Lasting Impressions

Chapter 12- A Punishment Worse Than Death

CHAPTER 12- A punishment Worse than Death

I had come to realise something in my time in detention… Tristan got very bored very easily. Two things occurred that lead me to that conclusion. The first happening less than ten minutes after Mr Moore left us to do our ‘labelling’ of the chemicals.

Tristan gave up with a sigh and decided it would be a good idea to draw moustaches on all the posters around the classroom. Poor Marie Curie now suffered from bright red facial hair.

That wasn’t all; he then proceeded to draw a very detailed image of a certain part of the male… anatomy on the white board. I gave him credit, he was a good drawer.

“Come on Lara! Give it a shot, it’s really fun!” Tristan yelled from above me. And this brought us to the final reason that brought me to discovering Tristan’s extremely short attention span.

I rolled my eyes and rested my head in the palm of my hand. “No. There’s nothing you could possibly do that would make me agree to do that.” I emphasized the word by widening my eyes.

“Oh, please! Stop being such a tight ass! Loosen up some.” He laughed. I stared up at him as he hung from the ceiling fan; his hands gripped the ends of his shirt which was wrapped around one of the blades as it moved slowly.

If only he wasn’t wearing a T-shirt top under that shirt I thought to myself as my eyes followed his body as he spun in circles.

“I’m good thanks. I prefer to live, but don’t let me stop you.” I muttered with a shake of my head. I turned my head down to the bench I was working on and typed ‘Hydrochloric Acid’ into the label maker. I gritted me teeth together as Tristan let out a number of loud and very un-manly squeals as the fan started making cracking noises.

“I’ll kill the bastard.” I mumbled under my breath as I attempted to drown out the sound of his excited whooping.

The squeals stopped and I heard a slight thump as Tristan dropped from the fan and pulled out a seat next to me.

"Fine." He groaned, dragging out the word as much as he could in one breath. "I'll help." He added almost reluctantly. I smiled slightly and moved a number of flasks over to his side of the work bench.

“Strip off the old labels and put new ones on.” I muttered, working on sticking the label on the flask of acid I was currently working on. “If you think you can handle that.” I smirked.

“Don’t underestimate me, Blackwood. There is actually a brain under all this sexiness.” He stated with a motion to his head. I couldn’t help but mentally agree to the latter part of his comment, the brain part I still doubted though.

“I don’t know. I think it might be too much for you to handle. How about you just stick on the labels I give you, hmm?” I voiced with fake uncertainty.

“I can do it! Just watch!” He said stubbornly. He nodded his head in one quick movement then fixed his piercing blue eyes to the fragile glass bottles in front of him, his tanned fingers picking at the already peeling labels.

My lips pulled into a small grin in triumph. My mother always used Reverse Psychology on me when I was little. Who knew it would actually work on seventeen year olds too?

***

"How many more are there?" I groaned as I threw my head back for emphasis. I clenched and unclenched my aching fingers and swiped a hand across my forehead.

"We have..." Tristan trailed off as he counted the remaining flasks of chemicals "About fifty-five." He said with a slight wince. I heaved a sigh and wrapped my fingers around a cylinder of Acid. Tristan silently handed the label maker over to me as he worked on his own flask.