The Bridgerton Eight

I See A Multicellular Organism I'd Like To Punch

Tuesday—November 24th, 2020

The memory was still strong.

It started with the ticking of the clock telling Eloise she was late. Honestly, it was a very fitting start for the emotionally heavy semester she was about to have. Maybe she should've guessed right then. Maybe the right choice would have been not going to that Biology class altogether, instead of either turning up late or turning up unwashed like she had originally thought.

Eloise had cursed and huffed, rushing around her bedroom throwing together whatever outfit she could find. Long skirt and blouse, high socks and black shoes. She had sighed at her reflection, pulling her hair into a ponytail and finishing off her look by spraying herself with perfume. What a way to make a good first impression... Grabbing her backpack, she ran out of the house, ignoring her mother's protests that she should at least have some toast or a yogurt. What a foolish thing, Eloise thought. There was simply no time for yogurt in the morning and her mother should know it by now.

The trip to Saganapok was usually a pleasing journey for Eloise who enjoyed watching the green scenery rush by. But not today. She was waaay too late to enjoy the view. Half an hour later, panting as she neared the right classroom, Eloise had stopped to gather her courage. Any other class and she would have said better late than never, but this was Crane's class.

Professor Crane had a bit of a reputation at Eton. Professor of Biology with a PhD in Plant Genetics and Breeding, he was the true gem of Saganapok Academic Center. Extremely underpaid, he had been offered a position in both Oxford and Harvard and, for some unknown reason, rejected them both. Eloise had seen girls on campus swoon—physically swoon!—after the young professor and, honestly, Eloise could hardly blame them. Nearing thirty, with coal black hair and striking pale eyes, he was undeniably gorgeous. His face was angular with a strong nose and jaw, scattered with beauty marks. He genuinely looked like a underwear model and more often than not Eloise wondered why the hell was someone like him wasting his life in a place like Saganapok.

But all of that wasn't what made up his reputation on campus. No, he wasn't just known as the most beautiful man alive. He was known as a morose, occasionally rude, most difficult to impress, impatient man. His subject—which was supposed to be a breeze of fresh air in a thoroughly hard course—under his charge had become one of the toughest classes to pass. He demanded excellency and accepted nothing short of that. Students were taught to fear his grading system and many tried to avoid his class altogether and get their credits some other way.

For Eloise, however, there was no other way—she wasn't fond of shortcuts.

So she had burst into his classroom, in that cold Tuesday morning, breathing heavily as she finally pulled herself into an empty seat. It wasn't the graceful entrance she had hoped for—she had interrupted the lesson and she was painfully aware of it. Professor Crane gazed at her, his mouth frozen in the sentence he didn't get to finish, and Eloise found herself unresponsive under his scrutiny. Then he muttered, "How nice of you to join us, Miss Bridgerton," his blue eyes darkening for only a split second before he composed himself with a quick shake of his head.

Heat rose up her neck. "I'm s—"

"As I was saying," he continued, talking over her meek apology, "today we're going to be discussing genes and gene networks involved in plant development. Now, the development and growth of a multicellular organism from a single cell requires correct temporal and spatial regulation of cellular gene expression. That can be achieved by many mechanisms acting at the level of transcription, post-transcription, translation and/or post-translation. We are using molecular genetics to understand how genes and regulation of gene expression control plant development."