Participants:
Guest Starring:
| Scene Title | Twenty Foot Tall Snowman |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | That's what Magnes promises to make the Lighthouse kids, as he gets a new assignment as their math and science tutor. |
| Date | April 26, 2010 |
It's snowing again in the afternoon, and the kids get quite a show today. He's chosen to practice his ability while Gillian practices her's again, and entertain the children at the same time. Not to mention this is gonna save them hours of snow plowing.
He's out there in a thick black coat that flows down above his knees with a few shirts under it and a thick black beanie on his head. His legs may be in blue jeans, but he's got things layered under those as well, and they're tucked into his black snow boots. Things are a mixture of white, purple and violet, the snow, Magnes' ability, and Gillian's ability. The snow around the Lighthouse has been completely pushed away, so all that's left is what's falling from the sky and what they're manipulating in the front. Purple swirls around snow and smashes it into a two foot sphere in front of the two, then he whips it around and pulls another foot of snow on to that sphere. He's trying to learn to control the vast amount of power gained from Gillian's ability, in a more finely tuned manner like when he's not augmented. But when purple energy whips into the sphere again, it de-stabilizes it and snow goes flying everywhere in a big puffy explosion. "I'm glad we're doing this with snow, it this would hurt."
The puffy wet explosion still stings a bit, when it hits bare skin. Gillian's dressed in much the same way she was down in Antarctica, complete with a furry hood pulled tight around her face, the black fur almost seconding as her own hair. Though it's not her hair. The stream of energy has been kept low, so she doesn't collapse on top of him in the snow, but it is a good practice, for the both of them. And the handful of kids outside laugh and clap and pick up snow and throw it at each other. The rest watch from the windows where they can, since she made the decision that they could only come out in small groups, for ten minutes at a time. Then they had to go in, and get warm again.
"I know you wanted to do something with water a long time ago— guess this works. And the kids seem to like it. They've been trapped inside so much…" Gillian says, eyes glowing faintly as she keeps the flow directed at Magnes.
One of the kids stays close to him, rather than playing with the others, and reaches up to tug on his coat. A blonde girl with big eyes, Hailey has been around him a lot lately, one of the ones paying the most attention to his comic book readings. She's also older, so he doesn't always have to edit them out when he reads them. Not always. "Magnes? Heroes are supposed to try to help people whenever they can, right?"
"What I don't understand is why things keep breaking down when I add too much gravity. I'm pretty sure I'm evenly pushing from every side. It must be a stabilization issue, something on the atomic level maybe… Gravitons haven't been proven to actually exist, so I have no idea if they'd be larger or smaller than atoms." Magnes starts to gather snow into another two foot ball, attempting the giant snow man experiment.
When Hailey tugs, he looks down with a slight smile, his body having a faint purple glow, like a light flame. "Yes, they are. Though you should never help someone if it's wrong or against the law." he makes sure to add in, keeping his focus on her while he listens.
"Okay— Nothing illegal or wrong. And I think you should spin it!" Hailey says suddenly, pointing at the ball. "You know, like the earth. Gillian read to us about Astronomy and stuff a few weeks ago for our science lesson. The earth spins and it doesn't fall apart." That seems to be her kid-sized genius, as she moves away a bit, to grab on to one of the only thing's comfortable in this weather… Eve's huskies, which are quickly becoming the Lighthouse's huskies.
"I admit my science stuff is pretty lacking, besides what I have to try and teach the kids for their lessons." Gillian says, keeping a soft stream of energy flowing toward him, while he builds giant snow man. She reads them all that stuff cause she refuses to let her kids be dumb! Though math is more difficult… They'll probably be behind in math if they ever start school. "But… at least it's pretty."
Of course Magnes could always teach them math if Gillian ever asked. He still seems a bit concerned with Hailey, asking, "So, why do you ask, anyway? Is there someone who needs help?"
And, back to the sphere, it's a bit tricky to make it spin, but he alters the gravity in a few opportune spots, causing the ball to begin spinning with a slight tilt. "The Earth spins and is held together by gravity, yes, that's why we don't go flying off. It also spins at an axis, that means it's tilted slightly. It's important for the Earth to keep its tilt, that has an affect on the weather and everything."
He's suddenly in teacher mode, leaving the sphere spinning as the purple energy leaves it and he forms an even larger ball next to it, which spins and drags the smaller one around with its gravity. "This larger ball would be like the sun. The Earth causes a slight wobble even though the sun is so large, that's how scientists can tell if there's a planet very far away where all they can see is the star, they look at the wobble the planet is making against it."
"Oh cool!" Hailey exclaims, distracted from the dogs and the other stuff for the science lesson. The other kids also stop throwing snow at each other to watch, obviously interested in the show, and perhaps even, in this case, the science. But because of the distraction, his first question goes unanswered.
"You know, maybe you should start teaching them some science stuff while you're here," Gillian says, not seeming to dislike or mock his knowledge. The comic geeky thing had a certain appeal to the kids, and made his time in the Lighthouse fun, rather than school, but school… "I can already tell you'll make the lessons more interesting than I will."
"I wouldn't mind. To be perfectly honest, I could probably be qualified to be a student teacher in a college if I wanted to, so I don't mind teaching little kids." Magnes carefully places the larger sphere down, which is about five feet high. "Who wants to come break it?" he enthusiastically calls over to the kids, then points over at the large sphere.
"I'm glad to be here again. I may still feel like I got hit by a truck a bit, but I like being here with the kids. And you'll never guess what I did, possibly the stupidest thing ever." He lightly nudges her, grinning. "I asked Eileen out. But, well, I lost out to Gabriel's masculine prowess. I don't mind or anything, I mostly like Eileen in a shallow kind of way."
"Break it? I thought we were using it to make a snowman?" Hailey asks, unsure what he even means by breaking it, only to watch in horror as her brother runs over in the snow and starts jumping to try and hit it with his gloved hands. Break! Break!
"Eileen— really?" Gillian asks, shaking her head against the cold a bit. "I don't think it was just his masculine prowess, but…" That's probably not something she wants to discuss. She, after all, had been in love with Gabriel over a year ago… And part of her may still love him, it's just not as annoyingly painful as another love she developed. "You don't happen to be good with math too? Cause the kids could really use someone who doesn't have to pull out a calculator all the time." Which would be her.
"We'll make a snow man, I just thought the boys might wanna break something. I'll work on my ability later, let's all make the snow man together!" he announces, signaling for Gillian to stop pumping him with energy, then starts moving the snow with his regular ability to help the kids out.
"Am I any good with math?" He laughs, watching the kids with the snow, and always keeping an eye out for those dogs. "The crescent moon is a spherical lune perceived as the intersection of a semicircle and a semi-ellipse. In plane geometry, a lune is a concave area bounded by two arcs, the corresponding convex shape is a lens. Formally, a lune is the relative complement of one disk in another, where htey intersect but neither is a subset of the other. Alternatively, if A and B are disks, then L equals A minus… well, I think you get the point.
"Yeah, guys have to break shit," one of the boys says, even using foul language that gets a glare from Gillian. Nevermind she uses those words more than enough herself, she doesn't want to hear it out of them. Even from the new kids.
The boys get together to make a snowman, but Hailey looks oddly disappointed that they'll be doing it the normal way. "I wanted a really big snowman. You know, the ones that will make people point and go look at that." Even with her lips pale from the cold, she's still pouting.
But Gillian takes the cue and cuts off the power source, "You guys have to switch back in and warm up soon anyway, so hurry up and get as much as you can done before the next kids join in." Snowrolling commences! "And you are totally their math teacher now. Congratulations."
"I'll go check my old house, maybe some of the tutoring materials from when I was a kid are still there." Magnes means his old old house, his family home. While they're rolling a snow man, he places a hand on Hailey's head. "I promise I'll build you one before I leave, a really big one, twenty feet high."
"Wow, that'll be almost as tall as the Lighthouse!" Hailey exclaims excitedly, looking less pouty almost immediately. The huskies run around with the children, but not in a way to indicate danger. Just fun.
"Now I think the kids may actually have a chance at a full education. At least as much as they can get home schooled," Gillian says, looking pleased with this turn of events. It makes things a little easier on her, cause she can focus on what she actually knows, reading, writing and history stuff… Their ten minutes may be up— but she seems to be letting it go over, especially while they keep busy, though she doesn't join in herself.