From the Viewpoint of Qwan Mangum

Ok. This is what I recall. I was the first person in the class. Make that the first student. Mr. Gates was already there. Science happens to be my favorite subject. Since I had Study Hall before that, I was able to leave and get a jump start on the project. I know that you can’t tell by looking at me, but I’m a genius. I’m smarter than Mr. Gates and all of these other teachers combined. Check my test scores.

When I came into the classroom, Mr. Gates was asleep at his desk. I didn’t want to disturb him, so I let him sleep. Since he wasn’t doing it, I wanted to make sure that each desk had everything they needed. I added water to the distillers. I placed a flameless igniter on each desk. I thank the school for providing such a safe alternative to those flame throwers they call lighters. The school would have burned down years ago.

Johnny Oliver was the next person to arrive. The first thing he did was to write words I will not say on Mr. Gates’ face. I will admit that I thought that it was funny that he didn’t wake up. If someone touch me while I’m sleep, I will wake up swinging. My brother found that out the hard way.

Betty Knight walked in and saw Mr. Gates’ face. I could tell that she was somewhat appalled by it. But she didn’t say anything. She never does. When she does talk, nobody can hear her. It’s a good thing that she couldn’t prove who did it. On top of being shy, she’s a snitch. I saw her writing the note to leave for Mr. Gates.

All of the other students arrived one by one. They all laughed as they saw Mr. Gates’ face. Everybody knew who did it. But since nobody, but me, saw it. They had no proof. Mr. Gates woke up seconds before the bell rang. I believe it was the laughter that woke him. It took him a moment to get himself organized. When he saw his face the first thing he did was to call Johnny, who of course said it was like that when he walked into the classroom.

When the bell rang, Mr. Gates asked everyone to light their burners. The water started to boil, and Mr. Gates explained how the project would take place. Johnny had to use the bathroom and left. He was smart enough to take the water off the burner first. When he came back, 15 minutes later, he complained that the room was hot. Mr. Gates allowed him to open the window. As soon as he did, a strong breeze came through that blew a lot of papers around.

The main project was to split water into 2 elements and then recombine them into water. This did cause a loud explosion, but they were just that. Loud. Even though there were 25 students, each explosion was not strong enough to break the jar it was collecting in. Let known the classroom.

Anyway, the room was still intact when class ended. I stayed behind for a few minutes to get some information from Mr. Gates. But he had to leave in a hurry. He said that he would be back, but I had another class to go to. There were 5 other students in the class at the time. We all left at the same time. A few minutes later, BOOM! I have no idea what happened. It wasn’t anything I did, I can promise you that. Talk to Mr. Gates. Maybe he had some 2nd project going. I don’t know.