Celandine arrived in the room and looked around. Oooh a quiet, work-by-yourself, hands on activity. A comet? Cool! Did that mean they were to stick around and watch it sublimate? Cela tied her hair back in a messy bun and started by reading the board, doing an inventory of ingredients and making sure they were all arranged within easy reach. It was a good thing that she looked good in goggles… even though she’d never worn them before, Cela was pretty sure about that part. She used her wand to diffindo one of the rubbish bags and placed her wand back in her holster before putting the goggles on and blinking at the instructions on the board. She read it through a few times before getting into it.

Line the mixing bowl. Okay. Cela used the rubbish bag she’d just cut and… well she lined the mixing bowl, wondering what would happen to the mixing bowl if it wasn’t lined. Okay. Water next. Celandine carefully poured in the 2 cups of water, not particularly wanting it to splash all over the place if she was rough. She put the jug aside and glanced at the instructions again. Sand OR dirt? Hmmmm. Cela decided to go with Sand AND dirt, adding a spoonful of each and mixing it with the wooden spoon until it was about as mixed as it wanted to get.

A dash of ammonia? Well she didn’t really want to get that on her hands either (especially if she got corn syrup on her hands too because she’d probably lick it off and get a mouth full of ammonia and she knew that wasn’t a good thing), so she put on the gloves early. She added a dash of ammonia and a dash of the corn syrup, mentally saying the word ‘dash’ while she did so as a measure of what a dash actually was.

Dry ice time! So this part was to freeze the icky mixture, clearly. She’d done a bit of reading about carbon dioxide before, though she’d never done any hands on experiments or actively watched any chemical reactions apart from the ones in potions class, which were more magical than natural anyway. While she thought about all this, Cela put the three remaining rubbish bags inside one another and tightened her gloves. She opened the ice chest and measured out 2 cups of dry ice into a jug, finally tipping it into her three layered bag.

Cel twisted the bags closed, figuring that was the reason for the bags, you know; to keep the ice all together and not have any pieces flick off somewhere. She picked up the hammer and went to crushing the dry ice like a mad thing, enjoying it more than she felt was strictly necessary but being unable to help herself.

Smash. Smash. Pound. Crush. Smash. Rustle. Crush.

It was entirely possible that she was making music. The crushing sound of the dry ice and the rustling of the plastic bags, were a little distracting.

At least she looked awesome in her goggles and gloves.

Oooh. What was next? Cela looked at the board. Add the dry ice to the mixing bowl? Woot! She carefully untied the bags and poured the very,very slushy dry ice, carefully into the mixing bowl, picking up the wooden spoon and stirring the whole lot of it., carefully at first and then more and more vigorously as she noticed it freezing up and not splashing everywhere like she’d half expected.

She put the now empty rubbish bags aside and stirred the slush, finding it harder and harder. It didn’t look too pretty or smell particularly appealing. Once it was nearly frozen, she realised THAT was the reason for lining the bowl with a bag. The wooden spoon got put aside and Celandine lifted the whole bag out and, still wearing the gloves, shaped the comet. It was roundish and about 6 inches across when she held the bag up to have a look at the thing. She reached for a paper plate with her free hand and neatly slipped the comet out of the rubbish bag without touching it.

Celandine eyed the comet for a moment and busied herself with cleaning up, vanishing the used rubbish bags, scouring the mixing bowl and jugs and stacking them neatly to one side of her work area before peeking at the comet on the plate and waiting to see the thing sublimate and get all cratery and interesting.