The Emerald Forge (Pilgrennon's Children) Read Online Free PDF Page B

right, and I suppose it was the sneezing ghost of the out-of-order toilet, Miss?”
    “Outside, now please.”
    The cursing and sniggering of the girls faded away as they left. The teacher exhaled disgustedly. Dana kept still and silent and listened to the rattle of the window opening, and the noise of the cigarettes being flushed down the toilet. Then there came a loud rapping on the cubicle door. “Come on out then, I know you’re in there.”
    There was not much point trying to hide from the teacher. Dana unlocked the door and opened it slowly.
    “What are you doing in there?”
    “Number ones, Miss.”
    “Don’t try to be smart, girl. What’s your name?”
    “Dana Provine, Miss.”
    The teacher’s face softened slightly. Dana didn’t know who the teacher was, but Dana’s reputation always seemed to precede her with teachers, as though she was some sort of pathetic individual to be pitied. “I don’t know why you want to hide in this stinking toilet when you could be out in the fresh air, it being summer and all.”
    “No, I don’t either,” said Dana, humbly.
    “I’ll make sure those other girls don’t come back.” The teacher left.
    Dana’s next lesson was science, which she liked. She tried not to think of the lesson she had after that, which was PE. The science teacher, Mr Kell, was a man with square glasses and grey curly hair, and an exuberant attitude that suggested he genuinely enjoyed teaching his subject. Dana sat down in her usual place beside the axolotl tank and arranged her pencil case and her science book neatly on the table as Mr Kell wiped the board clean. Then she copied down the title: calorimetry.
    “Today we’re doing a practical, and you need to organise yourself into groups of between three and four!” he shouted over the hubbub.
    The other children leapt out of their seats and rearranged themselves, kicking over stools, dragging the lab benches around, and making noise in general. Dana stayed where she was, hunched over her lab book and trying not to let the noise and commotion overwhelm her. She looked at the axolotl, a black newt-like thing with a blunt head, and marvelled at how it managed to put up with it. Perhaps it didn’t have any ears.
    “Come along, Dana,” said Mr Kell, stepping down from the board to stand in front of her desk.
    “Can’t I do the experiment by myself?”
    “If I let you do it by yourself, everyone will want to do it by themselves, and there’s not enough equipment. Come on.”
    Dana got up reluctantly and followed him to the nearest group of girls.
    “You don’t mind if Dana joins you?”
    One of the girls rolled her eyes, another scowled, and the third muttered something under her breath.
    “There you go, then.” Mr Kell pulled over a stool for Dana to sit on.
    The experiment they had to do involved setting up some equipment to measure how much energy there was in a peanut. Dana got a heatproof mat, tripod, gauze, and a spike to put the peanut on and set them up on the bench. The other girls in the group just sat on their stools, talking and giggling. Dana fetched a conical flask and put water from the tap in it, and stood the thermometer in the water. Mr Kell came round, handing out peanuts for them to stick on the spikes when they were ready.
    “Can I light my peanut yet?” Dana asked, pointing to the peanut on the spike.
    “Have you measured the volume of the water and written down the starting temperature?” A commotion interrupted the rest of Mr Kell’s answer. A boy behind him had eaten his group’s peanut.
    When all the groups had set up their apparatus, Mr Kell lit a Bunsen burner on the front bench. Dana lit a splint and carried the flame to her bench, and set fire to the peanut. She watched it turn black, but it kept burning for quite some time. While she was waiting, she started writing up the experiment. One of the other girls took one of Dana’s pens from her pencil case and held it over the peanut, melting the