Chapter 5 THE SCIENCE LAB INCIDENT

She picked up the textbook from Room 4 before first period.

Mr. Williams was a short, slow-moving man who handed her the book without asking any questions. This was the easiest interaction she'd had at St. Jude's so far. He opened the supply cupboard, checked the spine, stamped the inside cover, and slid it across the counter.

"Return it by the end of term," he said, already turning back to his desk.

She tucked it under her arm and walked to chemistry.

The lab was set up for a complex experiment, conductivity testing across multiple solutions. This required the full equipment trolley, the good glassware, and a careful setup that Mr. James often said took students "twenty minutes to understand and forty to get wrong."

Elara liked chemistry labs. She enjoyed the structured process. If you followed the method, the results would follow. Cause and effect were clear and repeatable. It was the most honest thing in the building.

Her partner, Victor, was absent.

She looked at his seat. Empty. She glanced at Mr. James.

"Partner absent?" He hardly looked up from his papers. "Work independently. Document both roles."

Fine. She could handle both roles.

The problem was the same as yesterday, just in a different form. The full equipment setup involved the heavy glassware tray and the conductivity meter, both of which were now on the storage shelf behind the last bench. Elara pulled on a pair of lab gloves, walked to the shelf, and assessed.

The conductivity meter was manageable. She could carry that.

The glassware tray, a wide, divided metal tray holding twelve glass beakers of various sizes, was the issue. It was too heavy for one person. The protocol actually specified two people to move it safely.

She looked at Mr. James.

He was still busy with his papers.

She surveyed the lab. Everyone was paired up, setting up their own stations. Victor's absence meant she was truly alone.

She took a deep breath and gripped the tray with both hands.

It was heavier than it looked. Her wrists bent slightly under the weight. She adjusted her grip, trying to hold it more securely, and finally got it off the shelf and took one step, two steps...

Her shoe caught the edge of a stool that had been pushed out from the bench by the students working there.

Time did not slow down. At that moment, her body lurched forward, her grip tilted left, and three of the beakers slid and rattled against each other, making a sound that suggested things were about to go horribly wrong.

"Hey, careful."

Julian was out of his seat before she finished speaking. He crossed the three-bench distance in just two steps, got both hands under the tray, and took the weight.

The beakers settled. Nothing broke.

The lab fell silent.

"I have it," he said quietly, standing close enough that she could see the small gold fleck in his left eye, a detail she had not been looking for. "Just let me carry the tray. You carry the meter."

He wasn't exactly asking. But he wasn't being pushy either. He was just being practical. He had seen a solution and stepped up.

Elara let go of the tray slowly, shifting the weight to his hands.

She picked up the conductivity meter.

Together they walked the equipment to her bench.

He set the tray down carefully, checked that all twelve beakers were still in place, and straightened up.

"Thank you," she said.

The words came out, real and somewhat rough, but they were spoken.

Julian looked at her with an expression she couldn't quite place.

"You're welcome," he replied, as if it was completely normal, as if she had said it perfectly.

He returned to his own bench.

Across the room, from Chloe's bench, where Chloe had seemingly forgotten about her experiment, Elara sensed that familiar feeling of being watched again.

She did not look up.

She set up her equipment, ran the experiment, and documented both roles. Her handwriting was small and neat in the lab report. She focused solely on the procedure.

Just the procedure.

But at 10:58, Mila appeared at her bench.

"Mr. James," Mila said loudly enough for the class to hear, raising her hand. "Elara's beakers are set up wrong. She's going to contaminate the solutions."

Mr. James looked up.

Elara examined her beakers. They were not set up incorrectly. The labels were right, the order was right, and each solution was correctly placed in its vessel.

"Vance," Mr. James said, peering over. "Let me see."

He approached her bench, viewed the setup, and paused.

"Looks correct to me," he said.

Mila made a small noise of feigned confusion. "Really? I just thought... sorry. My mistake."

She returned to her own bench.

Elara checked her setup again. Everything was in order.

She glanced at Mila's bench. Then at Chloe's.

Chloe was writing in her lab report, completely focused, or pretending to be.

Something is being planned, Elara thought. And I don't know what part has already happened.

She rechecked her solutions, labels, and beakers.

At the bottom of one beaker, the one she hadn't touched yet, set up for the third measurement, there was something inside the glass.

She picked it up and held it to the light.

Someone had slipped a small, folded piece of paper inside the beaker. It was tight, white, pressed against the glass below the level where the solution would sit.

When she added solution to this beaker, it would dissolve.

And whatever dissolved paper would contaminate the solution and ruin the measurement.

She would fail the lab report.

And no one would believe it wasn't her fault.

Elara set the beaker down and stared at it for a moment.

Then she reached into the beaker with her gloved hand, removed the paper, and placed it at the edge of her bench where Mr. James could see it when he returned.

She started the measurement again using a clean beaker from the back of the shelf.

She did not look at Chloe's bench.

She finished the experiment four minutes ahead of everyone else.

At the end of class, Mr. James came to her bench to collect the reports. He stopped when he saw the small folded paper she'd left at the edge.

"What's this?"

Elara pointed to her lab report and the note she had written in the margin: Foreign material found inside Beaker C prior to use. Replaced beaker. Original material retained for inspection.

Mr. James picked up the folded paper and opened it.

It was blank inside. It didn't need to say anything. It just needed to be there.

He looked at Elara.

She met his gaze.

He looked around the room slowly, at the students gathering their things, at Mila, at Chloe.

"Well documented, Vance," he said quietly and put the paper in his jacket pocket.

Elara packed her bag.

She was almost at the door when Julian appeared beside her, falling into step without a word.

"I saw what Mila did," he said.

Elara continued walking.

"She put something in your equipment."

Elara pushed through the door into the corridor.

Julian followed her.

"Elara."

She stopped, turned, and looked at him in the busy hallway. Students moved around them in both directions, noise and motion everywhere.

She held his gaze.

She pulled out her phone.

I know. I handled it.

Julian read the message and looked at her.

"I know you handled it. I saw." He paused. "But you shouldn't have to."

Something flared in her chest. Something complicated and unwanted.

She typed quickly.

This is not your problem. Don't make it your problem.

She walked away before he could reply.

But three steps down the hallway, she felt her phone vibrate.

She didn't stop.

But she glanced at it.

His message read: Too late.

Below it, a second message arrived while she was still staring at the first.

Chloe just told the vice principal that you started a fight in the lab. They're calling you to the office.

Elara stopped.

She looked down the corridor toward the admin block.

Two office prefects were already moving in her direction.