“Uhn...” Twyla’s head made a loud thunk as it hit her biology book. After missing a year of school she had A LOT to make up. She considered it her punishment for being a coward and running away from home. Currently that punishment entailed a semi-independent study of Advanced Biology. The topic of her current chapter was diffusion. It was almost 11:00 at night and Twyla had been sitting in the same chair in the library for the last three hours and she was sick of osmosis, transport proteins, and all the other fun terms she was supposed to be reading about. Actually, the reading had been easy, it was the worksheet that was giving her problems and eating away at her time. Why did she care about the difference between exocytosis and endocytosis anyway? Sure they were important, but her cells did that by themselves without any help from her understanding the processes. Her attitude about the whole thing was also taking up time because the more she got frustrated, the longer the pauses between sitting and actually working on the homework that had been assigned became.

After dinner Twyla had thrown her blonde and pink hair up into a high pony, changed into a tank top and sweat pants , and then headed for the library in an attempt to find a quiet place to study. She had found that quiet place that had no other students in it and had set up camp. The table that the teen had claimed was covered in papers and notebooks. Her pencils were strewn on top and under this mess and the only reason that she could find her zune amidst the muddle was because the headphones were in her ears. The small mp3 player was probably what was keeping her sane during the intense study-session. After she had finally figured out how to add more music, it was filled with happy dance team remixes and the albums that had come in one of several recent packages from home. The radio feature was what was being used currently. Twyla had found a station that was playing pretty good pop and hip hop, so she was content with the background noise.

During a particularly hard question there was a pause in the music that made Twyla stop and listen–worry that she had broken the gift flooded through her for a moment so she turned the volume way up in an attempt to fix it. Suddenly, the music resumed. A hard and familiar beat began and then the unmistakable voice of Mary J. Blige blasted in her earbuds. “Them other girls you done been with...” Her chair went flying back and instantly Twyla was standing and began dancing. “I’m the ooooone.” she mouthed as moved her feet in a complicated pattern from an almost forgotten dance team routine. By the time the chorus rolled around the second time Twyla was really jamming out–she was randomly poppin’ it and was even throwing a few body rolls into her impromptu routine. In her mind she wasn’t even in the library anymore. Infact, she wasn’t in New York. She was back at a school dance or preforming at half-time during a football game. She was at all the places that she had felt comfortable dancing before and in her mind she looked good. Delusions AND a blatant disregard for social norms all in one girly package. Apparently some people go more stir crazy than others.

Ted wasn't one to go to the library. He didn't like to many books but there were some that he rather liked to check out every once in a while. One in particular that he decided he should read was Metamorphosis by Kafka. Since Ted had learned about the book he thought it might apply to him in one way or another. Wether it actually concerned his powers or not he thought he might want to give it a try. It was already late and he was mainly concerned with getting the book so that he could start reading it after he woke up the next morning. As Ted headed towards the library he didn't see any one so he thought the place might be closed. He was wrong. When he'd first seen her he could see that she was studying hard. Teddy didn't want to disturb her so he stayed as far away from her as he could as he looked for the book.

He'd just managed to find the book when he heard the noise of a chair falling over. Curious to see what had happened he walked to the end of the aisle he was in to see the girl dancing on the table. That's definitely a different way of studying. Ted thought to himself as he walked over to the table. He wasn't going to disturb her dancing but it was certainly something that wasn't seen on a regular basis, especially in the library. Ted leaned back against the table that was behind him as he watched the girl dance. She was good. Much better than he was, and he didn't consider himself a bad dancer at all. Ted thought about joining her dancing. The only draw back was that he didn't know what she was dancing to and he couldn't hear the music since it was in her ears and not in speakers. Ted set the book down on the table he was leaning on and decided to watch her dancing until she finished.

“...she’s the one.” The beats and Mary J. were finished and the radio station went to commercials. Twyla stopped dancing and began to laugh. Had she really just done that? In a library? The reality of the situation dawned on her and she quickly set her chair back up. She was still laughing when she realized that she had had an audience, this only made her laugh harder. There was a boy with blonde hair leaning on a table behind the one that she had claimed with her things. How long he had been sitting there and how much he had seen, Twyla had no idea, not that she was sure she cared. She was still on the rush from the dance and the song and was in such a randomly happy mood that she probably wouldn’t have cared if the entire school was watching. Maybe all she had to do to be confident was to be plugged in to headphones all the time?

She was still laughing when she decided to take the earbuds out and it only grew more hysterical when she tried to speak. “Sorry..” Chuckle. “about...” Giggle. “that...” titter-titter. A moment was taken to collect her thoughts and her breath. “I didn’t mean to disturb you or anything like that. It was just a really good song. Like, intensely good. Do you ever have one of those days? ’Cuz that’s totally me right now.” Realizing that she was rambling, Twyla shut her mouth abruptly. The cause for the rambling and recent hysteria and probably the impromptu show was a combination of sleep deprivation, her recent confidence boost from a hair color change, and the fact that she was so frustrated with her biology homework that any kind of distraction was greatly appreciated.

It was strange, for once in her life Twyla wasn’t blushing after being caught doing something out of the ordinary–she was just smiling awkwardly at the boy, waiting for his reaction to the whole thing.

As the older girl climbed down from the table he slowly started clapping. A smile crossed his face also. The girl didn’t seem to care that he was watching her dance on the table. Needless to say it was something that Ted certainly thought would have more people watching if there were in fact more people around to see it. “No you didn’t disturb me. I was just curious to see what happened when I heard the chair fall over. I wasn’t studying or anything. I just came by to pick up a book to read.” Ted told her. He wasn’t sure what kind of day she was talking about. Did she mean one where you just felt like dancing? Or did she mean one where the only thing that seems right is when you listen to music? Ted hadn’t had either of those but he was definitely enjoying himself at the mansion so far so he couldn’t complain. Her sudden quietness was created with her sudden lack of rambling. It actually caused an awkward silence for a little bit.

“You’re pretty good.” Ted told her. He was trying to get rid of the awkward silence that was filling the room. “I’m Ted by the way.” He said holding his hand out to start the introductions between the two. Since she’d, in his mind anyways, already broken the ice he wasn’t that shy with her. If she hadn’t been dancing on the table and making a fool of herself then he would probably be to shy to talk to her. But seeing as she was already a little off her guard from dancing it wasn’t that bad. “How long have you been here?”

“No you didn’t disturb me. I was just curious to see what happened when I heard the chair fall over. I wasn’t studying or anything. I just came by to pick up a book to read.” That was good to know. Hopefully she hadn’t disrupted anyone else with her distraction. There was an awkward silence in which Twyla said nothing and just smiled–she didn’t feel the need to continue her needless and rambling chatter.

The lull was disrupted by the boy speaking again. “You’re pretty good.” He told her, to which she curtsied with the imaginary skirt she was now apparently wearing. Part of her wanted to reply with something like ‘Just pretty good?’, but she refrained and he told her his name. “Nice to meet you Ted, I’m Twyla.” Now to reply to his question. She tried to calculate the number of months in her head but that was proving to be too difficult at the late moment. “I’ve been here since this summer. How about you?”

Upon further inspection, the boy, Ted, was probably younger than her by a few years, and he was definitely shorter by a few inches. Realizing that the chair was still on the floor, Twyla stooped over to pick it up. All the while watching Ted for his reply.

Ted listened to her reply. Twyla. Ted thought that was a very unusual name, but he wasn't going to tell her that because she might take offense to it. Ted didn't know enough people here yet to get on someone's bad side. "Hi Twyla." he replied as any normal person would. This would be an interesting conversation if the awkward silences continued. Hopefully they wouldn't happen to often. Before another silence could occur he answered her question. "I haven't been here that long. Maybe a month or so, so I haven't met to many people here yet." was his reply.

Ted then glanced down at her books on the table. To be honest it all looked like German or Chinese to him. It obviously wasn't in a different language it was just that Teddy hadn't even taken high school biology, and that was to not even think about advanced biology or whatever it was that she was studying. "What is that you're studying? It looks like gibberish." Ted took a step closer to the books as he said this. Maybe she would understand it enough to explain some of it to him. But then again he didn't know many people that were interested in explaining school work to younger kids. But there was no telling with some of the people here. And since most were friendly she might explain a little to him even if she didn't know a lot of it yet.

“Yeah, I doubt I’m doing much better in the ‘getting acquainted’ department, I spend most of my time in here.” She motioned around the large room with her hands. Homework. Homework. Homework. That’s what naughty runaways get. The avalanche of homework was causing Twyla, slowly but surely, to revert to a hermit-like state the longer she stayed at the Mansion. As long as she socialized a bit every few days she probably wouldn’t lose her people skills--this was a chance to test that theory.

“It looks like gibberish because it IS gibberish.” Twyla replied to his question with a laugh. “It’s supposed to be Advanced Biology, but I’m not so sure it’s anything.” Looking down at her arch nemesis, the textbook, her fingers idly traced a picture of a cell. “This chapter is all about diffusion.” Twyla restrained herself from ranting at the poor boy about the process that had been the focus of her brain for the last few hours. She distracted herself by attacking the boy with questions. “How old are you? Have you had a regular Biology class yet?” Rant Mode was successfully turned off, for the moment at least.

Ted nodded his understanding with spending a lot of time in the library. The last few years, before he found out he was a mutant, he had spent lots of time studying because he wanted his grades to be good so that he could get into a good college. Although finding out he was a mutant seemed to have, at least for the moment, put his plans on college on hold. She was apparently not that excited about the subject she was studying. But maybe that was just from studying for so long. “I’m 14 and no I haven’t even taken regular Biology.” Ted answered her questions.

The young boy had no idea what diffusion was and was tempted to ask. However, her seeming lack of interest seemed to dissuade him from trying to figure out what on earth she was talking about. “What’s the difference between advanced biology and regular biology? It seems like once you learn regular biology you’d know all you’d need to.” Ted was actually losing interest in school because he was more interested in learning about his powers and what he could do than what happens when you subtracted x from y. She must have pretty good control of her powers if she’s trying to learn advanced biology. Ted thought as he took a look a the picture in the book of the cell. After staring at the picture for a bit his curiosity took over him. “What’s diffusion? I don’t see how it works in this picture.”

“Oh okay, I was just checking.” Twyla fished for a moment to find the best explanation of the difference between regular Biology and the Advanced version. “Basically for this class we take a magnifying glass and look at all the details we skimmed over in regular Bio. It’s just the intense version of the information. It’s not too bad, there’s just a lot of book work.” And book work takes time which makes Twyla tired and when she gets tired she gets frustrated which turns into anger which turns into dislike of the class by default. It was a terrible, vicious cycle, but Twyla hoped it would run its course and things would level off in a few months. If she could manage this workload she could survive anything.

That was the easy question to answer, now came something harder...

“Diffusion is kinda like...” She worried her lip as she tried to find a good analogy for the process. “When there’s a bunch of people in a house, for a party let’s say, and they all start in the foyer, where do they tend to go?” Oh gosh, she was turning into her science teacher from her old highschool, asking questions instead of answering them. It just came natural to her, apparently.

The explanation of the differences in Biology sujects worked well. It answered his question directly and just from the sound of it, it sounded like he wouldn't enjoy more book work and less fun. Ted nodded his head in acknoledgement that he understood what she was talking about. The second question didn't see, to be such an easy one to answer. It seemed to take Twyla a little bit longer to answer. When she did answer it wasn't even a real answer. He then felt like he was talking to Yoda or some other movie character than never answered questions directly.

Since Ted didn't know what a foyer was he decided to give it his best guess. "They go outside?" He said completely and utterly unsure of his answer. He didn't know what she was talking about and she would have to do better at explaining things than what she was doing at the moment if he was going to get it. By now Ted looked thoroughly confused and it didn't seem to be getting better.

“Um, some of them will.” Twyla scrambled to find a way to hold together her apparently flimsy analogy. “And some of them will scatter themselves in the kitchen, the dining room, and the living room. And do you know why that is? It’s because people, like molecules, don’t like to be tightly packed together.” She was talking fast now, it was amazing how much sense this made now that she was trying to explain it to someone else. “That’s what diffusion is–molecules moving from areas of high concentration to low concentration. It’s like people spreading out at a party, they all don’t want to stay in the foyer the whole night.”

She gave him a minute to process. Hopefully this made a bit more sense than her random question, that in retrospect, had a million plausible answers. “Does that make any more sense?” The question was hesitant, she hoped she hadn’t caused him more confusion.

So he was partly right. That was a good sign because he at least didn’t look like a complete idiot in front of the person he just met. Twyla then continued to explain it so that he would understand what she was talking about. It worked. When she related it to the actual biology subject he understood what it meant. The mental picture in his head helped him get what she meant. He imagined a group of people standing in a small room with doors that led to other rooms and outside. As she explained it he continued to imagine what she was saying was going on with the people in the room.

“Right. That makes sense I wouldn’t want to be stuck in a crowded room all night.” Ted agreed. Diffusion sounded like a complicated process and he didn’t want to ask any more questions about it because he might end up getting completely and hopelessly lost in this subject without any prospect of comprehension. “I think so. It’s basically a cell getting more breathing room and room to expand, right?” He said making sure that he was still on the same page as she was.

“Exactly, it would totally suck to be mushed together like that. Nothing likes that. Just like people, molecules like to be able to roam free.” A laugh escaped there. Twyla was giving herself funny images of giant molecules bouncing around in a meadow. It was time to focus, and she pulled her thoughts back. “Yeah.” He had the general idea. “Diffusion happens more with molecules I think, but it happens inside of cells all the time.” Oh so many reactions oh so much of the time. “It’s crazy how much stuff is going on in just one of your cells...” She was losing focus again, it was time to find another topic.

Remembering that he had been looking for a book, Twyla pounced on it as fodder for their conversation. More talking=less Bio homework. “So do you know what book you were looking for?” Books she knew and understood...most of the time. Sometimes nonfiction gave her troubles. A glare was spared for her textbook and then she brought her attention back on the boy.

Ted listened to her talk. She started rambling more and more. There was less and less information that was getting through to him by now. All this information was way to far above his 14 year old head. Nothing was sinking in and nothing was really making sense. Thankfully she changed the subject back to him and what his original reason for coming to the library was. “Huh? Oh ya my book… I came here looking for some books, fiction or nonfiction that might tell me a little about transformations. And I’m not just talking about mutations. I’m talkin about full body transformations.”

It was probably an odd statement but he thought that perhaps someone had written some fictional stories about what he can do with his powers. “I actually found one but I’m not sure if it will tell me what I’m looking for.” Teddy was actually surprised that he could find anything that he was looking for since it was such a strange topic and he didn’t really think that someone would actually write about it.

“That’s an interesting topic, with a ton of different possibilities.” Twyla began wracking her brain for anything she’d read recently that matched that description. Nothing came up immediately but then Ted told her that he’d already found one. Oh....but he wasn’t sure if it had what he was looking for. She could still help her new acquaintance out. Books she knew and if she didn’t know the right bok there was always looking around until she found one.

“Maybe I could help, if you gave me a bit more to go on. Why are you interested in the topic?” Instead of assuming his reasons, she asked him. Twyla didn’t want to assume it had to do with his mutation (she didn’t know what he could do) but it was the first logical explanation that popped into her head.