Wayward Son: Grounded

Chapter 5

"Okay," Finn said as he cracked his knuckles, "let's do this again."

"I'm not gonna mess up like I did last time," said Aerrow. "I'm gonna nail it this time, I can feel it."

"We'll see about that," said Finn, and he opened the book so the redhead couldn't see the arrangement of squares and letters on the page before him.

"Ag," he recited smugly.

"Silver," said Aerrow.

Finn cast him a sceptical look, but didn't correct him.

"K," he said.

"Potassium," Aerrow replied.

Finn's face fell even further.

"Se," he tried.

"Selenium," said Aerrow.

"B."

"Boron."

"Ne."

"Neon."

"Sb."

"Antimony."

"W."

"Tungsten."

"Hg."

"Mercury."

"Fe."

"Iron."

"Dude, you can't see these, can you?" Finn demanded, holding the book so it was almost vertical. "'Coz I don't see any other way you could be getting literally every single one of these right."

"It's called studying, Finn," Aerrow said flatly. "I get the feeling that if we'd had normal lives, I'd be forcing you to do it with a cattle prod."

The marksman sighed and rolled his eyes.

"Let's do something a bit different," he said. "What's the symbol for carbon?"

"C," Aerrow replied confidently.

Finn gritted his teeth in frustration. He was losing and he knew it, and he didn't like it one little bit.

"Oxygen," he said.

"O," said Aerrow.

"Sodium."

"Na."

"Hydrogen."

"H."

"Copper."

"Cu."

"Helium."

"He."

"Gold!"

"Au."

"Will you stop getting all of these right?" Finn almost shouted in anger. "It's no fun if you're never wrong!"

"I thought the whole point of this was that I was supposed to not get them wrong," Aerrow pointed out.

"Yeah, but it was supposed to take ages!" objected Finn. "Like, a year! Year-and-a-half, tops! How in sky's name have you got these so quick?!"

"I don't know!" insisted Aerrow. "I swear, I don't know how I'm remembering all this so easily! My only guess is it's something to do with the reason we're doing this in the first place."

For a brief moment, Finn's face became solemn.

"Fine," he said, snapping himself back. "That was easy and medium mode. Get ready for difficult!"

"Atomic numbers? Bring it on," Aerrow said with a smile.

"Uh, can you tell me which the atomic numbers are again? 'Coz each of these has two in it."