Clap Your Hands

[Brackie]

[[Penny Huang continues from Sensational]]

Gonna let it all out
An' do my thing
Boom boom boom
an a bang bang bang

Oooh-do your thing
Do your thing, yeah
make my body sing
Do your thing,
your thing,
my thing,
oh
oh
oh
oh

Penny's back nestled against the bark of the small tree planted precariously on the grassy knoll. Her headphones, a sixteenth birthday present from the now-single Mr Mattie Parker, cut out all sound except the sensational beats of the Basement Jaxx, mixed especially for radio. Her lunch leant against her left thigh, a bottle of mineral water and a sandwich wrapped in tinfoil, bites missing. Meanwhile, her homework lay against her right thigh. Incomplete Physics homework due sixth period, and she still had half of her questions blank.

But Penny didn't care, really. It was her lunch period anyway. Mr Davidge would just scold her in his own unique way, she'd stay behind after class and get some advice on the next batch of homework she was supposed to do, and make sure Mrs Huang never, ever found out about it. What were all Mrs Huang's friends going to say about her daughter failing in school? Of course, failing to her mother was simply not doing the best she could be doing. Unfortunately, she put a lot of the effort she could be doing in Physics into other areas, like memorising that new routine with her fellow cheer squad, or finding out which song her viewers on Youtube wanted her to cover next.

All far more interesting choices to Penny, and Mrs Huang didn't seem to get it. Besides, Penny did absolutely fine on the tests and exams, so unless those started to sink, she shouldn't even be worrying about homework. Although there was an urge to put down her iPhone and just do it for the hell of it. Imagine actually finding out something on that very sheet was something in an upcoming test, and she never bothered to look it up or even check it. Instead of learning the correct angle to cut flying pieces of watermelon and pineapples, she could find out:

An isolated, solid copper sphere of radius R₁ = 0.12 m has a positive charge of 6.4 x 10^-9 C .
(h)
i. Calculate the electric potential at a point 0.10 m from the center of the sphere.
ii. Calculate the electric potential at a point 0.24 m from the center of the sphere.

Penny gazed over it for a few moments, adjusted herself against the tree, pulled out the formula and equation sheet she'd been working on, and unclipped her pen.

Time to utterly pwn AP Physics.

[Will†]

(Finn Grant :Start)

Finn walked across the small, grassy field of the school campus. It was lunch period and Finn was starving. He hadn't had anything to eat that morning as he was running late for school, so he decided to skip breakfast. He was headed for the school's lunch room, although not to eat there just to grab something to eat; Finn never ate in the lunch room, this was mainly based on the fact that he couldn't stand the local radio stations that they played in there, the music was terrible.

While Finn briskly walked he turned his head to his right. Sitting down with her back against a tree was Penny Huang.

Finn stopped in his tracks and turned to face Penny. Penny was a petite girl with long, dark brown hair and rectangular framed glasses. She had headphones covering her ears and a half eaten lunch lying beside her. She was staring at something on her lap but she was too far off for Finn to see what it was.

Finn had physics in 6th period and suddenly remembered he had homework due in for that class. Finn usually did his homework the day before it was due in, but last night he completely forgot to do it. This would be the second time this week that Finn had forgotten to complete his homework, Mr Davidge would not be happy. He reached down to his sand coloured satchel that was dangling beside his hips and gripped on the zip but stopped. Finn looked back up towards Penny and gave himself a slight smile.

"Ahh, Penny Huang." Finn whispered to himself.

Penny was in the same physics class as Finn was. She seemed smart enough and nice enough to Finn and he didn't have any reasons to dislike her, so Finn didn't hesitate in considering Penny as a last resort to do his homework. Finn began to walk towards Penny and started to wonder how to tackle her, be friendly? Charming? Intimidating? He reached her within a couple of seconds and stood in front of her with his hands in his pockets.

"Hi Penny!" Finn called in an enthusiastic voice, while giving an unrealistic smile that showed his white teeth. He didn't wait for any reaction and sat himself down to the right of her.

"So... what you listening to?" Finn asked as he continued to give Penny a crazy smile.

[CondorTalon]

Corey wandered around the school occasionally sipping a Coke he held in his hand. He had finished his lunch quickly, and was now looking for a way to kill time before his next class. He hadn't found any of his friends yet though. It was getting more and more boring by the second. He sighed, and exited the building and out into the grassy fields. Oh wait, this next song kicks ass. Corey smiled as Punk Anthem Track began playing from his earphones.

Can I take you where you want to go
Can I take you where you want to be
And will you let me hold your hand
And will you let me set you free
Can I take you way up to the sky
Can I take you deep below the sea
Will you let me show you
A million miles from where you used to be

As Corey walked past a tree, he noticed someone... no, some two people sitting at the base of it. He changed his course slightly, heading over to them. One of them... oh it was Penny Huang. She was pretty good at FPSes, and they were friends. He then turned to the other one. He was... Corey thought on it for a moment. Finn. Finn Grant. Corey didn't know him that well. Oh well. He couldn't be that bad, and there was at least one friendly face.

"Yo guys," Corey said, walking closer to them. "What's happening?"

As he walked closer he could see what Penny was working on. Looked very math-y, so it was probably Physics. Corey wasn't that good with physics. He was pretty decent when it came to chemistry and biology, but physics was a bit out of his grasp. It's not like it mattered anyway.

"Getting your science on?" he asked, grinning.

[Brackie]

Penny looked over her formula sheets and notes, then back to her homework. Then back to her notes, and back to her homework. She sucked on the end of her pen for a few moments, before scribbling down what she assumed was the answer:

V = K9/r
= [(9 x 10⁹ nm²/c²)(6.4 x 10 ^-9)]
(0.12 m)
= 480 V

She clicked the pen lid pen absently. It looked fine to her, a new experience. Then again, she'd memorised this question from an exam she found on the net. She knew she'd be fine with this section of questions, but she'd been putting it off. Then again, there was that Modern Warfare session she'd spent hours on last night, so some things took priority.

Her eyes flickered down to part two of the question, right as the song died down. As her iPod faded from Do Your Thing to Where Your Head At, she heard a voice that was most definitely not Felix Buxton or Simon Ratcliffe. In fact, it sounded like a classmate, so what a classmate of hers was doing on her iPod was beyond her, unless American Idol released its compilation album early. Then again, he was voted off early, so...

"-you listening to?"

Suddenly, Finn. Oh, Finn. Penny knew Finn. Gay, right? No, not gay, that was somebody else. You'd assume so from the fact he was always hanging out with school's equivalent of the Plastics, but no, it was bad to generalise, Penny knew that. She had to put up with mockery from friends for the fact that yes, she was Asian, and yes she had a Tiger Mother from hell, so bad Penny, bad Penny for assuming. Assuming made an ass out of you and me, so much she knew.

However, it was an odd feeling, and becoming part of an odd week. She wasn't really used to people she wasn't friends with simply coming up to her and speaking to her. Sure, she was friends with basically everyone, but it's just not something she was used to, you know? However, her smile overtook, as she put aside her homework and slid her headphones from her ears.

"Hey Fiiiiinn, how ya doing?" Penny smiled warmly at him, before answering his question in her head, then out loud.

"Oh, nothing fancy, just some Basement Jaxx. Heard of them?"

Then finally, a familiar face. Good, she thought this would be an awkward conversation between someone she didn't know, but she definitely knew Corey. Of course she knew Corey. Simply because he was part of that big online war against the Spetsnaz she had last night. She was a brave American hero. He was Spetsnaz.

Penny giggled at Corey's generalization, and held up her page of scribbled notes and answered questions.

"Welcome to physics hell, Corey, I take it you didn't get into biology heaven?"

Her tone then changed only slightly, as she started to bring up the inevitable.

"Late as usual. Didn't have time to do it, what with handing your commie butt to you on a silver platter last night. 5-19, was it?" Penny smiled and waited for such an equally witty response.

[Will†]

Penny's words seemed friendly to Finn and there was that kind smile she gave to him. Good, this was going to be easy to get her to do his homework for him. Finn had years of experience at pretending to be someone he's not and this situation was no different. Just a couple more minutes of being nice and that physics homework would be done. Almost there Finn, almost there...

Finn opened his mouth to reply to Penny but was interrupted by a third voice. Finn whipped his head around and stared at the figure. Corey Esposito. He had a tendency to always be friendly to people, and in Finn's mind to be over friendly which Finn had found annoying.

Finn's crazed smile turned into a scowl. Penny started speaking to Corey at which point Finn turned his head to face her and narrowed his eyes, then turned back to Corey. If Finn stood any chance at completing his physics homework by the end of this lunch he had to stop this tedious conversation between Penny and Corey now.

Finn interrupted Corey before he could reply to Penny and answered Corey's question that he had asked them.

"Well we were..." Finn raised his hands up and made them into quotation marks. "Getting our science on before you showed up." Finn said while he tilted his head and gave a slight smile to Corey.

This was Finn's polite version of telling people to go away. Finn was going to use a much ruder version of this statement but decided against it; he thought that if he was too rude this might harm his chances of getting Penny to do his homework for him as Corey and Penny are friends, Penny may take offence to this and leave with Corey. Another logical choice from Finn. Finn had a knack of making logical choices, he thought of it as his "sixth sense".

Finn turned back around to Penny, putting back on his crazed smile.

"So Penny, as I was going to say before, would you mind helping me out with my physics homework? I was going to do it last night but I forgot." Finn asked while turning his crazed smile into a pleading one.

[CondorTalon]

She had to mention the game last night, didn't she? Hey, it wasn't his fault his team was terrible, he'd only died twice and gotten 3 out of 5 of the team's kills. He would have gotten more kills too if his mom hadn't interrupted him with questions every six seconds.

Corey opened his mouth to say this, but a voice interrupted. Finn's voice.

He'd answered Corey's question, yeah. But he did it in this weird, condescending way. Corey's smile faded. It seemed like Finn didn't want him to stay. This thought was more than confirmed when Finn then turned to Penny and asked about physics homework that he hadn't done.

At this point Corey's smile turned into a frown.

Now, Corey considered himself a friendly, laid-back individual. And he was. But there were a few things that made him uneasy. Manipulation was one of them. The way that Finn had acted when he came forward to greet them, and the fact that he turned right around and asked Penny to help with his homework had Corey on the edge.

Not much of an edge, but still.

He smiled again.

"Forgot your homework? That's a bad habit, you know."

Corey wasn't exactly the best when it came to submitting homework on time, but shush, Finn didn't need to know that.

[Brackie]

Oh boy, this wasn't looking too good. Penny wasn't bright in the ways of acting like a normal human being, but she could tell as good as the rest of them when there was vitriol in the air. The tension between Corey and Finn was knifeable. You could cut it like fresh cheese. So it was the job of Penny Huang to try and relieve it.

She pursed her lips and scratched the back of her neck, as she tried to think up what to say. There was of course the age-old option of the tearful plea, the sobbing, and the grand old "CAN'T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG, EXCLAMATION POINT EXCLAMATION POINT, ONE ONE EXCLAMATION POINT", but that time had not come yet, not until they get into a dirty fist-fight.

Then of course, she could act as though Corey was speaking to her, which he might have been. There were three people here, not two, of course.

"Aww, c'mon, it's not like you've never done it, right? I mean, you don't even do Physics, and Physics is like, Supermath. And I already do Math already, so imagine doing like, Supermath plus Math. That equals pain, by the way. A lot of pain."

Penny smirked, turning back to Finn.

"I'd like to help, but I'm barely done myself, I'm just getting started on the first few questions. If anything, you'd be helping me. Unless you wanna help me, cause I could totally use some answers to copy from."

[Will†]

Corey's voice ringed out of the background again. Finn had thought that Corey would have left by now, shying away from a confrontation because of his friendly nature. However, Corey had not gone away, in fact his comment to Finn almost seemed as if he wanted a confrontation to happen. He was in Finn's territory now.

Finn slowly turned his head back around to Corey as an evil smile crept across Finn's face. His eyes narrowed in on Corey. If it's a fight Corey wants, it's a fight he'll get.

As Finn opened his mouth to speak he heard Penny interrupt. It was quite obvious to Finn what she was trying to do, defuse the tension, distract them both by drawing them into a different conversation, anything in order to cut off the ensuring argument. Nevertheless, Finn being Finn just needed one more jab back at Corey to put him back in his place.

"Yeah Corey, you were too dumb to take physics right? Or were you just too scared to take it? I'm sure if you did take physics you would understand why we weren't able to do it."

Finn scrunched up his eyes and shone a wide grin. He was satisfied by what he had said, sure it wasn't as rude and hurtful as he had wanted it to be, but he was still in front of Penny and he needed that physics homework done. Finn turned to face Penny again and gave her a friendly smile.

"Sure, I'll help you. We can do this together; we'll be done in no time."

This wasn't the response Finn was hoping for, but it was better than nothing. However, this involved work which Finn hated, but if he was to get this homework done by sixth period he'd need to start on it now.

[CondorTalon]

They were right, though. He didn't take Physics, and the reason was clear. He was already taking Chemistry and Biology, and was skirting along well in those classes. He didn't need a third science to eat into his free time. So of course he had no right to tell anyone of about it.

Penny tried to defuse the situation, and truthfully, it was working. Whatever conflict she'd managed to defuse would not be good for him. Finn made another remark about his stupidity, or scaredness, or something. Corey guessed it was supposed to insulting, but, nah. Corey didn't show any reaction.

"Well, whatever, you guys have fun."

He began to walk back, into the school, when he stopped.

He was about seven feet away from them.

He turned around, putting on the angriest face he could muster.

He pointed straight at Penny.

And in the most threatening voice he could do, he growled.

"You were lucky yesterday."



...



*snrk*

Oh, god, get out of there before your laughter attracts everyone within a five-mile radius.

((Corey Esposito continued in Cicada Nights.))

[Brackie]

Why did he have to do that? This was really odd, someone like Finn she didn't know that well was suddenly coming along, asking for help with homework and then started insulting her friends. And they weren't little jibes like she was doing, they were real insults. It was getting pretty uncomfortable, especially since Corey was her friend, and you just don't insult Penny's friends like that.

She curled her bottom lip at Finn's latest fling, all the while trying to smile apologetically at Corey for what this guy was doing. Stuff like this didn't usually happen, and Corey had to know that. But either way he left, and the circumstances under which he left didn't really sit well with Penny. At least he left with that little poke at the game last night. No hostile terms between two friends, right?

Penny turned her head slowly towards Finn, clearing her throat.

"Um...why did you do that?"

[Will†]

Finn watched as Corey began to walk away. Finn's plan had worked, Corey had finally left. Now it was just Finn, Penny and that damn physics homework. As Corey walked away Finn began to feel slightly sorry for him; he didn't mean to make Corey feel upset Finn just wanted him to go away. However, all feelings of remorse vanished from Finn when Corey turned around and shouted a remark at Penny about the game they played last night.

"Bye Corey!" Finn shouted after him with a smile and a wave.

Now it was time to focus on that physics homework. It wasn't going to be hard with two people doing it, however Penny hadn't done all the questions yet which meant it was going to take longer than Finn had anticipated. Finn took his bag off from around his shoulder and placed it in front of him. He rummaged around his bag until he got a hold of a pen and the homework. Finn then looked up and saw the look on Penny's face.

Penny asked him why he had done what he had done. He couldn't tell the truth and say "Because he was distracting you from doing my homework for me" that would sound stupid and perhaps even encourage her to leave like Corey did. Finn had to play innocent, he didn't know what she was talking about, it was all in her head.

"What do you mean?" Finn asked with an offended look. "I didn't do anything."

Finn prayed that this would work, if it didn't he would never be able to do the physics homework. From now on he needed to be as nice as possible to Penny.

[Brackie]

"Um..."

There was the matter at hand that she kind of didn't want to offend him. Not that she wasn't capable of it, mind you, but she and him weren't the kind of friends that could, well, joke around and say stuff like that and still retain a coolness between them.

But then, she remembered that they weren't in fact friends, and he had in fact insulted one of her actual friends. Well, online friends, one of those friends she spoke to fleetingly in the real world (everyone had those, right?), but still a friend all the same.

"You kind of just told my friend to fuck off, and um, I don't really appreciate that."

[Will†]

Penny had seen through Finn's act. There was no way of getting around it now; she was never going to do his homework for him, not a chance in the world. Penny was going to leave, Finn would be stuck with no one to do his homework for him and later on, get a detention from Mr Davidge. Finn decided to play dumb; there was no other way around it.

Finn stood there for a couple of seconds with his mouth slightly hanging open. He had no idea what to say. His eyes darted around, studying Penny's face, trying to figure out what to do. He had nothing.

"Whaaaaat?" Finn gave a nervous laugh. "No I didn't, he was probably busy, had something to do you know?"

Finn bit his bottom lip. He needed to say something more than that, he needed to justify himself.

"Besides, we were working and he just came along and started distracting us. He could see we were busy but he carried on talking." Finn had begun to ramble; he knew it but couldn't stop. "He was being rude! It was good that he left, otherwise there would be no chance we'd finish this work. Right?"

Finn had just set himself up for execution. There was no way Penny would stay now, he had just accused her friend of being the one who was rude, when it was quite obvious that it was in fact Finn who was the rude one.

Finn let out another nervous laugh and smiled at Penny, fear lurking within his eyes.

[Brackie]

Penny grimaced. She really didn't like having to do this, but there were places you had to draw the line. She might have helped him had he not just openly insulted her friend, and she might have helped him had he just apologized instead of playing dumb. But instead, he did neither, and it was getting clear to her this wasn't the best place to be.

Penny started gathering her things, wrapping her iPod up and compressing her lunch in its wrappings hard enough to crush it into a diamond. Her papers followed suit in her bag.

"Uh, yeah, I gotta go now, so....yeah, see ya. Good luck with the homework though."

She shouldered her bag and headed off from her tree, trying to remember what exactly the electric potential was and if she wrote it down.

I might not pwn AP Physics but I can sure pwn OP a-holes.

[[Penny Huang continues elsewhere]]

[Will†]

Finn had blown it; Penny was packing up her things whilst Finn stared at her with his mouth slightly hanging open.  Unsure of what to do, Finn toyed with his hands and bit his bottom lip. He gazed around himself, seeing if there was anything that would make her stay. Shoving his hands in his pockets, Finn tried to grasp hold of any loose change he had. Maybe he could bribe her. To his chagrin, he had none.

"W-what are you doing? You can't just leave, how am I supposed to do the homework?" Finn asked in a panic.

Penny said farewell and bid him good luck with his homework as she began to walk away. Finn stuck out his bottom jaw and grinded his teeth.

"Oh yeah, well guess what babe? I don't need luck; I'm fuckin Einstein up here!" Finn shouted as he pointed at his temple.

Finn waited a couple of seconds as he watched Penny walk away, hopeing that she might come back. To Finn's disappointment she didn't. Finn grunted as he bent down to pick up his bag. Fucking bitch, who does she think she is? Whilst pulling his bag over his shoulder, Finn look towards the science block and sighed.

"Well Mr Davidge, here I come."

[[Finn Grant continued in High Fashion, High Prices]]