Chapter Seven:
After Penny had persuaded Mrs Hofstadter to send a copy of the argument to her for YouTube purposes (she couldn't believe that that wasn't what Mrs Hofstadter had had in mind for the video, no Beverly Hofstadter wanted to analyse it for her book) she needed to go back to her apartment. Her brother said that he would be there half an hour ago, but Penny knew that he would be at least an hour late, which would give her time to upload the video.
Penny wondered how many more arguments she would be missing out on by staying to let her brother in. The arguments between Sheldon, George and their mother weren't exactly the normal arguments that you would expect people to have with their mother. Neither were the arguments between Leonard and his mother. She was so glad that she hadn't been born into either family.
Living with Sheldon would be bad enough, having heard about the itching powder and death ray, but Leonard's family. Yeah, if Leonard was the disappointing child she wasn't sure exactly where she would be. And if Leonard being a genius at all types of science and writing only got Cs in his Christmas papers.. She wondered how low the grades went. We're there Fs? Lower than that? She imagined that her paper about the influence of holidays would have been something along the lines of: 'people got really bored throughout the year, so at the end they decided to have a giant party with loads of alcohol. Bad decisions were made, but ultimately it helped with continuing the species.'
Yep, she would have definitely failed. That said, she would probably end up getting much higher marks on a social skills test than Leonard would, and far higher marks than Sheldon or Mrs Hofstadter. And did quantum physics really matter so much that people had to spend their lives writing equations on boards to explain it? Actually, Leonard's job was pretty cool, he got paid to play with lasers.
She thought back to when they had done a pop culture quiz. And she had had to point out to Sheldon that no, knowing all of the voice actors starring in the original star wars trilogy didn't count as 'popular culture'. The pop culture quiz would have probably made a great YouTube video too. In fact, if she could get hidden cameras on Sheldon, she was pretty sure that she could give up being an actress and a waitress and settle for being a successful YouTuber.
A few minutes after the video got it's first comment (Lol, I 'accidentally' got high a few times too. And I totally didn't know that it was weed that was growing in my room- I totally remember buying ferns for my study area..), Penny heard a knock on the door. Must be Jacob seeing as she couldn't hear three knocks, then her name on repeat.
She swung open the door. Her brother Jacob was fatter than she remembered him and was wearing plain clothes. He had some scabs across his face- meth scabs she thought- and his teeth were ugly, but otherwise he looked well enough. If Mrs Cooper was having suspicions about George being on hard drugs, she had no idea what she would think of Jacob.
She thought for a second about what Sheldon and Leonard would say if she introduced him as a chemist. From the looks of things, it didn't look like he had quit his chemistry and it seemed to be going well- meth lab explosions were pretty common. And he would have probably called her if he got put in prison again.
"Hi Penny!" he said. "It's been a long time since I've seen you, little sis."
"Yeah," she said awkwardly. "When was it.. It must have been that time when I brought you a cake with a piece of metal in it for you when you were in prison a few years ago. Good memories.."
"That was nice of you." Jacob followed her back into her apartment. "That became a good shiv. Didn't stab anyone with it though, don't like violence. Just for self defence, there were some real scumbags in there with me. Got anything to eat? It's being a three hour plane journey and I haven't eaten since this morning."
"Sorry, me and my neighbours just had pizza. Their families are down for Christmas as well. There are a few leftover slices, we could go over there and microwave them up?"
"Sure, sounds good. They won't mind me coming, will they?"
"Nah, it'll be fine." Penny wasn't sure that it would be fine, she was actually pretty sure that it would interrupt Sheldon's homeostasis (whatever homeostasis was) and last time she did that she had been told very firmly that homeostasis was not a good thing to interrupt. It was a Sheldon thing though, Leonard didn't seem to mind.
"So what're they like?"
"Uhh.." Penny trailed off. How did you describe Sheldon? "Well one of them is really tall and thin and kind of looks like a preying mantis- but he's super smart and has an eidetic memory. He's a physicist, so he spends all his time on his computer and writing equations and stuff. He's really OCD. And a geek. That's Sheldon."
"He sounds creepy. And what's an eidetic memory?" "He just remembers everything that he's ever seen or heard. And yeah, he is kind of creepy. His mother and brother are staying at the moment though. They're pretty normal. His mother's a pretty strong Christian and they just had a discussion about Sheldon's brother using drugs, so you might not want to tell them exactly what kind of chemist you are."
"OK then. Was the brother actually doing drugs? Cause, you know, a man's got to make a living."
"No, he smoked a bit of weed sixteen years ago. And you promised that you wouldn't mix family and business. I'm not picking you up if she calls the police on you." "OK, chill sis. I won't sell him drugs. So what are the rest like?"
"Well Leonard's just a regular guy, but really smart. Geeky too, all the boys are. His mother's with him too. She's like a female Sheldon but worse. She made me cry after talking to me for three minutes. She's a neuroscientist and psychiatrist and really unemotional. Howard and Raj aren't there at the moment, but they'll probably come tomorrow. Raj can't talk in front of women and Howard talks too much in front of women."
"How did Leonard's mother make you cry?"
Jacob was still protective. "It was nothing, just some staircase psychoanalysis."
He nodded. Penny didn't think he understood the meaning of what she just said, but she let it go. She didn't really want to talk with him about how her father treated her too much like a girly girl when she was younger and how that made her feel. And she definitely didn't want to break down in tears in front of him. They crossed over into the other apartment. Sheldon looked alarmed at her unannounced entrance and she smiled at him.
"Hi guys, this is my brother Jacob."
Jacob looked around at the people. The one with the alarmed expression had to be Sheldon; he sort of saw what Penny meant when she said that he looked like a giant preying mantis. Then the guy with the tattoo, that had to be Sheldon's brother. There was an old woman holding an iPad, probably Leonard's mother. Leonard must be the short guy. And then the one leftover was Sheldon's mother.
"Yeah, hi, Penny said that there was some leftover pizza?"
"There are a few slices, shall I microwave them up for you?" Leonard asked.
"Sounds good."
Leonard got up and Jacob sat down on one of the stools around the table. The pizza came back a few minutes later and he bit into it, the cheese dribbling down his chin. He wiped it off with one hand. That was actually really good pizza, especially after having not eaten since a breakfast of bland cereal.
"So you must be Penny's brother," Leonard said. "So how long are you staying?"
"Only a few days."
"Got to go back to work after that?"
"Yeah," Jacob replied. His clients tended to miss him if he was gone too long.
"So what do you do for a living?" Leonard asked.
"Penny told us you were 'kind of a chemist'," Sheldon cut in. "How can one be kind of a chemist? You are either a chemist or you aren't."
"I have a job, but I use chemistry to make things in my spare time to make ends meet."
"Oh, OK, what sort of things do you make?" Sheldon asked. "Most people prefer to buy their products from shops as they are better produced there. Or does your company have a lab that you can use in your spare time?"
"My company? No way do they have a lab. They're a restaurant chain. And you can't really buy these things in shops as cheaply as you can from me."
"The waiter gene," Sheldon muttered. Jacob glared at him. "You didn't say what you made, that was my question."
"Crystals," he said. "All the women in my area love my crystals. Diamonds and all of those are just too expensive to buy."
"Now I see. You are a chemist in your spare time, but get paid for doing chemistry. I would say that counts as being a chemist."
George Cooper grinned. If there was anything that would distract his mother from his possible drug use, it would be Jacob. He wondered how the other guys hadn't yet caught onto the fact that his crystals were actually crystal meth. Jacob wasn't a great liar, that said, his accidentally getting high lie wasn't too brilliant either.
He wondered if it would be mean to torment Jacob with the knowledge of his business over the meal. He decided that it probably would be after his own nagging about drug use, but on the other hand, it would be a lot of fun and probably no harm would be done. After all, he would be the only one able to recognise the business because the others were either too Christian, too nerdy or related to Jacob.
"So can I see some of your crystals?" he asked smiling.
"Um, yeah sure." Jacob reached into his pocket and withdrew a small bag of clear crystals, each one around half a centimetre in diameter. He emptied a few onto his hand. "Pretty, aren't they?"
"Those are beautiful," George's mother said. "Can I hold some?"
Jacob pushed some of the crystals off into Mary's hand.
"These would look great in a necklace or maybe a bracelet. I know this person who lives near me in Texas, and if you give her the crystals or metal, then she can make jewellery to your specifications. Can I buy some?"
George's grin became wider. Perhaps if his mother chewed him out about a little bit of weed again, he could point out that she bought crystal meth.
"If you want. How many would you like?" Jacob asked her.
"Three," Sheldon's mother said. "Three would make a nice bracelet. And I could get her to set them in silver, I think I have some lying around. How much are they?"
"Three crystals will be £20.00 please," Jacob said. He wanted to charge a bit more, the meth was certainly worth more, but if he was going under the pretence of selling cheap jewels, that seemed about right. This had to be the first time that anybody had accidentally bought crystal meth with the intention of putting it in a bracelet. Maybe the jeweller would recognise it and point it out. By then it would be too late for her to report him to the police though.
"That's a pretty good price," Mary said. "I do love a bargain."
She pushed a note into Jacob's hand and he passed her the crystals in another of the sealed bags that he carried in his pocket.
"Careful, they're fragile," he warned.
Mary put the bag in her pocket, pleased with her purchase.
"Isn't it interesting how Jacob is interested in the more feminine pursuit of making jewellery, whereas Penny prefers more masculine activities such as football," Beverly pointed out.
"Yes, interesting," Sheldon agreed.
"Well now that I've eaten, I'd better go back to Penny's place and unpack," Jacob said. Now things were just getting odd. He knew from the smile that George Cooper gave him as he got up that George knew about the business, but wouldn't tell him. Unfortunately, it also implied that his crystals would be getting a lot of free advertising around the apartment block.
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I hope you enjoyed the chapter and the introduction to Penny's "kind of a chemist" brother. Thanks for reading and please leave a review.
-MoonOfPluto
