Part Ten: Comparing Notes
Rated: T
He nodded, setting the weapon he held into his lap and starting up the car again, and pulled them into a forest area before shutting it off completely. She unbuckled and turned to have one leg propped up against the back of her seat, one leg hanging over and her back leaning against the door so she could face him.
"I've been doing a project for art; it's been a two-parter. The first part was to draw a stranger. I tried to draw a stranger and all I came up with was you…"
"I'm not a stranger," he protested.
She smiled sadly, "Yeah you are Kev, you're my best friend and yet all I know about you is what happened during that summer and what you do now. I don't know anything else about your past or how you've the skills you do…"
"You don't need to know."
"But I want to know…"
"No you don't, you'll never talk to me again."
"Yes I will. But we'll talk later about it okay," he nodded and she smiled, "Good, now as I was saying you were my stranger; it was simple enough. I was finished before everyone else and was given a bunch of busywork but now she set me on the second part. Apparently we're supposed to draw the theoretical offspring of ourselves and our strangers…"
He nodded, not saying anything and not looking her in the eyes, "Can I see?"
She nodded, pulling her folder for the project from her bag, opening her sketchbook to the right page and handing it to him, explaining, "It's only a rough draft; the final one'll be on a big canvas and done in oil pastels…" he didn't say anything as he stared at the black and white and messy penciled drawing, she bit her lip but continued on, "We have to draw at least one boy and one girl but they can't be younger than thirteen…"
"Why thirteen?" he grunted; his eyes still on the paper.
"By thirteen children mostly have the basic look that they'll have as adults."
"They look too much like me," he told her, although it was murmured, "not enough you."
"I thought so too but your traits are much more common than mine."
"So this's what's bothering you?"
"Yeah; stupid right?"
"Why's it bothering you?"
She turned away from him, "Just embarrassing you know? We're just friends and I'm being made to draw…" she trailed off, flushing pink.
"You're lying," he told her once again.
"You'll think I'm crazy—"
"Like I'm one to talk…"
"—Like some crazy stalker or something…"
"Tell me."
"Fine…I've been having these weird daydreams where—"
"You're pregnant with my son?" he laughed in relief at her nod, "I thought I was really losing it there!"
"You too?!" she blanched, "You been having them too?!"
"Ever since two—"
"—thirty yesterday afternoon." She completed for him ecstatically, happy she wasn't alone in going insane, "And everything in them? They felt real and you could hear, see, and smell everything too right?"
"Yeah," he nodded, taken back when she laughed happily, "I woke up from the last one and I could've sworn my hand was broken because—"
"I, dream me anyways, was squeezing it too tightly as I gave birth!" she laughed some more, exhaustion making her almost delirious with glee.
He smiled, happy to see her so happy, before frowning, "I heard him, the baby, cry and then I woke up. I didn't even get to see him, hold him…" he sounded disappointed, upset even. She stopped laughing only to smile sadly, laying her hand over his, "Me neither."
He looked up at her, surprised, and she continued, "And I felt gyped too, trust me."
He chuckled wearily, "We're quite a pair huh? Going loony together."
"We'll be roommates at the Funny Farm, deal?"
"Deal." He grinned, "Want some help on your project?"
She smiled and nodded, "Sounds great actually."
She arrived to school late but nobody really minded because it was an unusual occurrence for her.
The day went by quickly and she worked with the possible genetic combinations in her free moments, she was just using the human genes; just thinking about adding Anodite genes into the mix gave her a headache and they didn't have a clue to Kevin's alien species.
It felt as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders; she wasn't alone in going insane!
The final bell rang and she walked out to where he waited for her, grinning happily at his smug, satisfied smirk.
"Ben?" she asked and he shook his head, "Nope, he's spending some 'quality time' with Julie."
"You gave him the—?"
"Yeah I did; I ain't gonna babysit any possible mistakes."
"You'll guard Julie while I kill Ben for her."
"As long as you video tape it." He opened her door for her, "Mr. Smoothy's?"
"Sure," she replied as he got in on his side before abruptly asking, "Have you got a bad feeling that something will go wrong for those two?"
"I just ignore it; it's none of our business."
"You're right."
TWO HOURS LATER
"I still think green eyes," he told her.
"Do you know how relatively rare green eyes are Kev?" she asked, "Especially when one parent has a more dominant color like brown?"
"Okay; look at it this way, you have green eyes, your brother has green eyes, your father has green eyes and Verdona has green eyes; and if we want to get picky about it so does Benji; face it, they run in your family."
She chewed her eraser, mulling his words over; he was right but then again he was brown eyed.
"Unless your genes are heterozygous for brown there's no way they'd end up with my green."
"Hetero-what?"
She sighed, "Heterozygous genes mean you have one allele (one half of a gene) for one color that 'covers up' the weaker allele for a different color. Genes can either be recessive or dominant; if they're recessive that means they're relatively rare to be displayed, dominant ones are by default stronger and the one that shows up in appearance. You could be carrying the recessive allele for green eyes but it's covered up by the more dominant one for brown. The only way for a recessive trait to show through is if you have two recessive alleles for the trait and not a dominant-recessive or dominant-dominant combo. My eye color is therefore unlikely because I'm double recessive and the only way our kids, or my kids with anyone else for that matter, would get green eyes would be for you to be carrying the recessive for green eyes. Heterozygous means that there's a dominant-recessive combo in play; Homozygous dominant is when someone has double dominant alleles for the same trait and Homozygous recessive is double recessive and when someone is conceived the sorting of genes and alleles is very random and one cannot control it without an expert geneticist and some lab equipment…yes Kev?" he had had his hand up for the last minute or two.
"When's nap time?"
She rolled her eyes at him but grinned goofily all the same.
"So let's say I'm hetero-whatever for eyes, what are the chances?"
"For green…?" she did a quick Punnett square, "Fifty-fifty, unless our alien blood makes it use different rules of heredity than humans."
"So why don't you give one of them green and the other brown?"
"Fine, coin-flip for it though."
He nodded, pulling out a quarter and saying, "Heads for boy, tails for girl; sound good?"
She nodded and he tossed it, catching it and revealing, "Heads."
She labeled the eyes for color and they moved on to hair color; he threw up his hands, "Red's pretty rare too I know that so lets just say black and save the bickering."
"Right." She labeled the sketch, "I think it's done."
She reached into her bag and pulled out a small square painter's canvas which, upon her whispering a couple Latin words, grew to average size. She laid it upon the table and laid the small rough draught on it before whispering a few more words; the penciled sketch vanished from the paper and transferred in its entirety, but on a larger scale, onto the bigger surface.
"Wicked."
She reached up and plucked a hair from her friend's head, "Ow!"
"Grow up," she rolled her eyes at him, "I needed a color sample."
Touching her fingertips to the canvas colors bled out bringing the picture to life in ways Normal art couldn't.
"They look like ghosts," she murmured, putting her finger to the skin areas and darkening them up a bit as if they often ran around in the sun. With another touch she added shading to give things a three dimensional look before pausing; things still didn't feel right to her. With another touch she replaced the background and the painted children moved to fit. It was a backyard scene, the two kids relaxing under a tree.
"There, done…See…" She held up the image and he nodded, his face stoic; "I like it; they look happy. You better get an A on this or I'll be talking to that teacher…"