Larry put goggles over his thick black-rimmed glasses and went to work. He wasn’t about to chance getting any dangerous chemicals in his eyes. His science teacher, Ms. Diamond, let him work on his science fair project during study hall while she sat at the front of the room and graded papers and came up with lesson plans. He had won the last two years (his freshman and sophomore years) and was hoping for the same this year.

“Larry, I’m going to step out for just a minute to run down to the teacher’s lounge for a drink. I’ll be right back,” Ms. Diamond told him. He knew she needed her Diet Coke fix. He watched her get the quarters out of her change purse and saunter towards the door. When she got there, she dropped one of them and bent over to pick it up as he watched her skirt slide up her thighs with more than a little interest. She stood back up, looked back at him and giggled. “Sorry about that.”

After she left the room, Larry concentrated once more on the beakers and test tubes in front of him. He was determined to make this year’s experiment the best one yet. He was so absorbed that he didn’t hear the two boys enter the room until they were right beside him. When he saw who they were, his heart skipped a beat.

“Well, if it isn’t Larry Nye the Science Guy,” said Mark Hamlin (known as Ham to all of the kids in school). “Hehe. That was pretty funny, Ham,” said Brett.

“Whatcha workin’ on, four-eyes?” Brett was not the brightest guy. He followed Ham around and couldn’t think of much in the way of insults besides making fun of Larry for wearing glasses which got really old by about fourth grade.

“What do you think, you’re gonna be some famous scientist one day and cure something and win a Nobel Prize?” Ham asked. Brett laughed again.

“Maybe you can come up with some potion that will help your eyesight so you can get rid of those dorky glasses.” Ham bumped into Larry, knocking the beaker out of his hand. It went crashing to the floor. Larry groaned. A lot of time and work had went into getting that mixture just the way he wanted it.

“Larry, you should really be more careful. Didn’t Ms. Diamond say you would have to pay for any more of those glass things that you broke?” Ham laughed and headed out the door.

Brett followed him, elbowing Larry in the abdomen as he went by. “Oops. Sorry about that, man.” “Come on, Brett. Let’s go out back,” Ham said.

The two boys had just left the room as the teacher came back in. Larry tried to stand up straight despite the pain in his gut. Ms. Diamond got the materials she needed to clean up the spill and the glass.

Ms. Diamond gave him a knowing look.

She knew what was going on, but she didn’t say anything.

After cleaning up, Larry went to work on two entirely new science projects. These weren’t for the school competition.

***

A couple of weeks later the school was abuzz. Ham’s autopsy was proven inconclusive but because of the amount of drugs in his system, it was speculated that he had gotten hold of something that was laced. Everyone knew what Ham and Brett were doing when they went “out back”, behind the school, so this was no big surprise.

Brett’s eyesight never returned. Since it happened at the same time, the doctors concluded the laced drugs were also to blame. Brett swore that his eyes started burning and getting blurry right after using his Visine. He always used it before coming back to class to keep his teachers from being suspicious about his bloodshot eyes. The Visine bottle was tested, and nothing unusual was found.

As he left Ms. Diamond’s classroom, the teacher gave him a knowing look.

She knew what was going on, but she didn’t say anything.

Larry headed home on his bike. His MP3 player blared “You Blinded Me with Science.” He decided he would go home and watch one of his favorite movies, Revenge of the Nerds.

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