Crystal (Orphans 2)

"Fine," I said. "Ashley?"

"Okay," she said in a small voice. "But I'm not an orphan"

Bernie laughed. I hadn't heard him laugh that hard before. It brought a smile to my face, and that made Ashley smile, too.

Across the cafeteria, the other students who had been looking at us with disdain were now suddenly full of curiosity about us.

But nowhere near as much as we were about ourselves.

9 In the Name of Science

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" This is a graph," Bernie began, holding up a grid. "There's one for each of us."

Ashley and I sat on two chairs in his room while he stood and lectured. Ashley said it felt as if she were back in school. I asked her to be patient.

"This will be session one," he continued, closing and opening his eyes with annoyance. "We will do the same things each session and rate our reactions to them on a scale of one to ten, ten being the most intense. Our objective is to determine how kissing affects us, which kisses we like best, and so on. Understand?" he asked. He did sound and look like Mr. Friedman, our science teacher.

"No," Ashley said, shaking her head. "It sounds like gobbledygook. What does a graph have to do with kissing?"

"The graph doesn't have anything to do with it. It's just a way of recording reactions scientifically:' Bernie sighed with frustration. He looked at me. "You see why I could never be a teacher?"

Bernie shook his head, took a deep breath, and returned to his chart.

"We'll meet here every night over the next week or so," he said.

"I still don't understand what we're doing," Ashley whined.

"Ultimately, we're going to see which kinds of kisses we like best, dry, quick pecks or long, wet ones," Bernie said a bit cruelly. "You have thought about kissing a boy before, right? Just pretend I'm whatever boy you're in love with this week, and plant one on me."

Ashley sucked in her breath and held it. She looked as if she might explode. Her eyes bulged. She looked from me to Bernie and then started to shake her head.

"I won't do that," she said. She kept shaking her head.

"You're not going to sit there and tell us you've never thought about kissing a boy?" He was getting exasperated. "It's natural to think about it."

She couldn't get any redder, I thought, and I felt myself blushing as well. All this talk about kissing was making me as nervous as Ashley.

"It's very important that we're honest with one another," Bernie emphasized. "In science, honesty is essential. We can't hide truth, and we can't pretend. No one here is going to laugh or make fun of anyone else, either. We're serious, and we're going to be adult about it, right, Crystal?"

"Yes," I said, surprised myself at how clinical Bernie made it all seem. It didn't even sound sexy or mysterious. Which is how I always dreamed it would be.

"Why is he the one telling us everything we have to do?" Ashley complained.

"You asked me to help with this experiment, and I've done it," Bernie said.

"I didn't ask. Crystal and I were curious about kissing, and you butted in, right, Crystal?"

"Yes, but we need Bernie's help."

"You're going to do this?" she asked.

"Yes," I said, looking at Bernie, who seemed more determined and purposeful than ever. "I'm very interested, and I know we'll learn a lot more about ourselves."

She glued her huge eyes to my face for a moment. "Well?" Bernie demanded.

"All right," Ashley said. "If Crystal's going to do it, I'll try."