18 Perfectly Rotten

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN PERFECTLY ROTTEN Entropy (noun). The randomness of molecules, like how many different ways they can totally rearrange themselves during a reaction. Sort of like all the different ways a bunch of kids can move their desks to confuse a substitute teacher. AFTER EVERYONE TOOK A BREAK, loud groans echoed from the lighting booth. Obviously, Elijah and his crew still couldn't figure out how to fix the lights. On the stage, which I'd been lighting with the flashlight from my emergency kit, two unicorns held their horns in place. The others had given up. A half dozen horns lay in a jumbled heap on the floor, like some unicorn horn junkyard. With a deep sigh, Mrs. Hansberry frowned at her watch. "Elijah, please turn on the house lights." Instantly, the theater was no longer dark, and the magical illusion of Unicornland disappeared. The hulking volcanoes were just giant cardboard

rectangles. The rainbow was clearly only a cellophane banner. "I'm afraid I'm going to end rehearsal a tad early, before anything else breaks," said Mrs. Hansberry. "Everyone is on edge. Why don't you all run around the field for some good fresh air before your parents pick you up?" A bunch of kids went outside to play a game of pick-up soccer. Normally, I would have joined them, but I needed some space. Even though that only made me feel worse. Settling next to a sugar maple tree with golden and red leaves, I breathed in the cool October air. Sure, it was a bit nippy, but that would help me think more clearly. Underneath my legs, the bumpy knots from the roots of the maple made me feel like I wasn't alone. Actually, I wasn't. Birdie sat silently across from me with her sketch pad balanced on her knees. "What are you working on?" I asked. "You'll see." She wiggled her fingers in the air as if she were about to do a card trick. I opened up my biography about Marie Curie, who won two Nobel Prizes for science. It didn't take

me long to get lost in those pages. Wow, Marie Curie was unstoppable. Back when girls couldn't study science in universities in Poland, she met with friends in secret locations that they called a flying university. They moved from building to building, so they wouldn't get caught. I tried to imagine my life if chemistry were off-limits. No more reading science books or watching Dr. Caroline. Worst of all, no more experiments. Whenever I got frustrated, my dad always told me to go outside and blow off some steam. Only sometimes you could be just as frustrated outside as inside. Like Birdie sitting next to me. With a frustrated grunt, she crumpled a sheet from her pad. "C'mon. It can't be that bad." I reached to pick up the paper, but Birdie grabbed it away. "Oh, it is. Trust me." "You working on arms again?" Birdie hasn't figured out arms yet, so she makes all of her people with their hands behind their back. "I'm drawing a unicorn. Mrs. Hansberry asked me to make one for the cover of the program." "Wow, Birdie. That's awesome. You're great at unicorns."

"I just can't get the proportions right on this one." "You'll figure it out. I know it." I could see the hint of a smile. And some of the geese in the sky honked as if they agreed. Soon I went back inside the theater to check in with Mrs. Hansberry about the plans for tomorrow. Thursday was going to be the rehearsal where everyone was working very hard to be off-book. Mrs. Hansberry also told me that she expected the dress rehearsal to go much better on Friday. But not too much better. "In theater, the rule is if you have a terrible dress rehearsal," she explained in her calm soothing voice, "you'll have a wonderful opening night. And given that our opening night is also our closing night, that's a comforting thought." As she handed me a checklist of things to do, I tried to relax. Mrs. Hansberry placed her clipboard in her bag and grabbed her coat. "Expect the dress rehearsal to be a rather interesting day as we work out the wrinkles. Prepare for Murphy's Law." "Is that a science thing?" "Not exactly. More like folk wisdom created by a pessimist. According to Murphy's Law, whatever can go wrong will go wrong."

"Hey, that sounds like entropy. You know, the principle that everything will naturally become a mess." "They do sound similar, don't they?" As I started to grab my backpack to leave, Elijah emerged from the lighting booth. "Are things better?" I asked, although I figured with Murphy's Law they shouldn't be. "With Mr. Anderson's help, yes," he said. Mr. Anderson was a dad volunteering in the booth. "We figured out it was a frayed cord that made the whole thing go kablooey." "Like our nerves." "Yeah." "That's good it's all fixed." Actually, it was bad. I was the assistant director. I shouldn't have left to go outside, even though Mrs. Hansberry had encouraged me to do so. It was my job to make sure everything was okay. When I grabbed my backpack, I drew in a sharp breath. "Ah! Not again!" Sticky globs of glue clung to the outside of my zippered compartments. At least this time it was my bag and not my mom's. And I could tell it was the

theater glue. That's what I got for sticking horns on unicorns all afternoon. Later in my mom's minivan on the way home, I thought about all the stuff that went wrong and what I could do tomorrow to make it better. I tapped my chin quickly. Okay, more like frantically. "What's up, Kate?" asked Mom, who definitely could read minds. I didn't want to admit that it had been a really tough day. That somehow it felt a little bit like my fault. If I knew what I was doing as assistant director, I could have helped out more. It was the assistant director's job to keep the show together. To keep things moving as efficiently as an enzyme. Enzymes break down and build molecules snappy quick. And all I was doing was the first part. But I could do better. I knew I could. And I knew I would. First problem to tackle? Unicorn horn glue.