Once all the seats were filled, Lily took a deep breath and moved to the front of the room. She leaned back against her desk and willed her fingers not to shake as she wrapped them around its edge. “Welcome. I’m Miss Cross, and I’m going to be your chemistry teacher for the next year. I thought we could start by going around the room and have each of you give me a chemistry fact.”
Lily saw a few eye rolls but didn’t let it discourage her.
“Let’s start here.” She moved toward the first desk on the front row, where a kid with a mop of dark curls sat. “What’s your name?”
“Luke.”
Lily made a note on a piece of paper, knowing she’d never remember their names if she didn’t write them somewhere.
“Okay, Luke, can you think of a fact for me? It can be anything you like.”
“Uh…” Luke paused, pen twirling. “Technetium was the first ever man-made element.”
Lily hadn’t expected that from a fifteen-year-old. “Wow, that’s right. Who’s next?” Lily glanced at the next student along.
“Marie Curie is the only woman to win a Nobel Prize in two different sciences.”
“Great, and you are?”
“Amanda.”
Lily remembered the (they/them) pronouns from the class list she’d been given and made a mental note not to slip up when referring to Amanda in future classes. “And sitting next to you is…?”
“Macie. Bromine and mercury are the only elements liquid at room temperature.” Macie offered the fact without being prompted, and Lily smiled.
Lily made her way around the room. Whether they knew it or not, the fact they chose told her a lot about them, and by the time she reached the end Lily felt the last of her nerves fade away.
Macie raised a hand as Lily returned to her desk.
“Yes, Macie?”
“Do you have a fact, Miss Cross?”
Thankfully, Lily had anticipated someone asking and had a few prepared. “How about the fact that while oxygen gas is colorless, its solid and liquid forms are blue? Or the human body contains enough carbon atoms to provide graphite for nine thousand pencils? There’s one letter of the alphabet that doesn’t appear on the periodic table—can anyone tell me what it is?” Several pairs of eyes flitted over to Lily’s poster, and she smiled. “Preferably without cheating.”
“Z!”
“X!”
“J!”
“K!”
“No, that’s potassium, you idiot—”
“While I appreciate the enthusiasm”—Lily raised her voice to cut through the noise—“let’s not all shout out at once, okay? And let’s not call people idiots, either.” She looked pointedly at the culprit.
“Sorry, Miss Cross.”
“I did hear the right answer in there somewhere, though. Who said J?”
Luke’s hand raised.
“Well done, Luke. Now, I know sometimes it can be hard to speak in front of the class, so here’s some incentive.” Lily reached behind her desk for the box of candy she’d bought the previous day, trying not to laugh at the widening eyes of her class. “No one has any allergies, do they?” She’d glanced over the medical information for all her students and didn’t remember any, but she wanted to be sure. When there were no nods, Lily held the box toward Luke. “If you answer a question—right or wrong—you get candy. But you have to raise your hand rather than shout out. Sound good?”
She was met with vigorous nods.
“Let’s test it out, shall we? Who can tell me what the smallest unit of matter is?”
