Bertha
Every new arrival at Newton's Cradle, with very few exceptions, is assigned a Contact. The Contact is a member of staff, usually a teacher but sometimes not, whom the Cradle resident in question is encouraged to contact with questions, concerns, requests for accommodation or aid, and other such matters relating to life at Newton's Cradle. The Contact has the responsibility, in turn, to keep tabs on the general welfare and needs of every resident assigned to them.

That responsibility, however, is frequently a low priority. The Contacts still have other work to do, both in terms of their primary jobs and any fires they may have to put out on behalf of residents, leaving little time for routine check-ups the residents assigned to them.

Still, they sometimes find the time, even if it's in a rather unusual place.

Graham Cantor, one of the staff members most frequently assigned as a contact, is also the primary shop teacher at Newton's Cradle. Anything involving crafting things with one's hands is under his purview — except for art. This time it's a woodworking class, and he's split the class into pairs for a project: Design and assemble a chair.

One such pair consists of Sam and Anthony — two relatively new residents. How are they getting along?
Hilary
Sam has already made a mess of things. Already not great at shop work, and even worse at designing and drawing, he would be surrounded by a pile of crumpled papers and split wood. Around a dozen splinters would be in his fingers. To top this all off, he would somehow have an entire chair leg glued to his head. Granted, was this any worse than the average woodshop class for Sam? Probably not, but usually he just sucks at this in the corner. What a great thing to show everyone, that he can't handle basic projects. 

He would look desperately to Anthony. He didn't know much about his partner, other than that he was a new arrival. Surely he couldn't be more incompetent than he was, if that was even possible. 

"This is impossible! How do people even build chairs?! Ack!"

That last one was because Sam slammed that chair leg into the wall, jarring his head. 

"Help... Please?"
Angelia
Anthony wasn't the best woodworker either. This definitely wasn't his speed. 
He was becoming frustrated with the way the wood split into its splintery... Messy little pieces. Nothing about it was orderly. *Everything* About it was getting on his nerves.
He was far less vocal about his annoyance than his partner, instead opting to swear under his breath every time he messed something up, and keeping the rest the storm that was his thoughts under wraps. 

*This is obnoxious.*
*I didn't sign up for this kind of class...*
*Then again, we're at the whims of the staff here, aren't we?*
*Cooperate and graduate.*
His brow furrowed with a mix of focus and anger, his emotions stewing beneath his skin.

Then there was the person he'd been assigned to do the work with.
At the very least, Anthony had made *Slightly* More progress than Sam, but it wasn't by much. A few chiseled BITS of a chair, but nothing concretely fit together. In his eyes, it had to be PERFECT. And perfect is hard when you're inexperienced.
At least he didn't have anything glued to him. Counting his blessings.

He'd learned the other boy's name upon walking into the room, making sure to get that formality out of the way quickly.
Sam. Sam was the name of his counterpart, for the time being.
**"It's not..."** He said, groaning in the middle of his sentence as he attempted to snap two pieces apart without injuring himself. **"Impossible... It's just..."**
Another groan followed, with a sigh in-between. Eventually, he split the two apart with a small *Crack,* Knocking him back just a little. 
**"It's just difficult."** He heaved, staring at his work with animosity. 

He didn't move, but his eyes snapped over to the side; observing Sam.
**"Are you okay? You hit your head a second ago."** Restating the obvious never hurt. His tone was even and steady, if not just a *Bit* Riled up. As riled up as Anthony is able to get, anyway.

Not waiting for too much of a response, he lost himself in his thoughts again.
**"God..."** He mumbled. **"What's the deadline for this project?"** Exasperated as ever.
Bertha
Graham had been too busy helping someone at another workstation to notice the travesty that was going on with Sam and Anthony, but once he did notice, he rushed over, his brow furrowed but still ready to help.

"You two need help?" He asked, before really looking over the scene. "Yeah," He stated bluntly, "You definitely need help." He immediayely began cleaning up as much of the broken wood as he could, then gently removed the chair leg glued to Sam's head, grabbed a stool and sat down.

"Let's start from the beginning. Do you have a design planned?"
Hilary
Sam would respond to Anthony's question just as graham made it over. "I'm fine, just have a bit of a headache. And I'm still not convinced this is possible." 

He would nod in appreciation for removing the leg, a million (mostly sarcastic, but not necessarily mean-spirited) thoughts racing through his mind. Fighting back the urge to respond with "Yes graham, I've seen a chair before, but the people that make them are clearly wizards", he would instead gesture to the crumpled up pieces of paper around him, which now numbered in the teens if not greater. He would then gesture to one *Slightly* Less crumpled up piece of paper, sliding it towards graham. Whether that's the actual design they're doing, or if Sam just selected the most decent look in one, he wouldn't say. On the paper would be a pretty awful drawing of what vaguely looked to be a chair, but that could have almost just as easily been the Eiffel Tower. 

He would look at his partner and sigh. 

"Look, sir, we both know I can't draw or make stuff for shit, except sometimes with electronics. We also both know that I do my best failing peacefully in the corner alone, and that eventually I'll present you with something that somewhat looks like a thing, you'll give me poor marks, and we both go home. No harm, no foul on your end, I just suck at this. Why are we in partners today? Why subject another person to my being terrible at this?
Angelia
When Mr. Cantor made his way over, Anthony tensed involuntarily. It was something about adult supervision that made him act a bit more uptight. Made him reconsider his words even MORE, made him iron out the most minute of flaws.
**"Um —"** Sam easily took the lead in this conversation; a feat he wasn't about to object to. His witty sarcasm and his set of substantially more adapt social skills well outweighed his own. He was spoken over, yes, but he was not complained.

He visibly winced when he passed over the drawing. 
He would've LOVED to take over this part, but ended up pulling himself back.. Not exactly ready to share ANY fraction of his art. It didn't matter that it was just a chair. It was personal.
This was embarrassing for both boys. It was obvious that Sam didn't MIND all too much, but Anthony and his perfectionism had other plans. 
He thought this was outright world-shattering. Doing this badly in front of an adult with presumably high expectations? 
*I want to crawl into my skin and stay there.*

He waited for his partner to finish his collection of statements before starting his own.
**"You're not subjecting me, I'm doing just as bad..."** He mumbled, vaguely in Sam's direction, hoping he was just loud enough to be heard. You never knew if Anthony would clear that bar of audibility.
He cleared his throught, now focused on Graham.

**"Mr. Cantor,"**
He started.
**"We didn't settle on a concrete design."** He practically flushed red with some brand of shame.
**"Nor did we blueprint any of the measurements, as instructed."** He slightly hung his head.
**"We were... 'winging it,' I guess."** Picking up on some of the more casual lingo Sam had been introducing to him.
His iris' snapped back up to meet Graham's. 
**"For that, I am incredibly sorry."**
He closed one eye in a tense motion.
**"I will gladly accept any repurcussions for my inability to build this chair."**

It was clear he was overdoing it.
He didn't know that, though.
Bertha
Graham takes a deep breath and looks deeply concerned.

"First of all — *No* — I am not going to *Punish you* For not being able to do something right the first time. The 1800s are over, and I'm not a monster. Second, you're not being graded on this, so you're not getting 'poor marks'. The point is for you to learn something. So I'm gonna be here with you and help you out, and we'll get as far as we can get today, and then we can pick it back up next time. Okay?"

He looked back and forth expectantly between Sam and Anthony, waiting for them to acknowledge him before continuing.

"Now, it sounds like you started trying to assemble a chair before you knew how you wanted it to look, and that didn't work. So how about we try making a design first this time, and seeing if that's easier? I can do the drawing if you need me to, as long as you two work together on the ideas."
Hilary
Sam would also look deeply confused and concerned at Anthony's statements. He too, was stressed over this project, his "Apathy" Being more akin to stress and exhaustion over his previous failures in this class, and the sense that he had exhausted every possible option. Despite this, even he wasn't as panicked over failing as his partner was. Figuring it was just a new kid thing, he considered informing Anthony of the fact that this wasn't the biggest deal of his life here's but graham got to it first. 

When graham was done informing them, Sam nodded slightly. He was partially hoping that graham would just give up on them so that he could go mess with (and probably accidentally blow up) more electronics, but it seems the instructor has other plans. More notable about his interactions with graham would be his hesitation and jitteryness, which had started as soon as graham saw them struggling. Yes, this wasn't Oliver, but recent events had made it clear in his mind that the staff overall were to be fearfully respected. As such, the usually confident sam was clearly on edge. It would take him a moment to summon the urge to speak. 

"I uh- I guess we just figured we knew what a chair looked like, really I've just been drawing the chair I've been sitting on because I don't know what I'm doing and I can't draw and I can't get the wood to work and I can't get the nails to go in correctly and I can't-"

Sam would pause to catch his breath for a minute 

"Sorry. What I mean to say is that I have absolutely no clue what I'm doing, and I'd be grateful for the help, unless-"

Sam looked towards his partner

"Do you want to give the draw part a go?"
Angelia
Anthony sighed at Mr. Cantor's slightly concerned words of reassurance, but the tension in his hands, in his jaw... Did anything but dissipate.

*He's going to help us out.*
*Usually I can function just fine on my own.*
*Without help.*
*Damn you, Newton's Cradle.*
*I'm better than this.*

He looked up at Graham regretfully, slightly arrogant mindset aside.
Then his eyes drifted to Sam. Watching his reactions. Noticing how he was taking this offer.
This offer that they couldn't really refuse. The chair clearly wasn't going to build itself.

His hyper words mirrored Anthony's thoughts, in a way. He kept his locked up, stuck inside his fleshy mess of a brain. Sam chose to speak his into the world.
Anthony found that inspiring, in some small way.

It was almost.. Comforting, to be around someone so casual. A more than welcome change of pace. 
But beneath Sam's rambling, there was a sense of uncertainty. Faint. Very faint.
But enough to notice. And his curious mind couldn't help but wonder why.
*What about him makes you so nervous?*
*Should I be nervous too?*

When asked about if he wanted to draw the chair, he shook his head violently, showing more energy than he had in this entire interaction. Clearly communicating that he did NOT want to pick up a pencil for this matter, whatsoever.
He was an artist in charcoal, and charcoal exclusively. And even THEN, his art was so ABSTRACT! He'd get carried away. There was no guarantee he'd be able to manage something as simple as that.

He looked back over to the teacher, brows tensing ever-so-slightly.
**"Yes, sir. We're grateful for your help."**

He completely rotated his torso to focus as much as he could, folding his hands together and bracing himself. He might not have noticed he was bracing himself.

**"Where do we start?"**
Glancing at Sam for approval. As if to ask; 
*Am I doing this right?*

He hoped he made it clear enough..
Bertha
Graham nodded confidently and grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil from what could charitably be described as a pile on the cluttered workstation, but he didn't start drawing just yet. Instead, he looked up at Sam and Anthony. 

"Right, where we start. Designing the chair isn't so much about reinventing the wheel — you don't have to be Gerrit Rietveld. But a chair isn't just one thing! There are table chairs, deck chairs, rocking chairs, armchairs, stools, barstools, all sorts of stuff. They can have three legs or four legs, they can have a backrest, they can have armrests, they can be wide or narrow or tall or short. Designing the chair is about deciding *What chair* You're making." 

He left a moment of silence for the kids to breathe and to register what he just said before we continue.

"So how about we start there — you decide whether it should have a back rest, whether it should have arm rests, and if it should have legs or a more solid base like an armchair, and we can go from there."
Hilary
Sam watched him move through the workstation. Surely it wasn't *That* Bad a few minutes ago, right? Surely they can't be this disorganized. 

"Wait, what's a Gerrit Rietvald?"

Yes, that's what Sam took from that. Sure, he *Heard* The other stuff, but like, wha? 

He would, however, sheepishly point to the chair that he was sitting on. Creative? No. Effective? Apparently not. But Sam was used to just sucking at this and slipping through the cracks, any creativity he had in this area long gone. It wasn't something he was proud of, but he also felt that stressing over woodshop consistently would just see him suffer everywhere else. He figured it was better to be great at a lot of stuff but suck at this, than to be mediocre at everything. Is Sam overreacting? Probably, but last time he relaxed, a femur displayed the worst moments of his life on an 80 inch 8k display. The time before that, his friend nearly got impaled in the ceiling. No, it's clearly better to overthink and overreact than the opposite. 

Oh right, we're having a conversation.

"That chair"