Evolution is a Tinkerer

[Fanatic†]

open to all
((Sarah continued from Homework: Last Resort of the Bored))

Sarah dropped her bag down next to her desk and opened up her Biology textbook. The indecipherable symbols leapt out at her from the page. She was never one for science but taking the class enabled her to stay a little after school and get help, especially from the cute TA. More importantly she didn't have to go home and crank her music up in an effort to drown out the constant yelling downstairs. In fact, that reminded her, she needed to pick up some plates after school, the way her mum went through them she'd be doing the same thing next week.

Subconsciously she shook her head to rid herself of the image and slipped out her camera from her schoolbag. She would catch up with the work after school, now was the time to review the fight at the cafeteria. Flicking open the lcd screen and setting the playback to mute she watched Chris get pummeled in slow motion her eyes occasionally darting back up to the whiteboard to feign attention to the class.

[ifnotwinter†]

((Dominic Stratford continued from Homework: Last Resort of the Bored))

Dominic was decidedly late, sliding into class about ten minutes after the bell. The teacher glanced up and gave one of those little teacherly smiles, the kind that says oh you are in deep shit, mister.

"Mr. Stratford," he said, clearing his throat. "I was under the impression that class started ten minutes ago."

Dominic grimaced, sinking down a little farther into his seat. "Yes, sir. Sorry. Won't happen again."

The teacher looked like he was thinking of pursuing it a little longer, but evidentially changed his mind, turning back to the board and continuing to drone on about something completely un-fascinating. Dominic glanced around, then spotted Sarah. Right, he'd forgotten he had classes with her.

Chewing on his lip, he extracted a piece of paper from his bag and began to scribble on it carefully. The next time the teacher appeared fully absorbed in his discussion, he tapped the shoulder of the guy next to him and indicated that he should pass the note to Sarah.

It was pretty messy, but under the scribblings and rewrites it read

Hey, sorry about what happened in the cafeteria, Monty's got it in for Chris. Maybe he'll get expelled. I'm sure Chris and Neill would be cool doing the interview over if you wanted too. -Dominic

[banthesun†]

Will was sitting behind Sarah in class, watching the video over her shoulder. He didn't mind biology, but he was much more interested in the practical demonstration of human resilience playing out muted on the screen. From where he was sitting it looked almost like a staged fight; that the two were playing for the camera. But Will knew the kid doing most of the fighting was that damn Monty Pondswoth. He would not be faking it, Will was glad he hadn't been in Chris's place. With the sound off Will couldn't figure out exactly what had caused the fight, but seemed to see that annoying Neil person as being Monty's original target. Perhaps he could ask Dominic what happened. Where was he? Wasn't he supposed to be in this class?

Right at that moment Dominic arrived, as if he'd heard his mental cue. Apologising to Mr Mizela he took a seat away from Will. It looked like Will's interrogation would have to wait.

He could always ask Sarah if he needed to anyway. She seemed to be reviewing the video again. Will checked to make sure Mr Mizela was drawing on the whiteboard, and leaned forward for a closer look.

EDIT: ((Genosser, swap order then? Probably best to keep the 2 Sarahs apart. Retconned Mr Mizela's name too))

[Gwbiii†]

((Sarah Xu continued from Homework: Last Resort of the Bored)) ((Not sure, your post actually happens before mine, and they don't disagree with each other, so it should be fine.))

Sarah came flying into class not long after Dominic. Hearing the sprinting footsteps from outside, the teacher rolled his eyes and looked up from the blackboard with a raised brow.

"Sorry i'm.. late.. Mr Mizela... sir. Got a little distracted."
"Miss Xu, I..." He sighed, closed his eyes, rubbed his sinuses and waved off into the room "Just, take a seat." he was feeling a little exasperated.
"Thank you sir."

Relieved that she hadn't had her head torn off, she looked around for the closest spare seat, took it, and pulled her Biology notebook out of her bag. It was getting pretty crummy, a mess of scrawled handwriting, hanzi, diagrams and drawings of animals and things. She opened this up and took a pen from her pocket, paying strict attention to Mr Mizela's talk. She honestly found DNA fascinating and was a little annoyed she'd missed the first 10 minutes or so.

"Now one really interesting phenotype which really helped early research..."

[Fanatic†]

(Ooc): double sarah hrm

Sarah Atwell felt a bump on her shoulder and jerked upwards suddenly, flicking the camera shut as a reaction she turned as a note was discretely slipped to her desk.

Hey, sorry about what happened in the cafeteria, Monty's got it in for Chris. Maybe he'll get expelled. I'm sure Chris and Neill would be cool doing the interview over if you wanted too. -Dominic

Smiling Sarah began to scribble in earnest on the page on her notebook. It's cool, - was only asking because if u guys wanted 2 do it again I have sum time after school, we can all meet up at the mall or whatevz if u wnt?

Carefully tearing out the page from her book and folding it up Sarah got an ominous feeling that someone was staring at her as the shadow of the tall and lanky Mr. Sears fell over her desk. Arching her head back she found herself inches away from Will's face. Shocked Sarah floundered, teetering backwards off her chair and thumping to the ground, her flailing arms knocking the note off the desk, landing over near Sarah Xu foot.

"Miss Atwell!" Boomed Mr Mizela, "What on earth do you think you're doing? First we have both Mr. Stratford AND miss Xu late but now I have to deal with your tomfoolery. Do you honestly find the traits of mitochondria that shocking?"

Sarah stood up, brushing her skirt down. "No sir, I just was careless." With that Sarah turned and glared venomously at Will.

Mr Mizela took a sharp intake of breath. "Well take your seat and class, I will have no more interruptions this lesson please." The teacher then returned his attention to the whiteboard.

Sarah turned slightly to the left and hissed at Will. "What do you want?!" At the same time she felt around for the note to pass back to Dominic. It was gone.

[ifnotwinter†]

Dominic glanced around at the door when Sarah Xu came darting in, secretly relieved that he wasn't the latest. It was a silly thing to care about, but somehow, it made him feel better. He found himself wondering why she was late, just before a memory sparked - that's right, she'd been in the cafeteria during the fight, hadn't she? He thought he'd seen her.

He looked over at Sarah, noting that she'd gotten his message, then half-rolled his eyes as he caught sight of his friend Will peering over her shoulder at the camera. Turning back to Sarah Xu, for whom the closest seat had ended up being almost right next to him, and tapped her lightly on the shoulder, mouthing sorry and offering an apologetic grin. Okay, so Monty had pretty much started the whole thing, but he still felt a little guilty that they hadn't been able to take care of the situation in a slightly more...peaceful...way.

He was about to actually, for once, focus on what Mr. Mizela was saying when he saw Sarah Atwell flailing just out of the corner of his eye. He whipped round, just in time to see her tumble to the ground, papers going everywhere.

He bit his lip, trying to stifle a small smile - she wasn't hurt, that was easy enough to see and with all that had gone on the past twenty minutes or so he had to admit that this run of bad luck was turning almost hilarious. As she picked herself up and glared at Will, Dominic shook his head, turning back to his book.

What a day.

[Gwbiii†]

Sarah had just settled down, twirling her pen in her left hand, concentrating on Mr Mizela as he explained the history of genetics, she already knew most of this but the class had only just got to Mendel last week. A thud on her shoulder broke her attention and she looked around blankly. She smiled when she saw it was Dominic, but felt a little perplexed. was that sorry? what has he got to be sorry for? maybe something...

She jumped mid-thought as Sarah Atwell came crashing down, she was already getting back up when she looked around, clenching her teeth out of sympathy. that looked like it hurt

Completely thrown she tried to concentrate on Mr Mizela again, to no avail, and tried to draw idly in her book before realising she didn't have her pen. She looked quickly on the desk, patted her pockets and then looked down, seeing it lying on the floor not far away from the little piece of paper. huzzah! hey, what's that? ooh, paper, wonder what's on it...

Still crouched down she read it

It's cool, - was only asking because if u guys wanted 2 do it again I have sum time after school, we can all meet up at the mall or whatevz if u wnt?

wow, someone can't spell...

She came back up to table level and set about correcting the handwriting.

It's cool, - I was only asking because if you guys wanted 2 to do it again I have sum some
time after school, so we can could all meet up at the mall or whatevz if u wnt? something if you'd like.

nota bene : read "Eats, shoots & leaves"

And then she put it conspicuously on the desk, hoping whoever owned it would come back at some point and have a small epiphany.

She'd almost forgotten that class was still going.

[banthesun†]

Ow! It looked like that had hurt! Will had been shocked too when Sarah turned around, but at least he hadn't fallen over. Then she'd gotten in trouble too! Will was starting to feel guilty. Though they weren't close, Will knew Sarah reasonably well, and she was friendly enough for the most of the time. He'd been rude, and now she was angry with him. Well, it was kinda his fault, and if he didn't make up he mightn't get to find out what had happened in that fight.

There was one way to save the situation, but it involved an activity that ranked close to exercise on his least favourite things to do list; thinking on his feet. Quite literaly this time. Will stood up and was greeted to a furious glare from Mr Mizela.

'Sorry sir, it was, um, I startled Sarah. I was going to, um, was going to ask her about the, um, structure of mitochondiria. Sorry for disrupting your class sir'

Will sat down quickly, hoping he hadn't said anything too stupid. Never the less, the gesture was clear.

Mr Mizela was livid, struggling to keep his voice under control he issued Will his punishment.

'Mr Sears, perhaps you should stay back after class and draw a proper diagram of a mitochondrion to catch up, and if anyone else feels the need to interrupt my class they can be explaining why to the principal!'

Will wasn't too fussed, Mr Mizela probably had another class after this anyway, just a brief apology after class and everything would be better. Hopefully Sarah would be impressed enough by his chivalry to show him the video. Haha, yeah right...

((would have been convinient to actualy know biology))

[Fanatic†]

(OoC): a little bit heavy on the terminology sorry, feel free to just 'play with sticks'

Great! Sarah thought to herself. Now the dolt was apologising so she couldn't be mad at him any more. Turning her attention back to the the board she glanced around at the floor looking for her note. It couldn't of gone far.

No sign of it there. Reluctantly preparing to write another note she caught a glimpse of a rather prominent piece of paper folded neatly at the edge of Sarah Xu's desk. Grimacing slightly Sarah debated the risk of attempting to grab the note against the danger incurring the wrath of Mr. Mizela. In the end she decided against it. She could grab the note off the Chinese girl's desk at the end of class and palm it to Dominic or even easier just tell him.

"Ok Students." Mr Mizela said, turning back to his class. "Now you are all aware of these genetic traits and have been introduced to the principles of Mendelian genetics I want you to get into groups of two and grab some popsticks from this bucket here. Surrogate parent partners must be of the opposite sex, therefore one parent must pick up the double X chromosomes while the other must pick up the X/Y chromosomes. The homologous chromosomes will be separated according to Mendel's law of Independent Assortment. The genetic codes that are passed on to the baby will be recorded in your lab books. The surrogate parents must then decode the genes inherited by their 'bundle of joy' to determine the phenotype traits of their baby."

Pointing to the stack of papers the teacher continued. "Using the pictures on this handout, you will cut out these traits and paste them together to have a picture of your baby. The dominant and recessive genes are listed at the bottom. Choose a partner carefully. You and your 'spouse' will share the grade for this lab. I do not care which partner worked the hardest. This is a no divorce classroom."

Sarah smiled and stood up. Perfect. She could just pass Sarah Xu's desk on the way to the front. Walking over she grabbed the folded paper and beamed at the girl, mouthing the word "thanks." Moving to the desk one over she slid the paper onto Dominic's lab book. Twirling back to the front she stepped in line for the popsicles. Grabbing five sticks (one of which was a sex chromosome) Sarah looked around for a partner.

[ifnotwinter†]

As Will spoke, Dominic had to hastily stifle a grin. At this point, he just felt sorry for Mr. Mizela, who probably had no idea why his class was getting so distracted today. First Dominic and Sarah had both slid in late, then Sarah had fallen off her chair, and now Will was taking the blame with what was fairly obviously a lie. What was next, an earthquake?

Fortunately, it appeared that the teacher was going to let things slide for now, as turned back to the class and began to talk about the activity for today. Dominic found himself spacing out slightly as he mentally reviewed what had happened in the cafeteria - he'd have to find Neill later, he decided, tell him that Sarah was open to doing things over again.

"Choose a partner carefully. You and your 'spouse' will share the grade for this lab. I do not care which partner worked the hardest. This is a no divorce classroom."

Dominic blinked as he realized he'd just missed the majority of the instructions. A no-divorce classroom? What? As he looked around hastily for some sign of what he was supposed to do, he noticed that most of the class appeared to be getting themselves into groups of two.

Well, that was easy enough. "Will! Hey!" He gestured at the taller boy. "Partners?"

Maybe he'd get lucky and Will would know what they were supposed to do. All he knew at this point was that it had something to do with genetics, popsicle sticks, and marriage.

[Gwbiii†]

The words "groups of two" made Sarah look up again. nnh, group work? Judging by his change of tone and the return of his lame jokes, she figured Mr. Mizela was in a better mood than he was before.

A hand snatched the note off her desk and she looked up, smiling nervously and scratching the back of her neck, hoping whoever it was wouldn't be offended by her corrections. ah, Sarah A. She wasn't exactly close friends with her but she was sure they'd spoken, a few times, once, maybe.

She got up, walked to the front of the room and grabbed a handful of sticks, not paying too much attention to which particular ones.

Ok, partner partner, hey, Sarah's free.

She took a stride or two behind Sarah and threw her arm around her slightly higher shoulders. "Hey, wanna be bio buddies?" she asked, grinning.

[banthesun†]

Hurrah for simple lesson plans, Mr Mizela must be enjoying freedom from having to actually teach too much this lesson. Give them instructions and let them play with sticks, lesson over. At least it was group work, so Will would be able to talk to someone while he worked. Perhaps he could find out something about that fight from Dom. Sarah didn't seem to have taken his apology too well, so Will wouldn't push it with her. He preferred to work with Dom anyway. Mizela had done his utmost to make the prac sound, well, embarrassing, or perhaps Will was just thinking too much.

"Will! Hey! Partners?"

Well that settled things.

"Sure!"

Will grabbed two sets of sticks and went over to Dom's desk. Dominic's hesitation was all Will needed to know that Dom hadn't got most of the instructions.

"Right, we need to match these sticks randomly and then cut and paste. It's basically just a big deal to tell us that genetics is random, so we might as well fudge our results," summarised Will.

Starting work on the prac, Will seized his chance and asked, "I saw a bit of Sarah's video, what happened back their?"

[Fanatic†]

(OoC): This is going to get tough O.o - short post tonnes of work atm T_T.

Sarah looked up as Xu Hui AKA Sarah Xu threw her arms over her shoulders ""Hey, wanna be bio buddies?"

"Yeah sure," Sarah nodded and began to move back to her seat. "Thanks for picking up that note, I wouldn't of wanted Mr. Mizela to have another reason to get angry." Taking a seat she began matching up the chromosomes to find what traits their baby would have, apparently blue hair and green eyes at this point. Frowning slightly since that didn't really make sense Sarah looked at her lab partner's desk. "Hey, that looks like an interesting book, who is the guy on the cover? He looks familiar for some reason."

[ifnotwinter†]

"Oh, man." Sorting his sticks idly, occasionally stopping to push his glasses a little farther up his nose as he squinted at them, Dominic shook his head. "It was pretty freaking intense."

He abandoned the sticks in favor of leaning his elbows on the desk, all the better for telling the story. "So I was just chatting with Neill - uhm - can't remember the last name. Neill someone. He's in one of my classes. Chatting with Neill and Chris, right, and Sarah comes over to interview us for some end-of-year video thing. Monty Pondsworth was sitting nearby, and he started being kind of a jerk to Neill."

Pausing to lean back in his chair, Dominic rolled his eyes. "You know how Monty is. Anyhow, Sarah told us she'd turned the camera off and asked if we had anything else to say...and Neill kind of...snapped. Said that Monty beat up elementary kids, the the prettiest girl Monty'd ever meet would be some gay girl selling him crack, that'd the only way he'd ever be able to get laid would be if he opened a brothel..." Dominic shook his head. "That kid has some serious balls on him, I'll tell you that right now.

"Anyhow, he finished saying all that then took off - incidentally he runs like a freaking gazelle - and Monty started to go after him. Chris tripped him up, not sure if it was on purpose or not, and then...well...Monty beat seven kinds of shit out of him."

Dominic spread his hands and shrugged. "He's okay, though I'm thinking he'll look a little rough for a while. And apparently Sarah got it all on tape. That's going to make for an awesome end of year video."

He returned to his sticks, fiddling with them thoughtfully.

[Gwbiii†]

((OOC - yeah Fanatic, exactly the same here. And the Sarahs need nicknames of some sort quick , also it's more of a UKA than an AKA))

"Yeah sure" yay!. She took her arms off Sarah Atwell's shoulders and headed back to pull her table over to Sarah's.

"Thanks for picking up that note, I wouldn't of wanted Mr. Mizela to have another reason to get angry."
She smiled, "uh, yeah, no problem" scratching the back of her head again. aah, lucky she didn't read it. She left and came back a moment later with a chair and her bag slung over her shoulder

"Hey, that looks like an interesting book, who is the guy on the cover? He looks familiar for some reason." Sarah asked as Hui sat down, nodding at her little blue book.
"Oh, yeah. That's Lenin, you know, Russian Revolution?" she passed the book over to Sarah and took a look at her sticks.
"Oh dear, I've got an X and a Y here, looks like our kid's getting Klinefelter's" She put on a mock sad face for a few seconds and then laughed suddenly. "You know, that kinda reminds me, since we're both Sarah, well, do you wanna be Sarah A and I'll be Sarah X? like, kinda like, er, Malcolm X, or something, or some kind of weird dinosaur, and, uhh, yours'd be kind of "A" like alpha, or, uhh... yeah." She leaned back and smiled awkwardly. foot has made contact with mouth, i repeat, foot has made contact with mouth... just, relax...