Chapter 15: A Cramming Session
I slept late, and woke with a start as an explosion made the lab shake. I started to sit up, but then remembered. It was just the lab. And the house. Someday, my parents were going to do something so ridiculous that the entire house would explode. I really hoped I wouldn't be around when that happened. I lay back, prepared to sleep more. Just as my eyes closed, and I began to drift back off to sleep, a conversation I'd had yesterday occurred to me.
"How much did you do for school so far, dude?" Tucker enquired.
"Why would I do schoolwork? I've got the whole weekend to complete assignments. You?"
"Nada."
Sam shook her head. "I've completed all of science, and some English. Got a few novels at the library, Frankenstein, Dracula, stuff like that. The report we're doing, mine's going to be about Frankenstein, and how he stands for the state of humankind. Yours?"
"The Invisible Man, by H.G. Wells. First writer of sci-fi, and really, really cool." Tucker's response was very interesting, but typical, for him.
"Haven't decided yet. A lot of those books are very, very boring."
I bolted upright, threw on some suitable clothes, unleashed a stream of curses when I fell through the sink, and into the living room, and groaned when I hit the ground. I hated gravity. I lay there for several seconds, contemplating if getting up was worth it, before I slowly sat up, and tried to think of what I should do next.
Book.
I needed a book to read and write a paper on, and it had to be ready by Monday, because if I didn't at least have a rough draft, I would be dead. Deader. Whatever. I shot to my feet, ran to the kitchen, grabbed a yogurt, and ate that while attempting to finish getting ready for whatever the computer had in store for me. I was finished with breakfast in ten minutes, a time I was rather proud of. It was 4:00 in the afternoon, and the library wasn't open on Sundays. I settled in front of the computer and began the fine art of searching for a book.
Pages and pages and pages of book names passed me by. I couldn't find a single good one. I finally decided at random to look in my sister's room, borrow a book, and hope the book wasn't too boring. I stood up slowly, and delayed myself with a quick walk to the refrigerator and a walk around the house. I unleashed a long sigh as I arrived at my sister's door, and peeked in. She wasn't there. Good.
I pride myself in my stealth skills around our house. I wasn't the best person at being quiet, but I could be worse. Much worse. I fully moved into her room, and looked at the bookshelves and bookshelves of books, wondering how she managed to live in this place she called a room with all of them leering at her. It was the stuff of nightmares.
I finally began the search. It was past supper, but I wasn't hungry. I was too worried to be hungry. I finally decided on "The Scarlet Pimpernel". I promptly returned to the computer, where I proceeded to check out what the book was all about in an in-depth summary, read the first few chapters, and the last ones, and read all the important parts. I then sat down and began my paper.
Ok, I lied. I actually sat down and stared at a blank sheet of paper, wishing I could think of something to write it about. I shuddered, and checked the time. It was 9:00. How time passed so fast was unfair. I forced myself to finally pull a sentence out of my head.
The French and English in Baroness Orczy's book, The Scarlet Pimpernel, represent two different trails of thought, the French standing for violent, unfair, cruel, and unreasoning revolution, and the English standing for mostly-content people, who were heroic, and almost never turned from a noble cause.
Good. I finally had a thesis statement. From here, it shouldn't be so hard. Now I just had to prove everything I claimed, and hope I could make it sound good.
I was finished with something resembling a rough draft at around 10:00, and fixed myself some supper. I quickly consumed it, glad for the nourishment, and wondering where Jazz had run off to. I could easily tell where Mom and Dad were. I was finished with supper when Dad called me down for a "Grand Tour" of the lab. Apparently, he'd forgotten I had cleaned it just a few days ago. I rolled my eyes, and trotted down the stairs reluctantly, where I found the answer to my question about Jazz's location. She was stuck in the lab, and the portal was whirring. I avoided looking at it, but the sound was impossible to ignore. I followed Dad around the lab, and watched the things he had running.
"And now for the Portal, Danny-boy!" Jack announced in a loud tone. He gestured to the whirling green hole in our dimension. I tried not to look closely, and distracted myself as well as I could. In seconds, however, the green pulled me in, and I suddenly stepped forward, slowly. My feet dragged, and my mind told me to run, but my body continued forward.
"Dad, it's late. We should be going to bed."
Jazz's voice broke my focus, and I watched Mom and Dad try to wheedle their way out of it. Well, it was really just Dad who did the wheedling, and Mom looked reluctant. But common sense prevailed, and they wandered off to bed, Mom informing me that she'd noticed the lack of cleaning I'd done on the portal, and frowning rather harshly. She told me she wanted it cleaned as soon as I could. I took in a deep breath, and nodded. They left, and Jazz stayed.
"Danny-"
"I can't tell you. Just don't ask, Jazz. It will bother you less if you don't know."
Jazz frowned, and walked away. She was probably calculating how best to get me to open up. I wasn't going to. I sat in front of my invention and began fitting more pieces together.
I was pretty much finished with the first "gun", and it was at that point that I remembered:
Math
Science
History
Music
I felt the urge to scream. I had forgotten the rest of my homework. I fitted the last piece on, and ran up two flights of stairs to my room. I sat down on the floor, and began the fine art of cramming. Page after page of information scrolled past me, and I filled in the math and science without a second thought. History was up next, and I began the paper on the 1960's. It. Was. Not. Funny. I finished that, and moved on to filling in an overview of the live of Mozart. I wasn't fond of music, but I needed an elective, and music was the route I had chosen to go. Better that than defeat at the hands of the chess club.
I closed the books up at 3:00 in the morning and went to bed, mentally promising myself I would try to complete more homework on Saturdays next time.
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-Miaulin
