Hmmm... bullies and a manipulator - this class just gets better and better.
The next few hours are spent settling into our rooms - which, by the way, are HUGE - and, mainly, sleeping. Yeah, jetlag - not good. But, eventually, at eight ‘o’ clock in the morning, (the next day) we were ready to go. Today we were touring the R&D Department (which we had to sign NDAs to access) and at the very end of the day, our tour guide had told us that she had a little surprise waiting for us.
I woke up, again, to the word ‘AKUMA!’. Tikki...! I groaned in my head. “Marinette, it’s 7:15! If you’re going to get there before the class you’re going to have to be quick!” That got me up pretty quickly. There was no way I was going to let them spoil my trip through THE Stark Industries! So, I slowly turned over, shuffled out of bed and woke up Chloe, who was muttering something about ‘Honey, more honey! Pollen, give me back my honeycomb!My honeycomb! My precious.” Barely stifling my giggles, I woke her up and within minutes we were heading out the door.
When we got down to the breakfast bar in the cafeteria, I made a beeline straight for the coffee machine. Coffee! I ate a veritable mountain of pastries, pancakes and waffles, leaning against the back of my chair with a satisfied groan. “Thank you, madame.”
“It’s quite alright little one. You’re far too thin to begin with. You need to eat more!“ the baker, Miss Boitter, said, clearly mother-henning me.
I was about to respond when the doors opened with a crash and a cacophony of noise burst through. Ah... there goes my peace and quiet, I sighed mournfully. I could already feel a headache brewing.
And right at the front of the mayhem was, of course, Lila Rossi. Arrogantly demanding that poor Miss Boitter bake her something fresh and that it ‘better live up to her expectations or she’ll have Mr Stark fire her! He’s my uncle you know, part italian, he comes and visits with his...’ Blah, blah, blah.
Yeah, I definitely had a headache.
And it only got worse from there. For the entire rest of the day, I was fairly certain that me and Chloe were the only people actually paying attention to the tour guide. Even Max wasn’t listening. And he’s Max! The class was actually so loud that we got kicked out of the labs for disrupting the workers and warned that if we did it again we would be off the trip altogether. The tour guide, Miss Walters, let us stay though because we were actually listening and paying attention. We even asked her questions. She seemed to perk up when every time we did and I just had to feel sorry for her. Of all the classes to be stuck with, she ended up with ours. She can’t even get out either because all the other tour guides were sick. I absently wondered whether they were warned about us and were faking it. I certainly would if I had the choice.
All the workers we met seemed to like me. Especially after I shyly went and fixed a problem with their equations. Their faces were hilarious. I mean, it wasn’t that hard! I may be a fashion designer but I do know other subjects too.
Eventually, though, we had to reunite with the class. Bummer. But, then we were taken to a huge room with lots of cool tech and these cool hologram tables. We got split up, one person per holo-table and then Miss Walters explained what we were doing.
“This is the workshop. It wouldn’t be right to come to Stark Industries and not build anything so, this is your chance. You have 3 hours until we move on. As you can see, you all have a holo-table each and, for sketches, pencils and paper. You can build whatever you want within this time, so long as it will not harm anyone. If you have any questions, please ask me or one of the scientists here for help. The scientists that are working are not to be disturbed. Please, do not waste this time. Off you go!”
I was eager to make something amazing. And fashionable. A voice in my head insisted. Of course it will be fashionable, I scoffed. I’m not stupid. I turned to the table. Now, how do you work this thing. I put my hand up to the table, hesitating, and immediately, images formed around my head, files and pictures and all sorts of text. OH! So cool!
Hmmm... I could make a suit. We do have three hours. Yes, that’s what I’ll make. A super-suit. And actually fashionable, unlike a certain traffic- ahem - vigilante in Gotham.
So, I got to work. This is going to be awesome!
This class is so annoying. I was both relieved and embarrassed when they got kicked out of the labs because I got to stay behind with the two students who actually cared. One of them, a Marinette Dupain-Cheng, I quickly learned, was a genius. And, I spend a lot of time around geniuses. I work at Stark Industries of course. I know the signs. The other girl, a Chloe Bourgeois, was also very intelligent, though she downplayed it with a slight spoilt, self-absorbed attitude. Ah, why are geniuses always so closed off?!
Throughout the day, I started to see just how smart Marinette really was. She fixed Mr Hallinn’s equations! Mr Hallins! THE top researcher for unlimited green energy and sustainability. The entire R&D Department have been tearing their hair out and pushing the boundaries of sleep deprivation for months trying to solve it. And she just walked up to them, shyly asked if she could help and fixed it!
And that is why I felt completely justified using the Emergency Smarts Phone (yes, it is called that. Mr Stark wants to know immediately if there are any undiscovered prodigies he can bring to SI.) to call Mr Stark and tell him all about what I had found. He was going to love it!
He answered on the first ring. “Yes? What is it? Have you found somebody?”
I didn’t even try to conceal my smile. If I had anything to do with it, Marinette Dupain-Cheng and Chloe Bourgeois would never have to rejoin their idiot classmates ever again.
