Toss-Up

Basically, I want to show how odd I was about this particular event, and how emotional...but still keep a sense of humor. Minimal sappy, then. Did I achieve? Any, any tips at all would be appreciated. I normally don't write this sort of thing.

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I have this odd nervous habit of naming my nails after the wives of Henry the Eighth- you know, Aragon, Boleyn, Parr…and then, I rip them off, one by one, in a grandiose manner. With a flourish. With vigor not seen since the witch hunts of yesteryear.

There’s a sigh from the desk in front of me. The judge’s table- three balding engineers, one of whom can’t speak much English, the other two silent. All seem equally bored. “A-1, can you please buzz in?”

I can’t. I can’t do this.

Anne of Cleves is bleeding a little, and the already-headless hurt when I touch them to the buzzer, a hideous brown contraption that causes a sound not unlike a car alarm. And, ironically enough, possibly holds the key to a scholarship the magnitude of Henry’s stomach.

Normally I’m not so nervous. Normally I’m fine. Normally I can name the three stages and four substages of mitosis, lickety-split. Radiation fog and advection fog’s differences are as clear as daylight, and I can convert Fahrenheit to Kelvin like nobody’s business.

But today there’s something horribly wrong- five chairs, one empty.

A diagnosis. Standing in front of my locker, shelving books, cracking gum.

“Where’s Manizha?”

“Meant to tell you- she’s in the hospital.”

“What? Why?”

A shrug. “Think it’s leukemia, but I dunno.”

Knees buckle, pop as they hit the ground. Pain shooting up my leg, the voices in the backgroun slowly blurring together, becoming indistinct.

Out of shock, maybe, I press the buzzer. Having a flashback in competition isn’t a very good thing, and suddenly I’m filled with the urge to shout something like, “Dark matter!” or “Charm quark!” to fill the gap.

“Coaches, shake hands.”

Two names exchanged, probably forgotten. The man in the middle of the table clears his throat and shuffles his stack of papers like an evening news anchor.

“Toss up, multiple choice. A device used to measure small amounts of electric current is called a W) Electroscope. X)…”

The scissors were poised in exactly that shape above my head- an ‘x’. Hair in a ponytail, braided.

“You sure?”

“Sure as I’ll ever be.”

“Y, Galvonometer!”

My voice is abrupt and loud. The judge looks at me funny, almost worried- like one of those kids on medication to help them win. It’s strange, the way grown-ups are when there’s money and egos involved. “Correct. Four points for team A.”

“Guess what?”

“What?”

“I saw a heart in a jar.”

She’s sitting on her bed, watching Sabrina on the TV screen planted into the wall. The window offers a panorama of the city below; the lunch tray an assortment of high-fat foods. Potatoes, gravy, mac ‘n’ cheese. Anything to keep her weight up.

“Really?”

“Yeah, floating in formaldehyde. Pretty sweet, huh?”

“Yeah.”

She’s silent for a moment, meters beeping, muted. The IV bag slowly shrinks as the minutes pass. “You know what?”

She’s grinning.

“What?”

“Everyone’s so nice to me now. Think they’d suspect anything if I, say…took over the world?”

And then both our eyes travel to the tube in her chest, the one that brings her a mixture of orange and clear liquid.

Silence.

The marker squeaks across the scorecard, four-zero. Ninety-six points until a victory, theoretically. Jane Seymour weakly scratches against the table, protesting all the way to the chopping block. My mind goes in circles, watching her.

"It’s funny. I’m the one with cancer, and you’re the one with no hair.”

“Team A, are you ready for your bonus question?”

A nod of assent. A few grumbles.

“Chemistry, short answer. What is the scientific difference between a solution and a suspension?”

Easy. Easy-peasy.

The first doesn’t separate, no matter how much you toss it up.