Save Me From My Sulfuring

(f)lawless

"Where is the sulfur?" Kith called out to the science lab, air thick with chatter as she weaved in between the lab bars. "I need to end my sulfuring."

These were desperate times.

Nis laughed as she passed to the side of her, holding a pan filled with the dust of iron fillings. "Why?" she asked as she rounded the corner and set the tray down at her lab.

Kith whipped around and slammed her hands on the table. "Because," she said with a crazed growl scratching underneath her voice, "just look at them. This is awful."

"Look at... who?"

Nis was used to Kith running around the science lab during class just to stir up trouble and talk to her friends in different labs, but for her to have an actual reason was unprecedented. Who was she running from...?

"Them!" Kith shouted, pointing to the other side of the lab. "Look at this nonsense!"

The whole group behind Nis turned their heads too, following Kith's glare a little hesitantly. Anna and James were working at Lab 7, measuring out water and sugar.

"What about it?" asked Nis slowly. She tried to turn her head back to Kith, but couldn't bring her eyes away from the other side of the room.

"They're doing nothing!" cried Kith. She kicked the lab bar, and the whole group jumped. Iron dust fillings floated around Nis as she stared disgustedly at the pan that had jumped as well. Violet immediately took off running towards the bathroom, eager to leave the classroom at all costs.

"Oh, hey," said Jay from behind Nis. "Aren't they your lab partners?"

"Yes!" groaned Kith. "And they aren't doing anything! I have to do all the work myself and I hate science! Where is the sulfur, Nis?"

Running her finger through the iron dust on the table, Nis flicked the little specks away into the air with a frown. "Are you on step nineteen already? We just got to step twelve."

"I am," said Kith. She pulled a stool out from the end of the lab and plopped down. "They aren't."

"Where are they?" asked Jay, leaning out from behind Nis. He squinted off to Lab 7.

"Step four."

"Oh," muttered Nis.

Kith leaned forward onto the bar, tipping her stool forward. "Please," she whispered. "I need to end my sulfuring."

Solemnly, Jay reached to the cabinet backing the lab bar and pulled out their element sample kit. Nis swatted his hand away.

"Don't actually give it to her," she whispered.

Kith made an indignant huff.

"Hey, Kith!" said Violet cheerily, who had skipped away to get something to wipe up the iron dust. She held clouds of paper towels wadded in her hands. "Want to help me clean?"

"No," said Kith, and promptly left.

The science lab experiment was twenty-three steps long, and Anna and James had managed to accomplish five steps of it by the time there were fifteen minutes left in class. They would measure the sugar, measure the water, and then decide no, that wasn't enough sugar. Then decide wait, that was too much sugar. Then one of them would have the bright idea of "let's just add more water," and then they would add too much water. Kith's head spun just from watching them go around and around again, sugar and water and sugar and water.

"Oh, Miller!" she called across the lab. "Wait, don't put your element kit away! Can I use your sulfur?"

Miller looked up from rolling around a ball of copper. He shrugged and said, "Yeah, okay."