The Indians of Bending Creek

Please don't kill yourself

Sunlight filtered in through the high-set windows, like triangles fallen on their sides. They were closed, however, so as not to contaminate the laboratory space with their breeze. The small room was swelting; heated by the flames of a dozen Bunsen burners. The small countertop stoves burned steadily, filling the room with constant light. Overhead, fluorescent lamps buzzed electrically, adding to the light. A woman stood at the front, watching us all from behind a thick wooden desk.

That was the desk of dream. That was where I had to steal from. Chemicals - needed to dye the feathers Jack had bought last evening from a shop in town. He could have just bought colourful feathers, but we all decided it would be way more bad ass to dye them ourselves. And so here we were, standing in the middle of Biology, with the teacher watching us like a hawk, in the middle of our first lab - and Annabelle may be about to kill herself.

She was working with a boy named Conrad; tall and sandy-haired, with a deep voice and impressive cheekbones. But her attention kept shifting away from his laughing face, and her project, and slipping toward me. I could see her out of the corner of my eye, her golden hair catching the light and-

Focus, idiot! You're going to set yourself on fire!

I jerked back from the heat of the flames, realizing that my navy blue uniform jacket was beginning to heat up considerably. My own partner, a petite, dark-skinned young woman named Sanya, smiled. She had a brilliant smile, and was actually quite pretty in her own way. No Annebelle, but certainly not hard on the eyes.

"So ... is this an isotope?" he asked, holding up a beaker of very clear, very flammable liquid. She held it between us and stared through the glass, which magnified her deep brown eyes and made me grin.

"I ... think so." I said with as much hesitation as she did. "I wasn't really paying attention, to be honest."

"Thank God." she said in a hushed voice, lowering the beaker to the counter and looking me straight in the eyes. She was actually quite pretty. "Glad to know I'm not the only one. Why are we doing chemistry in biology anyway?"

"I'll go check what an isotope is." I gave her a quick wink and stepped between her and the desk, approaching where the teacher stood at the front of the room. I felt my heart rate picking up considerable, my chest tightening and my breathing loud in my ears. This was it.

Come on, Anne. Come on!

Behind me, something shattered. There was a deep-voice shout, and a scream, followed by a whooshing roar. I turned, feigning surprise. When I saw the cause, though, my surprise became real.

Holy shit! When she said that it was flammable, she meant it was flammable!

Flames engulfed the worktable, leaping high off of the linoleum countertop. Conrad had grabbed Annabelle and hauled her back from the inferno, and they both stood with their arms raised, looking around wildly. The teacher was there instantly, pushing past students and desks alike and hauling the fire extinguisher off its peg.

I didn't see what happened next, turning and ducking under the deskline and sprinting behind the teachers desk. I knew I would only have moments, and I worked quickly. Opening the bottom-left drawer, my eyes quickly scanned the labels and bottlecaps. Sodium bullshit, Nitrate whatever, Prolactic who-gives-a-fuck, aha! Dyes! I reached out, grabbing the red and blue dye bottles and shoving them into my backpack. I had made sure to drop it by my front-row desk earlier that day, for this exact purpose. Before I could change my mind, I threw closed the drawer and pulled myself away from the desk. Standing casually, I returned to where Sanya stood - watching our teacher.

The woman pulled the pin from the fire extinguisher and squeezed the trigger with all of her might. Instantly, white foam blasted from the nozzle and covered the table. The chemical-induced flames hissed, and then died under the assault of white ... whatever that stuff was. When the teacher finally released her death-grip on the extinguisher handle, all that remained was a pile of white and smoke, which rose from both the nozzle of the extinguisher and the surface of the desk.

"I am so sorry!" Annabelle exclaimed, holding her hand to her mouth. Her terror looked genuine. "My sleeve caught the ... the thing ... I didn't ..."

"It wasn't her fault." Conrad spoke up, his deep voice impressively steady for someone who had no idea his work space had been about to implode into flames. "We accidentally spilled the Phenol too close to the flames."

"It's okay, dear." the teacher said, her voice hollow. She must have been in shock, from her use of the word 'dear'. Miss Conolie was about as motherly as a crocodile. "Class is dismissed while this is inspected for safety. Everyone report to their dormitories immediately."

Across the room, Jackson gave me a small thumbs-up motion while his partner, Rohan, was turned away watching the spectacle. This was it. This was the beginning - we had burst out of the starting gates and hit the war running. From now on - it would be real. It would be real, it it would be dangerous. I almost smiled.

"That was crazy." Sanya whispered, and I gave her a light, reassuring nudge with my hip.

"Yeah." I muttered, "Yeah, it was."