The Science of Breakable Things

by Tae Keller

  “Twig, wait,” I said again, gripping the phone so tightly that my fingers started going numb. “We don’t have to fly to New Mexico. There are seeds in my mom’s lab. I can go there—I can go there tonight.”

  Twig yelped, and I had to turn down my volume even more. “The lab at Lancaster University? Natalie! Why didn’t you say so? We can do that. We can do that!”

  “Twig, no,” I said, already climbing out of bed. “You’re not coming.”

  I turned on my lamp and tiptoed through my room, grabbing a notebook and pen. The clock read 12:56 a.m. I had no time to lose.

  “What? Of course I’m coming!”

  “Twig, no,” I repeated. This whole time, I’d let Twig and Dari take the lead on the egg project. But now I needed to take charge. And I couldn’t drag my friends into this.

  “But—”

  I hung up and turned my phone on silent. I knew she’d be upset about this, but I couldn’t risk it. Breaking into Mom’s lab would be hard, and I didn’t want Twig to get in any trouble.

  I pulled up the Lancaster transportation schedule on my phone and tap-tapped my way to the bus times, and I came up with a plan. I leaned over my notebook and wrote down a quick procedure, because if Mr. Neely taught me anything, it’s to be thorough:

  PROCEDURE:

  1. Steal Mom’s lab keys.

  2. Walk ten minutes to the nearest bus stop.

  3. Catch the 1:23 a.m. bus, ten stops to Garden Springs.

  4. Walk the five blocks to Mom’s old lab on campus.

  5. Break in and steal an orchid seed.

  6. Catch the 2:48 bus home.

  I ripped out the notebook paper and stuffed the procedure in my pajama pocket, and felt a giddy thrill rising inside me. There should have been a moment, I think, where I went, Oh, wait. But I hadn’t just silenced my Bad Idea Alarm. I’d broken it. And here was the solution to Not-Mom, the answer I’d been hoping for since the summer.

  For the first time, I was doing something real. The egg drop was full of wanting and wishing and hoping. Now here I was—doing.

  First step: grab Mom’s keys. I tiptoed through the dark, silent house and stood outside Mom and Dad’s room, turning the knob all the way before I pushed the door open.

  In the darkness of their room, I could barely make out their outlines—Mom curled up against Dad, and Dad holding her gently, even in sleep, as if she were breakable. As if she weren’t already broken.

  I took a deep breath and crept toward their dresser, where Mom left her purse at night. It was a big bag because Mom used to lug her whole life around with her, wherever she went. She hadn’t used the purse in a while. She hadn’t gone anywhere in a while. I opened the latch to her purse and dug through the pockets—Quick, Natalie. Quiet, Natalie—and then there they were: the cold, solid keys, resting right in my hand.

  I wrapped my fist around them so they wouldn’t clink, and left my parents’ bedroom with three wide, breathless steps. I hurried back down the hallway, the keys biting into my palm the whole time, and I’d almost made it to my bedroom door when I heard someone clear their throat behind me.

  I turned, stomach dropping to my feet. I wasn’t ready to face my parents, wasn’t ready to be stopped. Not when I was so close.

  But it wasn’t Mom or Dad standing behind me. It was Twig.

  I had to clap my hand to my mouth to stop a yelp of surprise from escaping.

  “Hi,” Twig whispered. Her blond hair poked out from under a black beanie, and she smiled her wild Twig grin.

  It took me a moment to orient myself, to understand that she was standing in my room, in the middle of the night. “Twig? How did you get in here?”

  She waved her hand through the air, swatting away my question as if it were ridiculous. “I’ve been your best friend for years. Of course I know where your parents hide the spare key.” Twig was whispering, but we all know by now that whispering is not her strength.

  I glanced back at my parents’ bedroom, holding my breath, but the house was silent. “You know about the fake rock?”

  Twig gave me a look like, duh. She was wearing all black—leggings, boots, beanie, and her big puffy coat, which rustled as she moved closer to me. “What’s the plan? Are you ready to go?”

  “Twig, I—”

  She held her hand up as if to physically stop my protests. “I know you told me not to come, but I’m your best friend in the whole world. I’ll always be by your side. And besides, this is the best adventure ever. I’m not getting left behind.”

  My heart was so full in that moment that I wanted to cry, but I just wrapped her in a hug instead. Truth is: I felt better knowing Twig was there. Twig made everything seem possible.

  I pulled the procedure out of my pocket and handed it to her.

  She scanned it quickly and looked at her watch.* “If we’re going to catch the 1:23 bus, we have to go now. And we have to run.”

  There was no time to change into better clothes, so I pulled my big wool coat over my cat-and-dog pajamas, and we tiptoed out of the house, careful not to make too much sound.

  And then we were outside, in the cold night air, ready for this last, unexpected phase of Operation Egg. Snow whirled around us, murking everything into a white haze, and I shivered as chunks of wet ice landed on my face.

  I breathed in the icy air, and I was ready to run when someone asked, “What’s the plan?”

  I blinked through the snowy haze, once, twice, and how did I not see him before? Dari, standing in front of us, fists shoved into his pockets, shoulders hunched up to his ears. He rocked back and forth on his heels with cold and discomfort.

  “What?” I said, because that was the only thing I could say. My emotions were moving too quickly—I could hardly keep track. Hopelessness, confusion, excitement, and now a hot flame of anger. “What are you doing here?”

  “Guys, we have to get to the bus stop,” Twig said, her words rushing together. She looked at me, eyes pleading.

  Dari opened his mouth to say something, but we were already late, and I took off running. I slipped and slid in the snow, but I kept my footing because to fall now would be to fail. My footsteps and heartbeat sounded like orchid, orchid, orchid.

  Twig being here felt right, but Dari threw everything off. I didn’t know him well enough, not yet, and he wasn’t my best friend. Everything Twig had said about the two of us felt empty now.

  Even though the logical side of me knew it was probably unfair, I wanted to scream at Twig for bringing Dari, for telling him about the orchid. That was something Mikayla might have done—but not Twig. If we hadn’t been sprinting for the bus, I would have shouted horrible things. I would have said never mind about Operation Orchid and also maybe never mind about our friendship, because how could she tell him about this? How could she bring him into the secrets and adventures that were supposed to be ours?

  We showed up at the bus stop at 1:23 a.m. exactly. The bus wasn’t there. Two minutes later, still no sign of it.

  “No, no,” Twig said, once she’d stopped panting. “I think we missed it!” That did not make me less angry with her. “We missed it!” she said again, because Twig has no idea when to stop.

  “Natalie,” Dari said cautiously, because unlike her, he has some sense and could tell I was upset. “Twig told me about your flower.”

  No duh, Dari.

  “I know I let you down with the egg drop. I made those tweaks and…it was my fault we lost. But I want to make it up to you. Whatever the plan is, I want you to know I’m here. I’m in.” Then he got all awkward and mumbly and added, “Because we’re a team.”

  Just as he said that, the bus turned the corner and pulled up to the stop, so I was saved from having to respond. I still don’t know what I would have said. I’m glad you’re here, Dari or Go home, Dari or How much did Twig tell yo
u, Dari? Because I wanted to say all of those things, but all of them were slightly wrong, too.

  In the end I didn’t say anything. Twig pulled bus fare for all of us out of her pocket, and the bus driver didn’t bat an eye.

  Twig hesitated, and for the first time that night—maybe even the first time ever—I saw uncertainty in her eyes. I think both of us half expected to be stopped right there. We were so used to being stopped by adults that I think we expected the driver to stand up, put his hands on his hips, and say, Excuse me, young children, but isn’t it a little late to be out on your own? And then he’d drive us back home and oh well, at least we’d tried.

  “Well,” the driver said, smacking bright green chewing gum against his front teeth, “are you getting on or not?” He was tall and skinny, skinnier than Dari even, in a way that looked like his bones might rip right through his skin with one wrong move.

  We got on. Of course we got on. We were following the procedure.

  The only other person on the bus was a homeless man, sitting near the front and drinking out of a paper-bagged bottle, so we sat down in the very back of the bus.

  Twig whispered to me, “What kind of bus driver lets three seventh graders onto a bus in the middle of the night by themselves?” But I didn’t answer, because I was still mad at her, and also because I don’t believe in questioning good luck.

  Twig leaned over and filled Dari in on the procedure, and then we fell silent. The landscape changed around us, and the bus groaned as it made its way out of my neighborhood, into streets full of broken buildings.

  The homeless man started laughing and laughing, at nothing and nobody. My palms got all sweaty and my heart beat fast, and I told myself I was just excited. This feeling: just excitement.

  I’d ridden the bus to the Lancaster University lab once before, years ago when Mom’s car wouldn’t start and she still needed to get to work. I had sighed and jittered my knees up down up down up down so our seats shook, because I hated being on the bus. I liked driving with Mom or Dad in the tiny, private space of our car, and the bus felt wide and open and crawling with other people’s lives.

  But Mom had placed one hand on my shaking knee and said, “This is our adventure, Natalie.” She pointed to the woman in the front of the bus, cradling a baby against her chest, and made up a story: “That’s her first child, and she named the baby Violet, because violets bloom in May.” Just like that, the big bus cramped full of other people’s lives hadn’t seemed so bad anymore.

  Now the bus driver braked quickly for a red light, and liquid sloshed out of the homeless man’s paper-bagged bottle and onto the floor. He swore loudly, and his mouth sounded filled with marbles.

  I hadn’t even realized my legs were shaking. I gripped my knees until they stopped.

  “How much longer?” Twig whispered, and I couldn’t tell if she was asking out of excitement or impatience or fear. For the first time, I realized I couldn’t read her. Tonight was a night of firsts for Twig, I guess. Or maybe this was just the first time I was noticing.

  “Five more stops,” Dari said. He was fiddling with something small and pink, rubbing it back and forth in his hand. “Just five more stops. Count them, Twig.” I realized then that it was the tiny flamingo. Twig had decided to give it to him after all.

  Twig relaxed beside me, so I guess she had been nervous, too. I hated that I hadn’t been the one to make her feel better.

  We rolled past another stop, where nobody got on, because nobody else in the world was awake right now except for the three of us, the bus driver, and the homeless man. Twig reached out and squeezed my hand so tight, and I squeezed back, and we counted the stops—five, four, three, two, one. I reached up and tugged the yellow cord, and the bus hadn’t even stopped before we were running to the front, lurching and swaying with that giant hunk of metal.

  “Ain’t it a little late for three little bits?” the man said, pointing his bottle at us in accusation, but I clamped onto Twig’s hand and pulled her off the bus before she could respond.

  The bus driver didn’t say anything at all, didn’t even give us a glance before cranking the doors shut and roaring away. And then the street was silent, and the three of us stood on the sidewalk, hugging our arms against our chests.

  “Well, I guess we should walk to the lab now,” Dari said, his jaw clenched, his face pale.

  I turned on my heel and started walking past the dorms and the academic buildings, toward Mom’s lab. Two giggling college girls in miniskirts and Ugg boots walked past us, giving us sideways glances and then giggling even harder into their hands, but they didn’t question us. We kept walking. I hadn’t been here in months, but I knew the way—it was etched deep down in my bones. This was kind of like coming home. I reminded myself to be excited. I reminded myself that this was a good thing.

  * Twig is pretty much the only person in seventh grade who wears a watch—and she only does it because her mom hates it. The face is a big plastic Hello Kitty, and her mom calls it “a travesty.”

  Back when Mom worked, she was in the lab constantly, especially in those last few months with the Cobalt Blue Orchid, sacrificing late nights, weekends, even holidays. Mom loved her job. But she loved me, too.

  Instead of enrolling me in preschool, she’d taken me to the lab with her, and I’d never stopped tagging along. I even had my own white coat. I think it was from an old student intern, some short girl from Montana, but it became mine and I loved it. I never felt like I was very good at science, but I loved the lab. I loved being with Mom, away from my normal life filled with school and homework and, later, filled with Mikayla being all weird. Mikayla stopped coming to the lab in fifth grade. She had Better Things to Do.

  I’m not sure what I expected to feel when we walked up to that massive building, but I thought my heart would match the occasion. I shouldn’t have been so afraid. I should have felt happy or excited or just right, because I was so close to fixing my family and putting everything back together, just the way it was supposed to be.

  But late at night, the building loomed, looking not at all the way I remembered it.

  “We can do this,” Twig whispered into my ear, as if she could sense my fear. I was still a little upset with her, but her words helped. Twig was good like that.

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out Mom’s keys, holding them with shaking hands.

  “Do you need some help?” Dari said as I fumbled with the lock. “The cold is making your fingers numb, so it’s hard for you to grip the key. I have gloves, so—”

  “I got it, Dari,” I said. I knew he was trying to be helpful, but I couldn’t stand him right then. Just looking at him made my blood bubble with that Not Right feeling, and I didn’t want to hear his voice.

  I got the first lock opened, and then moved on to the dead bolt. We stood outside in the cold, the winter air whipping through the thin cotton of my pajama pants. I think we froze to death and came back to life and then froze all over again before I finally got us inside.

  The lobby of the building was clean and sleek and full of oddly shaped lamps. A guard sat slumped over the front desk, his snores echoing. I’d forgotten about the guard, somehow—guards had never been a problem when I was with Mom. She’d smile and wave and say hello, but this was a guard I’d never seen before. So much had changed, in just a few months.

  Twig whispered, “This place looks like a fancy Ikea catalog,” which was funny and true, but we didn’t dare laugh. Dari raised his pointer finger to his lips and held it there as we tiptoed through the lobby, moving so slowly we hardly moved at all.

  The elevator would have made too much noise, so we chose the stairs instead, pushing the door to the stairwell open, holding our breaths as we clicked it shut. The three of us climbed those steps, all the way to the lab on the third floor, and when Twig glanced over at me, with those wide, wild eyes, I knew exactl
y what she was thinking.

  This time, we really were like secret agent spies. No more pretending.

  When we made it to the third floor, we stood in front of big glass doors, in the tiny space between the stairs and elevator and the lab.

  Twig looked at me. “Well, do you want to do the honors?”

  So I did the honors. I pushed Mom’s third key into the lock and opened the doors, and we were inside. It was all so familiar: the long hallway entrance, the offices lining the white walls, and the white tiled floors. I was excited and heartsick, all at once, and I almost didn’t hear the quiet ticking underneath the sound of my own heartbeat, but Twig did.

  “Natalie,” she said. I followed Twig’s gaze toward the tiny code box, which was flashing blue on the wall. Click, click, click, it went, all quiet like it didn’t really want to bother you. Like it was saying, Um, excuse me, but, uh, you’re intruding?

  “Do you know the code?” Dari asked.

  I didn’t. This, too, I don’t know how I’d forgotten. How many times had I gone to Mom’s lab? How many times had I seen her punch the code in after entering? One last security measure, just in case—just in case three kids broke into the lab at 2:00 a.m.

  I should’ve watched Mom more carefully. I should have paid attention. “Um,” I said, because that’s the only answer I could give.

  “Natalie,” Twig said again, panic blooming in her voice.

  “Right,” I said, moving toward the alarm box. The flashing blue looked like police lights, but at least it wasn’t loud. At least I could think.

  I typed 1111, but the light kept flashing.

  “I don’t think that’s the code,” Dari said.

  I could have killed him, right there, but I didn’t. I typed in 2222. The box kept flashing.