None of these methods work very well unless some other things happen at the same time. Once the rDNA is inside the patient, the preexisting DNA has to receive some signals from the body to convince it to accept the new genes. The signals are sent by expression vectors, and they have to understand and accept the new DNA before they’ll send the signals for the body to do the same. Some scientists believe the body has to have a strong reason before it will accept the rDNA, such as a terminal disease or a lethal injury.

rDNA is becoming important to the human race because of its many valuable uses. For example, scientists are using it to grow crops that are more weather-resistant, and to manufacture medicines to help patients who have serious diseases like diabetes and hemophilia. A company called GenHance has been working on creating rDNA that will stop babies from being born with serious defects and life- threatening conditions. On the GenHance Web site they have an entire section about how rDNA should not be used for frivolous or unnecessary changes to human DNA, such as altering our outward appearance, but I think how people feel about themselves can be just as important as good health.

I’ve had to wear braces for two years now, and they’re very uncomfortable. I can hardly eat anything I like. If I could use rDNA to change the genes that gave me crooked teeth, and replace them with genes for straight teeth, I wouldn’t have to wear them until the middle of high school. I think it would also be much cheaper for my parents to pay for a single shot of rDNA instead of two years of visits to the orthodontist every nine weeks.

The reason I decided to use supermodels as part of my project is because almost every plain girl I know dreams about being beautiful. There are also some girls like my best friend Gemma who want to work as supermodels when they grow up. Gemma isn’t very tall, and she has a large birthmark on her face. She’s going to ask her mom if she can have laser surgery as a graduation present, but wouldn’t it be better for her if a single injection could make her taller and take away her birthmark? If science can make our lives better, then why shouldn’t Gemma have a chance to improve her appearance so she can follow her dream?

I plan to use a Photoshop program to demonstrate how rDNA might transform people’s appearance for the better. I also plan to research the different types of particles that can be used to deliver the rDNA to the body and will show samples of the metals in my display.

I believe that rDNA can be used safely, not just to make sick people better, but to help people save time and money while trying to improve their appearance, and feel better about themselves. I’m really excited about this project, so I hope you will approve my proposal and let me show the world that GenHance is wrong.

Chapter 11

Taire woke from the nightmare of the dark room with a shriek, and as soon as she realized where she was she pressed a hand over her mouth to smother the sounds until they stopped. She lay still and listened until the silence reassured her that no one was outside the closet. No one had heard; no one knew she was here.

A few months ago she would have spent the next hour crying into her pillow, but she had neither the tears nor the time to wallow in her misery. The sun was setting—she could always feel it, even in here—and she had to get up and get moving.

One of the hardest things for her to do was one of the simplest tasks in life, one she’d never thought about before she’d left home: bathing. The hotel had no running water, and there was no place in the city that did that would allow a runaway to make use of their facilities. Using the sinks in one of the few public restrooms to wash more than her hands was too embarrassing; Taire had tried it once and some tourist woman had actually tried to take a picture of her. A few of the kids she’d met on the streets sometimes used public fountains for a quick soak in their clothes during the summer nights—occasionally getting themselves arrested in the process—but Taire couldn’t risk it. After a month of being unable to wash herself properly, she’d started to bring her own water into the hotel, one bottle at a time.

Everyone drank bottled water these days, so it had been easy to scrounge enough bottles out of trash cans around the city. Every night she filled three of them at a public water fountain, tucked them in the pockets of her jacket, and carried them back to her place, where she stored them in a room on the first floor. Once she had collected twenty-one filled bottles, she had enough to bathe.

Taire uncapped the bottles and lined them up beside the tub in the first- floor room where she took her baths. After she cranked her flashlight and turned it on, she set it on the sink with the beam aimed at the tub. As she stripped off her clothes, the frigid air made her shiver, and the cold water in the bottles didn’t help. She’d learned to keep them covered with a mound of towels to prevent them from freezing solid, but it didn’t warm the water any.

She stepped into the tub and took the first bottle, pouring it slowly over her head while working her fingers through her hair. The water was so cold it made her gasp, but after the second bottle it wasn’t as much of a shock to her skin. It took another two bottles to get her body wet, and then she went to work with a mini bottle of shampoo and a thin bar of soap she’d scrounged from one of the housekeeping carts. When she was completely soaped down, she began the laborious process of rinsing off, one bottle of water at a time.

The first time she’d tried it she hadn’t brought enough water, and had been forced to walk around for another day with sticky hair before she’d collected enough bottles to rinse it clean. Now she had it down to a science, and by the time she used the last of her water she was soap and shampoo free.

She wrapped a hotel towel around her wet head and used another to dry off and rub some warmth back into her shivering limbs. Once dry, she changed into her cleanest set of clothes—doing her version of laundry required so much water that she only washed her clothes when she couldn’t stand the smell of them anymore—and rubbed her hair briskly until it was a damp tangle.

The other drawback to bathing was that she had to wait for an hour or so until her hair air-dried before she went outside. The temperatures in November rarely rose above freezing, and while she never got sick, going out with wet hair caused her to lose too much body heat, and her fingers and toes would go numb. Once she had wiped out the tub with the damp towels she’d used, and hid her empty water bottles on the top shelf of the room’s closet, she carried the wet towels back to her room, where she folded and hung them on the bathroom rack to dry.

Taire liked to read, but searching the hotel rooms had only turned up a single book some guest had left behind. Since she couldn’t afford to buy more she had to read that or the Gideon Bible in the nightstand. She settled into her closet, fished the book out of her clothes bag, cranked her flashlight for a few minutes, switched it on, and began to read chapter one.

There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further outdoor exercise was now out of the question.

I was glad of it: I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons: dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight, with nipped fingers and toes, and a heart saddened by the chidings of Bessie, the nurse, and humbled by the consciousness of my physical inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed.

Taire had mixed feelings about the book. It was depressing, filled with bad things that happened for no good reason, and the characters often made no sense. She also didn’t think even back in those days that a ten-year-old girl talked that way. But she knew how the orphaned Jane felt, first being dumped on relatives who hadn’t wanted her, and then being shipped off to that horrible school, where she was abused and the only friend she made ended up dying.

At least Jane had Helen Burns. Taire didn’t have anyone. And there are worse things than being plain.

Father knew about Taire’s physical inferiority, of course, but he had believed she could overcome her flaws. She’d always gone along with whatever he had wanted changed because she knew he was trying to make her a better person. It hadn’t been easy; every year there had been another operation, sometimes two or three, and he would never come to see her until the bruising had disappeared. Then he would visit her in the golden room, and he would watch her and smile, nodding every time she did something right. He would be in such a good mood that he would pretend not to notice any of her mistakes.

You’re doing well, child, was what he’d usually say. Once in a great while he would point out something specific and tell her That’s almost exactly as it should be. Those were the best times with Father, when she had pleased him enough for him to mention it. Then she would have four or five or even as much as six months of freedom from the dark room.

It was the freedom that always spoiled things for her; Taire could see that now. She would get used to being able to move around the house, and have her meals downstairs, and go to the library whenever she wanted something to read. The servants would smile at her and do little things for her, like giving her a snack in the kitchen or letting her play with the grand piano in the music room. When Father was pleased, everyone was happy.

That was when Taire would forget, and do something that was not allowed, and even if no one had seen her do it, somehow Father always knew.

Her nanny would take her to him, and he would make her confess to whatever wrong she had done. Taire would cry as she admitted to the wrong, and beg him to forgive her, but Father would only nod to the nanny, who would lead her back to the dark room. It was small and dark and empty except for a toilet in the corner and a sleeping bag on the floor. It also had no windows, and when Taire was locked in she felt as if she had gone blind, and screamed and cried for hours. Only when she stopped making noise would someone push a tray of food and a cup of water through the slot in the door three times a day. Unless she pushed the tray and cup back through the slot, the servants wouldn’t bring her anything else to eat or drink.

No one came to see her when she was staying in the dark room. Once a week they put something in her food that made her go to sleep, and when she woke she would be dizzy but clean and wearing new clothes.