Read Online Emmy and the Home For Troubled Girls by Lynne Jonell - Free Book Online Page B

“Where did the boy go?”
    â€œHere, Professor!” A tall, slightly stooped teenage boy emerged from the back room with Thomas in tow. “I was just showing Thomas the little apartments you fixed up for the rodents that wanted to stay.”
    â€œBut you were supposed to check this every fifteen minutes,” said the professor irritably.
    â€œI am. The next check is due in”—Brian checked his watch—“two minutes seven seconds. Try not to get upset, Professor—you know it puts you right to sleep. The Snoozer virus, you know.”
    â€œYes, yes, my boy.” Professor Capybara pulled at his white beard. “I’m sorry I snapped at you. I’m just a little nervous about something …”
    Emmy stopped listening as Thomas appeared at her elbow.
    â€œWhat’s that?” Thomas pointed at the odd pewter-and-brass microscope with its multitude of knobs and small jointed arms, and tipped his head, trying to look at the lens from underneath.
    â€œIt’s called a charascope.”
    â€œWhat does it do?”
    â€œYou can see for yourself.” Emmy pulled out a slide labeled “Barmy,” and slid it under the charascope. It was old, and the blood had dried; instead of a moving, living sample, with the tumble of changing bright and dark shapes that Emmy remembered, this was like a snapshot. But Emmy could still see the dark-green ball made of massed wormlike shapes that had so appalled her before.
    â€œWhat’s that?” Thomas looked through the eyepiece. “It looks nasty.”
    â€œThat’s a drop of Miss Barmy’s blood, from about a month ago. What you’re seeing is probably hatred, with some fear mixed in.”
    â€œHatred?” Thomas raised round blue eyes to Emmy’s. “You can’t see hatred through a microscope.”
    â€œYou can through a charascope. Here, I’ll show you. Give me your finger.”
    Thomas held out his finger trustingly. Emmy dipped it in rubbing alcohol and poked the fleshy pad of his forefinger with a lancet, squeezing out one bright-red drop.
    â€œYou’re pretty brave for six and a half.” She smeared the blood on a glass slide, replaced Miss Barmy’s sample with Thomas’s, and looked through the eyepiece. Yes, it was just like before—small glowing shapes of every color, swimming and twirling in a kind of bright liquid dance. She moved aside so Thomas could see.
    â€œWow!” he breathed. “This doesn’t look like the other one at all!”
    â€œI doubt you have much hatred in your blood. The shapes you see are probably more like— Here, just a minute.” Emmy took up a colored chart lying nearby and read down the list. “Love, happiness, curiosity, wonder, courage, hope—”
    â€œHey! One just split into two!”
    â€œYes, they multiply if you let them—”
    â€œAnd two different ones just stuck together, and now there’s a whole new shape! How come?”
    â€œIt’s got something to do with character,” said Emmy. “I don’t know how it works; ask theprofessor.” But Professor Capybara, deep in conversation, seemed to have worries of his own.
    â€œI’m not nervous about making a speech,” he said. “I’m used to that. But there’s a dance afterward, and I’m supposed to lead with Mrs. Bunjee …” He looked at Brian helplessly.
    Brian grinned. “What’s so bad about dancing with chipmunks? They’re pretty light on their feet.” He arranged a petri dish, an eyedropper, and a small box of colored paper on the counter.
    The professor looked at him sideways. “Just because you don’t have to go—”
    â€œSomeone has to mind the experiments,” said Brian cheerfully, picking up the eyedropper.
    Emmy’s shoulders slumped. She’d forgotten all about the party tonight. What did it matter if she shut her window or