Chapter 19. In Which I Become a Pathetic Little Sidekick, but That’s the Least of My Problems When My Cabinmates Seeming
IN WHICH I BECOME A PATHETIC LITTLE SIDEKICK, BUT THAT’S THE LEAST OF MY PROBLEMS WHEN MY CABINMATES SEEMINGLY JUST LEARNED CHAOS THEORY AND ARE TESTING IT ON ME SPECIFICALLY
Despite the below-freezing temperature of the ice arena, my body is caked in sweat by the time I return to my cabin from skating so much. My shirt sticks to my back, and my feet are unpleasantly damp in my shoes.
As quickly as I can, I grab my towel, my testosterone gel, and some fresh clothes from my cubby. Walking over to the rustic showers at the very back, I peel my shirt over my head.
The shower curtain at the end slides open.
Benedict steps out of the shower in a towel, raking a hand through his wet blond hair. Once he catches a glimpse of me, he halts in his tracks.
“S-sorry,” I say. For some reason. We all live in this cabin. We all have to shower. But between the privacy curtains and the bathroom and shower stalls, I haven’t had a run-in like this yet.
Benedict barely seems to process what I said. Despite his lankier, tall physique, he’s surprisingly toned. As a Darlingtonshire, that would likely be a requirement, even if he only models his hands.
“I’ll just—” I say quickly, pivoting directly into the nearest shower.
“Where were you?” Benedict asks suddenly.
I peek back out from behind the curtain. “Huh?”
Benedict is staring hard at the log wall instead of at me now. Another bagel-sized spider in the cabin?
I follow his gaze toward the wall. Nothing out of the ordinary.
“Your hair is all over the place,” he says. “You appear to have been mauled by a bear.”
I rush to pat down my head. It’s a staticky mess.
Humiliation shoots through me. I must’ve looked this way with Luca, too. Kill me. “I was at the ice arena, convincing Luca to go to the disco skate night. He’s open to it, but I might have to stop by and be his assistant. Anyway, while I was there, I fell. A lot.”
Benedict stiffens. “I see.”
It’s not the response I expect. This means our plan is falling into place. Shouldn’t he be happy?
With nothing more to say, I slip into the shower and out of the bizarre twilight zone I apparently tripped into.
As I wash off the afternoon, my thoughts drift to what Luca told me about his inability to hit slap shots as quickly as he did before his injury.
Hockey is the fastest sport, and physics is demonstrated throughout the game.
There must be a way to solve his problem with science.
You’re wasting your time. Study your lab materials.
Mom’s voice lingers, yet the problem still flutters in my mind when I step out of the shower to do my seven-step skin care regimen.
It’s only when I’m in my fresh clothes and applying my testosterone gel that I realize I’ve missed a key step in my required routine: analyzing my face in the mirror for any negative changes to update my dermatologist. With the extra testosterone in my body, acne always lurks around the corner.
My stomach tightens, the way it always does when Mom and Dad claim I’ve done something wrong. I immediately drop my gel and head for the mirrors.
My life isn’t like that.
My footsteps slow to a stop as Luca’s words from the ice arena pop into my mind.
Technically, I won’t see my dermatologist until I go home. And if I manage to fix The Plan and gain acceptance to Harvard, I’ll never have to complete my routines again.
A piece of me wants to try that out. Secretly. In a place Mom and Dad can’t see.
As I turn back around, the stiffness in my muscles worsens, like my whole soul is rebelling against the very idea.
Still, I force myself to sit beside the laptop on my bed to search for answers about Luca’s slap shot.
Not wonder if there are problems with my face.
Which gets seen by the whole world. All the time. Including by Luca.
Not like I care about Luca more than the world. Just saying. I see him a lot.
“You’re doing what with Luca?” Jade’s voice hurls my way from the study table.
She’s returned to the cabin since my run-in with Benedict, who apparently filled her in on our previous conversation. An array of taper candles is spread before her. With woven yarn, she’s tieing them to small vials full of an undisclosed liquid. Further proof that my twilight zone theory is real.
Luca claimed that Jameson lights up their cabin every night with candles just like that to ward off the Bachelor Island Ghost.
“I’m just being his assistant,” I say, half to her, half to a hockey-puck-velocity research paper from the University of Sydney that’s now on my screen. “Have you been selling those candles, by the way?”
“Yeah. You interested in buying?”
I eye the plethora of vials. “Depends on what that liquid is.”
“Water from the Red Sea. The Bachelor Island Ghost equates it to liquid fire. He fears it just as much.” Big Papa Huge Time pops out of Jade’s sweatshirt collar and launches himself onto the floor to eat old crumbs by her feet.
Jade frowns at him, then me. “Don’t change the subject.
What does being Luca’s assistant entail? ”
I uneasily eye the sheer girth of Big Papa Huge Time’s body, which has doubled in size from last week. “Fetching him skates. Or ice. Or whatever.”
“Why did you sign up for this?”
“It seemed like the only way to get him and his cabin to attend the skate night.”
“But you’re supposed to help us commit a crime during skate night,” Jade says.
“Pouring glow stick juice on a cabin isn’t a crime.” But my nerves lurch at the possibility. Mom and Dad’s PR team can only handle so much damage from my end. I look to Benedict, who now sits at the table beside Jade. “It’s not, right?”
“It’s advantageous if you’re with Luca instead,” Benedict says, but his low baritone still has a strange edge to it that I can’t place. “To ensure he and his cabinmates are indeed there and distracted for the full half hour.”
“Fine,” Jade says. “Us three will handle the juice. Rory will handle the Luca.”
The two keep running through the plan for Sunday night, problem-solving potential hitches like breaking into a few janitor closets to steal paint rollers and double-checking that they’ll wear watches to keep track of time.
I should pay attention, but I’m more focused on the hockey research I’ve pulled up on my laptop.
If Luca has already tried to readjust his stance and workout regime, what’s left that I could try?
Not because I want to help Luca. After he betrayed me? I would never. But how can I let this physics mystery go unsolved?
I need to start with the basics. Ice may be common in our lives, but it’s a freak show in comparison to the other materials that make up our universe.
For one, it floats. Almost nothing else does.
And there are over twenty different kinds.
Under different pressures and temperatures, water can form dozens of weird crystal structures, impacting its density and texture. It’s constantly unpredictable.
No matter the playing surface, though, a hockey player’s job is to exert force to the puck.
If a constant force F acts on a puck of mass m for a time T, the puck speeds up to v = (F/m) T.
So, with F = 100 N, T = 0.04 s, and m = 0.
17 kg, the puck’s acceleration is 588 m/s2 and its speed reaches 23.
5 m/s. Given that the acceleration of gravity is 9. 8 m/s, this is far greater—
“Rory?” Jade snaps.
I flick my head back up. “What? What was that?”
Jade stands by her cubby. She’s holding a cardboard box full of glass hazard bottles.
“I said, I made the liquids we need for the chemiluminescence in the Shared Instrumentation Facility today.” She sets the box back down and shoves her hands on her hips.
“What’s wrong with you? You’re acting weird. ”
A bit of guilt creeps up my chest for ignoring them. A Prince List role model never ignores anyone.
But a Prince List role model also never forgets to examine their skin for defects.
I shove away my laptop and my own uncontrollable thoughts with it. “Sorry. Yeah, teaching everyone how to use their skates should only take a few minutes. Then I can keep my eye on Luca’s cabin to make sure they stay.”
And, of course, get closer to Luca and keep trying to make him fall for me so I can break his heart, but details.
“You better,” Jade says. “No screwing this up, or else when it comes to the third test next Monday, we’re the ones who will be screwed.”