Splendor by Elana K. Arnold

Author:Elana K. Arnold
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2013-11-11T16:00:00+00:00

Mr. McCormack stood at the front of the classroom. He wore a white lab coat over his polo and jeans. His usual loose, goofy expression was uncharacteristically sober. Next to him were two stacks of metal trays, each holding a plastic-wrapped shape.

From my seat in the second row of tables—next to Gunner, my lab partner—I had a good view of the packages but couldn’t clearly see what they contained. I could imagine, though.

“Before we begin,” Mr. McCormack said, “let’s have a little chat about respectful handling of the dead.”

Over the first two months of school, anatomy class had progressed from dissecting worms to frogs, and today we’d be meeting the fetal pigs that would carry us through the rest of the first semester. In the spring we’d focus on human physiology.

Lily wasn’t in this class (“Formaldehyde stains,” she’d said) or she would have been my lab partner. Each of us had gotten our own worm and frog, but I guess fetal pigs were more expensive. We had to share.

Mr. McCormack had spoken with us briefly about how to handle the worms and frogs, too, but as soon as he distributed the piglets, each looking waxy and under a sleeping enchantment beneath its plastic shroud, I understood why he’d made a bigger deal about it this time.

These were mammals. Their pale pink skin, sparse hair, and death grins seemed almost human.

At least there was nothing even remotely romantic about dissection. And Gunner was smart—he’d make a good partner. He’d missed worm dissection, but I couldn’t help but admire the clean incisions he’d made on his frog corpse. He didn’t hesitate, just gently placed the scalpel and sliced right in. Steady hands.

I was a little wary of what Lily would say when I told her that I’d been paired up with Gunner, but after the past weekend maybe she wouldn’t be too worried anymore.

I’d only been back from my visit to the mainland for about an hour when Lily texted that she was coming over. So at least the silent treatment hadn’t lasted long. I didn’t really know what kind of Lily to expect, but when she breezed into my room twenty minutes later it was like she’d never been upset with me at all.

“Guess who took me out on Saturday?” she sang happily.

He sat next to me at the lab table, waiting patiently for our specimen to be delivered.

“We went to the new little French place over by the casino,” she gushed.

He sliced cleanly through the plastic, sliding the little body onto the dissection tray.

“And when we got back to my house he walked me to the door and ohmygod, Scarlett, he is an amazing kisser.”

He held the limbs still as I tied them to the tray—first the left front leg, then the right, and then each hind leg in turn until the piglet lay spread and helplessly dead and exposed on the table.

“Congratulations,” he said, handing me the scalpel to make the first incision. “It’s a girl.”

But before we could begin cutting, we had to measure and examine the body.

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