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Melinda Reese was only barely coming up to scratch in Chemistry class.

Weeks ago -- during the period of mid-term exams -- this had come to a halt: the chemistry teacher had taken one look at her prep exam marks and told her that it wasn't good enough. At Crystal Academy, they didn't leave you to sink. They forced you to swim. Which was good from some perspectives, but dreary as hell on others; when everyone else was doing free prep. time in the evenings, she had a forced hour of Chemistry tutelage. From another girl in her class.

Everyone knew that Thessaly Jones -- Tessa -- was some kind of science and mathematics genius: she went to a couple of classes each week at Destiny City U, ostensibly to extend her genius-powers at a tertiary level. She'd been volunteered to tutor Melinda, and the 'volunteered' reason was clear enough: apart from being a genius, Tess was also one of the most mousy, terrified, horrified people at Crystal Academy. She had spent the first tutoring session going "um", "err" and "uhhh," and then finally -- with tears in her eyes -- had begged:

"PLEASE LET ME DO YOUR HOMEWORK, MELINDA."

With pink cheeks and misery in her huge orange eyes, she'd continued: "Sorry! Sorry I said your name!! Just. Please let me do it. I promise I can copy your handwriting. I'll even make a few mistakes. That would be fine, right? Would you like that??" Melinda could hear the extra question mark at the end of the sentence. This was finished off with the deeply pathetic:

"You don't even have to sit with me -- ...if you don't want to."

Thessaly Jones was kind of 'pitiable'.

Tessa watched her with huge, fearful eyes, a little bit like a nervous gerbil. Without even looking, she had already opened Melinda's work and was making little marks on it -- when she had made too heavy a mark, she said "Eek," looked unhappy, and then went back to carefully editing Melinda's errors in her Chem. homework.

"I offended you?" she said. "I. Ah. I'm sorry. I really am very sorry. Wait, hold on."

She picked up her work and Melinda's and scurried around to the other side of the desk. She offered Melinda a watery little smile -- god, the girl was tensed-up and nervous -- and sat down opposite. "There," she said. "This way you don't have to... turn your head."

She had already finished her marking, and she turned around the book for Melinda's inspection: "This is , er, where you went... wrong," she said, apologetically, as if 'wrong' was a dirty word, and added -- "but you would have been right if, um, Chemistry was different. I wish Chemistry was different for you. But it isn't. I'm sorry."

Tessa had gone the colour of yoghurt before Melinda had chuckled, seeping back in all-too-obvious and slightly pathetic relief, her hands fluttering like nervous butterflies down into her lap. She looked as though she yearned to ask more about Melinda's tastes in music, but eventually could only burst out with: "Oh, but music's very methodical... isn't it? It's got... patterns, what do you call them... oh no... oh no, I'm so sorry I can't remember... oh no, I can't find the word... I'm so sorry... I'm so horribly sorry... it's very, it's very."

She looked desperately unhappy, both probably at having to talk and at having nothing to talk about and subsided into silence. She reached over for Melinda's work again and anxiously scribbled in more answers. And chewed a pen. And worked more answers. But then she suddenly burst out with: "It's equatory." Then Tessa said: "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry. Do you play an instrument?"

There were more question marks on the end: Instrument???

"I'm sure you will," said Tessa plaintively, "I bet -- I bet you already are!!" Again with the multiple exclamation marks. "I bet you're fantastic. I bet you're -- you're -- I bet you're," she said, now slightly 'lame', obviously not being able to come up with anything that Melinda was properly. She subsided into embarrassed, red-faced silence.

She grabbed Melinda's book again, scribbling in yet another correction to Melinda's more than faintly sloppy Physics work. Then she burst out:

"You should tell me ALL ABOUT your flute!"

And then, even more red-faced: "I'm so sorry, you don't -- you don't if you don't have to, if you like we can just sit here, quietly, or you can -- you can talk about whatever you like?"

Thessaly stared at Melinda a little as though she had hit her with the final question on "So You Want To Be A Millionaire?", as though she felt she had to come up with something really interesting so as to keep Melinda's interest. She looked at Melinda sometimes a little like a drowning man looked at a lifeboat; desperate, intense, pleading. You could almost see the whirring cogs in her head go to ludicrous speed as her hand stilled on the chemistry work.

"What do I like to do!" she parroted back, as though repeating the question would help her. "What do I like to do." Tessa was looking a little bit desperate now. "I like... .... ... music."

This did not appear to be something she was very sure about. The truth was, she wasn't, but because Melinda liked music, it would have been offensive to not also like music. It was also hard to say, "I like collecting Dittos for my hundred-Ditto collection."

Tessa stared at Melinda with wide, fearful eyes; apparently she had not meant to utter her deepest thoughts aloud. Melinda was now becoming used to the other girl's appalled, bunny-rabbit staring expressions. Tessa was not a disapproving bunny rabbit. Tessa was a small animal caught in a trap.

Eventually, she uttered: "Five hundred and seventy three point five."

Point five was a little bit of a mystery.

"But -- but you don't want to hear me talk about me," she said, but burst out again: "Six hundred. I made a mistake. Six hundred, seventy three point five. I'm sorry. I really am sorry. I'm terribly sorry." She was looking unhappy now, and made the last few marks in Melinda's game. Truthfully Thessaly had just been thrilled to be in Melinda's circle, to sit next to the blonde-haired, green-eyed girl as though they were Friends, which they weren't but Tessa could pretend. And imagine. And make mental notes about how she could daydream about this. "We should be talking about you -- there's your work I'm sorry it took so long I hope my handwriting is neat. If you like I can Twink it all out and write it in a colour you prefer. I hope blue pen is okay, Melinda."

Tessa looked utterly relieved when the paperwork was labelled as fine, and that the blue pen hadn't offended Melinda forever and ever; she looked happy for the first time, her mouth with an eager twist to it. There was a slightly unwholesome desperation that came off her in waves; it was like being back in grade school again with the kid who nobody liked due to hare lip or smelling like soup or whatever -- sure, Tessa looked a little weird with her long-a** braid and sure, she was a science whiz, but it didn't add up to why she was apparently so anxious.

Maybe she was just naturally a nervous nelly. "England," she said enviously, though Melinda was getting the feeling she would have said, "Destiny City," had Melinda said "Destiny City." "I don't think you're boring at all. I think you're -- I think you're interesting, you know? Not many people are from England." (Well, only a couple million.) "You don't want to hear about me, I don't do... much. I do... science."

And then, as though that had been too much she hurriedly said: "I bet you everyone is jealous that you're from England and they're not!"

Thessaly stared at her a little blankly. Melinda kept deflecting. As a series of events, it was meant to flow:

You are boring

=>

Ask Melinda about herself so that you can remember every single factoid by writing it down later, so that you can mention them and she will be pleased

=>

Melinda talks about herself

=>

Melinda persists in asking about you

=>

???

Melinda gave a don'tcarish chuckle and had talked about her Greek roomie. You weren't also meant to talk about that kind of jealousy outright; she threw it out there so suavely that Tessa gnawed at her liver. Oh -- she was staring, wasn't she?? Oh god. That lead to the: STOP STARING. IT IS SOCIALLY UNACCEPTABLE, ALSO WEIRD. REMEMBER YOUR DISTRACTION TECHNIQUES FOR ANXIETY. YOU ARE CALM. NOTHING BAD WILL HAPPEN.

Tessa tugged on her fingers, a nervous habit. "My father isn't at home a lot," she said a bit feebly. "He goes on digs. Digs. Digs, archaeology digs. Did you know there was a man in the news who. Dug up his wife." She tugged on her fingers more rapidly. "He was lonely. She was dead. At the time, I mean he was a widower." Her mouth was getting away with her. "DO YOU HAVE FAMILY HERE."