Chapter Three
Cosima
"Cosima," Sarah said from across the lunch table. "Oi, could you help me with this maths homework?"
Cosima sighed. "I'm going have to start charging at this stage. Don't you even listen in class?"
"Yeah, 'course…" she protested. "What's Pythagoras Thorium again?"
"Oh my God, that's eight grade stuff."
She shrugged. "I didn't attend most of eight grade."
"Well, the math help room is open today. You could get help there."
Sarah reluctantly shut her book and stuffed it in her bag. "Fine." she muttered.
"Where you going, Manning?" Paul asked.
"Maths help room. Might do you good to come too, your clock in woodwork was as crooked as you."
"Ouch." He said in mock offence. "But at least I actually did mine. How many marks have they taken off for tardiness at this stage?"
"Enough that I might as well not bother handing it in." she said as she turned to leave.
Cosima didn't mean to come across so harsh to Sarah but she was nervous about her next class. She looked down the cafeteria table to see if there was anyone open for a non-'help me with homework' related conversation. As usual, everyone was busy chatting amongst themselves. Beth and Paul were laughing about something at the head of the table. With the exception of Alison, Paul was the person Beth was closest to. She loved him, Cosima had noted, but she was never convinced he felt the same way.
Alison and Felix were chatting next to the giddy couple. The two had formed a close friendship as they were both in the drama club. Felix mainly hung with Sarah, he followed her around everywhere. Paul also followed Sarah around, she'd noticed. He'd be more willing to start up a conversation with her than Beth. It seemed bother Beth a little but Alison was happy about it; she seemed to get jealous when Paul and Beth were together.
Cosima had observed all this from an outsider's perspective. She had never really felt a part of the group. She had come to Pearson at the start of the tenth grade when her family had moved from San Fran Sysco to Toronto due to her parent's work. Cosima had never minded her outcast status in the group before; she always assumed it was because Alison and Beth had been friends since middle school and three was a crowd. But that fact that the last members of the club, Sarah and Felix, were fitting in so well made her like she wasn't wanted. Not by the 'Clone Club' at any rate.
The bell rang and Cosima's heart began to race.
"What class do you have?" Beth asked.
"Biology." She replied with a nervous smile. "You?"
"I have French."
"Cograts on making the team, by the way." She added.
Beth smiled. "Thanks, but Bichtel Duncan is a teammate now and she's bitter I took her position." They began to walk to class, trying to avoid the stampede of students who were doing the same.
"We really need to think of a better mean name for her."
They exited the mess hall and fought against the masses that clogged the hallways to class rooms. Beth reached her destination and they parted ways. Cosima braved the rest of the trip to her class alone. On the way she thought about what she was going to say, what jokes she would crack and stories she would tell.
She walked into class, late as usual. Delphine sat on a bench near the front and smiled when she spotted Cosima. No matter how many times she saw Delphine, Cosima would always be in awe of her beauty. Her hair was a dark gold colour and her eyes a deep green. She was tall, slender and as far as Cosima was concerned, the most beautiful girl she'd ever laid eyes on.
"Bonjour, Cosima." Delphine greeted as Cosima took a notebook from her bag and sat on the stool next to her.
"Hey." She replied casually, not wanting to show how enthused she was to see her lab partner. "Did you finish the homework?"
Delphine nodded. "It was too easy by far."
Cosima smiled. Delphine was as beautiful as she was intelligent and the only person in the class that challenged her academically. She wanted to say more but before she could Mr. Parker entered the nosy classroom looking hurried.
"Sorry I'm late," he announced as he took a seat at his desk. "But the photocopy room is quite the hotspot at this time of year. Now, I've marked your tests- Scott could you hand them out?" Scott walked forward to collect the test papers and began passing them around. "Now you all did better than in the last topic…"
Cosima peered eagerly at her grade; A minus. That was an okay result, she supposed. "What'd you get?" She asked her lab partner.
Delphine smiled. "An A. And you?"
"A minus." She sighed. "I'll beat you next time."
"Don't be so sure."
"…congratulations to Delphine who got top of the class. And to Cosima was a close second…"
"I was a close second." Cosima argued.
Delphine grinned smugly. "Yes but still second."
Mr. Parker said, "Okay, now that we've finished our work on Biotechnology we're going to do a fun little project." There was a collective groan which the teacher ignored. "To gain a better understanding of genetically inherited characteristics, practically personality traits, we're all going to train lab rats to respond to a certain stimulus assess nature verses nurture." He disappeared into the store room for a few seconds and returned with a metal trolley that held cages of white mice. "Come on then, pick a subject."
Students rushed towards the front of the classroom to choose a mouse but Cosima got there first, determined to find the healthiest animal she could. She returned to her desk with a medium sized mouse with pink eyes and a small nose.
"He is very cute." Delphine said putting a finger between the bars of the cage for him to sniff. "What should we name him?"
"We shouldn't name him anything. We'll get too attached."
Delphine paused for a second before saying; "I think we should call him Thucydides."
"No…" Cosima huffed, "he looks much more like a Darwin. Not that he should have a name at all. But if he did have one it should be Darwin."
"Okay, Darwin it is." Delphine smiled.
Cosima glanced at the experiment outline that had just been passed to her. "Okay, it says here we have to think of the stimulus we're going to teach the mouse to respond to, record his progress over the course of a week and compare his behaviour to that of the rest of the class's mice."
"What should we teach him to respond to?"
"A song? A name? A certain word?" Cosima suggested.
Delphine pondered this for a moment. Cosima couldn't help but admire the way her brow crinkled when she was deep in thought, the way she looked down and focused on the floor like it would tell her the answer…
"A word." She said finally. "Yes, that would be good. But what word?"
"What about a French word or-"
"Cosima," Katja called from the desk behind her. "Do you have a pen, that I could… borrow?"
She turned around, nodded, and retrieved a stray pencil from her bag.
"Thank you, very much."
Delphine looked between the two in awe as usual. She still hadn't gotten over the fact the two looked so alike. "It is the strangest thing." she said, shaking her head in disbelief. "You are identical to each other. And you both are to others in school. It is… bizarre. Are you sure there is no relation?"
Cosima gave a small smile. Everyone else seemed to accept it and moved on. Not Delphine. She was curious about things, wouldn't settle until she had all the answers. Cosima loved that about her. Cosima loved everything about her. "Yes." she told her as she had told everyone else. She wanted to tell Delphine everything she knew about the situation, but could she be trusted? Would she tell the whole school everything about her and her friends? There was something strange about the fact that in one high school seven students looked completely identical. What if this went deeper than she thought?
But one look at Delphine and her concerns were disregarded. She was so beautiful-at the particular moment the sun beaming through the window made her golden hair look as though it was made of sunlight- and she was so smart and kind and caring…
Cosima took a deep breath. "Well, no, I'm not entirely sure. We could be related or… something else could be going on. Last year I asked my parents about my birth, like, if I was adopted or something and my mom got all weird about it telling me it was 'crazy to even think such a thing'. Dad just got all quiet and it was really strange, my parents are normally cool about stuff but all of a sudden they became Alison's parents. Speaking of which, Alison got grounded for asking her mom if she was her biological mother. Took away her car and everything. I had to walk to school during that week. It was not fun."
Delphine's eyes danced with excitement. "And what of the other girls? Elizabeth and, um, Sarah was it?"
"Beth can't get a straight answer out of her Dad. And, here's the wired part, Sarah just so happens to be an orphan. She has no idea who her biological parents are. Then there's Helena and Rachel and who knows how many other girls."
"Really?" Delphine asked, eyes wide. "So, do you think you are all sisters separated at birth? Or…"
"I think," Cosima smiled a little. Finally she could bounce her previously deemed 'crazy' theories off another curious mind. "I think we could be, don't laugh, like actually clones or something. We all joke about it but I mean, it all just seems too wired that we all look alike and just so happen to all be here at the same school. We could be some sort of experiment or something." She blushed when she realised how stupid her theories sounded aloud. "It's dumb, I know, but things like this don't happen without a reason."
"I think that you are right." Delphine replied, wonder on her face. "However, human cloning is impossible and illegal. How could someone of done this? Why could someone of done this?"
"I don't know.' sighed Cosima. It was questions like that which kept her up at night; the questions she didn't have the answers for. Not even speculated answers. "I really have no idea."
Delphine's smile grew wider and Cosima felt her heart melt just a little more. "We could try to figure it out, yes? Be detectives, except the microscopes are the magnifying glasses and the trench coats are the lab coats."
"You mean we investigate the science of this? See if me and the other girls are genetically identical?"
"Oui."
Cosima couldn't help but smile. She loved when Delphine spoke French. Or did anything. "Sounds great. We could use the lab on Thursday lunch. Science Club normally takes place then and I know a guy who can get us in. Are you free next Thursday?"
"Next Thursday I am trying out for the school musical but the week after next I will be happy to meet you at lunch."
"Where are the tryouts? I'd like to be there, you know, for moral support."
"In the hall." she said. "Now, we have been chatting for far too long. I have to ask the teacher about the next exam. Excuses me."
As Delphine made her way up to the teacher's desk Cosima looked at the little white mouse in the cage on her desk. "Looks like you're not the only science project we're going to be working on, Darwin." she said. "I mean, little mouse. I can't call you Darwin, I might get too attached. It'll just end badly if I get too attached."