Chapter 18: Muddy Puddles

It was raining on Tuesday morning, and you’d probably think that I would hate biking in the rain, but let me tell you something about that.

When it’s raining, you can’t coast down a long hill safely because you can’t turn at speed. But the water against your face is refreshing. It’s almost like being in a rainstorm as one of the water droplets. There’s a sense that you’re part of it as your bike rushes through standing water and leaves vertical waves, as splashes lash out into the world. I wouldn’t miss it.

Buses are for losers.

I beat the bus. I always beat the bus.

I tied up the bike extra hard this time because moisture, of course, makes knots slippery.

And I went inside to meet my fate.

On lesson days, the day started with the textbook on everybody’s chair. The physics textbook was separate from the homework packet, which was printed on black-and-white paper. And separate from that, of course, was the answer key, which I had been able to order off eBay because this particular book was about eight years old.

He had been reusing it for years.

Thus, the books lived in the classroom and didn’t go home with us.

Which would have been blatantly unfair, if he didn’t give us plenty of time for homework in class. This, in turn, gave him plenty of time to write up his plans for football practice. In his mind, I’m sure, it was a great solution for the benefit of everyone.

Coach had a final preparation problem for us up on the board, worth 10 points. I could tell because he wrote “Worth 10 points.”

On what? Final grade? Homework grade? No clue. Nobody asked, either. My grades in physics were so high—for obvious reasons—that I was completely unconcerned with my final performance. Or homework. I could sleep in class and be fine.

Still, I took a look at it.

There is a car crash, it said. Calculate the momentum transfer between the cars. Both cars are going 20 miles an hour.

So far, so good.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

For your calculation purposes, both cars are perfect spheres on a frictionless highway in a vacuum, each weighing two tons.

Okay, Coach. Seriously.

Once you removed all the fun parts, the problem was very simple. I sketched it, then I did the math on my phone’s calculator, because not every teacher thinks our future is going to be Amish.

It turned out, if you assumed ‘inelastic’ spheres, they just bounce. Duh.

Then I was done. Back to the book.

Tristan had discovered a really cool, dark red, blood-colored rose. He was trying to promote its growth by taking clippings from that rose and putting them on other rose plants.

Did I know if that was how agriculture worked? No.

But I, along with three noble daughters, thought it was freaking hot.

Strong hands using twine to bind together different cross-sections of rose stems. Gentle fingers coaxing new growth from freshly mended life.

Mostly the first bit.

Yum.

Blessed, rain-filled silence for half of the class as the least common denominator worked to solve the extremely simple question on the board.

Sadly, my classmate Jessica, the aforementioned student, eventually finished the problem.

“Two!” she said happily.

“Two what?” asked Coach.

“...Kilometers per hour?” she asked uncertainly.

Coach is a big guy.

Like, most big guys could move a fridge. Or, you know, you hope they could move a fridge. You imagine at least two big guys together could move a fridge, right?

Coach could eat a fridge.

When he stood up to answer Jessica’s question, the Earth moved a little bit in its orbit because his thigh muscles told it that it had to.

“The problem,” he said slowly, “was two cars driving toward one another at twenty miles per hour.”

She nodded vacantly.

I started giggling.

“As some of your classmates have surmised,” he said, his eyes flicking toward me.

I giggled harder.

Nothing in the problem was in kilometers per hour. Though, technically, you could express it in any units, since he didn’t specify.

I was out of bounds. I was completely mocking her to her face. I tried to stop. I couldn’t stop.

Jessica glared at me.

She also hadn’t said anything about how the two cars behaved relative to one another—two kilometers per hour…away from one another, afterward? In a clockwise orbit?

Coach sighed. “Do you have anything you wanted to contribute, Miss Holloway?”

I got my voice under control for a moment. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m just stuck on the idea of spherical cars.”

Coach shot me a grin.

Like a movie star grin from the days of black-and-white pictures. Like Bucky from Captain America.

I do not have a crush on my teacher.