True Colors (The Masks #1)(40)
This appeased him and he gave me a small smile before tuning in to Mrs. Mackerly’s instructions again. My stomach clenched tightly as I glanced at my new assignment partners. I felt like this was my one chance and I didn’t want to screw it up. This was going to be hard and part of me was worried by what I might uncover, but I knew I had to try. I was chosen for a reason, right? Maybe the homeless stranger sensed my quiet stubbornness; I’ll never be sure. But whatever he thought about my good soul, I oddly found myself not wanting to let him down.
Chapter 18
The girls both looked reluctant to be in a group with Micah and me. I read them quickly and decided that Libby found Micah scary and Indie was petrified I might try to pry again. As we sat down in the library that afternoon we were all nervous. If my stomach hadn’t been such a wreck of nerves, I probably would have found it comical. Micah was nervous of Indie, Indie was nervous of me, Libby was nervous of Micah and I was nervous about screwing everything up. It was slightly ridiculous.
I cleared my throat, not wanting to be the leader of the pack; that was always Stella’s role, but she wasn’t in my Biology class. I looked to Libby and raised my eyebrows, but she just scratched her upper lip. Indie was eyeing me out of the corner of her eye, no doubt waiting for me to pounce, demanding more info on her boyfriend. Pressing my lips together, I decided to keep my mouth shut and looked to Micah instead.
I silently told him to get things started with a little flick of my head. He was reluctant, but I put on my pleading eyes and he huffed.
“Okay, fine. I’ll start.” He tapped his pen on his blank notepad. “First we need to decide what we want to look into. I don’t know about you guys, but I want the aim of this investigation to be kind of unique, so we stand out a little.”
“Me too.” Libby perked up. “We’ve only got three weeks, so I don’t think we have time to do a proper observation study, so we need to choose something where we can gather heaps of data quickly.”
“Good idea.” Micah didn’t smile, but the soft way he agreed with her made Libby relax instantly. She toyed with a smile as she looked at him.
“Why don’t you tell us what ideas you’ve had so far?” He gazed back at her, his expression open and non-threatening.
She was pleasantly surprised and her round cheeks bloomed as she launched into a list of ideas she’d come up with since reading the assignment brief. Man, she was one smart cookie.
Her expression was animated as she described her two favorite ideas in detail and I thought her chest might burst when we unanimously agreed to go with the second one - classification of native plants along the Pacific Coast Highway, which involved producing a dichotomous key. I'd never really done that before and Libby wanted to get quite complex with it by making several keys for different types of plants. It was huge, but if we could pull it off, it'd be awesome.
“Cool. Thanks guys.” She accidentally met my eye as she said it. I knew she hadn't meant to, because her unmasked face balked and she looked away from me. It hurt a little. We got on so well after the party on Friday. I had to remind myself that this had nothing to do with me and everything to do with a silent threat from Liam. But I couldn’t let that show.
We spent the next fifteen minutes reading through the assignment together and allocating specific jobs to each person. Our first task was to make sure we clearly understood the difference between monocotyledonous and dicotyledonous plants. I was surprised that I understood more than I realized. Libby explained everything so clearly and I was soon jotting down notes that actually made sense.
"So we obviously can't do the entire highway, but even if we go up to Point Mugu State Park, that should give us a pretty decent sample. Indie and Caitlyn, are you happy to collect flower samples? And Micah, are you cool to focus on trees with me?"
We all nodded and Libby grinned back, catching the edge of her lip with her teeth.
We had worked really well together. Everyone was happy to be led by Libby. As the session came to an end everyone was calm and happy...if anything, we were actually enthusiastic. It was a good feeling and I wanted to cling to it.
As the bell rang, I made a decision.
“Hey Indie, can I talk to you for a sec?” I waited until Micah and Libby were away from the table before asking. Indie’s face paled as she reluctantly nodded.
“I just wanted to apologize again for prying the other night. I really didn’t mean to offend you or Liam.”
Her tense shoulders began to sink, her posture loosening a little.
“I don’t want to lose your friendship by being a Nosy Nelly.” She grinned at the term I’d coined from my mother. “I won’t ask any more questions, so you don’t have to be nervous about doing this assignment with me or anything. Let’s just have fun with it.”
Her eyes warmed, in spite of her clammy skin. “I’d like that.”
“Cool.” We walked out of the library together and I purposely kept the conversation light, talking about the latest episode of “Pretty Little Liars,” a show I knew she loved.
*****
I kept this up for the rest of the week, trying to act as though I didn’t care one bit about Indie and Libby’s fears. It was working too. The more time we spent together, the more relaxed everyone became. We even skipped lunch on Thursday to hang out and study the samples we had all collected. Libby was stressing about fitting all her schoolwork in and Indie was the first to support her, saying we could easily skip lunch if it helped her out.