Furious - By Jill Wolfson Page 0,22
order, whatever pops into my mind: the red walls, the almost hypnotic taste of the fig-and-olive dip, the all-white garden with the awful smell, and the broken jack-in-the-box. I have a hard time describing the snow globe and get frustrated because I am in no way capturing the disgust that drained into my fingertips when I held that thing. I tell him about the squabble between Alix and Stephanie and the question Ambrosia asked me and how she ate a rose petal and how tired we all got and when Alix …
“Wait, wait, wait, stop, stop, stop. Back up. Ambrosia asked you what?”
“Who I hated more.”
Raymond sneezes and makes me repeat the exact words of the question.
“She actually used those words: threw you out like garbage? I can’t believe she did that. Rude!”
“That was my first reaction, too, but…”
“Cold!”
“But…”
“What did you say?”
“I…”
“What did you do?”
“I…”
“You know me, Meg, turning the other cheek is my specialty. We definitely have that in common. But what Ambrosia asked you? That’s hard to forgive.”
I give up trying to explain how I didn’t mind at all. It’s too complicated.
* * *
Later that night, I’m in the bathroom with the sink faucet running to do the experiment Mr. H assigned as physics homework. I hold a spoon lightly by its handle and slowly move the rounded bottom toward the water. You’d think that a gush of liquid would push the spoon away, but instead it draws it into the fast-moving stream.
“Bernoulli’s principle,” Mr. H said. “It explains how birds and airplanes fly.”
The way I understand it is this: Moving air creates low pressure. The faster the movement next to you, the lower the pressure and the quicker and harder a slower-moving object gets sucked into its void. It’s why a big rig passing you on the highway pulls you into its lane and causes a crash. What does Mr. H call it?
The attraction of curves.
I hear scratching at the bathroom window and look out on a face with whiskers and goop in the corner of one eye. Poor ugly He-Cat. I actually feel bad for him. What a shock to go from being the center of someone’s life to being a total outcast without having a clue why or what you did to deserve the terrible treatment. I let him in, and he allows me to pick him up without getting scratched. He’s not so bad. By the way he’s purring, I know he’s grateful to me. I sneak him into my bedroom, where he wanders around, sniffing at my things in an appreciative way.
That night He-Cat, my new buddy, sleeps in my bed. He has no trouble falling asleep, but I toss around until way after midnight. It’s hard getting comfortable. It’s impossible to slow my thoughts. I’m sure that what happened with the cat is total coincidence. I’m certain that I had nothing to do with it. How could I?
Why, then, do I have a sensation of being drawn into something that’s moving very fast and is very dangerous?
* * *
The next morning I still can’t shake the feeling. I’m totally freaked out. I need to talk to someone who knows about things like coincidence and the probability of something that can’t happen actually happening.
At the end of first-period physics, I stand awkwardly in front of Mr. H’s desk. He’s got the absent-minded-professor thing going on, so it takes a few seconds for him to notice me standing there. He’s fooling around with his desk ornament, a Newton’s cradle, which is five shiny metal balls hanging from strings that he uses to demonstrate various science concepts. He looks up at me with curious eyebrows. “You have a burning question, Ms. Meg?”
“Let’s say you want something to happen. You’ve secretly prayed for it and imagined it for a long time. Nothing ever happened. But one day out of the blue, it actually does. Well, it kind of does. Only it’s a little messed up, but it’s close enough to get you thinking. What do I make of it?”
“If I understand your drift, this is an excellent question given our current class topic of cause and effect.”
Mr. H holds one of the shiny steel balls out to the right and releases it. There’s a bright, clanking sound of metal hitting metal. The three balls in the center stay still, while the sphere at the opposite end is thrown into the air. “Explain what’s going on here.”
I watch the end ball hit the line again and transfer