Romance in Space

Chapter 3: Satellites, Meteorites, robots. Oh, my!

Professor Alba Tross placed a strange machine onto the table with a loud clang. The strange round object was metallic and green.

"This is an eyebat." Alba explained, "I've been working on these so that they can help humanity in our space missions."

Alba clicked a red button on the side of the robot. Suddenly, wings popped out from the sides and a big red eye opened up in surprise.

"Glorp." The bot spoke.

Alba scratched his ginger hair, "Um... hold on a second." After switching a few things underneath the wing of the eyebat, the eyebat blinked and spun it's wings in a circular motion.

"Greetings..." The eyebat said in a feminine voice, "User Alba." The voice switched to Alba's voice.

"Wow! That's really somethin'!" Josse exclaimed in awe.

Kimmy scoffed, "That ugly thing? It's not even pink!"

Josse shook her head at Kimmy, "Your nose'll be pink in a few seconds if ya don't stop being a pain in my-"

Alba cleared his throat, "Anyway, you will work in pairs to build one."

Sam looked over to Emily and thought longingly about what it'd be like to pair up with her on this assignment. Emily turned to look back at Sam and smiled. Sam blushed and quickly turned to look away.

"Sam and Emily will be paired up." Alba announced.

Sam's heart skipped a beat. "Was this fate?" She thought to herself.

Emily turned to her and smiled, "Looks like we'll be working together! This'll be fun, right Sam?"

Sam nodded; her face was a ripe tomato.

"Kimmy, Josse. You two will also be paired up." Alba said in a monotone voice.

"What!?" They both shouted in unison, "I'm not going to work with HER!"

Alba smiled, "Glad to see you two agreeing on something for once."

Two boys were sitting in the back of the class. One boy with dark skin, black hair, and dark hazel eyes was drawing while listening to music in his headphones while the other boy had his nose deep into a book. The boy reading the book had dingy blue hair and sleepy green eyes.

Alba walked over to them, "Conner, Kyle. You two will be working together to build an eyebat much like the rest of the class."

The boy with the blue hair ignored him while the other boy removed his headphones, "Sure thing, teach." He said energetically as he drummed on the metal table.

"Good to see you showing more enthusiasm than Kyle." Alba said in a passive-aggressive way. Kyle just grunted.

Alba placed many important pieces and parts onto every table along with blueprints to follow. Sam and Emily both reached for the soldering iron and touched each other's hands by mistake.

"Oh, um..." Sam blushed.

Emily scratched her shiny blue hair, "Do you want to... take turns soldering the pieces with me?"

Sam smiled, "Of course!"

Emily held the machinery steady while Sam soldered it and Emily did so when Sam held it. They both were fairly silent while they completed their eyebat project.

Alba walked over to them and checked the machine, "Very good, you two! This is almost perfect. You just forgot to include the hard drive. B+"

Sam scratched her brown locks and a few tangled hairs fell out, "Um... well... we did okay. Together." She blushed.

Emily smiled, "I couldn't have done it without your help!"

Suddenly, Emily took her white scarf and started dabbing it onto Sam's forehead. Sam's face was glowing bright red in embarrassment and her heart was beating like a drum.

"There." Emily said with a smile, "All that hard work got you sweating."

Sam's face was still a ripe tomato, "Thanks... I... I really appreciated that."

Meanwhile, Kimmy and Josse weren't working as a team at all. Kimmy was trying to glue the motherboard onto the hard drive and Josse was doing everything she could to prevent her from messing everything up.

"Just let me glue it!" Kimmy protested.

"You ain't s'posed ta glue it!" Josse explained angrily.

Alba shook his head at them, "You two... You two are practically hopeless. D-"

Kimmy gasped, "How dare you?! A D- for someone who is of the Komicha family name? Impossible!"

"I think ya should give us a second chance 'kay?" Josse asked nicely.

Alba sighed, "If you two promise not to give me another headache then you can try again during detention."

Kimmy gasped again, "DETENTION!? FOR ME!?"

Alba stared angrily at Kimmy but didn't say a word.

"Um... fine." Kimmy said in defeat.

Conner and Kyle's project was coming along nicely. Conner had been doing all of the work while Kyle "supervised".

"Hey, teach! It's almost done." Conner said with a big grin.

Alba smiled back, "Well done, Conner! However, this is a team effort and Kyle isn't helping."

Kyle looked up from his book, "I'm supervising. Look, it's almost done." He said in a monotone voice.

Alba shook his head, "This is a fail. Both of you will be attending detention with Kimmy and Josse."

"Fine with us, right Kyle?" Conner asked enthusiastically.

Kyle just grunted.

Emily turned to face Sam and Sam's face immediately turned bright red yet again.

"Um... what is it, Emily?" Sam asked her crush sheepishly.

Emily smiled brightly, "I guess we'll finally be able to just hang out without being interrupted by those two clowns."

She pointed at Kimmy and Josse.

"Yeah, I guess... we will..." Sam's mind started going a mile per minute. What would being alone with Emily mean? Would they hold hands? Maybe even... kiss?! Sam almost fainted with excitement.

"Are you okay, Sam?" Emily asked sweetly with her soft voice.

Sam placed her red face onto the table, "Um... I'm just thinking about what we should do... together..." She squeaked.

"Well, I was thinking that we could walk over to get some food from the cafeteria and share it. What do you think?" Emily asked.

Sam couldn't answer; she was way too excited for their "first date". Sam was trapped in her mind and her mind was a maze of romantic tension.

"Sam?" Emily started to get worried.

Sam bolted upright after hearing her name, "Ah! I... I'm fine. Fine. Completely fine. Hahaha. Um... Yeah. I can't wait for our date. I mean-"

Emily giggled, "Okay, it's a date."

Suddenly, the bell rang but Sam could only hear wedding bells.