Nobody Ever Died of Terminal Weirdness - excerpt

Nobody Ever Died of Terminal Weirdness is the narration by a high school student of the year that he decided to become normal (just like everyone else in his high school class). Normal meant avoiding tangles with the vice principal and track coach, but mostly normal meant having a girlfriend.

Last year my counselor signed me up for advanced chemistry. On the crest of my new resolution, I figured it offered another opportunity. Any girl in advanced chem was not exactly typical, so "weird" became just a matter of degree. The why she (like anyone else) was there fit into a limited number of slots. You might be actually gifted in chemicals and tiny number equations; your parent might be pretty persuasive about how you should be put into an advanced class so they could brag about you to their friends; the science department might believe you would do less damage in advanced chemistry playing with chemicals than in advanced biology playing with preserved pigs' feet and Mr. Green's mind; the school might be short a few slots on its minimum roster to make the class run. By the end of biology with Mr. Green, we could figure out who was going to be in advanced chemistry: we added up the laboratory emergencies, tallied the broken glass column, looked at who had the most after-school talks with Mr. Green about biological and chemical applications to the real world (like the school bathrooms), and we had have most of the ad chem list. Considering the relationship I established with Mr. Green, I figured I was a natural.

Mr. Grey the Advanced Chem teacher has leftover white hair, thick round glasses, and weathered sweaters that smell of Bunsen burners. He's also old. I know this because of the way he walks when he turns from the doorway to begin our class, and also because he scratches his head considerably. If it's not fleas starting his scratch, then it's puzzlement. We respected his age, and we vowed to do anything in our ability to add to his puzzlement.
There's a nose-biting sharpness to chemistry rooms, and the excitement of knowing that the dust particles above your head might frizzle if you hold a match aloft. The chemistry lab is the only place on school grounds where you can legally have matches. If there are girls at the next lab table who are afraid of the Bunsen burner, you can generally get their chemicals in exchange for copies of your lab results. Best of all, lurking always among all these chemicals is the possibility of blowing up a lab table, and if you're lucky, your lab partner along with it.
The main point of chemistry was messing around with whatever chemicals were stored in Mr. Grey's hundreds of glass bottles. Mr. Grey categorized his chemicals, not by alphabet, or periodic table, but by danger.