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Cricket bit his pencil and looked up at Lola. Catching her in the act of staring at him instead of doing her homework. Again.
“Come on, Lola. I can’t focus when you’re staring holes in my head!” He chastised her with an adorable grin on his face.
“I’ve been studying all week! I can’t look at my textbook anymore, it’s not nearly as cute as you.” Lola protest, doing her best to convince him to take a break.
“It’s only Wednesday. So by ‘studying all week’ you mean only two days?” Cricket asked, giving up on his own homework for the moment. He thought that maybe if he gave her this one distraction they could have an uneventful rest of the afternoon.
“That’s not true, though! I studied over the weekend! And last week.” Lola grinned, enjoying the ‘argument’.
“Well then, maybe you just have to get used to college life then, huh?”
In response Lola just groaned and returned her eyes to the words that were spinning around the page in the most boring font she’d ever seen. She liked the class, liked the teacher, did not like the homework. She’d thought that design classes might be a bit more thrilling. But instead it was ‘read this’ and ‘study that’. Again, Lola felt the urge to look up. Maybe this time she could distract Cricket by letting him talk about his latest invention.
Finally, she gives into the temptation. Looking up from her textbook and across the table she meets his eyes.
“Congradulations Lola. You studied for approximately four and a half seconds.” But he’s still grinning. “What would your dads say if they saw you now?”
Before she could respond both of their eyes snapped to the middle of the table as a low-pitched ‘bloop’ disrupts their perceived silence. There sitting on the table, where previously there was nothing but air, was an apple. It looked pretty normal. Red, round, little stem and everything. So it would’ve been a completely normal apple if it hadn’t just appeared out of freaking nowhere.
“That. Is. An. Apple. Right?” Cricket asked her, not taking his eyes off the fruit.
“It’s an apple that just teleported! Yes.” Lola responded, now meeting his eyes that held the same question hers did. “What are we supposed to do now?”
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Only about five minutes had passed since the apple first appeared on the table. And still, she and Cricket had done nothing about it. They had moved from sitting at the table to standing a few feet away. Whispering to each other as if they were shielding a child from a conversation.
“What should we do?” Cricket asked.
“Like I should know? I’m artistic! You’re the science one! What just happened?” Lola returned.
“I don’t know! As far as I’m aware teleportationi isn’t possible. At least on Earth. In this time. In this universe of the multiple, theoretical multiverse.” Cricket stared at the apple as if it was going to spring to life and tell him all about how it had gotten there. Aaaaand now that Lola was thinking about it, it seemed totally plausible and way more scary than it should have been.
“Do you think it’s safe? Do you think it’s like alive or something? Do you think I can touch it?” Lola asked questions rapid-fire. Knowing full-well that Cricket would have the answers. She just needed to talk out all of her freaked-out-ness so that she could become properly curious.
Lola might not have been a scientist like Cricket, but she still loved to explore. She was an artist after all. And Lola’s outfits didn’t come from sticking to the same top every day. Or even the same hair every day.
“I’m going to touch it.” Lola declared, taking a few steps forward. Surprisingly, Cricket didn’t stop her, instead following closely behind her.
Lola approached the apple. It had, thankfully, remained stationary. She reached out a hand, relishing in how dramatic this moment was, and touched the apple. Nothing happened. Lola didn’t explode, the apple didn’t explode, the apple didn’t start talking, Lola didn’t even feel the urge to itch her hand. The apple, like any apple, was smooth and still kind of cold from being refridgerateed.
Cricket, who had been hinding behind Lola despite their height difference, stepped out from behind her and towards the table. He grabbed Lola’s hand from the apple and made eye contact with her to assure she was fully conscious.
“Well it seems to be fine.” Cricket proclaimed, grabbing the mysterious fruit and tossing it in the air. And upon catching it, took a bite out of it.
“Seriously, Cricket? You don’t want to take tests on it or something first? If not for safety, then for science?” Lola asked, snatching the apple from her boyfriend’s hands.
“Pfft. I’m an inventor not a quantum physicist. Plus part of science is curiosity, and sometimes that does mean just doing whatever pops in your head and seeing what happens.” He said with mock authority.
“Alright then,” Lola said, taking a bite out of the apple. “That… Doesn’t really taste good. Does it?” Lola asks, looking up to see Crickets shaking head. Theiy both stare at the apple for a moment before something pops into Lola’s head. “What if its gonna disappear again?” She asks, obviously excited at the thought. “I’m going to decorate it.”
“You’re going to decorate… an apple?” Cricket asks the glitte Lola left floating in the air when she rushed off. “Well if anyone can do it, it’s Lola Nolan.” He sighed, sitting back down to his text book.
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“There! I’m done!” Lola exclaimed, holding up an apple with two bites taken out of it and covered in stickers of all kinds. “Are you sure you don’t want to add any?” She asked Cricket. “This is a once in a lifetime opportunity you know.”
“Fine, I’ll sign it.” He says reaching to take the apple from his girlfriend. He was excited about this mystery, but he wanted Lola to have her fun. Plus the decorating had kept her quiet long enough to give him time to study. “Alright.” He said. “What do you want to do with it now?”
Lola thought for a moment, “Back on the table. That way if anyone wants it back they know where it is.”
“And we can see if it dissapears!” Cricket says as he carefully places the apple in the spot it appeared. “There.”
Lola smiled and Cricket led her out of the room, she could finish studying in the morning.