AUTHOR'S NOTES: Here is the second one. A lot longer and it helped me get into gear for writing my Born This Way Sequel and could be considered kind of part of that series.
85. Spiral-
Shawn drummed his fingers on his desk, trying not to listen to his 9th grade teacher talk about genetics. He had enough trouble trying not to think of his own genetics on a daily basis without Ben Stein up there yammering away."Blah blah blah, chromosomes. Blah blah blah, 46 pairs." Glancing over at his best friend Gus, he saw the other teen was held in rapt attention, jotting down everything the teacher said in neat little notes. The only writing on his own paper was a crude drawing of a spiraling strand of DNA. Shawn added a bit more to the drawing, putting in more detail and shading.
"Does anyone know how many pairs of chromosomes come from each parent?" Gus' hand shot up faster than anyone else in the class… if anyone else had bothered to raise their hand that is. The instructor nodded for Gus to give his answer.
"Each parent contributes 23 genetic pairs." Gus beamed.
Nodding the instructor turned to the blackboard. "Very good Burton. Yes, each parent contributes half of the 46 pairs."
Now half listening, Shawn continued to work on his drawing, occasionally grabbing a colored pen from his backpack. He saw the teacher glance at him once and a while, showing a bit of annoyance that he was drawing in class but not stopping the lecture to say anything. Gus also noticed and smacked him on the arm when the teacher wasn't looking.
"Ow man! What the heck?" Shawn hissed at Gus who had just smacked him in the arm.
Gus glared at Shawn. "I am not letting you copy my notes this time Shawn. You need to get your head out of your ass and pay attention once and a while. He said at the beginning of class he was going to give us an assignment on this."
Lowering his voice so the teacher wouldn't hear him, he whispered, "Gus, don't be a cover band of Spinal Tap. I'll be fine."
Tsk-ing, Gus figured it was useless and proceeded to ignore Shawn and his doodling for the rest of the class. "If he wants to fail then so be it." He thought.
Near the end of the first hour, the instructor, true to his word, wrote an assignment on the board for them to complete for the second hour. Most of the class groaned but when Gus saw it his jaw dropped. He looked over at Shawn who was just putting the finishing touches on what looked like a professional drawing of a DNA strand, complete with shading, color coding and labels. Exactly what the assignment for the next day was, however it was supposed to be done in teams.
Ignoring Gus' stare and almost before the instructor put the chalk down Shawn brought up the drawing and plopped it on his desk. "Me and Gus are done already. Can we leave early?" The teacher looked at Shawn in shock and the teen took the silence as a yes, grabbing Gus from his desk and pulling him out the door.
"Dude, lets head down to the cafeteria for an early lunch. They are having tater tots today!" Shawn was either ignoring Gus' incredulous looks or completely oblivious to them while thinking of food so Gus decided to be proactive.
"Shawn! How did you know he would give that assignment?"
Shrugging he explained. "As we were walking into class I saw him shuffle some papers and he had a note on one of them about it."
"You are scary sometimes you know that right?" Gus raised an eyebrow at his friend.
"Scary good you mean." Shawn replied with a goofy grin.
Remembering the food Gus asked, "You said there would be tater tots for lunch?" Shawn nodded, "I'll eat me some tots."
"That's the spirit!" Shawn clapped his friend on the back and headed for the lunch room.
"Uh, you know we are an hour early for this right Shawn?" Gus realized and felt the need to remind Shawn too.
Giving Gus a charming smile Shawn replied, "I have my ways, plus the lunch ladies love me. I am sure I can sweet talk them into giving us something early."
"That's just all kinds of wrong…" Gus trailed off as he tried not to think of the 68 year old lunch lady being sweet talked by his best friend.