She made a pie.

She believed in covalent bonds, reproducible results, and the precise heat at which an egg white denatured (62°C, for the record). So when her six-year-old daughter, Mad, came home from school with a black eye and a note that read “Madeline has been asked to refrain from ‘correcting’ the teacher,” Elizabeth did not sigh, or cry, or call the principal.

She walked out.

That night, Mad sat at the kitchen table, holding a frozen bag of peas to her eye. “Was I wrong to correct him?”

She handed Mad a notebook. On the first page, Elizabeth had written: Properties of Sodium: Soft. Reactive. Dangerous if provoked.