Elena woke up feeling surprisingly awake on Wednesday morning, and she vowed to herself that she would keep herself together. She'd done it for the entire summer before.

Once again, she didn't see Sam's parents that morning, but this time it was because she didn't stick around for morning check-ins. She checked the equipment for the afternoon activities exactly once, and forced herself to keep it at that. She didn't normally check it any more than that; she could double check things again once they started failing. Once Sam arrived.

She had to strike a careful balance with how much she helped Sam. She couldn't be too obviously focusing on him, though it would be considered acceptable for her to give him a little extra attention, since he'd been having a hard time for the past couple of days. And, of course, the worst thing she could do was act excited if his labs weren't working. Even if winning her job back was a lost cause, she still had to prove that Michelle hadn't been crazy in hiring her, or the camp might lose its funding—Elena couldn't bear to do that to Michelle.

Her chance came during the first activity of the day, during the invisible ink activity.

The invisible ink lesson had been Elena's least favorite when she first tried it, but it was one of her favorites now. The trick had been finding a recipe that worked every time, but that was last summer's struggle. She felt bad that another camp technician was going to have to learn it from scratch.

Kids sat at newspaper-covered tables in a different room than the one they would be using for the later activities. Michelle liked to have them cycle through the rooms so that cleaning could take place at the end of each day, not in the middle. It meant an easier morning and a longer afternoon, but it was better than the alternative.

Elena stood at the side of the room preparing extra chemicals. Someone spilled every time they did this lesson. It didn't stain, but it did mean she needed to keep extra materials available.

A couple of boys at the table on the far side of the room raised their hands as they finished painting their secret messages onto the paper. Elena picked up the heat lamp from the supply box and walked over to meet them. She held the lamp over one boy's paper.

The wet markings darkened, resolving into a steady stream of foul language. Both boys burst into laughter.

Great. "Go show Miss Michelle."

The boy deflated, dropped his paper, and trudged over to Michelle, who was kneeling beside one of the tables and explaining how the ink worked.

Elena's eyes skimmed over the classroom. For this activity, it looked like she was going to have no trouble making an excuse to come talk to Sam. The "invisible" ink on Sam's page had already darkened, even without a heat source. That could happen if she messed up the chemical balance, but she was sure she hadn't, not today.

"Hey, Sam." Elena knelt down beside him. "Can I see that?"

He gasped and covered his paper with his arm. "I'm sorry!"

"No, no it's okay. I just want to see it." She reached for the paper.

For a moment he froze, staring down at the table. Then, in one swift motion, he flung the paper from the table. It fluttered onto the floor beside Elena.

She picked it up and stood. Other than a few specks of dirt that had clung to the wet paper, the ink was completely invisible.

She stared for a long time at the paper. If he had found some other way to heat up the paper, it was possible it could be cooled by now. Figuring out what source of heat he had used was another question, since his breath shouldn't have been enough to do it, unless her chemicals were off balance.

Maybe Elena had imagined it. It had seemed so clear, but had also only been in her peripheral. And, of course, if it had been anyone else . . . "Sorry, Sam. Here you go." She held the paper out to him.

"I messed it up again, didn't I?" He pouted and took the paper. "This one is different from the light bulbs one. I have to do the opposite."

"This doesn't have anything to do with the light bulbs, Sam, it's totally different." Elena kept her eyes on the paper, watching for the ink to darken again, but it didn't.

"Um, I'm done. Can you bring the heat lamp so I can see it?"

Elena nodded slowly, then she called out, "Hey, Patrick!"

Patrick looked up from where he was helping another camper.

"Can you grab the heat lamp?"

Patrick shrugged and went over to get the lamp. He held it out to Elena, but she said, "Help Sam?"

Understanding filled his eyes, and he smiled down at Sam. "Let's take a look at this," he said.

Patrick held the light up to Sam's artwork. For awhile—a long while, far too long—nothing was happening. Elena breathed in to say something.

Then the ink darkened.

"There we go!" Patrick smiled and went back to the table he was at.

Sam beamed. "I'm getting better at this," he said.

Elena gave Sam a reluctant high-five.

Elena hung back from the kids a bit during the density activity, since Dr. Baker had arrived by then—she was beginning to wonder why he didn't have anything better to do than to evaluate their camp. She was still working out an excuse to go check on Sam when he ran up to her and held up his plastic cup.

"Miss Elena, my density is broken," he said.

Elena's heart pounded in her chest. She knelt down beside Sam, looking over the contents of the cup. She glanced up toward the front of the classroom, but Patrick was already surrounded with kids on the tarp-covered carpet, and Michelle was chasing down kids who were trying to run around the room.

"Let's take a look at this." She took the cup from his hand and tried to mimic what Michelle would say if Sam had asked her the same question, though her throat was choked up. "Alright, so can you tell me what's supposed to happen?"

"Miss Michelle said the molasses is supposed to go on the bottom, then the corn syrup, then the blue water, then the oily yellow stuff on top."

"Good." Elena held the cup at eye level. The water was floating on top of the canola oil. It happened sometimes, if the camper poured the liquids in carefully enough not to disturb the surface tension. If it were anyone but Sam, Elena would have thought absolutely nothing of it. But with Sam . . . "Hey, Patrick, can you come take a look at this?"

Patrick looked up from his group of kids. He smiled when his eyes fell on Sam, and he came over to sit beside him. "Oh, look at that!" He glanced over the cup. "What's wrong with it?"

"The water is on top," Sam said. "It's not supposed to be."

"You know," Patrick said, "this just happened to Janie, too. Try tapping on the side of the cup."

Sam tapped the side, and the colored liquids began to slide past each other . . .

"Oh!" Sam said. "It's working now!"

"Nice!" Patrick grinned. He gave Sam a high-five, and Elena a bright smile, which she forced herself to return, then Patrick returned to the carpet.

Elena swallowed, looking over the cup. She tried not to be disappointed; this was just another data point. Yesterday's experiments had gone wrong, but this one was working. The only thing amiss was that the water looked a bit too purple to her, but maybe it was just a trick of the light. Still, worth a second look. "Can I see that?"

Sam held up the cup to her, but just then, another kid slammed past them, knocking the cup clean out of Sam's hand. The contents flew onto the floor, and the running kid's sneaker slipped on the oil. He tumbled onto the tile, his head narrowly missing the cupboard on the far wall.

Michelle stepped between Sam and Elena, facing the boy on the floor. "Are you alright, Jason?"

Jason pulled himself to his feet, nodding.

"Okay. This is why we don't run during labs. Mr. Patrick is going to stay back and help you clean up the mess." Michelle turned to face the crowd of now-silent kids on the carpet and somehow both raised and softened her voice to say, "Everyone else, it's just about time to head back to the multipurpose room for snack."

Elena was still cleaning as the kids filed out of the room. She felt like a monster for feeling frustrated that Sam was finally having a good time, but she still had no explanation for anything she'd seen over the past couple of days.

She sighed, dropped the wet rag, and sat back against a cupboard to find that Sam had stayed in the classroom.

"I think I can control it," Sam said.

"You can control what?"

"The science. It's really hard, and I can't always, but I think I'm getting better."

Elena shook her head. "You can't control science, Sam. It just . . . is."

"My uncle says it's different for me."

"Your uncle—" She cut herself off at the last minute. "I'm glad you're doing better today."

He smiled and left the classroom.