Chapter 2: Osmosis
Ms Hooper walked past the work benches, handing out the equipment needed for the day's experiment. It was the beginning of the science module on osmosis and she knew that the experiment she was going to conduct today was a fun way to start things off.
Sherlock received his tray from Ms Hooper with a smile. If he dealt with favourite teachers she would be his. She recognized his enthusiasm for science but didn't make a spectacle of it. When other teachers in St. Bartholomew's Comprehensive School noticed how Sherlock tended to put his head down and get on with his work, they'd use him as a role model for the other students. Since then the mocking and joking had persisted. Surely they had better things to do with their time.
"Sorry I'm late, Miss," John said from behind Ms Hooper.
"That's fine, I haven't-" she said, turning around, "Oh, I've never seen you before. You must be new. I haven't taken the register yet, so do you want to go sit down? I'm about to begin."
"Yes, Miss," he said, sitting on a stool beside Sherlock.
Ms Hooper walked to her desk and sat behind the computer and pulled up the class register. She called out the names, getting a dreary "here, Miss," in reply from all of the students. Finally she called out John's name, to which she got a slightly-too-enthusiastic "here!".
"Someone's excited," Sherlock teased.
"What's all this for?" asked John, dismissing Sherlock's comment as he stared at a potato, a scalpel, a few beakers, a bottle of squash and an odd metal tube that were all sitting on their desk.
"She's going to explain, but I can instead if you'd like me to," Sherlock suggested.
"Sure, go ahead,"
"We're going to be using the cork borer to extract some potato, then we'll be putting samples in beakers with different concentrations of squash. Later we'll weigh them and record the weight differences, if any," Sherlock explained.
"Will there be any?" John asked.
"How am I supposed to know?" Sherlock asked back, a sly grin on his face.
"You tell me," John replied, the same grin spreading across his.
Sherlock picked up the potato and handed it to John, along with the cork borer the size of a pencil.
"So I just stick it in?" John asked, setting the potato down on the work bench. He pressed the tube into the potato lightly, the skin being pierced when Sherlock grabbed John's wrist.
"What?" John asked, trying not to wince.
"You need to hold it down or it'll slip," Sherlock said.
"Really?" John asked in doubt, the potato looked pretty sturdy.
"When you put the borer through you'll see what I mean,"
"Okay..." John said, holding the potato with one hand while pushing the cork borer through with the other, not seeing why the extra care was necessary. He pulled it back out, leaving a hole in the potato, then used the poker to push the sample out of the tube. When he went to push the borer into the potato again, John noticed how much liquid had leaked out of the it. His hand definitely would have slipped if he hadn't have held it down. Dammit, he was right, John thought.
John continued to take samples of potato while Sherlock poured water into the beakers. He filled one with 100ml, the next with 75, the next with 50 and so on. He then filled the beakers with the appropriate amount of squash so that the five beakers had 100ml of liquid solution in each. He lined the beakers up, the one on the left a dark purple, pure squash, progressing weaker until the furthest right was clear with pure water.
When John was done with the cork borer the potato had so many holes it resembled a sponge. He lined up the pencil sized samples of potato he had collected on a paper towel so the water would get soaked up.
"So, what do we do now?" John asked Sherlock who was drawing up a table in his exercise book.
"We only needed one or two," Sherlock snickered, looking at the fifteen samples in front of him.
"What if thirteen of them weren't good enough?" John joked as Sherlock picked up the scalpel. He sliced one into five pieces.
"They're not equal, give me a go," John said, taking the scalpel.
"Careful John, it'd be terribly awkward having to explain why you sliced your ulnar artery,"
"Was that a threat?" John asked after a pause. He took one of the samples and cut along the length at four intervals. "See, perfect."
"We'll see," Sherlock said as he plugged in the electronic scales. They were extremely sensitive and could measure to a hundredth of a gram. John took one of his five pieces and placed it on the metal plate. 7.96g it read. The next measured that same. And the next two. He waited before putting down the final one, sharing a tense look with Sherlock, then both of them burst into laughter. 7.96g.
"Told you, perfect," John said, a little too smug.
Sherlock placed one of his on the plate. It read 8g.
"See John, I was aiming for eight grams," Sherlock said.
"Sure you were," John replied, sarcastically.
He looked in disbelief as the next three samples weighed exactly 8g. How could he do that? John would've had no idea what to say if he were to guess how much they weighed. Sherlock put the last sample on the metal plate. The numbers flicked between 8.00 and 8.01. They finally settled on 8.01g.
"Sorry Sherlock, looks like we have to use mine," John boasted, dropping a piece of potato in each beaker.
A/N: Maybe John's skill with a scalpel is more like Joan's character on Elementary, but oh well. I think it'd be fun seeing the two of them dissecting something, I know it'd be fun to write. I'm really grateful for what's been said about the story so far, so thanks a lot. That's probably the reason why I've updated it so quickly, despite how it's shorter than the previous chapter. Let me know what you think, everything I've written was improvised so if you have any ideas or suggestions then that'd be great. Thanks.