7 - Deconstruction

Monday came back after the weekend, and so did Elizabeth. She didn't look quite as bad as the previous Monday, but she certainly wasn't her new usual, perky self. Unsurprisingly, the first thing she asked about, after the rest of her classmates left for the day, was pep powder.

"I gave you enough to last until Tuesday, Elizabeth. Surely you still have enough left to last until then?" said Mr. Riggs, as they filed into the back room.

"I.. uh.. I actually had just barely enough for this morning." replied Elizabeth, who held her hands up in a shrug and smiled wanly.

"You received the correct amount, I'm very sure of that. You didn't use any extra, did you?" Mr. Riggs asked, looking at her questioningly.

Elizabeth's smile faltered, and she averted her eyes from her teacher, looking sheepish.

"I.. might have had a little extra on Saturday.. and on Sunday. I thought I'd have enough, though."

"Well, I did tell you to stick to the dose I recommended." said Mr. Riggs, a little severely. "You've no one to blame but yourself, Elizabeth."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Riggs. I really am, but can I please have some more pep for tomorrow. Please?" Elizabeth begged, looking back up at her teacher with wide, beseeching eyes.

"No." Mr. Riggs answered, flatly.

Elizabeth started to speak again, clearly intending to whine and wheedle her teacher until he gave in, but Mr. Riggs cut her off.

"However." he said, loudly. "Since you're not your usual self right now, and I need you to be able to focus for the rest of the afternoon, I will give you a small dose right now if you agree not to ask about it again today."

"Do you agree?"

Elizabeth looked conflicted. She clearly wanted more than her teacher was offering her, but the prospect of a little pep immediately was making it hard to focus on her need for the next day. Reluctantly, she agreed.

"Okay, Mr. Riggs. Umm, thanks." she said quietly.

She watched as her teacher unlocked one of the drawers of his office desk and pulled out the large bottle of powder that she had seen before. As he did so, she saw several more bottles of equal size resting within the drawer. Mr. Riggs plucked up a medium sized test tube from the racks on the shelves along the wall by the door, rinsed it once, then filled it half way full of water from the sink at the back room's lab station. He then popped the cap off the chemical bottle casually with one thumb, set the bottle down on his desk, and scooped out what seemed to Elizabeth to be the smallest amount of powder possible. He dropped the powder into the test tube, swirled it around twice, then handed the tube, water, and dissolved powder to Elizabeth.

"Is that all.." Elizabeth started to whine, then caught the dark look on her teacher's face and quickly changed her tone.

"Uh, I mean, thank you, Mr. Riggs."

Elizabeth took the tube and drank it down at once. She left the tube tilted down at an angle over her mouth, clearly trying to get every drop of solution that she could. After a moment she started to lick the rim of the tube, then stopped and looked up guiltily at her teacher. Blushing, she handed it back to him.

"Now, with that out of the way, let's get on with this afternoon's activity." said Mr. Riggs, dryly. He pointed to the oven that Elizabeth had so painstakingly constructed over the previous two afternoon sessions.

"Just take that back apart completely, so we can see what went wrong." he said.

"What?" Elizabeth said loudly, surprised. "It took forever to put it together, and now you want me to take it all back apart?"

"Oh, yes." said Mr. Riggs, as he recapped the powder bottle and returned it to his drawer. Elizabeth's eyes followed the bottle intently, and her gaze lingered on the drawer for several moments.

"The process of invention is always filled with pitfalls and setbacks. I expect that we'll have to take this oven apart and put it back together a number of times, before we get everything working right." continued Mr. Riggs.

Elizabeth's face fell, looking at the oven that had taken her two afternoons to construct. She was quite obviously imagining taking it apart and putting it back together again every afternoon for the rest of the semester.

"Don't look so distressed!" Mr. Riggs cried, seeing his student's expression. "Taking it apart will be much easier than putting it together. I'll bet that you could do it in half the time, if not less. And, just think, next time you put it back together, you will already know where everything goes! I assure you, Elizabeth, that the task I'm giving you isn't so daunting as you seem to be imagining."

"Besides, this isn't the only design I'm going to have you work on. I've got several more ideas that are nearing the prototype phase. With your help, I'm sure everything will go swimmingly."

"Oh, well, okay, Mr. Riggs. I guess it isn't so bad." sighed Elizabeth, grudgingly.

"Now, now, don't be like that. You do remember why you are doing, this, don't you? You don't have to worry about studying for my class anymore. I'll bet your weekend was quite a bit less stressful without that hanging over your head." remonstrated Mr. Riggs.

Now that Mr. Riggs mentioned it, Elizabeth's weekend had been pretty fantastic, she thought. She hadn't given her chemistry work a second thought all Friday evening, Saturday, or Sunday. Perhaps a few of her afternoons spent with Mr. Riggs working on his odd ovens was worth it after all. Elizabeth began to perk up at the thought, or perhaps it was just the pep kicking in.

"You're right, Mr. Riggs. I'm sorry if I've been a bit grumpy today." Elizabeth said, then smiled her first genuine smile of the day up at him.

"Don't worry about it, Elizabeth. I know that these things can seem overwhelming at first, but if you just work on a piece at a time, you'll soon be amazed at how fast things progress." replied Mr. Riggs, reassuringly. "Just get started on taking the oven apart and see how far you can get."

Elizabeth did so, and was delighted to discover that Mr. Riggs was completely right. It took less than an hour to strip the oven back down to its component parts, revealing the cause of the previous Thursday's power surge. When Elizabeth had connected the wires of the main power cord to the internals of the oven, she had gotten the individual strands mixed up, resulting in the short when the power switch was flipped.

"Don't be too hard on yourself." Mr. Riggs said reassuringly, as they looked down at the melted plastic around the area of the short. Even the metal was slightly discolored where the electricity had arced. He patted Elizabeth on the shoulder.

"It's at least partially my fault too. I probably didn't label the cords correctly, or something similar. Anyway, I'm glad you've done so well. Just watching this oven be put together and taken apart again has given me several ideas on how to improve upon the design. For now, though, why don't you try putting it back together again. I'll help with the wiring, and we'll see if we can get the thing to work properly." said Mr. Riggs.

They both worked on reassembling the oven for the rest of the day, making more progress than Elizabeth would have thought possible. By the time Mr. Riggs set his tools down and declared the day's work to be finished, the whole oven was very nearly completely rebuilt. Just before Elizabeth left for the day, however, Mr. Riggs stopped her with a question.

"Elizabeth, pardon my asking, but are you losing weight?" he asked.

"Uh, yeah, Mr. Riggs." said Elizabeth. "I've had so much energy lately, that I've hardly felt like eating. It drives my mom crazy when I skip dinner, though, so I usually just don't each lunch. And.. sometimes breakfast. I've already lost more than five pounds! Still, I can't even go to sleep at night unless I jog a couple of miles first. I never even liked jogging before these past couple weeks. Mom doesn't like me to leave the house that late, though. She worries."

"Well, you definitely look better." said Mr. Riggs, encouragingly. "If you like, I know of some exercises that you can do that don't require you to leave the house. They could help you get to sleep at night without angering your mother."

"Oh, that'd be nice. Thank you, Mr. Riggs." said Elizabeth, beaming and obviously pleased at the compliment.

Mr. Riggs turned to his desk, opened up the center drawer, and fished within it around for a moment. He then turned back to Elizabeth, handing her a manila folder. Elizabeth opened the folder and leafed through the pages inside. Each page looked like it had been copied from a work-out magazine, and detailed the steps and movements necessary for a particular exercise.

"Wow, these look great. Thanks, Mr. Riggs. See you tomorrow!" said Elizabeth enthusiastically, clearly still feeling the effects of the bit of pep powder Mr. Riggs had given her a couple hours before.

"Goodbye, Elizabeth. I'll see you tomorrow, too." Mr. Riggs replied, smiling.

As it turned out, however, he didn't see Elizabeth the next day. At least, not the new Elizabeth. It was the old Elizabeth that came to school Tuesday. She once again laid across her desk, head in her arms, barely responsive. The only animation she showed was at the end of the day, when she quickly shuffled to the front of the room after the last of her classmates had left. She had her very empty little bottle held out in her shaking hand. She didn't even say anything to Mr. Riggs when he took it from her. She just stood swaying, head down and drooping, waiting for him to refill her bottle.

"No after school work today, Elizabeth. Lets plan on Mondays, Wednesday, and Fridays from now on, okay?" Mr. Riggs said, as he returned her partially refilled bottle.

Elizabeth mumbled something that sounded like an affirmative, then lurched her way quickly out the door, her backpack hanging loosely from one arm by a single strap and both hands clutched possessively around her bottle.

The new Elizabeth returned the next day, and happily and energetically continued work on the oven after the school day had ended. Before long, it was completely reassembled. Both she and Mr. Riggs shared enthusiastic grins when it worked perfectly after being plugged in, quickly heating up inside. Elizabeth had half expected the fuses to blow again. They spent the rest of the afternoon calibrating the oven, checking temperature readings in various places inside of it to make sure that the heat was convecting evenly, and making little tweaks and adjustments to it.

Mr. Riggs sent her home at the end of the session with promises of a new project to work on during Friday's afternoon, and encouraged her to try out the exercises he had given her Monday afternoon during that evening.