Mac’s hand shot up. “Do we get to pick our own partners?” he asked.
“I’m assigning them,” Ms. Miller stated, “to avoid unfair grouping.” Her eyes flicked briefly to the left side of the room. Was she looking at Hayley’s table, or Kei’s? Or both? “You’ll be working out the kinks of the experiment you’re assigned, and writing a paper on the experiment’s premise and the lessons you learn creating it. And you’ll prepare a booth to showcase your work at the holiday school festival in two weeks to your families and the school board.”
There were a couple of groans from around the room.
“None of that,” Ms. Miller said, folding her arms. “The festival is a big deal. It sounds like a lot of work, I know, but it will be a lot of fun. There’s a party afterwards, after all.” She smiled. “New students may not be aware, but we can put on quite a shindig.”
“Shindig?” I murmured softly, trying out the old-fashioned word.
Next to me, Camille cracked a smile.
“So!” Ms. Miller said. “Assignments. Here we go. Jacques and Holly, you’re with Errol and Raeleene.” She gave them all handouts. “You’ll be looking at supercooling fluids. Brandon and McKenna, you’re with Yu-Tien and Kristoff. You guys get the effects of polarity on a stream of water. Very cool. Juliet and Camille, you’re with Rhys and Kei.”
My heart seized up. What, really? Work on a project with him for the next two weeks? There was no way I was suave enough to get through this...
I blankly accepted the papers from Ms. Miller describing our experiment. Something to do with color changing chemicals. I vaguely noticed that Mac and Destin were paired with Hayley and Amity, and neither Mac nor Hayley looked happy about it. I guess some siblings just didn’t get along.
Kei made a sly little wave in our direction. I flushed. Camille rolled her eyes and focused on the experiment handout, frowning at the list of chemical equations. I tried to do the same. We were making invisible ink? I regarded it with new interest. This could actually be really cool. And it didn’t look too complex, all you had to do was get the ratios right...
“Alright,” Ms. Miller said. “You can group up and start divvying up tasks. You should start working on getting your experiment right - a gorgeous display won’t help you in the least if you fail the basic science.”
Kei pulled over his chair and wedged it between Camille and I. He curled an arm around each of our shoulders. “I love getting to know new people,” he said.
Camille smacked his arm away. Unfazed, he turned his nearly-invisible smile on me. “We haven’t been formally introduced. I’m Kei. Your turn,” he said.
“Jul,” I said, certain I was bright red. My skin just wasn’t quite dark enough to hide a blush, to my misfortune.
“There, that wasn’t so bad. We’re a team now, Jul. You, me, Grumpy, and Grumpy.” He looked up at his friend, approaching the table. “This is the illustrious Rhys Ryan; he would murder me in my sleep if he could, but he can’t, so he’s stuck with me.”
“Ignore him, he has no personal boundaries,” Rhys said flatly, eyes on the supply list.
“What?” Kei protested. “Someone has to be friendly, and it’s not going to be you.”
Kei wasn’t kidding; Rhys did not look happy to be here. He really was startlingly handsome, but he was completely devoid of Kei’s easy charm. Rhys scribbled four quick notes on the list. “Here’s how this is going to go,” he stated with authority, brushing dark hair out of the palest blue eyes I’d ever seen. “I’ll write the paper. You two will make the display and run the booth. Kei will get in our way.”
“Not fair,” Camille objected.
“It’s not fair but it’s realistic,” Rhys said flatly, handing me the list. The look on his face would brook no discussion.
“Don’t listen to him, I’ll be very helpful,” Kei said, drawing an ‘x’ over his heart.
I became aware in my periphery that we were getting scrutiny from two directions. Mac, glancing over his shoulder, seemed just as unhappy with Kei as Rhys was, and - I swallowed nervously - Hayley was glaring daggers at me. Well, Kei’s arm was still around my shoulders. Were they a couple or weren’t they?
I stood up abruptly. “I’ll, um, get the materials,” I said by way of excuse. I went up to the front of the room. The supply cabinet was next to Ms. Miller’s desk. She glanced at me apologetically as I picked through the bottles of chemicals.
“Sorry,” she murmured, low enough that only I could hear. “This wasn’t my idea.”
“Wha...” Did she mean the project, or the grouping? I turned to ask her what she meant, but Mac had come up on my other side.
“Is he bothering you?” he asked. “If he is, you should ask to switch groups. Ms. Miller, can she switch groups?”
“No one is switching groups,” she told him, but a small smile marred her mostly-serious decree. “Get your stuff, go back to your table, and worry about your own project.”
I carried a tray of vials and chemicals back to our table, careful this time not to spill anything. I was going to be calmer now, I told myself. I was going to be cool and collected. It didn’t work at all.
Kei was thumbing through my mother’s blank journal. “Hmm? This is a boring book,” he said.
“Ah!” I reached for it, but he evaded me, fanning the pages like a flipbook.
“I was hoping for some juicy secrets.” He noticed the name embossed inside the cover. “Who’s Kyra?”
“Um, me,” I said, not sure why I was lying.
“Hm, a nom de plume? You’re not very prolific,” he said, handing the journal back. “You might want to work on that.”
“Yes,” I agreed. Anything to return it safe to my bag. I reached for it again, and again he snatched it back.
“Unless...” he mused, picking up one of the vials Camille had mixed.
“Hey!” Camille snapped.
“Kei, please,” I said, “It’s just a blank journal I got.”
“People only defend what’s valuable to them,” he stated, pouring the liquid over the exposed pages. I looked in despair at my mother’s soggy journal. Had he ruined it?
The page color began to change, as if dark ink were bleeding across the paper. For just a second, I thought I saw something. Then the black vanished as the paper dried, back to blank once more.
Kei shrugged. “I guess you were right,” he said, setting the journal in front of me. “Oh well. Hey, I’m hungry. Rhys, have you got any snacks?”
“Do I ever have snacks?” Rhys grumbled.
“Hope never dies,” Kei said. “C’est la vie.” He wandered to the door.
“Class is still in session,” Ms. Miller reprimanded him.
“Snacks,” he shrugged. “I might come back.”
Ms. Miller sat back in her seat, clearly frustrated with him. Mac was looking after him suspiciously.
I slumped back in my seat, depressed at the state of my mother’s journal. The curled pages were tinged with chemical stains. It was ruined. Why would he treat my things so carelessly? Did he think that little of me?
“Oh, calm down,” Rhys said, with a disdainful glance. “He’s only doing it because he’s bored. It has nothing to do with you.”
My heart clenched up. “O-oh...” I said, pretending to resume working on the equation, but I felt numb. His words were like a slap in the face. Even if it was true, it was a cruel thing to say.
Camille spared a glare at Rhys, laid down her pen and pushed out of her chair. She stalked out of the classroom as well.
“Camille...” Ms. Miller warned.