Page 80 of Fundamentals of Chemistry

I took a long pull on the coffee, wishing it were something stronger.

My cup was empty by the time the bell for the end of second period sounded. I stood, smoothing my skirt and mentally pulling up my big-girl panties, and headed back into the building to teach my next class. My anxiety about what to do with Jack was going to have to take a back seat for the next hour, at least.

My AP class was going to be electroplating pennies today—one of my personal favorite experiments from when I was in school. I still had a couple of old pennies coated in a thin layer of silver or gold from a decade ago, though they had tarnished over the years. I needed to give the lesson my full attention since the students would be handling caustic reagents.

I felt marginally better as I walked back to our shared classroom. This time when he offered me a small smile and asked how my coffee was, I was able to respond like a human rather than a robot with a short circuit.

“It was excellent,” I replied, offering him a sunny smile. “Thank you, again.”

He nodded, and if I didn’t know any better, I would say his smile turned shy. And was that… Yes. There was a faint blush staining his cheeks and the tips of his ears. But I didn’t have time to obsess over that little detail because Headmaster Richmond walked through the door.

“Good morning, Headmaster,” I said, slapping on a too-bright smile and praying I sounded normal. I didn’t even know what was going on with Jack. The last thing I needed was Richmond suspecting fraternization.

“Good morning,” Richmond replied. He patted Jack on the shoulder and nodded to me. “Mr. Cooper. Ms. Burke.”

My tongue was huge and dry in my mouth. “To what do we owe the pleasure?” I asked.

“I’m here to observe the lesson,” he replied, “as part of my evaluation.”

I barely heard Jack say “good luck” before he turned and left the room.

I spared him the briefest glance before turning my full attention to the Headmaster.

“Alright then,” I said. “Make yourself comfortable.”

Richmond followed me to the front of the room, and while I was stowing my bag in a drawer, he took a seat behind the desk. In the chair. I turned quickly to face the room. I didn’t care if the students could see me blushing, but Richmond sure as hell wasn’t going to.

The bell rang, and I took a deep breath through my nose to the count of four.

“Good morning,” I said in a loud, clear voice. “We have an exciting lesson today. Building on our previous discussions about oxidation-reduction reactions, you will be performing an experiment to illustrate these principles.”

I plucked a dry-erase marker from the tray and started to write on the whiteboard. I could feel Richmond’s eyes on me like a spider crawling up my spine.

“For the next hour, we will be electroplating pennies using a galvanic cell,” I announced. “This is a two-step experiment. First, we will be using a redox reaction to coat copper pennies in zinc.” I wrote the equation on the board, careful to balance the equation. “And then we will be applying heat—which will do what?”

I turned, and to my relief, there were several hands in the air. “Jessica.”

“The zinc will react with the copper?”

“Exactly,” I said and nodded in encouragement. “And who can tell me what happens when zinc reacts with copper?”

There were more hands, but a boy called out the answer before I could call on anyone. “It makes brass.”

“Correct! Brass is a copper-zinc alloy.”

A little wave of relief rolled through me. The class was engaged and active. I didn’t think it was only because we had a visitor, though that was likely a factor. They had gotten a lot more comfortable with me since I had begun using Jack’s lesson plans. I hoped Richmond could see it.

“Everyone should have a copy of the procedure,” I continued, “so let’s go ahead and get started. But first things first.” I paused and held up a finger.

“Safety first,” the class droned in chorus as I waved my finger like a conductor’s baton.

“Everyone needs goggles and lab coats today, plus nitrile gloves. You may also collect two 250mL beakers per station and set up your hot plates. I’ll dole out the reagents.”

The students began to move in a calm, unhurried manner, collecting their PPE and supplies. I also donned a white coat, goggles, and gloves before collecting large bottles of zinc sulfate and deionized water.

For the rest of the period, the class bustled with productive energy. Each bench had its own hot plate and scale, and I moved from station to station asking questions to assess understanding and checking progress of the experiments.

At every station, pennies first turned silver in the zinc sulfate-sodium hydroxide solution, and then gold when placed directly on the hot plates. The little gasps of surprise and delight were music to my ears. My heart was so full that it was in danger of bursting.