Survival Of The Fittest

Okay, so if there are 300 seats in the theater and they make 7500 dollars on a full night, how much money would it cost to buy a ticket for four people... wait, why would anyone even know how much the theater made on a full night in the first place? Couldn't they just look it up on Ticketmaster or something? Oh shit, that reminds me, I still have to reserve tickets for that concert this summer, I hope it doesn't get rained out like that last one. Damn, but the weather's nice today, though... the sky's so blue... I can reserve the tickets tonight. Maybe I should ask them how much they make when every seat's filled... That's the only way this stupid fucking problem could possibly be useful...

To say that Justin wasn't paying attention to the problem Mr. Alpert was currently writing up the solution to on the blackboard would be like saying the sky he was constantly staring out the window at was blue. The teacher had long given up on telling him to pay attention - hell, at least he wasn't chatting at the back of the room anymore, distracting other students, too. Mr. Alpert continued to scratch hurriedly at the board and gesture wildly, rushing a bit in a slightly manic attempt to finish the problem before the bell rang, only just aware that he had lost about half the class.

Christ, I don't think I've seen him this energetic before, no monotone or anything. It's a wonder this guy's married with kids, how'd he manage to work up the passion? Maybe he's got a bell for that, too, his wife won't fuck him at all unless it's in the time limit. God, that would suck. No wonder he's so miserable all the time. Divide by 200... shit, I should be taking notes, shouldn't I. Well, whatever, the bell's gonna ring in like five minutes. He probably won't even get to finish. ...Oh god, that's so wrong... Hahaha...

((Samantha Ridley continued from Cosmonaut ))

Sam hurried down the hall, hoping to be on time for her math class, for once. She wasn't bad at math, necessarily, but it's hard to excel when you're always late, and with the foot traffic in the school, and the distance between the two wings it was hard to be on time every day. Luckily, chemistry had let out a few minutes early, and she was able to make the trek to the math wing just as the bell rang. As the students began to filter into the halls, Sam noticed a familiar face gathering his things in the class room.

"Fucking hell," she muttered under her breath, "Corrigan is here."

The bell rang... FINALLY.

Whether or not the next class was going to be as bad as this one, Justin wasn't entirely sure, but at least for the moment he didn't have to think about tickets or letters or dividing by anything. He leaned back in his chair and breathed a sigh of relief before stuffing his still-blank notebook into his backpack. As he did so, however, he heard someone say his name, and instinctively looked up. He breathed another sigh, this time in disappointment, however, when he realized it was Samantha. He never was entirely sure what she had against him, but every time he ran into her lately she never failed at flinging some insult at him. Sure, the attention was flattering, but it'd at least be nice if he knew the reason.

"Well, hello, to you too," he responded, rolling his eyes, and zipped up his backpack. Fuck all this dramatic stuff, he didn't have time for this, he had more important places to be. Like... uh...

Shit, what was his next class?

Well, any place was more important than this one.

Ariel Calvallini was probably the last person you would expect to see carrying a foot-long pile of books down a hallway. She never expected to be doing something along those lines either. If someone were to look at her, they would have noticed that she looked like she was about to collapse. The pile of books were literally bigger than her her head, and were thicker than any she's ever had to carry. It was almost impossible to see where she was going.

The books she was carrying weren't necessarily heavy - they were pretty light considering how big they were. It was the fact that she carried them from one end of the hallway to the other. This wore her out, making her wheeze with every step that she took. Ariel was stronger than she looked (after all she could at least carry the pile of books) and yet at the same time she was as weak as someone of her stature could be. She knew that she could make it to her class without dropping the books, that much was for certain.

Kids were beginning to eyeball her. Ariel didn't like that so much. It made it look as though she was doing something that was strange or perverted. She was just walking down the hallway... carrying a pile of books that were taller than her head. She probably looked like she was about to collapse though there was no time for her to reassure this. In the long run it didn't matter whatsoever.

So anyway. The books... which class did she have to take it to? Was it Mr. Alpert? Or Mrs. Naylor? Yes, it had to be Mr. Alpert. Mrs. Naylor was the one who sent her down with the books, and no one else taught Algebra in the school. It had to be him.

"Ariel, could you be a dear and take these books down?" The elderly woman told her. "Don't take them all at once, you may break your back."

Ariel hated when people acted like that. Yeah, sure, maybe she was weak but that certainly didn't mean this task was impossible. She could do this just as easily as anyone else. It wasn't that she was mad; it took alot to get Ariel mad. She was just annoyed. She could do this easily. It just... wasn't in her plan to go in the wrong direction. That was it.

"Ahh..."

She sighed. Her legs were literally ready to topple over and now she was simply going on sheer determination alone. She couldn't see ahead but she was lucky enough that no one on her side of the hallway decided to ram into her and knock her down. Okay... Just a few more feet... that's it, that's it...

{{continued from Running Tackle}}

I'mlateI'mlateI'mlateI'mlateI'mlateI'mLATE!

That was the only thing on Maria Graham's mind as she sprinted down the hallway to get to class.

Almost there... She spotted the door to Mr. Alpert's math class, with someone carrying a stack of books headed in that direction. That wasn't any of her concern, though; she just had to go past her and-

*bump*

It really was unfortunate that Maria was heading the same way Ariel was. Ariel was like a paper doll compared to Maria as she came rushing past, bumping into her. She fell onto the floor with a loud thump, the textbooks flying all over the floor. The force itself knocked the wind out of her.

"Oww..." she lifts her head, looking over the floor. "Ohhh.... ohhh.... ohhh no...."

She weakly rolled onto her stomach, pulling herself up from the floor. Her knees were throbbing in pain. She looked over at a text book and let out a weak squeak.

"Oh no, I should have looked where I'm going..." she shivered. "I-I'm sorry."

Aaron Hughes was running late for math class, which was not optimal, since he was already treading on thin ice with his math teacher, Mr. Alpert. Aaron would not, however, stoop to running to class. Running was for important situations, fleeing people pretending to be trolls and the like in the live action roleplaying games Aaron participated in on the weekends. Mr. Alpert was a monster, but not the sort Aaron was really afraid of.

I've got all the math credits I need to graduate, he thought, so if I fail this class, it's no big deal. I won't fail, though, not unless Mr. Alpert continues to pursue his twisted vendetta against me.

Aaron could have sworn that the math teacher waited, watching him, waiting until he was sure Aaron was least prepared to answer a question before calling on him. Then, he would go to th front of the class, and look like an idiot when he was unable to solve supposedly simple problems.

I always get the trick questions. Always.

Ahead of him, Aaron saw two girls collide. One was carrying a huge pile of textbooks, which went flying everywhere.

Oh, good, Aaron thought, sidestepping the girls and the textbooks, something to distract everyone in the classroom while I slip in. He walked quietly into the classroom, taking a seat far from the front of the room, and then turned to stare out the door, pretending he had been there all along.

Just before Justin could leave, a large pile of books appeared to enter in the doorway - Oh no, wait there was actually someone carrying those. It was the tiniest girl Justin had seen in his life. He vaguely recognized the part of her face that was not obscured by book as someone he'd passed a few times in the hallway before, usually looking like any student could crush her flat at any given moment. The tiniest bit of wind probably could've sent her fl-

Ooooooooooh.

Not to Justin's surprised, the tiny girl was knocked to the ground, the books flying everywhere, by another late student. Unable to help himself, Justin had to laugh out loud. It was like something out of a shitty sitcom - this tiny, pale little deer-in-headlights chick getting floored by the crazy, hyper punk girl.

"Real smooth," he said, still laughing a bit, as he headed out the door and off to... wherever the fuck it was he was supposed to be.

...Better yet, maybe he'd just skip whatever was next and go to the bathroom or the cafeteria or something...

Mr. Alpert sighed at the arrival of the to late students. "You're late, Maria. And I'm not buying it Aaron," he grumbled, "I saw you come in. Just... copy down the homework and come in on time next time."

((Justin Corrigan continued in Vaulting))

Aaron seethed. He hated being called out. It wasn't his fault he was late. He tore out a sheet of paper and began copying the homework, but he wasn't paying attention to it.

So what if he wasn't the best math student? It wasn't because he was bad at math. Mr. Alpert was just a bad teacher. In fact, all of Aaron's high school math teachers had been terrible. They only catered to traditional learning styles. They just couldn't deal with people who thought outside the box.

Aaron couldn't understand the application of math. Sure, it was part of physics, which was interesting, but mostly it was just a game, with its own silly rules and regulations. One was only one because people agreed to pretend that it was. Aaron couldn't even begin to fathom the applications of imaginary numbers, or problems with unknown variables. All the examples in the textbooks seemed so stupid.

Aaron didn't like playing the math game. He felt sure he would be good enough at it if he tried, but he didn't care to. If I'm going to play games, why not play ones that are fun? he thought. Pretending to fight ogres was fun. That didn't use much math, and Aaron could just use his intuition on the formulas it did require. If he got stuff wrong, nobody ever commented.

He suddenly realized that he had been completely ignoring Mr. Alpert. The bastard deserved it, but Aaron really didn't want to get singled out a second time in one class period. He tried to force himself to focus. The easiest way to do that was to avoid thinking about all the things he could be doing that would be a better use of his time. Like playing roleplaying games. Or reading. Or sleeping, for that matter. Or just staring at his desk...

Maria looked back as she heard the sound of things slamming into the floor behind her, only to find that she'd knocked down the tiny albino girl, Ariel. She felt bad enough just knocking down someone carrying such a huge load, but for it to be such a pitiful-looking creature was akin kicking a puppy into a minefield.

Filled with mines.

Also, the mines were planted by Nazis.

Maria gave up on her sprint to get to class even though she was already late so it didn't really matter how quickly she got to class anyway and went back to help Ariel.

"No no, it was my fault." She said, helping to gather up the books. "I shouldn't have been running in the halls anyway." It was certainly a lot of heavy books. She had to wonder how the girl was able to carry them all. Maybe some kind of hidden super-albino strength (actually, that sounded kind of cool.) Carrying half of the books into the classroom, she was greeted with the sound of Mr. Alpert proclaiming her lateness.

"I'm sorry Mr. Alpert. I just zoned out for a second then I had to meet somebody and then I ran to class but then there were books everywhere and-"

"Just...make sure it doesn't happen again." Mr. Alpert replied, cutting Maria off mid-run-on-sentence. "Oh, and put the books on the front desk, please."

Maria hauled the load of books over to the desk and set them down before making her way (relatively quietly and calmly) to her desk.

Samantha took her seat, not paying any attention to the words of that bastard Corrigan. As he was leaving there was a crash outside the door, so she got up to look. 'Nothing wrong with curiosity,' she thought, peering out the door. One student had been knocked into another one who had been carrying a stack of books, now those same books were strewn across the floor.

She moved aside to let the students into the room and heard Mr. Alpert's comment on their lateness. After Maria's apology, Samantha decided to chime in, "Mr. Alpert, you know how busy the halls are between classes! Hardly anyone is ever on time, you shouldn't penalize people just because the school has so many students!" She already knew the answer she would receive, "Ms. Ridley, as I've told you before I do not make the rules I simply enforce them," it was the same thing he always said when Sam mentioned how busy the halls were, good old Mr. Alpert, as boring and predictable as ever.

Samantha quietly returned to her seat, and got out her notebook.

And the answer is...

Before Edward manage to finish the answer in which in his mind was a passing thought he heard a loud thump and papers flying across the hall and sigh as his calculations came to a halt. The giant was comfortable in his spot and was reluctant to move around to see what has happened and decided to risk the comfort to silence his curiosity. Learning over he indeed was correct with the comfort leaving him and was disappointed only to see a small frail girl falling to the ground with plenty of books. His thoughts went to a bit of pity for the small girl... What was her name again? He forgot all he remember was that the albino only came to school very rarely. He wonder how she ever pass the years with so much absences.

He notice as a girl came to help her up and nodded with approval and thought to himself that some nice degree of respect. Of course they were consider late by the ruthless teacher and sigh. His mind wander back to the papers he was working on. He was looking at simple freshman papers that needed to be corrected. He enjoyed the work so much he forgot his own English papers due next course and decided to shrug them off in the end. Before he could begin thinking he heard his sister speak up and sigh with clapping his hands on his head dear lord Sam... Not again please.... He waited for the daily scolding but instead good old Alpert gave a simple reply to Sam and went back to getting his own papers ready.

Seems like he wasn't the only one that was tired and Edward gave a slight chuckle as his own remark even if it wasn't the most witty thing he ever heard. Look at Sam afterward hoping she would look his way so he could give her a 'why did you do that for' look... He smiled at the thought. The two shared so make different looks it was becoming it's own language.

Sam glanced over at her step-brother, who was giving her *that* look, she knew that look well, the 'not again' look. In response she gave her own look, it was not one she normally got to use so he might not recognize, but the sentiments were simple enough that someone who hadn't become part of their family may even be able to decipher it. A look of confusion and skepticism that seemed to say. 'Were you even fucking paying attention?!'

"Now open to page..." Mr. Alpert began, Sam mindlessly did as she was told, she could also hear the rest of the class doing the same. Sam's mind, however, was a million miles away, 'What will I do after school gets out today,' she wondered 'I don't think there's practice today, so...' Her mind trailed off, thinking about what movies had just come out, or whether she should go to the arcade, or...

'Oh well... there's time for that later, I guess,' she thought as she listened to the teacher drone on, and on, and...

Edward rolled at his sister's look and sigh. Yep she healthy today, uncreative, but healthy. He turn to the designated page and follow the teacher's instructions... He wasn't taking this class serious anymore knowing already of what most if going to be taught. He took a moment to look around the class. Most of the students follow Sam amazing example and simply became brain dead with thoughts of what to do after school. Edward on the other hand was thinking on the next football game coming up this weekend. The team was getting ready and Edward was just a psyche as the rest of the guys.

He return his attention to the class room and back to his papers afterward and look at a quick glance at Sam... He grab a pencil and neatly threw it against her leg hoping to make no noise. She really had to concentrate in class or else she going to fail this yeah.

Ariel began to lift herself from the ground, struggling slightly. No one had come over to help but it wasn't like she needed it. She could get herself up although a little help would have been appreciated. It would have made it easier but it wasn't necessary. She finally rose from the ground, brushed her skirt off and leaned over to pick up the rest of the books. Ariel looked up at Mr. Alpert who just stood there.

Any other teacher would have offered to help Ariel. Any other teacher would have carried the books themselves instead of having a weak girl like Ariel carry them. Mr. Alpert was not like them at all. He was just a prick. He was the only teacher Ariel hated.

She picked up the final book on the floor and slowly stumbled into the classroom, setting the books down next to the pile Maria waved. Ariel waved Maria a slight thank you, smiling gently.

"Thanks Maria. Those books were killing me." She let out a slight giggle, knowing that she had a pass to get back to her next class. At least that gave her enough time to talk or rather carry things to another class.