Discovering Rose

Chapter 8

Two and a half weeks into the semester and high school had proved to be great - apart from that weird warning Zed had given me. What had he been on about? Why was he so - so...
I struggled to find a word. Obnoxious.
I tried to shrug it off. There was too much on to worry about some bad boy probably joking around. Emma and her friends, Holly and Vanessa seemed to have slotted themselves in the position of my enemies, but luckily not much was really going on between us. A few times they had stolen my card, or money for a joke, but I had found it soon enough somewhere strange, like in my History book, or lab coat pocket. One time they had stolen my locker key, and I couldn't get any of my books out for the day, and since she hid it in my bag, when Mr Douglas checked, he found it, so I ended up with several detentions from various teachers. I was more than annoyed, but Thea just told me to let it go and not cause some massive rivalry between us. I was glad I had followed her advice since there had been to much on recently. I entered the chemistry lab, sitting down next to Thea. Via wasn't here, ill today, but Kamil sat right behind us. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted Zed sitting in the corner of the classroom. Great.
"Good afternoon, good afternoon class. I bet you're all bursting with excitement and curiosity of what we are learning today, as the last lesson of the day!" the over-enthusiastic Mr Philips announced.
"What a nitwit," Kamil leaned forwards and muttered in my ear. I snorted, but hastily covered it up with a cough.
"Is something funny, Miss Carrigon?"
"No sir, sorry," I said quickly, as my cheeks started burning.
"Hmm."
Thankfully he turned back towards the board, and began to explain acid. I tried to listen properly without nodding off, but it was extremely hard.
"So, I will now put you into partners, I doubt you are capable of doing that yourselves without getting into an argument, so please make no fuss. Right, Thea and James. Liam and Nick. Lottie and Ingrid..." he began reeling off names. "Kamil and Alicia. And hmm, let's see, Rose can go with...aha, Zed."
My jaw dropped open, but Zed grinned mischievously and sauntered over to my table.
"OK then, you get the measuring cylinder and pipette, I'll grab those trays," he said, not losing the mischievous glint in his eye. I opened my mouth to talk, but he was already walking to the trays. I closed my mouth, and unenthusiastically made my way, to the draws of equipment. Thea shot me a sympathetic look. I had told her about that evening when Zed had began creeping me out with that knives and screaming vision he claimed he had had. I returned to the table where Zed was waiting with a tray loaded of chemicals.
"OK, we can copy it out of my book for this experiment," I said trying to be casual, checking the labels of the bottles. "Here we go, this one is the acid. This one is universal indicator. We won't need the other ones till later." I began to push the other bottles to the side of the tray, fitting a funnel on top of the tall cylinder tube. We worked in silence after that, making occasional comments on what to do next and figuring out. Suddenly Zed broke the quiet murmuring between us.
"Okay, Rose, you need to hold this steady whilst I pour this in because this is the dangerous one." He displayed the skull symbol on the front of a bottle.
"Just don't get it on me."
"I wouldn't dream," he said, his eyes sparkling. Even I had to admit it, wow that boy was good looking. His grin grew even wider as I thought this, as if he'd read my thoughts. I remembered the last time we'd encountered each other, but shook the thought from my head as Zed picked up the liquid and slowly began to pour it in through the funnel.
Suddenly we made eye contact, and his hand shook, causing him to pull back quickly. My grip on the tube slipped as I jerked backwards in surprise. He suddenly knocked me to the floor, yelling something in my ear, but I couldn't hear since everyone in the classroom was shouting now, and I realized my bag was on fire. All the chemicals had fallen off the tray and mixed together, including the dangerous ones.
I tried to sit up, but Zed was pinning me down, as chaos began in the classroom. My arm suddenly landed on something sharp, glass I think, which cut right through.
"Stay down!" Zed yelled in my ear. Angrily, I managed to break free, but before I could stand up, he had me down again. I felt something hot on my foot and realized my Converse was smoking. I gasped in shock as a flame appeared on the tip of my shoe, and a searing pain ran down my ankle. I snatched my foot away, and the flame went out.
"Everyone stay calm!" Mr Philips yelled, his face bright red.
Suddenly, more chemicals were knocked onto the flame as someone ran past quickly to get out of the way, and my bag exploded. Millions of sparks flew everywhere. Mr Philips grabbed the fire extinguisher and began to spray everywhere.
"You burnt my foot and exploded my bag!" I was still in shock.
"Me?" Zed's face was shocked.
"Yes! You spilt the dangerous acid everywhere and pushed me into all the chemicals!"
"No I didn't! You moved the tube and slipped backwards!"
We glared at each other, as we stood up, and I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my elbow. Wincing as I saw the piece of glass dug in, I closed my eyes as I heard Thea.
"Oh my god, look at her arm!"
Mr Philips gasped in shock. "Zed, rush her down to the nurse."
"She isn't in sir," Sara piped up.
"My dad is down by the rafting center of the school where the activities week is being held. He's a qualified doctor, maybe he could help," Zed said.
Mr Philips considered this, and nodded. "OK. But come back as soon as you've finished."
I opened my mouth to protest, but Zed had already started walking, his expression set in a stony position. I followed him out of the door, and we walked in silence all the way down. When we reached the rafting center, I spotted a tall man, with similar features to Zed, talking to Yves and another boy. They all looked similar.
"Hey, dad," Zed called. The man turned, and so did the other boys.
"Zed, what are you doing down here?" the man frowned.
"Probably bunking off again," the boy I hadn't met before muttered. He was a little taller than Yves and Zed, but still possessing the incredible looks and slightly tanned skin. Yves elbowed him in the ribs. "Shut up Xav."
So this was Xavier Benedict. And the man must be Mr Benedict.
Mr Benedict suddenly saw my arm. "Zed, what happened?"
"Long story."
"Rose, right?" Mr Benedict turned to me. I nodded. "Tell me from your point of view what happened."
"We were dealing with acids in chemistry," I explained, as a load of seniors ran past us, almost tripping into the water. "Something went slightly wrong, and Zed knocked me backwards onto broken glass where all the bottles had smashed."
"Is this true, Zed?" Mr Benedict shot a glare at Zed. The bell rang for the end of the day, but Mr Benedict wasn't finished.
"I was stopping the fire from catching onto her jacket, it was on the table above too. I saw - I mean I realized she was going to burn herself," Zed said.
"You made me burn myself," I snapped.
"I was trying to help!"
"Well maybe you shouldn't next time, because then I wouldn't be picking glass out of my arm!"
"Did you really want to be covered in some deadly chemical? Oh, and not to mention burn your arm off!" Zed challenged angrily.
"Enough!" Mr Benedict separated us. "Yves, help Rose back to the parking lot and take her to a doctor. Zed, I need to talk to you."
I shot Zed one last menacing scowl as he disappeared around the corner with Mr Benedict.
"I'm sorry about Zed," Yves apologized. "Ouch, that arm looks nasty."
"It's OK," I said. "And I don't need a doctor, honestly, I'm fine."
"No, I need to take you, that looks painful."
"I'll go to a doctor tomorrow."
"Absolutely promise?"
"Yes," I smiled at Yves's cute, defeated face.
"You're one tough girl. OK, you normally go home with Thea, right?"
"Yeah."
Yves nodded towards Thea, who seemed to be looking around nervously.
"Thanks," I said to him.
"No problem," Yves grinned. "Hope your arm gets better." And he was off.
I jogged over to Thea, who sighed with relief when she saw me.
"How's your arm?"
"It's fine. I wouldn't let Yves take me to the doctor. I'm going tomorrow."
"At least take on of my plasters? They've got Despicable Me minions on them!"
I laughed at her childish act.
"If you insist."