3 It All Heats Up

CHAPTER THREE IT ALL HEATS UP Exothermic Reaction (noun). It's as if the molecules are on the monkey bars, and they can't hang out for a long time, so they drop down to the sand and chill. When they move, heat is released. I GRABBED THE CUP FILLED with cornstarch and tossed it back into my mouth. The saliva was sucked from inside my cheeks. Cornstarch absorbs moisture. It's the first weird part of breathing fire. I had practiced nine times. With Ms. Daly in the room, of course. Since the first Friday after school started, we had carefully gone over each and every step of the demo. And I had also practiced spitting the cornstarch with a fake blowtorch at home all summer. Ms. Daly grabbed the propane torch to double-check its position. Lots of "whoas" and lots of "she's not serious" flew through the room.

I wanted to yell, "You bet!" But then I would swallow cornstarch, and that wouldn't be fun. Because I could choke. Or maybe get sick. Ms. Daly clicked the torch to ignite the fire. With a loud hiss, the blowtorch blasted a jet of gas right next to my face. Holy jeans! This was fire. Okay, now I was shaking in my special birthday cowboy boots. Still, I had dreamed about this moment for so long. I snatched the reusable teal straw. This was the hardest part. I had to blow the cornstarch in my mouth through the straw toward the flame. It was like having a mouth full of peas and a pea shooter. It was harder though, because my mouth felt like cotton. Most fire blowers don't use straws. But Ms. Daly had decided a foot-long one would keep my head a safe distance from the blowtorch. Out of the corner of my eye, I spied my mom and little brother, Liam, peeking in from the back window. Everyone knew Liam was my brother because we had the exact same hair color. Light brown with bright gold highlights. Only mine was super long, and his was super short. And everyone recognized my mother. Especially since she just happened to

be the principal of Rosalind Franklin Elementary. But I knew she didn't want to distract me. It made me feel better seeing her. But also a tiny bit more nervous, too. "Don't step past this line." Ms. Daly pointed to the red duct tape on the floor, which she'd put there so I wouldn't get too close to the flames. Lunging forward, I stopped in front of the red line. From my gut—with everything I had—I blew out the cornstarch through the straw. Like after the ref blew a whistle at the start of a soccer game, I was in the zone. A giant fireball whooshed out of the straw. It was a serious blast. Longer and bigger and brighter than in any practice run. I heard gasps of disbelief and awe. The red-hot ball of sizzling fuel punched out like a fist. Oh no! It was going to incinerate Ms. Daly's cactus on the windowsill. Kids screamed, "Fire!" The cactus's needles started to singe. "It's going to explode!" Avery shouted. She raced to the front of the room, grabbed the bowl of

water, and tossed it on the burning cactus. Only it missed the cactus and drenched me instead. Elijah pulled out the pin on the fire extinguisher and pushed down on the trigger. A spray of foam whooshed out of the tank. Sweeping back and forth, he blasted out the flames. Soon white extinguisher goop covered the cactus. It was saved! Water dripped down my chin, but I didn't mind. Everyone clapped wildly, and I high-fived Elijah, who was grinning from ear to ear. "Thank you," I wanted to say, but yucky cornstarch clogged my mouth. Immediately, I spat out the cornstarch into the bucket and took a big swig of water. You definitely didn't want to eat that stuff. Trust me, it was chalky not tasty. "Do it again!" kids shouted. They meant breathe fire, not spew cornstarch. "But don't burn any plants," said Avery. "Good plan," said Ms. Daly. "But it's a prickly pear. Hopefully, it will resprout." "It looked like fire spit right out of her mouth," said someone in the very back. My heart pounded louder than Elijah's drums in his garage. I did it. Oh yeah! I gave Elijah

another high five. I gave Ms. Daly a high five just as Mom and Liam rushed into the science lab. "I'm so happy the fire is out," said Mom in her principal voice. "That was cool," exclaimed Liam. I bounced up and down like the cement floor was a trampoline. I was so happy, I could spring to the ceiling. I happily and drippily bounced through some of Ms. Daly's explanations. Like how cornstarch was the fuel. And that it worked really well because it had carbon in it. The more carbon, the bigger the fire. It had definitely been a big wow! A fourth grader in a basketball shirt raised his hand. "I want to breathe fire." And then a fifth grader with a shiny ponytail that spurted out of the top of her head yelled, "Me too!" Her name was Julia Yoon, and she was president of the student council. She liked to be in charge, just like me. "Can we try it now?" she asked. "Please?" Ms. Daly smiled tightly. "Not right now," she said. And I could hear Avery whispering, "So unfair." The basketball shirt kid rolled his eyes. "Kate worked hard to understand how fire breathing worked," continued Ms. Daly, "and practiced a lot. With adult supervision. However,

I'd love for you all to start thinking about your own science projects. You could enter them in our upcoming science fair." Then Ms. Daly went on to explain that what I did was called an exothermic reaction. How things went from high energy to low energy. I was definitely not feeling low energy. I couldn't stop grinning. Oh yeah, chemistry was cool!