The Field Read Online Free

cookie.
    â€œNot you, too! No more cookies please! Dinner’ll be ready soon,” Mom exclaims as she fills a pot with water and dumps the beans into it.
    We ignore her and keep eating. “It was okay. AP Environmental Science seems pretty good. Lots of field trips.”
    â€œWhere to?”
    â€œThe Benton County Wind Farm and the Coal Gasification Plant. Maybe some others.”
    â€œThe wind farm is pretty amazing. I drove past it last spring on my way to one of our satellite campuses. All of a sudden in the middle of the cornfields, these giant turbines appear. There must be hundreds of them. I’ve read that it’s going to be the biggest wind farm east of the Mississippi when it’s completed. Not what you’d expect from the coal belt. Makes you proud to be from Indiana.” He puts his hand over his heart in an exaggerated gesture of pride.
    â€œI guess so.” I’m about to tell them about the internship when my dad asks where Marcie and Drew are.
    â€œDrew’s down the street with some friends and Marcie should be dropped off from cross country practice any minutenow,” my mom answers. Marcie is my fourteen year old sister—she’s a freshman this year, and Drew is in third grade.
    â€œAll right, then. Is there time for me to go for a run before dinner?” Dad asks.
    â€œSure, if you swing by the Reeds’ on the way back to get Drew.”
    â€œConsider it done.” He starts getting up from the island.
    I quickly say, “Have you heard anything about an important physics professor visiting at the university from the Overet Lab in France? He’s going to teach a couple of AP Enviro classes.” I pause. “And he’s offering an internship in his lab for second semester.”
    â€œWow, really?” My dad sits back down. “So, you’re interested? I haven’t heard about him, but I wouldn’t in the English department. What about you, Jill?”
    â€œI might have heard something, but archeologists don’t mingle too much with the physics department, either.” I have their full attention now. My mom’s leaning on the island, dish towel in hand. As professors at the university, my parents are
really
big on education, so I figured they would be all over this.
    â€œHe’s a nuclear physicist studying alternative energy sources. The internship could be cool.”
    â€œSo, do you want us to look into it for you or anything?” my dad asks a little too casually. “We could call some of our colleagues to put in a good word.” My parents are always so helpful. It can be annoying.
    â€œNo, definitely not. I don’t even know anything about it or how he will choose the intern.”
    â€œOkay. Well, let us know how it goes.”
    As I’m gathering my gear to take upstairs and get in the shower, Marcie comes in nosily from the side door and dumpsher bags—she has at least four, and I have no idea what she has in all of them—all over the floor by the door.
    â€œHey!” my mom says. “How was your first day of high school?”
    â€œIt was great! Sara is in my English class and I have ‘A’ lunch with a lot of my friends.” She takes my stool at the island and I decide I’d better get upstairs quick to shower before she gets in and uses all the hot water.
    A FTER DINNER I go up to my room to get started on my homework. Even though it’s just the first day of school, my teachers didn’t hold back on assignments. It’s mostly reading, so I stack the pillows on my bed against the headboard and get my iPhone so I can listen to music while I start the novel we’re reading for English. It’s
A Farewell to Arms
by Hemingway, which is supposed to be pretty good, so I figure it’s a good place to start. Ralph, the mutt we got from the pound last year, jumps on the bed and makes a nest in the comforter by my feet. He circles around