Then I caught Darcy glaring at me. She moved her finger across her neck.
Like a knife to the throat.
Hypothesis: I have an enemy.
Cool Genes
The science room reeked from jars filled with floating specimens—fish, frogs, snakes, a tiny pig, and what looked like a few autopsied aliens.
“Let’s sit by the door in case you need to take a walk.” Ana set up my puzzle on the front table.
On full display, same as the other strange specimens.
I organized puzzle pieces as the school’s brainiest kids entered for advanced science.
Orange pieces, orange pieces, 19 . . . 20 . . . 21 . . .
Grace walked in with her friends, who were wearing their yellow and black cheerleader uniforms—short, pleated skirts and sweaters with a big L on the front. Lilly and Darcy were cheerleaders.
I am beginning to think Jaz is right about cheerleaders.
All three girls looked at me, confused.
Jaz wheeled in and gave me a thumbs-up before parking in the back row.
The teacher, stone-faced Mr. Harding, peered at me from his desk and squished his eyebrows together. My shoulders shrugged over and over as if to say I did not know what the heck I was doing here either.
Shrug, shrug, shrug.
33 . . . 34 . . . 35 . . .
Brilliant but tough—that’s how Jaz described Mr. Harding. Her actual words were, “He makes some kids pee their pants when he calls them out in class.”
This may hurt a little.
Shrug, shrug, shrug.
Mr. Harding approached and looked down at us from his six-foot-four altitude. If Pops were here, he might joke, “How’s the air up there?”
Harding talked to Ana as if I were invisible.
“As I told Ms. Diaz, your student is welcome to join the class as long as she does not disrupt the learning.”
Maybe this was a mistake.
“I heard there was an issue in Ms. Beckett’s classroom,” he continued. “You will find me less tolerant than she of classroom disturbances. I do not permit disruptions from my . . . shall we say . . . traditional students, and I will not permit them from students of . . . shall we say . . . special status. That being said, welcome to my class, Ms. Dupont.”
“It is not me you should welcome, Mr. Harding.”
He looked confused. Ana pointed to me.
“Her name is Charity, Charity Wood. And of all the classes at Lincoln, she was most eager to attend yours. She insisted on it, actually. Against our advice.”
It was true. I wanted to understand biology—my own nutty neurons in particular. But all of it fascinated me—animals, plants, insects, right down to the one-celled protozoa.
“What do you mean she insisted?” Harding asked, lowering his glasses to the tip of his pointed nose. “She can talk?”
“As we explained in the file we provided you, she communicates through typing. I support her arm to give her the motor control to type with one finger. One letter at a time.”
He raised his eyebrows and brushed his fingers on his chin.
“She learned to do this only a few weeks ago,” Ana said.
“Fascinating.” Harding said this to himself and observed me for the first time. He did not exactly smile—his lips formed a straight line—but I had a feeling that was as close as he got to smiling.
Harding approached the whiteboard, pointing his black marker toward the class like a sword. His deep voice echoed off the green walls.
“Class, let us continue our discussion of genetics. I assume everyone has carefully studied chapter six.”
His voice a human megaphone.
Breathe in peace.
Shrug, shrug, shrug.
Blue pieces now, 1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . .
He dove into a lecture on genes and chromosomes, the secret code contained in all our cells, a code that was passed down from all our ancestors. It controls so many things about who we are and what we look like. I understood now how I inherited Dad’s blue eyes and Mom’s dimples.
Breathe out fear.
My mind latched on. I listened in a trance, seeing DNA strands in my mind, zipping and unzipping in endless combinations.
Harding’s wavy silver hair flopped up and down as he sketched diagrams of genetic crosses on the board. Mr. Harding talked about mistakes in the genetic code that gave people diseases.
“Albinism is a genetic mutation that results in the offspring completely lacking pigment in the skin, eyes, or hair. It is caused by a defect of the enzyme tyrosinase, which is involved in the production of melanin.”
Just because there is an error in someone’s genes does not mean that person is an error. Does it?
Ana’s fingers sprinted across her laptop, typing pages of notes for me, but I knew I would remember everything. Having my brain challenged kept my body in control as my hands automatically arranged and attached puzzle pieces.
Red pieces, red pieces, 32 . . . 33 . . . 34 . . .
Mr. Harding’s brown loafers paced the tile floor as he patrolled the classroom. He was a wolf stalking terrified rabbits. Kids jumped in their seat when he called their name.
“Stuart! How many genes in the human genome?” He pointed a bony finger at Stuart in the front row.
“Twenty-three.” Stuart replied in a deep voice, maybe to sound more mature.
Harding raised an eyebrow, and the blood drained from Stuart’s face.
“I mean twenty-three hundred, give or take.”
Mr. Harding nodded and moved on. Stuart blew a puff of air out of his lips.
“Darcy! What is the chance of this genetic cross resulting in an albino child?” He pointed to a diagram on the board marked with letters in boxes representing different gene combinations.
Darcy’s face had been looking down—probably at her phone again—but she flung her long, blonde hair off her shoulder, looking easy-breezy under pressure.
“Two in four will be a mutant, Mr. Harding.” Her white teeth dazzled confidence.
Harding frowned. “That is incorrect.”
She squinted at the board as though maybe she hadn’t seen it correctly. Five seconds of Harding scowling at her must have seemed like five years.
“You should spend more time reading the chapter and less time reading your texts, young lady.”
Her face dropped, and the air hissed with muffled snickers.
I lifted my eyes from
