12: Learning

"Okay, so today we'll be going to the lab and starting the environmental disaster project," the science teacher announced, handing out thin packages. "Today, I want you to get into partners- you can choose your own partner- and when we go to the lab you can start researching and find out what you want to do."

And that was the part he hated.

Connor watched as everyone partnered up with their friends, as they did in every class. He only had a few friends, and none in this class. He was always the odd one out. Sometimes that meant he had to work on his own, which was okay, and sometimes the teacher would put him with another pair, which sucked because they didn't want him.

Having to do it for one class sucked. Having to do it for the next month would be unbearable.

"Hey, Connor." It was that girl, Ruby. "Wanna be partners?"

Maybe not today. He smiled. "Sure."

Connor hurriedly stuffed his books into his backpack and zipped it up. Ruby waited impatiently beside him- she was a ball of energy that wanted to get going. As soon as he had his backpack halfway on, the girl grabbed his arm and dragged him after the other students.

"Ruby, slow down!" he said, panicking. The crimsonette was both faster and stronger than she looked- or maybe he was just weak and slow.

"Sorry!" She let go and slowed to a walking pace. "So, uh, have you thought about the project?"

"Yeah," he replied, now nervous about talking to her. He stayed ahead as they entered the computer lab.

"I don't know much about environmental stuff," Ruby admitted, sitting down beside him. "What do you want to do?"

"I want to do something really big, like a big bad event, not like a slow process," Connor said nervously as he logged into the computer. "So maybe something like Deepwater Horizon, or Fukushima."

"I don't know what either of those are," Ruby admitted. She pulled out her laptop and started it.

"Deepwater Horizon was an oil well that blew out a few years ago and made a huge mess of the Mexican Gulf," Connor explained, bringing up a pair of Wikipedia pages and snapping a window to each half of the screen (Aero Snap FTW). "Fukushima Daiichi was a nuclear meltdown in Japan after the earthquake three years ago."

"Let's do the one with the weird name," Ruby suggested. "That nuclear stuff I don't know much about, and it sounds interesting."

"Hmm... you've already done the collaborative story, but I booked the netbooks anyway," the teacher, Mr. Johnson, mused. "I guess we'll start on the compare-contrast assignment, then."

He started writing the vague requirements on the board, pausing midway through to announce, "Oh, and this one will be in groups of two as well."

Soon, all but two students were paired up. Aaron smiled. Weiss scowled. " You ."

"What?" he protested.

"I don't like you. I don't want to work with you," Weiss snapped. She paused, remembering that she had hated Ruby at first, too. "But we have to work together, and I'm willing to give this a chance."

Aaron blinked. "Uh... okay. It's just one assignment."

"Of course," Weiss replied icily. "Do you know what we're doing?"

He told her, reading off the board, "Writing a compare and contrast essay between any chapter of The Things They Carried and either the excerpt from Platoon or the excerpt from Flight of the Intruder."

She looked at the board and cringed. "Ugh. Why are the instructions so vague?"

"It's Johnson," Aaron shrugged. "He gives really vague instructions, but he's a really easy marker."

The heiress folded her arms. "If he can't create clear requirements and mark properly based on them, then he shouldn't be teaching."

"Are you always this, well, you know-"

"Not always!" Weiss snapped. "You were just, well, you keep trying to prove that we're fictional characters. That's pretty fucking creepy."

"Not anymore!" he protested. He did screw up, but he was trying to get over it. "Let's just get started."

Though she didn't show it, Vicki was nervous. She had been hoping to get partnered up with either Lisa or one of the nicer boys, but the teacher had paired people up at random. That meant she was working with the new girl, who was an odd mix of elegant and feminine and punk and tomboyish. She wore a toque that clashed with her hair.

"I'm Blake. Bella Blake," the girl with the hat introduced. She smiled nervously. "I'm new here."

"That's a bit of a strange outfit, don't you think?" Vicki asked tactlessly.

"I'm not really into fashion."

"Do you ever take off your hat?"

"No."

"You should really consider-"

"No."

"Okay, sensitive about the hat, sorry," Vicki raised her hands. "Do you have like burns under there or something?"

Blake glared at her. "Look, if you don't ask about me, I won't ask about you."

"Sorry, sorry," Vicki apologized, realizing that Blake was probably one of those screwed up kids from a bad household. "I'll stop asking."

"Thank you."

"But you do know who I am, right?"

She looked over the girl. Weiss had talked about her- apparently she was a bit snobby, but probably not as well-off as she tried to act. Like a partially inverted Weiss. "You're Vicki, right?"

"That's right."

"You have business class with Anna Weiss, right?"

"The girl with the white hair? Yeah." Vicki mused, "Hey, I wonder why she dyes it white. I mean, I guess she can pull it off, but it's kind of weird, you know?"

"Not really," Blake replied, chuckling inwardly. So much weirder than you think.

"Eh, let's just get started." "Agreed."

"We have the netbooks today, we're going to be doing an in-class writing assignment," the teacher announced, wheeling a cart with a printer on top into the room. "So line up and grab a netbook- make sure it's not one of the dead ones."

The class lined up by the cart. Most of the students just grabbed the first laptop they saw, disconnecting the power and taking it back to their desks. The teacher unrolled a pair of cables from the cart and plugged them into the wall.

"Okay, we will be partnering up today," he announced just as Yang finished selecting one of the blue plastic computers. "Just get a partner- try to find someone you haven't worked with before, but you're free to choose who you want."

"Hey, Yang, wanna work together?" Gavin asked, carelessly waving his netbook.

Yang quickly weighed her options. On one hand, Gavin obviously had the hots for her, and she wasn't sure if she liked that or not. On the other hand, she at least knew him, and could end up stuck with someone worse. And he was still pretty hot. "Sure, why not?"

"Alright." They sat down together near the edge of the room.

"Okay, today you will be writing a story collaboratively. This is more a creative thing, and it's just one period, so I'm not going to set any rules or be especially critical. Not big, either, maybe... about five hundred words. Hmm... well, you have to incorporate a certain theme and a certain setting."

The teacher paused, looking contemplative, then wrote rivalry on the board. "I want you to explore rivalry in some way. It could be rivalry as a good thing, or rivalry as a bad thing, or... well, just do what you feel with it."

He paused again, then wrote fall beside it. "Fall. It's not a setting in the sense of a place, but remember that setting covers things like time and environment as well. So this is your setting."

"Just submit it into the share drive when you're done... no it's not working today, email it to me. It doesn't have to be a masterpiece, just work together and let your ideas flow."

After the teacher was finished, Gavin said to Yang, "Great. I suck at writing stories,"

"Why is that?" Yang asked, curiously raising an eyebrow.

"I'm not very creative," Gavin told her. "I can toss a football, I can twist a Marette, but coming up with ideas is another thing. They say look at your own life, but, well..."

"I thought you did football and had parties and stuff. That seems pretty interesting."

"It's fun, but not the kind of stuff you can make a story about. Not enough explosions." He laughed and turned to her, "What about you? Ideas?"

She laughed. "Not unless you want poorly-disguised fanfiction."

"Think that litfag will notice?" Gavin asked quietly.

She shook her head. "No, probably not."

"Hey, uh, Mister Johnson, what if we interpret the theme or setting or whatever wrong?" a girl asked from the other side of the room.

He raised an eyebrow. "Hmm? There's no wrong interpretation. Do what you feel you want to do."

"So, uh, how are you at typing?" Gavin asked his partner. "Not very."

"Okay, I guess I'll do it then. So, how do we start this?"

Yang started to put the pieces together in her mind. "Okay, once upon a time, there was a white-haired princess. Uh, she needs a name-"

Gavin stopped typing and spat out the name of the first monarch he could think of. "Catherine?"

She shook her head. "Not sharp enough."

"Uh... Elizabeth?"

"Better. A white-haired princess named Elizabeth. Just outside her, uh, I guess it would be a palace, there's a girl with red hair named, uh... Crimson Flowers." She waited for Gavin to stop typing.

"Do you think we could make it a floating palace?" Gavin half-joked. "Sure, why not," Yang replied. "One day, they meet..."