Call It Chemistry
By D.J. Van Oss
The day of the Nitrovex Scholarship Fair was clear, bright, and perfect. An omen if there ever was one.
Katie was doing a few last-minute checks on her project to make sure it sparkled. She didn’t want to take any chances on something being out of balance. The judging was starting in only thirty minutes, and everything needed to be perfect if she was going to win.
She stepped back, put her hands on her hips, and smiled.
Perfect and unavoidably grand. Her entry was a large mobile made of intricate glass pieces, each turning on its gleaming silver wire. The slightest breeze moved the pieces like multicolored snowflakes in slow motion. It was brave, it was bold, it was her masterpiece. If she said so herself.
She stole a glance at Peter, one table over, bent over and fiddling with some tube on his project. His wavy black hair flopped over his blue eyes, and her heart did a flip, sticking the landing. She sighed. Steady.
She scanned the room, eying the other entries. It was the usual. Kenny Terpstra and his Tesla coil, which she was pretty sure his dad had built for him for their sixth-grade science fair. Looked like Ronny Sharp had taken some tadpoles from the creek, stuck them in his sister’s blue wading pool, and called it “The Miracle of Life.” Down the row, Lisa Banks was trying to coerce some white mice through a maze, but they seemed more interested in crawling up her arm.
Katie grinned internally. The competition was thin this year. So much the better for her.
She had given up trying to convince her parents that art was her passion. But today was her best chance to show them she could make more than something they would stick on the refrigerator door or display on the back of a dusty bookshelf.
The annual Nitrovex Scholarship Fair was the brightest hope for many of Golden Grove’s seniors who wanted to go to college.
Genre: Romance Books | Humor
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D.J. Van Oss
Biography.
D. J. Van Oss writes sweet and sunny romantic comedies with an emphasis on second chances; kind of like the book version of finding an extra pack of icing for your cinnamon roll. He’s also the author of five humor books under the name Dan Van Oss.
When not writing you can find him working in the yard, walking the dog, or staying up too late watching BBC mysteries while eating honey peanut butter straight out of the jar. He lives in the country suburbs of Iowa with his wife and three step-daughters.
His writing partner is Jack, a pretty-boy golden retriever who grunts when you rub his ears.
D.J. Van Oss
