Wingspan(Paranormal, Young Adult) MAJOR EDITING**

fifty seven

i grinned and sauntered farther up the arena and followed tasha as she made her way in and out past groups of close students and sat down next to a larger crowd that consisted of a mix of boys and girls.

"inside voices and pay attention to the movie." Ms. pratt said over the opening credits. "there might be a quiz on it."

i ignore the group next to me and watch as the screen flickered from black to a golden yellow. Torch flames flickered and the pictured zoomed in sharper.

a caveman dressed in fur held a torch as the narrator addressed his viewers.

a mans middle aged voice boomed from the speakers like ping pong shooting off the walls of the gym.

"where do we come from?" came the allocated speech.

good question, i thought, grinning.

not knowing why, i had the slightest uneasy feeling that someone was watching me.

i chalk it up to not feeling well and so that's why i was acting wacky and paranoid which made sense considering i'd been tense and jumpy lately.

keeping my eyes on the screen i watched as it changed from man to ape climbing up a tree.

then the image shifted to a scholarly man spruced up in oxford apparel that was studying a half a skull with intense scrutiny.

"for centuries the greatest question in the history of man had no scientific answer; then the first evidence of a human ancestor started a scientific revolution." The oration echoed past my ears as i strained to give my undivided attention.

caved men confronted a pit of fire with fear and unease. i would have too. "this is the story of the quest to find the origins of the human race...."

that intense prickly awareness made my head shoot up.

sitting down cool and composed i locked eyes with a smiling boy who waved at me.

laughing at myself, i wave back, feeling lightened and at ease. i wasn't imagining things.

Wesley saw me and like the nice guy he was, waved hello.

the thought that i had to find some place to take a seat was the reason i hadn't approached him earlier or else i would've taken the empty space behind him.

i kept my eye on the film after smirking at mason who'd saluted me and watch a history channel documentary about the evolution of our ancestors.

"it spanned a century and a half of obsessive searching and would make or break the careers of some of the great scientists in the field. for the lucky few chance discoveries opened a window on the hidden world of our ancestors. from the tiniest fragments of the past the full story was slowly pieced together. spanning 300,000 generations over three million years. it is the story of our progress from the Ape to Man. the search for the origins of humanity is the story of bones and the tales they tell..."

the year was august 1856.....workmen were digging for limestone that lay under rock and soil in a cave that lies in what is now the neandervalley in germany. apparently limestone was a vital ingredient in the local chemical industry.

the men who were paid a few cents a day to remove a surface of the layer stopped when a spade hit something that sounded like it wasn't a rock.

Huh. the shape looked like top of a skull.

thinking it might be a murder victim the two unskilled laborers stopped work to show the foreman what they'd unearthed.

"found something? whats this then?" it was interesting but he'd seen that kind of thing before and was happy to send it with all the other bits of bone they'd found to be smashed up with the rocks.