***
The high school let out later than the elementary school. Even with the bus ride home and the bike ride back to the high school, Peter was early for the Science Club meeting.
Not that he didn’t get some resistance. He walked into the open door of Dr. Veedermeier’s lab, straight into the middle of ten nerdy, pimply, glass-wearing geeks. There were nine boys and one girl.
Normally Peter wouldn’t care one way or the other whether someone was nerdy, or pimply, or wore glasses, or was a geek. He’d probably be more inclined to talk to them than to somebody on a football team, or a cheerleader, or a teenager with big muscles and a fast car. Nerds were way less intimidating, and that was pretty important if you were going to strike up a conversation with a complete stranger.
Except these nerds were MEAN.
“Hey, kid, the preschool is back out there to the left,” one guy with a bowl-shaped haircut shouted as soon as Peter walked in.
“Yeah, don’t trip on your diaper on the way out,” hee-hawed another one with a mullet and glasses.
“Mommy’s got a bottle for you at home,” said a third with a big zit on his nose.
Peter’s face grew red. “I’m here to see Dr. Veedermeier.”
“Oooooh! He can say Dr. V’s name! I’m impressed!”
“What, is Dr. V gonna change your diapie?”
“Naw, he’s going to give him growth hormones so he won’t be so short!”
“No, no, he’s gonna – ”
“Well, hello, Peter!” Dr. Veedermeier chirped as he entered the building. “I’m so glad you could make it! Everyone, this is Peter Normal! Please treat him as an honored guest!”
That shut the nerds up pretty quickly.
“What about Dill?” Dr. V asked, his voice turning towards concern.
“Um, he couldn’t make it.”
“Why not? He’s not sick, is he?”
“Just sick of school, that’s all.”
Dr. Veedermeier laughed heartily, then turned to his audience of nerdlings. “Welcome to the science club, everyone! This week I thought I would devote our discussion to the brain and its evolution. Peter, if you don’t understand anything, please just let me know, I’ll try to make it more accessible. First off, from the research we’ve done over the last ten years, we’ve discovered that our brains aren’t that different from reptiles. Yes, you heard me correctly: your brains, your gray matter, isn’t that far removed from crocodiles and tortoises. Most people think our brains are these computers that are vastly superior to other animals’, but what we have discovered is that the reptile brain is still a part of ours. The human brain was built on top of the lizard brain, piece by piece, over eons of evolution. It’s like taking an ancient computer and slapping on more and more sophisticated microchips and processors and storage devices around it, until you forget that the original motherboard is still in there, because the new computer parts overwhelm the functions of the little computer. But sometimes the little computer reaches out and makes its presence felt. For instance, did you know that our vision is handled in the ‘people’ part of the brain, but that there is a part of our vision that is linked to the reptile parts? Some people who are technically blind can ‘see’ objects. They can reach out and accurately grab things when they are placed in front of them, even though the people are not consciously seeing the objects, at least not in the way we normally think of ‘seeing.’”
The next thirty minutes boggled Peter’s brain (both human and reptile), but Dr. Veedermeier was so enthusiastic and passionate that Peter stayed interested the entire time, even when he didn’t understand everything that was being said. What was fairly surprising was that he felt he kept pace with the lecture, and understood most of Dr. Veedermeier’s major points.
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Copyright © 2009 Darren Pillsbury. All rights reserved.
