nnie LXVII: For SCIENCE!

(Chronological index: High School (1st time for Raymond, 2nd time for Annie))

Annie stood in the dark, picking at her sleeve. The school had high hopes for the science fair and would only allow sylphs if they were 'covered.'

Raymond had found a tube of neoprene that covered her from armpit to knee. Wearing it was kind of like being swallowed by a toothless snake, but it was better than his first suggestion. He thought four layers of wet tissue paper would stick well and cover her.

Mom had quietly put the foot down on that. Annie promised to sacrifice a wren in her name.

She still wasn't sure what she was going to do at the fair. She didn't even know what Raymond's project was. She waited in the shoebox until he was ready for the reveal.

There was a knock, of sorts. Two thumps on the end of the box shook it under her feet. She caught herself against the wall. "Ready?"

"Barely," she snarled. He cracked the box a bit, letting her eyes adjust. Then he drew her out and placed her on the counter

Hanging in front of her was a wiring board. She'd seen Raymond working on the design for it.

Seven light bulbs were wired in on either end. Three on each side were labeled 'Guard' numbers one through three. There were also three 'Prisoner' lights. And one red light on each side was marked 'Danger.'

Right before her were six levers labeled to match guards and prisoners. They had two positions, Near Bank and Far Bank.

Off to one side was a story problem. Three Starfleet Security Guards were escorting three felons across a planet. They had arrested them...blah, blah, blah. She skipped down past the exposition. Raymond had obviously written it without adult supervision.

There was a river they needed to cross and a hydroslide that could only take two people at a time. People could move the levers to indicate people traveling back and forth. The lights showed their position.

If there was ever a point where the prisoners outnumbered the guards, then they'd take him hostage. That's when the Danger light would be lit.

There was a stopwatch mounted by the levers. "Okay," she said as she stepped forward. "Like that puzzle of the farmer, the goose and the grain? We're going to time how long it takes to solve?"

"Yeah," Raymond said. He gave her a moment to make sure she could move each lever and to see how the lights worked.

Then he started the stopwatch. She worked a few. The red light went off a couple of times. Then she took a few seconds to think.

"Yes," she said, "I know the clock's ticking. But... Oh!" She started again. This time, she had it down. There could be a bunch of prisoners on one side, as long as they weren't outnumbering the guards on that side.

This one went off without a hitch.

Raymond cheered, stopped the clock and carefully noted her time.

"So how did I do?" she asked. He lowered the clipboard and showed her the sheet. Her name was printed and her score was set aside as 'the baseline.'

"I’m the baseline? Why am I the baseline?"

Raymond lifted her up and took a step backwards. She got a view of the whole demonstration.

Above the wiring board was the wiring diagram, showing the way the choices were mechanized and lights lit.

There were drawings of the river and the men. A few diagrams of AND and OR gates.

And across it all, the banner read, "Are you smarter than a sylph?"

-------------

Annie spent the afternoon of the fair sitting next to the Danger light for the Far side.

She loudly snarked at the operators every time it lit up. Raymond suggested that maybe it would have a negative effect on their times.

"So?" she asked.

"You wanna spend the fair in the shoebox under the table?" he asked back. She stuck her tongue out at him but she did shut up.

She worked her way down to the table and looked around. Judges had started filtering through the exhibits. Other students were showing their notebooks of their experiments their results, their- Wait.

How could Raymond be presenting the results of an experiment he was conducting right now?

Was he processing the data on the fly? She looked up at the banner, down at the wiring. There were no pics of any smart sylphs or dumb sylphs or famous sylph researchers...

The judges walked up to Raymond's table a few minutes later. He picked her up and held her as they looked over the display.

"Smarter than a sylph, huh?" one commented.

"You think sylphs have substantially greater intelligence?" another asked.

"Well," Raymond said, "Annie is one of the smartest people I know. But the-"

"You mean," the first judge pointed out, "one of the smarter sylphs, surely?"

"No, ma'am," Raymond said politely. "I mean she's smarter," he said slowly, "than most of the people I know. Including some that do crosswords in ink."

"Aw," Annie said softly, stroking his thumb. One judge looked at her speculatively, another shook her head. The other asked to see the notebook.

Raymond's exhibit was on how story problems were broken down and mechanized for computer solutions.

The banner was just a lure to get people to play with the lights and switches.

They asked questions about where the story problem came from, what the solution was, how many times people got the red light before they solved it.

They also asked how this compared to more traditional computers and

"Just out of curiosity," the first judge asked as the others moved on, "how's Annie's score?"

"No one's come close," Raymond said proudly. "It may be due to the concentration of her brain neurons. All ideas travel at the speed of light, but in her brain they travel one twelfth as far as in mine."

He shrugged. Then he lifter her up to kiss the top of her head. "Or, it could be that she's one of the smartest people I know."

The judge nodded and moved on.

"Perfect," he said. He kissed her once more.

"I didn't do anything!" she protested.

"Exactly," he agreed. "You didn't go off when they went all stupid."

"I...didn't want to spoil your work," she said. "You...worked hard. Really? The smartest person you know?"

"Among the smartest," he corrected. "Certainly smarter than the idiots I game with."

"Your goldfish is smarter than some of them. Not Jack..."

He set her down on his clipboard. While they waited for the results to be announced she wandered up and down the results sheets. "Oooh! I did TWICE as well as this guy."

He scored low on Innovation, as he mostly just collected information others had already developed. But the presentation was eye catching and easy to understand. The basic principles were easily grasped by anyone that paid attention to them.

The banner had lured people to practice the puzzle and most had eventually solved it or at least admitted that they could see where the solution might eventually be found.

So he wouldn't be going on to district but he was quite some distance from the bottom scorer. That was a football jock that spelled 'our' as 'Are Water System.'

Annie sat on Raymond's shoulder as the awards were handed out. He reviewed the judges' comments sheets. He folded one tightly and slipped it up by his sylph.

She leaned over to read a personal comment on the exhibit. Under 'Presentation' a judge had noted 'Sylph's look is kickin' for sure.'

"Oooh," she said softly. He put the sheet down to offer her a little golf clap.

After the ceremony the exhibits were carried to the science classrooms. Then the participants were treated to tubs of ice cream in the cafeteria.

Raymond let Annie take the first taste. She shoved the wooden spoon in like an oar and scooped up a serving.

"I'm tempted to just sit in the stuff," she said. "This sleeve is hotter than your armpit."

"Should it come off?" he asked. She nodded, looking up at him with a question. "Well, yeah, sure, you have permission."

He helped her slide it off, amazed at how sweaty she was. "You didn't notice me dripping on your sleeve?" she asked.

Raymond shook his head. He put the lid back on place on his little tub and set her down on it. She let out an 'eep' of surprise at the chill but relaxed into the cool.

He rushed off and came back with a pair of paper towels. One to wet her down and one to dry her off again. She tolerated his manhandling as it quickly drained off some of her body heat and perspiration.

Then he gave her as much frozen ice cream as she wanted until her body was comfortable.

She was pleasantly full as he slid her into his pocket and went to find his folks.

They marveled at her completion time and complimented him on his final score.

Then Dad asked if anyone wanted ice cream on the way home. Annie moaned a negative. Raymond explained before the parents could panic.



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