Gets eaten
If there was one thing I absolutely loved about Earth, it was the sun. The primitiveness of its middle-aged light was comforting and relaxing. My skin simply loved the warm rays. I could easily spend an entire day just sitting in it and soaking it in, pretending I was back home. Or somewhere other than Earth.
Alas, I had no time for such relaxation.
"Good morning class!" I called as I entered the classroom hefting several books on Earth's ocean, a bag full of science instruments and of course the iconic swimming tube. Every book said it was a staple of a day at the beach. And even though I had no intention of using it, one had to keep up appearances.
"Good morning Ms. Frizzle!" My assembled class replied, sitting in their seats. Good, they were all here on time. Ralphie had taken three days to recover from his bout of strep throat but he came back better than ever, if a little hoarse. Carlos had finally stopped running in just before the bell and Wanda had learned to sit down when it was time for the day to begin.
"We have an exciting day ahead of us," I reminded them, leaning down to scratch at Lizalria's chin. "haven't we?"
"Hang ten you guys!" Wanda shouted, throwing her arms up in the air. I smiled at her as I placed my things down behind my desk. Looking at her for too long still gave me that nagging sense in the back of my mind that I was missing something. It was infuriating.
After nearly passing out following my revelations about Wanda's future, I decided it might be a good idea to focus on partner projects for a while. That way I might be able to better identify just whose future hers was so intertwined with and push them together. And why not solve the mystery of Keesha's "connections" that were apparently so important to her future at the same time? I hadn't been paying nearly enough attention to my female students of late.
So I assigned my class a project in pairs to break up their usual partnerships, placing Wanda with Tim, Phoebe with Ralphie, Carlos with (a very begrudging) DA, and Keesha with Arnold.
Their job was to provide us with two beach things that go together. I had hoped the assignment would reveal both a clue about Keesha's "connections", and either confirm or deny Tim as Wanda's future partner. I was pretty sure he wasn't — his future had begun to expand more towards DA's whenever I looked these days — but I had to start somewhere.
Plus I had a sinking suspicion that several more of their futures might intertwine in similar fashions. Best to know now before I started pushing the wrong ones together. Nothing like doing the wrong kind of work.
"…and the first thing on the agenda…" I continued, walking around my desk to stand in front of them. "is your 'two beach things that go together reports'!"
"…then again, maybe she wont…" I heard Keesha say quietly.
I glanced around the room, trying to decide who to start with. "hmmm, let's start with…Ralphie and Phoebe!" I called. Both Keesha and Arnold breathed identical sighs of relief behind me as Phoebe pulled out a potted dune grass plant and Ralphie inflated a yellow balloon and held it above his head.
"Why the sun and dune grass go together," He began, "by us! All rights reserved."
The two of them gave a concise report on how the sun fed the plant life on their planet. Astounding that most of the entire planet relied entirely on their feeble, middle-aged star.
"No sun, no nothing!" Ralphie finished, letting go of the balloon. I watched it as it zipped around the room, narrowly avoiding Liz's horns as she ducked. Well, their report was accurate as far as humans knew. Truth be told, even if the sun were destroyed, some of the life on this planet would expire. Just not all of it.
The balloon reached the apex of its journey and fell with a plop in front of Keesha and Arnold.
"ahh, Keesha and Arnold, why don't you go next?" I recommended. They both stiffened, seeming terrified. My suspicions were aroused. Perhaps they were not a good pair after all. The reports were designed not only to see how well they worked together but to teach them to build trust in their partners. The other partners had to provide what they had promised and collaborate to make their reports. Truly an exercise in trust. One couldn't expect to do the whole thing alone, no matter what DA vowed when she thought I was out of earshot.
Keesha slowly turned to face me, holding a sandwich in a bag. Arnold hid his face in his hands.
"ummm…yes, we…we brought this nutritious tuna fish sandwich…" She began.
Still covering his eyes, Arnold reached under his desk and pulled out a plastic bag crammed with his algae-covered shoe. He held it up for my inspection.
"And this delightful green scum!" Keesha continued.
I was impressed, apparently they had planned this better than I thought. "You did? Why that is absolutely fantastic!"
They seemed surprised. "It is?" They glanced at their items, contemplating my words.
"So tell us what the connection is," I urged them. "Between delightful green scum and a nutritious tuna fish sandwich?"
Keesha stuttered, struggling to find words. "Ummm…they…they…they both have…ummm"
"Adjectives?" Arnold offered hesitantly. His classmates giggled.
A shrill ringing interrupted their report. My alarm was ringing. An entire hour early. The skeleton in the corner shifted, slamming his hand down on the button to silence the alarm.
"Hold that thought…" I told Keesha as I pondered the implications of this. "It's time to go to the beach! Oh but don't worry," I assured the rest of my class, "we'll finish your reports when we get back! Line up by the door please!"
Everyone rushed to the door, Wanda jostling Carlos and Ralphie out of the way to be first in line. Keesha and Arnold hung back, slowly tucking their sandwich and shoe into their bags.
"Saved by the bell!" Keesha muttered under her breath to Arnold.
"Yeah," he agreed. "I never thought I'd be glad to go on a field trip…"
I grinned to myself. It seems that Keesha and Arnold needed a little more time to pull their fantastic report together and future me was giving them a chance to do this. Maybe today could be a little more than just your average Earth day at the beach…
"Come along class!" I called. "If you don't want to miss the tide, go with the flow!"
We drove out of the school and made our way to the limits of Walkerville. The BUS knew the route to the ocean side and sent me telepathic directions to the secluded stretch of sand we'd picked out for today.
My class was talkative for awhile as we left school but grew more and more quiet as the city faded away and we passed by farms and pasture. Wanda kept restlessly sitting up, glancing over my shoulder to see if we were there yet. Phoebe kept pulling her back down, gently reminding her to put her seatbelt on. I check my time-sense but it offered nothing regarding their relationship. Perhaps it was too soon to tell?
Keesha and Arnold were sitting together near the back of the BUS, their heads together conspiratorially and their report out on their laps.
"Now concentrate," I heard Keesha say to Arnold holding up her sandwich. "How does your scum, go with my sandwich?"
I chuckled. "You know class," I called, addressing everyone "this trip just might give you the answer you're looking for!"
"I wonder if she knows we don't know…" Keesha muttered to Arnold.
"She knows everything." Arnold replied.
"Well…not exactly everything…" Just what I overheard with my better-than average hearing and their not-as-private-as-they-thought conversation. "it's your job as scientists to look for connections!"
I almost felt Keesha perk up at that. "Connections?" Keesha asked and her future glowed brighter before me. "You mean how things go together?"
I smiled. "Exactly!" I turned around to glance at her, watching her future shift minutely before my time-sense. She was on the right track but apparently that didn't mean any more of her future was set in stone. Frustrated — but hiding it from my students of course — I continued the drive, pulling into the secluded inlet Lizalria and I had picked for this day.
"We're here!" I informed my students. "everybody out!" Carlos, Ralphie, Phoebe, and Wanda didn't need to be told twice. They dashed out the doors of the BUS, leaving the rest of the class to follow.
I sat back and watched, Lizalria climbing onto the back of my seat as the class fanned out across the beach and explored the wildlife around them.
"Oh Liz, this gets more complicated every day." I told her as Phoebe and Ralphie examined the dune grass growing among the mounds of sand. I still knew nothing about them and where they were supposed to be headed. For all I knew, their futures were intertwined. Further away, Dorothy Anne was watching the sand, probably examining a crab. Her future was still only a dull flicker to me, a confusing mess of hypotheses and facts that refused to make any kind of sense. "I don't know if I have enough time…" Liz patted my shoulder reassuringly. But mature as she was for a Silurian toddler, she couldn't understand the pressure I was under. Time was crawling by on this planet but I still couldn't help feeling like a year wouldn't be long enough. My time-sense was weaker in this body than it had been in my last regeneration. If the Council had let me keep that body like I requested, I probably could have had this all figured out by now. But Gallifrey law is absolute and those found guilty must regenerate so…here I was.
I ran a hand through my frizzy hair then down my neck and shoulders to my dual heartbeats pounding away within my chest. I'd never examined this body the way I had my past ones. This one was only temporary, a costume to wear for a year before discarding forever. I couldn't get attached to it, as magnificent as it was. It was just bad luck that the costume was impeding my ability to accomplish my goal. For about the hundredth time I asked myself…why?
The class seemed to be enjoying themselves and learning many new things by watching the shore life. A passing thought about Rachel crossed my mind before I reminded myself she was dead by this time. Perhaps I'd dig out a few of her old works in the near future to reminisce. I owed her that much. My gaze shifted to where Keesha and Arnold sat forlornly on a rock, missing out on all the action and connections to be spotted by the incredible web of life of the beach. I frowned. This wouldn't do. Keesha needed more exposure if I was to make any sense of her latest clue. They needed more than this surface exploration.
I ducked under the control panel of the BUS, fiddling with the several storage cabinets and throwing several odd objects across the space. Given future-me's track record with supplying all the necessary equipment for adventures thus far, I could only image that they were around here somewhere…
My hands met something round within the depths of a storage cabinet and I grinned.
"Liz, pack the rest of that away!" I called to her, gesturing to the sizable pile of things I had displaced and seating myself behind the wheel once again. "We're about to get up close and personal with some marine wildlife!"
Liz shrugged but moved to obey me, sweeping the whole pile towards the rear door where the BUS opened up a momentary hallway back to my classroom closet. The pile tumbled through, crashing noisily into the interior of the closet and the doorway snapped shut, once again becoming an emergency exit of my vehicle. I drove the BUS a little closer to where my students had congregated, the BUS letting out a beeping noise to catch their attention. I opened the doors.
"Ready to explore this environment…in a bit more depth?" I asked, gesturing for them all to climb back onboard.
"Huh?"
"Now?"
"But we just got here!"
You'd think they'd be used to my spur-of-the-moment changes by now but every time without fail, they all seemed surprised. I merely shrugged and waved them back to their seats.
Keesha and Arnold boarded last, Keesha practically dragging her partner onboard. I pulled the doors shut behind them.
"Seatbelts, everyone!" I revved the engine and reset the chameleon circuit. The BUS eagerly responded, sick of being such a slow Earth vehicle for so long. "H-2-Oh, here we go!" I laughed in delight as the BUS rocketed off the edge of a nearby cliff, not even bothering to stay Earth-bound for the last few meters of the drive. Mid-air, my programming kicked in and the BUS reformed itself into a water vehicle based on the Earth marine mammal known as dolphins that I had seen in one of my books.
My students were silent the whole time, finally trusting that I wasn't leading them into danger it seemed. As we crested our jump and dove down towards the surface of the sea, I glanced in my rear-view mirror at Keesha. Her eyes were wide, her mouth open in pure delight, gazing out at the expanse of blue we were about to lose ourselves in.
My time-sense flashed, a small revelation breaking through the darkness of the past week. The ocean…Keesha was going to need to understand the ocean. It wasn't pivotal but it was important. Well, it was something at least.
"How refreshing!"
"Anchors away, my class!" I sang cheerfully as we dove through the waves and into deeper waters. "Anchors away!" I'd studied up on sea shanties for this trip. Had to make my human disguise seem more credible somehow.
I pulled the chameleon circuit and the BUS obediently changed into a glass-bottomed boat and settled itself on the surface. The students peered through the floor, Carlos pointed out interesting sea life and Tim pulling out his sketch book.
Keesha and Arnold however, were still wrapped up in their report.
"Think Arnold, think!" Keesha hissed at him, holding his algae-covered shoe.
"I cant!" He replied, wriggling his toes. "I hate it when my socks get wet! Can I have my shoe back?"
"No way!" Keesha snapped at him. "We need it for our report!"
I listened carefully as I dug inside my expandable duffle for some of the equipment I had brought with me.
"Ooh, look! There's some seaweed!" Wanda called, drawing everyone's attention. They gazed through the glass, marveling at the ocean life under them in all its briny, bright-colored glory.
"What are those?" Tim asked, pointing at spiky, bright-red balls dotting the rocks below. He'd already sketched two of them in his notebook. "They're beautiful!"
The books had mentioned these. "Those are sea urchins Tim!" I told him. "They eat seaweed."
"And sea otters eat them!" Ralphie said, pointing at a long, slim furry creature swimming around below us. The otter snatched an orange urchin and a flat rock and kicked towards the surface. It came up several feet away from us and began pounding the urchin on the rock, trying to crack it open.
Carlos grinned devilishly. "Do you really think they….otter?" He quipped.
Ralphie shook his head. "Bad Carlos."
I thought it was actually quite good.
Arnold sighed heavily, gazing blankly at the waves licking the side of the BUS. I spotted something through the glass and quickly called out to him.
"Are you looking Arnold?" I urged him, pointing towards the coming cloud of algae. "What do you see down there?"
"Well, I'm trying hard to look for connections, just as you said…" He leaned over the glass bottom. "but I cant see past all that…green stuff."
The algae had indeed spread across our view of the ocean floor, twisting and congealing to the underside of the BUS. We must have been sitting in a thick soup of it.
"Yuck," Wanda spoke up, "it's gone all scummy!"
Arnold sat up, quickly. "did you say scummy? That's it!" He poked Keesha and leaned over the glass bottom again. "Look Keesha! Scum!"
She leaned over the bottom as well, watching the cloud of algae float by under us.
I reached for my net, which Lizalria had unwisely chosen to curl up on. I tugged it free, sending her rolling off of the pilot's seat.
"Excellent observation, Arnold!" I swung the net through the water, catching some algae within. "This scum is called phytoplankton." I informed them, bringing the net into the BUS for their inspection.
"Phyto-plankton?" Arnold asked, puzzled as I held the net aloft.
"Phytoplankton!" Keesha corrected him, stumbling slightly over the long word.
"Phy-to-plankton!" Wanda called, testing the name out for herself.
"Yes, little tiny plants." I informed them as Carlos leaned in for a closer look, wrinkling his nose.
"Wait a second," Keesha asked as Arnold pulled out his dirty sneaker again to examine it. "Does that mean the scum on Arnold's show is some kind of…phytoplankton?" She peered at the scum.
Liz tapped me, holding out one of my latest inventions I'd scrapped together from spare parts found in the back of the closet. "care to try my marvelous, mega-magnifier, mayhaps?" I asked Keesha, holding out the extendable magnifying glasses. She took them and peered between the scum from the ocean and the scum from Arnold's shoe.
"Not exactly the same," She commented, "but not far off."
I settled back behind the BUS's wheel, Liz leaping up on the seat behind me. "What do you think, Keesha? Should we take a closer look?" Oh, I did love asking that question!
"Sure! Why not?" Keesha replied smiling.
Arnold immediately latched onto her shoulder, his voice shaking as he stammered: "No Keesha, you don't know what you're saying…!" I stretched and cracked my fingers, mentally reminding myself where everything was that we were going to need.
"I know that tone of voice!" Arnold continued hastily. "It means something weird is going to happen!"
"YAHOO!" I cried, pushing a button. The shrinkerscope kicked in, transporting us into the size of phytoplankton and turning the BUS into a submersible, pressurized vehicle. We dove under the surface and began sinking among the brine and the microscopic plant life. As we descended, I hit another button and a fine dust began to sprinkle unseen over my students, transforming their everyday clothing into their very own wetsuits. I was very glad I'd finally found that powder in my closet, it would make any outfit changes necessary so much faster!
"Did we just shrink?" Arnold asked quietly.
"We did." I replied, finishing up my adjustments and making sure we were far enough away from the surface that no diving gull or sea bird was going to carry us off. "We are now as tiny as phytoplankton." I informed my class as Arnold buried his face in his hands.
"And that's seriously tiny!" Tim exclaimed. I was glad to see he had his sketch book out already and was diligently drawing the forms in the water around us. Wanda nudged him from her seat beside him and he guiltily turned back to face front. I stretched my time-sense but…nothing.
"Class," I spoke up as the BUS began lowering the specially-designed helmets down for all of my students that I'd uncovered in the storage compartment earlier. "You will notice that the BUS is equipping each of us with a specially designed underwater breathing mask." I crouched on the floor next to a newly-formed escape hatch, twisting the pressure lock to loosen it. "So, get messy! Make mistakes! Get out there and explore!" I commanded them, throwing the hatch open. The BUS stabilized the pressure, keeping us nice and dry inside.
"I'll go first!" Wanda volunteered, barely checking to make sure her helmet was secure before leaping out of her seat and diving into the hatch. Ralphie and Phoebe weren't far behind her.
"This is so cool!" I heard Ralphie exclaim over the communicators inside the helmets.
"And so wet!" Arnold muttered, shifting back and forth before the hole.
Tim slid around him and dropped through the hole. "wow!" I heard him say.
Only Keesha and Arnold were left onboard. "And remember," I told them, scooping up Liz to help her fit her very own helmet on. "Look for connections!"
Keesha nodded determinedly. "Got it!" She leapt into the hatch. Arnold regarded the hatch uneasily for a moment, glanced briefly at me and then took a deep breath and jumped in.
"Ready Liz?" I asked my companion, sealing her helmet in place. She gave me a thumbs up and we dove into the ocean.
I have always been a big fan of learning by exploration. That's what got me interested in teaching in the first place. After all, hadn't it been exploration that had helped me uncover my time-sense?
I let my students wander as Liz and I took a short swim. Tim was sketching again, taking full advantage of the waterproof pad I'd accidentally left in his desk for this day. He was discussing with DA and Ralphie the difference that size made in their perspective of their surroundings. Arnold was sitting on the hood of the BUS, discussing with his partner how they were going to find the connections they needed in this soup of phytoplankton. Liz and I did a large, back-stroking lap around the BUS, relishing in the feeling of near-weightlessness. It wasn't quite space but it was still nice. I stopped halfway through a lap and just floated, thinking. Today was a nice day. Even if I learned nothing, my students would still get a lot out of today. Right?
A shout from Dorothy Anne sent my time-sense racing forward. I snapped to attention and made a break for the BUS, Liz hot on my tail. A group of zooplankton had entered the phytoplankton forest, feasting on the bite-sized green plants. I just hoped they wouldn't stumble across a bite-sized student, I still needed 8 of those.
The BUS threw open the hatch for me and I wriggled in, the anti-drying features wicking the water from me as I crossed to the control panel and took control. Liz wriggled in and slammed the hatch shut.
I took off after a zooplankton, my eyes on a small, multicolored bunch of students swimming as fast as they could away from their chaser.
"Is it my imagination, or do they look hungry?" Ralphie asked, his voice crackling slightly through the BUS speakers.
Mentally, I checked what the BUS had for quick retrievals: vacuum, hose, funnel, net…ah! Perfect.
"It's not just you Ralphie." I said over the intercom as I maneuvered the BUS for a 90 degree rescue swipe. "These bigger creatures are eating the phytoplankton! So, as I always say, it's better to be in the BUS…" I extended the net, aiming carefully for the moment we would intercept my students. The BUS slid smoothly by, scooping everyone into the net just as the zooplankton tried to take a bite out of them. "than in something else!" I finished triumphantly. Especially if you were going to be in the BUS, in something else.
Liz and I high-fived as the BUS pulled the net back inside, momentarily compressing both net and my students through several dimensions so that the whole load could fit through the hatch.
"Ah, Nature never ceases to amaze me!" I threw over my shoulder as my students hung there incased in the large net. The net retracted, opening up its bottom to spill my students onto the floor of the BUS.
"Whew!" Arnold breathed as he removed his helmet. "We were nearly lunch at first sight!"
"Just your average day at the beach with the Frizz!" Carlos stated, smiling. My hand twitched as I considered my new changes to the shrinkerscope settings. Average day…already they were so…comfortable with me.
I shook the thought off. "Okay, BUS, do your stuff!" Our dimension shifted and stretched just enough that zooplankton would no longer consider us edible. "Congratulations!" I informed my students, "we are now the size of zooplankton!"
"Zooplankton?" Keesha inquired, leaning forward in her seat. "I wonder if that's what just tried to eat us."
I nodded enthusiastically. She really was taking to this ocean information very well, getting ever closer to the connection she needed (I hoped). "Very good Keesha! Zooplankton eat phytoplankton! Zooplankton are tiny animals that live in the water." I spun the BUS towards a thick swarm of zooplankton, gesturing for my students to put their helmets back on. "This way, class. We've got to take chances. Get messy!"
"Get eaten…" Arnold moaned as he slid into the exit hatch.
"and don't forget to look for connections!" I called out after them, pulling on my own helmet.
We swam together as a pack this time. I didn't want another unsuspecting creature to try to gobble up one of my students.
Keesha swam up next to me as we explored. "But Ms. Frizzle, this is a big ocean…" she pointed out. "We'll never find a connection between scum and a tuna fish sandwich!"
That was no way to think about the problem. "Of course you will Keesha." I assured her. "Stay with your partner!"
My students spread out, interacting with the zooplankton and making observations. I stayed close to them this time, keeping all of them within easy rescuing distance to avoid last time's close call.
"Good observation Tim!" I complimented him as he commented that the zooplankton seemed less diverse than the phytoplankton. "What else do you notice? Anyone?" At that moment, several Engraulis encrasicolus darted through the swarm of zooplankton, their silver sides flashing.
Phoebe pointed at them. "Those giant things…" she said, her voice shaking.
I grinned. "Very good Phoebe! Those giant things are anchovies!" We watched them dart around, circling within their little school. "They're a kind of fish."
"Anchovies?" Ralphie asked. He was floating by himself a little ways away. "You mean the salty things my dad puts on his pizza when he doesn't want me to eat it?"
I was about to respond when my time sense flared. Ralphie's future blinked out, just for a second and I reacted blindly. With the boosters built into my wetsuit, I was at his side in less time than it took to blink.
"You might not like anchovies, Ralphie," I told him, barely snatching him from the mouth of a hungry fish. "But they might like you…" I pulled him along by the hand as we beat a hasty retreat, more of the anchovies snapping at Wanda and Carlos, who darted away. I'd have to be more careful letting them wander around like this. Maybe it would be better to stay in the BUS. After all, if the BUS was eaten, no problem. If one of them was eaten…I'd be facing worse than regeneration back home…
"I wonder if that's because we're the size of zooplankton…" Keesha suggested as we swam for safer waters.
"Keesha's right class." I told everyone as we gathered into a clump below where the anchovies were feeding. One of them chomped down on a crab-like zooplankton, swallowing it whole. "As you can see, anchovies eat zooplankton."
My students watched in fascination as the anchovies fed, darting through the forest of zooplankton and phytoplankton to snatch tasty tidbits from the water.
"Can anyone guess where this is leading?" I asked after a moment.
"To lunch?" Ralphie suggested hopefully.
No better segue then that, I suppose. "Precisely. Alright everyone, back in the BUS!"
With a mental command, the BUS sucked us all back inside with the vacuum hose, spitting me back in the cockpit first, followed quickly by my eight students and Liz.
I crossed to the controls and rubbed my hands together. "Ready, BUS?" I adjusted the shrinkerscope again and we stretched and shifted a few dimensions. My students cried out in joy this time, clearly starting to enjoy the sensation of their forms taking up different dimensions. "Well done!" I crooned to the BUS as we reached our set size. "We are now the size of an anchovy!" We swam straight through the school of fish, all of them looking bored by us now that we were their size. "I suggest we stay in the BUS while we have our lunch."
"But there's so much to see out there!" Wanda exclaimed standing at my shoulder, her hand pressed against the BUS window.
"Ahh, excellent observation, Wanda." As much as there was to see, I didn't want them wandering around outside anymore. After Ralphie's close call with an anchovy, I wasn't taking any chances. If we were going to get eaten, we'd get eaten in the BUS. That way our safety was guaranteed.
"At my old school," Phoebe said, handing Lizalria a cracker from her lunch box. "We always had to stay in the bus if we ate lunch in the ocean."
My students dug into their lunches, except for the pair at the back. Arnold and Keesha had the pieces of their report together again and they were conferring. I kept my eyes on the water before us. They'd get it soon. It was only a matter of time…
Keesha turned across the aisle to DA, asking to see one of her books.
Something darkened the scanner and I looked up just as several Thunnus alalunga came into view by the windows. What perfect timing! One of them snatched up a mouthful of anchovies.
"I've got it!" Keesha called suddenly. "I got the connection!"
I smiled, turning to face her. She finally found her connections it seemed. I flexed my time sense but…nothing. Really?
Keesha walked excitedly to the front of the BUS, ready to share her eureka moment. "What eats phytoplankton?" She began, addressing her still lost classmates. "Zooplankton! And what eats zooplankton? Little fish like anchovies!" A dark shadow fell over the BUS and Liz hopped onto my shoulders, cowering as the large tuna swam right at us, opening its mouth wide…
Keesha remained oblivious to the irony of her delivery. "And what eats little fish like anchovies? Well…?"
"TUNA FISH!" The others cried, screaming as the blue throat of the albacore tuna swallowed us whole. Keesha whirled around, took one look at where we were and promptly joined the chorus of screams.
Well, at least my caution had paid off.
"I knew I should have stayed home today…" Arnold moaned.
I ignored him. "Class," I announced. "We are now inside an albacore tuna!" Well, barely inside. We were sitting just behind the gills, barely at the back of the fish's mouth.
My class didn't seem too thrilled by the realization that we'd just become a part of the food chain.
Except for Keesha. Once she'd gotten over her initial fear of getting eaten by the kin of the fish in her sandwich, she'd been practically bouncing around the BUS, ecstatic about her new connection. "Cheer up Arnold!" She advised him, pulling his gaze away from the window. "We're off the hook! We know how your scum and my tuna fish sandwich are connected."
I watched carefully as Keesha explained the connections she'd discovered once again while we were swimming around in the ocean.
"Who knows what you call something that's connected?" I asked when Keesha finished her spiel again. "Linked together?"
"You mean like a…chain?" Tim asked.
"Very good Tim!" I commended him, turning around. "Tuna are linked to phytoplankton by what they eat. Tuna and phytoplankton belong to the same food chain."
"Food chain?" Ralphie asked, his eyes lighting up. "A chain of food? I could get into that!"
"Me too!" Keesha agreed. "Phytoplankton, zooplankton, fish and people, too. We're all in a food chain, scum, this fish and you!"
I nodded, glad that Keesha had finally put it all together. Although why this hadn't illuminated more of her future for me, I couldn't say. "Humans are usually at the very top of the food chain. But for once, we're actually inside it!" And so long as we were here… "We are also in the perfect position to study a tuna's digestive system!" I suggested, walking towards the front of the BUS with a twinkle in my eye.
Phoebe made a choking sound. "WHAT?"
"NOW?" Tim echoed, looking terrified.
Keesha spoke up above the sounds of dismay. "Ms. Frizzle, do you think we could go back to school now? Arnold and I need to do our report."
I did a quick survey of my students, most of whom were looking petrified at the opportunity I'd pointed out. My time sense indicated that it was late afternoon already. It had been quite a day, I think my students were just about done with the lessons from their ocean. Keesha had her connections. I suppose that was as far as I needed to take it for now.
"Well…if you insist." I began to unwind the peekerscope. "I guess we could leave the tuna's digestive system for another day…" I joked, hearing audible sighs of relief from the students.
The peekerscope wriggled its way out of the tuna's mouth, allowing me a fish-eye view of the ocean we were traversing. We would need some help if we were to get out of the tuna's mouth fast enough to avoid recapture. I scanned back and forth as the fish swam, waiting for something to…
There.
"Yes." I twisted the scope, getting a better look at the hook and lure dangling in front of our fish's mouth. "Hmmm. Very good."
I waved Liz to pull the transmalgafier for the peekerscope. "Okay class! Take your seats!" I called to them, ushering them towards their seats as the end of the peekerscope transformed into a claw and clamped down on the lure. The claw gave a firm tug just as I slipped back into the driver's seat. "Here we go!" The line was pulled taut and in an instant, we were out of the tuna's mouth being reeled back towards the surface. Everyone was thrown back against their seats as we hurtled upwards. Within seconds we broke the ocean's surface and were hauled into the air.
A tired-looking fisherwoman came into view peering at us from under her yellow rain-slicker. "Nope," She said to herself, plucking us off of her lure. "Already have a bus." She tossed us back overboard, unaware of the priceless treasure she had just cast back into the ocean.
We landed with a splash, Liz pulling the chameleon circuit just as I hit the shrinkerscope. The water around us bubbled as we shifted dimensions, returning us to the proper size once more. The BUS shifted and stretched, the roof peeling open and the seats ejecting us upwards. The BUS flattened itself into a surfboard and caught us neatly, riding the waves back towards the shore.
"This is it Ralphie!" Wanda shouted back to him. "The wave of our dreams!" She held out her arms just behind me, surfing wildly on the modest waves. Her classmates more or less copied her, most with more trepidation though.
"When we get back to the classroom," I called back to my students. "we will discuss our observations! Surf's up!" Now for something I'd been dying to try all day. I moved to the front of the BUS, balancing effortlessly even with Lizalria dangling by her tail from my shoulder. The edges of my toes curled over the ends of the BUS-board. My hearts pounded out an electrifying rhythm as we raced along the crest of the waves.
The humans called this 'hanging ten'.
'Radical.'
Sometime later, we'd made our way back to the school just in time for the remaining reports to finish up the day.
"So to wrap up our report," Keesha concluded, swallowing the last bite of her long-overdue lunch, "allow us to show you the artwork we've commissioned. An original 'Tim'!" Her and Arnold rolled down a large poster sheet covered in Tim's quick rendering of the ocean food chain we'd explored that day.
I watched from the back of the class, trying to focus my time-sense enough to see if my actions today had made any difference. Right now, I was still seeing nothing. Arnold went over the food chain once more for his classmates and I squinted hard, straining my ability as best I could. Nothing.
I tried not to let my frustration show as nothing more revealed itself. I'd given Keesha exactly what she needed: connections. Why had that not illuminated anything new? My gaze shifted to Wanda, seated towards the front of the class. Tim sat right behind her. Still nothing had shifted between them, if anything, Wanda's future had become even more crowded and muggy. But there was no direct connection to her partner from today.
"It's so ef-fish-ent!" Carlos quipped as Arnold finished up his report, which earned him a resounding chorus of "Carlos!" from his peers. I stopped searching through the muggy future in favor of chuckling at Carlos' joke.
Perhaps I wasn't going far enough with the connections. I walked around to the front of the room, pointing out a poster on the blackboard: "And this class, is a land food chain!" The picture showed a mouse, snake, and hawk on a field of grass and flowers. We discussed the dynamics of species predator-prey relations and the connections between all the life on this planet.
"Hey wait a minute!" Keesha exclaimed suddenly as we discussed the similarities between the food chains. "Do all food chains begin with plants?"
My time sense suddenly flared, Keesha's future glowing just the slightest bit brighter. It was enough, for now. "Yes they do!" I cried, elation at finally seeing some progress leaking into my voice. "Each and every one of them!"
My class cheered, thrilled by the new worlds of possibility our adventures today had provided them with.
"Well," Arnold said, crouching down next to his bag and rummaging through it. "if scum and a tuna fish sandwich are connected, I guess just about everything must be connected somehow, huh?"
I smiled at him, realizing for the first time the impact today had had on him. For the first time since I'd known him, he was excited about what we were covering. Once Keesha had helped him see how their report worked out, he'd been thrilled. I'd never seen him so curious and confident.
Perhaps 'connections' could be important to his future as well.
Arnold rummaged into his bag, his face falling. "Hey," he asked the room in general, "where's my shoe?"
It seems that sometime in between our excursions outside of the BUS, Arnold's algae-covered sneaker had been lost. I was about to answer when the final bell rang, releasing my students from my limited time supervising them. Wanda and Ralphie made a break for the door first, shoving each other aside playfully in their mad dash. The rest of the class followed a little more subdued.
Grimacing, Arnold shouldered his bag and began hopping on his remaining show towards the classroom door.
"Do you need any help, Arnold?" Keesha asked.
"I'll be okay." He said to her, holding out his arms to keep his balance. Keesha said nothing but she stayed two steps behind him the whole way out.
I followed the class outside, feeling a little sorry that I'd lost Arnold's shoe. Maybe I could spend tonight looking for it. But it would probably be in any number of dimensions given how many times we'd changed 'size' today…
This would be a bigger endeavor than I thought…
As I followed Arnold and Keesha's slow progress down the halls of the school, I send a mental command to the BUS. With a few manipulations, I was able to command any objects we had 'shrunk' that day to return to their normal dimensions as soon as they had the required space to do so. The BUS beeped inside my head, assuring me that my command had gone through. Now at least I'd be looking for a normal-sized human shoe.
Arnold had made it outside by this point, still hopping. Was he planning to travel all the way home like that?
Something falling from the sky caught my attention and I looked up just in time to see a boy's sneaker fall into Arnold's outstretched hands.
"Nature never ceases to amaze me…" Arnold marveled as he held his returned shoe.
I couldn't have said it better myself. I was pretty sure this was something I'd had absolutely no hand in. Well, except for it returning to normal size. "As I always say," I suggested to Arnold. "if the shoe is clean, wear it."
Blushing, Arnold pulled on his damp sneaker, the rest of us laughing in merriment at the conclusion to a very odd cycle of a day.
As my students headed home, I returned to my classroom, Lizalria on my shoulder. I made sure to give the skeleton a good bump as I passed it. Too bad he couldn't walk, he didn't know what I got up to on my field trips. I smirked to myself and ignored him as he tilted his head in annoyance, unable to voice his displeasure because of the voice chip currently crushed somewhere in the back of my closet. Oops.
Liz vanished to her own habitat inside the classroom, curling up in her hammock and waving goodbye to me sleepily. I wished her a good rest. I had things to do.
A door opened up behind the skeleton, my mental link with the BUS urging me to go through it. I obliged, shaking my head as I passed through the door and entered the cockpit of my vehicle. It always did this, making doors appear in the strangest of places. It didn't like fitting around this Earth classroom any more than I liked having to live here. But both of us were stuck so we'd have to make do. In the meantime, if my students ever saw me popping out of a random door, I'd have to hope they never questioned it.
From the cockpit, I stepped out the 'emergency door' at the rear of the BUS and entered into my quarters, which the BUS had helpfully provided for me upon our arrival here. Since I couldn't live at the school without raising concerns from nosy humans, the BUS had transplanted my quarters about a mile away, making the room appear as a separate building entirely, compete with my garden and workshop.
I crossed the living space, picking up some of my tools along the way and passed through another doorway into my room. With a snap of my fingers, the BUS fed power into the room, turning on the lights and starting up the projectors.
I placed my few devices and tools down on the sideboard outside the room before shedding my perception filter and stepping into the projection booth proper. The space was octagonal, black and contained nothing. I didn't need sleeping space like humans did. Instead, this entire room was covered with everything I knew about my students. Every wall was dedicated to one of them, containing projections of my mental image of them, and small hints to their futures I'd either seen or added myself as a record of the strength of their relationships. Translucent strings hung between some of them, illustrating new possibilities for their relationships in the future. The holographic generations were linked to my time-sense and shuffled accordingly to add the miniscule details I'd achieved from today's field trip.
I stepped into the room completely, the door sealing behind me to bring up Phoebe's wall. A thin string stretched from her to Wanda and another from her to Keesha. But they were very flimsy and might very easily break if not nurtured. I stared at them for a moment, pondering if I knew enough about those relationships to try to encourage them further. I did not. Phoebe was one of the humans I needed to pay some more attention to in the future. Her wall contained nothing but her picture.
I crossed to the center of the room and stared above me at the glowing web of projections created by all my little facts. The future they were meant for, the one I was trying to push all of them towards. The beams of light that connected them all crossed this space, held it up and gave it depth and light. Some – like one connecting Tim to Carlos — were thickening day by day, holding up a significant portion of the light. But others – like Phoebe and Wanda's — were significantly thinner and had remained unchanged.
Opening the telepathic link with the projectors, I adjusted Wanda's display, which at the moment contained only an image of her and several blurry items that I had yet to make sense of: a stethoscope, some kind of earth vessel, a treasure chest, and a shell.
But at the moment, her wall was dominated by a series of glowing red beams of light which stretched out to the rest of my students. I traced several with my eyes before finally finding the one I needed. Pinching the beam between my fingers, I gave it a little shake. It vibrated in my grip, then turned from red to the normal golden color of the connection strings. I released it and regarded the six other red ones. Wanda's possible partners.
I sighed. No new revelations about today. Unless the fact that Tim probably wasn't pivotal to Wanda's future was supposed to count. That and the fact that Keesha apparently needed the ocean for her 'connections'.
I stood under the glowing web of their future, watching the small golden particles shift and change around the mass as the present and my time sense changed their prospective futures. Their futures were built on two things: their skills and their relationships. Both of which they were apparently supposed to be discovering this year or soon after.
I considered all the threads before me, the blurry pieces of their identities and vague hints at what I was supposed to be guiding them towards. It had already been a month and all I had was a mess of possibilities.
Could I really do this in time?