Evolution, Me & Other Freaks of Nature by Robin Brande

Author:Robin Brande [Brande, Robin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-375-89165-6
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2007-07-22T16:00:00+00:00

Twenty-four

Ms. Shepherd was sort of subdued at the start of class today, like she was just waiting for a reason to get angry. But the Back Turners simply flipped their chairs around and kept their mouths shut, there were no special guests, and Ms. Shepherd actually got to teach today.

I know Teresa and the rest are just waiting for further orders from Pastor Wells. I've seen how this goes before.

Today we covered the whole notion of sexual selection—”He who makes the most babies wins.” Kind of an uncomfortable concept, but I get it. Darwin figured out that it's only the best-adapted animals—the strongest, the fastest, the best at whatever their particular thing is—who get to survive and pass on their genes.

Ms. Shepherd said, “It's like rock stars mating with actresses.”

And that got us going. I'm sure Teresa or Adam or any of the Back Turners would have loved to join in, since it was such a fun debate. We started going over all the celebrity matches and mismatches we could think of, trying to figure out why nature would allow, say, an ugly old billionaire to snag a beautiful young wife. Or why a gorgeous specimen of an actor would leave one perfect leading lady for another.

Science really does apply to life.

I would never say this in class, but the whole thing reminded me of this story in the Old Testament where Jacob makes a deal with his father-in-law that as payment for Jacob tending all the sheep, he'll get to start his own flock with just the spotted and speckled ones. So Jacob, crafty guy that he is, starts steering all the speckled and spotted sheep toward the pure white ones to make sure they all mate. Then next thing you know, all the white ewes are giving birth to speckled and spotted lambs, and guess whose flock is suddenly huge?

So I'd say ancient man figured out the whole selection thing a lot sooner than Darwin did.

At lunch Casey logged on to Ms. Shepherd's website so we could see if she'd updated her blog.

There was a picture of Ms. Shepherd's white cat, Coco, crouched at the top of some stairs. Ms. Shepherd explained how she'd forgotten to clean the litter box for a few days, and Coco decided to show her displeasure by rolling her turds down the stairs.

Sure enough, if you look at the picture close enough, you can see a little something trapped between Coco's paws.

Ms. Shepherd can be so weird sometimes. Like she said, a true freak of nature.

How could you not love her for that?

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