Dreams That Do Not Matter (gmw fanfiction)

Girl Meets STEM

Verity's POV

"Ladies and Gentlemen, I invite you to join me on a journey of discovery. Your midterm experiment," Mr. Norton announces to the class, earning groans from most of his students. I look at him with interest, but I think I will be disappointed by this assignment.

"In front of you, each team will find a beaker of a liquid solution," Mr. Norton gives us instructions. "And next to that, and here's where it gets exciting- a mystery marble! Right after school, precisely at 3:15, one member of each team will drop the marble into the beaker. The elements in the marble will break down overnight and turn into sludge. Then the other team member will discover what that sludge is and what it takes to turn the beaker back to clear."

I groan slightly, already knowing where the direction this experiment is heading.

I hear Riley ask from the other side of the classroom, "Who's suposed to do what?"

"Well, that's up to you! You're a team! Divide the responsibilities as you see fit. I've been conducting this experiment for 35 years. I've kept thorough notes. Very few have cracked it," Mr. Norton explains, which only confirms my point.

"Just when I really felt like doing an actual scientific eperiment," Missy states with a sigh.

"Yeah, me too," I agree with her.

"But isn't what we're supposed to do a scientific experiment?" Daniel from beside Missy gives both of us a confused look, not understanding what we mean.

"Nope," Missy looks at him in disbelief.

"You see, Mr. Norton assumes that all the teams will have a girl throw the marble in the beaker and boys will do the experimenting. The whole point here is that at this age many girls stop being interested in science, Mr. Norton wants to point out that girls can be just as good at science as boys. He waits which of the girls will refuse to throw the marble in. The result- there is nothing to make the beaker clear again once there is sludge, thererfore the only one who do it correctly are the ones who didn't throw the marble in at all. It's not really scientific at all. Just a psychological game," I explain to Lucas and Daniel as thoroughly as possible, while still trying to be brief.

Lucas stares at me in shock, "How are you doing it that you always know what's going on and what's about to happen?"

"It's not anything hard, really. I just look at things, watch for a while and then I see what's things. I don't really know how I do. There are some things you just know and you have no explanation as to how."

"Yeah, but not to that extent," Lucas argues.

Missy sighs. "Yeah, but now that we already know what it is all about, we have nothing to do for the next class, since we already have this figured out. I wish we could do something more interesting."

"But I still think it's not entirely correct to assume that each team will choose a girl to drop the marble," Lucas objects. 

"So it would be different in our cases if we didn't already know exactly what we're really supposed to do?" I ask him.

"Probably, after being around you two for a while, I am more or less certain that you would claim it's not fair that although it is a team work, one person does all the work, while the other one almost nothing, and would insist on dividing the work so that both of us have to work just equally hard, disobeying Mr. Norton's instructions anyway," Lucas says.

I try to think of a response, but realize that Lucas is right so I just nod to confirm his assumption. 

After the class