Chaos Theory Read Free Page A

through history at scientists, but they risked more than ridicule. Scientists have been ostracized, harassed, and killed pursuing their ideas.”
    â€œDad, I’m not Galileo or Kepler. If the science isn’t out there, it’s not going to work!”
    Dad backs off and Mom steps in, playing parent tag. She’s the real scientist. Mom’s an astronomer; Dad’s in social science—the head kind of social science. “Formulas come from someone. They are discovered.”
    Boxed in, which is their intent, I carry my empty plate to the sink. “Not by a high school student. If great minds are stymied after years of work, there’s no chance I’m going to solve chaos theory before the competition.”
    Mom strikes like a cobra. “Well, it’s about time you pushed yourself, Kami. You’ve always gone the easy route. Collecting data and inserting it into someone else’s work isn’t breaking new ground, it just confirms theirs.”
    Arghhh! First Sensei and now Mom telling me I don’t push myself hard enough! “It works! I win. Last year, I won regionals. Remember? Locker chaos is going to be a big freaking zero. MIT doesn’t give scholarships for zeros.”
    Dad handles me when I get hot. “The school money is there. Your grandmother’s will left…”
    I slam the washed plate onto the counter. “It’s not about what Grandma left.” Reeling in my anger, I say with a lot less heat, “It’s not about the money. It’s about being noticed by the right schools!”
    Dad lets out one of his infinitely patient sighs, but he doesn’t bring up Grandma again, which is wise. I still don’t handle Grandma’s death well. “We’ve had this discussion before. Do what you want to do with your project, but don’t toss it out because you fear failure.”
    Mom jumps in again, boxing me once more. “Research is for research’s sake. You’ve no idea what you will discover if you never try.”
    I look out the kitchen window, dry my plate, and slip it into the cabinet with the others, thinking and thus ends the lesson . That’s what the minister says after reading the gospel; that’s her exclamation mark on what we’re supposed to learn—my chaos locker study won’t be an exclamation mark. It’ll be a dot, dot, dot. As in…
    Outside, unpredicted snow falls again, but this time the little snowflakes are sparkly ice crystals. My thoughts bounce: Daniel pushing my body to keep up and then following me home, a damn locker filled with crap, and chaos theory’s premise that a tiny flutter of butterfly wings in Brazil can cause a tornado in Texas.
    ***
    Super early, I pull EB into a front school parking space and grab my backpack, stuffing empty garbage bags into my jeans’ back pocket. The bags hang out like guts from a disemboweled carcass, mirroring my feelings exactly. I head straight for locker 224, drop my backpack, and stand there.
    Finally, I yank out a plastic bag and open the locker. Honeysuckle and sage blast memories into me. I absorb them, letting them pinball rocket through my mind.
    As they fade, I stare into the locker. It has an odd symmetry. To anyone else it looks ugly; to me it’s a gold mine. Several times, I reach in to shove stuff into the garbage bag. Each time, my hand comes out empty, smelling of Grandma and bringing memories—driving her to chemo and radiation treatments, hours of reading to her, trips to the bathroom for her to barf, trips to the ER, and...
    I stick the garbage bag back into my jeans pocket and grab my smartphone, swiping through images of my locker’s creation. There’s no rotting food in there. The only smells are those hit-me-in-the-chest flower scents. Only worthy things have been added. Somewhere in there is last fall’s band concert program. 3J (Joker Jimmy Johnson) had knocked over his music stand