Furious - By Jill Wolfson Page 0,23

its energy, back and forth, clang, clang, clang. “It’s demonstrating conservation of momentum and kinetic energy in a mechanical system. The ball on the opposite side gets the energy of the first ball and swings out in an arc.”

“Thank goodness someone wasn’t dozing during class. Exactly right! There are a few more things that come into play, but that’s it, more or less.”

The balls slow down, the arcs get smaller. I toss in some formulas that further impress him. “Momentum equals mass times velocity. Kinetic energy equals one-half mass times velocity squared.”

“Someone’s going to ace the next pop quiz, which—hint, hint—is tomorrow.” He starts the balls swinging again. “Back to your question. Show me the energy of this praying and wishful thinking. Put it in my hand. Make it burn something. Send it over a wire or transfer it from one of these balls to another.”

“I can’t.”

“Exactly! So without cause, there’s no effect.”

“But it happened!” I work hard to quickly calm my voice so I don’t sound like a maniac. “Hypothetically, of course. Something must have caused it.”

He reaches out and stops the balls. “Don’t make the mistake of confusing cause with coincidence. Most likely it was a totally random blip-blip, just two of the gazillion events going on in the universe that day. This hypothetical you just happened to notice it and made an incorrect assumption that tied things together. Make sense?”

Me, disappointed: “I guess so.”

“Remember. Blip-blip.” He checks the clock. We have a few more minutes until the next class. “Now, Meg, a question for you. Where does bad light end up?”

I shrug.

“In a prism.”

At the end of next period, still unsatisfied, I take my puzzle to Mrs. H. She’s making a pile of the essays we just turned in. A few papers flutter to the floor, but she ignores them because she’s thrilled with my question. “Ah! One of those amazing, glorious moments to cherish. A glimpse into the true nature of what is.”

“So yes? The praying caused it? We can do it again?” I catch myself. “I mean, wishing for something can make it happen?”

“What is wishing, Meg? What is cause? What is knowable? There are things that we can never understand fully, forces that are too complicated for our simple human minds to ever fathom and unravel. But that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. A tiny beat-beat of a butterfly’s wings can set off a whole complex chain of events that results in a tornado. Yet we don’t see the connection.”

I bend down and pick up the essays.

“Remember. Beat-beat. Any more questions, Meg?”

I have so many of them, but I’m not sure what they are. I fumble, give up. “Yes, where does bad light end up?”

She sighs. “You’ve been talking to my beloved husband.”

Blip-blip or beat-beat. I’m no closer to understanding than I was before.

10

Raymond is home sick with his cold, which means that along with being baffled about the Leech and He-Cat, I’m faced with the dreaded lunch-seat question. Without Raymond, where do I sit?

Ambrosia comes to the rescue. She spots me standing in the middle of the cafeteria like a little lost soul with a tray of chocolate pudding, and she waves me over. Today her hair is up in some kind of beehive style from the 1950s. Alix and Stephanie are already at the table, looking skeptical at this lunchroom seating arrangement. Doing a school report together is one thing. This overrides every social rule in the history of Hunter High, and it isn’t going unnoticed. Many eyes are on us. Pox’s eyes. Ambrosia’s friends’ jealous eyes. His eyes, Brendon’s eyes. We’re a real spectacle. The Double Ds walk by and try to eavesdrop, but Ambrosia shoos them away like they’re a pair of pesky mosquitoes.

“So?” she asks. “Something happened last night?” It’s a question, but not a question, like she already knows the answer. “You want to tell us. Tell us.”

“How did you know?” I walk them through everything that happened with the Leech and He-Cat. When I get to the end of the story, I’m practically hyperventilating.

“Cross your heart that happened,” Alix orders.

I cross. “I swear. It was like something got into the Leech’s brain and rewired it with a message: Treat Meg and He-Cat totally the same.”

“No shit! That’s awesome.”

Stephanie, too, is wowed. “That’s what you asked for!”

“Exactly!” I say. “Only … you know … not exactly.”

I feel starved all of a sudden. I want food and I want it now. I pick up my cheese-and-tomato sandwich, bite hard