Expect the Unexpected

Bully for Ethan

"You know you can pretty much make all this digital, right?"

Doctor Oliver looked over to see her flipping through a stack of papers that consisted mainly of old school records, college work, and job applications after the island he and Mercer had worked on, exploded. "Most of it is over ten years old," he answered. "There's no point in digitalising it. Besides, I wouldn't know where to start."

"Ethan or Hayley could help you out there," said Anabel.

"But then I'd lose my excuse to spend time with you," Doctor Oliver muttered, turning away.

"What was that?" Anabel asked, her lips curving into a smile.

"You heard."

Anabel chuckled and turned back to the pile of papers. She rifled through them, remembering what Doctor Oliver had said about what could and couldn't be thrown away. If it was dated before the earlier 2000s then it could be thrown away, anything from 2000 to now was to be kept.

"Hey, Anabel, what did you get for number five on Mercer's homework?" Circe asked. She was sitting cross-legged on the stairs leading out of the lab. Her science book was open on her lap, and a homework book was laying across it. "I can't make heads or tail of it, especially when the answer seems to be pretty logical."

Anabel paused. "Refresh my memory," she said. "What was question number five?"

"What is a dinosaur?" Circe answered. "I mean, the logical answer would be a reptile from 65 million years ago, or is that not true anymore?"

Before Anabel had a chance to answer, Doctor Oliver did.

"It sounds like Anton is looking for a deeper understanding on your knowledge," he said. "When most people say 'dinosaur' they think 'big, scaly, dangerous lizards' when in fact they are so much more than that."

Circe furrowed her brow. "But, they were just large reptiles, weren't they?" she asked.

"Not always," said Doctor Oliver. "When you consider modern times, and think of a reptile, what comes to mind?"

"Crocodile or turtles."

"Snakes," Anabel said. She had diverted her attention once again to the pile of papers in front of her.

Circe pointed at her in agreement. "I hate snakes, but yes, snakes. You trying to tell me that Dinosaurs weren't reptiles?" she asked.

"The Dinosaurs were reptiles," Doctor Oliver assured. "But they did descend from Mammals."

Glancing over her shoulder, Anabel spotted the blank stare that Circe was giving her homework. She turned and nudged Doctor Oliver's leg, seeing as he was standing closer than she had anticipated, and got up from her chair. "Just put that it comes down to classification," she said, leaning against the railing. "And that dinosaurs are divided into two groups - Saurischian and Ornithischian."

"Thank you," Circe said, smiling up at Anabel.

Anabel winked and returned to her seat.

"Show off," Doctor Oliver teased.

"Personally, I feel you should be proud of that," said Anabel. "I mean, my dad hasn't taught us for very long, so everything I have written on my homework sheet is from what you've taught us."

"Change show off to suck up then."

Anabel grinned and, leaning back in her seat, looked up. She couldn't seen his face, but she had a very good idea that she had met his gaze as he was looking down. "I don't need to show off my dino knowledge to be a suck up, Doctor O," she said.