Tiny Scientist With Big Dreams

Lisa raises her hand ready to knock on the door but suddenly plunges her fist knuckles first into her forehead as she mentally shouts at herself “PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER LISA!!!”

After lowering her hand from her head Lisa calmly takes a breath as she thinks “I needed that.”

Lisa takes a moment to calm down as she thinks “Come on, why was I hesitating?”

“I’m the president of the Robotics Club, I verbally mauled the Student Council President, I even stood my ground!” Lisa thinks as she regains her composure and continues “I even showed my fangs and claws to the Head Master!”

“I admit it, that Computer Club President’s weird hobbies and eccentricities scared me a bit and I nearly cracked.” Lisa thinks as she rebuilds her poker face before she regains the sharpness in her eyes as she thinks “I’m usually excited by weirdos, freaks and misfits, it’s why my club mates get along with me so well as their leader.”

Lisa having regained her inner stability she raises her hand again and nocks on the door hard enough for it to be heard loud and clear as she thinks “I’m easily the biggest weirdo of the club since as much as that pseudo kidnap the other day scared me it excited me and I’d do it again.”

As Lisa awaits an answer from the other side of the door she starts to feel her heart rate that had settled from the anxiety she felt before begin to beat faster again this time out of excitement as she thinks “I wonder what kind of weirdo this science prodigy is, not like they have that Computer Club President beat when it comes to weird and crazy.”

Suddenly while awaiting an answer Lisa hears something loud inside the room quickly followed by someone shouting “EVACUATE!”

Before Lisa can even think let alone react a small girl bursts through the door and tackles her.

As soon as the girl tackles Lisa they both fall to the floor as Lisa thinks “Not what I was expecting, but why was this girl shouting?”

The girl gets up and runs down the hall trying to get away from the Science Lab as Lisa looks on in bewilderment as she picks herself back up thinking “If there’s an emergency then why hasn’t the Smoke Alarm gone off?”

As soon as she’s back on her feet Lisa sees there’s a smoking container in the room billowing a white smoke that seems to fall to the floor rather than rise up.

Seeing the Smoke Lisa runs into the room and grabs a nearby gas mask and puts it on as she thinks “Don’t tell me whoever that was just mishandled some kind of Dry Ice.”

Once Lisa reaches the container she pulls over a nearby extractor fan and turns it on sucking up the gas and safely disposing of it as Lisa thinks “I may not be the one behind this mess but I can’t leave it to turn into a major incident.”

As soon as the gas has been contained Lisa looks around the room for any other dangers and seeing non walks over to the various windows and opens them as she thinks “Better get the air flowing and disperse that gas, glad I paid attention in Science Class.”

As soon as Lisa finishes taking care of the windows two teachers as well as the girl that ran off enter the room equipped with gas masks and see Lisa standing by a Window having taken care of the situation before they arrived.

One of the teachers walks over and asks “Is the accident involving the Dry Ice handled?”

“I took care of it with the extractor fans on hand, I’ve also opened the windows to clear any remaining gas.” Lisa states to the teacher with a look of relief under her Gas Mask.

The Teacher removes their gas mask and states “Then we can consider it safe to take off our masks.”

Lisa, the other teacher and the girl who summoned them all remove their masks as the first teacher looks at Lisa and asks “Why were you here and why did you enter the room without permission or supervision?”

“I was looking for someone who supposedly can be found here, but instead of meeting that person I got tackled by that girl without warning.” Lisa explains as she points to the girl who tackled her on her way out of the room before running off without a word.

After a moment the girl laughs while scratching the back of her head as she says “I guess I forgot I ran into someone because I was in such a rush.”

Lisa, after finally getting a proper look at the girl, pulls out her phone and checks the message Ashiro sent her and says “Aren’t you Sandra McLeah?”

The girl looks at Lisa in surprise and says “How did you know my name? I’m pretty sure we haven’t met.”

Lisa walks over calmly and says “I actually came here to look for you, I wanted to ask you to join the Robotics Club.”

“The Robotics Club?” Sandra says in surprise with a slight slant to her head as she wonders what Lisa is after with her invitation before saying “But I’m a Scientist not a roboticist or engineer, what use would I be?”

Lisa looks at her calmly before saying “We should leave that for later, for now cleaning up this mess comes first.” Lisa replies as the teachers nod in agreement before beginning to clean up after the experiment gone wrong.

While they clean up the mess Sandra made she pulls a glass Beeker from inside the container filled with water the gas was spewing out of before as she thinks “What a disaster, I lost the sample of Dry Ice I made by freezing that mixed gas I made, what a waste.”

Lisa watches as Sandra recovers the Beeker as she says “Was that something you were working with when I knocked?”

“Yes, I had a Dry Ice Sample within it and was planning to use it to test the compressed gas release rate among other things.” Sandra replies while placing the Beeker in a nearby sink for cleaning before saying “The experiment is ruined now so I’ll need to restart from scratch.”

“There won’t be any restarting from scratch this time, you know this was your 3rd strike.” One of the teachers states calmly before saying “As soon as we finish cleaning up we’ll escort you out of the science lab and confiscate the key.”

Sandra turns pale after hearing the Teacher’s words before falling to her knees with the look of someone who just got hit on the head with a bat while mumbling about how her world was imploding.

After all the cleaning up is done and Sandra has regained her sense of up and down she walks through the halls in a daze with Lisa guiding her as Lisa thinks “Poor thing, she still looks like she’s not able to process anything.”

As they descend the stairs of the main building heading toward the adjoining corridor between the schools various buildings Lisa looks at the blank stare in Sandra’s eyes as she thinks “It’s clear she’s not able to mentally accept this and has practically shut herself off mentally for now, when she comes out again everyone will be there to help her.”

As they approach the Student Store Sandra although still in a state of confusion walks into the student store almost without Lisa noticing but quickly following her inside after noticing her change in direction as she thinks “That was close, if I hadn’t noticed her walking in there I’d have not noticed she was gone until I got back to the club Workshop!”

As Lisa walks into the student store she sees Sandra walk right up to the cashier without picking anything up and instead places a specific amount of money on the counter in front of the cashier without a word.

The Cashier checks the amount before ringing her up and taking a colourful sweet packet with Japanese Writing on it from under the counter and hands it to Sandra.

As soon as the Cashier hands her the packet Sandra leaves the store, her expression as blank and lifeless as before with no hints as to why she bought the item as she walks out of the store with Lisa still following behind her.

After purchasing the sweet packet Sandra goes back to just following Lisa without being told to do anything as Lisa wonders “This is strange, why did she suddenly purchase that without saying anything?”

After a minute Sandra changes direction again and instead of heading to the Club Workshop Building with Lisa she walks into the corridor leading to the glass conservatory where students can eat lunch outside of the dining hall without going outside on cold, wet or windy days.

Lisa catches on to Sandra’s change in direction again and follows her surprised she suddenly changed direction again as she thinks “Jeez this girl is hard to keep up with for someone completely out of it.”

As soon as they reach the Glass Conservatory Sandra sits down in one of the many empty seats in the room with only herself and Lisa in it.

As Lisa sits next to Sandra she opens the sweet packet revealing a pink cotton candy within which she promptly begins to eat silently.

As she watches Sandra eating the Cotton Candy Lisa sits there wondering what the point of this bizarre ritual is as she thinks “I’ve seen my fair share of weird methods people have, hell, I’ve even seen Jean eating Wasabi and Curry flavoured Pringles together with a layer of BBQ Dip in between, but this…?”

As Lisa watches in confusion Sandra reaches the bottom of the packet and finishes the cotton candy before raising the pack up high and dumping a bunch of brightly coloured crystals that were mixed in with the Cotton Candy into her mouth.

The moment the crystals hit Sandra’s Tongue her face suddenly lights up and life returns to her eyes as she reacts like she just ate something seriously bitter and with a sharp explosive flavour.

The moment Sandra recovers from the shock of the flavour of the crystals Lisa looks at her with concern as she asks “Are you alright?”

“I’m alright, the explosive flavour crystals just shocked my system for a moment…” Sandra answers while gesturing that she’s alright before looking directly at Lisa and saying “I appreciate you keeping an eye on me but I was alright, I just needed this to wake myself up after what happened.”

Lisa sighs in relief that Sandra isn’t mentally unstable and she says “So what do you plan to do now? I heard you used to be in the Science Club but now you’ve lost it and your lab privileges.”

Sandra clenches her hand around the empty sweet packet as she replies “No clue, now that my access to a lab is gone I don’t think I’ll ever achieve my goals and make my dream come true.”

Lisa looks at her sympathetically as she says “Sorry for my part in it, if I hadn’t knocked when I did you wouldn’t have had that lab accident.”

Sandra looks Lisa directly in the eye and states firmly “You are NOT Responsible for my fate, I’d have lost my lab privileges eventually due to some kind of incident so I don’t blame you.”

Lisa breathes a sigh of relief at the fact Sandra doesn’t hold her responsible for her lab privileges being revoked before looking at her calmly and asking “So, what kind of goals were you shooting for that are so hard to achieve?”

Sandra looks at her with a slight look of excitement as she answers “You want to know? I was trying to recreate a special form of Dry Ice from a fictional series so I could use it for various other purposes!”

Lisa looks at Sandra in surprise and amazement as Sandra continues “And that was just one of MANY goals I need to achieve to reach my dream of cracking the secrets of Fantasy Phenomena like Magic and Supernatural powers!”

Lisa looks completely surprised by the last part of Sandra’s statement as she replies “Do you mean you’re going to figure out how this stuff works and make it so it works even in this world?”

Sandra’s eyes light up as she gets in Lisa’s face as she says “EXACTLY! That’s exactly what my dream is, I want to make the science of fantasy worlds known and reproduce the phenomena artificially!”

Lisa looks at her half bewildered by Sandra’s intense passion for science and the unknown rules, mechanisms and applications of otherworldly phenomena before saying “Then why not join my club and try applying what you already know to put your skills on display and find support?”

Sandra looks at Lisa with a blank gaze like she hadn’t realised that was even an option until Lisa said it.

“Did you not know that was an option?” Lisa asks in surprise after seeing the look on Sandra’s face before saying “If you prove yourself skilled and the validity of your work with practical demonstrations then recruiters and talent scouts will take notice.”

Sandra looks up at her in surprise before remembering someone once said something similar to her and says “I’ll join your club then, it’s not like I have anything else to lose at this point.”

“In that case, please follow me to my club.” Lisa states as she stands up ready to lead the way.

As Lisa leads Sandra back to the club she looks at her curiously and asks “By the way, what was that stuff you ate?”

Sandra looks at the sweet packet and simply giggles before saying “It’s a Japanese form of Candy Floss with crystal sweets that explode in your mouth, I acquired a taste for them when studying in Japan.”

(Candy Floss is a name for Cotton Candy used in the UK.)

Lisa looks at Sandra surprised as she replies “You studied in Japan?”

“For 3 years, I attended a top middle school in Tokyo and graduated at the top of my year.” Sandra states as she follows Lisa through the otherwise eerily quiet halls.

“When was this?” Lisa asks while secretly taking notice of just how quiet the hall is.

“When I came back I was 8 but since I aced the high school entrance exam so I took online high school classes.” Sandra replies with a look like she’s enjoying telling people about her education status while hiding the fact she’s also noticed how quiet things are before continuing “I’m currently finishing my UK studies, I know it’s over the top but I don’t legally graduate from my mandatory school years until I’m 18.”

Lisa looks at her in surprise as she wonders just how high Sandra’s IQ is but before she can ask Sandra says “In case you’re wondering my IQ score is 199 but that’s a score I got On Purpose, I acted dumber than I am to avoid being institutionalised in Japan.”

“Why would they institutionalise you for being smart?” Lisa asks with a look of shock at such a statement.

“Because they do that to extraordinary children so they can ‘Study and grow their intelligence’ but they stifle the lives of smart kids in the false name of science.” Sandra explains with a look of disgust, disdain and utter repulsion at the way the Japanese “Academic Society” treats children as smart as she is and calling it science and continues “I have nothing but contempt for those scumbags and after they’d kidnapped me I’d have burned down whatever facility they tried to lock me up in.”

“They’d seriously kidnap a British Citizen?” Lisa asks in utter shock.

“Not officially, they’d call it a ‘Psychological Hold’ for my own good and make up excuses to keep me.” Sandra explains with a look like she is remembering the different and utterly ferocious methods of making good on her casual talk of arson she would have used to make her words a reality had they caught on to her hiding her true intelligence and continues “They generally pull that crap with their own citizens but it’s why I only spent 3 years there, I could have spent 8 years there if not for that.”

“You’re one scary kid Sandra.” Lisa replies with a look like she only just realised how much of a super dangerous person she recruited and says “So, what’s your opinion of what we should do about the shady types who think we don’t know they’re following us?”

“I think we should give them the slip.” Sandra replies before gesturing to Lisa to close her eyes and cover her ears and reaching into her pocket before pulling out a small ball and throwing it behind them.

As the ball hits the ground Lisa and Sandra both cover their ears and close their eyes just before the ball unleashes a bright burst of extremely bright light in all directions and fills the air with a strange sound.

The people following Lisa and Sandra fall out of their hiding places in foetal positions clutching their heads and covering their eyes like they’ve been blinded and are in intense pain.

As soon as the sound and light dissipate Sandra grabs Lisa by the arm and pulls her along signalling Lisa it’s safe to uncover her ears and open her eyes.

After they’re safely outside the Robotics Club Workshop Lisa grabs Sandra by the shoulders, looks her straight in the eyes and with a deadly serious tone says “What was that back there!?”

“An Anti Paedophile device I made, it’s basically an improved attack alarm with a 360 degree floodlight, debilitating but not necessarily illegal.” Sandra explains casually before saying “I have a carry licence for them issued by the government as well as a special panic button, they gave me those in case a foreign country tries to kidnap me.”

Lisa releases her and steps back a bit before putting her hand on her head taken aback by just how crazy Sandra is before saying “Just how old even are you even allowed to wield such dangerous equipment?”

Sandra just shrugs and says “I’m 10, I’m a first year student but I skipped to P6 when I got back from Japan.”

“And the government knows how smart you are and values you enough to allow you to carry anti kidnap gear?” Lisa asks in utter surprise.

“It’s rare but they do it for individuals who they consider too valuable to risk being whisked away by foreign agents, they also keep tabs on me though.” Sandra states calmly like it’s just another part of her daily life.

“Huh…” Lisa simply replies at a loss for words that she’s recruited a genius so smart even the government considers her note worthy enough to allow her emergency self defence measures and keep tabs on her.

After pulling herself together Lisa turns to the club workshop door taking out her key ready to open the door as she says “Well, the madness aside let’s just go inside before something else happens and get you registered as an official member.”

Sandra nods in agreement as Lisa unlocks the door with her key allowing them both to go in with the door self locking behind them.

As soon as they enter the workshop Lisa looks around for everyone and says “Good news girls, I’ve got us our 6th member!”

Everyone looks at them pleased to hear they have a new member and all great Sandra while Lisa gets the digital membership form all set up and ready for Sandra to fill out.

As soon as everyone has finished their greetings Lisa shows Sandra to the Computer and has her begin filling out the club membership form and go through the club membership registration process as she thinks “With this we’re finally safe from disbandment due to a lack of members, between this and displays of skill we’re probably secure now.”

While Sandra finishes up the registration process Lisa walks back over to the others and asks “How’s the planning for that submersible coming?”

“It’s doing good but we’ll wait a while and refine our design a bit while we wait for a suitable opportunity to advertise its capabilities.” Mary replies calmly while showing Lisa the results of their work while she was busy.

Lisa scratches at her head wondering what they could do in the meantime saying “Hmm… What to do, we need an event to put our skills to use before we make the submersible.”

Jean looks up at her surprised by the question before saying “There’s always the next Robot Wars?”

Lisa looks at her impressed that she came up with that idea and shocked she didn’t think of it herself as she says “That’s a great option, think we can make that work but what kind of armament should we give it?”

“A sturdy frame and tough enough armour is also necessary.” Jean states in response to Lisa’s thinking out loud.

“We also need strong enough motors to give it great mobility otherwise weapons and armour will just make it a practice target.” Mary states as she begins looking up suitable components for a combat robot.

“If you need someone with experience fighting I can help train someone in Robotic Combat.” Ashiro states calmly as she works on the software necessary for the training having started the moment Lisa brought up Robot Wars.

Alison giggles before bringing something up on her tablet and showing everyone the base designs for a Combat Robot suitable for Robot Wars called the Ram II which takes the frame Jeans Brother brought as a base as well as incorporates his modular component system as well as a few weapon options and says “Since you brought it up, I’ve been working on these in my spare time since we built Chargo Works.”

Lisa, Mary, Ashiro and Jean all look at Alison with looks of surprise and amazement that she put those together before Alison continues “These were just something rough and unrefined I thought up randomly and drew up to get them out of my head so I could focus on other things.”

Lisa just giggles as she says “You never change, you used to do the same thing with that old classic Meccano Set you and Mary used to play with when we were little.”

Mary joins Lisa in giggling before saying “You’re right, the three of us came up with some fun stuff, it’s no wonder we ended up in this club!”

“Now that brings back memories!” Alison replies calmly as she pulls up a picture of the three of them when they were 5 years old working together on making a toy car out of Meccano with big smiles on their faces.

Ashiro’s face lights up as she leans over looking at the picture and says “So… CUTE!”

“You’re right, they’re really cute working together like that, wish I’d known you back then too.” Jean states seeing the picture and remembering having spent a lot of time doing the same with her brother.

“Guess all creative minds geek out over the things we have in common.” Sandra states with an almost nostalgic tone as she walks over to join them having finished her part of the club membership registration and looks at the picture before continuing “I actually made my own Meccano pieces as a means to test my alloys including the Damascus Steel test metal results I made.”

“Damascus Steel? Do you mean you made True Damascus Steel not Billet Steel?” Jean asks in surprise at the mention of Damascus Steel, a High Carbon Steel originally made in the Middle East but lost to history along with the method of making it now replaced by Billet Steel that often gets called by the same name.

Sandra nods affirmatively and replies “I got close but my mini blast furnace and the oil I had access to were too crude for the process and the wrong type of oil.”

Ashiro giggles hearing what Sandra said about the Blast Furnace being too crude and the oil being the wrong type and says “You definitely sound like you were close, a relative had a similar theory to yours.”

“Their idea was you need extreme heat and pressure as well as a liquid form of carbon not a solid.” Ashiro explains calmly before looking directly at Sandra and asking “Am I right?”

Sandra stares at her blankly before saying “Just who is that relative of yours to have had such an idea before I did?”

Ashiro giggles as everyone looks on amazed that Ashiro knew something none of them except Sandra understood and Ashiro answers “They’re a relative who lives overseas, they have a background in engineering and used to hang around a certain mad scientist Sandra would get along with.”

“Alright then, enough reminiscing and science talk.” Lisa states calmly yet firmly before saying “Mary, Alison, Jean, you three work on getting the designs for that robot a bit more refined.”

“Sandra, you shadow them and help them in any ways you can think of, your knowledge of science has many applications that can help but it’s up to you to figure them out.” Lisa says to Sandra as she looks directly at her before looking at Ashiro and saying “When you’ve got some free time when writing code for what you’re working on can you help me plan when we’ll enter Robot Wars?”

Ashiro nods in agreement and says “I’ll gladly help, I can help you get us registered for the next available entry window, just let me know when.”

“Guess we’ll be going to Robot Wars in the near future, I hope we’re ready for something that brutal.” Lisa thinks as she remembers what the show is like from when she, Mary and Alison watched it as kids.

To Be Continued