I have always held an affinity for dead things. My mother
thought I was a psychopath, poking at deceased bugs trapped in our screened porch,
and sniffing snakes flattened on concrete after a storm. One time, when I was four,
I brought my mother a dead bird I’d found, much akin to a cat bringing its
owner offerings.
I don’t
remember that instance- but I remember her yelling at me. A lot. I didn’t mean
to creep her out, but before I even knew what death was, I saw it was
bad. When our dog Milly died two years ago, my mom told me she’s gone to a farm
over the rainbow. But I was a believer of science, and I knew there was no such
thing as “over the rainbow.” My second-grade teacher taught us all about how
they were caused by the refraction of light. To me, this didn’t make them any
less magical, it just made them cooler. But it meant my mother was
lying.
I don’t
like liars.
Kimberly
Amelia Jenkins. I write my full name carefully across the top of my paper.
It looks more prestigious that way, like I’m really a scientist. I’m ten years
old now, but when I grow up, I want to study human biology. But if that doesn’t
work out, I can settle for being the president instead.
Today,
we are dissecting amphibians. My teacher arranged our desks into groups of
five, and told us we could pick our partners, to my dismay.
“Mx.
River!” I said, raising my hand, “Is it alright if we work alone?”
Mx.
River was large and imposing, but they had an easy smile. Their hair was always
dyed pretty colors and wore earrings of animals, like cats and dogs. This alone
would’ve made them way cooler than any of my other teachers, but they were also
really seemed to care about science, something we had in common.
“I’m
sorry Kim, honey, but I only have enough amphibians for this to be a group
activity.” They said apologetically.
That was
another thing about Mx. River. They never said, “I told you so” and always gave
solid reasoning to why something couldn’t be done. “Alright, fine.” I said,
slumping back into my seat, only mildly disappointed.
The issue
was, I didn’t really know most of the kids in my class. I didn’t dislike them,
so much as I couldn’t keep their names or faces connected in my head.
Of
course, if science has taught me anything, there is an exception to every rule.
Like platypuses. What are they exactly? Seriously, what’s their deal? I make a
note to research that later.
Quinn
Jacob. The dumbest boy in class. He kind of looks like a platypus himself. But
not the cute ones. The mean ones who bite your hand. He did that to me in kindergarten,
and we both got in trouble.
His
group was the only one left with four people. I scowled and took my pencil and
paper over to their table.
He
looked at me, startled, then returned my glare, “What do you want?” He spat.
I made a
big show of dropping my pencil onto the desk, only for it to roll off onto the
floor. I was not perturbed, and gracefully sat in my chair, and reached down to
pick it back up.
“To
study the amphibian.” I said, “Obviously.”
The girl
next to me smiled, Catherine, I thought. She was very pretty and had
thin oval glasses, which I was jealous of. She looks refined and elegant, like
a fancy librarian. I’m suddenly conscious of my hair, which I hadn’t bothered
to comb this morning, much to my mothers chagrin.
“Alright
class,” Mx. River said from the front of the classroom. They waited for the
chatter to cease, then continued, “the trays containing your frogs are over by
the sink. I want you to be extremely careful with them, and follow directions
to the letter,” Mx. River divulges into basic safety protocol that boils
down to the most common of sense. Instead of listening, I zone out, my brain keenly
aware of the dead amphibians sitting just a couple tables over. I wonder what their
lives were like. I imagine a beautiful swamp with a thriving ecosystem, like
the one my class visited last June. Even some teachers seemed to despair the humidity
and mud, but I adored it. My mom, who had been chaperoning, lovingly dubbed
me a swamp monster, and offered to leave me there in favor of hopping on the
bus back home.
“Oh, the
swamp is lovely.” I assured her as I made my final note of the trip, already
planning my return, “But there is so much more of the world I just have to see.”
Maybe
these frogs came from that very swamp. I think. The thought made me all
warm and fuzzy inside, happy to have made the connection, but sad to think of
the amphibians never returning home to their natural climate. I imagined that
maybe they had frog family, and frog friends.
As soon
as Mx. River stopped talking, I leapt to my feet, my chair screeching loudly against
the floor. “I’ll get it!” I called to my table, already halfway across the
room.
I
reached the sink, and reverently lifted one of the trays from the counter. “Woah.”
I whispered, awestruck at the perfect specimen before me. It looked alive,
I really thought it might suddenly hop away. I liked that it wasn’t green- too
many cartoons depicted all frogs as such. It was more of a speckled brown. To
better camouflage with its environment. I thought, proud to have remembered
that tidbit.
I
carried the frog back to my table, and set it carefully towards the
center, but still angled near me. I wanted the best possible view to see it be
dissected.
I still haven’t
quite sorted my thoughts on death yet. Mom didn’t let me say goodbye to Milly
before she took her to the clinic, and my mom had never even sat down to
explain to me that she was old, and old dogs died sometimes.
She did
the same thing with my dad. I never knew him, and my mom never talked about
him, so I could only assume that, logically, he was dead, just like my dog.
A gaping
hole had widened in my chest, but I was quick to stop the tears welling up. I
shook my head and homed in on the frog before me.
Catherine
had her paper smoothed out before her, and she was scanning the instructions
carefully. “So, who wants to make the first incision?” She asked without
looking up.
“Not it.”
Said the girl across from me, who’s name I didn’t know. She wrinkled her nose
and leaned back in her chair to the point I feared she’d topple over.
“Yeah,
you guys got this.” Said the only other boy at the table. He had his pencil
poised above the first question on his paper and looked at us expectantly.
“Can I?”
I asked, a little tentatively, my fingers already twitching towards the tray.
“I want
to.” Quinn said stoutly, and I glared at him.
Catherine
finally looked up at us, “Rock paper scissors to decide.” She adjusted her glasses
and flipped the page on the packet.
Quinn
was frowning at me but obliged. I won, and he tried to weasel his way into a
best of three, but I knew better. I pulled the tray closer to me and passed around
the sets of gloves to everyone at the table, even the two who’d opted out.
“They
want us to remove the skin around its leg.” Catherine said, furrowing her brow
and turning a shade paler, until she was almost the color of the frog. “Then we
describe what we observe on page two.”
I squint
down at the frog, then exclaimed, “It’s a girl!” A tad too loudly, startling my
group and the table next to ours.
Quinn
looks as sour as a lemon, “Yeah? How do you suppose?”
“Look
how big it is compared to the table next to ours.”
“Wouldn’t
that make it a boy, then?”
“No.” I
said, “Girl frogs are bigger than boy frogs.”
“Says
who?”
I was
beginning to grow impatient. But my mother always told me arguing with idiots only
drags you down to their level, so I ducked my head and did as Catherine had
instructed. She read the steps aloud and I followed them effectively and
precisely, tactfully removing its skin like you would candy on Halloween night.
I heard the other girl in our group mime vomiting, but I ignored her, too
engrossed in the task at hand.
“That’s
it’s muscle.” I said smartly, tapping it carefully with the knife.
“Acute
observation.” Quinn snarked.
“We need
a little more than that.” Catherine said, not unkindly. “Does anyone have any
notations they’d like to share?” She asked the other two group members.
The
vomit-girl peered over her textbook, which she had brought out to hide her
phone, “Its- slimy.” She mumbled, looking away quickly.
“Sure.”
Catherine said, looking at me and rolling her eyes, as though we were
sharing an inside joke. “Anything else?”
I leaned
forward in my chair and examined the specimen, wishing I brought the lab coat
and goggles my mom had bought me for my birthday last month.
“Look
how its joint bends? Isn’t that fascinating?” I asked Catherine, and she smiled
at me.
Then Mx.
River called us to attention and drew a diagram of the frog on her whiteboard,
noting down the names of each of the parts. I jotted down my own graph, but
felt the frog tugging at my attention.
After,
we moved on to the next page of the project.
“It’s my
turn.” Quinn said, dragging the frog towards him, and it was as though he
dragged my heart with it.
“Do you
have to?” I ask, “You don’t seem to really care.”
“Kim,”
Mx. River said. I hadn’t known they were behind me, “You need to let your peers
have there turn.”
I
huffed, shooting daggers at Quinn. He didn’t mind. When Mx. River was gone, he
lifted the incision tool, which glittered in the yellow light of the classroom.
Catherine
once more directed us, but he didn’t really listen to her. When it was time to
disembowel the frog, he cut too deep and damaged the internal organs.
“Why don’t
you let me do it?” I ask, anxiety clawing its way up my gut. The frog had gone
from pristine, and almost alive, to an utter mess of skin and insides.
“No way,”
Quinn said, “I’m having fun.”
“Maybe
you should let her have a turn, you’ve been at it for awhile now.” Catherine
glanced down at her watch.
“Or at
least be more careful.” I plead.
“How dare
you, I am the most careful!” Quinn slams his hand onto the table. The desk
wobbles, and the tray slides to the floor.
I gasp, “What’s
wrong with you?”
Quinn
hasn’t moved, “I didn’t mean to!”
I jump
to my feet, my chair falling backwards behind me, “I told you to let me handle
it!” I can’t tell you why, but I started to cry. I’d been looking forward to
this for weeks, and Quinn ruined it.
“I’m
sorry.” He said pathetically. He had the audacity to shrug.
I sink
to the floor and weep; aware that the whole class was watching me now. Catherine
was watching me. Shame burns my cheeks, but my legs shake when I try to
stand up.
“You,
clean this up now.” Mx. River says to my table. I hear them kneel beside me, “Kim,
do you want to come outside?”
No, I
think angrily. I rub the tears from my eyes with my gloved hand and force
myself to walk over to the fallen tray, ignoring Mx. River. I lower myself
beside it, and scoop the frog up, ruined though she is.
I’ve
held dead animals before, but my mother always snatched them from me so quickly
I never had the chance to mourn. I think about the swamp. About the mud and the
worms, and the smell of death, and how it makes me appreciate the sun on my
skin, and the way the leaves on the cypress trees dance. I closed my eyes.
And the
frog chirps.
My
classmates scream, even Mx. River screams, as all the frogs in all the
trays hop to life, trailing shredded skin and spilt guts behind them. They hop
around the room, ribbiting and chirping, as all the students flee.
I don’t
move. My frog remains in my hands, looking wonderingly up at me, with its beady
black eyes. I gasped and rose to my feet, meeting its gaze.
I am a
scientific woman. I follow reason and logic. I’m only ten, but I try and hold
myself to the standards of real biologists and live up to my vision of who I
should be. That’s why I study the remains of snakes and insects, and don’t
grieve for my dead dog or missing dad.
Because
science is just as beautiful as the make-believe.
But
there was only one word that could capture what I was feeling, what I was
seeing.
Magic.
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