As soon as the last camper disappeared through the door of the classroom, Elena plunked down in a chair and buried her face in her hands. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been so humiliated. Maybe that science fair in fifth grade when her pulley system had stopped working and her teacher had failed her in front of the whole class. But that hadn't been her fault—some other kid had sabotaged her project.

These demos were so simple. She had to be able to get them to work.

She trudged over to the monochromatic room first. She turned the sodium neon light in the colorblind room on and off, and she flicked on and off the flashlight. Without fail, blue looked black under the yellow light, and it looked blue under the white light. If Dr. Baker hadn't been there to witness it, she would have thought she'd just imagined the malfunction a few minutes ago.

She went over to the optics station, to the lens that Sam had tried. Its image shone in the usual place. Just to make sure, she checked all of the other lenses, refractors, prisms, and diffractors in the optics station. All fine.

Finally, she took a spare green light bulb from one of the supply closets to the shadow box, and she flicked on all three lights. The whiteboard looked a little too blue, but then she remembered that she had adjusted the color balance when Sam had complained that the cyan wasn't showing up at all. She readjusted it back to the levels she had set it to that morning, and the light covering the whiteboard was only white. She held up a hand, and she could see every color of shadow.

There. Every demo working perfectly. If only Dr. Baker were there to see! She had no idea where he was now.

The classroom door squeaked, and Michelle peeked her head into the classroom. "Hey."

"Hey, don't you need to be watching the kids?"

"Patrick's got it for the moment." Michelle lead Elena into the shadow box and sat down. "I wanted to hear how things went with Dr. Baker."

Elena let her breath out and pulled up a chair next to her. "None of the equipment worked while he was watching."

Michelle smiled a little, the smile she always wore when Elena was being dramatic.

"No, I'm serious. None of it. Even the colorblind room wasn't working."

Her smile faded. "Not working how?"

"You could see blue under the yellow light."

Michelle's eyes widened. "Weird! Any idea why?"

"No. It's working now. It just wasn't working while Dr. Baker was watching."

Michelle leaned back a little. "That is really frustrating."

Elena buried her face in her hands once again. "I just feel like a failure."

Michelle sighed and remained silent until Elena looked back up at her. "What did Dr. Baker say?"

"That I needed to take some time to fix my equipment."

"It's fixed now, isn't it?"

"Yes, but I didn't change anything!"

"It's weird, but it happens, Elena. Science is statistical. Equipment is finicky. Dr. Baker knows that."

Elena glanced at the whiteboard behind Michelle, casting her multicolored shadows in perfect balance.

Michelle stared at Elena for a moment. "What do you think is going to happen?"

"I don't know. I just don't want to have to leave camp."

Michelle let out a short laugh. "I'm not going to let you get fired, Elena." She lowered her voice. "And between you and me? Even if you did, you're a brilliant engineering student. We both know you can find a job much better than this one."

Elena bit her lip. If she got fired because she was bad with kids, that was fair enough. Because she had the wrong type of personality? Harsh, but she'd get over it. Because they didn't need a camp technician anymore? Painful, but understandable.

She could not get fired because the evaluator thought she was a poor engineer.

But it was more than that. Sure, she could get another job—maybe she should have found an internship that would do more to propel her forward in her engineering career. But Camp Universe was more than that. Camp Universe meant building things that wouldn't just be judged by her professors, but that would be marveled and enjoyed by hundreds of people, even if those people happened to be elementary schoolers. Camp Universe meant getting paid to travel the country in the motor home, with all the equipment and animals. It was the first place that had felt like home to her for years.

Besides, summer had already started. She probably wouldn't be able to find another job where lodging was paid for. She'd have to move back home, which meant she'd have to talk to her mom. She couldn't do that.

Of course, she couldn't say that to Michelle; Michelle didn't understand, she was always telling her to try to make amends. Elena didn't want to have that conversation again, so she settled for, "It's just, I don't want to mess things up for you."

Michelle leaned forward in her seat. "Look at me, Elena. You don't have the power to get Camp Universe shut down. Not even you could botch an interview that badly."

"Okay, but—"

"Did you assault anyone?"

"Um, no?"

"Did anyone get hurt?"

"No. Well, Sam was upset, but not hurt."

"Did anything even get broken?"

"Not exactly."

"You're going to be just fine. Hey—" Michelle waited until Elena looked up at her— "Dr. Baker's going to forget about everything when he sees the show this afternoon."

Despite herself, Elena smiled. She could feel her heartbeat slow down, the adrenaline dissipating from her bloodstream, and she couldn't hold onto her worry about what had happened. It could have been anything. Maybe it had just been a coincidence, or maybe there had been errors she hadn't noticed. Maybe Patrick had somehow messed with her equipment—it certainly wouldn't be the first time.

The door squeaked open again, and Sam sprinted over to them and tapped on Michelle's arm. "Hey Miss Michelle, that guy in the suit wants to talk to you."

"Well then, I better find out what he wants." Michelle turned back to Elena as she stood. "Ever been to the Golden Gate bridge?"

Elena shook her head.

Michelle grinned. "That's this Saturday's outing if we can get through this week. Take as much time as you need, okay?"

Elena nodded, and Michelle picked up her chair to put it away. Her moving shadows caught Elena's eye.

The shadow that should have been cyan was green again. The magenta one was red.

Elena stared at it, her heart pounding in her ears. The color shift was subtle, but unmistakeable for someone who knew what to look for. No one had changed the settings on the light bulbs—she would have seen them. Keeping her eyes on the whiteboard, she stood and reached for the dimmers.

Michelle followed Sam out of the shadow box, and a moment later, Elena's shadow shifted back to its usual colors.

Elena darted out of the shadow box and watched Sam lead Michelle head toward the door. Before she could stop herself, she called, "Hey, Sam! Could you come back here for a minute?"

He glanced up at Michelle, who nodded, gestured toward Elena, and left the room. Slowly, he stepped toward Elena. "I didn't do it. I promise."

She laughed. "You're not in trouble."

He let his breath out and walked into the shadow box.

The colors shifted again.

Elena stood. She went over and placed a hand on Sam's shoulder, leading him out of the box. The whiteboard was white again. She lead him back into the box. Too red again. Again, the shift was subtle, much easier to see in the shadows than in the light itself, but it was there, and it was definitely consistent.

If it was just an electronic malfunction, she wouldn't have thought twice. Electronics had a mind of their own, and besides, she was much stronger in mechanical engineering than electrical. But this wasn't electronics, not exactly. Somehow, something was affecting frequency of the light given off by the bulbs. She couldn't imagine what could even be causing that.

Maybe it was something he was wearing—weird glow-in-the-dark type materials, or fluorescent fabric . . . "Sam, can I try one more thing?"

He wrinkled his nose, but nodded.

She lead him over to the back side of the shadow box, so that he was right next to the bulbs, but not blocking their light. She stepped back into the shadow box and gasped. Off-color again.

"What's wrong, Miss Elena?" Sam came to stand beside her.

"Nothing, just . . ." She kept staring at the shadows. "Do you have anything with you?"

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a halfway-unwrapped Tootsie roll covered in fuzz.

"No, not like that—"

He shrugged, popped it into his mouth, and shoved the wrapper back into his pocket.

"I mean, do you have any electronics or anything? Like, a transmitter, a function generator—"

"A what?" he said with his mouth full.

She sighed. "Do you even have a phone?"

He shook his head.

She searched him up and down—she wasn't sure what she was looking for, but whatever kind of device could disrupt the wavelengths of local light sources probably wouldn't be small enough for him to carry in his pockets easily. Not that she had any idea what the device would be.

Maybe Sam didn't even know. And maybe it wasn't even a device. Whatever was happening, she had never seen anything like it before.

Her throat swelled up with excitement. She would have to look this up, maybe text some of her friends from her engineering classes, but she had a feeling they wouldn't have seen it either. This was new. She could be the one to discover it, to harness its effects. But what could it be? Maybe some kind of interaction in his clothes, chemical dyes resonating with—

"Miss Elena-a-a." He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, swinging his arms. "I'm sorry. I'll try harder and I won't touch your stuff. Can I go back and play?"

She winced. Of course, she couldn't keep him here and do experiments with him. With some effort, she nodded. "Yeah, go back to the multipurpose room. I'll be there in a minute."

He ran out of the classroom, and the illuminated board shifted back to its usual white balance.