Free Charmed Particles by Chrissy Kolaya Page A

adventures, and it was like being there with him. Almost.
    When Lily missed her father, she retreated to his study, where his collection of National Geographics dating back to the 1930s weighed down a series of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, their bright yellow spines a kind of wallpaper. Here, Lily curled up in the leather armchair, flipping through back issues of Popular Explorer , imagining her father hiking, setting up camp for the night, or traveling among a passel of goat herders, conjuring him into the pictures in his articles.
    In Portugal, Randolph had learned from the local women how to balance a basket the size of a small table, filled with chickens, on his head for carrying to market. Home for Christmas, he’d tried to teach Lily, and she’d practiced diligently, walking gingerly to the bus stop at the corner, her backpack balanced precariously on her head.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” Meena asked as Lily made her way down the narrow aisle of the bus slowly, eyes looking up, willing the backpack to stay put.
    â€œGet a move on!” the bus driver shouted at her.
    A H ISTORY OF M AGIC DURING THE M IDDLE A GES
    The first time Lily was invited over to Meena’s house, she’d been beside herself with excitement at the idea that she would be having dinner with an actual, real, flesh-and-blood physicist. She came home with Meena on the bus, Meena calling out, “Mom, we’re home!” as they opened the door, dropping her coat and backpack in the foyer next to a pile of slippers.
    Lily removed her shoes, lined them up along the wall next to the slippers, and folded her coat in half, placing it carefully on top of her shoes.
    Sarala had made them an after-school snack of lime Jell-O with rainbow-colored marshmallows floating, suspended, in its strange not-quite-liquid, not-quite-solid state. This she served proudly, though the girls were less enthusiastic, poking at it disinterestedly with their spoons.
    They worked together on their homework, sitting side by side at the desk in Meena’s room until Sarala called them down to dinner. There, Abhijat stood at the head of the table and waited for the girls to take their seats before being seated himself.
    â€œWe are delighted to meet the celebrated Miss Winchester,” Abhijat said, holding his glass aloft in a toast. “Meena has told us a great deal about you.”
    Lily blushed and felt as though she were dining with President Reagan himself.
    Throughout the meal, she peppered Abhijat with questions about his work, his research, his daily routine at the Lab, and the difference between an experimental and a theoretical physicist. Abhijat was delighted by her animated curiosity. (This was one of the few traits she shared with her mother, favoring Randolph in appearance and temperament.) She was a perfect companion for Meena, Abhijat thought.
    For Meena, it was—as this moment is for nearly all children who find themselves seeing a parent through the eyes of another—startling. Watching her father grow spirited and enthusiastic as he talked about his work, she felt as though she, too, had met someone new that night.
    â€œAnd your father?” Sarala asked, turning the conversation to Lily. “What does he do, if I may ask?”
    â€œOf course,” Lily nodded. “He’s an explorer.”
    Sarala looked at her for a moment, and decided there must be some meaning lost in the translation. She resolved to look it up in the Webster’s Unabridged in Abhijat’s study after dinner.
    C ODES AND C IPHERS
    Although Lily’s status in the social hierarchy of elementary school suffered for her awkwardness (which Meena often tried to mitigate with her more nuanced grasp of elementary-age social cues), her impatience with the intellects of her classmates (which Meena privately shared but was savvy enough not to display), and her often eccentric taste in personal attire (showing up, for example, one morning, in a