“No wonder everyone hates you,” the admin girl retorted coldly.
Jack winked cunningly and smiled even wider, trying to suppress more acidic remark that kept coming to his mind.
“Ah, Betty, let’s not argue, okay? This might last until old age. And now, try to actually do at least part of your job, okay? Tell me, where can I find Mrs. Renton?”
The girl shot a malicious glance towards the young man, whose cheerful mood had evaporated without a trace. Her whole demeanor indicated how much she wanted to yank his earring or stick a pencil into his hand. In short, to do anything to get back at him for the snide remarks he constantly showered her with. Poor Betty couldn’t recall a week in the past three years that she had worked at the university office in New Orleans without handsome Jack Cornell, or someone from his small circle, coming in and saying something nasty.
“You know you have yourself to blame, Betty,” Jack said as if reading her thoughts, his voice tinged with reproach. “So just tell me where to find Mrs.
Renton, and I promise you won’t see me again today.”
“She’s filling in for Mr. Zigon today. So, I suppose she’s giving an introductory chemistry lecture in…”
“Well, it turns out thinking isn’t such a difficult task after all, and in some cases, quite useful!” Jack interrupted and headed for the exit. Glancing back he saw that the freshmen were still trying to locate building ‘A’ on the map. “Well, sooner or later, they’ll find it and rush to their classes. I need to catch their teacher before they drive her crazy with their endless quest for knowledge in chemistry,” Jack thought, wasting no time as he hurried off in search of the coveted instructor.
The laboratory in Building ‘A’ is a specially equipped space for conducting so-called practical classes in biology and chemistry. There’s everything you could imagine here! A great variety of all sorts of plants, intricately intertwined into a cohesive whole, the mysterious hybrids of which evoke rather ambiguous, and sometimes quite contradictory emotions. An abundance of low glass shelves with various chemicals, flasks, and instruments for conducting experiments, all provided by the Department of Education of the United States of America.
Jack approached the classroom, stealthily cracked the door open and entered the room. A woman stood on a low wooden stool, leaning over and completely focused on something that Jack couldn't quite make out what it was. She was quietly humming a melody coming from a mobile phone lying on the teacher's desk.