Chapter 6: A Second Attempt
“Chell, what’s wrong, honey?” the head of the orphanage,
Miss Jean, asked her. Miss Jean peeked in, opening her bedroom door. Chell was
laying on her bed in tears as she looked at her ceiling. “Oh, I see. Are you
still scared of giving your report to your class?” She rolled over towards the
wall, closing her eyes.
“Th-they always make fun of me w-when I talk. They were all
practicing their projects with each other and no one wanted to practice with
me.” After Chell’s father died, she was sent to an orphanage a couple blocks
away from her house. She had few belongings, a couple children’s books her dad
read to her and a stuffed praying-mantis. It took a little while for her to
start speaking again, but Chell liked Miss Jean. She was strict at times, but
seemed to be an understanding friend in other times.
“Oh?” Jean walked over and sat on Chell’s bed, “I think you
will do just fine. Don’t mind those kids. I thought your potato battery idea
was a great one. Everyone will love it, honey.”
“No they won’t.”
“Come on, even I didn’t think of those ideas when I was a girl,
Chell. You are doing just fine. I think Mr. Johnson and Miss Caroline will love
your project too.” She rolled over and looked at her dad, wiping her face. She
still loved Mr. Johnson and Caroline, as she would often be able to visit them
at Aperture Science.
“You do?”
“Of course, princess. They will love it.” She almost cringed
at the word “princess”. Her dad called her that. But Miss Jean was right of
course, she had worked hard on her project, and the whole thing seemed perfect.
Chell had been working on a class presentation for the past
few weeks. The class was assigned experiments to do during spring break, so
they could present them to the school in a science fair. Every year the second
grade students would have a science fair, and it was a big deal to all who
participated. The principal of the school even invited Cave Johnson to see it
this year. Chell’s assignment was to figure out what foods were natural
batteries and the one food Chell succeeded in making into a battery was a
potato and a lemon.
A couple days later, the dreaded science fair came. Miss
Jean drove her to her school and parked her car.
“Ready to go?” She nodded, gathering her report, notecards,
and the small potato.
“Are you going to stay for my report, Miss Jean?”
“No, I can’t sweetie. I’ve got a lot of work to do at the
orphanage still. Don’t worry, you will do great!” She pinched her cheek as
Chell gathered her project.
A few minutes later, Chell stepped on the auditorium stage.
She was the last student to give a presentation to the school. Shivering, she
placed her display that showed her report on the table to the right of the
stage, and propped it up, so the audience could see. With her precious potato
in hand, she walked into the center of the stage. The crowd of faces in the room
was huge. The whole school district seemed to be packed into the room.
“I-I. I wanted to show you-“
A murmur went through the crowd, some children started to
giggle.
She straightened her shirt and took a deep breath.
“My project is about” she looked out into the crowd,
searching for any familiar faces, but the lights on the stage were in her eyes,
“it’s about-“
Her hands were shaking so hard, she couldn’t stand still.
Determined, she gripped the potato harder and took a step forward.
“My p-project started, of course, when it was given to me
three w-weeks ago, on the Friday before spring break. I usually don’t like
projects because I am scared to talk about it in front of people. In other
words, you may say I have stage fright.” The crowd was silent. “But I thought
this project was different, something everyone cared about. Our planet is being
dirtied by gasses caused by our cars, machinery, power-plants, you name it. In
my research, I have found some strange, yet interesting sources of electrical
energy.” She had caught the attention of all who sat in the auditorium. Chell
felt better speaking when she didn’t feel like she was being cornered.
“I have a clock at home that runs off of a tiny battery, so
I figured that maybe a certain food would give that same energy to power the
clock. I think I must have torn up the whole kitchen looking for something that
worked!” The crowd laughed. “But then I finally got to the pantry and what did
I find? Potatoes and lemons. I found that potatoes and lemons make just as good
of a battery as the ones you find at stores.” She paused and took a deep
breath, and held out the potato with the clock hooked up to it.
“Our Earth is getting polluted and I think my project
represents better ways of finding energy to power our society. My potato is
just one example of lots of other alternate forms of power. I- I hope you all
will take my project into consideration not only as a simple science project,
but as a way to make our planet a happier one. Thank you.” The audience broke
out in applause. She glanced to the back of the auditorium and saw Mr. Johnson
and Caroline clapping for her on stage. A wave of happiness washed over her as
she grabbed her belongings off of the table. The principal took the stage and
thanked the audience for being there to watch the presentations of those who
participated in the science fair, and the crowd dissipated after a loud
applause.
Chell knew Miss Jean would be there to pick her up in a few
minutes as she said she would, so Chell walked over and sat in the very middle
of the empty auditorium. Her father would have been proud of her and how she
spoke to the audience, captured their interests.
“Hey Chell! You did swell! Definitely one of my favorites!”
Chell jumped out of her seat and ran over to where Mr. Johnson and Caroline
were standing.
“Really?” she responded.
“Sure thing, sweetie! I’m not so sure about the lemons
section on your display though, seems like a bunch of bologna. Ha, ha!” He
coughed hard, then laughed again. Since Chell had been visiting them, she took
note of the way Cave coughed, it seemed to worsen as time went on, and she
worried something bad was going on.
“I think you did great on your presentation of a potato
battery, Chell. It was really a good idea, and I think the world could learn a
thing or two from you,” Caroline added, walking with them to the main exit from
the school “you know, Chell, some of the greatest minds work at our facility, I
think you would make a fantastic scientist!” Chell giggled.
“A mantis man?”
“Sure thing!” Caroline laughed as Cave coughed again.
“Mr. Johnson, are you ok?”
“What are you talking about? I’m fine!” he patted her on the
back and led her outside. She could see Miss Jean’s car coming down the road
and turning into the parking lot.
“Well, kid, I think this is goodbye.” Chell looked back at
Cave and Caroline, they both seemed to be a perfect pair, yet they never seemed
to bother with a relationship, or maybe their work got in the way. She glanced
back at Miss Jean’s car, which had just stopped next to the sidewalk she was
standing on.
“Goodbye Mr. Johnson, goodbye Miss Caroline,” she said,
giving each of them a hug. She wanted to spend more time with them. Didn’t want
to go.
Chell woke up. It was just a dream. Well, not really a
dream, she just remembered her potato project and talking with Cave Johnson and
Caroline. It was a wonder the mind wipe didn’t start wearing off when she was
down in the 1960’s levels of Aperture, when GLaDOS started to remember. She
wondered if GLaDOS remembered her when she was little. She peeped her eyes open
to see she was on a bed in a cryo-sleep room. The robot with the blue eye was
sitting on the bed in a sleep mode and the yellow-eyed one was standing in the
corner of the room, also in a sleep mode. She slipped her feet off of the bed
and onto the floor, the familiar clank of the long fall boots somehow
comforting her, as if reminding her that she was safe from one danger. Yellow
light poured across the room as the yellow-eyed bot switched on, looking at
her. She squinted at the bot’s optic and got up, stretching her sore limbs. The
task at hand seemed impossible.
A whining, chirping noise came from the taller bot as it
pushed the other of the end of the bed, waking him from his sleep mode. He then
pushed the other one back and they started quarreling. She walked over and
separated the two, giggling. The two were just as bad as children, yet they had
the logic and motor skills to test like an adult. She walked over to the door
and opened it, remembering opening it for Wheatley years before. She realized
she forgot the Portal Device on the table next to the bed, so she ran back in
and grabbed it.
“Good morning Chell,” she dropped the device on the ground
“Did you just drop that thing, you know, those are irreplaceable and very
expensive.” The blue-eyed bot bent over to pick it up, and gave it to Chell,
and they all walked out of the room once again.
