He looks deep in thought right now....

{if@ Time == 6}He's standing by the window, staring out into the Courtyard right now. It looks like he's thinking about something.... you wonder what?

"Hey Cameron." You say. "What are you thinking about?"

Without looking away from the window, and keeping his cinematic serious expression, he replies in a deep and thoughtful voice.

"Spandex...."

You nearly laugh, but you manage hold it in just barely.

"It's tight, right? It compresses. But its name is sort of like 'expand'....." He reaches up with one hand and rubs at his eyelids. "But it's 'expand' in reverse, when it comes to syllables. So is that on purpose? Is spandex the reverse of 'expand' because it does the reverse of expanding on you? Or is it a coincidence? Presscom might sound weird, but so would spandex if we weren't used to it by now...."

You nod along with him, even though you don't really understand what he's saying or why he's saying.

"Or -- wait, I think I've got it. It doesn't compress on you -- it starts off smaller, but when you put it on, it expands to fit your body -- it only feels like it's compressing, it's actually grown!" He whips his head around to look at you with a wide smile and overjoyed eyes. "That's it! That has to be- o-oh. Umm...."

He steps away from the window and waves at you awkwardly. You wave back.

"S-sorry....."

You give him a thumbs up.

{elseif Time == 7}Cameron sits cross-legged in the corner of the room on top of his backpack, staring down into his lap. It looks like he's having a moment right now.

"What's up?" You ask him.

"Hmmmm....." He quietly hmmms to himself, before responding to your question properly. "Wood doesn't melt, it burns. But what would happen if you boiled wood at a really high temperature, so that it got really hot but was still surrounded by water and couldn't catch fire? Could you have liquid wood, even if it would end up mixing with the water and diluting itself? And then, what would happen when it cooled down again?"

You blink. Your mouth opens to reply, but then it closes again, because to be honest it's a really good question and one you wish you'd thought of sooner, because it doesn't seem like something you can answer without a lifetime of work. You slowly sit down on the spot in a cross-legged position as well, to help him think this one out.

"....No, damn it." He says after a long pause. "Water boils at a lower temperature than wood burns. It would all turn to steam before the wood melted into liquid wood."

There's another longer pause, as you start stroking at your chin to feel like you're participating a bit more.

"But if you could find a liquid that stayed liquid even at really high temperatures, it would still smother out any oxygen for flames, and--" Cameron stops, and his head shoots up to make eye contact with you. You return it, and feel safer not blinking anymore for a while. "Gold!" He shouts.

"Gold?"

"Gold!" He confirms. "Or any metal. What happens if you surround some wood with molten metal? Does it turn to ash right away? It can't catch fire, but it would surely have to do something before the molten metal turned into a gas."

You nod cautiously.

"....no, no. It'd probably just turn to ash." He mutters, before looking back down into his lap with a disappointed expression.

{elseif Time == 8}"Hi Cameron!" You beam over to him as he stands in the corner of the room, staring down at the ground.{if CumSuccess == 2}{else} "Lunch was really a lot of fun!"

"....Hm? Oh, yeah, it really was. You're really awesome. I mean, you and Lexi are both really awesome."{endif} He gives you his usual little unconfident smile, then looks back down at his shoes.

You look at his shoes too. They are normal. Really really worn, but just normal, laced-up running shoes. That don't match the rest of the school uniform.

"...What's up?" You ask.

"Shoelaces." He says. You're pretty sure they're actually down, but you'll hear him out. "They come untied on their own a bunch. You can trip on them. They take a bunch of time to tie up. You have to untie them to get your foot in your shoe, unless you **** it in, but that can be hard sometimes and make the back of the shoe go weird."

All true.

"So, uh- what's your solution?"

He pauses. Then, decisively and in a voice more confident than you've ever heard him speak in, he responds. "Wellington boots."

He nods, to confirm it to himself, then looks up and right into your eyes. You take a half-step back.

"Wellington boots." He repeats. "They're quick to put on, they're waterproof, if you drop something on your toes it's much less of a problem -- they provide ankle support, they don't have any of the problems that shoelaces have -- we'd even be able to run fast in them, if we'd only take the time to learn. But we don't. We stick with shoelaces. It's horrific."

It's not that horrific, to be honest. But he's got a lot of spirit, and you don't want to take that away from him when he's so dedicated. So for now, you just nod and leave him to stare down at his shoes again.

{elseif Time == 9}Cameron's staring at one of the walls in your room. There's nothing on it, it's just a wall. He looks like he's thinking really hard about something.

"What's going on, Cam?" You ask him, walking up to stand next to him and stare at the wall as well.

"......You know Golden Delicious apples? The yellow ones?"

You nod.

".....And you know how most plants are green because of chlorophyll?"

You nod again.

"..............." He reaches up to scratch at the side of his face. "So then does that mean, if chlorophyll wasn't a thing, Golden Delicious apples would be blue?"

You pause. You look sideways at his face, then reach up to scratch at your own to feel more included. You think for a while before responding.

"It's green and red that make yellow, Cam. Not green and blue."

His scratching stops. "Really?" You nod. "What do green and blue make?"

"Cyan."

"......Really?"

"Yes."

"Oh. So like red apples then. Pink Lady."

"Yes."

"Oh." His hand drops back down to his side, and he penguin-waddles to turn back and face the rest of the room. "Oh," He says again. You reach up to pat him on the back in comfort. That can't have been easy for him.

{elseif Time == 10}"Hey, Debbie." He asks you, before you can even say anything to him. That's pretty good progress! He's leaning against the wall next to the door to your room. "You know ice cubes?"

"I know ice cubes!" You nod in confirmation.

"You know how it sucks when they melt and the drink gets all watered down?"

"I know how it- yes!" You nod once again.

"How come they don't freeze the drink, so that the ice cubes are more drink, and when they melt then it's not watered down it's just more drink?"

.....Actually, that's a pretty good call.

"Maybe for soft drinks, it's because the ice cubes would go flat?" You suggest hesitantly. Cameron considers it, reaching up a hand to his chin.

"But.... the way that things freeze, the outside freezes first. A partially frozen ice cube will be solid on the outside, liquid on the inside. Surely, even if the outside layer goes flat, that liquid inside would still be carbonated -- and then, when it freezes, it's sealed in. Where would the carbonation go, if the carbonated liquid sealed in ice goes flat when frozen? Can carbonation escape through ice? Ice is already watertight, since it's water filling up as much space as possible, like how when you pour more water into a glass the water goes higher instead of compressing with what's already there, so there isn't any room for water to slip through ice. Can carbonation get through stuff that's watertight?"

That's really true, but really, you're not the person to ask this to. Deep-in-thought Cameron is like a whole different person to regular Cameron -- how can you go from being all nervous into asking somebody questions like this? You guess he must be pretty passionate about this sort of stuff.

{elseif Time == 11}"Enjoying the gummy worms?" You ask, with a head tilt and a smile. He's {if Study == 0}still just laying on his back{else}laying on his back again after helping you study{endif}, legs and one arm spread out like a starfish with the other arm bent so that his hand's in the bag on confectionary on his chest.{if PhiloCount>2} But you recognise that look in his eye, as he stares up at the roof -- he isn't just daydreaming about boring stuff, he's having another one of those moments again.{else} He's got a look in his eye like he's facing bigger demons than not just eating sour gummy worms right now.{endif}

"......hickies." He says slowly, pausing to shovel a few more sour gummy worms into his mouth and chew. "Are red marks that go on a neck."

"Okay."

"....and hick." He says, taking another quick break to swallow his sour gummy worms. "Is another word for redn- another word that means rednecks. Synonyms."

You nod, then realise that he isn't looking at you, so you vocalise your confirmation.

He pulls his hand out of the bag to put another single sour gummy worm into his mouth, and you watch as he slowly and methodically chews it, staring up at the ceiling all the while. This goes on for a pretty long time. Then he swallows, and lifts his hand up to lick the sour sprinkle things off of his fingers. He does his thumb, then his pointer, then pauses.

"I think that's pretty neat." He says with a sort of confident finality, before going back to finishing the job on his sour-sprinkle covered fingertips.

{elseif Time == 12}"Hey Cameron!" You greet him. He's standing by your room's window, looking out of it dramatically. You approach, and see that he's looking down at a couple of people running around the Courtyard. You look up at him and blink.

"Debbie." He says, seriously.

"Mhm?" You respond, tentatively.

"Let's say you were going to the Olympics." He says. "But you're exactly as you are now. You don't get any time for training and you don't get automatically put in a body that would qualify for the Olympics. But you're in the Olympics and you're going tomorrow."

"Okay."

"The Olympics are going to be broadcast all around the world, like normal, and everybody is going to watch."

"Okay."

"But you get to choose what you compete in -- again, exactly as you are now with no additional training. What do you choose?"

You pause for a second and think. Uhm.... That's kind of tough to answer, since it's such a weird question..... you aren't really sure, and you tell him that.

"You couldn't choose something like soccer I think, because then you'd probably be letting a team down unless you're already planning on going to the Olympics for it." He says. "So then, of the single-contestant stuff there, do you think you'd choose something you're sort of okay at so as to not embarrass yourself, or something you've never ever tried before? Is it more embarrassing to be a complete beginner somehow at the Olympics, or to be sort of okay but completely and totally outclassed?"

It's an interesting and fair question, but you're not convinced of the real world applications. A lightbulb appears above Cameron's head, and he straightens up beside the window.

"I would choose gymnastics." He says.

"Okay."

...............................................

"Why?"

"Because it's easy to fake an injury in Gymnastics." He says, turning to you. "I'd get up on the pad thingies, and pretend to roll my ankle, and then get let off. Nobody would even remember it. Not like if you're last in 100m freestyle by three minutes. Or pretend to get injured and drown in 100m freestyle."

He turns, with a satisfied look on his face, and gazes back out the window again.

"I would choose Gymnastics." He repeats, proudly.

{elseif Time == 13}"What's on your mind, Cameron?" You ask, peering over at him across the shared room as he paces back and forth on the stained carpet.

"Dogs and stuff." He says. He stops pacing and turns to you, a look of indescribable concern and worry on his face. "What do you think they think about clothes? Is it like -- 'woah, that's weird'? Are they used to us always changing clothes because we keep doing it, or is that inherent? What if we didn't change clothes for years and years in front of them, and then one day did? Surely they'd have trouble recognising us. What would it do?"

He's speaking really quickly right now, and you get the sense that this is causing him genuine distress. You try to defuse the situation and calm him down a bit.

"Iunno."

"In the wild, as well -- what if you took a dog out, or like a wolf, if you took a wolf out of the wild and gave it a haircut then put it back. Would its pack still recognise it? They don't get haircuts in the wild. Would they be like, 'this guy's sure got the scent of Tim, but he is definitely not Tim'?" He says, growing more frantic.

"Iunno."

"Surely it'd be like if.... like if....." He looks around the room for inspiration, but finds none, and so has to think of his own example by himself. "Like if you saw somebody with the same- the same bone structure as your friend or something like that, your brother, but their eyes were a new colour and their ears were smaller. You wouldn't think it's the same person. You just wouldn't!"

You have to agree, so you do in the form of nodding. Cameron eventually calms down (probably with your help), shaking his head in dismay at the ground until he goes back to his normal self and walks over to the corner of the room to sit by his new radiator.

{elseif Time == 14}Cameron's looking out the window at the moment, furrowing his brow.

"What's up?" You ask, sitting across the room and looking over at him. He turns to you, then looks back out the window again.

"I- I'm just thinking about, you know, cavemen." He says, wistfully. "Whenever somebody does a caveman impression, it's always like, 'me want fire' or 'me big and strong'. But that's not what they spoke like, probably. Cavemen probably spoke Latin or something."

"Why's that?"

"Y'know, it's an early language, and our languages kinda built off of it I'm pretty sure." He says. "But then whenever somebody needs to do an impression of somebody who spoke Latin, like from ancient times, they do it in a posh and regal accent, right? Even super violent warlike groups, like the Spartans. It's not that fair to cavemen."

At the moment, he seems to be pretty passive and inquisitive on the topic, but you sense that if you push him too far about it he might end up getting upset on behalf of the cavemen. So instead, you vocalise a little agreement, then lie down on the ground to do a big starfish-stretch.

You'll have to remember to not do a caveman impression in front of Cameron, even if he's dead wrong about what cavemen probably sounded like, because you are very confident in the realism of your caveman impression and have been for years now.

{elseif Time == 15}"What are you thinking about?" You ask. Cameron's staring out the window at the big tree in the Courtyard right now, with his face all scrunched up. He turns to you hesitantly.

"....uhhhm.... so, Debbie." He says. You nod, because that is you. "When it rains on trees, they grow bigger, right? It helps them. Actually, without it, they'd totally die. That's right, isn't it?"

You nod again, but this time, your personal identity has nothing to do with it.

"And paper is made out of trees..." He says, frowning and turning to look out the window again. You think you see where this is going, and you already don't like how much turmoil it's causing in your head. "But when paper gets wet, it's ruined forever. You can't use it for anything anymore, and it gets all weak."

He turns to you again, making you jump, because it brings you back to the real world super-fast while you were busy decompiling all of this new information.

"Is something going on there?" He asks, earnestly.

You gulp, and hesitate. You're too embarrassed to say it, but the only thing you can think of is that paper factories are only lying about using wood so that nobody figures out how to really make paper and they can keep it to themselves for maximum profit. Which is crazy! There's no way anything like that could ever be true. And besides, if it were true, who knows what they'd do to anybody who figured it out....

"I'M NOT SURE!" You say, before laughing awkwardly. "SURE IS WEIRD. BUT PAPER IS DEFINITELY STILL TREES, THOUGH."

"Yeah..." Cameron says slowly, turning back to the window and crinkling up his face. ".....maybe."

He turns to you once again, and the two of you lock eyes for just a moment. In that moment, you both realise that you're having the exact same thought, and on the same path of destruction. Both of you quickly and simultaneously snap up to standing positions with a nervous laugh, before Cameron silently rushes to the corner of the room and shoves his face into his notebook and you silently rush over to your pile of clothes to dig through them aimlessly. That could've been close, just now.... you can't take risks like that when people might be watching.

{elseif Time == 16}"Hey, Debbie." Cameron says suddenly, just as you were about to ask him what he looked so focused about.

"Y-yeah?" You ask, a bit nervous by how forward he's being all of a sudden.

"Who's faster?" He asks. "A guy who can move three metres instantly, or a guy who can move five metres instantly?"

Sweat beads appear on your forehead as you crane your eyes to try get a look at your hand without turning your head and making it obvious. Let's see, one... two.... three.......

"The five metres guy!" You say confidently, relieved. Cameron shakes his head. Wait, no way! You bring your hand up to in front of your face and scrunch down your brow, looking over your spread fingers again. One, two, three.... hey, this thing isn't lying to you now, is it?

"They move at the same speed." Cameron says.

"Huh?" You ask, blindsided.

"If they can move any distance at all instantly, then they both move an infinite amount by the time a second's passed, right? Or any amount of time, actually. Because an instant happens instantly."

"Oh. Right." You say, reaching up to rub at your head. You don't really get it.

"But then, why can't we move any distance in any amount of time?" Cameron asks, almost pleadingly.

"We don't move instantly?" You try, hesitantly.

"But we must move some distance in an instant, otherwise we wouldn't move at all, if we weren't moving for every single instant! So do instants not exist? That doesn't seem to make any sense! But if we could be moving in an instant, we'd be moving super duper fast, and if we couldn't be moving in an instant, then we couldn't be moving at all!"

It's weird, but you think he's right. N-not that, you know, not that you thinking something was right has ever been a guarantee of any sort, but still....

You walk over to him slowly, and put a hand on his back, rubbing in small circles to calm him down and let him know that you understand, and that this burden is now a shared one. He gives you a grateful nod.

{elseif Time == 17}"What's got you looking so serious?" You ask.

Cameron's being weird right now, staring off into space in the corner of your Room. In his lap, he's got his bladed shields that he's still tinkering with. He's been hunched over them for a while, but at the moment, he's just totally zoned out.

"....I was just thinking....." He says, slowly, turning over a magnet he's got in his hand. "....You know how you can do the thing with magnets where you have one under a table, or on the other side of paper, and you drag them both along together?"

"Mhm."

"I'm trying to figure out what would happen if you tried that with them both on either side of a magnet instead."

You pause to consider. Uhhhh.... you don't really know about magnets. You request Cameron to do his thinking out loud, so that you can still be included.

"Well, North and South magnets are attracted to each other, right?" He says. "But they repel themselves. So if you had the middle magnet the right way around, it would just be a third magnet all stuck together, and dragging either side's magnet wouldn't move the one on the other side I think."

Okay, you think you're following....

"But if you had it flipped around in the middle, so that it was repelling them both, then it might be able to work if the outside ones were stronger than the inside one. If you got it so they were the same strength as each other once the attraction got through the middle magnet, then you might even be able to make the other one float I think, since it would be being pushed and pulled the same amount. And it would still be able to be dragged around over the middle magnet."

.....you wait a few seconds.

"Did you just figure out the answer, then?" You ask.

"I think I did, unless I'm wrong."

"Ah, good. Thank you."

{endif}