1 Under Pressure

CHAPTER ONE UNDER PRESSURE Pressure (noun). When molecules work together to apply a force. Like if kindergartners push over an ice-cream truck at recess, or when lava forces its way out of a volcano. BREATHING FIRE IS EASY. At least that was what I told myself. I stood in the science lab after school in front of a couple dozen fourth and fifth graders. All waiting on me. No pressure. "Ready, Kate?" asked Ms. Daly, our after-school chemistry club advisor. "I was born ready!" I pumped my arm in the air like I was in the huddle before a soccer game. "Egg-cellent," said Ms. Daly. It was her typical cornball humor. Mostly because of this stinky experiment we did last April that turned raw eggs into bouncy balls. A bunch rolled all over the place, and one got lost in the radiator. Only there weren't rotten bouncy eggs involved in my demo.

压力（名词）。 当分子相互作用产生一个力。 就像幼儿园的孩子们在课间休息时推翻了一辆冰淇淋车，或者熔岩从火山中冲出。 喷火很容易。至少我是这么告诉自己的。 放学后，我站在科学实验室里，面对着几十个四年级和五年级的学生。 都在等着我。没有压力。 “准备好了吗，凯特？”我们课后化学俱乐部的指导老师戴利女士问。 “我生来就准备好了！”我在空中挥舞着我的手臂，就像我在足球比赛前挤在一起一样。 “鸡蛋很棒，”戴利女士说。 这是她典型的粗俗幽默。 主要是因为我们去年4月做的那个把生鸡蛋变成弹性球的臭实验。 到处都是，有一个在散热器里不见了。 只是我的小样里没有腐烂的弹蛋。

Instead: 1 blowtorch (with a steady base so the school wouldn't catch on fire) 1 big mouth (mine—words pretty much launched out of it and thoughts came later) 2 scoops of cornstarch (nothing to do with Ms. Daly's cornball humor. It had to do with carbon.) 1 straw (reusable, my BFF Birdie made sure of it) 2 legs (to run with if things got too explosive) 1 bucket (to spit out the cornstarch) 2 best friends (1 to hold the fire extinguisher and 1 to cheer me on) 1 glass of water (to rinse out my mouth after the demo) 1 big bowl of water (safety, duh!) 1 fire blanket (Unlike Supergirl, the girl of steel, I'm fully human.) Ms. Daly secured the blowtorch onto a nearby desk. With its attachable base, it looked like a missile.

取而代之的是：1个喷灯（底座要稳固，这样学校就不会着火了）1个大嘴（我的话基本上是先从嘴里说出来的，后来才有想法）2勺玉米淀粉（和她没关系）。 戴利的粗俗幽默。它和碳有关。)1根吸管（可重复使用，我的好朋友Birdie确保了它）2条腿（如果事情太容易爆炸，可以用它跑）1个桶（吐玉米淀粉）2个最好的朋友（1个拿灭火器，1个给我加油）1杯水（在演示结束后冲洗我的嘴）1大碗水（安全，废话！）1个防火毯（不像超级女孩，钢铁女孩，我是完全的人类。）Ms。 戴利把喷灯固定在附近的一张桌子上。 它的底座可连接，看起来就像一枚导弹。

"It's ready," she declared. Soon a 2,000-degree flame would spew out of its brass nozzle. Not just anywhere. A foot from my head. I swallowed hard. Why did I volunteer for this again? Chairs scraped the floor. Kids leaned forward to see better. Normally, we got about a dozen for our Friday meetings. Today, three dozen crammed into the room. It was the very last meeting before fall break, and everyone had flocked here to see me. I didn't want to blow it. Strike that. I NEEDED to blow it—cornstarch, I mean, spitting straight toward the flame to make a gigantic sizzling fireball. "Is that a real torch?" asked Avery Cooper, a chemistry club regular who played midfield on my soccer team. She pointed so enthusiastically that her short blonde braids bobbed. "It looks like a prop from my dads' theater." "Oh, it's real all right," I said. "I'll vouch for that," said Ms. Daly. She should know. She's a retired air force flight engineer. She knocked on the tank with a wrench from her tool belt. The silver wrench was the same color as her cap of short hair. "It's loaded with fuel," she said.

“准备好了，”她宣布。 很快，2000度的火焰将从它的黄铜喷嘴喷出。 不只是在任何地方。离我的头只有一英尺。 我使劲咽了口气。为什么我又要自告奋勇？ 椅子擦地板。孩子们倾身向前看得更清楚。 通常情况下，我们周五开会的时候会有一打。 今天，房间里挤了36个。 这是秋季假期前的最后一次会议，大家都蜂拥而至来看我。 我不想搞砸。罢工。 我需要吹——玉米淀粉，我的意思是，直接对着火焰吐口水，制造一个巨大的咝咝作响的火球。 “那是真的火炬吗？”艾弗里·库珀（Avery Cooper）问道。他是化学俱乐部的常客，在我们足球队踢中场。 她热情地指了指，把她的金色短辫子弄得上下摆动。 “看起来像是我爸爸剧院里的道具。” “哦，这是真的，”我说。 “我可以担保，”她说。 戴利。她应该知道。她是一名退休的空军飞行工程师。 她用工具带上的扳手敲了敲油箱。 银色的扳手和她那顶短发帽的颜色是一样的。 “里面装满了燃料，”她说。

"Awesome," sniffed a nasally fourth grader in an Avengers T-shirt. He made a kaboom sound that was a little too phlegmy. "It's going to be a beautiful swirl of color," said Birdie Bhatt in a hushed voice. Of course Birdie would say that. She's my best friend and really amazing at drawing, especially unicorns. "Take a step back," instructed Ms. Daly, shooing everyone with her arms. "You should be in the second row. Just in case." "In case of what?" snapped Phoenix Altman, who locked eyes with Avery. "It's only a precaution," said Ms. Daly. Just like the fire blanket. And the fire extinguisher that Elijah Williams, my other best friend and also my next-door neighbor, was holding. For a moment, regret zipped inside me like hot gas molecules. Had I really declared in a not-soquiet voice during recess that I could breathe fire? Yup. Speak-and-then-think Kate Crawford at your service! If I had known what was going to happen afterward, would I have breathed fire? That's complicated. Because it wasn't just the fire breathing demo.

“太棒了，”一个穿着复仇者联盟t恤的四年级小学生用鼻子嗅了嗅。 他发出了一声爆炸的声音，有点太冷淡了。 “这将是一个美丽的彩色漩涡，”伯蒂·巴特低声说。 小鸟当然会这么说。 她是我最好的朋友，非常擅长画画，尤其是独角兽。 “退后一步。” 戴利，用她的手臂驱赶着每个人。 “你应该在第二排。 以防万一。”“以防什么？”菲尼克斯·奥特曼厉声问道，他和埃弗里对视了一下。 “这只是一种预防措施。” 戴利。就像防火毯一样。 还有以利亚·威廉姆斯，我另一个最好的朋友也是我的邻居，拿着的灭火器。 刹那间，悔恨像滚烫的气体分子一样在我的体内迅速膨胀。 我真的在课间休息时用一种不那么安静的声音宣称我可以喷火吗？ 是的。凯特·克劳福德随时为您服务！如果我知道之后会发生什么，我还会喷火吗？ 这是复杂的。因为这不仅仅是喷火演示。

It was all the stuff days later. Because of the demo. Because of me. But I didn't know any of that then. I just knew I had to breathe fire like Dr. Caroline, on YouTube. It's not only because she blows things up and makes the best and weirdest messes. Or because of her hot-pink lab coat and cool shoes. It's because by listening to her, I realized that chemistry is way more than a bunch of facts in a book. Chemistry is what you eat, it's how you sleep, it's why shampoo stings your eyes in the shower. You can taste science, you can smell it. And you can watch it explode. And that was the reason I had to breathe fire. It was also why weird things started happening to me. You might call them messages. Or formulas that didn't make sense. And when something doesn't make sense, I, Kate Crawford, get very, very curious and just have to figure it out.

几天后，所有的东西都消失了。 因为演示。因为我。 但我当时什么都不知道。 我只知道我必须像。 卡洛琳，在YouTube上。这不仅仅是因为她把事情搞得一团糟。 也不是因为她的艳粉色实验服和酷鞋。 因为听了她的话，我意识到化学不仅仅是书本上的一堆事实。 化学反应决定了你吃什么，决定了你怎么睡觉，也决定了为什么洗澡时洗发水会刺痛你的眼睛。 你能尝到科学的味道，你能闻到它。 你可以看着它爆炸。 这就是我必须喷火的原因。 这也是为什么奇怪的事情开始发生在我身上。 你可以称它们为信息。 或者一些没有意义的公式。 当有些事情说不通的时候，我，凯特·克劳福德，就会变得非常非常好奇，想要弄清楚。