Chapter 47 *Wingspan*

i scoot my chair back from under the table and peek over at Toby once i take my seat.

Toby had tubes drawn perfectly while the summary, already done, was on the bottom of the page in eligible cursive.

"quit sulking and label these." toby grunts. 

he extends the almost finished paper my way and without a second thought drops it on the table - thwack- "i'll be right back. the cabbage needs to be warm enough for its nutrients to be released."

Toby then dumps the cabbage onto the plate and leaves me to it.

with my pencil in hand i identify each sample from one to three. 

i know it wasn't the most original form of label classification but i wasn't good at naming things off the top of my head. 

besides, its not like there was a right or wrong way to label unknown pH level. 

i bet if i'd labeled them r,g,b, mr. baryo wouldn't care.

a little while after i finished Toby came back and wrapped the filters carefully around the cabbage so that it would soak up and absorb the vegetables liquid.

once Toby sat down he silently handed me scissors from his backpack.

i grab one of the filters without breaking it and start cutting. 

it was relaxing to have a monotonous task that could distract me from the surplus of lingering animosity that was very much the connotation of our blue elephant situation.

"just to clarify, your assumption of me as a person is dead wrong." Toby says all of a sudden. "i'm not the good guy you think i am. what if i told you i was bad and you should stay away from me?"

i raise an eyebrow impressed. "you're speaking. look at that." okay so maybe i did sound catty but in my defense he was just so...so.....prickly

once i'm finished i lay my strips out and put the scissors between us for him to take whenever. 

i sit back and take a look at my handiwork. 

so they weren't edge of the ruler straight, so what? where did it say in the rules how it should look? 

no, the ones i made were more crooked and had sharp jagged edges. overall i was pleased with how i did.

-"im sorry."

i look at him skeptically. "for?" i hated when i was forced to talk. -if it wasn't for the silence i would have generally missed what he said. a part of me wished i wasn't curious what he was about to say. 

i didn't understand where the conversation was heading but i figured it wasn't about his kid scissors that could be purchased for chump change anywhere.

"....being discreet about yesterday."

i grin. oh. that. during our conversation i noticed Toby never stopped cutting equally symmetrical strips. his long fingers were graceful not clumsy. i could never seem to multi-task like him. 

i look around not knowing where to begin."it-its none of my business and quite frankly i don't care. can we drop it?" i ask him feeling hopeful. 

-i look around, confused. "What happens now?" without Toby barking  commands i didn't know what was supposed to happen next.

Toby momentarily stops cutting and openly stares at me. "you're seriously asking me that?" his grey eyes were humorless. his glare intense. 

i roll my eyes impatiently. "with the strips." i enunciate.

Toby quietly arranges three strips neatly in front of him one by one. 

-just when i thought he was ignoring me again he started talking. 

"we need to record our findings." he grabbed one of his strips and lifted it up in the air. "run each strip in the tubes, like this, about halfway, and then take them out." he explains carefully to me.

i do as he says without arguing and was surprised at how patient he was with me. 

-usually all i had to do was breathe the wrong way and that would get a nasty response out of Toby, otherwise he was quiet and controlled . 

about thirty seconds and the strips were ready. 

at the end i had one slip of paper that turned green running halfway, another had pink on its edges that transcended upwards diagonally and reminded me that of a hillside cliff that ended abruptly, as for the last strip i'd noticed the color didn't change much so in light of new evidence i concluded it had to be neutral.

i put acidic soil as <6 for the pink strip, then (8-10) pH level as base alkaline for the one that had green on it, and finally pH 7 as neutral since the color didn't change. 

some place in the corner of the one-sided page i wrote down the initial A and S on the front of each remaining strip that was mine and taped all three to one area of the paper that i made sure was clear of all handwriting.

once i finished taping my strips Toby fills the remaining portion of the activity sheet. 

in black ink pen he jot down examples of vegetables and fruits that would thrive and survive; 

for neutral soil he marked beets, onions, and potatoes.

in the alkaline base square toby wrote off examples of various annual and tender perennials like Snapdragon which is nothing but a short lived flower with colors ranging from white to purple, and Cockscomb, a flowering annual that grows anywhere up to thirty-six inches tall if you could believe it. 

And there were even more examples of plants that did well in base soil such as Trumpet, Honeysuckle and Japanese Wisteria to name a few. 

A couple lines down Toby explained most evergreen trees including pine, fir, spruce, and yews thrive in acidic soil. 

why, just yesterday we learned some of the most beautiful flowers actually preferred acidic soil. and that they have curious and unique names like Bleeding Heart, Fox Glove, and even Columbine. 

if i weren't taking mr. baryos class i would have never known that most edible foods grow best in slightly acidic soil ranging from 6 to 6.8. 

-this i would tell my grandma because i knew it would help in reviving her cherry tree. 

honestly, it was incredible how much i was learning after nearly a week.

i waited patiently while Toby wrote my name on the paper. 

-i'd stopped caring to scold him about forging my signature.

he didn't trust anyone or he thought he could do so much better himself. either way it all came down to one denominator; he didn't trust me and that knowledge hurt a whole lot worse than a failed grade ever could manage to.   

huh. 

i turned my head slightly. 

if you looked at it, the small piece i did in pencil was evidently distinguishable. 

By now Mr. Baryo knew my handy work and looking down at the paper i couldn't help but feel a tad bit ashamed. i knew i'd done my part but....

it was as if i'd let someone else do all the work when that wasn't the slightest bit true. i may not have answered each question like a pocket Wikipedia but i did at minimum half of it. I should at least get a C on the darn thing. 

i was in a glacial stare down with a piece of paper and simultaneously cursing all Tobys of the earth when someone called me by my name and interrupted my attention and so that's why i was looking cross-eyed at empty air, too fizz crackle brained to come up with anything clever besides "Duoi". 

Apparently Toby decided he'd needed to read it over before handing it to me since i wasn't to be trusted. That was when i'd promised myself i'd never be so careless and get lost in thought in front of toby ever again. 

But really what did i think would happen?

There was NO here you go, partner. Or next time i'll be the one to do all the legwork. Nope. -"you're closer." was all he said to me.

Per usual Mr. Baryos desk was comprised high with unfilled garden pots, loose fresh fertilizer, and jumbo scattered notebooks. 

Amazing how the dirt snaked on the rectangular desk in thin trails of jumbled black lines like a maze I'd once seen in a childrens coloring book and yet somehow managed to bypass the teachers paperwork.

"here you go." i show him the assignment in spite of the fact that the prof of W&A wasn't paying me no mind.

without looking up mr. baryo points to a slanted pile. if he worried it would fall on the floor in a heap of mess he didn't show it. 

"just put it right there, dear. i need to finish transferring some early recordings before i start grading papers." i smile looking down at his pudgy profile and do as i'm told.

once back at my desk i doodle in my notebook. using a number two pencil i absentmindedly draw figure eight signs next to singular rudimentary shapes like squares and triangles. 

when mya and the others found out i was on speaking terms with Toby they didn't stop coming around. which didn't come as a surprise considering this was Mya i was talking about. 

Mya was nice and Mya was friendly and Mya was nothing like me. 

-"it's rude to stare."