6 The Experiments: Part 3

Elise got up around 8:30 and made her bed. She got dressed quickly, but with care, choosing a fitted yellow tee shirt with some jean capri pants and her white tennis shoes. She didn't want to look like she was trying too hard, but she wanted to do something with her hair. In the end, she just pulled it back into a ponytail. Her hair was long, but after she brushed it, it looked so silky and soft. Elise didn't really have any make-up, so she just used a little Chapstick. She looked around her room.

If Finnegan were to see my room...

There were books and papers stacked on her desk, her bookbag hanging over the back of her chair, a laundry basket full of clothes at the end of her bed, and a dresser with a small jewelry box and jars of pens and markers and hair clips lined up in front of the mirror. Her twin size comforter had a picture of a Lisa Frank tiger on it with a matching pillowcase on the pillow. The walls were painted white, but they looked a little dirty, and the carpet was a dull, faded blue. None of the furniture matched. They were all things her mom had found at thrift stores or hand-me-downs from friends who were upgrading their furniture. It was all sturdy and perfectly functional, but it was simple.

The rest of the house was the same way, but less colorful. Her mom didn't really know how to decorate, but everything looked nice, even if it didn't match. There was a set of two black and white abstract pictures with a red rose posed in the center on the wall above the green corduroy couch in the living room. A small yellow and white quilt had been folded up and tucked across the seat cushions. The carpet was brown, and the tv stand was black. A long, gold-framed mirror hung on one wall, and the wall across from that one was lined with bookshelves. The bookshelves had cabinets on the bottom and three shelves on the top. The cabinets were where Elise's mom kept all the home videos and memorabilia from Elise's childhood. Pictures, old macaroni noodle crafts, report cards, and important milestone records. The bookshelves didn't really have a lot of books, even though Elise loved to read. There were some children's books that Elise was allowed to buy at the book fairs, but mostly the shelves contained DVD's, VHS tapes of Disney movies, and CD's. The CD's all belonged to Elise's mom. It was mostly CD collections she had ordered off of the home shopping network. Collections of Oldies, Country, and Classic Love Songs. Nothing from this time period.

The rest of the house wasn't really much to describe. A small bathroom, down what could barely be considered a hallway, containing a bathtub, toilet, trashcan, and a sink with a mirror on the wall. The kitchen was also small. It was about the size of a cubicle. With the stove, sink and microwave, there wasn't much room left for counter space, Even the refrigerator had to be exiled to the room that could only be considered a dining room, except instead of a dining table, there was a small bistro table for two. That just leaves Elise's mom's room and the laundry room, which are both unnecessary to describe.

While Elise made the sandwiches and packed them delicately into a picnic basket with the ranch and veggies and eating utensils and plates, she thought to herself, "Yes, Finnegan should absolutely not be able to set foot into this house. It isn't messy, but I'm ashamed of it." Even Cheyanne didn't stay long when she would come visit. We either drove somewhere, like the park or the river which was only about seven miles away, or we would just go back to her house and watch tv there.

Elise made a sun tea in a big pickle jar, and just before noon, she added in the sugar and placed it in the fridge. Her mom had gotten up early and gone out to the garden to work. Elise went out to let her know Finnegan would be here soon.

"Mom! It's 12:08. Finnegan will be here any minute. I told him 12:15"

"Ok, I'll be right there, I just wanna get all these weeds pulled out."

Elise walked back up to the house and waited eagerly by the window, watching for that Honda Civic with the tinted windows.

Finnegan was only a couple minutes late, but Elise had brought the picnic basket, the jar of tea, and a little blanket out by the front door. Finnegan parked his car where she had told him before, and grabbed a shoulder bag out of the backseat before walking towards the house.

Elise's heart was pounding. Thankfully, he was wearing a plain white tee shirt and khaki shorts with lots of pockets and hiking shoes with white crew socks. He looked pretty average if he didn't wear all black, but he was still just as handsome as ever.

"Hey, Elise!" he waved as he walked up pulling his shoulder bag strap over his head across his body. Just at that time, her mom walked around the corner of the house.

"Hi, Finnegan. Hi, Mom. This is my science partner, Finnegan."

Her mom was wearing sweatpants and a plaid long-sleeved shirt to garden in, and carrying her gardening gloves in her hand.

"Hello, Finnegan. Nice to meet you. You'll have to excuse me, I've been in the garden all day." She dusted her hand off on her pants and held her hand out to him.

He shook it and said, "Oh that's fine. My mom and dad have a garden as well. It's nice to meet you also." Elise's mom stood looking him over, and Finnegan looked at Elise. Elise laughed nervously.

"Ok, then. We're going to the pond to get started. Um, Finnegan, did you bring your science book with you? I can go grab mine."

"Oh, no, I totally forgot to grab that. I just brought some string to tie our model together, and some paint. And some bug spray," he smiled, and for a second, Elise thought he might wink at her.

"Ok, I'll be right back. Wait here." She looked at her mom before going back into the house. Finnegan still wore his ring, but maybe her mom wouldn't think that was weird. She hurried to grab her book, and also grabbed a pen and her notebook.

When she came back out, Finnegan and her mom were talking about vegetables.

"Ok, ready?" she asked Finnegan.

"Sure. Can I help you carry anything?"

"Yes, thank you." She handed him the book, notebook and pen which he put into his shoulder bag. Then he reached out for the tea and blanket. "Ok, Mom, see you later."

"Alright," her mom said pleasantly. "I'll be inside. It's getting hot now, so stay in the shade."

Elise led Finnegan out of the yard, carrying the picnic basket. They walked through the field and to the cattle pond. The ground became soft and muddy the closer they got to the pond, but they stepped on the clumped grass to keep from sinking.

"Sorry," she said over her shoulder to Finnegan, who was being more careful since he was carrying most of the things. "I haven't actually been out to the pond in a while. I forgot how muddy it can be, but it isn't too bad on the other side."

"It's alright. I don't mind." He continued on as if this was what he did everyday.

When they got to a flat spot on the other side of the pond, she set the basket down and took the blanket from him to spread it out. "Are you hungry?" she asked him. It was all she could do to try to be cool. There was a fence with a gravel road on the other side, then another cow field and a house on the hill in the distance. Behind where they made their picnic, there was more field that stretched out to the road, and in front of them was the pond, encircled by trees. The pond was low and there was a thin film of green algae growing across the surface of the water.

"Um, not yet, but I'll try some of the tea, if that's ok." Finnegan put his bag down next to the blanket and walked to the edge of the pond to inspect it closer. While Elise was pouring the tea into some plastic cups she had packed, he asked her, "Did you have cows before?"

"Um, a long time ago, before my parents got divorced. My mom sold them all because they were too much to take care of on her own. I was still a baby." It felt strange to tell him about herself. She decided this was a good time to find out more about him as well.

"What about you? What do your parents do?" she tried to ask casually.

"Oh, my mom works in the office of a Central Air business, and my dad is a security guard at the hospital." He sat down on the blanket and took the cup from Elise. She sat next to him and arranged the basket and jar of tea to the side.

"Hmm, can you hand me the book? I want find the page that shows the water molecule." Elise sat cross-legged with her hands in her lap. Her posture was so straight, but somehow she still appeared relaxed. Finnegan set his cup down and pulled out the book, handing it to her.

He watched her open the book and find the page easily. Once she found it, she set the book down and plucked a blade of grass to use as a bookmark. Looking pleased with herself, she smiled and looked up at him. Their eyes met and he looked away pretending to need another drink of his tea.

"Ok, well, I guess we should get started. We need to to make two hydrogen atoms with one electron each in the outer energy level, and one oxygen atom with six electrons in the outer energy level and two electrons in the inner energy level."

Finnegan leaned forward and cocked his head a little to view the diagram I was pointing to. We got up from the blanket and walked together around the pond, staring at the ground in front of us. every now and then, he would stop and bend down to inspect a rock or pull down a limb and inspect the leaves. He looked around. In the distance there was a forested area. "Is that forest part of your property too? That might be a good place to look," he said pointing toward the trees.

"Uh, yeah, ok." He started to explain that if he could find some vines, or some green twigs that weren't thorny, he could twist and bend them into a circle to make the round shape for the atoms. And all we would need would be some other small round objects to represent the electrons and the nucleus. I listened, but all I could think about was how nice it was that he was here. We looked around and finally found a bush with easy to reach and cut twigs that were green enough to satisfy Finn.

On the way back to our picnic blanket, I found some black walnuts that would be good to use for the nucleus. Just before we got to the pond, Finnegan veered off towards the fence. I followed him, and when I caught up to him, I saw what caught his eye. There was a bush with little, hard, red berries. "Hey, those would be perfect for the electrons. Is that everything we need?"

"Yep," he said, as I helped him pick the berries. "Now I'll just dry these out and attach everything together. Ready to eat?"

I pulled out the food from the basket and laid it all out on the blanket while he poured us more tea from the jar. "I hope you like veggies, but if not I brought some extra sandwiches. And there's some ranch for dipping," I explained as I pulled out some small containers with ranch and set them out.

"Oh, this looks great, actually. Thank you for bringing it. Not many people really know how to picnic like this anymore. The last time I got invited to a picnic, they just brought Subway. They didn't even bother to use a basket or anything. This is nice." He smiled and took a bite of the sandwich he was holding.

His ring stood out against the white of the bread, and I couldn't help my curiosity any more. "Hey, can I ask you something?"

He finished chewing and swallowed. "Sure. What's up?" He took another bite and waited, looking at me. I got nervous and couldn't hold the eye contact, so my eyes darted to his had and then to my sandwich. "What does that symbol on your ring mean? I notice that you always wear it. Most guys don't wear jewelry, usually." I took a bite of my sandwich.

He finished the bite he was chewing, then set his sandwich down and took a sip of tea. "It's a pentacle. The five-pointed star symbolizes the Five Elements: Water, Earth, Fire, Air, and Spirit. The circle around it shows that all of those elements are connected and equal. When the top point is up, this is a symbol of the Goddess, and when the point is down, it is a symbol of the God. This is to say, Divine Feminine and Divine Masculine energy. I wear this ring to invoke the protection of the Goddess."

When he got done explaining, he thought maybe he went too far, or not far enough. She didn't say anything. She sat with her brows furrowed in thought. He finished the rest of his sandwich and ate some of the veggies with the ranch.

Finally, she looked at him and said, "So, it's a religious thing?"

He stared at her, half out of nervousness of what she was going to say and half out of hope that she wasn't going to freak out. He nodded at her, unable to voice a reply.

"What religion? I've never heard of a religion that has a Goddess."

"I'm pagan. My whole family is pagan," he said cautiously.

"Do you go to church?" She was just curious about him. She wasn't afraid, and she didn't think he was a devil-worshipper! This was such a relief. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to let her visit his house. But then again, it could be overwhelming.

"Well, we don't really have a church like you would normally think of. Our churches are places like this. Fields and forests, open skies full of stars, thunderstorms, and mountaintops. Anywhere that nature is majestic and sacred can be our church."

She still looked thoughtful, but her brows weren't furrowed anymore. She looked more serene.

"Hey," he said. She looked at him without changing her expression. "Thank you." Suddenly she became shy again.

"Oh, don't worry about it. It's no problem. I need an excuse to use this picnic basket anyway. I feel bad that you're doing most of the work on this project anyway." She was rambling a bit.

"No, what I mean is, thank you for not freaking out or thinking I'm weird about the whole pagan thing. I wear the ring openly, but usually no one asks, and I try to keep it pretty low profile anyway." He looked at her and smiled warmly. He really felt like this girl was somehow becoming important in his life.

"Oh," she said, smiling back at him affectionately. Or was she just being nice? "I actually think it's pretty interesting. But don't worry, I won't talk to you about it at school." They sat quietly for a little while longer, listening to the chittering of the squirrels and the birds. The hum of the insects. And, every now and then, a *plop* from a frog hopping into the pond.

"Anyway," Elise broke the silence between them. " I guess we should pack up and get back to the house. My mom is a little crazy."

"I get it. Like I said, my parents are weird too. When you come over on Monday, don't refuse her tea, and she might try to read your palms. My dad will probably sit on the porch the whole time until dinner. So, I apologize in advance." We finished packing up the picnic and were already walking back toward the house.

While we walked, I told Finnegan about my idea for our other experiment. I told him we could make a Greek dressing. I had seen a show on the Food Network, where a chef made a quick Greek dressing. While she mixed it, she explained that adding a little bit of mustard to the vinegar and oil mixture caused it to emulsify, which pretty much just means it takes longer to separate and stays blended together longer. My plan was to make a bottle without mustard, and one bottle with.

Finnegan seemed pretty interested and said his parents would actually be pretty interested too. So, by the time we got back to the house, we had decided that I would just stay for dinner on Monday after we worked on our project, and we would make a salad to taste our project. I can't believe how entwined our paths have become! If this keeps up, maybe Finnegan would ask me to be his girlfriend!

Finnegan had picked up on the fact that I really didn't want him to go inside my house, so he set down the things he was carrying by the door and said goodbye. My mom was inside watching tv and didn't bother to come out. I stayed outside until Finnegan pulled out of the driveway.

So, he's pagan. Even when he explains himself to me, he is still a mystery. Will I ever truly know him? Maybe I'm not enough of a mystery for him? With this thought itching in my brain, I went inside and made a list of things to research in Library Aide on Monday. My mom couldn't afford internet, so I had to wait until I got to school.