21
Harper
“Hey, got any plans this weekend?”Corbin asks as soon as I sit down.
“Not yet,” I say, surprised.
He’s been pretty quiet the last couple of weeks and I’d started to get used to my isolation. Sadie was being friendlier, but most students kept their distance. As if they were afraid they’d end up pushed down the stairs with me.
“Are you speaking to me again?” I ask.
“I thought you were mad at me,” he says. “About the test a few weeks ago. I was trying to give you some space.”
“Really? It’s not because of my rank?” I ask.
He laughs. “I don’t care about rank. I’m doing my time and I’ll leave when I’m done.”
“Huh,” I say.
“So, weekend?” he asks.
“Am I invited too?” Damon asks.
I cock an eyebrow. “I can barely handle one of you at a time.”
“I’d do all the work, if that makes a difference,” he says with a smirk.
“Ew, pass,” I say, despite the fact that my mind goes right back to the storage closet. Part of me wants to follow that to see where it leads, but I’m still recovering from my last mistake with Adrian.
My jaw tightens and anger swirls. The two of us were avoiding each other. Pretending like nothing happened. But I couldn’t get him out of my head. It wasn’t fair.
I look at Corbin. He’s nice enough. Maybe he’s exactly what I need to clear my head. “Yeah, let’s do something this weekend.”
I catch sight of Professor Lee walking into the room and lift my chin to alert Corbin to her entrance. We both turn our attention on her. She’s in a Black Sabbath tee-shirt today and her long hair hangs loose down her back. She always seems so collected and calm. I need to be more like that.
“Today you’re testing out the batch of doubling potion you made last week,” she says as she looks us over. We all wait in silence.
“Well, get started,” she says.
Everyone stands and we all walk over toward the shelves in the back of the classroom. The potion we’d made had to sit for a week before it was effective, so we stored them in the back.
One at a time, my classmates grab their little mason jar of black, sticky potion. It looks like tar. And it smells about the same. I wrinkle my nose when I pick mine up. Gross. Why can’t we make potions with glitter that smell like bubble gum?
I walk over to my desk and set the jar down. The thick goo is shiny and slides around a little when I tilt it.
Next to me, Damon is already testing his. He’s got a pencil on his desk and dabs a tiny bit of the potion using a toothpick. It’s surprisingly unscientific considering how careful we had to be while making the stuff.
The pencil vibrates, then divides. And my jaw drops open as I stare at two identical objects sitting on the desk.
Okay, it’s a cool potion. And I can see how it would come in handy.
I grab my little supply box and pull out a pencil and a toothpick to test it out myself. The foul smelling potion is softer than I expected when I poke at it. I’ve got a little on the end of the toothpick and following Damon’s example, I touch it down on the pencil.
Suddenly, the pencil bursts into flames and I scream as I scramble away from it.
Damon’s on his feet and pulls his shirt off and throws it on the burning pencil. My pulse is racing and I look over at him in shock.
“Well, that was interesting,” he says.