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Jesse’s response flip-flopped around her head as they finished setting up, grabbed food from her kitchen, and continued to their next respective classes. Raina couldn’t recall a single thing she’d learned in math that day, and her notes only had the wordcompromisescrawled over and over. Was it possible to compromise with your religion?
She was only able to push the question out of her mind when the bell rang for English, her last period of the day. Hurrying down the hall into the science lab, Raina met Jesse by the teacher’s desk.
His smile was easygoing, perfect to set her nerves at ease. “Ready?”
Raina swallowed hard, her eyes scanning the classroom as students filled the lab desks. Nicole and one of her roommates were sitting in the back, Theo and Dean joining their table. She and Jesse took seats off to the side, sitting quietly through the other presenters. Two of the three had mock fights and reenactments as their interactive component, while the third pair had created a mini game show. Raina couldn’t tell you a single question that had been asked, though—she was too busy fretting over her own presentation.
“Jesse and Raina, you’re up next,” Mrs. Dixon announced.
* * *
Jesse tapped his foot against the concrete as he placed their poster on the desk, displaying it for the class to see. As they agreed upon, he spoke first, bringing up his love for poisons and why they chose the topic. Raina took over with the segment on poisons in Shakespeare, and then they spoke on both general potions and those specific toRomeo and Julietbefore it was Jesse’s turn again.
“For our interactive part of the project, we’ll be making a magic potion,” he said. “Raina is handing stuff out now.”
He paused for a minute, letting her walk around the room with a basket full of spoons and empty measuring cups. His classmates took turns going to the sink and filling the cups before Jesse resumed speaking.
“Now, all potions start with a base, so you’ll be boiling a cup of water on the burners on your lab table.” He paused to let everyone examine and poke at the burners. “You’re probably wondering, what’s the point of a base? Well, a base is, as it’s named, the basis for all potions! Some bases can add to the potion, while others are generic starters. They’re always a liquid, making other ingredients able to dissolve easily. Bases help mix ingredients and turn them into a potion rather than a sludge.”
Raina gave the next instructions, setting four prepared jars on the table. “On the front table there are jars of different powders. The pink one is for friendship, the red one is for love, the orange one is for luck, and the yellow one is for happiness. You need a cup total, so decide which, er, magic powder is most important to you. It’s best to pick only one or two, or else the magic will backfire. If we were being exact, we would measure out eight ounces, but this is a beginner potion so we’re going to use plastic cups.”
“You were great up there,” he whispered when Raina returned to their table.
They stood silently, watching as their classmates chose their colors. A large group of girls huddled around the red jar. His cousins were split, with Theo going for orange and Dean choosing yellow.
“Which color would you pick?” Raina asked.
“That’s a hard question,” Jesse mused. “Hmm...I think I’d do pink.”
“Why pink?”
Jesse winked at her. “Secret,” he said, hurrying to a table that had knocked over their cups of powder.
For the next few minutes he helped his classmates, reminding them of the measurements and assisting with turning the burner on.
“Very nice project, Mr. Ashcroft,” Mrs. Dixon said as she approached him.
“Thank you. We worked hard on it.”
“I’m impressed,” Mrs. Dixon admitted. “And the potion was a genius idea. Who did the research?”
“We both did. One of us would find information and the other would write the important bits down. Some of the information came from my brain, but we fact-checked it all. Oh, and we have a works cited.”
“Very well done, Mr. Ashcroft. I’ll make sure to let Ms. Cohen know as well.” With that, Mrs. Dixon walked away.
Jesse let out a sigh of relief before turning to one of the tables who had managed to knock their potion over and drench the table.
“Clean it up,” he instructed. “I don’t think you have time to redo it.”
Jesse caught Raina’s eye from across the room as he turned away from the mess, giving her a lopsided grin.
“Mr. Ashcroft.”
Jesse yelped, spinning around. “Yes?”
“Please assist with the cleaning up,” Mrs. Dixon said. “I gather you’ll be more helpful there than giving Ms. Cohen...facial expressions.”
“Yes, ma’am!” Jesse turned just in time to stop one of his classmates from knocking a burner onto the floor. Luckily, it wasn’t lit.
