The Child in the Lab

Jocelyn Evans. 18 year old Honor Student, elite Westwood Private Academy

My biology textbooks weighed heavy on my arm. A series of screams ran through the air, but their urgency never registered in my strained ears. Girls from my honors math class turned away in horror, their faces both panic-stricken and pale. The freshman girls Physical Education class stood in a straight line along the football field, facing an assortment of uniformed police officers.
Great... I thought to myself. I know exactly what this is.
Think rationally. What are the odds that our football field could be the final resting place of Miriam Gosling?

I mentally factored in the elapsed time, student body population, allowed for undefined variables and came up with a solution. Reason said that the odds were probable that here lay Miriam Gosling.

Miriam Gosling is top of her Freshman Homeroom, as well as most of her Honors Classes. Or she was until she went missing three months ago. Just disappeared out of nowhere. It was like she was there one day, and not the next. We all just assumed she had gone off somewhere on her own- she did some pretty questionable things for a 15 year old.

Miriam wasn't the kind of girl you'd expect to see at the top of her class. She'd been known to have experimented with narcotics. There was multiple occasions where I had caught her red handed under the bleachers, with a bottle of Coors Light wedged tightly in her iron grasp. She was into some pretty...sketchy things. It wouldn't surprise anyone if the poor girl had gone and gotten herself killed.

Distracted by the inauspicious circumstances, I absentmindedly slipped off my embroidered Westwood Elite tunic, and rolled up the sleeves on my matching white blazer. Being the perfectionist I always try to portray myself as, I lined up the stitching and folded it perfectly along the seams. I set it down on the ground, and arranged my messenger bag and textbooks on top of it. I took a few shuffled steps over towards the pit which everyone had culled towards. Trying to attract as little attention to myself as possible, I lifted my chin slightly and craned my neck to get a better glimpse. I eventually found my way to what I think was the 35 yard line and assessed what I saw.
Perfectly uncovered sat the remains of what I knew was a student.

The slight features and petite frame indicated female. I couldn't tell for sure, but the shape of the orbital sockets in her skull indicated Caucasian. But everyone could have told you that- after all, she was clad in the same standard issue plaid skirt and white blazer I was wearing.
I took a closer look at her left distal radius... a noticeable fracture marked the bone, but the ulna remained intact. It looked like it had began remodeling, but had no doubt been unprofessionally and poorly set. I knew I'd need dental record to confirm, but I remembered when Miriam broke it.
My younger sister was in Miriam's class. Until she got expelled. One day, her and Miriam got into a fight over a boy, and next thing you know, she had Miriam pinned against the floor, with her arm twisted behind her back. And seeing how our Academy is top rated in the state, she was easily replaceable. My sister, Stephanie, was dismissed immediately.

I turned my attention back to the remains in the pit. Stress fractures spiderwebbed the Zygomatic and Maxilla, evidence of blunt force trauma becoming painfully obvious.

A shallow compression occupied her mid sternum, from what I estimated to be from the 6th rib down to the tip of the Xiphoid Process. Lab work would confirm, but I guessed that it would have resulted from a kick to the chest.

Before I could stop myself, a shiny metallic wedge caught my attention. I hopped down into the hole and reached towards Miriam's body. I attempted to recover the particulate when a hand grabbed my shoulder and yanked me back. I realized what I was doing and slunk back in embarrassment.

"What are you doing? You'll contaminate the evidence!" A woman dressed in jacket embroidered with the 'Jeffersonian Institution' logo, spat at me. I recognized the voice. I found myself face to face with Dr. Temperance Brennan.

She was the reason I knew what I did and reached the conclusions I had. Last week I had driven across the country to one of her lectures on the 'predictability of fractures and fracture patterns' and I regret it.

Right off the top, she set me aside. She asked questions, and I was the only person in the lecture hall of highschool students that could answer. I wish it ended there.

In her last statement, there was a small anomaly in the x-ray scan she used for example. I pointed it out, and corrected her error. After, she pulled me aside and told me what I was not expecting to hear.

"Don't ever expect to make it in the world of forensic anthropology. Just because your the top of your class at your school, there are a lot if people in this state, and a lot of people in this country that know a lot more and are a lot more capable than you are."

When Dr. Brennan spoke again, it brought me back to the present.

"Now, if you excuse me, this is a crime scene, and it's my crime scene to process." She spoke in an even, monotone voice.

"This is Maryland. Isn't it a little out of your jurisdiction?" I dared to question her authority.

"Shouldn't you know that the Jeffersonian processes scenes from all over the country?" She added genuinely.

I rose up perfectly straight, and stared her in the face, unafraid to show the anger boiling inside.

"Temperance. Brennan. You don't scare me. I've met a lot more intimidating people." I stared her down.

She matched my fiery tone.

"That's Dr. Brennan to you. You should think things through better. There is absolutely no way you could make it in this business if you get a reputation of being defiant and resisting authority."

"Well, aren't you starting to get a reputation as the forensic anthropologist who got corrected by a girl who hasn't even graduated highschool yet." I argued back.

"You got lucky" she spat back.

"You were still wrong" I added.

My mind fumbled furiously for a clever retort for when she replied, but I soon gave up.

No matter how much I hated her, I still respected her work. I couldn't deny she led the field in both experience and publicity. I realized that I was wrong. I wanted to apologize, but the way her eyes burned made me turn away. I wasn't going to argue with someone that could very well be to only hope I might have for a career in forensics.