roof for all the good it would do her today.
Katie went back to her adjusting a few pieces of her sculpture. The
multicolored glass of the elaborate mobile twirled slowly, each piece reflecting shards of light. She'd already been getting admiring glances from students and even some of the teachers. She had a feeling.
This was her year.
Chapter Two
Present Day
A burst of fire puffed out of a test tube bubbling over a Bunsen burner. It roiled towards the ceiling in a mini-mushroom cloud before it evaporated. The stunned
class let out a combined “Whoa…”
Peter Clark stepped back and turned off his torch. “And that's why we wear
our goggles. So, can anyone tell me what the three products of combustion are?”
His classroom of high school students shifted in their seats, some looking at
their phones, all avoiding eye contact with him. He picked up the heavy organic
chemistry book from his desk, held it between his fingers, and dropped it.
The thud echoed like a cannon, and all heads shot up.
“The correct answer is fuel, oxygen, and heat.” He moved to the whiteboard
at the front of the room and began drawing with a red marker. “Oxygen is already in the air, and the heat is from the burner, which leaves the fuel. So, add anhydrous sodium acetate and sodium hydroxide and you get a combustible
substance called methane. Otherwise known as cow farts.”
A few titters rippled through the room.
He put down the marker, wiped his hands on his jeans, and glanced at the clock. “Okay, we still have a few more minutes, so I wanted to remind you about
the test coming up next Thursday.”
A chorus of groans rolled over the class.
“Yeah, yeah, I know, another test. I'm cruel and inhuman. But we wouldn't
have to do the test early if some nameless bunch of knuckleheads hadn't nominated me for this teacher award thing.”
The groans turned back to titters and smiles. Someone shouted out, “Go, Mr. C!” punctuated by a whistle. The class laughed.
“Yes, thanks so much. So, that being the case, I'll be in Des Moines next week on Friday. But don't worry, Mr. Potter has agreed to teach the class while
I'm wasting my time at some awards banquet.”
“Do you get to wear a tux?” Nick Norton shouted from the back row.
Peter smiled. He did love his class. “On a teacher's salary? You've got to be
kidding me.”
The class laughed again.
“Again, the more you study now, the less you'll end up having to cram on the last night—”
A tone blared through the classroom speaker, signaling the period was over.
Students immediately began grabbing backpacks and books.
“Don't forget,” he called out above the shuffling noise, “we're going to start
working on gas laws and kinetic theory on Monday. Read through the
experiment on page eighty-one.” He tapped the side of his head. “And don't forgot your goggles!”
As students hustled out of his classroom, Peter moved to the whiteboard and
began erasing the day's lesson, hoping at least one of the bleary-eyed kids in his Intro to Chemistry class had learned the difference between combustion and burning. This was the last class of the day, and even though most of them were
good kids, they couldn't wait to get out the door and have school over with for
the weekend.
