What Stars Are Made Of: List 1

When I come across important, special, underestimated people like Rosalind, I collect them in my head and they become my friends.

Ms. Trepky folded her long fingers together again and the scuffling and whispering stopped quickly.

“For your semester projects, you will each select a figure from our textbook. A person you find more than merely interesting. This will be someone you relate to, or admire. Someone you hope to emulate. For your final project you will write an essay and give an in-depth presentation on this person, giving us much more information than you have in your textbook. You will present this person to us in such a way that when we leave the classroom, we feel this person has become our friend.”

She put a hand on our textbook. “In fact, this project is inspired by a real-life scenario. The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, is hosting a contest, where students from all over the country write a letter about a lesser-known or underrated woman from American science history...."

"...For the purposes of this class, I think it’s a valuable exercise to research those whose contributions to our society are equally as important as the contributions of those who might get more acclaim.”

The wax figure of Cecilia was beautiful in my mind, and I could see her smooth, dark hair and pale, piercing eyes.

Later, when the bell rang, Ms. Trepky spoke over the jostle and bustle of packing students.

A library as your best friend is great, but it does have some downsides. I can’t text the library. I can’t tell it the joke my dad told me about how the paramecium crossed the road because it was stuck to the chicken’s butt.

Sometimes people talk about deer in headlights like it’s a cliché, but I read about it once in a magazine, and it’s very scientific. Adrenaline floods their body and literally makes their muscles freeze even though a big old truck’s about to blam right into them.

Sometimes people talk about deer in headlights like it’s a cliché, but I read about it once in a magazine, and it’s very scientific. Adrenaline floods their body and literally makes their muscles freeze even though a big old truck’s about to blam right into them.

There are a few reasons I’m different from Nonny. A few reasons why piano doesn’t work out so well for me. Why I’ll always be shorter than her, why my heart was ballooned up way too big when I was born, and why I have to wear hearing aids. It’s sort of a big bundle of crazy, chaotic, dangerous weirdness that happened when I was born.

The big tube of blood in your heart—it’s called the aorta—squeezed, pinched, and constricted so blood can’t get through and your heart has to pound harder and harder, growing bigger and bigger until it’s ready to pop like some cheesy love song.

The big tube of blood in your heart—it’s called the aorta—squeezed, pinched, and constricted so blood can’t get through and your heart has to pound harder and harder, growing bigger and bigger until it’s ready to pop like some cheesy love song.

When I was two weeks old they took me in for heart surgery, stretching my arms up above my head so they could go in under my ribs instead of cracking open a two-week-old sternum.

The Recipe of You has forty-six ingredients. Those ingredients are called chromosomes.

Here are some more facts: 1 in every 2,500 girls is born XO. This is called Turner syndrome.

But there’s special medicine called growth hormone and if you give yourself a shot of that stuff every day for a while, you can do a pretty fine job with the whole growing thing.

My big, tough, blowtorch wielding brother-in-law, Thomas, can work with flames and dangerous buzzing tools inches from his face no problem, but needles? Total heebie-jeebies. It still makes me laugh when I think about his face the first time he saw me do my shots.

Right then Dad sashayed into the kitchen, blaring Beyonce’s “Run the World” from his phone. He pulled Nonny up from her seat and twirled her, and she nearly bumped her nose into his armpit. I laughed so hard I snorted.

“Tell us your Hard Reading Words while you do it,” Mom said, “and then bed.”
Holding the needle was as normal to me now as holding a pencil. I pushed the sharp tip into the rubbery top of the bottle.
“Flabbergast,” I said. “It means to shock or amaze. Perturbed means annoyed.”

“Tell us your Hard Reading Words while you do it,” Mom said, “and then bed.”
Holding the needle was as normal to me now as holding a pencil. I pushed the sharp tip into the rubbery top of the bottle.
“Flabbergast,” I said. “It means to shock or amaze. Perturbed means annoyed.”

“Antagonize means to be mean or a bully.”

If I could do this one humongous thing, though, this biggest of all accomplishments, then maybe I’d have that inside me like hot herbal tea and warm marmalade toast no matter what cold words anybody else said.

If I could do this one humongous thing, though, this biggest of all accomplishments, then maybe I’d have that inside me like hot herbal tea and warm marmalade toast no matter what cold words anybody else said.

When Mom went in for surgery, you can bet I talked to the universe. I talked to the universe for hours and hours. To Rosalind Franklin, specifically, because she was the one I thought could help. She knew about genetics, about cells. So I made a deal with Rosalind Franklin, and you know what? A month later, Mom was dancing around the bakery, covered in flour.