The Haunted - Jessica Verday [24]
Mom entered the kitchen and made a pit stop at the coffeemaker before sitting down next to me. “Hungry?”
I smiled at her. “Working on a new perfume.”
She smiled back, a genuinely happy smile, and I could see the relief in her eyes that I was working with my perfumes again. “What’s the inspiration?” Ashes, bones, haunting music, lost love. Probably not the answer she was looking for.
“Violins.” I bit into a piece of toast and crunched loudly.
“Ooh, I get it. Strings, old wood, and furniture polish?”
“Right.” Hmmm… Actually, now that I thought about it, that wasn’t a bad combo. I should make that one too.
“Oh, hey, guess what,” I said, suddenly remembering my recent conversation with Mr.
Knickerbocker. “You know how I had to drop my books back off at school?” Mom nodded.
“I talked to Mr. Knickerbocker while I was there about what I could do to help improve my chem grade.”
Now she looked intrigued.
“My friend Ben, the one who was my science-fair partner and is supersmart, offered to tutor me. Then I’m going to take a test at the end of summer, and that will help average out my numbers.” I left out the whole by-the-way-my-entire-year’s-grade-is-riding-on-the-test thing.
“So it’s going to be just you and Ben?” Mom asked. “Where is this tutoring going to be taking place?”
I hadn’t thought about that. “Um, I guess here? That would probably be the easiest.” Her face turned disapproving. “And how often?”
“A couple of times a week?” I thought she’d be happy about this, but she was looking decidedly unhappy. Time to do some damage control. “It was really sweet of Ben to say that he’ll tutor me. He already has a job at the Horseman’s Haunt, plus he’s going to be helping out his dad with some farm stuff.”
She looked impressed. “He was a very polite young man when your father and I met him.” Then she nodded. “And you’re almost seventeen. It’s hardly like you’d need a babysitter.” I smiled to myself. I was good.
The Haunted
Chapter Six
CHNOPS AND SHOPS
He was a kind and thankful creature… whose spirits rose with eating…
—“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”
W hen Ben came over three days later for our first science session, his arms were loaded down with papers. He greeted me and entered the living room.
“Hey… Ben,” I said. Unfortunately, all the steamiest parts of my recent dream chose that moment to come flooding back in excruciating detail, and my face flamed.
“Ready to get started?” he asked.
It was just a dream, just a stupid dream. “Yeah, sure. What’s all that?” He glanced down. “I brought some of my old notes so you could look them over.” Dropping the stack onto the floor, he took a seat and held up one finger in a dead-on imitation of Mr. Knickerbocker. “It’s science time. Have a seat, Miss Browning.” I rolled my eyes but did as he instructed. Snaking one hand forward, I picked up a com-position book he had lying on top of the pile. The inside pages were covered with his handwriting. I groaned. “Do we have to cover all of this?”
“Yes. It’s divided into different sections.” He took the book from my hands and started reading from it. “Acids and their base chemistry, the elements, basic atomic structure, quantum theory, CHNOPS…”
“CHNOPS? What’s that?”
“The six elements that make up all living matter. Carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur. CHNOPS is an acronym.”
I buried my face in my hands. He was speaking Greek. “Why can’t we just do something simple, like making a LEGO replica of the solar system or something? God, I hate chemistry.” Ben grinned and started to do that excited-jumpy thing he’d done once before in the library when we were researching projects for the science fair. “You know, in sixth grade I made one of those out of meatballs. It was great. The entire solar system was edible.” The look on Ben’s face was so ridiculous that I had to laugh. He was very pleased with himself.
“Why does that not surprise me?” I got up. “Before we get started, I want to show you something. Come here.”
He followed me to the kitchen. “Think of it as my