Disclaimer: In case it is not clearly stated in the narrative, everyone in this chapter engaging in anything approaching or including sexual activity is at least 18 years of age. (Although this particular chapter hasn't gotten around to any actual sex yet. Be patient.)
Note: This is written in British/South African English, although almost all similar media I consume is American, so that will have its influence too. For the sake of keeping the note short, I'll post a comment to explain my use of language and obscure terms, if anyone asks or I think of something in particular.
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"Jay... JAY." Angela was looking right at me. She and Sue had paused in whatever conversation they'd been having, and I got the sense I was supposed to be responding.
"Oh. Sorry. What were you saying?"
Sue sighed, although it was more of a breathless screech of exasperation, which was possibly fair. I'd been drifting all day. It was Tuesday, and I'd had two very long conversations with Eric, via text, since he'd first messaged me that Sunday night. It had resulted in me being unable to get him out of my mind. I'd somehow managed to avoid talking to Ellie about it yet, so I'd just quietly and happily been mulling over some of the things he'd said. I'd be giving her a ride home after AP Maths, so this brief window while we were sitting here and waiting for the lesson to start would probably be my last chance to think about him. Before Ellie started trying to pry, and ruining it somehow.
Angela and Sue, however, were in planning mode — and could not be deterred. "Sue and I were just saying we liked your catapult idea for the physics project. How would you like to break up the work?"
Right.
We'd naturally banded together when we'd gotten the assignment, and were told we could pick our own groups. None of us tended to trust other people in group projects, and we'd all usually end up micromanaging the whole thing. But when we worked together, we tended to be more relaxed about letting each other do our own parts. We'd rigorously check up on each other's work afterwards, but I think that also made us make more of an effort to ensure our work was ready for the scrutiny. Angela probably always did the most work in the wrapping-up stages of our projects, but it was probably less than she'd have to do with other group members, so she never really seemed to mind, and we tried to adjust the workload with that in mind.
"Ummm... I was thinking I could build the catapults, Sue could focus on the calculations and the content, and then maybe you could work on the poster and the report."
She began jotting things down, but talked through it at the same time. "Isn't building them going to be a lot of work? You said you didn't know what we were going to build them out of, and that it might take some iterations to get them right."
"I really don't mind. I think it might be fun." I shrugged. "I can always ask you for help if it looks like it's going slower than I think it will."
"Okay. Sue, do you want to focus on the equations? I'll write out the background and then when we're done, we can share. Then maybe I can make the poster, and you can put together the report?"
"Yes." Sue wrote down a few notes of her own. "Jay, what exactly am I supposed to be doing the equations for?"
"Shot distance, mostly. We'll compare things like arm length and the arc trajectory, and then other factors like the weight of material and how difficult it was to get some real life components — the onager will have an elastic, but I think in real life they used sinew, which would eventually rot."
"Ew," Sue said.
"Angela, that's probably in your part — materials that they used and the history of the different designs, and how hard it was to lug everything around. I'll send you some links about medieval army logistics. I don't know if they'll be useful, but they might be."
"Got it." Angela continued to take notes.
I never wrote as many things down as they did. I usually only put due dates on my calendar the day I got assignments, and I tried to just remember other details. Writing everything down seemed excessive. Occasionally I forgot things, but I was anxious enough about other people being upset with me that it was usually my own work I didn't take seriously, not group work.
It drove Sue crazy, and she was always yelling at me to write things down. Angela's only response was to just send me periodic reminders via text — she didn't seem to mind, as it seemed to fit into her efficient everyday routine. I don't know if it was threats of a violent response from Sue or the fear of disappointing Angela, but I had yet to let either of them down. But Sue was in most of my other classes, and she'd seen all the instances where my lack of organisation had screwed me over, so I suppose she had good reasons to be anxious.
There was a half-hour gap between school ending and AP maths starting, so we were just waiting in the classroom. It was still about fifteen minutes until the lesson started, so we were the only ones there. People usually went to the nearby cafe to get coffee or something. Jamie and Ellie had asked me if I wanted to go, but I still hadn't quite decided how I felt about being around Jamie. The arrival of Eric had pretty much chased away my crush on him, but I still felt like I should avoid him. I suppose it felt a bit disloyal, although that seemed kind of ridiculous.
I also just didn't want to invite any bro-to-bro confidences about the girl he may or may not have hooked up with at the party. Whether I would feel jealous didn't matter so much, really. I generally just never liked talking to guys about girls, especially if they were forward with details — and I could imagine Jamie would be. Although Ellie would have been there, so maybe I was overreacting for a simple trip to the cafe, but you can't be too careful with these things.
The door opened, and we all looked up at once as Louis stepped through. He paused on his way in, looking a bit uncertain. I grinned as I suddenly realised that perhaps it was a bit intimidating to walk into a mostly empty room with three people who immediately turned to stare at you as you entered.
"Oh, sorry," he stammered. "Should I not be in here yet?"
"Hey Louis," I said quickly. "It's fine, we're just talking about a project."
"Shhhh," hissed Sue.
I rolled my eyes.
"Louis, this is Sue." Angela smiled with vague amusement.
"Hi." Louis waved, and came to sit at a desk close to us.
"Is your school doing the science fair too?" Sue asked. Abrupt, but that was Sue.
"No, but I have to for my end-of-year assessments, so I will be."
"On your own?" Sue sounded sceptical.
"Um, yes."
"What's your project?"
This was really turning into a bit of an interrogation. Louis looked slightly uncomfortable. I didn't intervene — I'd heard he would be joining us towards the end of the year for exams and other assessments. He had to learn about Sue's particular brand of personality at some point.
"Uhhh... I haven't really decided yet. We only got it yesterday." So had we, actually. Not that it had mattered much to Angela or Sue. Louis cleared his throat. "I was thinking maybe something to do with car safety improvements over the last few decades."
"Oh. Well that doesn't sound very interesting. Good." Sue stood up. "I'm going to the bathroom now."
"Jesus." I sighed. Angela just laughed at the bewildered look on Louis' face.
"Sorry," she said, subsiding into soft giggles. "We don't know why she's like that. Her sister is pretty normal."
"Okay," Louis said, shrugging and smiling. "Are you guys a group? What's your project?"
"Comparison of the Range, Mechanics and Construction of Medieval Period Catapults." I said, coming up with a sufficiently technical name for the project idea that I'd suggested during yesterday's brainstorming, and that we were now apparently doing.
"That's a great title." Angela made another note in her organiser.
"Thank you."
"That's really cool," Louis said. "I saw a really cool video somewhere about a guy who built a trebuchet in his garden from hardware store stuff."
"Interesting." I said, "We're going to be building small ones, but one of them will definitely be a trebuchet."
"I'll see if I can find the video, and send it to you."
"Thanks, that'd be great." I said.
"Would you like to join our project?" Angela asked. "If your physics teacher is okay with that. Assessments are going to happen at the fair, so it should be fine."
