Agent Reptilian: Exploiting Gold|editing

Chapter twenty four: Confrontation

Just like flipping pages in a book, this weekend had flown by in swiftness that I had gotten no time to study for my Chemistry test. Following Friday night till the humid and rainy evening of Sunday, Del had pulled us away from our books and forced us to help her clean the house.

"The dishes are dirty! Miss Brooks, clean them!" I ran and her eyes had almost popped out at the sight of the dirty plates, pots, pans, most of the cutlery from the drawers had all piled up in the sink and even around it.

"There is dust everywhere! Miss Scott, wipe down everything!" Nix ran as Del barked at her. Grabbing an old cloth and bottle of disinfectant, she wiped down every chair, table, random bobble heads belonging to the owner and whatever furniture she encountered throughout.

We scrubbed the stained floors, removed slivers of spiders webs, folded our laundry (Del's as well), pulled out weeds from the wild backyard, cooked food, swept the floors, washed the bathroom mats, change the bedsheets then washed the bedsheets, pulled out weeds from the front yard, cook more food for Del as the previous dishes were disapproved by her.

All day and night, from 8 am till 11 pm, Nix and I were put through constant torture by Del the devil, Deranged Del, a couple of alliterations we created when we met mid task and a small chant we whispered or mouthed to each other whenever Del's back was facing us, "Delphine, the big bad bean, she's a fiend!". It was still a work in progress.

So early Monday morning, we had woken up so Nix could help me revise for the test.

"How many carbons does this alcohol contain 6." Six Nix answered. I nodded and peaked at the worksheet to make sure it was correctly counted.

"Don't doubt me. I'm the chemistry tutor here."

"Alright Alright. And... what would be the prefix?"

"Hex." Nix yawned loudly. I suppressed the anger bubbling up inside me. It may have been easy for Nix but I had never had to waste my time with these classes and Del had ruined our entire weekend and on top of that, not only did I not get time to study properly, I didn't sleep either.

"And because the hydroxyl group is on the second carbon, what does the name become?"

"2-hexanol." She spoke in a bored tone.

"Yep! You know what, this stuff isn't even that bad. And I feel pretty confident about my first test, so I think this'll be good." I spoke optimistically.

"Wow, Del overworked us to a point that you're not even acting like yourself." Nix scoffed and got up from the table, beginning to place her stuff in our new grocery bags. They weren't any better than the previous ones but at least they didn't have a pungent odor of onions or garlic.

I let out a sigh as my muscles and neck ached from exhaustion and collected our used dishes, placing them into the sink with a gentle clink. "I've just decided that moaning and groaning continuously over these things isn't going to help me graduate high school and as much as I would've loved to finish school at Secretum, there's no way I want to repeat it. So, the only choice left is to actually get through it. After high school I can go back to complaining about things."

Nix smiled with pride, "Look who's changing. And is it possible for us to sue Del for child labour?"

I shoved my school stationery into the bag and hauled it over my shoulder, "I'll call my lawyer. Come on, we'll be late if we don't leave now."

As we slipped into the narrow corridor leading to the front door, about to open it to exit, a voice spoke from above us, "Missys I'm out of some groceries. I will send you a list to your cellphones, please che-"