Chapter 3: Atoms 1

Stefanie understood most everything from the second class.  It was about atoms, the fundamental building blocks of everything that exits.  Well, at least of all matter.  Energy was something different.

There were a couple things she would need to read about more carefully.  The prof had talked about something called atomic mass.  Maybe Spruce, her boyfriend, could explain that to her.  He was coming down to treat her to dinner that night.  He was also taking chemistry that semester up at IUPUI in Indianapolis.

Of course it's not really what she wanted to talk about over supper at Noodles, one of her favorite restaurants in Bloomington.  But Spruce brought it up.

"We did atoms today in chemistry," Spruce said.  "The professor went kind of crazy."

"What did he do?"

"It's a she.  She started talking about some magic bus that could shrink and go around your body."

"I think I remember seeing a cartoon like that once," Stef said.

"She got all excited about some episode where the bus went around the digestive system.  Down the esophagus and into the stomach and small intestines.  She thought it was really funny that the cartoon didn't talk about coming out the anus.  She must have laughed for a half a minute before she got hold of herself."

"Gross," Stef said.  "So let me guess, she went on to have the bus shrink down to the size of an atom."

"Exactly," Spruce answered.  "She jumped up on her desk and started asking different people questions at random, which was really a bummer since I was talking to you on Facebook at the time."

"I remember you saying you had to get off because your teacher was going crazy."

"So she asks a girl in front of me what we would see next if we kept shrinking in the stomach.  The girl didn't know what to say.  She finally asked the teacher what the person had just eaten."

"So what was the prof looking for?" Stefanie finally asked while chugging down some pasta.

"Tissues and then cells.  Then she kept asking people what comes next as we got smaller.  Thankfully the geeks and pre-meds in class started raising their hands."

"Wait, you're a pre-med, Spruce."

"I knew all the stuff," he said, stuttering a little bit.  "I just didn't want to raise my hand."

"Right," Stef answered in a skeptical tone.

"So they go down to the nucleus of the cell, then chromosomes, then DNA in the chromosomes.  She was having a really good time."

"So what's after that?" Stef asked.

"Molecules--groups of atoms that connect together in certain predictable ways."

"I know what a molecule is!" Stef protested.  "And then finally down to atoms, I guess."

"Exactly," he answered...