Survival Of The Fittest

What the hell was wrong with this girl? Why was she so damn upset? Will was starting to get angry at her. And she was having a go at Hayley! Sure Hayley didn't come to class as much as she should, but, well, he still felt he should defend her. Hayley was his friend, and even if she put herself in a position that was hard to defend, Will fet he should say something. Regardless of the truth in her statement, Will was starting to dislike Marion.

He wondered if she was always like this. Did Sarah have to put up with this every class or was it just today? Will wished he'd payed more attention to his classmates; then he wouldn't have to wonder. Way to be observant.

But these issues weren't the issues at hand. Apparently Marion had some kind of problem with how they were doing the experiment. What was she even doing? Will paused for a moment, checking his book. It looked like she was doing some earlier part of the experiment, some kind of little formality that they were meant to get out of the way before the real experiment. It wasn't really necessary, they already knew this one was a base. They could read that in the textbook, listed in the equipment. Taking a quick glance around the room Will couldn't see any other group doing this bit. Maybe that was why they were behind.

"Uh, Maybe I should go ahead and start on the actual titration," Will said, more so he didn't have to deal with Marion than wanting to finish the experiment.

Somehow he expected this answer not to sit well with her, that she'd think they were slacking off. Maybe she wouldn't mind though, as long as it didn't affect her. They weren't even going to be slacking off anyway. They'd probably be more on task than Marion was. Ms Heys couldn't be expecting them to play with indicator all day.

"And yeah, if you wanna do the maths, sure. You sure you don't want to do the fun bit?"

Sarah opened her mouth to protest what Marion said to her, then stopped when she noticed William giving the two girls a strange look. She looked at Marion, then at William, trying to gauge what on earth was going on.

Sarah was very very confused. She wondered if she had missed something in the conversation. In her mind, she'd already established that Marion was irritated for some reason, but now it seemed that William was a little bit irritated too!

If the dressing down she had just received earlier was any indication, Marion certainly seemed to be irritated at her. She wasn't sure if William was irritated at her as well, but given the situation, he might well be. Rather than argue with both of them, she decided it was better to take the path of least resistance.

Sarah quietly took the indicator bottle and dropped two drops of indicator into the flask. The liquid changed colour from orange to yellow.

"I guess it's a base." she said to her lab mates in a voice barely above a whisper, "It's uh... a different colour now..."

She quickly scribbled in her notes, then duplicated the same scribble in the second set of notes that she was keeping on Hayley's behalf. Looking up from her notes, she noticed that William had asked her a question.

Sarah eyed her nemesis, the tap burette, warily. She was definitely certain that she wanted to do the Math. She loved numbers.

"I can do the Math." she said, "You can uh... do the fun part and then I can do the Math and maybe Marion can fill the uh... flasks? Or I can fill the flasks and Marion can do the fun part with you? And I can do the Math?"

"Uh, Maybe I should go ahead and start on the actual titration," Will said, more so he didn't have to deal with Marion than wanting to finish the experiment.

Maybe I should go ahead a start the actual titration Marion mocked Will in her head. Gee, what an amazing idea .Why didn't I think of that? Oh! Wait maybe that is what I was so upset about. No, that couldn't possibly be it. I can't believe you're actually gonna play this off like it's all your idea. Whatever. See losing your temper doesn't actually get you anything.

"And yeah, if you wanna do the maths, sure. You sure you don't want to do the fun bit?"

She watched Sarah open her mouth and then close it giving her and Will confused looks. She rolled her eyes, oh please, please say something, try to defend the fact that you've spent the first 15 minutes of class either MIA or worried about notes for someone else. Sarah didn't say anything, instead so took the indicator and changed the substance in the flask yellow.

"I guess it's a base." she said to her lab mates in a voice barely above a whisper, "It's uh... a different colour now..."

Still trying to get her temper under control Marion simply nodded and sketched the second flash in her lab notebook.

"I can do the Math." she said, "You can uh... do the fun part and then I can do the Math and maybe Marion can fill the uh... flasks? Or I can fill the flasks and Marion can do the fun part with you? And I can do the Math?"

Oh, can I, really I can fill flasks? You mean we can actually do something to move this experiment along? Marion let out a soft sigh, counted to ten, and then counted to ten again. "Whatever you decide is fine," she said impressed with herself that her voice came out sounding calm and even. "As long as we get finished by the end of the period."

She was fine with it? Will wasn't sure how he could have expected Marion to respond, but he was definitely glad that she wasn't upset. That could've gone worse. Well, maybe it could've. Will wasn't sure whether he was just blowing things out of proportion in his mind. Perhaps he'd just been expecting things to escalate. He tended to imagine that a lot more often than it happened.

Focusing on the task ahead, Will leaned towards the burette and twisted the tap, letting the base trickle down into the flask. It'd probably take some time before the colour started changing, so Will sat back and watched. He wondered why Sarah seemed so keen to do the maths; that was definitely the most boring bit. Each to their own, or so he'd heard. It was probably a good thing; she wouldn't have to share that with anyone else, unless there were other weirdoes who preferred maths to the actual experiment.

Waiting for the colour change, Will looked down at his book and started scribbling in the margins. He was drawing a tower, about two inches tall and covered in little blobs that were meant to be little rooms sticking out the side. Towers were tricky; they had too many stairs for not enough floor space. Of course, that meant all the little rooms would be cosy, which was why he was drawing it. It did mean it was a little hard to fit an entire college of wizards in, though. Pondering his imagination, Will didn't notice the flask starting to change colour a little earlier than expected.

Sarah nodded in relief, another of her crazy grins spreading across her face.

"Yay!" she cheered, causing half the class to look up at her for a moment.

She blushed when she felt all the attention on her, then bustled over to the fixed-volume pipettes. Pulling one to herself, she squeezed one of the rubber bulb type pipette fillers in one hand, then shoved it over the end of the pipette. She let go, watching the suction of the rubber bulb draw the base up the pipette. When the meniscus reached the line that denoted an exact amount, Sarah pulled the bulb off the end and replaced it with her finger. She was a little too late - the meniscus had now fallen below the line.

Releasing the pipette, she let all the liquid drain out before starting again.

And again.

And again.

And again for another six tries.

After the third try, Sarah had long forgotten that she had to fill flasks. Instead, she was entranced by the way in which the water ballooned up inside the larger part of the pipette. She gave a faint smile... before suddenly remembering that she was supposed to fill flasks.

Having grasped the concept of pipette filling by now, Sarah let the liquid's meniscus rise past the line for a bit, then replaced the bulb with her finger. Very carefully, she allowed the meniscus to fall until it was sitting perfectly on the line, then transferred the liquid from the beaker to the flask.

She filled another three more flasks, not really mindful of the progress of the experiment. When she was done, she sat at her bench and started to work out the atomic weight of the compounds that they were experimenting with - doing the Math, so to speak.

It seemed that she hadn't noticed the colour change either.

Marion watched in shocked horror as both of her lab partners not only did the same part of the experiment, but then both apparently lost interest in the experiment. Hello, what the hell man? What do I have to do? One more time, and then I'm gonna go ask Mrs. Heys for an extension or a new lab partner or something. She'd been understanding about Sarah's SPECIAL problem, but now, NOW she had TWO of them to deal with.

Marion tapped the end of her pencil against her notebook trying to figure out what the best course of action was. Yelling had earned her shocked expressions, but apparently hadn't helped any. Well, it had them focused long enough to start the experiment, but Marion could have done that all on her own. Although she figured Sarah had started on the math, but she wasn't even going to go there, since she'd ask the girl for help on it. Apparently that help wasn't coming and now it was being done at the cost of the rest of the experiment.

An evil smile broke across Marion's face. She quickly sketched the results, taking extra time to carefully note the amount of liquid that had fallen in.

That accomplished she placed the three flasks that had changed color in front of her, then in a warped version of the shell game switched the beakers around as much as she could. Hope you were paying attention, to that last one.

Then replaced the flask of colored liquid with another, repeating the steps Will had done earlier. Then she began the slow process of refilling the burettes. Satisfied, she glanced down at her watch and noted the time and made a bet with herself to see which of her two lab partners would notice first.

Will looked up as Marion switched the flasks, and suddenly remembered what he was doing. The realisation came as a bit of a shock to him and he panicked for a bit. He didn't usually space out that much! Will realised he hadn't eaten his lunch today; he'd been too busy looking for Aaron to talk about D&D, and had forgotten to eat. That was probably why he was so out of it. Still, Will felt bad that he'd messed up the experiment, and tried to help Marion resetting it.

"Oh, shit, sorry," he apologised. Looking at the set up for a while Will smiled, "Well, I guess it must be less than twenty four mils then," he said jokingly.

That was at least something they'd gotten out of the experiment. The first one was meant to be a rough titration. Somehow, Will suspected it wasn't meant to be that rough. Looking at the flask a pun he'd thought of earlier came to mind. Laughing nervously, he decided to share it.

"Hey, how do you spell fail? With a 'pH' greater than seven!"

He didn't wait for the others to reply, he was scared of it falling apart enough already. Turning to his bag Will unzipped it and started extracting his lunch, feeling somewhat embarrassed.

"Done!" Sarah said triumphantly.

She slid her notebook across to Will and Marion, "Here are the equations, awaiting your input. You'll notice that I also showed workings for the calculation of the compound's molecular weight"

The notes were... straightforwardish... for Sarah's usual style. It seemed that she was putting in a little more effort than usual to make them legible, something that she was sure Hayley and Marion might appreciate. Instead of the usual jumble of letters and numbers that was Sarah's normal work, everything was categorised into neat little lines of workings. Heck, it was even legible - Sarah having taken the trouble to craft each and every letter seperately so that they looked perfect. She'd even used a ruler to get straight lines on her letters, for no apparent reason other than that rulers were fun.

Despite the extra effort that Sarah had taken, there was not a single word written to explain why those numbers, just the occasional mention of chemical compounds written in the margins. The document, while neat and pretty, was no more comprehensible than baby gurgling. Still, if the right numbers were plugged into Sarah's blank spaces, the correct answers could be derived.

The problem was figuring out exactly what answers were derived and which numbers went where.

"So, uhm. Once I get those numbers, we can plug them into the blank spots in the equations and we're home free." she said, "I THINK I only need the average from the titrations."

"Oh, shit, sorry," he apologized. Looking at the set up for a while Will smiled, "Well, I guess it must be less than twenty-four mils then," he said jokingly.

And we have a winner, Marion thought to herself. What should Will win? She hadn't really gotten that far when she'd made the bet, and she pondered the question as she allowed Will to help her reset the experiment.

"Hey, how do you spell fail? With a 'pH' greater than seven!"

Marion smiled at his joke and hoped this was a new leaf that her partner was turning over. Maybe she'd been too hard on him earlier and she was just taking out her year long frustration with Sarah on him. After all he and his usual partner seemed to work well together during the year. Maybe it was Sarah that was throwing him, or maybe it's me. She was all set to apologize when he had to go and spoil it all by extracting his lunch.

"You're really not going to eat in here," Marion hissed in a low voice. "We just had lunch and THIS is a chemistry lab. You're going to get us in trouble."

Before she could continue Sarah picked her head up and announced she was finished.

She slid her notebook across to Will and Marion, "Here are the equations, awaiting your input. You'll notice that I also showed workings for the calculation of the compound's molecular weight"

"So, uhm. Once I get those numbers, we can plug them into the blank spots in the equations and we're home free." she said, "I THINK I only need the average from the titrations."

Marion scanned the notebook, which was much clearer than Sarah's usually handwriting. It was definitely neater than, but that didn't make figuring it out any easier. Marion tapped the notebook with her pencil. "Which numbers need to go where," she asked glancing over to where the experiment was currently underway, checking to make sure she hadn't missed the color change or lack thereof.

Eek!

Will knew he wasn't supposed to be eating in the lab, what with all the acids and bases sloshing around and it being class time and all, he'd just been hoping that no one else noticed. It's not like it was going to kill him or anything. Grumbling internally, Will slid his lunch back into his bag. He left it on top though, in case he got a chance later.

Back with the experiment, Sarah seemed to have finished the maths. Will glanced at the sheet and immediately felt lost. Was he meant to know this for the exams? Will understood how to figure it out alright; it was just when he saw it put to words he couldn't follow. If there's this much of this and that has this much of this, then you just work it out. It was all logic to him. Looking at Sarah's equations did panic him a little. It looked like she'd done it differently to how he understood it. Her writing seemed very neat too.

Leaving Marion to decipher the equations, Will returned to the experiment. He thought Marion was doing this run. As humorous as it would be for them all to miss the colour change it turn, they actually needed to complete the experiment. The colour change was already starting, so Will leant over and gave the burette's tap a slight twist, slowing the flow. Will hoped his action wouldn't be interpreted as butting in on her experiment, but he was scared Marion might think it patronising. What if Marion thought he was implying that she should have been watching it?

Sarah grinned another of her manic grins, then looked over her work.

"Uh. Average is here. Then this goes here, then this goes here and then here and then here. Then this goes here and we round it up to 3 sig fig. Then this goes here." she said quickly, pointing at various spots on the page, "Or was it that this one went here? Hang on a mo."

She peered at the page, scratching her head with the end of her pen, then tapping the paper.

"Right! Sorry. This goes here and that goes there. Not the other way around. Got all that?" she asked cheerfully, "Maybe I should make it so that all the same things are represented by the same symbol? So you know where to plug numbers when copying?"

She glanced over at William when he took the beaker, "Hey hey. Did you get the first two readings yet? Or are we still guesstimating?"

It seemed that Sarah had no problem with William eating in class.

Marion sighed as she watched Will reluctantly repack his lunch, but leave it on top of his things. Let's just hope nobody is clutzy today. She turned back towards Sarah who was trying to explain her own notes, and apparently failing. This was the Sarah she was used to working with. She was distracted, but at least she was distracted by the experiment. She noticed that Will had taken over the monitoring of the experiment. Will wonders never cease, we're actually all working.

"Right! Sorry. This goes here and that goes there. Not the other way around. Got all that?" she asked cheerfully, "Maybe I should make it so that all the same things are represented by the same symbol? So you know where to plug numbers when copying?"

"Nope you've lost me completely," Marion confessed go over it one more time. "I have these figures," she said motioning to her notebook. "Where do they go?"

Sarah glanced over at William when he took the beaker, "Hey hey. Did you get the first two readings yet? Or are we still guesstimating?"

Marion turned expectant eyes on Will, figuring once they got his answer Sarah would be able to explain the equations in more detail.

Will closed the tap and examined the burette closely. They were both looking at him, and they wanted the answer. Didn't Sarah know that they'd ruined the first run? They only had this one to work with. Still, he shouldn't keep them waiting on the results.

"Uh, this one's twenty point three," Will replied, only glancing away from the burette for a second. "The first one kinda screwed up."

Potentially, they could use the first set of results. Ms Heys only wanted them to do the experiment; getting the right results was just a bonus. With the school equipment it was hard enough already. They probably had time to do the rest of the tests though, so they might as well do them. Leaving the maths to the girls, Will continued to reset the equipment again.

Sarah flashed William one of her famous apologetically friendly grins.

"Twenty point three, huh?" she asked, "I din know we messed up the first one. So, uh, this is the guesstimate, then. I guess we have three or four more to go? Sorry. I'll help with one after I explain these to Marion, kaykay?"

She peered at Marion and then at her notes, "Uh… okay, so the average of the three numbers we get goes here, then the result of that goes here. That gives us the molarity, which we then move to this equation here, which will… ACK!"

Sarah pointed at the relevant equations with the tip of her gel click-pen, but hadn't noticed that the pen was unclicked. As she moved it across the paper to point at the next equation, she drew a long line right across the neatly stacked numbers.

"Aaaah~! I spent so much time on that!" She said, mock-crying to emphasize her frustration, "Boo."
Sarah pouted for a moment, then continued.

"Uh… anyway, it gives you the number of molecules of the stuff per gallon." She said blandly.

Sarah's brain could never stay on point for long. She'd done her explaining and now, it was time for the next distraction. She suddenly abandoned her notebook by Marion. The girl "disappeared" and "reappeared" by William's elbow as he reset the experiment, standing dangerously close to him.

"Me help?" she offered.

"The first one's kind of screwed up," Marion mocked her voice barely audible as she bent her head over Sarah's abandoned notebook. Gee I can't imagine whose fault that is. Maybe if you hadn't so busy with your drawings. She rolled her eyes, and picked up her pencil to copy the equations into her notebook, tuning out Sarah's eager puppy routine. She'd listened carefully to Sarah's broken explanation and the math didn't seem as complicated as she first thought, finding averages were easy enough. She jotted 20.3 under the equation, she had just copied. That accomplished she turned her head towards her two lab partners, who had apparently finally found a work ethic.

She watched, content to simply record the information for the time being. Hey, we might actually get one of these things accomplished.

"You have ten minutes before the end of the period," Ms. Heys announced loud enough for the whole class to hear. "Finish up whatever stage of the experiment you're working on and start cleaning up."

Marion groaned softly, of course now it would be time for the period to end. "If you guys wanna finish up with that one," she said sliding her notebook over to them. "Just write down the numbers for me, ‘k. I'll start taking care of the other three here." She grabbed the three earlier flasks and carefully made her way across the classroom.