Getting REVENGE on Lauren Wood by Eileen Cook

Author:Eileen Cook
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Published: 2010-09-27T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Three

Brenda cared for our bacteria with a love and affection that some people don’t show their flesh-and-blood children. She would sneak in between classes to coo encouragingly at them, cheering on their growth. We had swiped two petri dishes per swab, and one of our dishes that had been swabbed from the girl’s bathroom had died after only two days. It wasn’t clear what had happened, but Brenda was devastated. She worried that it would throw off our entire paper. I pointed out that we weren’t trying to find a cure for cancer and that it is somewhat unnatural to be that upset over dead bacteria. I wouldn’t have been surprised to find out she had a small ceremony for them before she dumped the petri dish in the garbage.

A week after collecting the samples, we were at Brenda’s, working on our paper. Brenda sat at her computer, her face set in a serious expression. She was looking through the rough sketches I had done for our project. I was lying on her floor, in theory studying for our test, but there is only so much information I can absorb about the life span of bacteria and viruses. In my mind I replayed the day’s victory. While Lauren had been in gym class, I went to the locker room and poured olive oil into her hair spray. Knowing her affinity for excessive product use, I had not been surprised to discover that her hair ended up with so much oil that it basically repelled water. It hung from her head in greasy clumps. She tried to wash it out, but she couldn’t get it all. As a result she had to go through the rest of the afternoon looking vaguely homeless and smelling like an Italian restaurant.

“I don’t think the color is quite right,” Brenda mumbled, breaking into my happy flashback. She was holding the picture close and then far away. “I think they look too pink.”

I rolled up into a sitting position and scooted over toward her desk.

“What’s wrong? Those are lovely bacteria. Did you see what I did with their tails? Very chic.”

“Tails?” Brenda raised an eyebrow. “Flagella would be the term you’re looking for.”

“Right.” I watched Brenda as she scrolled the mouse over the computer screen looking at the various shades of pink available in the color wheel and holding up the drawing to compare. She leaned back to get a better view. “You really like this stuff, don’t you?” I said.

“What, science?”

“Yeah. Who else cares what color pink their bacteria end up being?”

“What’s strange about liking science? I like knowing how things work,” she said.

“I can totally see you being a CSI, working in a swanky glass lab down in Miami.”

“That show is total bunk, you know. They make it look like you can run a DNA sample in the time it takes to do a Google search.”

“What? TV lies? Tell me it isn’t true!” I threw my hands up in the air.

“Ha ha. I don’t want to be a CSI, even if it means a fancy lab.

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