The Donut Shop ✔️

'G' Stands for 'Grandiose Shows'

"You're going to watch the talent show tomorrow night?" Ethan asked Tweed, the left side of his mouth quirking into a grin that he didn't let his friend see. 

"No, I'm going as a sign of rebellion," Tweed said, tilting his chin up and closing his eyes in a superior way as they walked to their first period. 

Ethan's eyebrow shot up, and he fought to hide the amusement playing on his features. "Explain to me how going to the talent show is a sign of you rebelling against it," Ethan said, ducking into Mr. Feld's room.

"Don't you see it, Ethan? The irony, it's everywhere," Tweed said, wrapping his arm around Ethan's neck and gesturing to the air to indicate some invisible force that he claimed was 'irony.' 

Ethan harked and shook his head. "You're so whipped," he murmured to himself.

"What?" Tweed asked with narrowed eyes, and Ethan, feeling like he was a spy on a secret mission, just smirked.

"Oh, nothing," he said as they sat at their usual lab table.

"So... what are we going to do about our new arch-nemesis? You know, besides waiting for Mara to finish that article," Tweed said, and Ethan's eyes fixed on the silver faucet of the sink separating them.

"I don't know," Ethan said, his mouth twisting to the side in pensive thought. 

Tweed scrutinized Ethan, and he leaned across the table. "Maybe we should kill him," he whispered in a deathly serious tone, then burst out laughing. Ethan rolled his eyes at this as he responded, "We should definitely work on our speech for the town hall meeting, though. What do you think?"

Before Tweed had a chance to speak up, Mr. Feld burst into the room with a basket of unknown objects and a sombrero placed on his balding head.

"Hola, clase!" he cried out, expecting some response from his students, but when no one responded, he cleared his throat and took off the sombrero. "I thought it would be fun today if we used spectroscopy to look at different elements today," he said, jerking the basket with the tubes up for everyone to see. 

The class collectively grumbled, some students already giving up before the class even started. They had had a million lab reports to complete, and all of them were exhausted. Ethan would be ecstatic if he never had to sit through another vapor-pressure experiment.

"Don't worry! I won't make this lab for a grade!" Mr. Feld said, and the class brightened like a tulip's bud blooming. "Alright, let's start then, shall we?" 

While Mr. Feld set up the spectral tubes on the back counter, Ethan's mind wandered back to sneaking into Red's house the night before. What if he knew it was them? After all... it was suspicious that they saw no security cameras. 

"Ethan," Tweed called him and peered at his friend's face. Ethan's head snapped up, and he forced a smile.

"Sorry. I was spaced out," Ethan said and turned to where Mr. Feld had just finished setting up the first spectral tube. Tweed's pleating forehead betrayed his true thoughts, but he said nothing as they both grabbed a cheap, navy, plastic spectrometer.

Once he was sure everyone had a spectrometer, Mr. Feld flicked the lights off in the room, and the class plunged into darkness. 

"Alright, everyone, go ahead and try it out! The element inside the tube is Argon, so you should see red, green, yellow, and violet when you look at it," the teacher said. 

A few moments later, a chorus of awe-stricken students filled the room. 

Ethan pressed the spectrometer to his eye and looked through the peephole at the glowing beam of lilac light, which was now separated into a variegated rainbow. He ignored his paranoid thoughts threatening to push through as he continued to gaze at the formation of colors.