New World

Chapter 6

Paelen followed Katy to their next lesson. Chemisty. That word was completely new to Paelen. Katy has briefly told him that it was a science that dealt with substances which matter is composed. Paelen still didn't get it, and Katy rolled her eyes with a "You'll see."

Suddenly, a huge figure crashed into Paelen, sending his sprawling on the groung. "Twice," he muttered angrily. "I hate corridors!" Katy, for the second time that day, helped him up. The person who knocked him over was long gone. Paelen brushed himself off and followed Katy to chemistry. 

They had a different class to their form. Luckily, Charlotte didn't seem to be in this class. The classroom door opened and a short, young female teacher walked out. Paelen recognised her as a teacher by the different clothes she wore, he would have mistaken her as a student if she was not. 

When she noticed Paelen, she smiled, "Hiya! You must be Paelen Jacobs, I am Miss Roberts, your new Chemistry teacher. Take a seat where you like, this is a relaxed class, but make sure you do your homework on time, please, it makes my job much easier."

Paelen nodded and took a seat next to Katy. Miss Roberts took the register, and, Paelen, who had never done this before, squeaked "Here miss!" almost an octave higher than usual.

When the register was done, she gave a yellow exercise book to Paelen, who wrote down his name carefully (Katy had tried in vain to teach him how to write for the past few weeks, luckily he was a quick learner, but his writing was still not perfect).

"Today we wil be doing titrations and titration calculations." Miss Roberts began, "This is possibly the hardest topic that will be in your exams, so make sure you listen carefully and take notes." She rambled on a bit as she explained the experiment they were about to do. Paelen quickly lost interest and fiddled with his thumb nail. Katy, on the other hand, was scribbling viciously in her book. Paelen was worried she would break her wrist in doing so. Dispite being rushed, Katy's writing was neat and elegant and easily readable.

Paelen was snapped out of his daze when the class started moving. He got up aswell, glad to finally be able to stretch his legs. Katy checked her notes, "Paelen, could you get the biuret, clamp stand and flask, please. I'll get the goggles, hydrochloric acid and sodium chloride."

Paelen had to look at the pictures on the board to see what she was talking about. He nodded and set off on his mission. The class were all squabbling over the cleanest flasks and biurets. Paelen smiled slyly as he slowly stretched out his hand to grab them, but not enough to be noticed. He smirked as he got passed them without anyone notiing and went to get a clamp stand. When his mission was complete, he returned to Katy. She pushed some goggles on his nose. She laughed when his eyes went slightly cross-eyed.

"What is this appliance?" Paelen asked, taking the goggles off his face and inspecing them. "I do not need glasses, my eyesight is perfect."

"Your eyesight will not be perfect if you get acid in your eyes, so stop complaining and help me set this up." Katy replied.

Paelen shrugged and put the set amount of sodium chloride in the flask. Once the acid had been put in the biuret, Katy added indicator in the flask and started the experiment. The took the measuremesnt of each neutralisation, and did it five times, each time Katy jotting down their results. He found it facinating how the indicator turned from a pinkish colour in an alkaline solution to colourless when it was neutral. School on earth was much more exciting than education on Olympus. 

They were the first to finish, leaving Paelen very satisfied with his work. They recieved a warm smile from Miss Roberts and she told them to clear away. When they had washed everything up, Paelen grinned at Katy, "That was amazing! How does it work?"

Katy blinked and sighed, realising that she would have to do teach Paelen the whole course before the exam. "Okay, basically, you have an acid and an alkali and they are kinda opposites, so when you mix them together they become neutral." She looked at Paelen hoping her sinple explaination had gone into his brain. His face lit up as clogs ticked in his head. "Ohhhh!" Katy laughed as Paelen started to learn.

Once the whole class had done, they all sat down as Miss Roberts explained how to do the titration calculations. Paelen, knowing he would understand none of it, doodled in his book. At the end of the lesson, Miss Roberts handed the class a sheet of paper saying, "This is your homework on titration calculations. It is due on Friday the 10th."

As she said this, the bell rang, ending Paelen's first period. He looked at his timetable, but not knowing what day it was or how to read it, he asked Katy, "What is it that we have next?"

Katy glanced at her own and her eyes drooped. "Geography."

The rest of the day was a duplicate of the first period, only with different things to learn. Paelen found Chemistry the best, geography was dull, maths was impossible (what in Pluto's name is trigonometry?), English he sucked at and couldn't finish what was meant to be a 10 minute essay in a 1 hour lesson, and Paelen came out of the history lesson knowing nothing more than when he went in. Things were not so fun as Paelen first imagined.

During break and lunch, Paelen kept on getting glances from Charlotte and her group. He tried to ignore it by asking Katy about things they learnt during lessons, she seemed pleased that he was wanting to learn. The food was horrible, however. Apparently, he was not allowed to just have dessert, and the savoury meals were almost impossible for Paelen to eat. Katy had kindly offered her dessert in exchange for Paelen's main meal.

Once the school day was over and they had arrived back at Katy's house, Paelen dropped his bag and lay on the bed with his hands over his face. He huffed. This was going to be a long week. Katy walked into the room and saw Paelen falling asleep. She laughed and poked his side, "Paelen, wake up!"

"Mmmmm" He replied pathetically.

"We're not done yet. We have homework."

"What?!"