| Mid-Monday afternoon and lunch has come and gone. Most are beginning to feel the sleepy after-effects of lunch, as most are slumping at the lab tables in one form or another. The teacher understands this and has assigned some mundane task to keep them busy until the bell rings. Students have been grouped together and have been given several mineral samples, and the idea is to identify each one and labl them on the given sheet. Donny, not being the most studious, picks up a light brown rock and appears to be looking through it more then at it.
Tabitha has her backpack down under her chair and her notebook on the table, her leg crossed under her as she leans forward, one elbow on the tabletop, chewing on her pinkie nail. She looks at the instructions for the assignment, and then at the tray of minerals they're supposed to be sorting. Her eyelids are drooping, and it's hardly a wonder. She's got something of a reputation as That Girl Who Always Falls Asleep In Class. Rumor has it that she has paperwork documenting her diagnosed narcolepsy, and that's why she avoids any disciplinary actions for her drowsiness. She's right there with Donny in not even trying, though she picks up the little flake of mica and starts playing with it between her fingers. "This one's pretty," she finally remarks.
Donny puts his sample down, shrugging. "I'm lost. I mean, this is brown rock, which is different from the grey rock and the green rock." He chuckles and looks over. "Do you know which one that is?" He opens his textbook to see if there might be any identification pointers inside. "I know different quartzes, and selenite, but this stuff.." He shrugs. Earth Science. The bottom floor of all the sciences.
"This one's mica," Tabitha knows that much. "It's the flaky one. Do you ever watch Warehouse 13? There's a character on that show named Myka. She's not... quite so flaky, but she has her moments," she grins a goofy sort of grin. "It's on page, um, ninety six or ninety eight, I think."
Donny chuckles and nods. "Ok, then. We have one." He looks at the girl oddly.. "I... don't watch much television. Kinda rots the brain.. Especially Teen Dramas." beat... "Though it's cool you can make that connection." He states before picking up the next one and looking at the angles, peering through the book. "I swear they enjoy the torture that they're putting us through.."
"You don't watch any TV at all?" Tabitha sounds fascinated by the idea of it. "I like Warehouse 13, and I'm really sad that Eureka ended this summer. But there's new Doctor Who coming out now, so..." she sort of trails off. "The powdery white one is talc, like... talcum powder," she points out another one. "It's really soft, I think it's a one on the Mohs scale, that's why you can use it like chalk on a chalkboard." Random diversion of directions. "The opposite of talc is a diamond. I wonder what the opposite of a chalkboard is."
Donny shrugs. "Once in a while I watch. I'm usually too busy with either homework or music, or... " He smirks with a bit of a blush at a thought. He returns his attention to the table and nods, marking it down. "Well, the board is harder, hence why the chalk rubs off on it and not the opposite, so the other end of the spectrum from the board would be something soft.." Philosophy, now *that* he can discuss..
"Like a marshmallow," Tabitha murmurs to herself, resuming chewing on her pinky nail, looking down over the box of minerals as though hoping to find a marshmallow present. "Diamond on marshmallow. That would be a mess. A tasty, tasty mess," she muses. "The next one from talc is graphite, which you can use for pencils. So you can't actually get lead poisoning from pencils anymore. So we just have to find the grey stone we can use to mark our paper," she reaches out to put the mica back and grab a random grey stone, using her other hand to cover over a yawn.
Donny chuckles at the thought of a diamond covered in Marshmallow Fluff. He nods and picks up the few grey rocks near him. At the yawn he looks up and nods. "You ok? I mean, I know this stuff is duller then hell.."
Tabitha seems really smart, and that's the shame of it all. For sleeping through class, she knows an awful lot about what's been going on. She shakes her head briskly, standing up and then folding her other leg underneath her, fidgeting to get her blood flowing a little. "I'm okay. I just want to go take a walk. Wake up a little bit." She frowns. "Hey!" she sits up straight, then leans forward. "I'm going to ask to go to the bathroom. If you ask in a few minutes, we can take a lap of the school and I can stop by my locker for some marshmallows for us to experiment with." A pause. "Or eat."
Donny blinks slowly, typically not one to skip out of class.. "Um... Sure.. I guess?" He looks around.. "I mean, anything's better then this." He looks around at the rest of the class and fidgets nervously with the zipper on his hoodie.
Tabitha flings her hand up into the air. "Dr. Galvan," she speaks up, mild-voiced. "May I have a pass to go to the restroom?" As often as she's dormant in class, she's never been a bother, otherwise, and so the sad-eyed, sleepy-voiced plea takes hold, and soon Tabs is holding a restroom pass, moving out into the hallway and then hiding by the outside of the door.
Donny waits about 5 minutes, actually taking the time to get as much done as possible, just so they don't get into *too* much trouble. After what feels like the appropriate amount of time has passed, he too, raises his hand and gets permission to head to the restroom. He ducks out the door.
By the time Donny's made it out of class, Tabs is fidgeting from foot to foot in the little nook between the wall and the lockers, anxious to get moving. Her head's just drooping to the side, and the CLONK of her cranium against the side of the locker is just about masked by the click of the classroom door opening, jerking her awake enough to move off into the hallway, just two students on an errand, judging from the matching passes in their hands. "I just need to move around, or else I was going to take a nap on top of my notebook. My locker's down this way."
Donny nods and follows. "Are you ok, though? I mean, it's not like a reaction... to, like, medicine or something?" And by something he means a form of illegal narcotics. Donny's not one to judge but he seems to notice quite the epidemic of substance abuse in the school as of late. He follows the girl down the hall. "I mean, I don't care, I just need to know in case you get worse."
Tabitha shakes her head. "Oh, no, nothing like that. Well. I mean. I'm on meds," and she seems to mean normal ones. It may be she's a little too naive to have caught the inference. "But they're for my narcolepsy. It's always worse in the afternoon." Which would explain why she sleeps through this class in particular most of the time. "Here we go," she opens up her locker, pulling out a baggie of what look to be Lucky Charms marshmallows, with all the actual cereal missing. "What's your color?" she asks him, opening up the baggie and offering him first choice.
Donny blinks, not used to dealing with someone so enigmatic. "I.. don't have one. You choose for me." He says, with a smirk as he keeps looking around for Five-Oh. He nods.. "No shit. For real?" He meant about the narcolepsy. "Wow.. I mean, you hear about that stuff on TV but I didn't know it was really like that." He looks to the girl in concern. "I mean, how do you get homework done and stuff?"
"You... kind of look like the red balloon sort, to me," Tabs decides, fishing out one of the round red marshmallows from her baggie and handing it over. "Yeah, it's a real thing. Surpriiiiise," she sing-songs though that last syllable with a flare of her free hand in a limp adaptation of jazz fingers before she picks out a purple horseshoe for herself. "I, uh. Well, honestly, most of the time I don't. I'm not, like... an honor student or anything."
Donny nods. "That kinda sucks.. I mean, I know you don't want pity but.." He shrugs. "I just think it sucks." He says, before popping the marshmallow in his mouth. He glances around nervously. "Will the sugar help? At least to the end of class?"
"The walk will help more than the sugar. Sitting in place is just... a recipe for naptime. But the sugar'll help, too, until I crash. No more than one horse's worth of horseshoes," Tabs utters axiomatically, grabbing another marshmallow for herself and holding out the bag for Donny to pick anything he fancies from it. "It's like sedimentary rock, right? If I sit still long enough I just get glues to whatever I'm sitting on, and then become part of the scenery. Tabitha National Petrified Forest Blayer," she gives herself a new impromptu middle name. "Want to head out the side door and race once around the building? Loser has to buy the winner a comic book?"
Donny nods and he listens to the girl describe her condition. "Ok.. I see.." At the question of a race, he raises an eyebrow and chuckles nervously.. "Um.. I guess?" He chuckles again and shrugs, giving the girl a 'Why not?' look.
Tabitha pinches the side of her ziplock baggie, drawing her fingers along the seam and sealing it up, then diverting sideways across the hall to a side door, looking behind her. "Ready?" she makes sure, hands on the door handle, but waiting for the mark before opening it up and sprinting outside.
Donny shrugs, not really knowing what the hell it is that he's doing. "Sure." he nods, and gets ready to run.
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