ZA-AP!

She’s Lightning-Penny and I’m Thunder-George. Lightning-Penny is my best friend, though she can be pretty stormy sometimes. We’ve been friends since Mrs. Rosalio assigned us together for a school project. At first, I thought she was bonkers, with legit reasoning. She’s a great teacher, but this is her first year teaching us kids and she’s made plenty of wacky mistakes. Back to the present situation. 

First Penny Brown is a Girl, and more importantly, Penny Brown is the toughest meanest girl the entire second grade. I opened my mouth to protest but Penny shot me with her trademark scowl. I could practically feel it’s venomous orange goop with streaks of purple energy. Meekly I closed my mouth and wondered what mess I had gotten myself into. 

Pure determination appeared at my lunch table in the form of Penny Brown. Melvin, my former chum quickly excused himself for the music room. I mentally braced myself for the unfair division that was going to be pronounced from her. 90/10 same-o same-o.

“Hi, George, ready to work on the winning science fair project?”

She caught me off guard. No mention of dividing the work. Ignoring me, Penny went on.

“So we have the coolest subject for our project, the sky. We’re going to need codenames ok? You’ll be Thunder and I’ll be Lightning. Meet me at the library at 3:00.”

“Ok.”

And off she went her short red hair as staticy as her codename.

I smelled the welcome scent of books as I walked to Miss Philip's desk.

"Hello, Mr. George

"Excuse me Miss, is Penny Brown here?'

"You mean that lioness of a girl prowling the electricity shelves?"

I looked over and caught Penny's eye.

"Yes, Miss thank you."

I headed over. Penny had some books that looked terribly difficult and long. And this is coming for me, the top reader in the class.

"My Dad's a Naturalist at Yale, so I was practically raised with the clouds. I was thinking that we could read these for ideas for our project."

I don't think that my brain realized that Penny could talk. Everyone knew she hadn't gotten a higher grade than a D+ in her life. Glad for something to do I opened one of the shorter books.

After five minutes of struggling to read it, I looked over at Penny. She grinned. "Thunder, I know exactly what we should do."

"Are you sure this is legal?"

We were outside a window of Yale's Ecological Nature Lecture Hall while Penny jiggled the window open.

"Do you want to win or not? Besides, isn't it convenient that this lecture hall has windows big enough to squeeze the generator out of?"

"The what?"

Penny led me into the hall through the window, pointing at a ball.

"This," she said grandly, "is a Van de Graaf generator."

I admit, Penny has a grand sense of leadership, before I knew it, we had smuggled the generator out of the window and into the express wagon. We laughed all the way to our hideout, a green weeping willow, because isn't it hilarious how easy it is for two kids to sneak a generator out of an elite university?

"Here's the next plan." I eagerly listed, as I had learned that Lightning-Penny had the most fun plans of anyone I knew. Besides I'd never had a real friend before. Sure I had had chums, yet they were all bookish nerds like myself. Classical, plain, predictable. They were pretty pithy as chums. Lightning-Penny (I'd taken to calling her that in my head) was the opposite, and I could tell in my gut that she was a friend, a real true one. She was the opposite, eccentric, redheaded, and unexpected. I supposed that we were friends like in the way batteries are friends. Opposites attract. Not romantically, just logically.

"We're going to win this contest, why our experiment will be the best in the entire fair."

I caught her enthusiasm.

"Excellent, but can you show me what this Van de something generator does?"

"Sure, but we're going to need an outlet."

We hurried to her house. I marveled at the inside. The walls were pure white and rather rounded like an egg. It was sleek and modern and really, it looked like a place from outer space or the future. "Hungry?" I nodded. Lightning-Penny pushed an invisible button on the wall and whoosh! a secret compartment appeared containing a pristine tray bearing two cold colas, cookies, and fruit.

Feasting on snacks I watched as Lightning-Penny plugged in the generator and charging it. Then she dimmed the lights with a snap of her fingers and held the wand. ZA-AP! I saw a blue streak of beautiful lightning. She did it several more times and I was more and more amazed. When the lights returned to normal I saw that her short ginger hair was standing straight up. "That was AWESOME! What will I do?"

You can be the thunder. She disappeared and quickly came back with a boring sheet of metal. She gave it to me. "What do I do with this?" "Shake it." I shook it and I admit, it made a pretty cool sound. An almost identical sound to the sound of thunder.

The next week Lighting-Penny and I worked on the best school project ever assigned. We raided the store for tons of art supplies to make a great poster to complement the generator for our presentation. I wrote a killer short hand-out explaining what really happened during thunderstorms, after all, how many people really know? and Lightning-Penny made the most realistic illustrations you would almost think that they were photographs. I learned that she was dyslexic but she loved comic books and she was incredibly funny and creative due to making stories for herself. Lightning-Penny loved the gavottes and concertos I played for her. One day she said something that made my ears as red as beets. "I declare! You're as good as Vivaldi or Bach!"

Finally, the great day came. Despite Penny's unwavering belief that we would win, a little nasty voice in my head said, "Oh no you won't, oh nooo you will not." Contrary to the voice, the day was amazing. Our exhibit attracted the most kids, and it sure beat the paper mache volcanoes with ketchup lava. As noon came the portly judge made his way the podium. "I'm pleased to announce that Penelope Brown and George Rogers have won the Englewood Elementry science fair." I was so happy! I squished that nasty little voice with the high five I gave to Lightning-Penny.

That medal was nice but boy, it wasn't as electric golden as our friendship. I guess Miss Rosalio was right after all.

ZA-AP!