The Alchemy Project

2

August

I think it's safe to say that the first day back to school is easily the worst day of my life. It's horrible enough to go in knowing that I no longer have the company of my rock, Taura, but when I do get inside I drop the remainder of my mango and passion fruit smoothie. No no, don't worry, it gets worse. I dropped my smoothie on Bethany, A.K.A Queen Bee. She practically runs the school and has done since the old queen bee left a year ago. She also hates me, by the way. Why? Well, she thinks I'm the weirdest, most annoying person she has ever come across. We're on opposite ends of the high school food chain. She's popular and I'm, well, not.

"Oh my god! I'm so sorr—"

"Are you blind?!"

I wince at the shrill sound of her voice.

"Hey, you walked into me." I murmur.

"What and that's an excuse to just throw your stupid drink at me?"

"It's not stupid, it's mango and delicious. Besides, I didn't throw anything at you, you were walking backwards– I mean, who does that? Maybe next time watch where you're going?" I say.

Bethany screeches and tosses her arms down to her sides like a child. I shrug my shoulders at her and walk away from my locker with my backpack slung over my shoulder.

"You'd better sleep with one eye open, Ashford!" She screams.

I hunch my shoulders a little to hide my face as best as I can while I walk down the hallway to get to my first lesson. Yes, it's only first lesson and my day is already a disaster. I get inside the chem lab and sit on the middle bench, then carefully line my book and pencil case out in front of me.

By the time the rest of the students have begun to enter, the bell has rung. Our teacher stands at the front of the room, his shirt half tucked in and his hair a crazy long mess. He sighs and drops his bag down beside his desk.

"Hello, Grade 11!" He beams.

There's a few murmurs of response but I keep my head low and doodle on the cover of my notebook. I purposely chose the plainest book I could find so that my boredom could paint the cover however I wanted.

"Nice to see a full class, for once." He says.

I look up at the sound of chalk tapping and screeching against the chalkboard.

Written scrappily across the board is the words:

The Alchemy Project

I frown and look ahead in confusion. Mr.Rogers waved his arms around in the air excitedly with a grin on his face.

"The syllabus is going to work very differently this year. I've decided that we're going to do something called The Alchemy Project."

"The who?" Someone calls out.

"The Alchemy Project. I've decided that your grade for the year depends on this one project. It will be year long; each month you and your partner will hand in a written essay of your research, carry out a presentation in front of the class and perform a planned experiment of your choice."