The Winning Element (2 page)
The other teachers had seen the bruise. How could they not? But none had asked. If you asked, then you had to follow up. Paperwork, reporting to authorities, blah, blah, blah. Who had time for all that junk? None of the teachers cared. Or at least none cared when it came to Sissy. Now if it had been cute little Kirstie or peppy, athletic Lisa . . .
Whatever. Everyone expected this from Sissy. Bruises, drugs, zeros.
Outside, a train bumped by, rattling the apartment walls. Sissy plopped down across the unmade bed and popped the gum in her mouth.
She should’ve botched the stupid state test that put her in the academic magnet. That way she’d still be in her old school with Courtney. At least there Sissy hadn’t stuck out like a freak.
But she hadn’t been able to resist the temptation to see, just to
see,
how she would do on the test.
see,
how she would do on the test.
Sissy knew she was smart, even though she’d made D’s and F’s her whole life. No one else had thought she was smart. In fact, she’d been recommended to attend a “special” school once.
She snorted. “Puh-lease.” A “special” school?
Showed how much they knew.
Sissy blew everyone away when she aced the state test. Thinking back on it brought a smirk to her face.
She toasted the air with her middle finger.
Here’s to everyone who ever thought I was a loser.
Here’s to everyone who ever thought I was a loser.
The bedroom door creaked open. Pam, Courtney’s mom, peeked in. “Oh, hey, Sissy. Thought you were Courtney.”
Sissy didn’t bother reminding Pam that it was eleven in the morning and Courtney was in school. Pam wouldn’t care one way or the other anyway.
Dressed in a long T-shirt and boxers, Pam shuffled across the worn carpet to the dresser. She opened the top drawer, pulled out a pair of socks, and slipped them on. “Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”
Sissy shrugged. “Got kicked out.” Story of her life.
Tucking her wet brown hair behind her ear, Pam leaned back against the dresser. “Me and Courtney are moving back in with her daddy.”
Sissy got really still, knowing what came next.
Pam took a deep breath and then blew it out slow. “You can’t come with us. I know your momma booted you out again, and I’m sorry. But me and Courtney’s daddy, we got enough to work on without you tagging along.”
Why me? What did I ever do to anybody to deserve this reject of a life?
Sissy pushed the irritating voice in her head aside. It did no good to give in to the depression. “When do you want me out?”
Sissy pushed the irritating voice in her head aside. It did no good to give in to the depression. “When do you want me out?”
“End of the day.” Pam glanced over to the black garbage bag that held Sissy’s clothes. “I got an old suitcase if you want.”
“It’s all right,” Sissy mumbled, rolling onto her side to face the window. She’d lived with Courtney and Pam on and off over the years. A week here, a month there. They let Sissy come and go as she needed, whenever her mom brought another guy home, whenever they fought, whenever her mom drank, whenever she got violent . . .
Behind her, Pam left the room.
Outside, another train approached, sounding its horn.
Sissy chomped down on her gum.
What am I supposed to do now?
What am I supposed to do now?
That evening SISSY squatted under the bleachers of Jacksonville Magnet, surveying the school’s gym. The night janitor locked up, crossed the parking lot to her truck, and drove off.
Sissy waited in the grass, smacking at Florida’s enormous mosquitoes, watching the school for any more activity. Humid air hung heavy around her, making her baggy clothes stick to her skin. She spit her gum into a wrapper, put a new piece in her mouth, and continued to wait.
Thirty minutes passed, and the coast stayed clear. Sissy picked up her bag of clothes and jogged across the football field to the gym. She rounded the side to the boy’s locker room, popped open the vent leading into the showers, and crawled through.
The smell of bleach overpowered her senses, and Sissy murmured a quick thank-you to the janitor gods. Two nights ago when she’d come, the janitor had been sick and the place had been a disgusting mess.
She tiptoed through the dark locker room, out the door, and down the hall to the windowless boiler room. She didn’t know why it was called the boiler room when all it held was old classroom junk. Tons of it. Broken copy machines; old wood desks; books, books, and more books; rolling chalkboards; bulletin-board paper; storage bins; old gym mats.
And chemistry supplies.
Sissy walked in and flicked on the desk lamp.
She’d come across the place by accident. At the end of last school year she’d seen the janitor unloading desks off a cart. Sissy had stopped to help. After all, the janitor
was
old.
was
old.
But the janitor had left without securing the door, so Sissy was able to rig it not to lock—easy to do with a gum wrapper— and went back that night.
And again the next night.
And the next.
All summer long she’d gone, slowly making it into her space and escaping life. Many nights when she didn’t work, she slept over, using the girl’s locker room to shower.
She’d be here tonight. No way she was crawling back to her mom.
Sissy wound her way through the dusty desks to the big wood chemistry cabinet. Hidden beneath it, she pulled out her notebook.
Her spirit lightened as it did every time she lost herself in her experiments, her solutions, her chemicals. Years ago she’d found a kid’s chemistry set in the garbage and pulled it out. She’d cleaned it up and followed the instruction manual carefully as she’d composed her first basic experiments. And her life had never been the same since.
She smiled at the memory. Being here in this makeshift lab was the only time she was in a good mood. The only time things felt right.
She
felt right. Her life didn’t suck.
She
felt right. Her life didn’t suck.
Flipping through the notebook, she scanned the handwritten pages, searching for the metcium formula . . . ah, there it was. Something about it wasn’t right, and she’d puzzled over it for a week straight. Then it hit her last night as she was folding clothes at the Laundromat.
Beside the chemistry cabinet stood a stack of poster boards propped up against the wall. Hidden behind them was her box of supplies.
Sissy moved the poster boards aside and slid out her box. Any spare money she had she spent on chemistry supplies. Some legal, some not. A good majority of her powders and liquids were her own derivatives of marine life. Easy enough to obtain when you lived in Jacksonville, Florida.
She opened the box and carefully pulled out flasks of ciumdroxide, coloride, and trosesineo—all highly flammable liquids. From the cabinet she got two rubber mats, a burner, two beakers, and some stirring rods.
Sissy carried all the supplies over to the desk. She unrolled a rubber mat, spread it across the desktop, and then placed a smaller one on the floor for her to stand on. Both would absorb any electricity created from her work.
She put on her goggles and rubber gloves and got down to business. . . .
As she poured the trosesineo into the beaker that held the coloride, her experiment consumed her. Her concentration mixing the two liquids held her total focus. Any other time she would’ve noticed the flame getting too high. She would’ve paid attention to the ciumdroxide she’d already put to heat bubbling too close to the edge.
In her peripheral vision through her goggles, she caught sight of the ciumdroxide a split second before it boiled and foamed over the edge.
She jerked her head up, accidentally bumping the flask of trosesineo. It toppled over, flowed straight into the boiled-over ciumdroxide, and both liquids immediately caught on fire. Sissy’s heart lurched as she reached for a fire extinguisher at the same time pink smoke preceded a bright flash. Then an explosion sent her flying backward.
An hour later, sissy sat handcuffed beside some cop’s desk. How stupid could she have been? She’d
never
lost track of her experiments. If it weren’t for the gym mats she’d landed on, the explosion could’ve caused some broken bones.
never
lost track of her experiments. If it weren’t for the gym mats she’d landed on, the explosion could’ve caused some broken bones.
With a sigh, she glanced over to the left where a coffeemaker sat on a small table. Some old guy had just made a fresh pot, and it smelled heavenly. In front of her sprawled the station’s open workroom with desks placed here and there. Each desk had a phone and a computer. No walls separated them. Only three other cops were present this late in the evening.
The cop beside her hung up the phone. “Your mom doesn’t want you.”
Sissy could’ve told the cop that and saved him a phone call.
His chair squeaked as he leaned back. His red hair and baby face made him look about the same age as Sissy. Sixteen. He probably had just got out of cop school.
He folded his hands over his skinny stomach. “What about your dad?”
“I don’t have one.”
“What do you mean you don’t have one? Everyone has a dad.”
Where’d this guy grow up? “Well, I don’t.”
The cop frowned. “What do you mean?”
Sissy ground her teeth together and wished for a piece of gum. Why’d they take her gum anyway? It wasn’t like she could break out of jail with it. “I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know his name. I don’t know where he lives. I don’t know anything. Zilcho. My mom doesn’t even know.” How much more did Sissy have to spell it out?
Sissy’s father could be any number of men. Of course she’d always fantasized that he was some famous chemist, that she’d inherited her talent from him.
Whatever. Not like her mom would ever be with some famous chemist.
The cop’s chair squeaked as he brought it back down. “What were you doing with those chemicals?”
Sissy shrugged. “Nothing. Just playing around.” Little did he know, little did
anyone
know, the discoveries she’d made.
anyone
know, the discoveries she’d made.
The cop shook his finger at her. “If you were making a bomb, you better come clean right now, young lady.”
She nearly snorted at his sudden authoritative tone.
And a bomb? Puh-lease. She had better things to do with her time than make bombs. “When do I get my notebook back?”
His desk phone rang, and he picked it up. “Officer Roman.” A few seconds passed as he listened to whoever spoke on the other end. “All right.” He hung up the phone and rolled his chair back. “Let’s go.”
The cop escorted Sissy through the workroom and out into the empty lobby. He uncuffed her and nodded to the chairs. “Sit. Someone will be out.”
“When do I get my notebook back?”
“Sit.” He left and closed the door in her face.
Way to ignore my one and only question, idiot.
Sissy stomped across the tile floor and sat in the metal chair farthest away.
Someone will be out.
What did that mean?
Sissy stomped across the tile floor and sat in the metal chair farthest away.
Someone will be out.
What did that mean?
She looked across the lobby to where the front desk clerk sat. “Did someone make my bail?”
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