Part 1 : Minor Chemistry Error? Hardly.
So, I'm going to guide you through the biggest adventure of my life, which, to this day, I'm still not sure if it was just my own machinations of insanity. But anyway, this is the start of the story which is the utter truth, yet if it really happened or not, I will never know. Here we go. You ready?
Its 9:11 am. It's that time when the general shuffle of getting to class on time has just ended, and everyone has pretty much settled down in their seats. Except for today. Today is the day where we present our lab projects which will make up about forty percent of our honours science grade for the quarter. So naturally, everyone is trying to make last minute corrections before they do their final presentation that might make or break them. Sorry, I'm a little melodramatic about these issues. You know me. Oh, yeah, you don't. Okay, well, since I'm writing this you'll be kind of looking into my thoughts and inner revelations (I like that word) from now until this reads "THE END. Back to the point. This is Meghan talking here. So, I'm going to guide you through the biggest adventure of my life. But anyway, this is the start of the story which is the utter truth, yet if it really happened or not, I will never know.
So, here's your chance to meet me. You'd better listen up, well, actually just read-up, because this is important. Yes, me droning on and on about myself IS important! Just listen, I promise you it won't be long. Okay, to start, this story is mostly about one class and that class is honors science. Honors science is taught by this really good British teacher named Mr. Harley. He's been teaching science for a while, and he always does all these demonstrations for us where we blow stuff up. Explosions are probably the best part of that class. Anyways, he gave us this assignment about a month ago where we had to come up with our own experiment and write up an entire lab for it. Now that lab took forever, since we had to do the whole nine yards: procedures, errors, conclusion, hypothesis and on and on and on. Therefore this, therefore that, and so I conclude this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, I am so sick of writing scientific-ally its not even FUNNY! We have to actually demonstrate the lab for the class now, which is half our grade. Though I love presentations, especially oral ones where you get to show off something and talk about it, knowing that this is half of my lab grade really puts on the pressure. I also tend to talk and read very fast - naturally. Not because I'm nervous or anything. But I'm a big talker as you may have realized, okay! So, this lab could have been utter torture, but, luckily, I have a trustworthy partner to do it with.
My partner is my best friend, Jetta. Yes, that is her name, so don't ask me anymore about that. Its old English for something, but I can't remember what at the moment. Kinda weird name, I know. (You better not tell her I said that!) But its really unique, and I'm big on individuality. Not big on individuality like "I'm gonna dress in all black and make a fashion statement for the rest of the year. Well, if you want to do that, I guess is DOES show determination. But I like to have stuff everyone likes , not that they all have, ya know what I mean? I take risks, and don't stay in the safe zone.
So Jetta was someone I met in sixth grade. You could say that I don't have those kind of lifetime best friends that you met in kindergarten and are still friends with today. Because, one, in Miami, houses are spread out and you can't really live right across the street from someone and go over to their house everyday. Two, people come and go from private schools after they get too expensive, or too not-religious enough for their taste. So most of my friends have either left, or become distanced from me over the years. But I don't think that will ever be the case with Jetta. I know that if I talk to her, it will remain confidential and that she won't judge me or make fun of me. She is the only friend I can only trust that won't spread rumors or gossip or anything like that if I tell her something that I don't want anyone to know. And trust me, I know that gossip is hard to resist, so I understand if my other friends can't keep a secret for that long. I don't think that I will ever meet someone like her in my entire life. Now that you have been enlightened on the "bestness" of my best friend. (Sorry, I make up words a lot.) you should know that there is only one problem - she is not a big fan of Pirates of the Caribbean. In fact, she thinks that it is the stupidest movie that she has ever seen in her life. Except the she will watch it only because Orlando Bloom is in it. But, if she gets an overdose of Pirates, than she will NOT be happy. So, I have to be careful about that, because, I for one, am obsessed with Pirates. So that being out of the way, I'm so glad that she is in science with me, so we can be lab partners every time.
This time, we were both a little nervous for this particular presentation, but we knew we had each other. That makes the weight of pressure such a less amount if you know your friend is just as scared as you are.
"Meghan, you got the lab report copies?" That's Jetta right now.
"Yeah, right here" I replied.
"Meghan, Jetta, sit down. We're about to begin," said Mr. Harley in that very official scientific voice of his.
We hastily sat down, anxious to get this over with. A little note here: Mr. Harley picks the names out of hat (well, actually a large beaker) on the order of the presentations. When that first name is picked is always the point of pressure for everyone: because NOBODY wants to go first. If you go first, you don't know what everyone else will be doing or how to start or anything, so you can't learn from the mistakes everyone else did. Bottom Line: Its bad to go first.
"The group that will be presenting first today," Mr. Harley paused for effect, "Meghan and Jetta!"
Well then, I guess we'll just have to go, even after that little lecture I just gave you about the horrors of going first. Oops.
Shakily, I got up from my chair and looked at Jetta for help. She did a little shrug and started walking to the front of the room, where we wheeled our lab cart over to the center so everyone could see. Oh, I forgot to tell you what our lab actually was. We will be reacting Zinc with Hydro-cleric acid, thank you very much. You probably aren't exactly sure what that is, so just know that it makes this popping noise when you put a flame next to it. We were going to show how the combination of those two chemicals (sorry, I don't want to write them out again) causes an output of hydrogen gas. Cool experiment, right?
"I'll get the chemicals, you get the beakers and stuff, okay?" I said to Jetta.
She nodded and went off the glassware racks to get a flask, test tube, stopper, water trough and a variety of other materials that we would need to set up. I, for one, went to the chemical closet to select the compounds and elements that we would need. Hydro-cleric acid was easy to find. I chose one with a strength of one molar, since six is a little strong and dangerous. But, then when I went to the metal cabinet, I couldn't find zinc anywhere. If they're out of zinc, I am seriously going to kill someone. So I'm looking around and found all sorts of other metals, but no zinc. I think I'll ask Mr. Harley for help. No, he might take off our preparedness grade for not knowing where the chemicals are, so I'll just use that as a last resort. Anyway, I still can't find it! So I put my head way in the back of the cabinet, you know, just in case someone shoved it back there by accident and saw a strange bottle. Is that a cork stopper on the top? So I reached in carefully and took it out and marveled at it for a minute. It was one of those round bottles with a cork at the top, and a short neck. Looked kind of like Captain Jack Sparrow's rum bottles. Reminds me of my favorite movie, Pirates of the Caribbean and my favorite character, the captain himself of course! Well, that's what that bottled looked like: right out of the movie itself. Then, realizing how stupid I had been, I looked in the bottom and saw a black powder, finally - Zinc! So I walked out of the chemical closet with the Hydrochloric acid in one hand and the zinc in that strange little bottle in the other, and met Jetta at the center of the room.
"What took so long?" she whispered to me urgently.
"Nothing. Just couldn't find the zinc," I muttered, hoping that Mr. Harley wasn't in earshot.
"Okay girls, carry on," said Mr. Harley with a forward motion of his hand. "That's a strange little bottle you've got there. What's in there?"
"Zinc," I said nervously, hoping that it was the right one.
"Okay, well if you insist on doing that for effect, as long as it's the right chemical."
"Sure," I said, sounding more confident than I actually was about this endeavor.
Just then, a peculiar type music filled the room. The waltz. That's what it was. Everyone looked around and Mr. Harley picked up his cell phone. I should have known. He's the only one who would actually set classical music as their ring tone. Come on, don't you want Temperature or Money Maker. or something? Dorks.
"Will you excuse me for a second," said Mr. Harley, flipping up his phone and leaving the classroom.
As soon as that door clicked shut, the usual buzz of talking filled the room. I forgot to describe our class. We have a lot of really smart people, it's just that our grade as a whole tends to be very talkative. So, every time a teacher stops talking or changes gears, everyone will immediately find SOMETHING to have a conversation about. Yes, I confess, I do it too. But if we should take notes with a blue pen or a black one is an urgent subject, okay!?! Speaking of the people in our class, there is this one girl named Jordana who has got to be the biggest smart air-head I have ever seen. She's in honors, but she's one of those people who thinks that they are some much more popular than they actually are, and talks to people who aren't there real friends like they think that they are doing you a favor by talking to you because it is so much of a "privilege" to talk to them. Yeah right. Speaking of Jordana, here she comes now.
"Hey, Meghan, what's your experiment about?"
Like you're actually interested, I thought. But I told her anyway, "We're doing a chemical reaction to produce hydrogen."
"You know that you're using the wrong acid, right?"
"Hydro-cleric acid is the one we've been using in all the practice tests," said Jetta, checking the bottle.
"Yeah, but you're supposed to use six molars, not one," replied Jordana in that, "you're lucky I'm talking to you" kind of way.
"Actually, six molars is a little bit strong for this experiment. We want to stay on the safe side and use only one molar, just because six might cause a bigger explosion than we want," I said, trying to keep my tone in just a "normal conversation" and non-know-it-all type way. Some people say that I have a talent for hiding my hate and keeping patient with people even in the most difficult situations. Some people also say that I am very opinionated and that I know what I want. It was hard to keep those two talents separate in this scenario, but I think that I managed to use the latter.
"Oh," she said. Quickly changing the subject, she snatched my lab report from the table and paged through it.
"Mr. Harley said that you were only supposed to do three to five pages."
Oh, I forgot to tell you. Our lab report came to be about thirteen pages with all the images, diagrams, data and writing that we did. We just wanted to do a good job and that;s how it came out, so we kept it that way, in case you were wondering. We also had to do a powerpoint, so I had my laptop up there with me.
"Well, we had a lot to say," added Jetta quickly. I was shell-shocked by that time by Jordana's utter fakeness, and was grateful that Jetta saved me, even though I could think of a lot of less-than-appropriate things to say Jordana.
"Yeah, and I don't think that any teacher would actually take OFF for any extra effort, as long as the extra pages aren't just dribble," I added confidently. There's that keeping two personalities in check thing again.
"What are you, trying to put ours down because you know that your lab report doesn't even come close?" Okay, I didn't really say that. I'm not that mean When I say really testy stuff like that, just assume that I am just thinking it unless noted otherwise. I tend to think really mean stuff, but only the nice stuff comes out of my mouth. Sometimes I wish I could say something a little more assertive though.
Saved by the bell, well actually, Mr. Harley. He came back in at that moment, and Jordana quick took her seat. Apparently she felt it was urgent to put on some more of her Burt's Beeswax lip gloss.
"Sorry about that minor interruption," apologized Mr. Harley. "Please begin."
So, carefully, I took out the cork from the bottle and poured some zinc into the flask for the demonstration. It was a little crumbly and smelled kind of weird though. i can't describe the smell really, strong and pungent are the best words I can think of. Kinda smokey, that's all I could say. I didn't really think anything of it though, there was my grade to worry about.
"We're going to show you how Zinc..."
"And Hydrocleric acid..." Jetta chimed in, pouring a measurement of the acid into the flask.
"React to produce hydrogen gas," I said with a flourish.
For a moment, nothing happened in the flask with the zinc and acid. Everyone was staring at us with this very strange, blank, puzzled sort of look, like we didn't do something right. I turned briefly to look back at the chemicals, and everything was correct. Then, all of a sudden, there was the huge, loud, resounding BOOM! It blew me and Jetta backward with a massive force, as we crashed over the desks close to the experiment cart. Other kids screamed and ducked as the firey explosion swept over the entire room. The last thing I saw was Jetta's face and tendrils of fire reaching across the labs, with sparks flying over my head.
To be continued...