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School days...Toby rather often felt a bit sleepy during them, due to his near-nightly activities. Still, he managed to stay awake (mostly), and do passably well.

Also somehow managed to always be on every teacher’s good side, and a fair percentage of the students around as well. Some people just didn’t like him and his “painfully” perky ways. But that was life.

On this particular day, he found himself sitting in Chemistry class. A new student had been added. He was introduced, and then allowed to sit somewhere for the teacher’s lecture.

It was about heat and chemical reactions. Basic thermodynamics and stuff. After a while, the teacher announced, “Okay, class, we’re gonna move to the lab portion now. Israel, since you missed my safety lecture, why don’t you go with Toby here,” he gestured to Toby, who had been sitting near the front. He looked up at the teacher, then over to the new kid, before grinning at him and waving lightly. “He can go over the rules with you as we go.”


The chemistry lab had a separate set of tables, with gas lines and sinks and containers for chemicals all set up separate from the lecture area, so at the teacher’s words, everybody got up, and went to their lab tables in pairs. Toby approached his new partner with a smile and offered his hand. “Nice ta meet ya,” he said.

Toby blinked at the snub and held his hand out for a moment longer before lowering it and shrugging. "Right okay, well," he started. "Looks like we're gonna wanna get some water in the flask here," he offered up one of those stereotypical lab bottles, fat bottomed narrow topped. "Uh, a cup," he added after checking the paper.

The specifics of what they were doing wasn't too hard, or terribly interesting, aside from having a Bunsen burner going after another moment. So, while they were waiting for the water to boil, Toby decided to try again at the 'friendliness' thing. Surely it would work eventually...

"So, where're you from?" he asked, assuming the other boy had moved here (as was logical).

"Ohh, I see," Toby nodded. "I've heard of that place, but I don't know much about it, honestly...Now, uh, why don't you..." He put his finger on the opposite side of the flask. "Not smash everything, yeah?" He smirked. "I don't think it's actually specifically one of the safety rules but, 'don't push chemicals onto the floor intentionally' probably should be one. Otherwise, it's pretty obvious stuff, like 'don't light your hand on fire, or anything else for that matter,' and 'don't turn the gas on when it's not time to light it.'"

He nodded again, and looked at the paper. "We're gonna mix these two things," he tapped two beakers that were set on the table, "And boil them, see what happens. Would be pretty hard if the glass was all over the floor, wouldn't it?"

"Do ya smash things often, then?" Toby asked, still smirking. He let the flask get moved, although his eyes drifted to it now and then. Still. Israel seemed willing to at least do what he was supposed to, so he didn't worry about it too much.

Toby frowned slightly and gave a dismissive shrug at the question. "I dunno, really. Something about knowing how the world works, but, er, I doubt I'll ever need to remember chemical equations after this class. That's what google's for, right?"

Waiting, and recording of various numbers, which Toby did rather studiously, even if he'd just admitted it was kind of pointless.

"Well, that's cuz I'm some goody-goody teacher's pet, but I don't get straight A's, and I only try, you know..." he waved a hand around airly, "enough, to get stuff done."

"So, I guess I'm better to ask for this sort of thing," he dinged the flask on the burner with a pen, "than one of them," he then swung the pen at another student across the room, whose very look oozed the idea of 'I care only for school.' He nodded in their direction, then returned his gaze to Israel, still grinning about something or another.

Toby made an effort to grin less, and shrugged. "I try to avoid sabotage, usually," he said. "But I'm grinning cuz it's fun to mess with first impressions. And I try because I can, and not trying to do stuff doesn't really get me anything, does it?"

In a way, that sort of summed up Toby's outlook on life: Not trying gets you nothing, so you might as well.

Toby stuck his tongue out at the poke, but laughed. "Right," he responded doubtfully to his first impression. "If you say...so..." He trailed off as he looked down at the liquid, and looked around. "Huh. That's, uh, different."

He looked at the instructions again, and frowned at it. "I think we did something wrong...oops." Clearly, he'd not seen the extra ingredients added in.

“Hmm? What was that?” Toby replied to the mumble...not quite making out what was said. “I...mm...think you might be right.” He scooted back away from it a little, and raised his hand up into a little wave. “Uh, Mr. Hammit,” he called out. “I think we made a mistake...”

It was about the point where the teacher turned to look when the greenish concoction started to fizz and bubble, quickly flowing out of the flask and onto the table around it with a soft hiss. He hurried over quickly, while Toby looked down at it in surprise.

“What in the world did you do?” The teacher asked, moving to grab a container to shove the whole mess into.