Children Of The Crucible

A Strange Occurence

Authors Note

Hey guys, just wanted to say a massive Thank you for 200+ reads!

Olivia's PoV

We waited for another 10 minutes before the teacher finally decided to make an appearance.

'Sorry folks. Didn't mean to be so late. Ok, let's not waste any more time and get right into the lesson, shall we?'

He was an annoyingly cheery man who seemed far too happy to be taking the class. A look around the table told me that everyone, apart from Stevie, was immediately pissed off by him. Why the hell was he so upbeat?

'Alrighty, I think we will begin by looking at different types of chemical bonding.'

He began drawing diagrams on the whiteboard that I didn't even try to make sense of, instead grumbling loudly along with the others. I shared a look with Sami. This was not going to be fun.

Tommy's PoV

Brilliant. The lesson was off to a terrific start already. And why did he have to be so enthusiastic? Like calm down it's just theory on bonding for god's sake. It wasn't like he was blowing something up- that might actually make me interested.

Mr whatshisname finished up his diagrams, which he seemed way too proud of, and turned to beam us.

'So who can talk me through what happens in ionic bonding?'

I looked around the room: five blank faces and one not so much. Stevie had her hand semi raised, half wanting to say the answer, half not wanting to be seen as a know-it-all.

'Yes, you. Sorry what's your name?'

'I'm Stevie sir, and an ionic bond involves a metal and a non metal. The metal loses its outer electron and the non-metal gains this electron. This makes the atoms stable, assuming they both have a valency of 1.'

She didn't speak with any hint of bragging, simply stating the facts. I respected her for that- there's nothing worse than a smug teachers pet.

'Yes excellent. Thank you for that Stevie. Now how about covalent bonding?'

He got the same response as before. I could tell the rest of the night would go on like this unless he changed his tactic pretty sharpish.

I was so zoned out that I didn't realise he had asked me the question until I noticed him peering at me expectantly.

I knew the others were staring at the back of my head, willing me to give the correct answer. There is a weird sense of camaraderie between students, born from dislike of teachers, and amplified when said teachers decide that there is no better thing to do than pick on one particular student.

I quickly cast my mind back to when we covered this in class. It was ages ago, but I could just about remember it.

'Umm, so covalent bonding happens between non-metal elements.'

Keep thinking. Keep thinking.

'And, uhh, the elements share outer electrons.'

I presented it more as a question but the teacher acted as if I kind of knew what I was talking about.

'Yes that's right, if a little vague. Now as you all know, it takes incredible amounts of energy to break these bonds. They are very strong. Now if you gather round, this piece of apparatus can replicate the energy required to break these types of bonds, and we can get a reading from it over here.'

He gestured to the side of the contraption where there was a small screen in the corner.

'Now I want each of you to come up and select two elements and it will tell you how much energy would be required to break the bonds between them. You can write this down in your notebooks then we are going to compare them to see if we can find relationships between the elements and the amount of energy required to break their bonds.'

This seemed like a pretty pointless exercise- why couldn't we just google it and be done with the whole thing? I sighed internally as he started picking people to go up. Olivia was first. Resigned, she chose her elements and waited for the reading, her hands resting on the machine. Noticing her expression change into one of alarmed confusion, I half rose from my chair, about to go over and see what was happening, but sat down suddenly when I saw the strange aura radiation from her. It was like energy, moving outwards, warping the air around her.

As quickly as it started it finished, and she hastily wrote down the reading and returned to her seat.

The teacher, oblivious to what had just happened, sent the next person up.

The same thing happened to Sami, and to the four others who followed. I was last up.

I studied the screen. I wasn't an expert on the periodic table at all, and didn't even know how to pronounce half of the names. I selected two at random; chlorine and sodium. In the few seconds it took to spit out a reading, I felt something flowing through my body. Almost like I was tingling all over. It only lasted a second before it left me. I was so distracted that I almost forgot to note down the reading. I returned back to my seat and looked around the table at the perplexed expressions of the others. What on earth had just happened? I was just about to whisper a question to Stevie- if anyone knew it was her- but I was cut off by Mr Walters, who had started talking again.

I should have being attention, but I couldn't. I was too busy trying to figure out what had just happened to us.