3

Ms. Anderson explained more about how the science fair projects should be organized. Then she said, "Now I want you to form small groups for brainstorming about science fair ideas. I'll be circulating among your groups to begin talking with each of you individually."

After they had counted off, Jane found herself in the first group, with three girls, including Lucy Adams —not Emily. Ms. Anderson pulled her chair over to join them.

"In science, we start out with questions," Ms. Anderson said in her low, throaty voice. "What questions about our physical world would any of you like to try to answer?"

Jane had plenty of questions, but she kept them to herself. Why wasn't she growing taller? How come some people were better at things than other people? How could anybody have hair that long and smooth and silky without a single tangle?

No one else said anything, either, even Lucy, who usually talked all the time in class with great, embarrassing gusts of enthusiasm. But she was more enthusiastic about English and social studies and art than she was about science.

Finally Julie Brown spoke. "Well, I guess...maybe something about electricity. Like dry cells. Or batteries, or something?"

"Do you have a particular question you would like to ask about electricity?" Ms. Anderson asked, cocking her head to the side with interest.

"Not really. I just like to hook up wires and stuff."

"Electricity, then!" Ms. Anderson gave Julie an encouraging smile, but Jane could tell that five minutes into her first day as a student teacher, she was already feeling discouraged.

"Anybody else? Remember, today we are just brainstorming. You don't have to have a well-formulated hypothesis you plan to be testing. We're just looking for a question, a real question, something you would really like to find out."

Lucy raised her hand. "I'd like to know whether - well, this really isn't a science question, exactly...but whether...you see, I write poetry sometimes..."

All the time, Jane thought.

"And there's this strange thing that happens when I write it. It's like I hear this voice in my head, telling me the lines to write down, and I write them down just the way the voice says. So I'm wondering where that voice comes from. I mean, where do the words come from when I write a poem? Sometimes I think I must have heard them somewhere else, and I'm just remembering them. I get afraid sometimes that I might be copying somebody else's poem, you know, without meaning to. Sometimes I even look at books to try to find the poem, but I never can, so I must be making it up. But it doesn't feel as if I'm making it up. It feels just like I said, like a voice talking to me in my head."

There was a silence.

"So your question is..." Ms. Anderson said.

"Where the voice comes from."

"That's a very interesting question," Ms. Anderson said slowly. She sounded a bit bewildered. People often became bewildered when they were around Lucy Adams. "Some people might not think of this as a scientific question, but I think a true scientist is someone who is interested in all questions about the physical world. Do any of you have any idea how she might proceed?"

"She could go see Mr. Kim," Jonas Ryan said snidely. Everybody laughed, except for Ms. Anderson and Lucy.

"Mr. Kim?"

"He's the school shrink," Jonas explained with a mean smirk. "People who hear voices in their heads should see a shrink."

The others laughed again, but this time Jane didn't. She didn't want to laugh at anything Rapunzel didn't laugh at. And Lucy looked ready to cry.

"Lucy could write to other poets," Jane heard herself saying. "She could try to find out if they have the same experience. She could, you know, kind of do a survey or something..."

"That's a wonderful idea...er..." Ms. Anderson paused for her name.

"Jane."

"That is a wonderful idea, Jane."

Jane used to think that her name was too plain. The most common name any lazy parents could come up with. But when Ms. Anderson said it, it became a melody to her ear. Jane also felt what she said, that she was the kind of person who had wonderful ideas all the time. And the way Ms. Anderson was smiling at her, Jane felt smarter and braver and taller and stronger, as if she could climb to the top of the highest tower with no ladder other than that golden hair.

If this was what love felt like, Jane was in love.