How to get (nearly) expelled from school a week before the A-levels
Simply by mixing ______ solution and ______ crystals (two somewhat dated but easily acquired household chemicals), you can make tiny black crystals that go "crack!" with a puff of purple smoke when you crush them. Or let them dry out too quickly. Or look at them funny. Or if someone 15 miles away eats a cheese and onion crisp. Or just if they damn well feel like it. Unstable stuff, is ________ _________.

So just before the exams, me and Bill thought it to be a thoroughly great idea to make some of this, and started crackling away on the chemistry bench. The teacher, a wise old bird who was the subject of daily mocking for his unfortunate speech impediment (sorry; we were little shits), knew that sound, and shut us down asap. We had to swab the bench with a neutralising solution, and were dragged in front of the Beak who admonished us that This Could Ruin The Career of Two Promising Young Men, and we had to swear that we hadn't made any more of the stuff and we wouldn't think of telling anyone what the chemicals were or we would be withdrawn from the examinations.

The thing was, we had made more. A lot more. An entire 10cm watch-glass full of evil little black crystals was quietly drying in a closed cupboard in the lab. We weren't allowed back in to the lab, it being late on a Friday afternoon. All weekend long we fretted ...

We got back into the lab first thing Monday, and made a rather hasty-but-innocent scramble to the cupboard. Which was open. In fact, the door had been blown off its runners, and it was happily sitting propped against a faraway bench. The watch-glass was intact, save for a thin line of char around the edge. Bill nonchalantly refitted the door, while I tried to clean off the watch-glass, all harmless like. It must've gone up over the weekend.

We still made a bloody mess of our A-levels, though ...
( scruss, Fri 10 Aug 2012, 21:20, 11 replies)

Ooh, I'd forgotten about ________ _________
It's good stuff, even if it does stink when it goes off and leave ______ stains around the place. You can literally set it off with a feather.

Have a click for nostalgia value.
( Amish Information Systems hates misplaced, commas, Fri 10 Aug 2012, 21:44, closed)

when are you going to admit that the _______ and __________
are marmalade and windowlene?
( Rotating Wobbly Hat That's not a banana. THIS is a banana., Fri 10 Aug 2012, 22:05, closed)

ammonia and iodine?

( weaver., Fri 10 Aug 2012, 22:30, closed)

I am fairly sure
this is correct!
(Petite chien is going to do science to it, Sat 11 Aug 2012, 23:17, closed)

Omitting materials
is not in the spirit of the qotw!
(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Sat 11 Aug 2012, 1:03, closed)

Neither is maiming people stupid enough to try this
... but if you must, weaver nailed it above.
( scruss, Sat 11 Aug 2012, 22:55, closed)

Picric acid?

(badgerlikespeed, Sat 11 Aug 2012, 21:51, closed)

Sick Rick Acid.
always a winnar.
( Rotating Wobbly Hat That's not a banana. THIS is a banana., Sun 12 Aug 2012, 0:48, closed)

Nitrogen
triiodide?
( social hand grenade I was a lurker before you were a lurker, Sun 12 Aug 2012, 16:06, closed)

yup
i was told that the ingredients can't be too pure or it'll explode under it's own weight
( weaver., Sun 12 Aug 2012, 17:03, closed)

like this
www.youtube.com/watch?v=L436Rx42jXg
( social hand grenade I was a lurker before you were a lurker, Sun 12 Aug 2012, 19:10, closed)