The girl sat up in bed and blinked in surprise. She looked around the room, her eyes settling on Joseph. A yelp escaped her lips as she rolled off the bed and onto her feet in one smooth motion. "I'm sorry," she said. "I got up to use the bathroom and I must have gone into the wrong room."
"It's all right," he said, unable to think of anything else to say. The girl slid along the wall, her cheeks turning red.
"You must be Joseph. Your father mentioned you earlier. This is a nice room. Much nicer than mine."
"You know Pop?"
"He let me spend the night here. My cousins and I. We're from out of town and we didn't have anywhere else to stay, so he said we could stay here for the night-" her voice finally ran out of steam and with a look of frustration she took a deep breath. "My name is Samantha Young. My cousins and I are spending the night. I'm really sorry about sleeping in your bed. I'll go back to my room now."
"Oh, OK," Joseph said, hating himself for not coming up with anything more clever. He stepped aside so Samantha could run out of the bedroom and down the hall. He heard a door slam shut. For a moment he stood there, waiting for her to come back, but she didn't.
What had he done? A beautiful girl lying in his bed and he couldn't untie his tongue to say anything. I'm such an idiot, he thought. He should go down the hall to apologize for acting like such a dork, but he'd only end up making things worse. Just like when he tried to ask Stacey Hennigan to the Valentine's Day dance. He'd gotten within ten feet of her before his bladder loosened and he had to spend the rest of the day in the bathroom, waiting for everyone else to go home so they wouldn't see or smell the mess he'd made.
He closed the bedroom door and then set the backpack on his bed. As he unpacked the clay jars taken from the chamber, he thought of the potion he'd taken. If one potion could tell him the history of the universe, maybe another could tell him how to get a girl. Not any girl-Samantha Young. He had to have her.
Joseph swept away everything on his desk except for his microscope and notepad. He lined up the jars and then sat down to begin his work.