Survival Of The Fittest

[[Continued from A Quiet Time.]]

In taking her time during lunch at the lawn, Sarah had become late for Chemistry. Not very late, mind you, but late enough to cause her to scurry towards the classrooms like a frightened mouse.

As she scuttled down the corridor to the laboratory, Sarah silently thanked Hayley for reminding her about Chemistry class. She'd have forgotten that she even had a class otherwise.

Just outside the door to the class, Sarah took a deep breath before opening the door and walking through.

"Sorry I'm late, Mrs Heys. I'll try not to do it again." she said quickly and with an apologetic nod of her head.

"Third time this week, Tan," the stern-faced teacher replied.

"Sorry! Sorry! It was only a few minutes!"

"One more time and you'll have detention. Good grades do not excuse you from attending classes. At least you remembered your textbooks this time."

"Sorry!"

Red-faced with embarrassment, Sarah took her seat, putting her notes in front of her. She was late enough that other students had already begun setting up their experiments. Scanning the room, she noticed burettes, pipettes and a number of conical flasks.

"TITRATION, Tan. Page 125. Do try to keep up."

"Yes, Ma'am..." Sarah mumbled as she quickly moved to the back of the classroom to collect her equipment.

((Marion Summers continued from Shot in the dark ))

Marion sat absently tapping her pencil on her lab notebook. She watched her classmates file in and the bell ring and wasn't surprised when the stool next to her stood empty. Sarah had been late twice already this week, and Marion was wondering just when she was actually going to pay for these infractions. Mrs. Heys was by far the easiest teacher she had this year. Sighing, she opened her book to page 125 as Mrs. Heys directed and looked over the experiment. The experiment seemed simple enough; identify the substance in front of them as an acid or base and then rank them by strengths. Course this would be a lot easier with a partner, someone to compare the observations with. Her head down, she was searching the lab station for the supplies, when the door opened.

"Sorry I'm late, Mrs. Hays. I'll try not to do it again," Sarah's voice carried across the classroom.

Well look who finally decided that passing Chem. could be important, Marion thought sarcastically as she forcefully slapped the acid/base cards on the table in front of the mystery liquids.

Marion turned and offered Sarah a smile as the girl passed. "I've got everything we need," she called. "The experiment is all set. Double check me so we can start okay?"

Sarah stopped in her tracks as she heard Marion call out to her. She turned her head to look at the table, noticing the equipment already set up. As she eyed the ready-to-go experiment, her eyes lit up and her lips formed a small smile which slowly widened into a completely manic grin.

"Thank you, Marion. You're a big help." Sarah whispered to her partner, as she moved back into her seat.

She examined the experiment, checking the grip on the burette stand, then the distance from the burette to the table. Sarah scored well in most of the subjects she took and while she had never topped the class, she seemed to know what she was doing most of the time. Her parents paid for extensive home tutoring for her, which helped her keep on top of homework and studies.

Sarah already knew that she did titration quickly and accurately when using a burette with a clip, but the experiment in front of her utilised her nemesis - the burettes with taps. She hated those things. You couldn't get them to drip just right when you needed single drops of acid and it was so hard to control the flow of liquids once you got it started.

Sarah turned to Marion with a strained smile, "Er... would you like to do the titration? I can er... set up the pipettes? And do the Math?"

She hoped Marion didn't pick up on the fact that she loathed tap burettes. Her lab partner might decide she needed more practice on them and ask her to do it instead.

"Thank you, Marion. You're a big help." Sarah whispered to her partner, as she moved back into her seat.

"No problem, Sarah and you know it's a group project we're allowed to talk," she smiled, congratulating herself silently for not commenting on the fact that Sarah's manic grin reminded her of the Joker.

Sarah turned to Marion with a strained smile, "Er... would you like to do the titration? I can er... set up the pipettes? And do the Math?"

Marion looked at Sarah totally confused. "Mrs. Heys adapted the experiment, which she just finished explaining. I guess someone in an earlier period couldn't handle it. So now we all suffer, or benefit I guess, with an easier experiment. We're going to take drops of the indicator and add them to our mystery liquid. I can definitly handle the burettes, but can we do the math together? I'm a little shaky and want to make sure I have it down for the test."


((Ok, I realize most of the confusion is due to the fact that we're thinking about two different experiments. But I'm gonna capitalize on it for the sake of adding more to the post. I have them doing a much simpler experiment because there is no way this chem. teacher would actually give them strong acids and bases to play with. No school wants to deal with those liability issues.))

Sarah smiled sheepishly, "Err... ah... right... Sorry Marion, when Mrs Heys said titration I just thought... Well, uhm... nevermind what I thought... a...heh... I guess we're still doing the set up..."

She scanned the worksheet that Marion had on the table, then her textbook.

"I'll just go get a pipette, shall I?" she said quickly, ignoring the fact that her lab partner had already prepared a dropper on the table.

Without waiting for Marion's answer, Sarah ran to the back to grab said item. When she returned, she looked around wildly for the indicator bottle, which happened to be situated right in front of her.

((ooc: We'll do this experiment, except less British. http://www.avogadro.co.uk/miscellany/titration/titreset.htm))

Marion shook her head at Sarah's antics and didn't even bother to point out the pipette in front of her. Instead, she focused her attention on setting up the burette and flasks correctly. When Sarah returned looking lost as usual, she simply handed her the bottle of indicator.

"Lead on MacDuff," Marion said misquoting MacBeth which she'd read two years ago. She slipped her lab glasses on, glad she'd managed to borrow the actually glasses instead of the horrible goggles that always seemes to fog up on her. "Safety first," she said pushing a pair towards Sarah as a reminder, before they lost points for poor lab safety.

((William Sears continued from D&D Night))

Will turned as Sarah entered the lab. That girl was always late, it was a wonder that Ms Heys hadn't just accepted it already. Turning back, Will looked at the beakers in his hands and waited for the other students to finish collecting the chemicals; there was always a line. When Will finally got to the front, he ran into Ms Heys.

"Will, who are you working with?"

"Uh, my group isn't here today, I shoul-"

"You'd better join up with Marion and Tan then." She glanced over the class, and continued "they're already set up," she said, indicating to Will that he wouldn't need to fill his beakers.

For a moment Will hesitated; he was sure he'd be able to enjoy the experiment himself. This was one of the few parts of chemistry he actually enjoyed after all. It was a lot more practical than all that electron valency stuff. But he could see that Ms Heys had made a decision. She probably didn't want him wasting chemicals or something. Or she could've actually wanted him to be in a group. Who knew? Apart from her, of course. Will slipped the beakers back in the cupboard and headed to their desk.

"Hey, I'm joining your group today, if that's alright," he said, meaning it as something of a greeting.

Well that sure wasn't awkward

"Of course. Not a problem." Sarah said as she took the goggles from Marion.

She pulled the cheap school-provided goggles on over her spectacles and stuck her tongue out a little as she dripped indicator into the flasks of unknown liquids, swirling them to get an even mix.

"Hm...." she said as the colours began to change.

Just as Will had been ordered to join the pair of girls, Sarah suddenly put the flask she was holding down and raised her hand.

"You have a question, Tan?" Mrs Heys looked over at the group.

"Mrs Heys, uh..." Sarah began, "Er... I went to eat lunch with this girl from our class and she couldn't make it because she was sick..."

Sarah paused for a moment as she pulled the note to herself out of her pocket and unfolded it. She read the note, mouthing the name to herself before saying it out loud.

"Er... Hayley, Ma'am. Hayley couldn't make it to class because she went to the nurse's office."

"That is why Mr Sears is joining your group, Tan. You could have informed me of this earlier."

"Oh. Er. Right." Sarah said, "Sorry, Mrs Heys."

She scooted over to make room for Will.

Marion rolled her eyes and suddenly heard her mother's voice scolding her about her attitude, but seriously they'd been in this class all year and Sarah just said they'd eaten lunch together and she couldn't remember Hayley's name. Marion turned her attention to the flask that Sarah had been holding and noted the color change in her lab notebook, making a rough sketch of it.

As soon as Will was settled she leaned over and whispered to him. "Glad you're here, we just started. You can help me keep an eye on Sarah. She's great to work with as long as we can keep her focused and she's really unfocused today."

"Did you remember your goggles," Marion asked in a regular voice, starting to feel like the safety monitor instead of a lab partner.

Of course he needed goggles. Will had been kind ignoring that point since he hadn't hurried up to collect the comfortable ones at the start of the class. But chances of being able to continue without them had pretty much fallen to nil now that Marion was reminding him. Muttering a short confirmation, he ducked up to the front of the class to grab whatever was left.

This was a practical period, damnit, why was that girl being so uptight? As far as Will was concerned, as long as the experiment got done then the rest of the period was free game. Sure, he mightn't have actually done a write up of the experiment, but he could always do that later. Not that he ever did, but theoretically, he could, and then he wouldn't be wasting time in class. Well, he would be wasting time in class from a perspective where not doing any work was wasting time, and that was pretty much the definition. So he was wasting time in class, but he still saw it as the right choice. The experiment was still getting done, and that was the point of the lessons anyway.

Reaching the box of goggles, Will had a quick dig through. Of course there weren't any of the glasses style ones left, so he quickly pulled out a pair of goggles. Slipping it on, he decided he'd better not wrinkle his nose too much, as it pushed against the plastic. He quickly tried it anyway, before settling back to seeing the world through a plastic bubble. Something about the encompassing clear plastic really did say safety to him, as if his eyes were receiving some special anti-chemical protection. Unfortunately, something about the way they pushed on the bridge of his nose really did say uncomfortable to him, and he decided he'd take them off when he got the chance.

Returning to the table, Will looked at the coloured flask.

"We done one already?" he asked.

Sarah stared into space, thinking of nothing for the moment that Will took to grab his goggles and pull them on. She was jolted back into reality when Will spoke up again. She looked up at him for a moment.

"Oh, er yeah. I guess we did do one and it changed colour." she said, as if she was surprised at her own progress. "I guess this one is an acid."

She squinted at the liquid through her glasses, noting the colour change, which was quickly scribbled down in her notes. Having done that, she handed the pipette, indicator bottle and the other flask to Marion before turning to Will.

"Hey, Hayley is your lab partner, right? She's sick today, so I promised I'd send her my notes." she asked, "I didn't get her locker number earlier when we were eating so... yeah, uh... do you know what it is?"

She examined the equipment in front of her, turning the page to get to the next part of the question.

Marion stood still for a moment amazed at how this project, which had three of them, had suddenly become all her responsibility. And they weren't even subtle about it, just pretend like I'm not even here. "Whatever, like I didn't already ask for help," she muttered under her breath as she began to reset the experiment. "I'm pretty sure there's something more we needed to do with that, besides assume it was an acid. But you know whatever, if we get an F I guess that's just no big deal. I can always argue that I was stuck doing the whole experiment myself," she continued. You know what I'm done making sure everyone's on the same page, I need this to be done so that I can focus on the semi-finals this weekend.

She set things up and then double-checked her lab sheet to make sure that she was following the directions correctly.

"Uh, yeah..."

Will wasn't really thinking about his reply; he was trying to figure out just where Hayley's locker was. He was sure that he'd talked to her when she was using it once, but for the life of him couldn't place where the conversation had occurred. Returning his concentration to Sarah, he finished his answer.

"Uh, I don't remember where it is, but I could probably figure out what she has next and get 'em to her."

When he could, Will tried to figure out how everyone's different classes fitted together. It helped him to figure out where they'd likely be, and in turn, what classes he had at what times. He wasn't very good at it though.

But he didn't have time to try to figure out what subjects Hayley would have next now; Marion seemed to be a tad upset. Will wondered why. It wasn't like they were behind on the experiment or anything. Perhaps she didn't like Sarah? She had seemed rather stern. Perhaps she was grumpy about something else? Will leaned over to the equipment and picked up the beaker of Sodium Hydroxide.

"I'll refill the burette," he offered. Sometimes it caused trouble, but being close to seven foot tall did have its advantages. "Who wants to do the first titration?"

"Uhm... thanks. I'll figure it out on my own and drop my notes in later." Sarah said.

Now that her plans to help Hayley were underway, Sarah could now pay more attention to what was going around her. She turned around to face Marion, hoping that her partner had done her "share" of the experiment. The thought that she'd been rude to Marion just moments ago never even crossed her mind.

Faced with Marion's irritation, Sarah squirmed a little, feeling uncomfortable. She had assumed that Marion would be happy to have the rest of the experiment shoved into her arms and hadn't banked on Marion being discontent in any way.

She glanced over at Marion, then at Will, unsure of what to do.

"Er..." she said.

Sarah furiously racked her brain for a solution, preferably one that would make Marion smile instead of frown. Truth be told, she loathed tap burettes and preferred to work with the old-fashioned ones that had clips. Still, she was willing to do the Math behind the titration if others were willing to do the actual titration.

She gave Marion a weak smile, looking at her lab partner as if she were a deer and Marion a car. Sarah's habit of cowering in situations like this stemmed from her glory days at the bottom of Crescent Hill's social totem pole. Though she'd long since transferred to Bayview, she had never thrown off her habit of becoming a "victim".

"Erm... Well... I can... uh... Math and stuff... if you wanna do the titration?" she said in a tiny voice. "I mean, if it's okay with you, Marion... Uhm... or Will could do it? I can explain... the Math part?"

She paused for a moment, then added quickly (and a little more loudly), "Oh, and I can fill the flasks too. I'm pretty good with the fixed-volume pipettes."

Marion looked at her two lab partners in total shock. She was amazed that, one they'd been able to hear her comments in the first place, and two they'd chosen that moment to actually pay attention to her. She shrugged and set the liquid-filled flask in front of her again.

"You know what would be okay with me," she asked, trying unsuccessfully to keep the edge out of her voice. "It'd be okay with me if we focused on the lab instead of worrying about notes for slackers who can't even bother to make it to class. You know, I kind of need to pass this class for college. So if you could manage to focus and stop playing the victim long enough, we can actually finish this lab." She stopped to catch her breath and to motion dramatically to the base-filled flask in front of her.

"See, I've already asked twice for help, especially with the math. So, you know, it'd be nice to get some extra input from my partners. You know, if it's not too much trouble for you to stay with me for the remainder of the period. Now, if it's okay with you, we'll move on to the indicator phase of the experiment. So we can mark the second substance off our list." She smiled sweetly at the two of them. "Feel free to jump in whenever you feel you're able."