#CHAPTER 66 A cost component

"Wait for me in our room next time."

"How can I? Evan, look!" I beamed at him as I dried off my hands with a brown paper towel, courtesy of the helpful lab assistant who had been tending to me devotedly for the past hour. "These plants, do you see them?"

Evan leaned over my shoulder. He carried the acrid scent of fire, and his clothes were rumpled. He must have thrown on whatever he could find in the dresser right after arriving in our room to find me gone, and he had come here straightaway instead of washing up. But he was worried for nothing. This was cause for excitement! As Professor Ornby had said, almost a miracle, though I wasn't so full of myself that I would really call it one.

"I don't understand. What am I looking for?"

"Oh! I didn't explain. These were seeds less than an hour ago. Something happened in the greenhouse overnight and Professor Ornby wanted to make sure of the cause for it. So he's running some basic experiments with all of our ba