Joneses – 11.4 The Science Project

No sooner than the children arrived from school, Kaiden heard a knock at the front door. A zing of energy shot through his adolescent body when he turned around to see Phoenix Jones waving feverishly. He wasn’t quite ready to deal with her yet and inhaled a deep, strong breath and exhaled it slow and even as he advanced toward the door.

“Hi, Kaiden,” she sang.

He flashed an awkward smile. “You’re early.”

“I thought we could use the extra time.” She was still grinning from ear to ear.

“Uh…ok.”

He lead her to the living room.

“Hi, Kori,” she said to his sister.

“Hi, Phoenix,” she sang in a taunting manner.

She had been using the computer in there, and Kaiden wished she would leave although he didn’t want to be alone with Phoenix. He already had to deal with her stalking him in school all day. Being taunted by his little sister about it was the last thing he wanted. When the teacher paired classmates together for the science projects, he closed his eyes and tried to will the teacher not to pair him with Phoenix, but it was futile. He couldn’t escape the girl.

They sat, and Phoenix spent a few moments grinning at him. Didn’t she come there to work? He wasn’t sure what he had done to give her the impression he was interested. Or, maybe he hadn’t, and she was set on making him interested.

“Sooo…did you have some ideas?” he asked.

His voiced cracked. His birthday couldn’t come soon enough. He wanted to be rid of the awkward changes he was going through and Phoenix, temporarily at least.

“Of course!” She scooted a little closer. “The project will be easy, but the presentation will be epic! Our topic can be sound frequency. We’ll get a bunch of juice glasses, fill them up with different levels of water, rub our fingers around the lip and see what sound comes out. After we talk about how the energy forced into material travels through the air and affects the sound waves, we’ll play a song with all the glasses! We’ll make such beautiful music together!”

His sister conveniently joined them and commenced Operation Humiliate Brother.

“Oooh! Oooh! Do you guys take requests?” She gasped. “Disney! Make it Disney themed! Everybody loves The Lion King. Caaaaaan you feeeeel the loooooove toooniiiiiiight–“

“KOOORRRIIIII!”