This chapter is kind of a filler and kind of long but contains cute family interaction, including Mark. Tell me what you think! Love to all
It is a good thing that Josh and Maddy were off of school the following day anyway for Terra Nova evaluations, because it takes longer to clean up the apartment than Mark would have thought. Not only are all of the family's possessions displaced, but where things were knocked over in the kitchen, a sea of glass now lies. "Maddy," Elisabeth asks. "Could you get anything broken off the floor? I don't want Zoe near the glass."
Zoe is up in the loft with Josh feeling very important that she is helping put things away, and Mark is cleaning up a broken lamp near the couch. Maddy crosses over from the back bedroom to the kitchen and starts picking up shards of glass. However, asking an incredibly clumsy person to deal with shards of glass turns out to not be the most brilliant idea on Elisabeth's part.
Maddy squeals as her foot slips on something on the floor. As she falls, she puts her left arm down to stop herself, but that only leads to it falling victim to the glass. "Ow! Ah, uh," she tries to keep her breath even.
Elisabeth is by her daughter in an instant, but Maddy is clutching her am up against herself. "Let me see," Elisabeth says gently. Maddy shifts to reveal tiny shards of glass embedded in her palm. Where the shards are, small lines of blood bubble around them, then trickle down. More alarming is the deeper cut flowing from elbow to wrist. Maddy bites her lip and tries not to cry.
"It's fine, Maddy," Elisabeth comforts her daughter. She helps up her. "I need to remove the glass from your palm so it doesn't become infected."
"Yeah Maddy!" Josh yells down from the loft. "Don't be such a cry baby."
"Josh!" Elisabeth snaps for him to be quiet. "And uh …" she continues hesitantly at her daughter, "the cut on your arm probably needs stitches."
Josh's footsteps thud across the loft quickly. He hangs his head over the railing. "Stitches?" he asks. "Wait, is Maddy okay? Maddy are you okay? What's wrong?"
Mark rolls his eyes slightly at Josh. Similarly, Maddy glares at her brother, though her eyes are glassed over with unfallen tears. "Go away you self-centered little-"
"That's enough!" Elisabeth interrupts her bickering children as she pulls Maddy towards the bathroom. She cleans Maddy's palm and puts a bandage on it, then looks at the cut on her arm. She moves the towel the she had Maddy holding onto it to stop the bleeding. "Yes," she says. "Unfortunately, it is deep, and we don't have any spray," Elisabeth references the mist that heals flesh wounds in an instant. But of course, since Maddy is incredibly unlucky, that medicine in incredibly expensive.
"It's fine," she mutters. "Just … hurry." Maddy doesn't like the idea of such old-fashioned medicine being practiced on her. She squeezes her eyes shut, not wanting to see a needle go through her skin to sew it up like it's just a ripped piece of clothing. Elisabeth gives her a pill to help with the pain and starts with numbing cream.
Mark pops his head into the bathroom. "You okay?" he asks Maddy. Maddy, who still has her eyes closed, simply nods. She doesn't want to seem like a wimp, but she honestly hates the sight of fresh blood and open wounds. She hates seeing people in pain, and she hates being in pain.
Elisabeth tries to mask her reaction to her daughter, but the corners of her mouth still turn up slightly. She doesn't like to see her child in pain, but it's funny that someone so squeamish claims they wish to be a doctor. "Thank you, Mark," Elisabeth says.
Mark gives a small smile in return. "I'll take care of cleaning up any glass from here on out," he says before going over to the kitchen. With that comment, Elisabeth really does laugh.
"Mom!" Maddy says. "Please don't crack up while sewing my arm back together." Elisabeth continues to chuckle.
"Madelyn Shannon!" Elisabeth exclaims, trying to hold back her laughter. "I assure you that I am extremely qualified and can handle this without any problem." Maddy mumbles something that sounds like sure as Elisabeth gets to work. She knows her mother is a very brilliant doctor; she just isn't fond of being the patient.
After her arm is stitched and bandaged, Maddy goes over near the loft to start picking up things that were dumped over the side. She plans to stay far away from any glass for the rest of the day, though Mark seems to have cleaned it all up anyway by now. He comes over and helps her. "You should probably take it easy with the arm," he says.
"It's fine, really," Maddy answers. "I'm fine." Mark wonders if she realizes how much she says that phrase. Mark picks up one of Maddy's … he isn't actually sure what the odd contraption is, but he helps her put the few she has in a box. There are several of the odd objects around them. Each is different in its own way, but they consist of old frames made of real wood, wires strung across the frame, and wooden beads.
Maddy notices the confused expression on Mark, and her face lights up. "They are abacuses," she says.
Mark still has no idea what she's talking about.
"Or abaci, if you prefer the British-English plurality over the American-English one," Maddy adds.
Mark simply raises his eyebrows.
"An abacus, also known as a counting frame, is an ancient tool for counting, used after temporary notes traced into sand fell out of fashion," Maddy explains, looking incredibly excited. "They were used throughout the world, but if you trace the Latin word abacus, it is derived from the Greek words abax or abakon which mean table or tablet. I think it's crazy to think of them as an incredibly un-advanced precursor to the modern day Plexes. Like the very first Plex model?"
Maddy laughs with a wide grin on her face, from the loft, Josh groans. "Maddy," he calls, "no one cares about your prehistoric calculator!"
Maddy's grin falters while she makes eye contact with Mark. However, she doesn't hesitate to yell up to her brother, "Idiot! Prehistory is defined as the span of time before human existence. A calculator can't exist without a human because a human would have to invent it, therefore an abacus clearly doesn't fall into the timeframe of prehistory."
"Shut up!"
"Oh," Maddy continues excitedly, "but when we go to Terra Nova, we will be in a prehistoric era. Which is kind of ironic if you think about because if humans are there is it really prehistoric? The time fracture is incredible!"
Mark tries to suppress his laugh. He believes that Maddy would make a really good lawyer one day. "Wait, so why do you have an … abacus anyway?" Mark asks her.
Upstairs, Josh groans and tells Mark not to encourage her, causing Maddy's face to turn slightly pink, but Mark ignores him. "I collect them," Maddy says. She picks up the one that Mark was holding a moment ago. It has six wires going horizontally across and an extra bar towards the top that separates some of the beads.
"This one is a Chinese. It's called the Suan-pan," Maddy gushes. "These top beads were considered the heaven beads and the bottom ones were earth beads. Each heaven bead represents the value of the number five, and each earth bead represents the value of the number one. When you move the beads toward the center bar like this … that means that they are being used in the representation of whatever is currently being counted."
"Wow," is all Mark manages.
"The Suan-pan is my favorite," Maddy continues. "My other two favs are the Japanese Soroban and the Russian Schoty." Mark notices that the Chinese and Japanese versions of the abacus look quite similar, unlike the Russian version which has five vertical lines of beads and no middle bar. However, Mark has no desire to ask how exactly they are different, for he knows he wouldn't follow the explanation, and he doesn't want to look like an idiot. "These are the most modern styles," Maddy says. "Starting around about … 1200 CE."
Mark laughs slightly, not considering that to be modern. This seems like such an odd item to collect, but here Maddy is fangirl-ing all over them. "How do you so much about them?" Mark asks. "And their names in the other languages?"
Maddy blushes in response. "I just find them really interesting. And I read a lot, so …" she trails off for a moment. "Oh! But as for languages thing I know a little in a few different languages."
Elisabeth pauses what she's doing and looks over at her daughter proudly. "That is an understatement Maddy," she says. "You've volunteered at the hospital as a translator before; you know more than a little."
Maddy blushes again. "I'm only fluent in English, Spanish, and French," she tells Mark. "But I'm conversational in Polish, and I know a little Chinese Mandarin."
"Chinese?" Mark asks incredulously. How and why would she ever learn that?
Maddy gives a small smile and reaches for her Plex, which luckily wasn't broken earlier. She opens to a blank page and, using a Plex Pen, draws two characters on the page. Mark stares at the intricate lines in awe, not sure how he could even describe them. "That just means Suan-pan," Maddy says.
"Wow," Mark says again, and Maddy's face turns even more red.
"Maddy, Josh," Elisabeth says. "We have to be at the recruitment office soon. You should start getting ready."
Maddy puts her abacus collection away and hands the box up to Josh. "I don't see why we need psych evaluations," Josh complains bitterly. "I swear I'm not crazy."
"Josh," Elisabeth says warningly, "please just get ready to go." Josh mutters a whatever and climbs down the ladder. However, in his agitated state, he misses a rung and falls on his back.
"Ow," Josh groans as Maddy stifles a laugh.
"And you call me the clumsy one," Maddy says.
Josh rolls his eyes. "You know, at least I wasn't the one who needed stitches," he grumbles as his mom helps him up. Elisabeth pulls up the back of Josh's shirt to reveal a large red spot that will most definitely form a bruise.
Elisabeth eyes her kids with a shake of the head. "The recruitment officers are going to think I beat you two," she says exasperated. Everyone including Mark chuckles. Elisabeth then turns her attention to Zoe, explaining that they have to go but will be back soon. Maddy sighs, and Mark mentally agrees with her that's its terrible she's stuck here alone.
"But seriously," Josh continues his rant, "what do they gain from psychiatric evaluations?"
Maddy rolls her eyes. "They could be sending you back in time 85 million years," she says. "If you were in their place, wouldn't you want to know if your candidates are mentally capable of making the trip and dealing with everything that will be different there?"
"You seriously don't mind being interrogated in a small room with one-way glass?" Josh shoots back.
"Don't be so dramatic," Maddy says as she pulls her jacket on, but she chews on her lip slightly and her hands shake, inadvertently letting her true feelings show.
"You are nervous!" Josh says.
"I don't want to fail!" Maddy finally bursts. "We've come all this way. We've already been evaluated physically. I don't want to be told at this point that I'm not good enough to go to Terra Nova!"
Elisabeth sighs. "You are more than good enough, Maddy," she says. "Both of you will do fine. You will just be asked questions and expected to answer them honestly. This isn't a test. You can't fail."
"That's what they say," Maddy gasps. "But you can technically fail if they decide you shouldn't be allowed to go!"
Mark has to suppress a smile at Maddy's slight freak out. Worrying about this is so … her. It's such her personality that Mark wonders how he didn't see it coming.
Josh puts a hand on his sister's shoulder. "Maddy," he says comfortingly, "don't worry. You are mentally sound. The only issue that they could possibly find is that you have so much information crammed up there" – he squeezes her head – "it is possible your head won't fit through the Portal."
Maddy shoves her brother away and shakes her head.
The group pulls on rebreathers and meets up with Foster and Reilly to go to the Terra Nova recruitment office.
I hope ya'll liked! In case you didn't get the reference, the part about Maddy collecting the abacuses came from a part in the episode Within. I'd been skimming through some episodes so I don't lose touch with the characters, and in Within Maddy tried to trade an abacus from her collection to Casey Durwin for a new core since her Plex crashed. And it never mentioned Maddy speaking other languages but knowing Maddy she would learn some for fun. Just thought both would be cute to add.