Zoe Crosse
stifling, don’t you think?’ ‘Does the same part of the brain light up,’ Creed carries on, tapping her head, ‘when a mother kisses her baby, as when a girl kisses a boy?’ Sir chews his lip. ‘Does it light up when a girl kisses a girl?’ I think out loud. There’s a smattering of giggles. Creed gives me a wide-eyed look and shakes her head, but I shrug it off. I need to know how this love-addiction malarkey works. ‘Sorry, Sir,’ I say. ‘I mean can a single kiss make someone love you forever? Can it get their brain all lit up?’ The screen light glows through Sir’s sticking-out ears, making them very pink. ‘Brains don’t actually light up,’ he wipes the shine from his brow. ‘This part here,’ he taps the big brain on the board with his finger tip, ‘called the hypothalamus—’ The interactive board responds to his touch; the video plays, and the voice-over, loudly, mentions… sexual desire. A whoop of excitement sweeps round the class like a Mexican wave on heat. Sir hits pause but the button won’t obey. He turns down the volume. Everyone whines, high-pitched pleas for him to let us watch send him sinking into his chair with a sigh of defeat. ‘Fine,’ he says. ‘It’s good for you to know. Forewarned is forearmed.’ The class settles, as the video promises to reveal the chemistry of love to us, the bewildered, bewitched and besotted. On screen an androgynous anime couple kiss and their brains emit pulsating arrows, love darts of dopamine. Silence. I dig Creed in the ribs. ‘Why’s Thread blocked me?’ She moves closer. ‘You keep posting mythical conspiracy theories on the group blog. This Gaia theory thing of yours is vexing her. Mother Nature ain’t real, Bee. And she ain’t mad at us. Global warming is real. We can’t fix it with a fairy tale lol.’ Creed raises her perfectly penciled eyebrows, but her eyes don’t meet mine. They’re fixed on the screen
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