The Big Blastoff

Sylvie spent the night Sunday and they stayed up till midnight working. Veronica had never worked so hard on anything in her life. They called their project Nature vs. Nurture: A Tale of Two Dolls, Two Plants, and the Lives They Lived. Veronica laughed so hard when she came up with the title because Nature vs. Nurture was an expression her parents used a lot. Since she could remember, they told her all her problems were the result of genetics, not of Mr. and Mrs. Morgan’s parenting. Ha. Those were the kind of jokes you got from parents who were both psychiatrists.

Mrs. Morgan sent both girls out the door on Monday morning with freshly toasted bagels. She had Charlie put them in a taxi because it was raining and they were bleary-eyed from staying up so late and they had so much to carry. There were so many bags and boxes being carried into Randolf that morning it felt like the sixth graders were celebrating Christmas, not presenting science projects. Darcy Brown and Liv O’Malley were wrestling the giant ant farm they’d built up the stairs.

Maggie Fogel pressed herself against the wall in a state of total terror.

“They’re just ants, Maggie,” Becky said.

“I know! But there are so many of them!” Maggie screamed.

“They aren’t alligators, you know? Even if they get out they’re not going to bite you,” Liv said. She and Darcy staggered down the hall with their unwieldy ant farm.

Athena and Sarah-Lisa were very helpful during all this and pretended to bite Maggie. Veronica wondered where their project was. They weren’t carrying anything.

“Welcome,” Mr. Bower said at the beginning of their double science period. He must live for this day, Veronica thought. He oohed and ahhed each team as they walked their projects in. Mr. Bower loved science the way her parents loved psychiatry. The way extremely religious people love God.

“Welcome,” Mr. Bower said again and again. He kept smoothing his hair down, what little of it there was. Each team went to its assigned place and began unpacking. “You have about fifteen minutes to set up,” Mr. Bower said. “Melody will hand out grading forms, because as you know, in addition to a grade from me, you will also be grading one another.”

Hearing her name spoken out loud by her beloved Mr. Bower, in front of all the other girls, was almost too much for Melody. She fluttered from table to table handing out grading forms. Veronica worried she might just start rubbing up against Mr. Bower like the lonely orange cat in the boiler room.

“Please do not grade on anything other than the integrity of the idea and the workmanship behind its execution,” Mr. Bower said. “Please grade your peers on interest, accuracy, and accessibility. Who can define accessibility?”

“Like, is the project showing off,” Coco Weitzner said. She and Maggie were busy pouring distilled water into the chamber of a humidifier. Their project was cloud formation.

“Yes!” Mr. Bower exclaimed. “Does the project let you in or is it so interested in getting an A that it’s more about fancy terminology or gadgetry or how much parents helped than it is about the subject? I want science for the people by the people.”

Melody handed Veronica one of the peer grading forms. Last night, when she put the finishing touches on the uniforms, she was pretty sure her peers would think she was a genius. She thought she was a genius. But looking at the real Randolf uniforms next to her cockeyed, handmade ones, she wasn’t so sure. Not to mention how dinky their pathetic plants looked next to the other projects: rubber-band-powered airplanes, cloud machines, and Lego robotic sustainable structures. Ugh. By comparison, Veronica and Sylvie’s hard work seemed awfully low tech. But before she had time to think about it too much a crowd gathered around her and Sylvie, wanting to know what the Barbies were about. Thank God Randolf was an all-girls school. The Barbies were a hit.

“Are they part of your exhibit?” Selma Wong, who had never acknowledged Veronica before, asked. Veronica was honored because Selma and Auden had built the flying machine Mr. Bower was so excited about. At the end of the class they would launch it.

Sylvie also had a crowd around the flipbook. Veronica tried to see what her classmates were seeing: the flipbook, the dolls, the actual plants, and she had to admit there were so many aspects of their data and they had documented all of it. Their hard work had paid off.

Without warning, a uniformed man burst into the lab carrying a wrapped parcel. He brought it over to Athena and Sarah-Lisa’s table. Everyone left the flipbook and gathered around the mysterious man. He and Sarah-Lisa exchanged words and then, very dramatically, like he was unveiling the actual Mona Lisa, he exposed what was underneath the paper. Sarah-Lisa jumped up and down.

“It looks so good!” she said.

The whole class clamored around Sarah-Lisa and Athena’s project, which was an enormous dollhouse, complete with windows that opened and doors on hinges, an outdoor shower with running water, solar panels on the roof, and a swimming pool that apparently heated itself from the sun. Each room was filled with tiny furniture. It was the most expensive dollhouse in the world and Athena and Sarah-Lisa had had the audacity to glue small rectangles of cardboard to the outside, thinking this would make it look like they had built the whole thing by themselves.

Mr. Bower clapped his hands three times. “For the love of science! Please! Settle down! Go back to your tables.”

Selma Wong cried, “I will not get an A anymore. Look how unprofessional my project looks now, compared to Athena and Sarah-Lisa’s!”

One by one everyone’s hopes collapsed. Becky and Tillie Allen’s solar-powered Lego schoolhouse looked ridiculous next to the country estate of Sarah-Lisa and Athena.

Sylvie caught Veronica’s eye. Who could compete with the architectural details of Sarah-Lisa and Athena’s project? There were even pots on the miniature Viking stove in the kitchen.

Mr. Bower clapped his hands again, still trying to get everyone’s attention. “All right, now that all projects are on display, begin your rotations. Remember the rules and grade fairly. This isn’t a popularity contest.”

Sylvie went first, leaving Veronica to man their station. Veronica wished they could meet in the bathroom to talk about the dollhouse! What was Mr. Bower going to do? She tried her best to answer questions from the girls who gathered around her project but it was really hard to get that dollhouse out of her mind. No matter what the rules were, there was always a kid whose parents caved and bought them a finished project. Sometimes it was the parents, not the kids, who forced this kind of perfection. Veronica wondered if she would ever find out which way it was with Athena and Sarah-Lisa. Something about the chauffeur and how Sarah-Lisa jumped up and down made Veronica think it was her idea, not her parents’.

Becky Shickler roared with laughter when she saw the yellow wilting Barbie doll with its missing arm and its Randolf uniform. Veronica noticed her write a big A on her grading form.

Melody came over and said, “I really like your project. It looks like you worked really hard.”

Veronica hugged her. Veronica really hoped this meant they’d made up. Melody was such a good egg.

“I’m really looking forward to checking out your biosphere,” Veronica said.

Tillie Allen asked about the flipbook and Veronica demonstrated the way it showed deterioration and death if you flipped it to the right, and recovery and the return to life if you flipped it to the left.

“That’s awesome!” Tillie said.

Sylvie returned for her shift and Veronica went to look at the other projects.

One of her favorites (besides her own) was Liv and Darcy’s ant farm. They had painted a whole country scene with a farm. It made the ants look like they were doing things for the farm, like carrying bales of hay to the barn and sticks of butter to the kitchen. Veronica loved it. She gave them an A.

“All right, may I have your attention?” Mr. Bower said. “Ladies! Please! Selma and Auden are twisting their rubber band and lubing the loops so their plane can ascend at its scheduled takeoff.”

“Are you sure we shouldn’t do this on the playground, Mr. Bower?” Selma asked.

“It’s raining,” Mr. Bower reminded them. “I don’t want your plane to be ruined. Use less tension in the windup and aim it toward the closet door. I set up blankets in there to catch it. People, gather round.”

Auden was painting a glue-like substance onto some very long-looped rubber bands. When she was finished, Selma twisted them up with a little hook. The plane was quite large and Auden said it was a copy of a Korda Wakefield plane from the 1940s. It was yellow and red and Veronica liked the way they’d painted it. Mr. Bower told everyone his grandfather had flown in the original. He must have really liked his grandfather because he was unbelievably excited about the takeoff. The countdown began.

“Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five…”

Veronica could feel how nervous Selma and Auden were. Auden’s parents were really strict about her grades. Veronica wondered if they wanted an A so badly they actually built the plane for her. But the way the girls handled the rubber bands indicated that they knew what they were doing.

“… four, three, two, one and takeoff!”

Auden let go of the plane and it rose into the air, the propeller spinning just like a real plane. Everyone applauded and Auden and Selma beamed. Mr. Bower was beside himself as the plane sailed through the air.

Sarah-Lisa was so busy whispering into Athena’s ear about how great their project was that she didn’t notice the plane. Athena ducked but it was too late for Sarah-Lisa, who threw up her hands and batted it away. The plane tumbled through the air and into Athena and Sarah-Lisa’s country house, where it knocked the roof off and left a trail of tiny shingles and furniture and broken windows in its wake before bouncing off Mr. Bower’s desk and landing softly in the salad he was snacking on. The propeller eventually stopped spinning but not before making a storm of shredded carrots and cabbage and sunflower seeds.

“Oh my God! Our project!” Sarah-Lisa said, looking at the destruction of her gorgeous country house. “Who is going to fix this?” she demanded.

Mr. Bower ran to his desk and picked up the plane like a nervous parent whose child had just fallen off a jungle gym. He held the plane gently and carefully unwound Sarah-Lisa’s hair from the propeller. He picked off the lettuce and shook the plane free of sunflower seeds. He turned it slowly in all directions looking for damage. “The wing is cracked, but we can repair it during lunch,” he said, returning the plane to its builders. “Wonderful work, Selma, great job, Auden.”

Then he faced Sarah-Lisa and Athena.

“You girls will have to stay in from recess today,” he said, “and repair your house.” Sarah-Lisa looked at Mr. Bower in disbelief.

“That’s not fair, you’re repairing Auden’s plane,” she said.

“I know Auden and Selma would be able to fix their own plane, but because I take special interest in Korda Wakefield reproductions, I’m lending a hand. Since you designed and built your house, you’ll know how to repair it, right? Correct me if I’m wrong,” Mr. Bower said. “Is there a problem?” He and Sarah-Lisa had a staring match and Sarah-Lisa lost.

Mr. Bower had a very strong backbone after all and Veronica Morgan might have just fallen in love with him.