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Authors: Chrissy Kolaya
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citizens of Nicolet.
After the performance, Rose decided to take the opportunity to explore the vast grounds of the Lab campus. As they drove along the roads that cut through the prairie grasses, she pointed out to Lily the farmhouses now relocated, the barns, the new buildings that had been constructed around them. Rose had never been to one of the Labâs open houses for displaced families, but she had heard about them from those who had: how strange it was to find their former homes, farmhouses that had once stood so far from one another on such wide expanses of land, now arranged in a neat cul-de-sac, side by side like the houses in a subdivision. And how strange, too, to find their childhood bedrooms turned into offices or temporary housing for visiting scientists.
When sheâd returned to Nicolet, it had, in many ways, felt to Rose like sheâd moved to an entirely new town. Now, as she drove past the cemetery full of familiar last names, past landmarks she remembered, and through the Labâs expansive campus, she felt like she was showing Lily the ghost of a part of Nicolet that had once existed.
CHAPTER 6
Elementary Particles
The urge to travel and explore probably originated in my childhood. Certainly it was an unusual childhood .
âW ILFRED T HESIGER, T HE L AST N OMAD
M EENA AND L ILY MET IN THE THIRD GRADE . T HEY â D SPENT THE year racing to see who could finish their weekly math test first. Every Wednesday morning at 9:35 it was a draw as Lily arrived at the right side of the teacherâs desk and Meena at the left. And every Wednesday at 9:36 they exchanged polite smiles and began the long, disappointing walks back to their own desks. But theyâd bonded over the sly looks they exchanged as they waited for the rest of the class to shuffle forward at the bell with their half-completed tests.
Meena had noticed that Lily always brought the best things for show and tellâa shrunken head from Bali, a dried and stuffed piranha from the Amazon, which she passed around the classroom proudly, the fishâs desiccated body mounted on a small wooden pedestal.
One day, finding no other available seats on the bus ride home, theyâd been forced to sit together and had begrudgingly begun a conversation. Soon they were spending every Saturday afternoon together in the Nicolet Public Library, a large brick building that overlooked the townâs scenic river walkway.
Lily preferred the quiet study room, spending her weekends working ahead in their textbook, Steps toward Science , shushing adults who whispered or folded their newspapers too loudly. Meena liked to browse the shelves, returning with armloads of obscure books from the reference section that caught her eye: Noteworthy Weather Events: 1680-1981, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds , coffee table art books, mystery novels, and field guides, which she pored over beside Lily.
In the mornings, NPR on the radio on the kitchen counter, Lily and her mother ate breakfast in silence, ears alert for any mention of the countries where Randolph had set off on his latest expedition. Sitting across the table from each other, they passed the crossword back and forth as they ate. Rose had taught Lily tricks like filling in the -S s on plural clues, the -ED s on the past-tense clues, and how she might discover further clues within the clues themselves.
For Meena, mornings were a parade of novelty breakfast foods that had caught Saralaâs eye in the supermarketâPop Tarts, frozen waffles, frozen pancakes, frozen pancakes wrapped around a frozen sausage, sausage biscuits, biscuits and gravy in a microwaveable bowl, packets of oatmeal with colorful bits of dehydrated fruit that came to life under a stream of hot water from the teakettle.
After dinner, their small family of three spent the evenings in the kitchen, Sarala cleaning up, Abhijat beside Meena at the table helping her as she worked through her
After the performance, Rose decided to take the opportunity to explore the vast grounds of the Lab campus. As they drove along the roads that cut through the prairie grasses, she pointed out to Lily the farmhouses now relocated, the barns, the new buildings that had been constructed around them. Rose had never been to one of the Labâs open houses for displaced families, but she had heard about them from those who had: how strange it was to find their former homes, farmhouses that had once stood so far from one another on such wide expanses of land, now arranged in a neat cul-de-sac, side by side like the houses in a subdivision. And how strange, too, to find their childhood bedrooms turned into offices or temporary housing for visiting scientists.
When sheâd returned to Nicolet, it had, in many ways, felt to Rose like sheâd moved to an entirely new town. Now, as she drove past the cemetery full of familiar last names, past landmarks she remembered, and through the Labâs expansive campus, she felt like she was showing Lily the ghost of a part of Nicolet that had once existed.
CHAPTER 6
Elementary Particles
The urge to travel and explore probably originated in my childhood. Certainly it was an unusual childhood .
âW ILFRED T HESIGER, T HE L AST N OMAD
M EENA AND L ILY MET IN THE THIRD GRADE . T HEY â D SPENT THE year racing to see who could finish their weekly math test first. Every Wednesday morning at 9:35 it was a draw as Lily arrived at the right side of the teacherâs desk and Meena at the left. And every Wednesday at 9:36 they exchanged polite smiles and began the long, disappointing walks back to their own desks. But theyâd bonded over the sly looks they exchanged as they waited for the rest of the class to shuffle forward at the bell with their half-completed tests.
Meena had noticed that Lily always brought the best things for show and tellâa shrunken head from Bali, a dried and stuffed piranha from the Amazon, which she passed around the classroom proudly, the fishâs desiccated body mounted on a small wooden pedestal.
One day, finding no other available seats on the bus ride home, theyâd been forced to sit together and had begrudgingly begun a conversation. Soon they were spending every Saturday afternoon together in the Nicolet Public Library, a large brick building that overlooked the townâs scenic river walkway.
Lily preferred the quiet study room, spending her weekends working ahead in their textbook, Steps toward Science , shushing adults who whispered or folded their newspapers too loudly. Meena liked to browse the shelves, returning with armloads of obscure books from the reference section that caught her eye: Noteworthy Weather Events: 1680-1981, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds , coffee table art books, mystery novels, and field guides, which she pored over beside Lily.
In the mornings, NPR on the radio on the kitchen counter, Lily and her mother ate breakfast in silence, ears alert for any mention of the countries where Randolph had set off on his latest expedition. Sitting across the table from each other, they passed the crossword back and forth as they ate. Rose had taught Lily tricks like filling in the -S s on plural clues, the -ED s on the past-tense clues, and how she might discover further clues within the clues themselves.
For Meena, mornings were a parade of novelty breakfast foods that had caught Saralaâs eye in the supermarketâPop Tarts, frozen waffles, frozen pancakes, frozen pancakes wrapped around a frozen sausage, sausage biscuits, biscuits and gravy in a microwaveable bowl, packets of oatmeal with colorful bits of dehydrated fruit that came to life under a stream of hot water from the teakettle.
After dinner, their small family of three spent the evenings in the kitchen, Sarala cleaning up, Abhijat beside Meena at the table helping her as she worked through her
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