Chemistry is one of my favorite subjects, which makes Tuesday and Thursday two of my favorite days of the week. On Tuesday I have Chemistry class, where we learn all about the Periodic Table of Elements, and how everything in the world, whether it's a rock or an animal or a person, contains a chemical composition. On Thursday, it's even more fun. It's Lab Day! I tell you, people, nothing but nothing is more fun than mixing together a bunch of chemicals and waiting to see what happens. Which reminds me of the time Deepak Desai, this really smart kid from India, who spoke kind of in a singsong way, but nobody cared 'cos he was so freakily smart, anyway, he mixed up a combination of chemicals that affected all of us in the room in a really weird way.
I mean really weird.
As soon as Deepak added the final chemical to his beaker, something bizarre started to happen. The mixture started foaming and bubbling, and a green smoke came out that slowly curled over the whole room. For the longest time we all just stared at it. I thought it was the coolest thing I'd seen since Marion Dorsey took off on all fours with the softball in his mouth during our night game against the Thundering Typhoons.
Then Mr. Kellogg, our science teacher, who's actually a pretty cool guy, started barking orders for us to evacuate the room until the green smoke cleared. Of course none of us moved. We were all too busy watching the smoke curl over our heads. It wasn't until it started to slowly descend that we got a little nervous. Mr. K. opened his mouth to yell at us again, only his yell came out like a song. No kidding!
We all turned to stare at him as he sang at the top of his lungs for us to leave the room in an orderly fashion. Some of the kids started snickering, some snorted, but most of us just stared at him as if he'd lost his mind. Shelley McElroy opened her mouth to ask him if he was okay, but she started singing too. It was too good to be true. There they were, teacher and student, both singing at the top of their lungs, and by the look on their faces, they were as shocked as the rest of us.
We couldn't help it. We all burst out laughing as Shelley screeched in her horrible soprano voice that something was wrong, and what was happening, and Mr. K. warbled back in his falsetto that he had no idea, but please try not to panic, and everyone else keep their mouths shut and march in single file to the nurse's office.
It was then that Susie Lyons started to cry, only her cries came out like a long, loud screech that started high then went low then back up then down, like she was some crazed opera singer. She ran for the door, her hands against her mouth, and it jump-started everyone else in the room. We all took off for the door, our hands pressed tightly against our mouths as we tried to stifle our guffaws. Mr. K sang out for us to proceed in an orderly fashion, which made it even harder not to laugh out loud.
At Nurse Crimshaw's office, it was mass hysteria. Anyone who opened their mouth started yodeling their brains off, and soon half the class sounded as if they were in a Broadway musical - a really, really bad one. Fatty, Wiley and I knew better. We just stood in the corner and watched the whole show. It was the best day we'd had at school in a long time.
Things got even better. By the time the chaos died down, the nurse's office was filled with the class, the principal, Mrs. Watson, the vice-principal, Mrs. Humphry, Coach Mayfield and a couple of Emergency Medical Technicians, who pulled up to the school in an ambulance with their sirens blaring. It was excellent!!
About fifteen minutes later, everything started to return to normal. Mr. K's voice started to sound more like talking than singing and the girls' crying and even some of the boys' started to sound more like regular bawling instead of the continuous warbling shooting out of their mouths. Turns out, the mixture Deepak had concocted had done something to everyone's vocal chords for a short time, so whenever someone opened their mouths to speak, they started singing. Imagine that!
Chemistry Lab was pretty quiet after that. Mr. K. monitors Deepak pretty closely now to make sure he doesn't come up with another weird concoction. I think he's afraid that the next one might have him dancing and twirling around the room like a prima ballerina. He'd never live that down!
Deepak took everything that happened in stride. When we asked him what happened after he had to go see Mrs. Watson in her office, Deepak shrugged and said that she and Mr. Kellogg decided they couldn't really punish him since what had happened was an accident. "Probably best for them to keep believing that," he added. Then he smiled at us and winked.
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