Chapter 2. The punishment
Sheldon ruffled with his hands over his head, sighing and trying to understand what had happened to be in a situation like this, how the previous events had defined what would be his first contact with the director, and therefore his only experience in the camp.
He looked around the room, trying to gather more information which will help his dazed mind to understand. Sitting beside him was that girl, with a blue and big sweatshirt and a pair of sweatpants over her legs that she had been forced to wear. She was almost in tears while the director walked around the room, infuriated.
- "So, are you telling me that what the witness saw was a lie?". Director Eric repeated, as he walked through the office, at a nervous pace.
- "No sir, what I'm telling you is that it's been a misunderstanding, we don't ...". She looked at him nervously. "We weren't having any relationship at all". Amy clarified feeling her cheeks burned in her face.
- "Then answer me to this, please, were or weren't you on your underwear when they found you, miss?".
- "Well … yes, that part is true, but …" Amy was cut off at once.
- "And is not true that you were both locked in the laundry, and laying on the floor?".
- "That's also true, but in my defense, I was cleaning my clothes when this boy, without any invitation, interrupted in the room". Amy glanced to Sheldon, looking at him for a complicity that it seemed to be nowhere. "I can assure, sir, that I didn't want him there".
- "Then miss, what you are exposing is very serious, are you saying that he tried to overstep with you?".
- "What?. Absolutely not!". Sheldon shouted, getting up from his seat. "I can assure you that I hadn´t or have any intention of doing anything with this woman. The only crime I did was make sure that she was alright and now you are judging me like an animal". Sheldon defended himself, without making any eye contact with her.
Amy bit her lip and looking at her feet. She didn't know if that boy words had been more painful than the shame of having been caught in such an embarrassing situation, or at least they hurted as such. She looked up again, seeing how the tall boy explained with incredible certainty everything that had happened in the laundry, so precise that it seemed he was reading it from a script which he had written by himself.
- "Okay, let's say I believe you, what do you think I should do?". The director got up from his seat, walking towards the window and looking through it. "At least a punishment is in order, after all, you have broken some of our rules".
- "Yes, sir". Both answered at time, while they waited with wide eyes which would be the punishment for their acts, that although innocent, they broke the norms which they accepted to fulfill.
- "Well, let's see, it may be unorthodox, but we still have many things to finish ordering, and the library is a disaster". The director walked to them and placed a hand on both shoulders from behind. "What do you think if from now until tomorrow morning it is your task of classify and put the books in order?. I think that will serve as a way to focus on what you have to do". He finished, walking toward the door and opening it. "I hope not see you again here, and now let's get to work".
Amy and Sheldon got up and walked to the door, while the director returned to his desk with a smile and without saying another word. The receptionist led them to the library where she gave them garbage bags and two buckets with cleaning supplies.
Sheldon opened the big wooden door, a large room stretched in front of them. Dozens of shelves with hundreds of books scattered without order or coherence, while the dust of a whole year covered every surface of the room. Two large windows let the midday light entering into the library. The beginning of a punishment, which for what it seemed, would last longer than they expected at first.
- "Wow, is a lot of work to do". Sheldon exclaimed, entering in the big room and checking the thickness of dust on the table by the door.
- "Better start cleaning and don't talk anymore, you've done enough today". Amy murmured, leaving the bucket on the floor and pulling up the sleeves of the sweatshirt.
- "Excuse me, what's that supposed to mean?".
- "That thanks to you I'm the joke of the camp, without forgetting that I have been punished because you had to put your head where you should not".
- "I don't think that's the case, and it was all your fault, who is so stupid to hide in a room without closing it and in just her underwear?".
Amy let out an exasperated groan. "Excuse me, mister smartpants, but I was in this situation because of you". Placing her hand on her hips. "If you hadn't pushed me into the mud all this would not have happened".
- "That was unintentional, and since when is an insult be smart?".
Amy took a deep breath, biting onto her tongue to hold the words which she want to scream at him. "Look, we shouldn't talk anymore". She sighed. "I'll start cleaning in the back and you can start in the entrance, so we will not have to see each other, alright?".
- "Seem right". Sheldon said, putting on his gloves and looking at the products in his bucket, while Amy scattered steadily towards the back of the room.
Amy walked muttering to the back of the room, unpacking the cleaning products and starting with the books of the last shelf. The minutes passed in silence while in her hands the books slipped by. Darwin, Matt Ridley, Edward O. Wilson ... authors with which Amy had fallen in love with science, biology and reading since she was a little and lonely girl in California.
She had never been the Californian type of girl. She had never been tanned, nor spend the days under the sun at the beach. She had never learned how to surf or waited for the weekend to go shopping or goes to a party. Her mind was stimulated with good books and classic music and her Saturdays consisted on watching the house on the prairie, or playing the harp in her room, alone, always alone.
It seemed like a good idea to come here, to start from zero and finally have a summer which she could remember with joy and friends, but it seems that it will never happen. Amy sighed, placing one of the perfectly cleaned books onto the shelf, while a tear slid down her cheek.
- "Here are hundreds of books". Sheldon exclaimed suddenly. "Dr. Gablehauser is crazy if he thinks we can finish this in time for dinner".
- "I think he wants us to call him Eric". Amy pointed out while continuing with her task.
- "Please". Sheldon buffed. "What kind of scientist would choose to be called without his title?". He said, rolling his eyes.
- "Well, when you have your own PhD, you can make everyone call you Doctor".
- "I already have one, but unfortunately due to my age most of them omit it". Sheldon clarified.
- "What?. You have a PhD?". She asked him, leaving the bucket on the floor and approaching to Sheldon with wide eyes.
Sheldon watched as that young woman approached to him briskly with a surprised expression. Her long and dark hair was collected with a pencil that stuck out, and the blue sweatshirt was too huge, hiding her fine and beautiful figure. "What?". Sheldon shouted at himself, shaking his head at the memory of her in that pink underwear in front of him.
- "Sorry what?". Sheldon asked, swallowing as she stood in front of him with her hands on her hips.
- "Do you have a PhD? How old are you?". Amy was amazed, that arrogant young man couldn't be much older than her, it was true that he was much taller than her, but his skin and eyes don´t lie.
- "I'm sixteen, of course". He said as if it was the most normal thing in the world while Amy stared at him with a wide open mouth. "I went to university when I was 11 and I have just received my doctorate last year". Sheldon began to explain while Amy watched him curiously, thinking that probably he was the coolest boy she ever had met.
- "They also advanced me classes in high school, I'm going to the university next fall, to Harvard, I have a full scholarship and I intend to get my PhD before I´m 21". Amy said secure of herself.
There were just a few things in her life that Amy could boast of, with no friends or social life all she has were her studies, they had become all her world, and she was good, very good at it, better than most of the people she knew, and every step she had taken had been meticulously prepared, so the next five wouldn't be different.
- "I'm sure you will". Sheldon smiled at her, returning his gaze to the bookshelf.
- "I'm Amy, by the way". She smile at him. "I think no one introduce us yet".
- "No, they didn't". Sheldon turned his gaze back to her. "I'm Sheldon, Sheldon Cooper". Sheldon stretched his hand, squeezing it with her firmly.
- "Nice to meet you, Doctor Cooper". Amy said, winking at him as he answered her with a laugh and nodding his head.
Sheldon felt a chill run through his body, making his skin goosebump. It was not the first time he heard someone call him by his title, indeed, at six, he tried to make it his official name but he it didn't get the expected results. But there was something in the way she said it, her tone of voice or the way her lips caressed each other, something which made it sound like the most exciting word in the dictionary.
And as if everything else had vanished both started talking while they continued cleaning. The minutes went by as the conversations between them flowed. They began to realize how much they had in common, science was for both their passion and they soon started to challenge each other in questions as complicated as they could think.
When the front of the room was almost finished, Doris, the assistant of the director brought a couple of sandwiches and some cans of coke for them. Sheldon had´t noticed that it was almost 2 pm, and since his customary breakfast at 6 am with his mother, he hadn't eaten a bite. He always had thought that an interesting conversation was much more pleasant than any food, even having to skip his lunch schedule, and with Amy, the conversation was, undoubtedly, an intellectual feast.
- "Amy, would you like to play a game that I invented?". Sheldon asked, as he left his turkey sandwich on the plate and took a sip of his coke.
- "Sure, I love games, what is it about?". She said smiling.
Amy was excited, she loved games, although many of hers were not so fun alone, like the twister or the ping pong, which despite of having an excellent serve hadn´t gone from there.
- "It's called counterfactuals, I postuled and alternative world that differs from ours in one key aspect and then pose questions to each other". Sheldon explained, while Amy finished her sandwich.
- "Sounds fun, I always like a good brain teaser".
- "Alright, I will start so you can see how its working". He said, giving himself a few seconds to think. "In a world where rhinoceroses are domesticated pets, who wins the Second World War?". He asked with a wicked smile. "Don't worry if you don't hit it, it takes a while to catching the game".
Amy looked at him while squinting her eyes. "Uganda". She answered firmly as Sheldon opened his mouth incredulous.
- "Wh- what?". He murmured.
- "Kenya rises to power on the export of rhinoceroses, a Central African power block is formed, colonizing North Africa and Europe. When war breaks out, no one can afford the luxury of a rhino. Kenya withers, Uganda triumphs". Amy explained quickly, with the certainty that someone would recite the alphabet. "Is that correct, right?".
Sheldon gulped as he blinked hastily in front of her. In the ten years since he had invented this game, no one had given a correct answer, not even his professors at the university or his most recent roommate, Yin, who after twenty failed attempts stopped trying to the dismay of Sheldon.
- "Fascinating". He just could murmured, while Amy returned to her sandwich with a smile.
Both played game after game until the night had almost darkened the library. Amy had laughed more in the last hours than she can remember in the last few years. Sheldon was undoubtedly the most similar person to her she had ever met, so much that it seemed like a dream.
- "Oh, I have a new game". Sheldon said excitedly, while he placed the last books into the bookshelf. "It's called Scientists. I will name three scientists and you will put in other the size of their contribution to their respective fields. You must only consider the contribution of the man to the field, not the validity of the field itself".
- "Sounds fun, you start". Amy said with a smile.
- "Alright. Babinski, Clark Maxwell and Dirac".
- "Too easy, Sheldon, of course, Babinski". She said quickly. "Come on, give me something more difficult".
- "Wait a moment, how can you choose Babinski over Maxwell or Dirac, are you lose your mind?".
- "Of course, Joseph Babinski is one of the most recognized and successful neurobiologists of history, compared to him theoretical physics is, what's the word I'm looking for?. Hmm, cute".
- "Are you suggesting the work of a neurobiologist could ever rise to the significance of a great physicist as Clarke Maxwell or Dirac?". Sheldon opened his mouth as he was about to lose it.
- "I'm stating it outright. Scientist like Babinski are mapping the neurological substrates that subserve global information processing, which is required for all cognitive reasoning, including scientific inquiry, making my research ipso facto prior in the ordo cognoscendi. That means it's better than every research you will ever do".
- "Excuse me, but a grand unified theory, insofar as it explains everything, will ipso facto explain neurobiology". He growled.
- "Yes, but if we are successful, we will be able to map and reproduce your thought processes in deriving a grand unified theory, and therefore, subsume your conclusions under my paradigm".
- "Well that's not happening anytime soon, you still need to get your diploma and doctorate, Fowler, until then …". Sheldon shook his hands triumphantly, while he saw the fury in her eyes.
- "You're not playing fair, Sheldon".
- "Doctor Cooper, don't forget it". Sheldon raised his eyebrow. "And now, silent, let the brilliant mind think". Sheldon said, opening a book. Amy stormed, throwing the bucket onto the ground and shaking her hands.
- "Argh." She screamed out loud, coming out in rage from the library. Never, in all her life, she had met someone as stubborn, self-centered and insensitive as Sheldon was. How could she even think, for a few hours, the idea of being his friend?.
- "Ridiculous!" She screamed at herself, while walking without a direction established by the camp.
It was practically night, and on the path only the lights of the cabins were on. Amy walked a few more meters until she realized that she was, in fact, lost. Covering her face with her hands, she sat on one of the steps as the tears of frustration, which she was trying to keep back, falling down her cheeks.
She was not crying for that stupid boy, she told herself. She had a lot of anger and accumulated fatigue. All day had been a disaster, and there were still four long weeks ahead. Instinctively, Amy let out her cry when suddenly a few steps on the ground made her jump from her seat.
- "Hey, sweetheart, are you ok?". A soft and tender voice asked her in the darkness.
Amy looked up, watching as a beautiful and ruby girl approached to her with a smile on her lips. Her hair fell on her shoulders, but had waves of having been picked up earlier. She was wearing a camp worker´s uniform, which Amy recognized immediately, and a bag in her hand.
- "Mmm" Amy hesitated. "Yes, I'm alright, I just had a bad day".
- "Well, then you're in luck, because the day is about to end". The girl joked, pointing to the dark starry sky.
- "Yes, what a luck". Amy laughed as the girl walked to her and sat beside her still with a bright and big smile on her face.
- "My name is Penny, what's your name?". The girl has big green bright eyes and a cute little nose. She was beyond beautiful, much more than the popular girls of her old High school. In fact, at her side, all those stupids looked like garbage bags with legs.
- "I'm Amy, Amy Farrah Fowler". She answered, drying her eyes.
- "Oh, You are that Amy?". Penny asked.
- "Oh no, everyone already knows what happened, right?". Amy covered her face with her hands, embarrassed, while tears started to fall again from her eyes.
- "Well, yes, but I was going to the library, I have your clothes". Penny placed the bag on her legs and looked at her. "Don't worry, tomorrow they will have something new to talk about". Penny lay a hand onto her shoulder, which was the nicest gesture since a long time.
- "It's the story of my life, whenever something good is going to happen to me, somehow it bothers everything. This was going to be a new start, I will make friends and have a great summer, for a change." Amy said and whipped her tears away.
- "Well, I can be your friend, something has changed already". She smiled.
- "But you barely know me, why are you going to want me as a friend?".
- "I don't need more, than to look at you to know that you are a sweet girl and that you are going to be an incredible friend". Penny stood up, offering her hand to Amy. "Come on, I will take you to the cafeteria for something to eat, you really need some chocolate".
-"Really? I thought it's already closed?". Amy said, getting up off the floor and shaking her clothes.
- "It is. But that will make it more interesting, don't you think?". Penny took Amy's arm and they both laughed as they walked down the dark camp.
Amy closed her eyes for a second, feeling the soft summer breeze on her face. The sky above their heads was completely full of stars, and only the sound of their footsteps and the crickets in the bushes filled the night. "It may be a great summer after all". She whispered.
Thanks so much for reading fellows. I'm so overwhelmed with all the reviews and love for this story, I have so much things in mind for this fic, and hope I can be able to make it real, and hope you can enjoy it with me!
A big thanks to my beta Linda, she always make some time for me and I will never been able to thank her enough. You rock!
Next week, new chapter!