me a look of suspicion. “You’re not one of those people who sit inside and play video games all day are you?”
“No...” Without a computer or a game console, that would be difficult.
“Hmm,” she intoned, like I’d still somehow failed a test. She looked up; her face immediately brightened. “Kei, did you find it?”
It was Him. The guy from the atrium and the bored guy with the overstyled hair had come in. My face flushed and I reflexively became very interested in the experiment instructions on my desk.
“Find what?” he said. They sat at the table behind Hayley and Amity. The girls turned around to face them.
“Keiiii, you said you were going to help me find my bracelet,” Hayley pressed coyly.
His name was Kei. My heart gave an awkward lurch. “Oh that?” he said offhand. “Completely forgot. I wanted coffee so I went to the teachers’ lounge.”
“If they ever catch you you’ll be done for,” Hayley admonished. “But I’m really worried about my bracelet.”
“What if someone stole it?” Amity added.
“Rhys, make him help us find it,” Hayley told the other boy.
“I can’t make him do anything, you know that,” he said flatly, filling in lines on the worksheet.
“I’m sure he wishes he could,” Kei said.
“The world would be a much quieter, less annoying place,” Rhys grumbled. Was he writing in the answers? We hadn’t even started the experiment yet...
“Alright, I think that’s everyone, let’s get started,” Ms. Miller said, shutting the door. “Ladies, face the front of the room please.” Hayley and Amity turned their chairs around reluctantly. “Boys, put down your pencils, I can see you writing notes.” Mac and Destin sat up straighter. “Jacques, give me your phone. You can have it back after class is over.” She held out her hand. A boy across the room with bleached hair trudged up to her desk, handed her a sleek phone with a sour look on his face, and returned to his chair muttering in what I assumed was French.
“That’s better. Today we’re going to be testing the pH of various substances,” Ms. Miller said. “I’ve already dosed out the solid ingredients you’ll be using, and I’ll bring around the liquids in a minute. Do not play with the materials - I’m looking at you, Brandon.” A boy at one of the front tables sat back in his chair, trying to look innocent. “You’re all going to want to pay attention, because this will be on the test next week, in some form or other. First, let’s go over some basic stuff. Who remembers what pH actually means?”
She held a sort of an interactive mini-lecture, covering what I assumed everyone else had already read. Having no textbook to speak of, I was about to follow Camille’s example and start doodling on my workpapers. Though I’m not sure the flowers I would draw would have teeth. I was trying not to stare, but she drew some weird things, and she was actually really good.
But then Ms. Miller announced that it was time to start the experiment, and I went to collect our little test tubes of liquid in their rack. I had learned about this stuff last year, but we’d never gotten to do this experiment.
I was getting kind of wrapped up in it - the careful measuring, sifting the powders into the liquid, soaking the strips, waiting for them to change color, marking them off a chart. It was soothing. Measurable. Predictable. I smiled down at my worksheet, feeling accomplished. One last sample to test. I picked up the final strip of pH paper and bent over the tubes, holding up the plate we were drying the paper on.
“You’re pretty good at that,” said a calm voice at my shoulder.
It was Him.
My nerves exploded. I dropped the plate and it shattered on the floor. My hand swung out reflexively as I stepped away from the breaking glass. I knocked over the beaker and the contents poured all over the table.
“Nan da - ?” Camille exclaimed, standing up as the liquid soaked through her worksheet.
My face flamed. Ms. Miller stood, grabbing a broom and a dustpan from the corner.
“I’m so sorry!” I babbled. “I was just startled, I didn’t, I-I...”
“Accidents happen,” Ms. Miller said to me, with an understanding smile. “I’ve learned to expect them. Kei, go back to your table and focus on your own work, please?”
He merely looked mildly amused. “I got bored,” he said, and returned to his seat.
From the corner of my eye I caught a glare from Hayley in my direction. Looked like I had officially lost her sympathies. When class was over, she promptly snatched Kei’s arm and the four of them left together.