fandomhigh | How To Science Things All Sciencily, Monday

Philomena wandered into class five minutes late without paying attention to the class. In fact, she walked to the window and peered, lost in thought for at least another three minutes, before half-turning and startling.

"Oh," she said, "You're still here."

Had they been here all week? Had she hallucinated them leaving? Perhaps they were time-jumpers.

"I was just caught by the leaves," she explained. "Strange things, aren't they? I keep wondering, how are they up there? And why are they attached to the trees like some strange hand-shaped parasite? Do the trees even know that they are on there, and if so, don't they long for a shave or some kind of... tree doctor to come fix it for them?"

She peered back outside.

"I used to wonder why they changed color in fall, but I found out about that, and it's absolutely disgusting," she said. "There's this stuff inside of them called chlorophiles, and they gnaw on sunlight, like a deranged vagina dentata."

She shivered. "It just ain't right," she muttered. "It just ain't right."

She turned back to the class. "So this is a class about sciencing, so we should probably do like proper science men and get samples," she said. "I want you to go out and get some samples and glue them to a piece of paper, so you can wave 'em around to ward off the others, like a sort of warning. Just be careful, 'cos the leaves have got skeletons, and nothing good ever came from a skeleton you can eat."

After finishing that line of thought, she looked at the class expectantly.

"Well? Off you go."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

". . . Yes." What? Tip wanted to see what that would look like. "You need some spiky edged leaves. Or pine needles!"

"And a yellow flower in the middle to be the sun?"

This might spiral out past the scale of a collage soon.

"A dandelion," Tip decided. "That even looks like it has rays."

"Oh, good idea." She'd have to figure out what they looked like, but nobody had to know that yet! "And the rays can just sort of segue into the spikes, so it's subtly ominous. Yes."

"If she asks about it, you should tell her you have no idea how it got there. The leaf skeletons must have done it themselves."

Peebee let out a long, low chuckle that was at the far end of mischievous but stopped short of being evil.

"Exactly what I was thinking. You, I like."

"Gosh, thanks." It didn't come out quite as sarcastic as Tip had intended. She kinda liked Peebee back. "So, are you disappointed by your science education here at Fandom, or is this about what you'd expected?"

"Eh." Peebee shrugged. "I didn't know what to expect in the first place. Harder to be disappointed that way, you know? It's an hour of entertainment, and I have plenty of time for independent study the rest of the week. That's more of a challenge, anyway."

"You're only taking one class?" And Tip thought her workload was light.

"What? Oh, no! I've got other classes," Peebee said quickly. "More of an actual academic exercise than this, though. Or exercise, anyway, for the defense class. That still leaves me with a lot of time the rest of the week, though."

Tip nodded. "Yeah, the academics at this school are pretty . . . low key. My mom keeps saying 'you get out of school what you put into it', but I think that's just her trying to tell me to sign up for correspondence courses."

"I'm never going to get everything I want out of school," Peebee said, because she honestly just wanted to learn all the things ever, "and I'm okay with that. I'm here for the experience, mostly. Didn't even really look at the course catalog all that closely before I signed up."

She arranged a couple more leaves on her collage.

"Did you sign up for correspondence courses?"

"Not yet," Tip admitted. "I've always learned more outside of a classroom than in it."

It didn't help that her world's education system was deeply fucked.

Yeah, that would definitely put a crimp in things.

"More of a hands-on person, huh?" asked Peebee. "I get it. Sometimes that's really the only way to go, jumping right into the deep end."

"Cuts way down on the stupid people trying to tell you they know better than you do."

"Exaaaaaaaaaaaaactly," Peebee said. "And the reviewing of basics that you already know."

"Oh my god I hate that," Tip said. "I swear, at my old school? The first half a semester was always just a recap of what we were supposed to have learned so far."

"Ugh," Peebee said, and there was a lot of disdain in what was not really a word. "What even is the point of having a whole semester if you're going to use half of it that way? There are so many more interesting things you could be doing with it!"

She snickered. "So I mean, I guess you have to admit this is an improvement in some ways?"

"Yes. Somehow the woman with probable brain damage does clear that bar."

"And, you know, I'm honestly not sure what exactly that says about, well . . . anything. Should we worry about her, though?"

"I mean, she made it this far." Tip had spent most of her life caring for idiot adults. She didn't really want to add another one. Still. . . . . "Maybe."

Peebee considered for a moment, then shrugged. "Give it another week or two, see how it goes?"

How To Science Things All Sciencily, Monday

Re: Go Out And Science!

Re: Go Out And Science!

Re: Go Out And Science!

Re: Go Out And Science!

Re: Go Out And Science!

Re: Go Out And Science!

Re: Go Out And Science!

Re: Go Out And Science!

Re: Go Out And Science!

Re: Go Out And Science!

Re: Go Out And Science!

Re: Go Out And Science!

Re: Go Out And Science!

Re: Go Out And Science!

Re: Go Out And Science!

Re: Go Out And Science!

Re: Go Out And Science!

Re: Go Out And Science!

Re: Go Out And Science!

Re: Go Out And Science!

Re: Go Out And Science!

Re: Go Out And Science!