Free The Theory of Everything by Kari Luna Page A

she said, brushing her own hair. “Look at what you’re wearing.”
    The theme was wisdom, and I had on my red, orange and blue owl pocket skirt, a pair of plaid tights and little owl earrings. Adorable? Check. All I had to do now was talk about love and Mom would let me go anywhere.
    â€œHis name is Drew,” I said. “And I know I’m grounded, but he asked me to study with him after school.” I wanted to be prepared with an irresistible outfit and freedom. “Can we make an exception?”
    She sighed and looked at me in the mirror.
    â€œMom, please?” I said. “He wears vintage clothes like I do, his hair smells like oranges, and he’s practically a Kerouac scholar . . . plus he’s perfect and cute and seems to genuinely like me.”
    I took a breath in, puffed up my cheeks and held it until she answered. It was one of my favorite tactics. Sometimes I turned bluish and had to let the air out before she responded, but most of the time it worked. Like curing hiccups, only I was trying to cure my social life.
    â€œOkay,” Mom said. “But just for an hour.”
    I let my breath out and then inhaled deeply, the oxygen of victory.
    â€œIf something happens, you call me,” she said, handing me back my phone. “Promise?”
    â€œI promise,” I said, but I wouldn’t need to call. I had a good feeling about it, like that part in the movies when the heroine is dressed up and looks amazing and her date is on time. There are no awkward silences or, in my case, hallucinations, and everyone lives happily ever after. For a moment, I actually believed I could be that girl.
    |||||||||||
    I made it through a weekend of grounding, which meant no Finny, which also meant he accosted me as soon as I sat down next to him in physics.
    â€œDid he call? Did he call?”
    â€œHe texted,” I said. “Friday night.”
    â€œEeeeh!!!!” Finny said. “Did he ask you out?”
    â€œOf course,” I said. “We’re meeting this afternoon.”
    â€œSo you’re not grounded anymore?”
    â€œOh, I am,” I said. “But Mom gave me an hour pass. I think she’s sick of seeing me.”
    â€œThis is so exciting,” he said, waving his hand in front of his face like he was fanning himself. “You know this makes me Cupid, right?”
    â€œCalm down, Cupid,” I said. “He might not even like me once he gets to know me.”
    â€œOh, he’ll like you. But whichever way it goes, you have to call me when you get home. I want to hear
everything
!” Finny said, forgetting to use his inside voice.
    â€œI want to hear everything, too,” Mr. Maxim said. “Everything sounds right up my alley. Would you care to elaborate?”
    Red crept up Finny’s neck, threatening to take over his face.
    â€œWe were talking about parallel universes,” I said. It was the first thing that came to mind, since it was actually
on
my mind.
    â€œIn relation to string theory, of course,” Finny said, glancing at me.
    â€œSomeone read ahead,” Mr. Maxim said, straightening his tie. He’d gone from bow ties to polka-dotted real ties, which I didn’t think was an improvement.
    â€œIt’s only a theory, of course,” he said, going to the board and writing as he spoke. “But string theory posits that there are ten dimensions of space and one dimension of time, even though we can’t see them all.”
    â€œThat’s because they’re curled up inside of themselves,” Finny said, practically jumping out of his chair. I loved it when he got into a physics frenzy.
    â€œPrecisely,” Mr. Maxim said. “And some scientists speculate that this theory also makes the idea of parallel universes possible. There’s no way to prove this yet; that’s why they’re theories. But Einstein was all about theories, and look how well that worked for