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| Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay |
“Ms. Crenshaw said that we should add it slowly,” Booker grabbed the other tube filled with vinegar. Why, oh why did the teacher let them pick their lab partner today?
“But that wouldn’t be fun!” Ryan tipped the test tube into the beaker of water.
Why, oh why were they friends? “She’ll fail us,” Booker grabbed Ryan’s gloved hand. Ryan, being the larger of the boys, resisted.
“So? Don’t you wanna know what happens? I bet it explodes!” Ryan stopped pouring, “Dude, you’re like holding my hand. I didn’t know you felt that way.”
Booker pulled his hand back and stared longingly across the lab. His assigned lab partner, the girl he usually worked with, had her back turned to him.
Kiera. She was pretty, or so his mom said, but to him she was terrifying. She had icy blue eyes and she would snip at him if he touched anything on the bench. “Don’t adjust the Bunsen burner. I set it how I like,” she would grouse, “You’re doing that wrong. Quit talking so much.”
He never understood that last one. He was quiet, and even more so when he was around girls.
He hated working with her, but at least she didn’t spill caustic chemicals on the lab bench. Booker doused the spot with vinegar, then wiped it with a towel, “Why don’t you let me pour, and you can stir?”
“No, you stir,” Ryan tipped the test tube again.
Booker sighed and stirred with the glass thermometer.
“If you are doing this right,” Ms. Crenshaw stopped at the bench next to theirs, “You should start to observe a change.” She moved on to stand in front of them, “Think, why did I give you a thermometer?”
Booker looked down. The red line inside the glass had risen. He stooped to pull his notebook out of his backpack.
“Well, that was boring,” Ryan pulled a pen out of his pocket, “That’s all it does? Heat up?”
“Don’t you remember what Ms. Crenshaw said?” Booker wrote his name at the top of the paper, “When something heats up, it’s having a chemical reaction.”
Ms. Crenshaw moved back to the front of the room. “What is the chemical formula for water?” She uncapped her whiteboard marker.
Booker wrote H2O on his paper. Ryan used his pen to pry at a seam on the lab bench.
“And we added sodium hydroxide to it, which is . . .”
“NaOH,” someone volunteered.
“For your homework, I want you to answer, is it exothermic or endothermic? Using the chart on page 159 of your books, I want you to tell me the change in kilojoules per mole. Leave your beakers at your lab station. We’ll be using them tomorrow as well.”
Ryan groaned and slumped across the bench. Booker tried to ignore him, but Ryan’s hand was on his notebook. Too late he saw Ryan’s pen. As he snatched his notebook away it left a line across his homework. “You’re such a pain,” Booker closed his notebook, “Now I have to write it over again.”
“Why?” Ryan took off his goggles. They left a crease in his face across the bridge of his nose.
“I can’t turn it in with the word ‘boring’ on the top, even if it is upside down.”
“I was just having fun with you,” Ryan took off his gloves, “Anyway, class is over. Don’t you usually rush out?”
He did. Panicked, Booker looked at the clock. Passing time was short. He took off his goggles and gloves and washed his hands. Sitting at his desk, he removed his thick-lensed glasses and placed them in a case. His contacts were nestled in their cups, and as he scooped one out, another student pushed past him.
“Oh, no,” Booker gasped. The contact had vanished from his fingertip.
“Oh, no yourself, Booker.”
Even though he couldn’t see, Booker knew who it was. He could tell by the way she said his name as if it were a curse word.
Kiera.
He should have said something, but all he managed was, “Uh.” His contact lens floated away, attached to Kiera’s hair, while he was quite literally in a blind panic.
By the time he had inserted his sole remaining contact, Kiera was gone. Booker squinted at the board, then closed one eye. It was no use, he couldn’t see without both lenses.
Instead of going to class, he felt his way to music rooms next to the gym. Students milled in the hallway, their blurry shapes complicated by sparkling metal horns.
“Why do you look like you just ate a lemon?” A blur asked him.
Another blur leaned in, “Are you new?”
“Booker, why are you here?” Kiera’s voice was like a trumpet.
“There’s something I need to check,” he leaned in close, allowing his eyes to focus. There it was, in her hair, the small plastic disc curling around the edges as it dried. Plucking his contact from her hair, Booker realized how glazed Kiera’s eyes were.
He was too terrified to speak.
They would have stayed like that, Booker frozen, his face inches from Kiera’s had not a tuba player oompahed in their direction. Kiera’s eyes hardened into sapphires, “Shut-up, Booker.”
With as much dignity as he could summon, Booker marched back down the hall. As he rounded the corner, something tangled itself around his legs and sent him sprawling.
“Have a nice fall,” Ryan grinned down at him.
“Clever,” Booker opened his hand. The contact was still there, folded in half, the edges crimped like a seashell.
“Dude,” Ryan crossed his arms, “are you like having a ‘thermic reaction?”
“What?”
“You’re blushing.”
“Oh,” Booker put his cheek on the linoleum, “You know Kiera?”
“Your super-uptight lab partner? Yeah.”
“I think I just almost kissed her.”