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Page 22 of The Chemistry Test

I look over at the girls and then back at Penny’s mind map.

Perspective really is everything. Although the main thing that strikes me is not that the two girls are mistaken, it’s that even Penny’s perspective of herself is wrong.

Because she’s not just a girl who learns from reading.

She’s a girl who’s smart enough to know when she needs more information and what she needs to do to get it.

When the girls leave the room to fill their matching water bottles, I turn to her.

‘Does it annoy you when people say stuff about you like that?’

‘Not really.’ She shrugs. ‘I mean, when it used to happen at school, I found it annoying to start with. But this is just how I learn.’ She pauses before continuing, as if she’s debating what to say next.

‘I have this phrase I like to say to myself whenever someone thinks I’m bad at something,’ she says, gauging my reaction as she speaks.

‘Especially if it’s something I’m still learning.

I still listen to what they have to say, but in my head, I just think to myself, Don’t mock the process.

’ She emphasises the words, as though she’s charging them up.

Giving them power. ‘And I don’t have to say it out loud because it doesn’t matter what they think.

As long as I don’t mock my own process. Because I’d rather look stupid while I’m trying to learn something, than not try to learn it at all. ’

‘Don’t mock the process,’ I echo. I really like that. ‘You should join the Ted Talk Society,’ I say. She laughs briefly, but I wasn’t joking.

Michael claps his hands together as the two girls come back, signalling the end of our break.

And as the seminar goes on, I notice the girl next to Penny getting more and more stressed.

Her pen keeps running dry as she tries to keep up and I can’t help thinking that sitting next to Penny, whose hands are flying across her keyboard at a million miles a minute, is probably making it ten times worse.

I wish I could do something to help, but I don’t have any pens on me and I can barely keep up myself.

Instead, I keep my eyes down and pretend not to notice. The one small mercy we can grant when there’s nothing else to give.

When the lesson finally ends and we start packing away, she finally cracks, bursting into tears.

‘I found that really hard and confusing too, Beth,’ Penny says, reading the paper nameplate on her desk. If there’s one thing Michael loves, it’s his folded paper nameplates he makes us use. For the entire semester. I’d bet a lot of money that Penny likes them too.

‘I just don’t think I can keep doing this,’ the girl says.

‘I lost last week’s notes when my laptop broke, which is why I’m having to do it on paper,’ she says, wiping her eyes with her sleeve.

‘And by the time it’s fixed, I’ll be missing three weeks’ worth.

’ She sounds desperate now – as if we don’t realise how big of a deal this is. ‘That’s a quarter of this term.’

‘I know it seems like a lot,’ Penny says, opening her laptop back up and showing the screen to her. ‘But I’ve managed to get most of the stuff for this class written down, so I can print you a copy of all of it and bring them in next week if you like?’

The sheer relief on the girl’s face reminds me of how I felt last year. I missed three weeks’ worth of content too and no one would share their notes with me except Ryan and George, who – let’s face it – barely made any anyway. I could’ve really done with a Penny back then.

‘I’m just so behind already,’ Beth says, blowing her nose on a tissue.

‘Not for long,’ I say, finally finding what I’m looking for.

She blinks away her tears expectantly.

‘Here’s last week’s,’ I say, handing over the notes Penny gave me. It feels wrong handing out something that’s not mine, but I figure it’s okay since Penny offered them first.

And then, once they’re in her hands, Beth finally seems to look a bit better. She thanks us both profusely, before making her way out as fast as she can, walking all the way around the tables rather than squeezing past Penny’s chair.

‘Teamwork makes the dream work,’ I say, putting my hand out for a fist bump.

‘We did good,’ she sings, doing a little happy dance. ‘I’ll re-print those notes for you as well, okay? You can come back to my place if you want me to do it now?’

I take my phone out of my pocket. A certain someone needs feeding, so I should probably be heading back.

‘Or I can bring them in for you another time?’ she says, watching me.

‘I would come,’ I say. ‘But I have someone very special waiting for me at home.’

Her cheeks deepen so fast that I don’t even see them change from red to crimson. For some reason, it reminds me of being sent to prison without passing Go and collecting £200.

‘Oh no, I didn’t mean anything like that,’ she stammers, her words knocking into each other as she pushes them out.

‘I’m just joking,’ I say, turning my phone around to her. ‘This is her.’

She stares at the screen, and I notice how her eyes look even more like Bambi’s when she’s looking at something cute. I’ve never seen someone actually look doe-eyed like that before.

‘I need to get back to feed her,’ I say. ‘But I have a printer, so you can come too if you like?’

And I don’t know what I was expecting, but she looks at me like I asked if bears poop in the woods.