Chapter two: Differences
The biology lesson had started ten minutes ago when Liz saw somebody slip in. It was Max Evans with a pencil in his mouth and a bag on his shoulder.
"Mr Evans!", the teacher hissed, "It's an honor for me to see you're here in class"
Max blushed a bit and started to watch his shoes after this sentence.
The teacher ignored him and went on to tell the students what to do in this lesson:
"Okay, ladies and gentlemen, today we want to take a look at cells. The students sitting on the left hand side have to take a look at some cells of their mouth, the students on the right hand side get preparations of plant-cells"
"Uhm, Madame, am I allowed to leave class for a moment? I don't feel very well", Max asked nervously.
"Okay", the teacher replied. Her pale face showed that she was not very pleased about letting him leave her lesson again.
Max stood up and went fast towards the door.
He crashed into the girl who had just entered the room. All of her books fell to the ground making a lot of noise. Every person of the class turned around to look at both sixteen-year-olds.
Max stammered an apology to the girl, helped to pick up the books and left the room very fast without realizing who the new one in class was.
The girl smiled in a very shy way and handed her teacher a small sheet of paper. After reading it the teacher nodded.
"Attention please", she said loudly, "We've a new student in class" She used the piece of paper to point at the inconspicious girl next to her.
"Please introduce yourself !", she added a more friendly way.
The girl stepped along the teacher's desk and stopped in the middle of it where everybody was able tho see her.
"Hi", the girl started trying hard to look self-confident, "I'm Emily Frost and I'm from Washington, D.C. and ..." She did not know how to go on and started to stammer. She blushed.
Some students chuckled quietly about her.
"Thank you, Miss Frost!", the teacher said, "Please sit down"
Emily smiled, walked throught the room. The sixteen-year-old chose the seat behind Liz's one.
Liz turned around and opened her mouth, but the teacher, a woman at the age of fourthy with curly brown hair and gold framed glasses, interrupted her before she could say anything.
"Use your microscopes to examine these preparations", her voice hissed to make the pupils pay their attention to the lesson and not to the new girl. The woman handed Liz one of them and waited until the girl had turned around again.
Liz did not want to look at this boring cells. She did not even knew what kind of plant they were taken from!
She looked around and stopped at Max's pencil. In that moment she made a decision, in fact a quite silly one. She took his pen and the cotton bud the teacher had put next to Max's microscope. Liz used it rub over the pencils surface to get some of his cells.
`It's the most stupid idea I've ever had', she told herself while making a preparation.
`Okay', she tought and looked through the lense of her microscope, `Oh, my god ... what's that?'
She gasped loudly.
"Ev'rything okay?", Emily asked from behind Liz.
"Come here and find out yourself!", the brown-haired girl invited her. Her eyes sprakled nervously and showed how outcuraged she was.
Emily turned around, watched the teacher walking towards two quarreling students who seemd to have a "few" problems with the microscopes on their desk and also with each other.
"Okay", she said curiously and got up still observing the teacher. The girl sneaked around her own desk an sat down at Max's chair.
"Look at this and tell me EXACTLY what you see!", Liz beseeched Emily pointig at her microscope.
She nodded and took a close look at the preparation her friend had made.
A wonderful green pattern twinkeld brightly through the lense and formed incredible clouds of emerald crystalls.
"Liz? I need a sheet of paper!"
"Why?", Liz wanted to know looking a bit puzzled. Quickly she took out what Emily had asked for.
"To keep this", she answered lost in thoughts.
Emily took Max's pencils and started to draw the cells. Lines and structures were flowing over the paper forming a copy of the picture they had seen. Liz followed every move of Emily's right hand. The image would be perfect, almost like a photo. Liz could not believe how quickly the girl next to her was drawing. Her hand flew to every direction filling the piece of paper in high speed. Liz became a bit dizzy, had to shaked her head to keep herself awake.
"Okay, that's it!", Emily said finally and showed her snow-white teeth in a wide grin, "That's exactly what I saw!"
"Where did you learn to draw like that", Liz said wondering about the picture, but she stopped talking when she noticed the teacher turning around and coming towards them. She had almost arrived the two girls, when the door of the class room was opened.
"Mr Evans!", the older lady hissed sharply viewing how he entered the room.
"Yeah, Ma'am?", he asked trying hard to look very innocent.
Emily used the time to get back to her own seat. `Thanks, Max Evans', she thought and let herself fall on her chair.
"You know, what you're going to do this afternoon, Mr Evans?", she heard the teacher shouting at Max and realized the the boy giving her an annoyed: "Of course, Ma'am! I'm goin' to lern what I missed this lesson" and how he sat down next to her friend Liz.
Liz turned around and whispered: "What do you think about that?" She pointed at the image lying in front of the blue-eyed girl covered with a couple of books.
Emily thought about it for a moment and decided: "It's cofusing!"
She noticed that Max tied to look bored, but in fact he was listening to what their little talk.
Liz had still not realized his interest and said: "It's incredible, isn't it?"
"Faszinating", Emily replied sounding like Mr Spock.
"What's faszinating, Miss Frost?", the teacher asked seriously taking her glasses away from her pale nose and putting them it into the pocket of her blouse.
Emily turned around and stared into the cool eyes of the woman that almost looked like two deep black pieces of coal. The girl got up and faced the older lady.
She did not want to say "nothing", so she started to do what she was always doing in situations like that, lying or "inventing a new version of the truth", how she often called it.
"Cells", she said calmly.
The teacher began to smile in a friendly way and told her to go on.
"Well, we're all made from cells, but there are so many differences between us, for example the colour of our hair and eyes, our characters, our sexes or other things that distinguish us. (She watched Max, while she spoke about that and gave him a little smile, when he started to look very seriously into her deep blue eyes.) Cells are what makes us human beings, what makes animals animals and plants plants. They are the material of all forms of live, but they still support the principle of individuality. That's incredible and faszinating"
When she realized that every student in the room including Liz and Max viewed her, her face turned rosy and she sat down very quickly.
"I have to confess that I'm really impressed about the things you told us", the teacher said, "And what-"
The bell rang and interrupted the teacher. The lesson was over and most of the students tried to escape from the biology laboratory as fast as possible.
Max was one of them and had disappeared before Liz and Emily arrived the door.
***