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 Posted: Tue Dec 02, 2008 12:13 pm
He gritted his teeth and waited it out, staring at the fabric of his backpack so hard he thought the red and black pattern might be burned onto his eyeballs. "I know. What. A visual aid is." It was a slide show, powerpoint, or a poster, something to help make the topic make sense. When he said how, he meant what medium. And... He didn't need to share that part.
Taking a glance up at the screen, he discreetly rubbed his eyes so as to see it better. "I can't read," he said under his breath, unwilling to say it loud enough for the other boy to hear. Did Merroth have to be such an- an a*****e? Figuring he would at least pretend he knew what the words on the screen were, he continued in an audible tone, "So, a powerpoint-like thing, then?"
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Posted: Tue Dec 02, 2008 12:24 pm
Flicking his eyes over the glossary, Merroth barely registered Carlisle's suggestion, except he took the time to dismiss it. "Pfft, lame, as usual. Get some good ideas, Glow-in-the-Dork. I'll help you and let you steal one of mine."
He switched back to the William I search, the data almost done compiling, and did a quick contextual sub-search on the results. At once, two dozen photographs popped up on the screen, and Merroth immediately seized on one, a long scrolling image that stretched across the top of the screen. It despicted men on horses and with spears and swords, sitting in thrones and standing, a motif of animals across the top and bottom.
"There," he said, and pointed to it. He had a little idea of how French was pronounced. "The Bay-oo Tapestry. That's the visual aid."
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Posted: Tue Dec 02, 2008 3:04 pm
"But what is it," said Carlisle, gritting his teeth again at the nickname. Though before it had seemed benign enough, now it really pissed him off. Now this... Bayou Tapestry or whatever, was going to be their visual aid? And more than that, how would they present it? Like a flipbook? Some kind of animation or something? The entire thing didn't fit on Merroth's wall. How would it fit on the school's projector?
A little bit- well, no, really a lot- determined to prove (at least to himself!) that he wasn't a 'ball of worthless trash', he decided to ask. "How will we present it? We could... animate it or something. I don't know how to do that. But it doesn't even fit on the wall, and the projector screen at school is a lot smaller, so it would have to get split up somehow..."
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Posted: Tue Dec 02, 2008 7:55 pm
"It's a tapestry," stressed Merroth, exasperated, as he pulled up the data summary attached to the image and skimmed it. "And it's 230 feet long. That's just part of it. You can't animate it, it's made of... cloth" (he guessed) "and what good does a projection do us?" Merroth twisted in his chair so he was directly facing Carlisle. He waved his hand at the wall. "This is a screen. A really big screen. It shows you representations of stuff. This is not a tapestry. It just shows you a picture of one. We don't want a picture, Glow-in-the-Dork, because a picture is lame, much like your idea to project it." Merroth seemed rather proud of himself for that little explanation.
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Posted: Wed Dec 03, 2008 12:53 pm
"I know what a screen is," Carlisle muttered, studiously avoiding actually looking at Merroth. Then, more clearly, "The tapestry can't be our visual aid if we can't actually, you know, show it to the rest of the class." Was he missing something here? It wasn't like someone could just buy the tapestry up on the screen. If it was good enough to survive to be a visual aid on William the Conqueror, it had to be stored in a museum somewhere.
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Posted: Wed Dec 03, 2008 10:30 pm
Merroth only tilted his head to the side, a tinge of sneer on his face. "Why can't we?"
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Posted: Thu Dec 04, 2008 3:57 am
"'Cause the point of a visual aid is to help the other kids remember," Carlisle explained, "So if they can't see it, then it can't help them remember, right? It'd be like... like..." The only similar thing he could think of would be the United States saying to Japan We have an atom bomb instead of using it, but that had worked during the Cold War (Hadn't it? They hadn't quite gotten there in class yet). "If we can't find some kind of video showing it, or make printouts of it, or, or thumbnail it, or I dunno, then we can't show it to the class. And it's not like we can organize field trips to whatever museum the thing is in 'cause it's gotta be in a museum if it's really a good visual aid for William the Conquerer, right?"
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Posted: Thu Dec 04, 2008 1:59 pm
"God you're dumb," said Merroth, groaning. "I'll handle the visual aid. You can, I don't know, write a few paragraphs to say in front of the class or something. Do..." He quickly switched back to the idea web and plucked one of the subtopics. "Do that bit about the sou-cesion to the English throne. You can have the corner." He input the commands necessary to isolate off the lower left corner of the screen for Carlisle to use.
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Posted: Sat Dec 06, 2008 5:19 pm
Which word was sou-cesion? Carlisle pulled a notebook out of his backpack. He preferred to work where people couldn't see exactly nothing going out of his pencil and onto his paper, especially in this case. "All right," he said, desiring to avoid conflict. Yup, these words were a bit beyond his vocabulary- so, to seem like he was busy, he painstakingly wrote down the subject of their presentation as the first line.
That done, he sat and stared at the section of the screen, mouthing the words as best he could.
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Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2009 12:16 pm
Merroth debated going over there and hitting Carlisle upside the head with the keyboard, but decided that was probably the sort of thing that would get him in trouble with Boston, even if it didn't ruin his chances at a good grade. "You murdered your partner? F!"
The murderous impulse was interrupted by the arrival of Consuela. "Señor." She had a cart with the mini quesadillas, and tangerine grapefruit juice, and iced tea, and a slice of chocolate cake. As much as it was an offering of sustenance, Consuela's face held a cautionary glare. "No arruinar su cena. Compartirlo con su amigo."
"Él no es mi amigo! Es mi-- mi--"
"Compañero," supplied Consuela.
"FINE, he can have some," said Merroth loudly, and rolled his eyes. "Come on, Glow-in-the-Dork." Merroth got up from his chair and waved for Carlisle to join him. He offered a quick thank-you to Consuela and she left them.
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Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2009 7:44 pm
Utterly oblivious to Merroth's violent imaginings, Carlisle continued to stare at the screen. He was almost grateful when the lady returned, and couldn't quite keep the expression from his face, especially when she seemed to attract all of Merroth's attention. Whatever language they were speaking, it was as alien to him as the weird symbol-whatevers in the 'local chatter' thing. Which he was still curious about, but... Well, it couldn't hurt. Merroth couldn't possibly be any more antagonistic.
He untangled himself from his notebook and backpack, setting the papers face-down and the pen on top in a careful manner. Then he walked over to the other boy and said, face completely blank of any guile, "What language were you speaking? I haven't heard it before."
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Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2009 11:35 pm
"It's Spanish," said Merroth simply, not penalizing Carlisle's lack of knowledge in this one area. He had not known what Spanish was before Consuela, either, and he rather liked being able to boast about knowing something most other people apparently didn't. He popped one of the mini quesadillas into his mouth and grunted his approval. Perfectly seasoned, as usual, just the slightest tang of hot sauce to tickle the tongue. He poured himself a glass of iced tea, grabbed the whole slice of chocolate cake (surely Consuela did not mean he should share THAT), and went to sit along the wall opposite Carlisle's stuff.
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Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2009 11:41 pm
Uncertain, almost expecting to get yelled at, Carlisle took the same (except, obviously, for the cake, which he did not really want anyway) and returned to his spot to sit cross-legged against the wall. The quesadillas were interesting, and he decided he didn't disapprove. It felt kind of sacrilegious to like the same thing as Merroth, though, so he didn't admit that they were good.
"Spanish," he repeated, and a small avalanche of facts poured into his brain. Mostly they centered around the Spanish Inquisition, of which Sugita had read to him once. "Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand," he said to himself, "Discovery of the new world." Then, almost embarrassed, he looked back at the screen. "Did it take you a long time to learn it?"
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Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2009 11:50 pm
"She's from Mexico you dimwit, not Spain," sniped Merroth, but he was more concerned with the cake. Beautiful, rich, decadent chocolate cake. Moist and tender, it melted on the tongue and slid across the tastebuds. Merroth happily crammed a handful into his gob. "Mmm. Mm. Ohh. Haah! I'm sure you couldn't learn Spanish, but I learned it in just a few days."
Assuming you considered a hundred-plus days "a few," and there was still a lot about the language and vocabulary Merroth did not know. So long as Carlisle didn't know any better, Merroth could get away with lying about it.
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Posted: Sun May 10, 2009 8:51 pm
"Really?" He tilted his head, hands settling into his lap. Mexico, not Spain... he didn't feel like mentioning what he knew about Mexico, since it didn't seem to interest anyone who taught him so he didn't actually know that much.
Maybe if he just played harmless, then after the project was done, he'd never have to deal with Merroth again!... somehow he didn't think so, though, fate never seemed quite that kind to him. "That's... really fast," he said, about the speed of Merroth's acquisition of the Spanish language. "My aunt says I'm hopeless at languages, so you're probably right." Carlisle's happiness at the thought of never having to see Merroth again probably showed, so he tried to think about something more depressing, like, he didn't know, the project?
Yeah, that was pretty sad. He sighed, set his elbows on his knees and asked (idly, of course) "How exactly would we present the tapestry? You still haven't mentioned that." Was he even supposed to know?
Carlisle found himself rather confused.
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