"I swear, if I'm dying tonight because of you, I'm gonna haunt your ass so hard, Harrington!"
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah! I'm gonna go full Poltergeist and shit!"
"Then bring it, Graveswood."
"Challenge accepted."
***
In which after years of suppressing their...
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Chapter Thirty-Four: How To Build A Sensory Deprivation Tank 101
(The Bathtub, Pt. 5)
***
The phone's ringtone dialled for so long Rowan thought the teacher wouldn't pick up—which, was entirely plausible. Why on earth would a student call their teacher on a Saturday night, anyway?—until it stopped, having obviously been answered.
"Mr. Clarke? It's Dustin," the boy in question said after the teacher must have said hello or something.
A pause as Mr. Clarke spoke, before Dustin replied, "Yeah, yeah. I just, I... I have a science question."
Another pause, before Dustin blurted out the reason for the call.
"Do you know anything about sensory deprivation tanks? Specifically how to build one?"
Rowan rolled her eyes. Subtle, Dustin. Real subtle.
Indistinguishable chatter came through the phone, obviously questioning the strange request, and Dustin said, "Fun."
Another round of chatter came, until Dustin once again interrupted whatever Mr. Clarke was saying on the other end.
"You always say we should never stop being curious. To always open any curiosity door we find."
This time, Mr. Clarke didn't even have a chance in dissuading Dustin to end the call and pick it up on Monday or something as the curly-haired boy all but shouted, "Why are you keeping this curiosity door locked?"
That must have gotten through to the teacher, because Dustin was back at the table, a pencil and pad of paper in hand, scribbling on the paper as Mr. Clarke told him how to build a sensory deprivation tank. Rowan was honestly impressed the boy had been able to wear down the middle-school science teacher, and made a mental note to not underestimate the tenacity and stubbornness of Dustin Henderson.
"Uh-huh. Uh-huh, how much? Uh-huh. Yep. Yeah, we'll be careful. Definitely. All right, Mr. Clarke. Yeah, I'll see you on Monday, Mr. Clarke. Bye," Dustin said into the phone and ended the call, before he looked straight at Mrs. Byers and asked, "Do you still have that kiddie pool we bobbed for apples in?"
Mrs. Byers looked at Jonathan and said, "I think so. Yeah."
"Good. Then we just need salt. Lots of it."
"How much is 'lots'?" Hopper asked.
Dustin looked down at his paper, the scribbles he'd made, equations that did not make a lick of sense to Rowan, and answered, "Fifteen hundred pounds."
"Well, where are we gonna get that much salt?" Nancy asked, and Rowan agreed—it's not like they could go around Hawkins door-to-door asking if they could borrow their salt shakers until they had a combined fifteen hundred pounds of it. Probably be called insane and have doors slammed in their faces if they did that.
