Lirra admits to not owning Newsies, as much as her characters would like to...
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There were rumors that Ms. Kenkins and Ms. Jenkins were actually sisters, and that after a family feud one had changed her name. It was certainly possible; they looked alike and they never, ever spoke to each other. Carey personally thought she wouldn't have taught at the same school as her sister if it was that bad, but than again, Carey didn't have a sister. And in the meantime, Ms. Kenkins had a very nice classroom to use for research.
"So I've been looking into radio waves and other forms of radiation generated by electronical devices," Carey explained to Tori as she pulled some notes out of the electromagnetic section of her text book. She gathered some more notes from her Radiology class, and then her Theory on Quantum Physics and Particulate Matter library book. Last were the technology notes, color-coded and labeled for optimum viewing purposes.
"Wow," Tori said, picking up the physics notes while munching on an apple. "And what do we do with these?"
Carey sighed anxiously, "Well, I was hoping…" A clatter outside the door announced the presence of Maggy, and the red-head flung open the door, slightly breathless.
"Sorry," she apologized, blushing as Carey pursed her lips. They were supposed to meet half an hour ago. Spying someone lurking behind Maggy, Carey felt her anger began to rise.
"Maggy, were you with Justin when you told us you'd meet here?" She stalked towards the door as a flustered Maggy tired to explain.
"Carey, no, It's not Justin, it's…" Carey flung the door open, ready to confront the loathsome boyfriend, and her mouth dropped open. Maggy leaned over her shoulder with a smirk, "I was being productive," she said with a slight chuckle.
"I guess you were….but why are they hear?" she asked in a half-whisper. There were about ten kids, including Lara, standing outside the door.
Maggy pushed her out of the way to make room and ushered the kids in, explaining at the same time. "Any good scientist needs a research team whose members all have different specialties." She grinned at Carey, "I interviewed for academic success, ambitions, and of course, love of Newsies."
"Oh boy." Carey felt slightly panicky. She barely knew where to start herself, and now she had a whole team of people to direct?
Tori appeared beside her, tossing her apple core in the trashcan before speaking. "I guess you're the official, "Don't take anything the Head Researcher wants as what she really wants" person.
Maggy turned, mouth open and hands on her hips, " I am the public liaison officer and head of the math department," Maggy stated.
Carey laughed as Tori muttered, "Better inform Mr. Arend that he's been removed from his position,"
Carey tried her own shot, innocently shrugging, "Well, that's okay, I just didn't know math geeks actually had social skills."
'Why, yooou!" Maggy flung herself at Carey and the girls laughed, play-wrestling till they remembered the research team watching them.
"Oh, erm, sorry. So I guess you guys know the goal of the project?"
They all nodded, and as Carey tried to think of what she needed them to do, Lara raised her hand.
"Yes?" Carey was just hoping that Lara wouldn't come up with some question Carey had no idea what the answer to it was.
"Time-travel, or attaining characters from a fictional source is a relatively unexplored filed, correct?"
Carey nodded with relief, adding, "The only real theories and hypotheses on it are usually based in science fiction work." She pointed to a stack of smaller library books, "I pulled out some for my…um, our benefit, along with these," She held up a book on the top stack, which incidentally was, "A Brief History of Time", by Stephen Hawking. "All work in the filed is virtually unproven," she said, setting the book back down.
Lara nodded, then another kid, who she knew as a robotics geek, raised his hand, "Can we conduct self-directed research?"
Carey blinked for a moment, than broke into a grin. "Of course you can," it was a perfect solution, "Each of you will start of in you field of specialty, researching until you think you've hit something. Then we combine, and we all start too look at it, while still staying with out own projects. I of course have a few suggestions for you to look into…" The others nodded, minds already drifting off on their own tangent. No School of Science and Match student was ever against a little independent research.
"I do require lab reports," she said sternly, "And each week we'll discuss our findings and bounce ideas off of each other. Any research needed to be done outside this classroom needs to go through me first."
She decided to add a little incentive, "And if this works, and we're the first to invent time travel, well guys, I doubt you'll have much trouble with funding in the future." That got their attentions. It was pitiable, really, how obvious these students were.
"Alright, let's go!" Maggy called, clapping her hands and bouncing up from the seat she had taken next to Carey. She turned and grinned at her, "Should I put up a sign-up sheet for favorite newsies?"