Hiroto laughed. “This chump’s Akira Uetake. He’s my science club buddy. A second-year, like me.”
“Ew. I don’t want to be your buddy. Go back to your own table. You gotta watch the pot.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. My brother says it never hurts to help the newbie settle in, you know? Oh yeah—making bismuth crystals was another idea of Ms. Tanimoto’s.”
“Wow,” Yue said.
“Oh wait. The teacher’s coming around. Gotta go.”
“Yeah, go already,” Akira called at his departing figure.
Ms. Tanimoto went from table to table, checking on the pots and the heat of the flames. Yue admired the way the bottom of her lab coat billowed every time she took a step.
Ever since the start of junior high, Yue had come to realize just how much a club’s activities—especially for non-sports clubs—depended on the advisor. Some advisors were like the drama club teacher, who had been in an amateur acting troupe in college and was passionate about mentoring upcoming actors. Others, like the literature club advisor, took a more laissez-faire approach and didn’t do much apart from signing off on any activities the students proposed. Okayama Higashi Public Junior High also had a significant number of students who opted to go home straight after school instead of joining any clubs. Most of them were busy with cram school.
Yue hadn’t joined a club, either, but she didn’t have cram school as an excuse. She just hadn’t been able to commit to a decision. Several decisions, really.
Akira leaned over as Yue gazed at Ms. Tanimoto. “So, bismuth is a metal, right? Number 83 on the periodic table. Soen in Japanese. I’m a science nerd, if I do say so myself, but I never knew bismuth existed until Sensei mentioned it. How about you? Did you know of it already?”
“I-I didn’t.”
“Whew. For a minute there, I was worried you were an Einstein.”
Akira laughed with a big ha ha ha before walking Yue through the process of making bismuth crystals. (Yue thought to herself that he must have great grades.)
Step 1: Put the bismuth chips—those cubic magnet-looking thingies—into the pot.
Step 2: Heat the pot to 270 degrees, bismuth’s melting point.
Step 3: Wait for the bismuth to melt completely and turn off the heat.
Step 4: Stick a pair of forceps into the metal bismuth and pull out the solids that form as the metal begins to reharden.
Ta-da: Bismuth crystals.
Everyone had gotten to review the process, Akira explained, with a video Ms. Tanimoto had shown them before Yue showed up. The video had briefed them pretty well on what bismuth crystals looked like. But to Yue, this was all unexplored territory.
With that said, her only job was to snap pictures on her phone as the bismuth slowly collapsed into a melting puddle, a task not too intimidating even to a non-club member like her. Ms. Tanimoto said she didn’t mind if they were on their phones during experiments, but only if they kept in mind that they or their friends could get hurt if they got distracted. Most people weren’t on their phones for long. Yue, too, pulled out her phone carefully, took one quick shot, and immediately put it away again.
Ten minutes later, the bismuth was a puddle.
“All right, class. Once you turn off the heat, I want you to use your forceps to peel off the top layer and lay it on the plates I’ve put at every desk. Then it’s time to get your crystals. Careful not to topple the pot!”
Another unanimous “Yes, ma’am!” went up.
Akira took the lead at Yue’s table. He gasped in excitement, like he had felt something solid, when he stuck the ends of the forceps into the thick, sludgy silver liquid. Over at Group Six, Hiroto yelled at him to shut up. Yue almost laughed, but Akira’s face was stone-cold serious.
“Whoa. There’s something there! This is brilliant!”
“Can you grab it?”
“Yeah, easily. One sec.”
After carefully groping around on the bottom of the pot, Akira jerked his forceps up, with a shiny, iridescent solid stuck to its tips. The solid looked like the wing casing of a jewel beetle and was about the size of a caramel candy. Its geometric structure reminded Yue of a labyrinth made of tiny cubes. She would have thought it was some weird industrial product sold at a hardware store or gift from an alien. It was hard to believe it could have come out of that pot of liquid.
The rest of the group members cheered. Yue was so caught up that she oohed along.
“There’s something there!”
“The forceps are covered in little bits of bismuth! What do we do now? Ms. Tanimoto, are they ruined?”
“Don’t worry. Once we reheat it, the bismuth will melt and run off. Now let everyone else have a turn to scoop up crystals, okay?”
Akira put his crystals on the plate with a look of triumph before turning to Yue and grinning. “You next! It’s wicked fun.”
He held the forceps out to her, and she shyly accepted. She looked around—she wasn’t sure if it was okay for someone so brand spanking new to go second—but everyone else was too engrossed with the crystals to pay any attention to her. She fiddled around with the forceps before getting them to work and extricating a small crystal from the bottom of the pot. A little sigh slipped past her lips. It was one of relief, but also happiness and something she couldn’t quite put into words. It moved her. This was like taking part in creating something new and magical. She passed the forceps along to the next boy in line and put her crystal down on the plate, with Akira’s crystal next to it to keep it company.
“So whaddaya think of the experiment?” Akira asked.
“Oh my God. It’s so cool—oh, um. I mean, it’s very fascinating.”
“You don’t need to be so formal around me. We’re all classmates, right? Especially here. Everyone’s friends in the science club.”
“Um…if you say so.”
“You sure are a stickler for manners, huh? Suit yourself, I s’pose.” Akira smiled.