For the Love of Science

Veronica could not understand why everyone was in love with Mr. Bower, but she could not deny that her classmates acted like a bunch of first-rate ninnies around him. They fawned and giggled and whispered so much that Mr. Bower spent most of his science periods deeply saddened by his students’ disinterest in scientific notions. They were only interested in his newly acquired beard and what he may or may not have done over the weekend.

The situation was ironic because if one of the girls who was in love with him enjoyed science, Mr. Bower might actually marry her. But he would never think of them as marriage material as long as they weren’t able to pay attention to science. Veronica wondered if he had assigned these projects as a way of getting the girls to concentrate on each other—and maybe even science—for a few weeks, instead of on him.

“It is so handsome the way his hair sticks up on the top,” Coco whispered to Darcy Brown.

“For the love of science!” Mr. Bower declared. “Will you please focus!”

Darcy Brown looked at him like she was going to melt off her stool right onto the floor.

Veronica caught Sylvie rolling her eyes right at Darcy. That was one thing about Sylvie. She really didn’t care what other people thought. Sylvie was her own best friend.

Mr. Bower finally gave up trying to address the class as a whole and went around table by table, gauging the status of the projects. He had handed out sheets during the last class on which they were supposed to have jotted down ideas that interested them. All the girls probably wanted to write down his name on the sheet because he was the only thing that really interested them.

When Mr. Bower got to Veronica and Sylvie’s table he asked them if they had met and talked about their ideas. The answer to that question was no. There was an awkward silence.

“Not yet,” Sylvie said.

“All right, well, let me hear your ideas,” Mr. Bower said.

Ideas? Veronica had no ideas at all. She had only begun to wrap her brain around the fact that she had to do the project with Sylvie in the first place. That was as far as she’d gotten. In fact the sheet of ideas they’d been given to consider as possible projects was still in her folder, unread since their last class.

“I’m interested in a project with plants,” Sylvie said. “Like what if we had two plants and we treated one plant really well and gave it clean water and sunshine and plant food and the other plant was left in a closet or something?”

“That’s excellent!” Mr. Bower beamed. “To speed up your results, you could go further and actually feed one plant contaminated water and repot it in bad soil.” Sylvie looked thrilled. It seemed like a stupid idea to Veronica, but it was obviously an idea that she was going to participate in since she had no ideas of her own. Whatever bad fate lay in store for a plant kept in a closet, out of the light, Veronica was sure hers would be worse. At the very least they would both wilt and die.

“Veronica?” Mr. Bower asked. “I’m asking you a question.”

“What?” Veronica said, startled.

“How do you feel about the contamination idea? I don’t want to interfere with your vision,” Mr. Bower said.

“Fine,” Veronica said. She had no vision, so nothing could interfere with it.

When class was over, Sylvie said, “I guess we should meet in front of school at dismissal.”

Veronica agreed, then excused herself to go to the bathroom, too nervous to talk further.