I saw the solutions right away and knew this wasn't a regular Chemistry lab. There was a huge array of various chemicals; red, turquoise, neon pink; it was nothing like I had ever seen. Usually, we would just follow word by word some packet Miss Marrotte found on some deep, looming corner of the internet. Miss Marrotte was young and naive, of course she didn't realize that her entire student body was just copying off some answer key the shady kid in class managed to lay his hands on. But today the air was filled with fog, and no one, except Miss Marrotte, knew why.
“So,” Miss Marrotte grumbled, “this is how you treat me.” Everyone simultaneously lifted their eyes off their phones and onto the aggravated teacher. “I gave you one simple responsibility. One! All I asked was a little bit of respect, and I trusted all of you young adults would listen. But no, you have to abuse a pregnant woman!” She had never shown any symptoms of being pregnant, not to mention she was like 80 pounds, so this came as a shock to the class. We looked at each other with great open eyes. This is when I noticed the shady kid, who remained unnamed since the beginning of the year, was eerily absent from the class.
“You didn't treat me with respect, so in return, I won't treat you with any. You have twenty minutes to create table salt using these solutions. These chemicals are extremely toxic, so if you spill any, you could die. You better wear protection for once.” Someone in the back chuckled. “Do you think this is funny?” Miss Marrotte wailed. The kid's face flared with embarrassment. “Because I, personally, would like to see you die first!” She paused. You could hear the flies buzzing around the room.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” The class leaped out of their seats and ran to the tables. I was befuddled, we had never learned anything about chemical reactions. Wasn't table salt just potassium or something? I ran to where the other students were.
“Why is everyone over here?” I whispered to my friend, Will.
“The lab goggles are in that cabinet,” he told me, pointing to a white box on the wall. I had never seen that thing open before. I pushed through the mob to get to a pair of glasses. I put them on; they were falling down my head. I guess this was normal for glasses.
I walked over to the big black tables in the back of the room where the chemicals rested. I picked up a neon pink bottle and looked at the label. What was this word? It had random numbers and capitals in it, and it was on no vocab quiz I had ever taken. I raised another bottle with my free hand to my eye, and it had the same thing. I looked around the room and everyone had the same look of confusion on their eyes.
Whatever. I don't need to know what I'm doing. I just need a big poof of smoke or something. I put the pink bottle I was holding into the other bottle. Nothing happened. “Shit,” I muttered. I'm gonna have to do something else. I put the solution onto the shelf on the wall behind me.