FOR SCIENCE

Butterflies in his stomach.  Crickets in his head.  Spiders on his skin.  Ants
in his pants.

He'd done it all.

Harry Dammers surveyed his classroom with a sad eye.  The Periodic Table of
the Elements still hung determinedly on the far wall, next to the Radioactive
Hazards sign.  A poster from the Human Genome Project clung desperately to a
closet on the right side of the room.  Fluttering in the light cross-breeze
between classrooms, the hand-drawn "Read Your Darwin" banner announced
equality for evolution and creationism in public schools.

Still, it hadn't amounted to anything, after all.

Kids were still laughing at his jokes, sure, even the crude ones that only the
more "worldly" students could comprehend.  Kids still came to class on time
for his lectures.  He still had an audience for his antics and practical jokes
against Dr. Pintavalle across the hall, who stood five-foot-five at the most,
dwarfed by Dammers's six-foot frame.

But there was no joy in it anymore.

The smiles, the laughs, everything was forced.  Biology wasn't FUN anymore, no
matter how hard he tried.  The kids weren't into it.  They wanted something
more far-fetched, they wanted computers and programs and mark-up languages.
They wanted complex codes and debugging projects and flashy graphics.

For years, Harry thought he'd been giving them these things.  Overhead
projections with detailed, color-coded notes, strands of DNA for analysis,
protein chains, chemistry, and all the insect dissection they could want!
Hell, the kids were allowed to breed drosophila for the final project of the
year- how many other teachers allowed them to do that anymore?  Certainly not
stuffy old Shamroth downstairs in Biology I, Honors Section- her kids did
boring things like watch "A Child is Born" when they got to the reproduction
unit, or dissect frogs, or listen to her drone on and on about the synthesis
of chlorophyll without flashy overheads or models.

Harry pounded his head on the acid-resistant table.  How could he go on?  How
could he compete with the Math department's new courses in "Computer Science"
and "Web Page Design" and "Coding in C"? What the hell was "coding in C"
anyway?  Sounded like something the Music department should be teaching.  Damn
that Markowicz, damn the man who brought technology to the school.  That fancy
new computer lab attracted more students during their Free Periods now than
Dammers's own classroom had in the history of his employment with this school
system.

A door slammed, and Harry jumped but didn't look up.

"I did it!"  Someone yelled.

Harry still refused to budge.

"Dammers, are you listening?"  Footsteps across the worn tile floor, papers
shuffling.  "I said, I did it!"

A hand on his shoulder, shaking him.  He raised his forehead from the cool
black surface of the table and stared blankly at the student next to him.  She
seemed somehow familiar, blonde hair wavy and slightly out of control, glasses
sliding slowly down the bridge of her nose.  She was buried under a mound of
notebook paper.

"Huh?" Harry said intelligently, wishing he had more to offer to this
obviously enthusiastic student.

"I found the gene that causes fruity flies!" the student crowed, bouncing on
the balls of her feet.

"Fruity...?"

The student pursed her lips and dropped the forest's worth of paper on his
table.  "Dammers, the fruity flies!  The ten percent of the drosophila
population committed to engaging in homosexual acts!  I FOUND THE GENE!"

Harry heard words that were familiar: "drosophila", "population", "gene".  She
was talking science.  She was talking BIOLOGICAL science.  "How?" was all he
could say.

"Gel electrophoresis, for one," the student explained, gesturing to the
papers.  "Hard work, lab time, determination.  Oh, and I broke your centrifuge
the other day, hope you don't mind."

Harry waved it off.  "School can afford a new one.  Where did you get the
resources for gel electrophoresis?  We don't-"

She stopped him with a wave of her hand.  "Don't worry about it, I found a
way.  That's my report, there."  She looked at her watch.  "I'm late for Brit
Lit, but I wanted to get this to you right away."

"I didn't really want to be a teacher," Harry mumbled, sifting through the
papers, which to his joy were all hand written instead of typed.  All the
calculations, equations, everything done in pencil.

The student halted in her retreat.  "What did you want to do?"

Harry's eyes misted over as he read the report.  "I wanted to sing..."

"Dammers, if you burst into the Lumberjack Song here and now, I'm SO out of
here."

*	*	*

Author's Notes

First, apologies to the real Harry Dammers ("Too Sexy for Botswana"-1993), Dr.
Pintavalle, Mrs. Shamroth, and Mr. Markowicz.  Really, they are all near and
dear to my heart.... Honest!

Second, yes, it's true about the fruity flies.  Some 10% of the fruit fly
(drosophila) population are homosexual.  Said behavior has been observed in
classroom and honest-to-goodness laboratory settings.

Third, my apologies to the drosophila I've killed over the years, both in the
name of science and out of plain human cruelty.  I'm sorry about overdosing
you with Fly-Nap (tm)!  I'm sorry for squashing you with the sponge cork,
despite my best efforts not to!  I didn't mean to bring your little lives to
an end abruptly with the lens of the microscope!

Remember, folks- Forced breeding of Normal Males (Bar-Eyed or Regular) with
Vestigial Females is just plain cruel! Shame on you!


The Sunburst Project, Week 3
http://www.chaoseed.com/btr/sbp/
3/30/00