Fun in Science Class

"C'mon Wendy, let's go!" Bebe pulled me along the hallways towards our first class. We had been lucky enough to have some classes together, including first block which was math.

Everybody knew me as the smart girl, but Bebe was actually really smart too. She just daydreamed a lot in class about boys, so she never really looked like she was all that intelligent.

We had just taken our seats in the back of the classroom when Red comes waltzing in the room in a dream-like state. She had this goofy smile plastered across her face.

Bebe sighed. "Oh, she must have been with Kenny. Why did he have to do this now? You don't make out with girls and get them all wired up right before class! What was he thinking?"

Somehow, Red spotted us and walked over in a seemingly drunken state. She plopped down in her chair in front of us and looked up.

"Hey guys! What's up?"

Bebe and I exchanged glances.

"Red, you have to snap out of it! Class is going to start any moment! I know you and Kenny must have found an empty closet somewhere, but still!" I told her, snapping my fingers in front of her face.

"Red? Red! Listen to me," Bebe said, "How many fingers am I holding up?" She held up two.

"A BAZILLION!" exclaimed the love-struck Red.

Bebe signed and ran quickly out of them room, coming back with her hands cupped in a bowl shape. She ran over to Red and splashed water in her face.

Red gasped and slowly turned around; she was fuming, and her make up was all runny.

"YOU. RUINED. MY. MAKE-UP!" she screeched.

"At least it woke you up…" Bebe muttered.

"Come here Red, let me fix it for you," I said, and began wiping away the black smudges with my fingers.

"Thanks, Wendy. At least somebody cares!" she stated glaring straight at Bebe.

"Hun, I care about you so much that I splashed water in your face to wake you up so that you didn't fail this class!"

Red let out a huff. "Shut up," she muttered.

The teacher finally came in and got straight into a very long and very boring lecture. His name was Mr. Saunderson, apparently, but the class could have cared less. After what seemed like forever, the bell rang.

"FINALLY!" screamed about half the class, including Bebe, Red, and I.

Mr. Saunderson glared at us and we ran out the door, not wanted to get in trouble.

"Okay, well I've got English next, so I guess I'll see you at lunch. Bye Wendy!" Bebe called.

"See you Bebe!" I shouted after her.

The rest of the school day droned on. I had one more class left. I rummaged through my backpack and pulled out my schedule as I walked down the hallway.

"Ugh, I've got chemistry. Great," I whispered to myself. Chemistry was my worse subject. I always mixed chemicals wrong, which definitely wasn't a good thing to do considering I could explode myself with one wrong drop.

I got to the chemistry class, and sitting across the room at a two-person lab, was Stan Marsh. He looked up at me with his ice blue eyes, and smiled. He waved for me to come over.

As I walked over to the table, I knew this was going to be a fun class. I could see it on his face that he thought so too. For all I knew, he could probably read the reflected excitement in my eyes. I was an open-book, after all.

"Hey Wendy!" he almost sang.

"Hey Stan!"

"God, you have no idea how nice it is to have somebody I can actually talk to without feeling like a complete retard."

I laughed. "Yeah, you might rethink that when we start the lab. I might be fun to talk to, but I'm no good in this class. I could get us blown up!"

He held back his laughter. "Oh, well I think it will be okay. I would rather be blown up by a friend than sitting all dejected in a corner, you know?"

I was so happy. Actually, I was ecstatic. He called me his friend. I guess when you don't know anybody in a large school, you're pretty quick to accept people.

At that moment, the teacher walked in.

"Hello, I am Ms. Appilinda, and I will be your teacher in this class for the rest of this year! Isn't that exciting?" she sang. She was so smiley and bouncy that the class couldn't help but smile back at her.

"Yay!" she sang again, "Alright. You are to use the ingredients on your table to make an acidic concoction. Any questions?"

The class shook their heads in silent no's.

I look up at Stan with a worried expression.

"What's wrong?" His expression immediately went into a worried expression too, like he actually cared about how I'm feeling.

"It's just…" I trailed off, sounding embarrassed. "It's just that I'm so terrible in this subject… I'm afraid that if I mix anything, it'll blow up and hurt you… and I really don't want that happening…"

Did I just emphasize that 'really'? Did I already care about him that much? Jesus, I'd only known the boy for fifteen freakin minutes!

To my surprise, he started laughing.

"Wendy,"

Oh why did it sound so right when he used my name?

"I don't think you'll blow my up. I think I'll be perfectly fine. And if worst comes to worst, we can go to the health room. Ms. Appilinda isn't going to put out anything that dangerous on the first day! Relax!"

I blushed and smiled. "Okay."

"Alright then, let's get to it. Okay, Wendy, can u please pour one milliliter of that blue chemical into the base yellow chemical?"

"Yeah," I grabbed the blue chemical and measured one milliliter with a shaking hand. I then poured it into the yellow chemical. The water turned green.

"Ooooh" I looked at the liquids. They were so pretty!

"Good job Wendy! That's exactly what the concoction is supposed to look like. Okay, this is a really simple mixture, so after I add in my purple chemical," he added it, "now you just have to add sodium chloride until the mixture turns red."

"By sodium chloride, you mean salt?"

"Right,"

"Okay, you can never be too careful." I grabbed the box of salt and started shaking it into the mixture. As the mixture turned brown-ish red-ish, I dropped the box by accident.

A huge amount of salt when spilling into the concoction, which immediately turned blood red, and then exploded.

There were many startled gasps around the classroom, but I couldn't tell where they were coming from, for I was surrounded in a smoke cloud.

"Oh my!" screamed the teacher.

Ms. Appilinda ran over with a fan and blew away the smoke cloud.

"Wendy! Are you alright?" she asked with a worried expression.

"Yeah… I think so."

I turned around and looked at Stan who then started to burst out laughing.

"What's so funny?" I demanded.

Ms. Appilinda scurried over to her desk where she pulled out her purse, and started fumbling around in it. She then pulled out a pocket mirror and brought it over to me so I could examine myself.

I took the mirror from her and hurried to see my reflection.

My face was completely blackened from the smoke, and my hair was blown back and stiff.

"Come on Wendy, I'll take you to the nurse's office and help you get cleaned up."

I was still staring in the mirror. I raised my hand to my hair. "My… hair…"

With that, Stan burst out in laughter, grabbed my hand, and led me out the door towards the nurse's office.

He was still holding my hand, guiding me to the nurse's office as if he thought I was blinded from the black all over my face. I was blushing like mad, but the black all over me worked to my advantage.

He looked down at me, laughed, and patted me on the head. He continued to walk on, but he sensed me staring at him. He looked down again and, noting the confused expression on my face, laughed light-heartedly. He then put his arm around my shoulders to give me a little squeeze.

We continued to walk with his arm around me until we finally reached the nurse's office.

The nurse looked up, and her eyes popped out of her head.

"What happened to you, child?"

"She exploded a chemical mixture right onto herself," Stan answered for me.

"Oh no, is she hurt?"

"No, I'm fine. I just need to wash up and head back to class." I answered her before Stan could get the words out.

"Okay honey, the sink is in that room over there to the left." She said, gesturing to the room to the side of her.

Stan grabbed my hand again and led me into it.

"Okay Wendy, since you can't even handle pouring a little bit of salt into a mixture, I trust that you can't clean yourself up. So, on that note, I'm going to clean you up myself."

I stare at him with my head cocked to the side and raised one of my eyebrows up.

"Oh Wendy! Ugh, you know I didn't mean it like that. You're really perverted." He chuckled. "You're so weird."

I smirked at him; he ignored me, and proceeded to wet a washcloth. He washed my face off, and helped me un-stiff my hair. The nurse gave me a brush to get out all of the tangles out of it. Stan insisted that I let him brush my hair out.

"Stanley, I am perfectly capable of brushing my own hair, thank you very much."

"But your hair is so pretty, I want to brush it!" he said matter-of-factly.

I blushed, gave him the brush, and turned around. He gently brushed my hair all around until it was silky smooth again.

"There, that wasn't so bad now was it?" Stan questioned.

"Hmm… I guess not. You're very gentle. Thank you," I told him.

"You're very welcome. C'mon, let's get back to class."

With that, we left the little office, his arm around my shoulders, and headed back to class.