"And don't forget to answer questions from one to six on page fifty-four and fifty-five in your health science textbooks tonight," said Mr. Cashol, speaking up over the sound of students pushing their chairs in at their desks and started to walk towards the classroom door, with their school bags on their backs.
"I will see you all tomorrow".
Being the last student to leave the class, I pushed in my chair and was about to scoop up my body lotion bag off my desk, when Mr. Cashol started talking to me.
"Did you try the lotion you made last night?".
I nodded my head.
"Yeah, I did".
"And did it work?".
"Yeah, it did its job of moisturizing my skin and made it softer" I lied, swallowing hard.
Mr. Cashol stopped packing up his stuff into his black satchel and locked his eyes with mine.
"Vanessa, I've noticed that today you were a bit distracted in class; Is there something that is bothering you?" he asked, softly and gently.
"No, not at all" I replied, forcing a smile.
"But I better get going, I've got to walk home".
I exited the science class before Mr. Cashol could ask me any more questions.
I'll have to really pretend that everything is normal; I've got to be chill around my friends, family and teachers, or my secret will spill, I thought, as I started to walk home on the crowded city sidewalk.
As Mr. Cashol was about to head out of his classroom, he noticed a transparent plastic bag sitting on top of one of the student desks, with a thick light blue substance inside.
That must be one of my student's body lotions from my afternoon class; Perhaps I can experiment with it tonight he thought, before he retrieved the bag and locked the classroom door for the night.
After his long and lonely drive home, Mr. Cashol walked into his small bungalow house, with his black satchel in one hand and a wrapped-up Subway sub in the other.
After going down the basement stairs sluggishly, he entered his personal science lab, where he runs tests on himself. Cashol pulled the bag of lotion out from his satchel and studied it carefully under a microscope, while eating his footlong sub. Through the microscope, he discovered something unsettling.
"The Benedict's solution in this lotion is active; it was only about a day ago that I reversed its effects. How did it suddenly build up immunity to it?".
Using a pipet, he transferred a sample of the blue lotion into a small test tube that held a mixture of Lugol's and Burdam solution. Cashol was about to sit down and watch the reaction happen, when unfortunately felt nature calling. While taking care of business in his mini bathroom, a curious furry rat was scurrying around on the counter, investigating its surroundings.
The creature was sniffing at the Petri dish that held some of the blue body lotion when its fat, thick tail knocked the full small test tube over, spilling half of its contents into a glass of water that was, unfortunately, placed beside it.
As soon as Mr. Cashol came back to the counter, the rat had vanished, only leaving a cracked glass tube laying on its side and half a glass of a dark blue liquid.
He looked at the mess with a frown.
I guess I need a new test tube rack, he thought, picking up the cracked test tube and tossing it in the garbage can beside the lab counter.
After grabbing a handful of paper towels, Mr. Cashol casually took a sip from the glass cup and began to clean up the spilt liquid on the countertop.