The Brightest Star in a Constellation

39: Uranium, Argon, Copper, Tellurium

☽ Peter ☽

I trace my hand across the library stacks, pulling a book from its shelf. I drag my feet, trying to find a place to sit.

There's an assembly scheduled for this afternoon; I've been speed-reading books during my free period while I wait for Nicole to get out of class.

The double doors swish open as I flip through the pages of my book. The light reflects on the floor and in the view of my glasses.

I peek out from the row of shelves. Evan rounds the corner; his half-smile flashes his dimples as he approaches, lightly knocking his shoulder against my side.

"You're not going to the assembly?" he asks.

I make a show of glancing back at the book in my hands, and I scan the back cover without reading any of its contents. A smile creeps up on my face. "You are?"

He leans against the bookshelf. "I'm not going home if that's what you mean."

"I guess it is and isn't," I say, sliding the book back into its spot. "You can come with me if you want."

Without needing to think about it, he replies, "So, where are we headed?"

We talk for a bit about my plans for the club's schedule, and that I'm stuck waiting for Nicole. He finds a desk near the library's door; it's occupied by Willow, who grabs an extra chair for me to join them. Closing her laptop, she returns to the poster board in front of her, grabbing a pair of tiny scissors and snipping off a sheet of construction paper. She continues cutting out citrus orange hearts as they tumble onto the poster like leaves in late autumn. By the looks of it, it's for a student council project—since her faint handwriting at the top reads, A gift for a friend: buy a candy gram!

Evan passes her the glue and asks, "What are you doing?"

Pasting the cutouts onto her poster, Willow sighs. "I should have finished this last week. I'm behind on club events like you wouldn't believe. I'm supposed to be getting ready for the end of the year, but I'm stuck on this candy thing we're doing in February." She stretches her wrist, cracking her knuckles repeatedly. "The road to purgatory is literally made of construction paper hearts."

"We can help," Evan says.

I peer at him. "We can?"

He takes the scissors. Using his left hand, he has to push them open with his thumb. He distracts from the (ever-so-slightly awkward) display by nodding. To Willow, he says, "The writing on your poster doesn't rhyme."

Willow pauses. "If you want to find something that rhymes, be my guest. But I already spent the past hour trying to find one that works. I started with romance-related puns, but that got me nowhere."

"Damn, buy a candy gram," Evan says with a gruff laugh.

She rolls her eyes at him. From the doorway, Nicole enters and rushes towards us. When she arrives, she beams at me, saddling her arms on my seat so that it teeters dangerously close to falling over.

"Oh! I just remembered," Willow says, "I came up with a chemistry pun. Do you want to hear it?" She waits for Nicole to say sure, not that it matters, and Willow recites, "Uranium, Argon, Copper, Tellurium."