The Experiment 

By Alex Mair 



I watched spellbound as a pile of quickfit apparatus assembled into a distillation experiment under her gaze.
"Er..." I said, dully. "Kate."
Nothing.
"Kate!"
"Huh?"
She turned round, and back. She assembled more glassware. Then...
"Do you want me to do anything?" I monotoned.
"Get two more test tubes."
Making me sound like a defective android, I buzzed as I made my only contribution to the lesson. I got the test tubes and then said,
"Kate! Er, mate!!"
I have less intonation than a HAL 9000 computer. I choked on my words.
"Ah... er... um."
"Huh?" she lilted.
"Nothin'"