Griffin Carter. The same Griffin Carter that Jack warned me about happens to not only be Shoulder-basher, but also he's now in my chemistry class.

The universe is laughing at me.

"Well Griffin, welcome to chemistry," Mrs Miller said.

Griffin began to move towards a desk however Mrs Miller stopped him. "Don't sit down yet. Everybody up and to the front of the class."

I shared a glance with Jordan and we made our way to the front.

"I have a seating order," announced Mrs Miller. A groan went up throughout the room. "There is no use complaining, I won't change it. First up Aubrey Anderson."

A small dark haired girl darted to the first lab bench.

"Joseph Banks."

The boy sat down next to her.

"Griffin Carter."

Griffin went to the next bench over. And that's when I panicked. This was an alphabetical seating order. I crossed my fingers. A and O are far apart in the alphabet, surely someone else is between us and I can be on a different bench.

"Aurora Cooper."

Shit.

I walked over to the bench and sat down. Griffin smirked at me. "So, we meet again."

Little did he know this was our third interaction. I smiled. "Unfortunately."

Griffin started doodling on the paper in front of him. "So Aurora..." he rolled my name on his tongue. "How's your shoulder?"

I held my tongue from asking how his shoulder was and instead said, "My name is Rory."

"Aurora," he said, ignoring me. "Sleeping Beauty."

I sighed. That was exactly who my parents named me after, but he did not need to know that. All of us were named after characters from fairy tales, including Genie, our cat.

"Now that everyone's seated correctly, we shall begin."

I turned my attention to Mrs Miller.

"While this is a competition I have decided that today shall be a fun introduction to this lab and its equipment. Learn where things are and get to know your desk buddy, you will be stuck with them for the next few days. Oh, and nothing you do today will get you any points, understood?"

Everyone nodded.

"The rest of the week will be the competition. Tomorrow you shall be doing a written test, Wednesday will be an acid-base titration, Thursday a range of carbon chemistry experiments, and finally Friday will be thermochemistry."

Not too bad.

"Now back to today, on your bench is an envelope. It contains a piece of paper with a fun experiment that Mr Fernsby wrote for you and your lab partner to carry out together."

My eyes widened.

"I'll be at the front if you need assistance." Mrs Miller finished.

"Elephant toothpaste." Griffin said.

I looked at him. "What?"

He waved the open envelope around. "We're making elephant toothpaste. Ever made that before, princess?"

"Of course." I give him a pointed look. "Have you?"

He winked and passed me the instructions. "Of course."

"Let's find some chemicals then." I stood up, peering at the list on the paper.

Fifteen minutes later, now dressed in lab coats and rocking safety glasses and gloves, we had everything collected.

"All right, step one: prepare the potassium iodide solution. Do you want to do that or shall I?" I asked.

Griffin picked up the measuring cylinder. "I can do that."

"Okay, I'll measure out the soap, food colouring, and the hydrogen peroxide." We worked silently and after a minute we're finished.

"Ready to move to the next step?" I asked.

"Always." Griffin replied, a hint of laughter in his voice.

We combine the potassium iodide solution and soap together before turning to the Erlenmeyer flask containing the hydrogen peroxide.

"Step three," Griffin said. "Toothpaste time. Do you want to do the honours of shall I?"

I shrugged. "By all means, go ahead."

Griffin poured the liquid into the flask and for half a second nothing happened.

And then, it erupted.

Everywhere.