42

Simon was waiting for us outside the lab before Science on Thursday.

“Checked Facebook today?”

My heart leaped in fear of what Josh had done now. “Why?”

“If you had, you might have noticed that Camille’s no longer a member of the Whitlam group. And neither is Josh. In fact, Camille’s profile seems to have been deleted all together.”

I exhaled with relief.

“And, when I was in the office this morning resetting all the passwords, I heard Mrs Turner telling Munce that she’s resigned.”

“Because of what Josh did?” asked Maz.

“Kind of. Mr Masch told her if she didn’t want the board to investigate how Josh got access to students’ contact details on the database, she’d better enrol him in another school. She quit in protest.”

“But how did Masch know it was him?”

“Because he wasn’t smart enough to cover his trail. The database revision history showed that every time it was used outside of school hours, the first record searched was Josh’s, followed by whoever he was interested in, including Larrie’s and your records. When Mr Masch read my report he immediately saw the link.”

“I know I’ve said it before, Simon Lutz, but you are a freakin’ genius.”

I was about to agree with Maz when Ms Morales arrived clutching an armful of papers and shooed us to our benches.

“I have your assignments to hand back, and I must say there were some pleasant surprises –” she smiled at Simon “– among the dross. The thorough analysis in two, in particular, caught my attention. Simon and Allison, I’d like you to summarise your reports for the class.”

“How is that possible?” I whispered to Simon. “You weren’t even here the day they were due.”

“I emailed it. You don’t think I’d be late handing in a Science assignment, do you?”

After Simon had explained the twenty-four possible visible outcomes of pairing up his finches, and why in the end he decided to leave it up to them to choose who they’d mate with (something about natural selection and the genetic rules of attraction – it sounded like a very complicated way of saying “because I’m a hopeless romantic”, if you asked me), it was my turn.

I wasn’t used to being the centre of attention in Science for positive reasons, but Ms Morales nodded encouragingly while I stammered and umm-ed my way through my comparison of me and Larrie.

“When I started this assignment, I’d expected to find that my sister and I were similar in appearance, and when I studied our other physically expressed heritable traits side by side, aside from lactose intolerance and heightened sense of smell, we share most of them.” I held up two near-identical gene wheels to illustrate my point.

“When we talk about eye colour or tongue-curling ability, it’s easy to classify people as being either the same or different, but personalities are not so easy to compare. As we know, behavioural traits are much harder to measure. In my research it was almost impossible to find two scientists who agreed on ways to test how similar people’s non-physically expressed genes are, let alone two who could produce the same results in their testing. So I came up with one of my own.”

I drew a much messier diagram on the whiteboard. “This graph shows where Larrie’s and my behavioural traits intersect and diverge. Because behavioural classification is pretty arbitrary to begin with, I made up categories to illustrate my point.

“As you can see, we have several traits in common.” I marked the points where the lines on the graph representing Larrie and I intersected: “Aversion to risk taking, high intelligence, and stubbornness. The problem with this kind of labelling is that it sets up two extremes and implies that one of them is better than the other –” I pointed to the where our lines sat at the extremes of “neat freak” and “slob” and a few people (the ones who’d seen the usual state of my bedroom) laughed, “– instead of considering the individual as a whole person.”

“In conclusion, what this assignment proved to me is that there’s little to be gained by trying to compare ourselves with others. We all have our own talents and abilities, and we shouldn’t let other people’s expectations of us stop us expressing who we really are. Our genes may shape us, but it’s up to us to define ourselves.”

“Excellent analysis,” said Ms Morales. “Your mark reflects the fact that you went beyond the requirements of this assignment to question broader theories about behavioural genetics and sibling inheritance. Perhaps you have an aptitude for Science after all. When you work at it.”

“I’m officially impressed,” said Simon when I got back to our bench.

“Really?” I was surprised by how much his praise pleased me.

“Oh, yeah, from now on you’re pulling your own weight in lab work.”

“I think I can manage that. As long as you handle the dissection side of things.”

“Deal,” he said, holding out his hand to shake on it.

“I think you forgot to include something on your graph,” said Jamie Butcher when I passed him on my way to the door. “There was no comparison of how homo you and your sister are. From the amount of time you’ve been spending with Sally Lez-chichi, I assume it’s only a matter of time until you come out too.”

Maz was out of her seat and by my side in a flash.

“Listen, Butcher,” she snarled, but I interrupted before she could tell him off. This was my battle to fight.

“My sister’s sexuality is not up for discussion in a school assignment, but since you mentioned it, you’re right,” I said, loudly enough for the entire class to hear me. “I am a card-carrying, fully paid-up member of the Whitlam gay–straight alliance, and if that automatically makes me a lesbian to idiots like you, I don’t care. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my sister, it’s that it’s not worth pretending to be someone you’re not.”

I was shaking when I finished my little rant, but also buzzing with energy, like I’d eaten a dozen Power Kick bars. When the clapping started, Jamie was still rooted to the spot next to his bench, his cheeks aflame. I made a small bow to my applauding classmates before leaving the lab.

“Come on, my little science nerd,” said Maz when the final bell rang after Art. “Let’s mark this momentous occasion with iced chocolates.”

When Larrie told Mum and Dad about how I’d helped expose Camille/Josh, they’d agreed that I’d earned an early reprieve from my grounding, so iced chocolates weren’t out of the question, but I wasn’t sure a celebration was warranted. “One A-plus in Science isn’t going to get me very far unless I can back it up with a solid mark in the exam,” I reminded her.

Maz laughed. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten?”

“Forgotten what?”

“Larrie’s last exam finishes in five minutes – there are no more days to go!”

It took me a moment to get what she meant. I’d been so focused on everything else for the past few days that I hadn’t thought of my countdown since before the weekend.

Maz’s face fell when she saw my expression. “Don’t you want to celebrate? We’ve been waiting two hundred and eighty-four days for this.”

“Sorry, Mazzle. It’s a bit of an anticlimax, that’s all. The countdown had been keeping me going all year, giving me something to look forward to. Now, well, tomorrow’s just going to be another day, isn’t it? And the one after that, and the one after that …”

“Ugh. Personally, I’m with Patchouli when she says it’s better to live in the moment than wish your days away, but if you need something to look forward to, how about this: it’s only five weeks and five days until the summer holidays.”

“Now that’s worth celebrating!”

It was a sunny afternoon and Maz was sure Kingston’s cats would be out in force, so she insisted we walk to the village. Which meant it took us twice as long as usual to get there as she paused to pat each of them and shoo the ones with pale noses into the shade. I stopped to sniff the sweet lemony freshness of a newly opened white magnolia while I waited for her to catch up with me.

“I know you take your role as president of Vertigo Pony’s fan club very seriously these days,” said Maz as we finally turned the corner into Kingston Street, “but even I can’t listen to that song any more – you’ve been singing it the whole way here.”

I’d had “You Don’t Know” stuck in my head all afternoon, but I didn’t realise I’d been singing it out loud. “It’s a complete earworm,” I said in my defence. “Once you get the melody in your head, you can’t get it out. If you guys win that recording contract, it should definitely be your first single.”

“I’ll tell Simon you said that,” she said, suppressing a smile. “He’ll be over the moon.”

“What’s it got to do with Simon?”

“He wrote it.”

Al Miller is lost for words.