“Class, yesterday I told you to think about lab partners. In the past I’ve assigned lab partners myself, but the groups didn’t work out as well as I had hoped, so this year I’m trying a new experiment. After all, this is a chemistry lab, so experimenting is what we do.” Mrs. Vance chuckled, and then continued, “Remember, there are four people to a group, so if you’ve chosen your groups, will you please sit accordingly?”
Instantly, the class began to shuffle around, until nearly everyone was seated with their partners. Only a handful of students stood off to the side, and Kennedy was one of them. She looked around, and wasn’t surprised to see her twin sister, Reagan; Madison, Ian, and PG huddled together at one of the lab benches near the back of the class. “Ump,” she retorted at the sight of them.
“Now for the rest of you that are left standing, break off into groups of four, and take a seat.”
“You wanna be partners?” asked Sid, one of the class geeks.
“Sure, why not?” Kennedy responded.
“What about you, Reese and Tony?” Sid asked two other students.
“Okay,” they said in unison.
“Look at that motley crew,” Madison said, cocking her head in the direction of Kennedy and her new lab partners.
“They look like they came from the Land of Misfit Toys. Kennedy, wearing that old tired army jacket over her uniform; Sid with his too-big eyeglasses slipping off his nose; Reese, with her oily, stringy hair looking like a life-sized Raggedy Ann doll; and Tony…” She stopped and pondered Tony for a second. “…well, Tony isn’t all that bad. He has a killer bod, and cute dimples. Hey, why isn’t he hanging out with us instead of the Misfits?” Reagan asked rhetorically.
“’Cuz he’s a Brainiac, and couldn’t care less about being cool or a jock,” PG shot back, as if he were the King of Cool.
“He can study with me any day,” Reagan said, dreamy eyed.
PG jerked his head in Reagan’s direction. “What does that mean? Are you saying you wanna get with him?”
“Chill out, PG. I’m simply saying that I wouldn’t mind being Tony’s study partner. Anyway, it’s not like I’m your woman.” She rolled her eyes, and landed them back on Tony.
“Class, open your textbooks to page one-hundred and three,” Mrs. Vance said, then waited until everyone was on the same page.
The teacher was talking, but Kennedy didn’t hear a word she said. She was too busy thinking about the day before.
“Can I help you, young lady?” the security guard had asked Kennedy.
Kennedy thought it was odd that a guard was at the entrance to a vacant building. “I’m from Green Gardens. We’re planting an eco garden on the roof and I came by to get some ideas,” she explained, and took a step forward.
He put his arm across the doorframe. “Sorry, you can’t go up.”
“Why not?”
He sucked his teeth, as if annoyed by her question. “They’re shooting a video on the roof, and only authorized visitors are allowed inside.”
“I promise, I won’t be in the way. I want to go up and take a quick look around before our meeting tomorrow. I have a few ideas and want to make sure they’re going to work,” she said, trying to sway the beefy guard.
“No one’s going up without a security pass,” he said point blank.
“Oh.” Kennedy had come all the way uptown, and hadn’t expected to get turned away.
With no choice but to leave, she turned around, and ran straight into Roshonda’s friend. They both stood there like two deer caught in a hunter’s crosshairs. Kennedy was trying to think of his name, and all he could say was “Uh.”
“Lucas, I was getting ready to hop in a car and head over to your place. You left your cell phone in the tent,” some guy said, rushing out of the door.
That’s right; his name is Lucas, Kennedy thought.
“Thanks, Kevin,” Lucas said.
Kennedy watched the exchange, and felt as if she were in the way, so she turned and walked back to the train station.
“Now, class, there are two experiments on each page,” the teacher said, interrupting Kennedy’s walk down memory lane. “We’re going to do both, and the two teams with the best results will win a spot in the science fair.”
“You wanna do this one?” Tony asked his group as he pointed to the first experiment.
Kennedy hunched her shoulders. “I don’t care.” She wasn’t interested in science experiments; all she cared about at the moment was getting to know Lucas. But as luck would have it, they had seen each other twice, and twice they had walked away without exchanging numbers, or names for that matter. Oh well, such is life, she thought, and then tuned her attention back to the project at hand.