Tips For When You Jump into the Deep

By Forgotten Sunrise

AN: Hey you all! This took a little long than I had hoped to post. A mixture of work, registering for school and personal issue stood in the way, but I beat them back! I'd like to also take this time to say that 95 of the chemistry facts used are true (the other 5 I tweaked just a tad bit so that they'd better work with the story.) Being the responsible adult that I now am, I have to tell you DO NOT EVER MIX ALIKLINES WITH WATER!! (alikines are metals like calicum and sodium) I've done this a few times in a lab setting myself and trust me- you can easily blow a limb or two off if you don't know what you're doing…Don't believe me? You-Tube it. That said, Let Chapter 5 begin!

All that glitters may not be gold, but at least it contains free electrons.

John Desmond Baernal (Irish physicist, 1901-1971)

Chapter 5: Sodium and aqueous Chlorine

Roger and Artemis soon made their way to the main building for the first class of the day, organic chemistry. There was still six minutes before class even started, but already everyone seemed to be there. The class looked much bigger than in years past; there were sixteen people, five of which were female. Of course, Xia would have to be one of them. Maféia would be another one of them.

The two girls were engrossed in what seemed to be a deep conversation when the boy walked in. Xia flashed the pair a dazzling smile, and then continued her conversation, without missing a heartbeat. Maféia only turned around for a moments notice, instantly turning around with a snarl on her face when she saw Artemis.

"Really Artemis, what on earth did you do to her?"

"I've never met the girl before today. Honestly though, I don't really care if she doesn't like me. There's nothing I can do about it."

"Well, maybe Xia can put in a good word for you…They're best friends you know."

"Best friends? Really now…" Artemis muttered as he took a seat toward the back of class, near the lab.

"Yup, yup. Maféia has known Xia longer than I have! Their father's were 'partners' see…"

Artemis raised a pale brow. Wasn't Xia adopted? She had said that she didn't know either of her parents. He was about to press Roger to tell him more, but the start bell for class cut him off and Mrs. Burner, clad with tide-dye goggles and a pink and yellow poka-dotted lab coat, stepped up to the front of the class.

"G'morning students! It's so wonderful to see all of your bright faces today! Welcome to O Chem!" Burner said a little too happily. "Now, most of you I know from last year, from either Marine Bio or Generic Chem, but some of you, I have yet to meet, and I look forward to getting to know you all, and becoming apart, if not only a small part, of your life's." She smiled brightly at each of her students. Some of the students gave her a boring stare. A lot of the students however recoiled some in their seat. Mrs. Burner was one of those teachers who felt the need to know everything about everyone.

"Now, seeing that today is our first day back, I want to do something both exciting and that would warm up those brains! So why not start off with a lab on reactions! I want you to partner up and head to any lab station besides s5 or s7. Each station consisted of three or more elements. I want each group to come up with a balanced equation and to tell me one, what kind of reaction takes place, and two, what is made from the reaction. After you have done that, you may carefully try to get your elements to react. Some of the stations are more dangerous than others, so please, please be carefully alright dearies? At the end, I want each group to write up a lab report telling me about your elements and reaction. That will be due on Wednesday."

The whole classed moaned. First day back and they had to already write a lab report! This was no way to start off their senior year! Artemis gathered his Notebook and started to make his way back to the lab with Roger, but was called back my Mrs. Burner before he could do so.

"Master Fowl? Miss Perry? May I see you two darlings for a sec?" She asked. Artemis sighed and laid his laptop back down on his desk. Xia did the same as well, and gracefully made her way through the maze of desk and to Mrs. Burner's side.

"Now, I know you two are more advanced than the rest of our students here, so I wanted to give you and your partners something a little harder to work on, but way cooler to experiment with. Master Fowl, I'm assuming that you're going to work with Master Douglas, so I want you two to go to s7 to work with sodium, chlorine, and water. Miss Perry, I want you and Miss Britva to go to s5 to work with magnesium nitrogen and oxygen. Those elements should give you guys plenty of fun! Good luck!" Mrs. Burner saluted, and then went off to go make rounds to help the other students of the class.

"Sodium, chlorine, and water? Carefully now Artemis…" Xia warned mockingly, but with a warm smile on her face.

"Now, now, Xia, magnesium and air isn't such a friendly reaction either. I must too, warn you to be carefully." Artemis said with the faintest of smirks on his face. Xia matched his smirk with a sly grin of her own. Oh no, he was making genarl converstion with her again!

"Yah, well, at least I don't have Roger on my team."

Artemis's small smirk vanished and was replaced by a slight frown.

"You're right."

Balancing the equation and determining what would be created in the in the reaction took mere seconds for Artemis. Explaining what was going on to Roger, however, took much, much longer.

"Oh, so it makes a base! And that's why you can use it in hair products! Because it's a base! It's safe for you."

"No Roger, Lye is an alkaline compound, and furthermore, lye is horrible for the hair; it rips it apart. It's an acid."

Roger stared down at Artemis's Tablet Notebook, and looked at the equation that Artemis had wrote down for nearly a minute.

"Okay, but how can it be a base and an acid Artemis? Bases and acids are opposites and all alkalines are bases. You told me that buddy."

"Alright. One, I'm not your buddy. Never say that again or I will have Butler hurt you. And I don't mean Juliet. Two: that not what I said. What I said was, 'all bases are alkalines'. Now, I do see where your confusion might have come in. Most people use the term alkaline and base interchangeable because those two are not mutually excusive unlike base and acid. However, bases, like what you hinted on earlier, refers to a compounds pH number, whereas alkaline refers to a compounds structure. All bases have an alkaline molecular structure, but not all alkaline structures are bases."

"Oh. Whatever mate. How do we mix's the two?"

Artemis sighed. It was always the bottom line for Roger when it came to sicence.

"Well that part is quite simple. Really, we have the easiest one to mix. You see, the extra electron in the sodium acts as our catalyst, so all we really need to do is drop the sodium rock in the aqueous solution of chlorine."

"Just, drop it in? That's it? No stirring, no heating, just…put the rock in the water?"

"Yes, that's it."

Roger face lit up as he tossed the sodium rock in his hand.

"Sweet deal man! This is going to be so easy…" Roger went on, but Artemis stopped listing. He got up and grabbed his sky blue lab coat and goggles out form the lab closet. He didn't want to dye his lab equipment, but Mrs. Burner last year had told him that if he didn't do it himself, she would do it for him. And only God knows what she would have done.

As he walked back to s7, he took a quick look at Xia and Maféia. They had already begun their reaction and were currently waiting for their metal to erupt into a ball of colorful flames. Maféia's short, pale, silvery blue hair fell into her face as she bent down to up the gas flow to their burner. Mrs. Burner had said her last name was Britva. Why did that name sound so familiar? And why was that name bothering him?

He then made a pass at Xia. She moved the coiled magnesium around the crucible with tongs, using the most delicate of movements. Her rich brown hair was pulled up to the right side of her head and out of the way. Her eyes, though hidden behind Mrs. Burner's thick pink goggles, were troubled, her lips pouting. Xia looked almost…sad. Artemis couldn't imagine Xia being sad. What had been said that made her feel sad? He had to stop himself right there. What did it matter to him if she felt sad anyways?

He shook his head slightly and slipped the goggles and lab coat on. Focus on the task at hand, he reminded himself. Even if it the easiest thing you've ever done…

"Okay," Artemis started as he made his way back to s7, but stopped as soon as he saw Roger, who had just finished pouring chlorine into a beaker of water and now was hovering a sodium rock over it.

"Roger, what on earth do you think you doing!" Artemis hissed, instantly becoming tense.

"Performing the experiment." Roger said casually as he poured more water into the beaker.

"Roger…Don't you dare put that sodium rock in that beaker."
"Why? It's just water. Basically… What bad could it do?" He asked as he dropped the tiny rock into the beaker of water. It started to fizz almost instantly.

"Uh-oh…Wow, is it s'pose to fizz like that?"

Steam started to rise from the beaker as if it was a tea kettle, and the watery solution inside started to boil. The reaction had started and would come to its climax in matter of moments. There wasn't time to move it to the fume hood, and even if they tried, the movement might spur up the reaction even more…

Then he looked towards s5. Orange flames licked the air around the crucible the magnesium laid in. If even a drop of their lye landed on their magnesium flames…

"Xia, Maféia, move! Get away from the magnesium!" Artemis yelled over to them. The girls gave him a puzzling look, but then they caught sight of the bubbling concoction that was about to blow over. By now, Mrs. Burner had caught sight of what was about to happen as well and was mildly excited.

"Everyone to the other side of the class room NOW!" No one hesitated to do as she commanded as the beaker setting atop of s7 started to whistle a hideous scream. The students crowed to the furthest corner of the class room and some took cover under the desks. One second past, then two, then the whistling stopped.

"Oi, don't tell me that was it! You had me run all the way over-"

Then the beaker, seemingly out of nowhere exploded with a loud boom, making glittery glass and golden lye dropplets rain all over the back of the lab. A few drop landed on the crucible that contained the now, on fire magnesium oxide. Half a second later, the small green, pink and blue fire ball of the magnesium multiplied to threading size, dancing around the back side of the room like a wild fire sprite.

"Oh, it absolutely beautiful! Well done, Master Douglas and Master Fowl! What a splendid way to show the class what happened when electrons are freed and move to a new energy level!" Mrs. Burner clapped. "Good show my boys! Though, I think this is the last time we'll ever use sodium rocks in the classroom."

The first day of school had been full of bumps and suprises. However nothing suprised Artemis more that what he was hearing now.

"Married? Married!" Artemis yelled into the tiny communicator in shock to his good elfin friend, Holly Short. Roger had gone with off with his cousin, Xia, to discuss the details of Homecoming Formal and Juliet was off showing out to the boys at the schools gym, giving Artemis time to catch up with his long time fairy friend. This news, however, was unexpected.

"Yes, married, Mud Boy," Holly said testily. "I didn't stutter, did I?"

"No, you didn't. But still, Holly, you're quite young for an elf, only 83. And what about your career? I must tell you that it doesn't look good at all for you if you were to marry your commander."

"That's what I tried to tell her!" Foaly shouted, cutting into their conversation. "But she won't listen to me Artemis. She's lost her mind. Please, tell her something, anything!"

"You can say all you want Artemis, but you're not going to change my mind. Besides, I think it's time I took a break from the L.E.P…"

"Yes, I see what you mean Foaly, she has indeed lost her mind. Holly, just try and hear me out. You can't marry Trouble, not yet. You two have only been dating for ten years, three of which you were MIA for. And you, go on extended leave from the L.E.P? Willingly? Holly, I don't think anyone that knows you can phantom that…"

Artemis could see her roll her multi-colored eyes on the tiny screen.

"Okay, alright already! Nothing you two say wlill change my mind, so enough about me boys. What's new up on the surface Arty? Isn't that one girl you were telling me about before there? What was her name…Ida Berry or something, right?"

Artemis rested his head in his hand for a few moments. Holly was the only person he had told about how Xia made him feel and she made him instantly regret it. Forget about Roger singing 'Arty and Minnie', Holly was singing 'Arty and Xia'.

"Xia Perry is her name, you know that Holly." The small female elf smiled brightly in his screen.

"Yeah, I know. So when are you going to ask her out? Oh! You should take her to the Homecoming Formal!"

"I'm not going to ask anyone out to the Formal, Holly. I already have plans to meet with Minerva on that day. And I'm not going to ask Xia out for any kind of date. She's intelligent and pretty, true, but that's it. I don't like her, Holly. She scares me and makes me feel uncomfortable. Please get that notion out of your head."

Holly rolled her eyes once more.

"Besides," He continued "even if I did like her, her supposed best friend, Maféia doesn't seem to like me much. Xia won't risk her friendship over a crush, I'm sure. And nor will I."

"Wait, wait, wait, wait a second," Foaly said, his tone becoming more serious. "Did you say Maféia? As in, Maféia Britva? The girl with the blue hair?"

Artemis raised a pale brow and looked into the screen at the centaur.

"Yes, Maféia Britva is her name. Are you keeping tabs on her? Why are you keeping tabs on Miss Brit-"

But then Artemis cut himself off, feeling quite stupid for not realizing who she was in the beginning.

"Artemis, you know that this isn't good new for you at all," Foaly said grimly.

"No, this can't be good news at all." Artemis agreed soberly.

AN: AF Trivia time!! Think you're a hard core Fowl buffs? For the first person to tell me who Britva is, I will write them an, any-length, any ship, any genre, any style, any rating, any whatever story you could want. Whatever you can imagine, I will write. Does that sound like afair deal to you? :p Review of any sort are welcome.

Much love :)

F.S

Coming up…. I wonder who their talking about…

"Oh, c'mon now, he's not too bad…."

"Not too bad? Ha! He's so bad that the first minute I get him alone, I'm going to first ring his neck, like the chicken he is. But not to the point that I break it. Oh no, no. I want him to feel the pain of when I yank every single hair out of his body by the root!"

"Well then, we must make sure you to are never left alone then…