4
On Monday Duo boarded the bus humming. He was still riding on the residual happiness of the weekend, the good weather had held over and the sky was blue and clear. Duo sat down in his usual seat. Cat and Trowa climbed aboard, sitting across from him, the two were already engaged in a discussion. Duo decided that he wouldn't bother interrupting them. Instead he looked out the window and hummed to himself, his thoughts wandering.
Monday turned out to be an interesting day, both bad and good. The grade was told to gather that morning instead of going to home room. It was announced that they had a big term project. They were going to learn about the history of flight, planes and jets and gliders etc. Eventually they would be presenting at the local air and space museum. Presenting? Duo wasn't sure he liked the sound of that. He was a social person, but talking in front of big crowds wasn't necessarily his thing.
Cat though was in heaven, "Oh, this is going to be great, want me to help you write your speech Duo?"
"Um…maybe." Duo was still trying to process everything.
"Because of the Culminating Event of this term, we're going to be dividing you into groups. You're going to work on different subjects based on which group you're doing. Also you are going to be doing one major piece of partner work and an individual piece as well. This will all be determined by what you are interested in, and who you would like to work with, we're passing out papers now, please fill them out and turn them in to this basket. When you're done you have free time till first period." The teacher explaining concluded. Duo took the paper and pencil when the student handing them out came by. He looked over the paper. Huh.
Preferred partners (name three) be sure to list them in order of importance. Duo thought a long while before answering that one. Quatre and Hilde were his best friends; he would gladly work with them, but for the third. He knew who he wanted to spend more time with, but was it too much to ask. And that "in order of importance bit", they were all important. Finally he settled on answering: Quatre, Heero, Hilde.
Subject of interest, circle three: military aircraft, commercial aircraft, sporting aircraft, hangers aircraft carriers and aircraft assistors, history, people. Duo chose military aircraft, aircraft carriers, and people.
With the form filled out Duo dropped it in the basket and went to sit by Cat and Trowa.
"What's the scoop, any plans?" Duo asked plunking down in the empty seat.
"Well, a study group is in order, but once we know who's paired with whom." Cat explained, "Now we have free time, scrabble?" Cat motioned to the board Wufei was bringing over.
"Sure. Teams?" Duo agreed.
"Me and Trowa, Wufei and Hilde, you and Heero." Cat said handing out the tile holders as Hilde and Heero came over and joined them. "We'll go clockwise, Wufei, Hilde you're up." They put their heads together murmuring over their tiles before laying out the word "m-u-s-e".
"Now you and Heero." Duo had been studying their words, they couldn't have started, but if they used the 'e'…he leaned over to confer with Heero. Heero placed the pieces out "x-i-t".
"Exit, your turn."
"Nice use of an x." Cat complemented as Trowa laid out their tiles, "a-p" for "map". Heero nudged Duo to point out a way for them to use the "a", and Duo nodded and placed the pieces once Wufei and Hilde had gone.
By Wednesday the teachers had figured out partner arrangements. They would be announced in morning home room. Duo was playing Set with Dorothy, Catherine, and Hilde. Set was a game where you matched cards into "sets" of three, and whoever had the most sets at the end won. Heero was at the nearest table typing into his laptop, an improvement from his back corner at least. Wufei was late. Wufei swam in the mornings, being on a swim team, and when traffic was particularly bad on his way back from the pool he was often late. But he arrived, hair slicked back and damp, before the announcement was given.
"The partners for this assignment will be as follows: Hilde and Sally; Quatre and Relena; Rick and Mara; Barret and Jeffery; Duo and Heero; Wufei and Catherine; Dorothy and Trowa." The teacher read off her list. "Each group has been given a different plane to report on. Hilde and Sally have the Curtis Robins, Quatre and Relena have the DC-3, Rick and Mara have the Cessna, Barret and Jeffery have the Aero-Car, Duo and Heero have the Piper Cub, Wufei and Catherine have the Black Bird, and Dorothy and Trowa have the Albatross. You'll find out your individual assignments later this week. Today we're changing our Core structure so you can get a bit of time to research. We're going to change our schedule completely next week so you'll have adequate research time, you'll do research in science, math in math, and speech writing in English, in social studies you'll be learning about the history of aviation. But for today we'll just do research.
Duo gathered up the set cards and stored them on the bookshelf before walking over to Heero.
"We'll use your laptop?" Duo questioned.
"Hn. I suppose." Heero's fingers were already directing Google to cough up information on the piper cub.
"I'll work on this; you should look over the bookshelves to see if our library has anything." Heero directed, staring that the plasma screen. Duo shrugged.
"Okay. See you in a bit." He ran up to the second floor where the library was. This was going to be an interesting project.
At lunch everyone was busy discussing their new projects, their likes and dislikes.
"The blackbird is awesome!" Catherine informed them, "Not only is it one of the fastest planes but, you know area 51, the one with all the alien saucer sightings?"
"Uh-huh." Said Hilde looking up from her spaghetti
"Well, a lot of those were blackbird sightings. It was all secret because the government didn't want anyone knowing about them so when people saw the blackbird test pilots zoom by they thought it must be aliens!"
"That's pretty cool." Quatre agreed. "Our plane isn't very special, although it was one of the first really successful passenger carrying planes. It even had a special sleeper version."
"That's cool, it's not amazing like the blackbird, but we gotta have some normal planes right?" Duo offered.
"I suppose." Cat nodded. "What's the Cub like?"
"Dunno, Heero was on the internet, I was looking at our library. There's one book with the Piper in it, but I haven't read it yet."
"What'd you find out Heero?" Cat prodded.
"It's a reconnaissance plane. They were used in one of the world wars. I'll be getting more information."
"Hey, there's a library near my house." Cat offered. "You could all come over and we could get books. Besides I have apple trees and they're finally ripe. They need to be picked and turned into applesauce."
"Applesauce?" Hilde asked, "why not apple pie filling?"
"We've done that before, my sister likes to make pie filling, but we have so many apples that it's easier to make applesauce. The more hands the merrier I say. I've already recruited Trowa. You all wanna come, Duo, Heero, Wufei?"
"I'm coming." Hilde nodded. "I'll do pie fillings and you guys can do applesauce. I can always just take some home."
"Take as much as you want."
"I think I can come. What day?" Duo asked, trying to remember what his foster mother had said the weekend schedule was.
"Well, Friday would be good." Cat suggested, "You could all ride the bus home with me. Sleep over if you want?"
"Dad might throw a fit." Hilde laughed.
"I dunno, I've got this family thing this weekend." Wufei abdicated.
"Oh, family thing. We all know that excuse." Sally laughed lightly punching Wufei's arm.
"Ow, woman, what do you think I am? A punching bag?"
"Not just any punching bag, my punching bag." Sally said wrapping an arm around Wufei. "I won't be able to come either. I actually have an excuse; I'm going to be volunteering at the animal shelter."
"Good luck." said Dorothy, walking over and dropping her tray next to Sally. "So where is everyone going?"
"Applesauce party, Cat's house." Duo explained.
"Applesauce party?" Relena asked, sliding in next to Quatre. "Is would that be when you fill a pool full of applesauce and people jump in it?"
"What gave you that idea?" Sally quirked and eyebrow, "Is that what it's about?" she turned inquisitively to Cat.
"Nope, we need people to pick apples and make applesauce. Open invitation: Friday after school to whenever people want to leave on Saturday."
"Sounds great, my baby brother going?" Catherine asked peeling her orange.
"Yup. Where is he by the way?" Cat asked Dorothy.
"I thought you had tabs on him at all time." Catherine smirked.
"Nope, persons got to have a little free reign; I just live in his pocket 23 hours of the day." Cat replied playfully sticking his tongue out at Catherine.
"He's got lunch duty today for your information." Catherine replied.
"Do you discuss anything other then Trowa?" Zechs asked sitting down in the seat recently vacated when Hilde had moved off to do a last minute Spanish project.
"Yes, I do." Cat said primly "I don't talk about him when he's with me."
"Oh, so you talk about him two seconds out of the day?"
Cat mock glared, "What is this? "Pick on the Winner" day? And I'm the one being kind enough to invite you all over."
"What's this?" Zechs asked.
"Applesauce." Sally grinned and excused her self.
"Applesauce?" Zechs wrinkled his forehead.
"Cat, explain to the poor man." Duo grinned. "I for one have had enough time to catch my breath from all this chatter and finish my meal." Duo pushed back his chair and went to drop his empty paper bag in the trash. He wondered where Heero had managed to run off too.