When we file into the science room on Tuesday, Mr. Landau is leaning back against his desk with his arms crossed.
“PROP,” he starts, “is a chemical compound that ten to twenty percent of the human population can’t—”
Someone squeals in excitement. There’s no other word for it. It’s a squeal.
Mr. Landau glares. “—can’t taste at all. The other eighty to ninety percent of us can taste PROP. Some will be more sensitive to it than others. It isn’t a pleasant taste. Very bitter, in fact.”
“Taste-test. Taste-test,” someone starts chanting. It’s Carter.
“G-test, G-test,” Dallas says, pointing at me.
Mr. Landau’s eyes follow Dallas’s finger right to the middle of my chest, and he growls, “One more sound and you’re both out of here.” I wonder if he even knows what “G-test” stands for, or that his class is now just another way for Dallas to pick his next victim. Or, even better, an excuse to keep picking on me.
Mr. Landau starts talking about chemical compounds and genetic differences, and everyone is bouncing in their seats.
Bob English is messing with his bag of Sharpies. He huddles over his notebook. And then he tears off a sheet of paper, folds it once, and slides it over to me. “Just a reminder,” he whispers. “Pass it on.”
I open the note and read:
Reemembur: Blu Teem stiks togethur.
Smial no madder whut.
No wadder.
I refold the paper, locate the nearest Blue Team member, who is Natasha Khan at Table Five, and I pass it to her. As she reaches for it, I get a glimpse of the blue dot on her palm.
I watch Natasha read it. Her expression doesn’t change. She passes it to Eliza Donan.
Mr. Landau holds up a skinny roll of paper. It looks like a roll of white ribbon. He walks around the room, tearing off strips of paper and handing them out. Mandy stares at hers like it holds the secret of the universe.
Meanwhile, Bob’s note is making its way around the room.
Eliza to Kevin.
Kevin to Anita.
Anita to Chad.
Palm to palm.
Dot to dot.
Mr. Landau gets to our table, tears off two slips of magic paper, and hands one to Bob English. Then he hands me mine. It reminds me of a fortune from Yum Li’s. A blank one.
“Do you think everyone saw the note?” I ask Bob.
“Think so,” he says, tapping his pen cap against his teeth.
“All right,” Mr. Landau says finally. “There are twenty-four students in the class. Statistically, at least two of you should not be able to taste the compound on the paper.”
I can see Mandy’s hands shaking.
“When I give you the signal, place the strips of paper on your tongues,” Mr. Landau says. “If you do taste the compound, it will be strong and unpleasantly bitter, so you may line up—calmly, please—at the fountain for water.”
I see Dallas’s mouth moving—I realize he’s mouthing “G-test, G-test,” staying silent so that Mr. Landau doesn’t kick him out. Carter is rocking in his seat, keeping time with Dallas.
I look over at Jason, but he’s paying no attention to them. I see him tap the hand of David Rosen, the last Blue Team member to read Bob’s note. David glances at Bob, who shrugs and looks at me.
Who is Jason now, I wonder? If he reads that note and passes it to Dallas or Carter, everything will be ruined.
I nod, and David slides the note over to Jason. I watch him read it, and wonder if he knows about Ben Franklin’s spelling reform movement. I doubt it.
“All right,” Mr. Landau says. “Let’s get this over with.”
When I put my paper on my tongue, a bitter taste fills my mouth and nose. It turns out that I am a PROP taster, like 80 or 90 percent of the world. And what I’m tasting right now is pretty awful.
But I pretend otherwise. I take a deep breath, smile, and look around the room. Bob English is next to me, doing the same. I can see his eyes watering.
Mandy is screeching and running for the water fountain, waving both hands in front of her mouth. She looks accusingly at Gabe, who’s just sitting there looking surprised that nothing has happened. His eyes aren’t watering. He really doesn’t taste it.
A few kids are already lined up in front of Mandy for water—Dallas and Carter are there, of course.
Natasha Khan stays in her seat.
Eliza Donan.
Carl and Karl.
David Rosen.
Chad Levine.
Paul Kim.
Anita Wu.
Joanna Washington.
Kevin Anderson.
All in their seats. All smiling.
Jason is still in his seat, too. He gives David Rosen a thumbs-up.
And then it is over. The taste in my mouth starts to go away. Jason, Gabe, Teresa Conchetti, and every member of the Blue Team are still in their seats.
“Fifteen nontasters,” Mr. Landau says. “Not at all what I expected. What an interesting group of people you have turned out to be.”
Dallas lifts his head from the water fountain and looks at the fifteen kids sitting in their seats. I can see his eyes bouncing from me to Jason to Teresa to Gabe to everyone else. He wipes his mouth and mutters one word: “Idiotic.”
At lunch, Dallas and Carter and Jason sit together with Teresa, Mandy, Gabe, and the others. They all have bagels. Nothing has changed, but I feel different.
I eat my lasagna and do my homework. Bob English draws next to me, eating a sandwich from home. We don’t talk much, but it’s nice to have him there. I’m about to get up to dump my tray when Bob looks up and barks out a laugh.
“What?”
“You know what that was? This morning? Sitting there smiling with that gross taste in my mouth? Watching Dallas’s lamosity get totally frustrated?”
Lamosity is not technically a word. But who am I to say that Bob shouldn’t use it?
“No,” I say. “What was it?”
“It was sweet. And it was bitter. Get it?” He raises his eyebrows. “It was bittersweet.”
Which cracks us up.
Chad, Anita, and Paul are coming toward us.
“Hey, Chad needs his dot touched up,” Anita tells Bob. “His got partly rubbed off.” Chad opens his hand to reveal a blue smudge.
“Touched up?” Bob asks. “What for?”
“We’re keeping them, aren’t we?” She puts one hand on her hip. “Isn’t that the point? That we’re all like—whatever? A team?”
“Yeah,” I say, while Bob finds his blue Sharpie. “That’s exactly what it means.”
“Blue Team!” Paul says. “It’s what’s for breakfast!”
We all watch Bob fill in Chad’s blue dot, and I know that something has changed after all.