Free Schooling by Heather McGowan

the counter . . . That’s enough work for one day.
    The girl disappears into the storeroom. A moment later she returns holding a brown bottle. Watch me be a scientist, Aurora says rolling her eyes to indicate lunacy. Uncapping the bottle, she slops the chemical onto Gilbert’s lab bench.
    Isn’t that dangerous?
    Risk makes it an experiment, Doodle. Aurora snatches the spatula from her astonished hand, What do you think they keep back there? Arsenic? A certain tension creeps in. Please stop, that could hurt him. Aurora uncoils the tube to a bunsen burner and fixes it to the gas line Don’t you pay attention? reaching for the lighter. Nothing happens unless you apply heat.
    This girl is one loose cannon, running back for safety goggles, a real Isabelle this one, dragging a stool to stand on, this one could have you with tires down hills and into cars men flying all over the place disfigured, scarred or incapacitated unless the rolling had been her idea after all in the beginning, etc. which has not been established one way or the other but the association in terms of girls, men dead or non and out of control experiments, is simply not a good one for anyone. As Aurora continues to click the lighter, oblivious to Catrine pulling out the chopstick holding up her hair, the tumbling red meets the burst of flame in a nasty smelt, eliciting the yell What Are You Doing Kid I’m On Fire but she keeps forcing the safety goggles on over Aurora’s head even as Aurora flaps and beats her off I’ve Caught Alight, Kid Find the Extinguisher Smother Me Smother Me. Hitting Aurora on the head to squelch her hair but Aurora is laughing and falling can’t see past her hair then the bunsen tube catches and drags the fire is falling falling on both of them as they go down down it’s all girls and fires fires and girls flying hair obscuring who is who so she is Aurora and Aurora is she slipping on soapy runoff from the dropped sponge slipping and now it’s on her the flame and she kicks at it desperately because for some reason they are both snorting with laughter, incapable of stopping any sort of fire Aurora clutching her chest I’m Suffering Smoke Inhalation and the bunsen rolling rolling I’ve Got Black Lung rolling laughing rolling down a hill crawling after it over a sponge leaving its wet rectangle on her skirt down down. I’m Dying I’m Dying. The bunsen knuckles against Gilbert’s desk, flickering to a rest. Leaps of light cast shadows against the pale wood. Stretching, she twists off the flame. The air changes, the lab cold again. Throat sore from laughing or smoke. Pressing the tuck key against her skin. Slowly she stands.
    Aurora remains on the floor in a cross . . . I died in fire, Kid.
    I’ll Resurrect You she thinks to say later because now there isn’t time there’s a sharp rapping at the window causing them to jump up in a flurry of caught-in-the-act.
    Flash.
    They look at each other.
    Another flash.
    A camera is being held to the window. Another flash. They run over. Brickie. Next to him, Simon Puck, a beak strapped to his nose. Brickie smiles and. Is that a wink.
    Who’s that boy with the bird?
    Brickie saunters back toward School House, swinging a camera, followed closely by Simon.
    I don’t know. Some bastard.
    Is that supposed to be funny? I should teach him who my friends are. Remind him . . . Aurora presses the lighter against her arm, clicks it.
    Don’t, Aurora.
    It only lights gas . . . Aurora considers the lighter . . . I was on fire.

22
    Along School House corridor after the Physics she will fail for not understanding angles of light Sophie gushing But Catrine think of the ineffability of particles the sheer ungettability of chaos how disturbing that we are after all nothing more than dust. They continue on, speaking of what lies between milk and milk of magnesia. And what of nothingness? Well says Sophie If you want to speak about death, let’s talk about your moth—
    Girls!
    Too late, a fall of