7 Chapter 7 Shoujo Effec (1/2)

Duran's thoughts constantly changed shape as he walked to class. Always landing on ways he was going to convince his teacher to sign his form. Before he realized it, he was waiting with the rest of his class outside the science lab.

Fumio was talking into his ear on how they were going to approach their teacher after the lesson.

'Sensei Watty is a weird case. We're best to get in quick and hit him hard,' he stated as he slammed his fist, passionately, down on the palm of his hand.

Duran hoped he didn't mean it in a literal sense. He wondered how weird of a man Watanabe-sensei was.

'He can't be that weird. Then again he is a science teacher.' He thought to himself as he pictured his old high school teacher with a hair full of dregs and a scraggly, unshaven appearance.

That old teacher had a habit of trying to convince students that eating tree leaves was good for your vitality.

At that moment, Watanabe-sensei walked past him chewing on a green pocky-stick. He was tall. A wiry man in a typical white lab coat. Not middle age but older enough to be past the spring chicken stage of life. His bed hair flopped, unfashionably, just above his eyes.

Duran cringed when his Sensei casually unlocked the door with sad sighs. His teachers air of ”whatever” was going to be hurdle for him?

'Yeah, come in if you can be bothered,' Watanabe-sensei said without caring who walked in. Duran and Fumio took spots a few benches from the front.

'Have fun,' Saski whispered to Duran as he passed him to the rows at the back. Duran glanced back and saw him smirking his way.

He returned his attention to the front but felt Saski's eyes burning at his back. A moment later, Sensei started his lesson.

'Rawt, awky,' Watanabe-sensei muttered as he chewed and swallowed the last of his pocky.

'Today's lesson is chemical reactions. I'm going to hand out ingredients for you to mix to your hearts content and see what goes boom.'

The class shuffled about their seats and glanced at each other with concern or interest.

'But!' Watanabe-sensei paused for emphasis before adding on. 'The order of science must be obeyed. I want everyone to write down the order of ingredients then follow them with your experiments.'

Everyone copied his scribbled recipe from the blackboard.

Duran wondered if he was writing down a recipe for disaster. He scratched his head at the instructions he had to copy.

It was asking him to match three parts of blue liquid to two parts of red liquid, add in green pills, hair, powder and some other foreign named ingredients he had never heard of.

'Huh, are we at Hogwarts? What potion stuff is this?' Duran blurted aloud and caused his nearby classmates into a giggling fit.

'Who said Hogwarts?' Watanabe-sensei demanded, clearly annoyed by the reference.

Fingers were pointed Duran's way to dob him in.

'New kid! Come here.' Watanabe-sensei ordered him.

Duran gingerly approached the front of the class; apprehensive at his teacher's next reaction.

'Potions huh? Well, let's debunk the concept eh Mr. Potter?' Watanabe-sensei pulled out a few vials, containers and a burner from a box on one of the front benches.

He had Duran line them up on the teacher's desk for the class to see.

'Mr. Potter and I are going to start mixing stuff to see what happens,' Watanabe-sensei advised.

Duran frowned. He was annoyed by his teacher's reference for him.

Watanabe-sensei placed a clean beaker on the tripod above the burner. He set the burner a light with a calm and almost expected attitude. He threw in hair, green pills and shimmering grey powder that Duran hoped wasn't the stuff that went into fire-crackers.

'Okay Potter. Pour the blue stuff into the beaker on my count of three. I'll pour the red stuff at the same time.'

Duran ”tsk'd” as he got ready to pour the contents of the vial.