fandomhigh | Sciencing Things Sciencily: Sciencing Harder, Monday

"Today we'll be talking about sciencing animals," Philomena said brightly. The chicken on her shoulder looked bored. "They say we're all made of the same stuff, like tissue paper and organs and bones and stuff. That's cos of a thing called evolution, which Charles Darwin invented in the 19th century. He wrote this book called the Origin of Species, and his invention was the big twist at the end: humans weren't special, we were made of bits of monkey."

She nodded sagely. She'd done a special on this. She knew stuff.

"Of course, it was a bit unrealistic, as twists go," she said, "Cos you can't see evolution, can you? Monkey bones--" Let's just say she didn't say 'bones' and leave it at that, "Aren't quite shaped as human bits, are they? They're sort of squishy and small, like little people, but harier."

What had this class been about, again? "Darwin claimed we were all family. Not just of monkeys, also of meerkats and rhinos and elephants and birds and beetles and squid and ants and cuttlefish and those weird spiny things that live underwater and maybe even like, flowers and plants and stuff, so really that bit of moss you find in the shower in the morning might be an aunt or an uncle." Beat. "Not sure where it keeps its bits, though."

She pointed at the chicken on her shoulder. "I think this one might be a cousin," she said. "I've got this uncle who looks a bit chickeny, like, or at least he walks funny, kind of like a squiggle." She mimed the squiggle with her fingers.

"Anyway, there's like, a big animal family tree that people drew, but I can't really read it 'cos I can't find my mum on it so it's hard to figure out where I started. Which also makes me doubt this Darwin chap, lazy bugger, couldn't actually be arsed to work all of this out. So I tried to work it out, but I got distracted."

Which would explain the large 'family tree' at the back of the class, which, upon closer inspection, made no sense at all. She'd just sort of filled things in where they made sense. Bees and birds were related, weren't they? Like directly. They made babies, anyway, which was a bit disgusting since they were family, kind of like hillbillies.

... which was scribbled right underneath that particular part of the tree.

"I need your help to finish it," she said. "So get your laptops out and help me fill this thing in. Don't forget to put yourselves in, like. Don't be like Darwin, he's a lazy f--"