Tuesdays, I had a double period for AP Chemistry, meaning it was lab day. Beth and I had first become friends back during Introductory Chemistry, right after she had transferred to our school at the start of junior year. Alphabetically (Talbott and Taylor), we had been assigned as lab partners that year and we found that we worked well together. When Spring rolled around, after she joined the Track team as a sprinter, she had sort of eased into being the third member of my group of tomboy, girl-jock friends. Students could choose their lab partners in AP Chem, and Beth and I had never thought to do anything other than what we already knew worked.
"All right, you gremlins," said our teacher Dr. French, beginning class. "Here is the only part of the year where I worry about killing one or m
