Intellectual Help (Taylor and Martha)

[Taylor McKessie]

Pushing the stacks of books to a side, Taylor put her tray of fries and drink on the empty table and sat down. She took a glance around the cafeteria and sighed, before taking a sip of her drink. She was seated at her usual table, but it doesn't really matter now even if she joined some cheerleaders.

The original cliques were somehow all mixed up, thanks to Troy and Gabriella of course, the amazing pair. Even though then, she highly doubt she will really join the jocks' girls. Those cheesy talks about hooking up guys. Goodness freak.

Popping a fries into her mouth, Taylor managed to pull a book from the stack and flipped it open. She grabbed her writing pad and tried to start on her last assignment that was not yet done, a minimum of six pages essay on the topic 'Psychology'.

She frowned at the blank piece of paper. How am I going to start writing? I'm good in science, not in writing essay. She looked up and scanned around the cafeteria. She wished someone would join her, someone whom she's able to ask help from. That is but of course.

[Martha Cox]

Martha entered the cafeteria and briskly looked around. The cafeteria scene had changed quite a lot then it had been around this time last year. What she saw before her, were different people mingling with one another. Martha observed a jock chatting away with a skater dude on one end of the cafeteria and a cheerleader conversing with one of her brainiac friends.

If time were to rewind back an year, there wouldn't be mixed up cliques. You could definitely tell apart the different cliques. One wouldn't be caught dead hanging with someone out of their status group. It was different now, it was hard to pinpoint the exact location of each group. It didn't matter if you were outside of your group and it was all thanks to Troy and Gabriella.

Martha didn't follow what everyone was doing and join another table. It wasn't just because she didn't want to, but rather because she wouldn't fit in. Obviously, that was the whole point of the mix up, no one fitted in with one another, but how could she have intellectual conversations with them?

With a brown bag at hand, containing a sandwich, banana, and juice, she glanced around once more to find Taylor sitting alone, looking quite frustrated. Oh, how she knew that look too well. That look that was plastered on Taylor's face, was often plastered on hers. That was, only when she was brain dead and couldn't figure out something.

Martha walked up to her friend to see if she could help her with anything. "Hey Taylor, looks like you could use some help." Martha said as she finally approached the table.

[Taylor McKessie]

Still entranced by the blank piece of paper in front of her, Taylor looked up when she heard a voice calling her. Her spirit lighten up when she saw Martha approaching, and gave her a smile. A lifesaver.

"Oh, hi Martha! Feel free to take a seat here." Taylor greeted, patting onto the empty chair next to her. "And yes, I seriously needed help here." She remarked, taking her nice blank piece of writing paper and showing it to Martha. "See? Neat without even a speck of dust." She shook her head, putting the writing paper back on the table and taking another sip of her drink.

"Do you know anything about 'Psychology'? I'm supposed to write a thesis on that." Taylor said, the pen twirling in one of her hand as the other free hand began flipping through a thick book.

[Martha Cox]

Martha set her brown paper bag on the table as she took a seat next to Taylor. She then began to take out her juice from the brown bag, shaking it well, then opening it while placing a straw in it. Martha looked at the blank sheet of paper that was shown to her, then nodded. She hoped that she could be of some sort of assistance.

She listened intently as Taylor explained what area she was having problems in and what she needed to do. Ah, Psychology, an area that Martha is familiar with.

"Yes, I know somewhat about it." She replied while taking a drink. "Were you given a certain topic to cover, or is it just in general?" She then added while scanning the table for any instructions.

[Taylor McKessie]

Taylor was still flipping through the thick book and desperately trying to find anything that somehow can be relate to Psychology. It was not that Taylor did not understand anything about the topic she was required to write on, but rather more on the fact that she might rambled off all about structures and laws of Psychology instead of the general analysis that was required.

"That's great!" Taylor exclaimed, upon hearing that Martha did know something about the topic. "Just in general." She replied, taking a fries and dipping it in tomato sauce before bitting it. "And that's why I so troubled by it." She added on, flipping the pages until it came to the section on Psychology.

"Do you have any idea how to start the essay?" She asked, looking at Martha questioningly. "I thought of giving the definition first."

[Martha Cox]

Martha began to take out the rest of her contents out of her brown bag. Once they were revealed, she began to unwrap the sandwich and place it parallel to the banana. To serve as a mat, she flattened the brown bag and set it on that table.

She, herself had work to do, annotating some selections for her English class. One of the reading selections that she had to annotate was by George Orwell. The selection dealt with the English language being manipulated in the modern world and his concerns toward it.

The author whom the selection was by, also wrote two books that she would have to read sometime in the year. The books, 1984 and Animal Farm were essential to be discussed and read during one's senior year. That was, if it wasn't read prior.

Martha got out her selection from her binder and placed in on the table. She then got out a pen so she could begin annotating the passage. Before she could begin though, she still had to help Taylor with the thesis.

She pondered on Taylor's question. How to start? The hardest part of a paper, to her, was the introduction paragraph. It was quite the challenge to produce those couple of sentences that would set as the run-off of the paper.

"Well." She begin, gathering her thoughts, "I don't see why not." She then added, referring to Taylor's idea of beginning with the definition of Psychology. "I mean, just as long as you don't begin with, 'Psychology is defined as-' She stopped, trying to make her point.

Martha knew that Taylor wouldn't start off like that, she just wanted to make sure. "Psychology, the characteristic of the mental state and process of an individual." She verbalize an example, hoping to start her off. Once again, she pondered some more on how to continue if needed.

[Taylor McKessie]

Taylor was now browsing through the pages quickly, trying to grasp the information she could possibly understand. Definition might be a good way to start off the thesis, but if written horribly, the whole thing would just be ruined even though the content may be good.

From Greek, literally 'to talk about the soul' Taylor pondered over the sentence she saw was quite interesting. It might be a good way to start off with that but it needed some modification so that it would appeal more to the readers. As Taylor continued looking through the book, she found out there were a lot of other sub-fields under the category, for examples – personality psychology, experimental psychology, biological psychology and et cetera. There were just too much that Taylor wondered what to do with them.

Turning her attention to Martha, Taylor saw her taking some stuff out from her binder. She craned her neck and looked over the stuff. "Annotation for some selections?" She asked Martha, even though she was mumbling to herself. She shook her head and then shifted her attention back to her own work, which still has yet to be started, much less completed.

Taylor laughed lightly over Martha's words. "No, of course not. The last time I started with that kind of definition was when I'm in middle school." She smiled, and continued. "And the teacher gave me the highest score." She chuckled, the fond memories of her childhood suddenly surfacing into her mind. The joys of being a child.

[Martha Cox]

Martha took a bite of her sandwich and sip of her juice before resuming back to her annotations. She didn’t know why her fellow peers always complained about doing annotations. To her, they were fun. She enjoyed doing them. Then again, she wasn’t like the other students, she actually loves doing this kind of stuff and everything else for that matter.

Five paragraphs and yet not a single mark on her paper. With the exception of the heading that was always written before anything else. At least, that’s what Martha did because if she didn’t, well, she would often forget to include it. Its happened a couple of times, but fortunately, Martha always caught herself before any credit wasn’t granted. She blamed her eagerness towards completing her work. She would complete her tasks right away, with a smile plastered on her face, and a feel of accomplishment. Then of all things, she would forget to credit herself.

Martha briefly skimmed the first paragraph before actually reading it, looking for any words that weren’t used on a daily basis, that she could add to her annotations. If she knew the words, it was easy. However, if she didn’t, she would then have to take out her dictionary that she always has handy with her. Once Martha was done skimming, she found no words that she didn’t already know. . “…English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it.” Martha read silently to herself. She made some quick notes and explained, in her own words, how nothing is done to correct the poor use of English. She made note of the sentence that followed after, which referred to how the civilization today is decaying, with the English language right behind it.

Martha sighed. Oh, how was that paragraph true. She had witnessed several words used incorrectly, which made the whole thing be badly presented. Several years ago, when she had to peer edit someone’s paper, she encountered a perfect example. Every word used, had been replaced by another, which made the paper contain no sense. Now, that is why peer editing exists.

Softly, but yet audible, Martha heard Taylor mumble something. She smiled and nodded. “Wow, really?” Martha expressed her amazement as a reply towards Taylor. Then again, it did happen in middle school. They had sure come a long way, from producing simple papers to having to analyze, explain in full detail, and presenting the readers in all sorts of ways. “Have you figured out what to begin with?” Martha asked, still fixated on her own work.

[Taylor McKessie]

"Well..." Taylor paused, looking at Martha with a raised eyebrow. "Not really. It's like I'm getting some sort of author's block at the moment." She replied, shaking her head lightly as she stared at the ever so sparkling clean piece of paper on the table. There wasn't any pen mark on the paper, and she didn't even bother to write her name at all. She had this feeling in which she would crush and throw the piece of paper into the bin sooner or later. It always happen to her most of the time, especially when writing some long essay and she wasn't happy with the end product.

As Taylor reached out to take a book from the stack, the cup of drink spilled over. She cursed inwardly and grabbed the drink just in time to prevent the liquid inside from leaking any more onto the table. She took out some tissue from her bag, wiping and dabbing the small puddle of impurity that had formed on the table.

"I don't think I'm still in the mood to complete my work now." Taylor remarked, and glanced around the cafeteria. There weren't as much students as before, but it was still kind of noisy. She could hear some jocks talking about skipping lessons and basketball from the table not far away from hers. She rolled her eyes in annoyance. Some kind of students...

"Say, would you mind if I talk to you about some really minor stuff?" Taylor asked Martha, gazing from her work and back to her. She did say minor, but actually it wasn't that minor at all. The whole thing was just weird and she needed someone to share with. She'd thought of Gabriella, but dismiss the idea away after realizing she was close with her. It would just give the whole thing away.

[Martha Cox]

Still needing one more paragraph, Martha decided to finish it off. That way, she had one less thing to worry about and a few minutes were spared. She still needed another selection to annotate, which was about the Holocaust. An event in which Martha found interesting. It was absolutely devastating what happened during that event.

She became startled when the beverage that Taylor had been drinking spilled. Martha was about to grabs some napkins and help her, but before she knew it, the mess had been picked up.

Martha returned back to her selection after she saw that the situation had been cleared up. It wasn’t long until Taylor spoke again. Martha nodded in agreement to Taylor’s words. She didn’t blame her. Writing a six page thesis was definitely a challenge to produce in such a short period of time.

Martha stuck the now annotated selection in her completed homework section in her binder. She wasn't going to start on her other selection just yet; she figured she would wait until later to do it. Minor? Martha thought to herself. What was so minor? Oh, well she would find out sooner or later. "I don't mind. What is it?" Martha asked, now a bit curious.

[Taylor McKessie]

While waiting for Martha's respond to her question, Taylor was at the same time trying to clear away the stuff that has scatter all over the table. She stacked the books away on one side, the stationeries back to where they belonged and also the food on the tray. As she looked back to Martha, she saw that she had completed one selection and was keeping it into the blinder.

"Well, actually..." Taylor started and then paused, trying to think up of a better way to rephrase the whole situation "I've been noticing that the twins, I meant the Evans, are behaving rather out of themselves recently." She paused again, looking around the cafeteria in a way as if someone will suddenly interrupt their conversation.

"Not that it really affect me, that's why I told you it was minor, but ... it's just weird." She finished her sentence off with some dramatic hand actions, and looked back at Martha, wondering how she would think of this. Even though what the Evans are up to may be none of her concern, but at least she would know what was happening. Her detailed observation always led her to know something that others wouldn't really notice.

[Martha Cox]

The more Martha thought about it, the more she became curious. Nothing could be kept a secret and with that in mind, nothing could be talked about. Everyone would find out sooner or later. It was an endless chain.

What could be so minor? It didn't seem so minor the way Taylor had asked. If it was minor, one would just drop it and forget it. Martha let the thoughts leave her head, while she waited for Taylor to tell her.

Martha thought about it after Taylor had told her. She hadn't seen any changes between the twins. Wait.. Come to think of it, she had notice something odd about them during homeroom. Martha didn't really want to bring it up then, for the fear of people hearing, but now she was in a noisy environment. So many conversations were going on that it was hard to hear. That was, unless one happened to be overhearing. Fortunately, by the looks of it, no one was in sight to be eavesdropping.

"You know..." Martha started off, then continued. "I had noticed something odd about them earlier. They both definitely seem out of place." Sharpay gave quite the shock to Martha actually. Usually she would be acting her 'Ice Queen' ways, but today, that seemed to be absent from her. Well, not entirely, but for the most part it was. Another thing that was shocking was the normal clothing the two were wearing. Martha didn't even know that they had owned such clothing. "What do you think is going on with them?" She asked Taylor, while crumbing her trash and throwing it in a nearby trashcan. Something was definitely going on with them, but she couldn't quite pinpoint it.