"Does this smell like fertilizer to you?"
Milo leaned forward and sniffed the liquid in his beaker. "Yeah, it does," he replied. "Just one whiff of this takes me back to last spring when Mr. Zonkowski had us spraying the football field for hours."
I nodded, remembering the event. Mr. Zonkowski was the school's facilities manager and our boss, and he had given us a long lecture about proper use of the fertilizer and keeping it separate from the other cleaning supplies. At that moment, Mrs. Clements set a tray of small cups on her desk and rapped her knuckles on the chalkboard to get everyone's attention.
"Alright everybody, put on your googles and gloves."
We all obeyed, dozens of latex gloves snapping on and everyone pulling the large goggles onto their heads. Now I'm not the only one with huge eyes, I thought.
"This is a very elementary experiment," Mrs. Clements announced, smoothing back her impeccable bun. "We could do more advanced experiments if they would adequately fund the science department, or if my class didn't double on a day's notice." She took a deep breath. "Anyway, I'm going to come around and give each table a cup of bleach. Do not touch it until I tell you."
Milo and I looked at each other in alarm.
"Remember that story Mr. Zonkowski told us about the kid that spilled the fertilizer into the pool sanitation supplies?" Milo asked.
"How could I forget?" He had repeated it to us at least ten times, with very graphic descriptions.
Mrs. Clements set the cup of bleach on our table, and we both drew back from it. When she had made her way through the classroom, she returned to the front. "First you're all going to put three drops of blue food coloring into your beaker of water," she instructed. "Once the coloring has dispersed, you will pour your cup of bleach into the solution and observe the reaction."
I started to bounce my knees nervously. If the stuff in the beaker actually was the fertilizer we had used, or anything close to it, the combination of it and the bleach would be disastrous. Before I knew it, my hand had shot into the air.
Mrs. Clements gave me a murderous look. "Yes, Mr. Vonnegan?"
"The liquid in these beakers is not water," I said, my voice cracking with anxiety. "I think it might contain some chemicals that if mixed with bleach would be extremely dangerous."
Mrs. Clements narrowed her eyes at me. "Is this a prank, Mr. Vonnegan? Are you just trying to draw attention to yourself?"
I squirmed in my seat. "Quite honestly, Mrs. Clements, I already draw far more attention than I want."
There were a few snickers from the students, and I saw Kayla's mouth twitch up into a half smile. Somehow it gave me a little bit of courage.
Mrs. Clements stared me down for a few seconds and then stormed up to our table. "Mr. Vonnegan," she hissed, "I have spent the last hour preparing for this lab. How dare you question my chemical knowledge and attention to detail. If you disrupt my class again, I will send you to the principal's office." She turned and walked resolutely back to the front of the room to continue her instruction.
I expelled the breath I hadn't known I was holding. She wasn't even going to check. What were my options? I could leave the classroom and save myself, but then all my classmates would be in danger. As much as some of them annoyed me, I didn't want harm to come to them. Although I wouldn't mind if that blonde guy Kayla had been flirting with got seriously injured.
I was going to have to do something drastic. If it turned out that the liquid in the beaker was harmless, then I'd just go to the principal's office, which was a place I didn't mind too much. Getting yelled at by an adult was way better than being tormented by my peers.
I stood up, grabbed the beaker and the cup of bleach, walked briskly to the window, and opened it.
"Mr. Vonnegan, what are you doing?" Mrs. Clements screeched.
I ignored her. Instead, I focused on keeping my hands from shaking as I quickly poured the bleach into the beaker, then chucked the whole thing outside and slammed the window.
"Mr. Vonnegan! I swear I'm going to-"
The rest of Mrs. Clements' threat was drowned out by the sound of the resulting explosion. Shattered glass from the beaker pelted the window and a nearby bush caught fire. I drew a ragged breath and turned slowly to face everyone that was staring at me.
"Like I said. Extremely dangerous."
*****
"Did you make this chili? It's amazing!"
"Thanks," I said as I watched Milo serve himself a third bowl. I was glad he liked it. With as much as my mom had been gone, I'd learned a thing or two in the kitchen. Milo had come over to my house to work on our English homework, which was a welcome change for me. When my mom was out of town, the evenings could get really dull sitting there by myself.
"By the way," Milo said in between bites of chili, "thanks for being a hero today."
I snickered. "I was mainly doing it for self preservation. Keeping everyone else out of harm was just an afterthought," I joked. But even as I said it, a shudder rippled through me at the thought of what would have happened if Mrs. Clements had followed through with the experiment.
"Well, you're lucky you didn't lose your hand or burn off your eyebrows or anything," Milo said. "I've never seen anyone chuck something out of a window that fast."
"Probably a result of the adrenaline," I mused.
"Yeah, well, I wonder what they're going to do for chemistry lab now that Mrs. Clements has been suspended. Maybe they'll just let us have a free hour."
"I doubt it," I replied. After the explosion, the administration had come in, demanding an explanation. Mrs. Clements was flustered and defensive, but eventually the story came out and they evacuated us all from the room and called the police. Vice principal Youngblood had half thanked, half scolded me for what I did, and then had run off to fill out some paperwork. The whole episode had been crazy, and I didn't really want to think about it anymore.
"How's your paper coming?" I asked Milo, hoping to change the subject.
"It's good," he responded with a grin. "Four more sentences and I'll be finished with the first paragraph. I think I'll congratulate myself by watching a little TV."
I chuckled. Milo definitely had a talent for procrastinating. Before I could persuade him otherwise, he had grabbed the remote and turned on the TV, which displayed the last show I had been watching.
"What is this?" Milo said, reading the title of the show. "Hip-Hop Dancing for the Angsty Young Man?"
I felt my face flush. "Oh, that's just something my mom has been trying to get me to do," I lied. "She thinks it's supposed to be therapeutic or something." In truth, I had watched that show nearly every night for the past week and had learned most of the dance moves.
"That's weird," Milo said, casually changing it to a different show. I was relieved that he didn't suspect anything.
As we were starting to watch some documentary about race cars, the doorbell rang. I got up to answer it. We often got packages delivered in the evenings and I was expecting a new guitar strap that I had ordered the week before. I opened the door and was surprised to see an older man with a clipboard and a bag on his hips.
"Hi, I'm Mack from Juniper Windows and Roofing," he said with a forced smile. "I noticed your windows are a little out of date. Could I take a look and give you a free estimate?"
I raised my eyebrows. The guy didn't really look like a "Mack." He was big and sinewy, with multiple scars on his face and neck and a calculating expression that made me want to hide under a table.
"Now is not really a good time," I said, starting to close the door.
"It's as good a time as any," Mack exclaimed, forcing the door back open and almost knocking me back. "It will only take a few minutes."
He walked past me and made his way into the living room. I shook my head. I knew solicitors could be pushy, but this guy seemed a bit too aggressive. Maybe he really needed the money.
"Um, hi," Milo said as Mack walked through the room.
"It's a window guy," I explained, shrugging my shoulders. "He's going to do an estimate."
"Oh, cool," Milo responded, glancing over at him. "Hey man, I like your fanny pack. My mom has about a dozen of those."
Mack turned and glared at Milo. "It's a utility bag," he growled, then turned back to measure the window.
I gave Milo a warning look. It probably wasn't a good idea to provoke a guy with that much muscle. I watched Mack measure all the windows in the kitchen and write on his clipboard. He headed upstairs and I followed him. He inspected all the windows in my mother's room, which was impeccably clean, and his eyes kept darting around like he was looking for something. Finally he went into my room and measured my one small window, spending a little extra time at the top corners. He glanced at my nightstand and picked up the bottle of pills that was on top of it.
"Are these yours?" He asked.
"Yeah," I said reluctantly, not really wanting to talk about my illness with some stranger.
"My nephew takes these," Mack said, turning the bottle in his hands.
"Really?" I said with genuine surprise. "It's a very rare disease."
"Yeah, you're lucky to be alive." He gave me a meaningful look, then smiled and ripped the paper off of his clipboard. "Here are all the numbers," he said, handing me the paper. "My contact information is at the bottom if you decide you'd like to have the windows replaced." Then he walked briskly down the stairs and out the door without another word. I went down to the living room, looking at the paper he had given me. It was mostly illegible, except for a large number which I assumed was the estimate. I peered out the front window, but Mack was nowhere in sight. The only person I saw was Zane, the eleven year old kid who lived next door, who was out on the sidewalk trying to fly some kind of droid. That kid was almost as nosy as he was annoying. He was always coming over to our house and asking me random questions. My mom was nice to him, so maybe that's why he hung around so much. I turned and went back into the front room.
Milo looked at me as I walked in. "Is he gone already?" He asked.
"Yeah."
"That guy was weird," Milo said, picking up the remote and switching to a crime show.
I nodded and sat down on the couch, putting the paper on a side table. I made a mental note to tell my mom about it when she got back.