Note: There actually IS a boy on the same course as me with a name similar to Olutu, just to avoid any confusion.

The International Baccalaureate

Chapter Four: Biology, Part I

We entered the room and saw a tall, skinny man in a brown pinstripe suit and faded red Converse trainers with thick brown hair messing around with the computer at his desk. He looked up at us from the mountain of paper that surrounded him and smiled slightly.

"Ah!" He stood up- he was a lot taller than I thought him to be. We walked over to us and shook each of us by the hand. "Welcome, welcome!" He said enthusiastically. I let out a breathy laugh by accident- it was a relief to have a teacher who was as enthusiastic about the sciences as I was. Back in secondary school, Mrs. Osekita had been almost evil. The Devil makes work for idle hands, do they say? Well, she was idle, and she forced us to re-do all of our coursework until it was at least an A. Then there was Miss Hubrecht. She was brilliant, but it was a massive shame that she didn't take us for the Biology and Chemistry units- I probably would have fared better than a C in Chemistry if I had a sweet teacher like her. She didn't even look like a secondary school teacher- she was too cute and looked like she should have been in a primary school. Miss Gorman on the other hand... now she was enthusiastic about History! She talked a lot, and pretty loudly, too. Everyone else complained about her, but I loved her for it, even if I did need an umbrella since I sat in the front row...

"Is something funny, Miss..." he struggled to place my name, and I sent a silent prayer thanking whoever was up there that Mr. Harkness' praise hadn't reached the Science faculty. "Sorry," he apologised. "You have to give me your names."

"Mariam."

"Luke."

"Hannah," I said softly. "But I prefer to be called Gavvy."

"Right," the teacher said. "I'm Doctor Smith, but I prefer to be called the Doctor. Gavvy... why does that sound... Oh! You're Jack's History buff!" Oh god. I prayed too soon.

"Gee," I said awkwardly. "You heard about that, huh?" I looked at Luke and Mariam, the latter giving me a pissed off expression which said "Again? Are you sure you're not telling these people yourself?"

"How could I not hear about it?" The Doctor smiled. He wrapped his arm around me and led me to a desk at the front of the room, the one nearest the window and the wall. Mariam and Luke followed. The Doctor took his arm off of me and smiled. "I can tell you're going to be a brilliant student, Gav," he beamed. "What did you get for GCSE Science?"

"I did the Triple Award course," I said shyly, carefully choosing my words. "I got an A in Biology, a B in Physics and a C in Chemistry."

"...easy as 1, 2, 3!" The Doctor sang jokily. Mariam, Luke and I gave uneasy laughs, but our discomfort was unseen. "Really, though, why the difference in the grades?"

"Well, when I was re-sitting the Physics exam," I explained. "I was given the wrong paper, and it had to be taken away halfway through so I was really panicky when I got the right one. With Chemistry, let's just say that we never got along." The Doc gave a laugh and slapped my shoulder playfully.

After a few minutes, the room was filled with students and the Doctor introduced himself- he was from East Anglia- hence his strangely posh accent- and he had attended Cambridge earning a 2(i) degree in Physics, which meant that instead of 'Mister' Smith- Physics Teacher he was a Doctor Smith- Physics Professor, and he also earned an honorary degree in Biology after publishing a paper in a highbrow science academia quarterly, or a science magazine that came out every three months to the roomful of already-bored teenagers. Mariam and I were sat next to each other, as usual, and the Doctor started the lesson on Evolution after outlining the basic course of the next two years.

"Can anybody tell me what the Theory of Evolution is?" He asked, after writing 'EVOLUTION' in the middle of the electronic whiteboard. A boy in the back of the class spoke up; "A completely rubbish theory what says that humans evolved from monkeys and all that, innit?" I cringed at his primitive conduct of the English language.

"No." The Doctor said, narrowing his eyes at the boy. "You are actually quite wrong on that one, Olutu is it? I have to say, your prejudgement of the Theory is quite appalling, so appalling that I'm ashamed to be in the same room as you. Gavvy," he looked at me cheerily. "Maybe you could enlighten Olutu and the rest of us on the Theory of Evolution?" I felt everyone's eyes on me. I turned back and looked at Luke. Unlike the over boys in the class who were giving me the same look I received in History, Luke was giving me a look which told me; "Go ahead- don't be afraid." I looked at the Doctor, who was giving me much the same look, and after drawing a shaky breath, I started talking;

"Evolutionary biologists document the fact that evolution occurs, and also develop and test theories that explain its causes. The study of evolutionary biology began in the mid-nineteenth century, when research into the fossil record and the diversity of living organisms convinced most scientists that species changed over time. However, nobody officially knew what Evolution was until Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace developed theories of Natural Selection. "It takes one to know one", as they say, but no one of this generation knows Charles Darwin because he lived two hundred years ago. He developed the theory that all organisms come from one common ancestor- an amoeba, or, in layman's terms, 'a puddle of sludge in a swamp somewhere'. Darwin noticed from his observations that many organisms often produced more offspring than could survive. For example, when a frog produces frogspawn, around half of the frogspawn hatched to become tadpoles, and a quarter of the tadpoles survived to become frogs to breed again. Darwin called this 'Survival of the Fittest'. So, billions of years ago, the strongest amoeba evolved into tadpole-like creatures, the tadpoles evolved into frog-like creatures, the frogs grew legs and the strongest evolved into squirrels which evolved into monkey-like creatures. The cleverest and strongest of these monkey-creatures evolved into specific geni such as Homo Neanderthalensis and Homo Sapiens, or the Neanderthal and modern-day humans." I closed off, and the Doctor was looking at me with ecstasy.

"Wow, just wow." He sounded really happy. "Give her a round of applause, ladies and gentlemen- Gavvy's a genius!" There was scattered clapping, which made me blush with embarrassment. For five years at my secondary school, I had been shunned because I had an ability that nobody else had- I was able to speak correctly, and intelligently. I had put the ostracism down to everyone else being utterly juvenile, unwilling to listen, and had figured that people would be more mature in college. How mistaken I was. It looked that I'd have to wait until University to fit in properly...