6 The First Step

CHAPTER SIX THE FIRST STEP 15° F WE FINISHED OUR hot chocolate and Rosie got all sciencey. "First, we need to find out what material will get the hottest when we rub it," Rosie explained. "We need to test paper, wood, metal, and plastic." We got a pencil (wood), a paper towel tube (paper), a coat hanger (metal), and my Hula-Hoop (plastic). We put them all on the kitchen table. "This isn't quite right for our experiment," Rosie said as she held the pencil up and looked at it. She scratched at its surface with her fingernail. "It's painted. We need to get to the wood underneath." "Let me try," Simon said.

Rosie handed it to him. Then Simon put the pencil in his mouth and started to scrape it against his teeth. "Don't do that!" Rosie exclaimed and held her hand out to get the pencil back. "Why not?" Simon asked, giving it back to her.

"You might swallow some paint!" Simon just shrugged. Rosie shook her head at him. It wasn't mean. She just thought he was crazy.

"I'll get some sandpaper," I said. "We have some in the basement." We took turns rubbing the paint off the pencil with the sandpaper. It came off fast. "Okay," I said when all the paint was rubbed off the pencil. "What now?" Rosie showed us what we needed to do. We each took turns rubbing the objects—the pencil, Hula-Hoop, hanger, and paper towel tube— between our thumbs and pointer fingers. We rubbed them real fast for about fifteen seconds. We wanted to find out which one got the hottest.

Rosie asked us not to share our answers. She said that could influence the results. "Okay," Rosie said after we tested each one. "Which one got hottest?" "It wasn't even close," Simon said. "It was the coat hanger." "Totally," I said. "It almost burned my finger." Rosie nodded and smiled. I could tell that was her result too. And I think she already knew the metal hanger would get hottest. She just wanted to confirm it with a scientific test. I reached out and touched the hanger. "It's still warm," I said. Rosie nodded and smiled. She knew it would still be warm.

THE WINNER numberone.