Justin’s mouth opened wide, he went white, “Oh no, it wasn’t my hot dog from today, it was a hamburger from about 3 months ago! I forgot about it.”
Apparently Justin couldn’t smell it because he had his nose broken twice playing football and the injury had totally destroyed his sense of smell. And that is unfortunately how Justin got to be called Dustbin by some of our nastier class members.
Anyway, here I sit between Justin and Mean Girl, as Mr. Oscar fires lightning fast questions around the room. I follow the standard “avoid being picked to answer questions” tactics, appearing to listen intently and making no eye contact with the teacher and nodding wisely when someone else answered correctly.
When suddenly Mean Girl jabs me in the ribs with her sharp and boney elbow. I give an involuntary “oomph” as I double over in pain and surprise. That’s when I make my mistake, I panic and look up to see if Mr. Oscar has heard me. Bad mistake! Our eyes lock! EYE CONTACT! Oh no….
“Right Maddi, next question is yours,” snaps Mr. Oscar. Panic overtakes me, my pulse is beating faster than a speeding bullet. Here comes the question, I hold my breath, trying to focus. “What is the bluzen dinky xyt24 62536477flmkjqu,” he asks. At least that is what it sounded like to me.
My… “I don’t know” response gets a swift reaction. “I’ll see you at lunchtime for some extra work, Maddi.”
I steal a glance at Mean Girl and she gives me a self-satisfied smirk while poking her tongue at me.
Justin asks for a loan of a blue coloring pencil and I hand it over with a smile. As I work on my assignment, I notice that Justin is using my pencil for NON-coloring purposes. First he uses the non-sharpened end to give both his ears a good clean out, then he does a bit of exploration of his right nostril. It’s hard to be sure but I think I see a little green thing on the end of my pencil.
Justin returns my pencil with a “thanks”.
I reply, “Pop it on my desk.” After a while I ‘accidently’ knock the pencil off my desk onto the floor. I don’t want to hurt Justin’s feelings, but there is NO WAY that I am going to put my fingers on that germ-covered pencil ever again! The cleaners can have that one, they wear gloves when they pick up stuff from the classroom floor, so I know they won’t catch anything.
Mean Girl must have seen me drop the pencil off my desk because she suddenly swoops down and picks it up. Why at this precise moment in world history does Mean Girl decide to be nice to me? I’m wracking my brain to think of reasons why I don’t want the pencil back…without revealing the truth. If she knew why I didn’t want the pencil back, she might use that information to tease Justin.
No need to worry! Mean Girl waggles the pencil at me and sneers, “Was this yours? Well not anymore, this is my favorite color.”
As well as being a bully and a generally unlikeable person…Mean Girl has another off-putting habit. She chews on things – her fingers, her ruler, the ends of her hair and today she has something else to chew on…the end of my pencil.
GROSS! She has a good chew and I can’t help but snigger. She hears me and turns and sticks even more of my pencil into her mouth to chew on. I laugh even more. A confused look shows on Mean Girl’s face, me laughing was not the reaction she expected.
I decide not to tell her why I am laughing, not today…maybe another time when she is being a bully. It’s so funny that I even manage to get through my lunchtime detention with a smile on my face.
Thursday
Science is looking interesting today. Mr. Facebook is taking our lesson in the actual science lab! There are beakers and test tubes and Bunsen burners and bottles of chemicals labeled with A, B, C and D on each of the tables.
Naturally Shelby and I grab a table together. Our table is at the far back corner of the room near a window. Unfortunately, it is a bit hard to hear Mr. Facebook from our table as he is demonstrating what to do from the front of the room.
Mr. Facebook is on fire (well not really on fire) and teaching a great lesson. He has us mixing chemicals and stuff and creating all kinds of exciting reactions like clouds of colored steam and popping bubbles bursting out of beakers.
The whole class is really involved and having fun. To be honest, we are all being a bit too noisy because the activities are so exciting.
Mr. Facebook announces that our last activity can be a little dangerous and to listen and watch carefully. He starts giving instructions on how to measure out quantities of different chemicals.
In our far corner, Shelby and I are struggling to hear his instructions. When he measured chemical C…we couldn’t tell if he said 15mls or 50mls. So I went to the front to ask him. Just as I got there, he pulled out his phone, obviously he had heard a Facebook notification. “Excuse me,” I asked politely, “did you say 15 or 50?” His attention is firmly fixed on his phone now and he answers, “Yes” to my question. Even I know that “yes” isn’t the right answer. I repeat the question.
Mr. Facebook is now typing away on his phone and if possible…giving me even less attention. “50!” he snarls, followed by, “get back to your table and do your experiment.”
I go back to the table and tell Shelby he said 50. She looks doubtful but what can we do? We start to combine our chemicals into the one large beaker. First chemical A and then chemical B. We hesitate as nothing has happened. The group at the next table have just finished pouring in chemical C. From their beaker we see a puff of smoke and hear a loud pop.
That doesn’t look too scary, so I grab the 50ml of chemical C that we have already measured out and pour it into the beaker (containing the other chemicals). I’m holding the beaker in my left hand, watching it closely. I can see the mixture of chemicals bubbling up, heading towards the top of the beaker. If the group next to us had a puff of smoke…we have our own little nuclear bomb mushroom cloud happening. The bubbly chemicals are about to spill over the side of the beaker! No way am I going to let that toxic brew touch my fingers! The only place I can see to dump it is in the waste paper basket next to our table.
I toss the beaker like an extreme basketball shot. The beaker lands in the basket and seconds later there is an extremely loud bang, followed by even more smoke pouring from the bin. The smoke is quickly drifting across the classroom. The loud bang has finally managed to draw the attention of Mr. Facebook from his phone. He gazes in stunned horror at the room rapidly filling with smoke. Finally he screams, “Get out, FIRE!” Everyone panics and runs for the door. Mr. Facebook hits the fire alarm on his way out of the building.
The Principal looks crazed, ordering everyone to evacuate all the school buildings. Soon our class is joined on the athletics field by the whole school. I sit listening to the sound of approaching fire trucks.
Books for Girls - 4 Great Stories for 8 - 12 Year Olds Page 23
