Smart Money The sunlight was streaming through the windowpane with a white translucent glow from the glass block below. A tall blonde high school girl walked up to her chemistry table and opened the drawer with her key. She laughed and flashed comments to the boy beside her. Then she realized she had no idea what to do. What are we doing today? she asked the girl on her right. The other girl was deep in concentration in her workbook. She frowned. Well! Isnt anybody going to help me? the blonde girls cry was plaintive and emotion filled. The girl on the right kept her nose in the workbook and stuck her left arm up to the reagent bottles above. Were making silver chloride. She offered. The blonde turned her palms up and gesticulated. Then she looked over and began to copy what the other girl was doing. It seemed to be a charm. After completing the first mixture she realized she had opened two acid bottles and set one stopper in the finished silver chloride on the filter paper. Quickly she put the wrong stopper into the wrong bottle. Then she winced uncertain of which was which. The stoppers looked the same. One clear glass bottle said Nitric Acid, Reagent the other nearly identical said Hydrochloric Acid, Reagent. After the hour was up the blonde tucked her work book in her arms and smiled at the girl beside her. She walked out into the corridor and to her locker. Soon other classmates came near and struck up a conversation. It was great to be popular, she thought. It was three weeks later when with her hair a bit greasy and tangled, and with sleepy eyes the blonde looked up and saw some white flakes like dandruff floating in the nitric acid bottle. Angrily she grabbed the bottle and without placing her thumb over the stopper she began to shake it violently up and down. The stopper popped out and a clear liquid like water spilled on her forearm and wrist. Ignoring that she set the bottle back on the top shelf. Then a tingling set in. it really hurt. She ran screaming past the girl beside her and past the sink at the end of the table and beyond the classroom chairs to the front of the room and out the door into the hallway. She was headed for the janitors room screaming at the top of her lungs when the chemistry teacher caught her and with great difficulty dragged her back into the room and to the sink in the middle of his demonstration table. It was too late. The damage was done. The skin hung in loose folds. Pulling her along with him the teacher was now moving them toward the office to call for medical assistance. The knock on the door inside the atrium of rose bushes was insistent. The occupant of the gray house opened the door. Are you Mr. --------? With an affirmative answer the caller pressed a folded paper in the other mans hand. Realization struck the occupant. The blonde girl was the eldest daughter of a prominent local attorney and neighbor.