Tuesdays, I had a double period for AP Chemistry, meaning it was lab day. Beth and I had first become friends back during Introductory Chemistry, right after she had transferred to our school at the start of junior year. Alphabetically (Talbott and Taylor), we had been assigned as lab partners that year and we found that we worked well together. When Spring rolled around, after she joined the Track team as a sprinter, she had sort of eased into being the third member of my group of tomboy, girl-jock friends. Students could choose their lab partners in AP Chem, and Beth and I had never thought to do anything other than what we already knew worked.
“All right, you gremlins,” said our teacher Dr. French, beginning class. “Here is the only part of the year where I worry about killing one or more of you, so please pay more than your usual token attention, okay?”
Zak Mason’s hand immediately shot up, and he spoke before being called on. “Excuse me Dr. French, but speaking of mortal danger, what about the Thermite Incident?”
The Thermite Incident had occurred back in October. Dr. French had… never mind. It’s not important, even though the year book staff had already announced that that day would have its own page in our annual.
“Less yakking, more listening, Mr. Mason,” Dr. French growled. “None of you lot were in danger of dying during that experiment, just me and the ceiling.”
“And the furniture and the floor…” I could not help but mutter. I’m not usually one to clown around in class, and Dr. French gave my a somewhat surprised glare.
“We are going to spend the next few weeks on identifying unknown substances. You did this before in Introductory Chem, but this year the substances are more difficult to identify. And I cannot emphasize this enough, you louts: Many of the unknowns this time around are toxic, to one degree of another . That means, do not taste your unknowns! Are you, in particular, paying attention to me, Mr. Woolworth?”
Beth and I went to our assigned lab table with our mystery unknown substance. As we sat down to plan our process, she sat next to me, instead of across from me like she always had in the past.
“What’s up with sitting over here?” I asked curiously.
“Oh, I’m just tired of Stan Woolworth staring at my ass like he has been all year.”
“What a perv.”
“Exactly.”
Beth does have a nice ass. In fact, back when she had first transferred in, before we had really become friends, I had done my own share of visually mapping its contours from my quiet anonymity.
“Want me to sit on the other side?” I asked, staring intently at the white substance we were to identify.
“Nah, side by side is cool.”
“Stan is just going to stare at your boobs now, you know,” I smirked to her slyly.
“Alistaire Taylor!” Beth whispered, mild scandalized and majorly surprised.
I blushed a little. That higher base-level confidence I’d found over Spring Break was a two-edged sword. I really still needed to work on my filters before I got myself in trouble by flirting with my friends.
“So you think my tits are worth staring at?” she teased, batting her eyelashes extravagantly.
In trouble like this…
Screw it. Beth had broken up with her boyfriend back home at Christmas, then gotten nowhere fast all winter with Howie Thom. She could use a compliment, even if it was just from me. “They are fine… just not a good as your ass,” I replied, still keeping my eyes on our unknown.
Beth hit me over the head with her notebook. The slap was loud. Dr. French spoke up quellingly, “While I obviously applaud your intent, Miss Talbott, please chastise the annoying Mr. Taylor for whatever he has done on your own time, not mine.”
*
Sundays were our one day at school with no specific obligations on our schedules, except for study hall in the evening-for the underclassmen. For me, Sundays meant D&D all afternoon with Ben, Tres, Adam, and Bridget. I had taken over as Dungeon Master during the winter after Ben burnt out on doing the job. I wasn’t the best, most creative DM, but I had the virtue of being willing to do it.
That did not keep me from getting the occasional criticism for my admittedly paint by numbers style of storytelling. “Come on, Al,” grumped Adam, throwing his hands in the air. “Another set of three ogres, arguing? We encountered arguing ogres last month, too!”
“Leave Alistaire alone, Adam,” Bridget said, coming to my defense like a good friend. “Poor kid’s only managed to read one book in his entire life, and his mom had to help with that. He has limited source material…”
“Hey, I’ve heard Carla call him ‘Alistaire’, too,” Ben said curiously. “What’s up with using his whole name?”
“Oh, you know,” Bridgett said airily. “We just thought that Alistaire needs a man’s name now.”
Tres laughed, “Oh, a name change just because Al got laid?” His eyes widened as he realized what he’d said, and in what company. Adam and Ben both smacked him while they all looked furtively away from Bridget.
“Calm down, morons,” Bridget said easily. “I was the one that guessed it first, in the chat, remember? I’m in the loop. But yes, that’s the point. Al screwed Carrie, now he is Alistaire.” She seemed to take this as simple logic now.
“In the loop, huh?” Ben chuckled. I could see the word ‘Mary’ floating between the guys’ eyes.
“If you are referring to the Carrie and Mary situation… I. Am. In. The. Loop,” Bridget ground out.
I had had enough of this particular discussion. Time to exercise Dungeon Master’s prerogative.
“The three ogres stop arguing and swing their gazes upon your party,” I intoned. “‘Oi! Lookit! Chow time!’ the three of them call out together. Two of them lumber directly toward you. The third takes a moment to take a giant iron spike out of his pouch and screw it into his stone club. Then he hustles (for an ogre) to catch up and not miss out on dinner.”
All four of them ignored me.
“Carrie and Mary…” Ben mused. “Al does seem to have a type when it comes to names, doesn’t he?”
“Maybe he should go after Sherri as his first conquest here at school,” suggested Tres.
“Enough, you guys,” Bridget growled. “Grow up.” She paused a beat, then muttered, “And for God’s sake, not Sherri Stroheim.” Sherri was a moderately cute Senior who was the closest thing to a genuine slut you could find at my school.
Seeming to come to Bridget’s aid, Adam added, “Seriously, this is getting weird. And we have ogres about to kill us, guys.”
Everybody seemed to blessedly agree and they started trying to make a plan.
“Besides,” Adam added slowly, carefully not looking at me or her, “maybe Bridget has someone else in mind for Al…”
“I cast double-strength fireball on the lead ogre,” snapped Bridget.
“That will put Adam in the blast radius,” I decided.
“Exactly,” she snapped.
“What?!?” Adam cried out.
“I think that reaction we are hearing means we don’t have to roll for surprise on Adam,” I said evilly. “Rolling for surprise on the other ogres… They all make their saves. Rolling for their dodge… two get out of the way. 10d6 for damage to Adam and the ogre closest to him, Bridget.”
“Guys!” Adam shouted. “You are not serious!”
“49 points,” Bridget announced her total with glee.
*
Beth and I were going to need a pretty focused plan, if we were to narrow down and identify our unknown substance. We met up Monday night in the library, which is usually deserted that late at night when it isn’t term paper season. Tuesday would be the first lab period where we could actually run our experiments on the unknowns, and we needed to be ready to start immediately. Time was going be limited.
We sat across from each other at a small table in the back of the upper floor. Our table was nowhere near the reference section, but we both had our laptops and spreadsheet printouts, and we didn’t need reference books for Chem anyway. As a bonus, we were far enough from where the librarian was working downstairs that we didn’t have to whisper to talk things through.
The challenge was to figure out the fewest number of tests needed to narrow our ideas of what the stuff could conceivably be down to only one possibility. We were not having an easy time.
After a while, we just fell into companionable silence as we searched for anything we might have missed. Then I jumped when I felt Beth’s toe graze my slacks. She had kicked her shoes off, like she always did at the first opportunity.
“Hey!” I chuckled.
“Sorry,” Beth said, not looking up.
Less than a minute later, she practically dragged her toe down my leg.
“What is with you?” I asked.
I was met with a grin. “What’s the matter?” Beth asked, a strange combination of teasing and shy on her face. “Don’t you like it?” she went on. Now she dipped her foot, hooked her toes up under the cuff of my slacks, and ran them up the inside of my pants leg, across my bare skin.
The Al of a month ago would have been confused and uncertain about whether Beth was flirting with him. The Alistaire of that night was quite certain that she was. This did not mean that I was sure what to do about it, and I was even more in the dark about what had precipitated it. But I found that it also did not mean that I was unhappy about it.