Maya of Israel — The Girl Who Wants to Know What Happens Next
Maya of Israel — The Girl Who Wants to Know What Happens Next
Maya of Israel — The Girl Who Wants to Know What Happens Next
Age: 15 Region: Middle East
Maya has ruined three perfectly good shirts.
Her mother would like this included in any official description of her scientific career.
“They weren't ruined.”
“They have holes.”
“Small holes.”
“One has no sleeve.”
“That was unrelated.”
It was not unrelated.
Maya loves chemistry.
Not the chemistry where you memorize symbols from a chart and then reproduce them on a test.
She likes the part where one thing meets another thing and something happens.
A color changes.
A crystal forms.
A liquid bubbles.
Something that looked completely ordinary five seconds ago suddenly isn't.
That, Maya thinks, is practically magic.
Except better.
Because magic never explains itself.
Chemistry does.
Eventually.
If you're stubborn enough.
Maya is exceptionally stubborn.
She reads chemistry books meant for students several years older than she is, although she keeps a dictionary nearby because scientists apparently enjoy using twelve-letter words when four-letter ones would work perfectly well.
Her favorite question is:
“What would happen if—”
Her mother has developed a response.
“No.”
“I haven't even finished the question.”
“I know.”
“You don't know what I was going to ask.”
“I know you.”
This is unfair.
Accurate.
But unfair.
Maya's first laboratory was the kitchen.
She was eight.
There was baking soda.
There was vinegar.
There was also considerably more foam than anticipated.
Her father came running.
Her mother stood in the doorway.
Maya stood on a chair holding an empty bottle.
Nobody spoke.
Finally her father asked, “What happened?”
Maya considered this.
“The container was too small.”
Her mother closed her eyes.
This was apparently not the answer she wanted.
Over the years, Maya's experiments have become more sophisticated.
And considerably less likely to require a mop.
Mostly.
She grows crystals.
She tests the pH of soil from different parts of the garden.
She once spent two weeks trying to determine why flowers placed in different solutions changed color at different rates.
Her grandmother discovered six glasses of increasingly alarming liquid lined up on a windowsill.
“What is this?”
“An experiment.”
“Can I drink any of it?”
“No.”
“Can the cat?”
“NO.”
Her grandmother nodded.
“Good experiment.”
But Maya's favorite experiments involve plants.
Plants are chemistry factories pretending to be decorations.
They take sunlight, water and invisible gases from the air and somehow build themselves.
This seems completely unreasonable.
And wonderful.
One afternoon, Maya is helping in the garden when she notices something strange.
Two rows of the same flowers were planted at nearly the same time.
One row is thriving.
The other isn't.
The leaves are smaller.
Some are yellowing.
Everyone else sees disappointing flowers.
Maya sees a question.
She takes soil samples.
Labels them.
Tests them.
Reads.
Tests again.
Then she marches into the kitchen.
“I know what's wrong.”
Her father looks up.
“With what?”
“The flowers.”
“What flowers?”
Maya stares at him.
She has been discussing these flowers for four days...
Her Dream: Maya wants to become a chemist and use what she learns to solve problems in the real world—perhaps developing medicines, new materials, or better ways to grow food with fewer resources. She doesn't know which yet. There are far too many interesting questions to choose from.
Her Wonder: “How many ordinary things are only ordinary because nobody has asked the right question about them yet?”
Discover Maya’s complete story in Girls Wear Crowns: Dreams Without Limits.
*****
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