I Am A Chemical

chem zoom

Two weeks have passed. Fluorine felt like she was on house arrest. She laid flat on the bed, moping as she crumpled under the lack of outside interaction, wishing with all her heart that she could finally return to torment the other kids.

In the mirror, she practiced her pleading skills for when Discipline came to give her another lecture. "Come on, Ms Discipline, I promise I won't hit anyone agaaaaiiiin. Let me out, pretty pleeeeease?"

She heard a knock, followed by a small note slipped from under the door. Shit, was I heard? she panicked, jumping up with a screech. I'll kick whoever heard me over the head!

Composing herself, she picked the note up and held it to the light, squinting to read the small handwriting.

Here is the broadcast code for today's lesson. Do tune in. - Xenon

Urrrrgh. Why must I go to class? Fluor grunts. Well, at least there was a silver lining; she could tune out and not get nagged at.

"Fluorine, pay attention!" "Fluorine, stop bullying your sister Iodine!" "Fluorine, kindly remove the illustration of you executing Hydrogen with a guillotine." All they do is irritate, control, and nag. If she was honest with herself, she actually did feel somewhat pleased that being in confinement meant she did not have to put up with idiots like them.

(Oh, and the rest of the halogens also like to bully Iodine. Why do the teachers only care if she does it? So unfair.)

Turning the note from Xenon over, she saw another message.

They also want to leave Arsenic here. Poisoning the eco garden again, they said. She'll probably arrive this afternoon. Have fun.

Finally, someone to share this shitty domain with! The teachers never left two people in the tower before; Fluorine thought that that was done intentionally to ensure the point of the punishment. Apparently not.

She opened the broadcast to see Chemistry in the classhall with all the not-house-arrested kids, giving her long speech on qualitative analysis for the twentieth time. "The iron (II) ions will precipitate out of solution... Ahh, since you have joined us, Fluorine, why don't you tell us what will happen upon sitting for some time?"

Fluorine grinned, suppressing a giggle. The precipitate will change from a dirty green colour into shitty brown, she typed into the signal chat, because the iron (II) ions get oxidised into iron (shit) ions.

Chemistry read the answer. Her frown was detectable even through the mask.

"Fluorine, I understand you have your personal conflicts with Iron, but-"

"She ain't wrong about the shit colour, though," quipped Bromine. Iron, enraged, glares at her, as if ready to throw hands. 

"You're the one to talk, Madame Soy Sauce."

Bromine stood up and, in a show of her superiority, listed all the "shit"-coloured things in chemistry that she knew of, mortally offending more people in the process. The class filled itself with murmurs and giggles. Fluorine was screeching in laughter behind the screen. 

Iodine, forever embarrassed by her sisters' behaviour, cringed with her face in her palms, but Potassium wasn't there to comfort her now; she sat on the other side of the room, seperated by the entire d-block, 30 fictional continents, and your mother.

Aluminium, meanwhile, obliviously sat in her chair, casually folding a cutesy "paper" airplane out of foil. Silicon frantically snatched Aluminium's foil airplane and flung it at Bromine in an attempt get her to shut up. Aluminium, shocked at her work being taken away from her like that, burst into tears.

The airplane, which wasn't as light as Silicon thought it would be, smacked into Selenium's head instead, before landing on the floor. Bromine, confused, picked it up from the floor with her left hand, but that hand was wounded from an earlier session with broken lab equipment. The band-aid they put on there dropped off, and the wound on her finger was still fresh and dripped blood.

Silence. The class hall was in silence. Silicon, mortified, only now realised what she had done. Bromine, still clueless, inspected the foil airplane in her hands. The reddish-brown liquid, (which wasn't actually blood) fumed as it dripped from her fingers. A few seconds passed where nothing happened.

Then, heat. The elemental liquid bromine was reacting with the aluminium foil, and it was beginning to light with red-hot sparks, which prompted Bromine to roughly and frantically fling it back. The burning foil airplane was quite light, and thrown with that force, it flew way over everyone's heads and directly into Hydrogen, whose brain extinguished with a 'pop' sound.

The fire was completely gone at this point, but not before Hydrogen let out a high-pitched scream, stomping on the foil with her feet. Carbon, seeing as her best friend hurt like this, immediately got out of her seat and sped across the room to her aid. In her rush, she tripped over Chemistry's feet and crashed into the teachers' table. Terrified like a deer in the headlights, she got up in a panic and retreated back to her table, inadvertently ramming herself into Boron's desk instead.

"Enough! You're sleeping in the study hall tonight, all of you!" Chemistry boomed. "Element children. Who thought of this? Living chemical hazards, by God."

Fluorine, grinning, typed another signal in the chat. You can get them to join me in the tower.

"Not funny, Fluorine. Also, please submit your lab report assignment. Use Arsenic's data. I expect it in by tomorrow."