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Science Fairy

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Zoey entered her dorm. "Hi girls, Dean Rivers told me to take care of another cousin of Megan's named Paige Howard. She has just won the national science fair and is going to present herr latest invention here on the campus."

Addie shrugged. "I don't care, but it is probably a great honour for the PCA!"

Moze pondered. "My friend Simon Nelson Cook, who had won the local science fair at La Mesa, is totally keen on her invention, the super-power converter. It may supply half of LA with an apparatus smaller than a custodian's closet. Of course, I don't understand ,zilch about it."

Zoey agreed with her roomies. "I think Quinn might see it differently. Paige might even enroll at the PCA."

Moze nodded. "So will Lisa Zemo and Mary Ferry ..."

Addie asked: "Does Paige look like Megan?"

Zoey noddded. "I've heard so!"

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Dean Rivers gathered the science teachers and the best scientists among the pupils. "OK, as you have provbably already heard, the winner of this year's National Science Fair is on the way to evaluate the PCA. She will establish her latest invention. Our school is going to run on Paige Current!"

"What do we have to do?" Firewire wanted to know.

His pals Neil and Andrew chuckled sarcastically.

Dean Rivers passed the microphone to Mr. Beringer and Mrs. Bromwell.

"You're going to assist Paige and introduce her to the facilities in our laboratories." Mr. Beringer explained.

Mrs. Bromwell added: "Make sure that she has gote everything she needs at her disposal!"

Are we her slaves?"Quinn wanted to know. Fortunately, Dean Rivers didn't hear that, just some fellow pupils did. "That's not fair!

For the first time, Firewire applauded Quinn.

"Oh, that will be a great honour!" Josh pretended.

Craig and Eric didn't really recognise what was going on, they just kept on talking about their own projects.

Quinn pondered seriously. She was about two years older than Paige and had not yet won the National Science Fair Award. She started to doubt her scientific abilities. Already a rat had beaten her. And half of her experiments went awfully wrong, and instead of repairing Dustin's miniature plane, she had almost made him decapitate Dean Rivers. That was downright embarassing! Paige's visit could destroy her reputation for good. As if losing Mark had not been enough of a punishment, everything was at a stake. Quinn had never wanted to abuse her knowledge for destructive purposes, but all she had achieved had effected exactly that: destruction. She had trumped Firewire with her own warbot, her wrist watch with built-in laser zappers was the only invention that worked flawlessly. Granted, she had built a bunch of useful stuff such as a silent leaf-blower. But this had been too long ago. She couldn't even cultivate a hybridic plant named banapple. Quinn could beat her male fellows with ease, and Lisa and Mary were rather friends than rivals, but already Mindy showed that Quinn still had to learn a lot. Granted, Mindy was slightly older, but Paige wasn't. Quinn was desperate. She had thought about subverting Paige's demonstration. But the consequences of an accident could be devastating. The shock she had received from the quarantine was quite still deep. Even more, Quinn was not allowed to think aloud about her doubts concerning herself. Nevel had always looked up to her, and the slighetst doubt about Quinn's mental superiority, which he shared at least partially, could push him into wreaking havoc. Nevel was fast in cursing people, and even faster in making them rue the day, in particular when he felt the need to defend Quinn's honour.

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The day of Paige's arrival, Quinn had experimented with anti-gravity. Instead of reversing gravity, she had destroyed Lola's new cellular telephone. Quinn's anger grew when she noticed that Paige could fix her error with ease. Yet she had been unable to declare her intention to give up.

Mary Ferry and Lisa were more friendly towards Paige, but they were basically on Quinn's side, should it ever have come down to it.

Firewire and his pals made the usual jokes about science and girls, but they did that behind Paige's back. They desperately avoided getting noticed.

Mindy Crenshaw was really upset. She had cloned puppies and built the world's strongest portable magnet, but, after all, Paige had got most of the attention.

Miles Brody [[62]]sat back and smiled. He was the guy with the greatest book knowledge at the PCA and had come to read way more books than Paige would ever read in her life. But was he really more knowledgeable? Time would tell.

Simon Nelson Cook, a self-designated cyborg, had sacrificed a lot of his humanity in order to achieve a higher understanding of science and technology. Yet this was not enough to hold a candle to Paige who, after all, had never stopped being human.

Joshua Nichols had always lost out badly to his girlfriend Mindy Crenshaw. Granted, he was worth Paige's shadow, but when she approached, he twitchwed like a dead fish, making the prodigy smile with pity.

Eric Blonowitz never really cared about Paige's visit. In his mind, it held no special significance.

Craig Ramirez was more or less a mere appendix to Eric, and he followed his best friend's behaviour.

"PCA Science News. This is Jeremiah Trottman. Today we are witnesses of a scientific revolution on the campus of our school. Paige Howard, multiply awarded prodigy, is demonstrating her latest invention which, upon success, will supply the PCA wth power for the next five years." Trottman choked as he had no clue what he was talking about. Then he coughed when he presented his co-commentator: Once more, Lola Martinez had been assigned. Trottman's throat cramped when he passed the voice to Lola.

"Hi, what a wonderful day. Paige Howard, your hair glitters and sparkles more than Quinn's. What shampoo do you use?" Lola asked Ms. Howard.

"Sorry, my mom takes care of that, I have no clue!" Paige shrugged helplessly.

"Oh, your mom must be very competent, then!" Lola smiled.

Dean Rivers stomped his feet impatiently.

"Oh, Mr. Rivers. Last week I've suggested you to take some lotion against ..." Lola addressed the headmaster.

"May we come to the interesting stuff?" Dean Rivers begged the obnoxious Hollywood star.

Lola shrugged. "OK, how do you take care of your hair? It doesn't sparkle as much as ..."

Dean Rivers grabbed Lola's microphone and gave a boring sermon, expressing his pride.

Paige announced that everything was ready. "OK, your worship, would you please pull that lever?"

Dean Rivers was aware of the historicity of the moment when he stepped up to the engine. Then he followed Paige's command.

Paige monitored the apparatus and the instruments. "In 100 seconds, the necessary temperature will be reached."

Mindy and Josh discussed the scientific aspects of what was going on.

Suddenly, Paige's face darkened. "That's impossible, how ..." She breathed deeply. "Dean Rivers, you should evacuate the school. Something has gone out of control. It's mno joke!"

Dean Rivers issued a red alert. "No panic! Stay in queues of ..."

Alas, his words fell like cotton swabs.

Apropos cotton swabs, Stacey lost another model and started screaming piteously when a wild estampede crushed the cotton swab sculpture into smithereens.

Once again, Nicole had neglected Reginald and fled in panic, leaving her little brother behind.

Dean Rivers begged all of the science guys to help Paige fix the problem. Alas, they had suddenly turned into incredible cowards.

Clueless Zoey offered to help Paige, and also Reginald stayed behind, chanting some buddhist mantra.

"This is mortal danger!" Zoey tried to send Reginald away, but he wasn't going to budge.

"I'm not afraid of death, it means no sorrow!" Reginald declared.

Dustin tried to drag Zoey away from danger, but in vain.

All Dustin and Zoey could do is reading from various instruments.

The situation was desperate. Finally, some of the cowards returned: Mindy, Craig, Eric, and, last but not least, Quinn Pensky.

Quinn suggested to reverse the current. Toobad the apparatus was of a bad sort of metal. She grabbed Zoey's room key. "That's better!" Then she tore it from Zoey's throat and used it to shortcircuit the system.

Mindy, Craig, and Eric helped together and reset the rest of the machines while they analysed precisely what had gone wrong.

Paige sighed in relief. "You all are geniuses, OK? Including Craig. Without Quinn, we'd be all goners, and Mindy's, Craig's, and Eric's observation made it possible for us to even improve the technology."

Eric! My name is Eric!

Mindy, Quinn, and Craig smiled.

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"PCA Science News. This is Jeremiah Trottman. Eric Blomnowitz, Craig Ramirez, Mindy Crenshaw, Quinn Pensky, and Paige Howard have just been offered scholarships from Caltech Institute." Jeremiah coughed and choked again. "Lola, please!" He almost puked.

"Craig Ramirez and Eric Blonowitz have already accepted. They will join the Caltech, starting next term. Mindy Crenshaw... what do you say?" Lola asked.

Mindy shrugged. "I'd have to leave without Josh, my boyfriend"

Josh Nichols stepped up to Mindy. "You're much greater than me and should accept the offer. I'll join sooner or later, as your assistant or so, if I'm still worthy."

"Really?" Mindy was puzzled. "You don't mind ..."

"Mindy! I love you and thus I'm ready to go though this sacrifice. We'll only be half an hour apart, anyways!" Josh sighed. He had never confdessed that he loved Mindy, he had just been her boyfriend. Now the barrier was broken.

"Josh, I love you too!" He kissed her tenderly. "Time will fly by like nothing."

Quinn had not yet decided.

Eric approached Quinn.

"Hi Craig!" Quinn smiled.

"Eric! My name is Eric!" Blonowitz shrugged. "Whatever you're going to say, during the last days, I've come to see that ... I like you very very much!"

"What?" Quinn was puzzled. She had hardly come to see Eric and his sidekick Craig. They had just accidentally shared a lot of interests, but she had never even dreamt of ... "Are you sure?"

"You're one of the few girls that speaks our language." Eric stammered.

Quinn nodded. "And vice versa. I'm coming with you guys!"

Lola sobbed. She went to Paige. "So ... what are you doing?"

"I'm coming to the PCA!" Paige declared. "The Caltech can't teach me anything. We scientists are trained to understand how matter works. But from mystics like Reginald Bristow, I may learn how to overcome material consciousness. This beats anything science may ever offer. No university of this world may teach you stuff like that!"

Zoey choked hard. Reginald was one to scare people away from the PCA, which was one of the reasons he could not live on campus. And this Paige girl was coming to the PCA because of him? That made no sense. What,if anything, did still make sense after two years and a half at the PCA? Zoey shrugged cluelessly.

Nicole Bristow screamed in joy because Paige had praised Reginald. Alas, poor Nicole had no clue what she had praised him for. She used to praise boy for their cuteness, hence she was convinced that Paige had just deemed Reginald cute, which she couldn't quite understand.

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Finally, it was tiime to say good-bye to Quinn.

Zoey sobbed uncontrollably, Inspite of having had many arguments with Quinn, she was very sad.

"The Caltech is quasi around the corner!" Quinn calmed Zoey. "I'm just a phone call away if you need me."

Zoey nodded. "Keep good care of yourself!"

"Keep good care of Nevel!" Quinn ordered Zoey, eyeing her in a warning manner.

Zoey coughed. Just because she had managed to be a good sister for Dustin, this didn't mean that everyone was entitled to burden her with his or her little siblings. First Spencer Shay, and now Quinn Pensky, who would be the next to ... This was going to get out of control! And Nevel was the most scary person Zoey had ever come across.

Lola sobbed as well. But she also sighed with relief. No dangerous experiments anymore, especially if Paige was really giving up on science for some weird spaz, as Lola assumed.

Zoey stared at Lola. How long will the two of them still live under the same roof? Everything seemed to change so fast.

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[[62] ]cf. Warbots