Swooped | ✓

Chapter 20: Ugly Duckling, Not

"Thanks, Harriet!" I said, staring greedily at the spread of food scattered across the table. "Looks so good!"

"Glad you think so," Harriet chuckled, patting my back as she lowered herself into the chair next to me, propping her walking stick against the side of the table. "Now, I know you're not vegan like me, but I've perfected the art of cooking with not a sprinkle of animal product mixed in. Hope it's to your liking."

"I'm sure it will be, if it tastes as good as it smells," I said, Harriet urging me to try it. I did, and it was delicious. "Hey, I had never considered veganism before, but you might be changing my mind, Harriet. Or at least, maybe on weekends. Or once a month."

"I'm glad you're even thinking about dabbling in it," the older woman said, smiling gently at me. "Now eat up, before I tell you all about your exam and thoroughly ruin your appetite."

"Prof!" I groaned, the woman cackling as if she were a witch, wiggling her grey brows. 

"Oh, don't get your panties in a twist, Culver! I was only joking. If it puts you at ease, you passed. Just, but you passed."

"Only thanks to you," I said, Harriet pressing a finger to her lips in a secretive motion. "I mean, only because you're such a great Professor."

"Obviously," Harriet said, beginning to eat as well. Harriet turned on a small TV she had propped up on the kitchen counter - where she watches The Bold and the Beautiful every day while eating - since she enjoyed having some background noise. 

As we ate, the two of us chatted about uni, some of the people in my cohort, as well as life in general. Harriet gave me a vivid recount of how her research was going regarding animal cloning, since most of her work was dedicated to wildlife conservation. She was particularly invested in trying to save endangered species through cloning, but hadn't had the breakthrough that she needed yet. Though cloning had made advances in recent years, there was still a limit to what humans could achieve.

"It's too dangerous to test these things on real endangered species, so we've been using common animals, you see," Harriet explained as she dabbed at her mouth. My stomach was positively stuffed, and Harriet paused her explanation to happily look at my empty plate. 

"What kind of animals have you been trying to clone? I know cows and pigs, oh, and Dolly the sheep, have been done, but what else?"

"Well, you know I'm a bird lady," Harriet said, tapping at her walking stick, the bird keychain swinging in the air. "So the basics; pigeons, sparrows, magpies. We've been having a lot of trouble with the magpies, though. For some reason their nuclei just don't want to cooperate. Trevor - or I guess, you probably know him better as Prof Brakel - is starting to get a bit frustrated."

Yeah, because magpies rabid beasts hell-bent on pecking your eyes out. Why would their actual cell components be any different?

Was that racist though? Birdscist? Some weird kind of internalised racism because I am, essentially, at least a sprinkle of magpie?

Harriet talked a little more about her research, before her attention was captured by the TV behind me. 

"Oh, how horrible," Harriet said, frowning. 

"What?" I asked, twisting my body around to look at the TV. A pretty blonde reporter was talking about the case involving a string of missing people, all homeless and living rough. They were the kind of people that normally wouldn't be missed, but when it grew from one going missing to over ten, people eventually started to notice. Apparently there were signs that they weren't just missing, but abducted. One was apparently found killed and floating in the river.