Page 21 of The Chemistry Test

Cam

I finally feel ready to think of some stories about Gran for the person who asked.

I wish it was because I was feeling better and I mean, on the whole, I am.

But it’s mainly because today is a bad day.

It’s not Gran’s birthday or the anniversary of when she passed or anything like that.

It’s literally just a normal day, but everything Ryan suggested for us to do this morning sounded .

.. flat. And pointless. But, for some strange reason, thinking about Gran doesn’t hurt today.

And I have no idea why. It’s funny how that works – some days I can’t bear to think about her, and on others, it’s the only thing that helps.

Ever since the person with the flowery website asked me about it, stories of Gran have kept popping into my head, but I’ve had no idea how I would choose the best ones. Or write them in a way that does them justice. But today, I’m going to try.

Hi again,

Thanks for your message. It brought back a lot of great memories of my gran, so thanks for that.

They’ve cheered me up every time they’ve popped into my head over the past couple of weeks.

I’ve told a lot of people the big ones already, like how she helped me get my job and how she inspired me to do my degree, but I haven’t told many people about the smaller stuff. So, let’s start there.

Since I was little, Gran made my world a magical place. Quite literally. She’d take me and my sister to the beach to collect seashells – you know those pinkish ones that have the white covering over half of them.

She told us that they were ‘fairy beds’ and if we put them on our windowsills, fairies would sleep in them in our rooms every night.

I know fairies are usually more of a ‘girl’s’ thing (stereotypically, at least), but the shells really do look like little beds, and I believed in those fairies as much as I believed in Father Christmas.

The feeling of having a bit of magic in my room all year round was indescribable.

Their real name is ‘Slipper Limpet’ shells (gross name, isn’t it?) if you want to google the ones I mean and carry the tradition on with any kids in your own life. I know I will.

Sometimes I consider sharing this stuff with my mates so I can get as many people as possible carrying on my gran’s traditions and keeping her spirit alive, but the thought of any of them knowing I’m into stupid stuff like fairy shells honestly makes me want to puke.

If you’re wondering if this is a simple case of fragile masculinity .

.. I have no idea. I just know opening up about literally anything is pretty tough for me these days. But I’m working on it.

Anyway, I hope you like the story. And I really hope I don’t keep having days that feel as bad as this.

I’ve been on meds for several weeks for what my doctor likes to refer to as my ‘low mood’ (I swear he gets a kick out of saying that), but some days, I still can’t see the point in doing things when I can’t tell my gran about it anymore.

Anyway, thanks for listening to me. And remember to reach out to someone yourself if and when you need to. You need someone to lean on too.

Thanks again,

Not as Happy as a C(l)am

Writing that out actually has made me feel a bit better.

The counselling sessions are helping a bit too, but it feels good to have a constant person to fill the void when days like this come up between sessions.

And to be honest, I don’t think it even matters if or when they reply.

Just getting my thoughts out to someone I’ve spoken to before, but don’t actually know, feels like it’s helping.

When I finally come out of my cave, I sit with Tabby and Callie on the kitchen floor, glancing up at the clock on the oven.

‘Hi Callie-Bear,’ I say, picking her up.

I’ve got forty-five minutes until my Genetics seminar starts. And I’m dreading it. Not the lesson so much, just not being in the same class as Ryan and George anymore.

Last year, whenever we got put in different classes, we’d just come up with some bullshit excuse so we could all be together again.

I know you’re not advised to do that, but it always worked out pretty well for us.

All the classes learn the same thing, so it wasn’t like we were sacrificing our chosen topics to be together – plus working as a trio generally bumped up all three of our grades.

But this year, I’m on my own. And we’re a quarter of the way into the semester already. It’s time to bite the bullet and go.

When I get to class, however, I soon realise I might not be as alone as I thought.

Penny glances up when she spots me and starts waving with her whole arm as if she hasn’t seen me in years.

The tables are arranged in a U-shape, and she’s sat in one of the front spaces on the left, right by the door.

I pull out the chair next to her on the end.

‘Why am I not surprised you sit at the front?’

‘Can’t say no to the best seat in the house,’ she says. ‘I don’t even need my glasses to see the board from here. Plus, right by the door in case I need a cheeky vomit halfway through.’ She gives me a thumbs up. The girl sitting next to her scoots her chair back and picks up her fountain pen.

‘Oh no, it’s okay!’ Penny reassures her. ‘I always make it out in time, don’t worry.’ It sounds convincing to me, but much to Penny’s horror, the girl recoils even more.

I bite my lip to stop myself laughing, but Penny stands on my foot anyway.

‘That was your fault,’ she hisses to me, as our lecturer, Michael, walks in.

Unlike lectures, the main purpose of seminars is to discuss things with the lecturer and our peers to make sure we understand the content properly. Since he led one of my spring classes last year, I’m already familiar with how this works, despite missing the last few lessons.

‘Hey,’ Penny whispers again when Michael’s busy answering someone else’s question. ‘I’ve got a present for you,’ she says, rifling through the light-pink folder on her desk and pulling out a stapled document with ‘CJ Taylor’ written at the top. She slides it over to me.

‘These are my seminar notes for the past few weeks,’ she says. ‘I heard your name in the register, so once I realised you were in my class and had missed a couple, I started printing them out for you.’

‘Thanks,’ I say, skimming through the stack of papers. ‘Really.’

They’re dated right back to September, and it strikes me that she’s been helping me for far longer than I’ve been helping her. Before the coffee shop incident, even. Back when we hardly knew each other. I’m glad I was able to return the favour, even though I didn’t realise I was doing it.

I wait until Michael calls my name for the register and then start scouring through the pages.

Like her lecture notes, they’re much neater and more detailed than mine would have been and I actually feel like I’ve benefited from not attending for the past few weeks. I tell her so, and she rolls her eyes.

‘I can keep printing them for you,’ she says, with a glint in her eye. ‘But only if you stop missing the classes.’

Then it’s my turn to roll my eyes. ‘Deal,’ I say, shaking on it, before she quickly turns back to face the front – just in time for Michael to ask another question. It looks like it physically pained her to miss the first one.

We cross over for a second as she sits forward in her seat and I lean back, trying to get my head into seminar mode – following the conversation as well as I can as it bounces around the room.

Although, as the seminar continues, I realise there’s a pattern to the bouncing. And that pattern revolves heavily around a certain Penelope.

Her head darts back and forth between people as they speak and she beams at them when they get the answers right – as though there’s nothing that brings her greater joy. And while she doesn’t answer many questions herself, she’s not shy about asking them, even if they don’t seem relevant.

Where she really differs from the rest of the class though, is the way she jumps at the chance to fill the silences we leave, even when the question doesn’t have a clear answer. As if we’re all following an unspoken set of rules that, for some reason, she’s not in on.

But perhaps what makes her stand out most of all, is that while she does get a few of the answers right, she also gets a lot wrong. And not once does it deter her from trying again.

If you didn’t know better, you might assume she’s just not very bright. The two girls sitting across from us do, and they snicker when Michael corrects her for the third time in a row.

‘You don’t have to say anything if you don’t know the answer,’ says the one in the Nike hoodie during our ten-minute break.

‘Yeah, you can just stay quiet for the bits you don’t know. That’s what we do,’ says the other, a bit more kindly.

‘Thank you,’ Penny says, smiling back at them both.

But what they can’t see from where they’re sitting is the vast web of information she’s woven from all the corrections Michael has given her.

Or how the answers to her questions have bridged the gaps between the main concepts, helping her to make sense of the bigger picture.

In fact, there’s not a single word that seems irrelevant now I can see how she’s pieced it all together. The rest of us just hadn’t noticed the connections between everything like she had.