Of Rhinos & Griffins

Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual approach of science constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?
-Stephen Hawking



Merryn Griffiths is sitting at the polished teak dining table in the kitchen of her family’s modest, three-bedroomed semi-detached house, sipping from a steaming mug of tea and nibbling on a slice of buttered toast whilst peering down at a battered copy of Stephen Hawkins’s A Brief History of Time, when the air is pierced by a distinctly high-pitched yelp.

Merryn smirks to herself but doesn’t look up from her book as she turns the page with an elegant finger, straightening her wire-rimmed glasses with another. “Three, two, one...”

Right on cue, there’s a pounding above her head as something heavy stomps across the landing, down the stairs and down the hall to the kitchen. Behind her, the door is flung open, slamming back against the wall hard enough to leave marks in the plastering.

“Be careful; you might break something,” Merryn says sharply, twisting around in her chair to glare at her twin brother.

Through his dripping wet fringe, Rhys levels her an incredulous look. “You weren’t exactly worried about me breaking something, were you?” he retorts, gesturing to himself. He’s soaked from the tips of his slightly too-long dark hair, right down his pasty, shirtless body to his lanky legs. There’s a puddle forming at his feet, giving a gentle plink every time a drop of water drips off his body and onto the floor.

Merryn stifles a chuckle behind her hand. “How else was I supposed to make sure you woke up on time?”

“Believe me, a bucket filled with water poised above my bed, set to turn over at exactly seven o’clock, is not the way to do it,” he informs her, stealing a piece of toast and shoving it in his mouth before she can stop him.

“At least you don’t have to have a shower now,” she says with a devilish smirk, ducking away when he leans over to thump her on the head.

“I hate you,” he says through a mouthful of toast. “And I mean that sincerely.”

“I know,” she replies absently, her attention returning to the book under her nose. She puts down her cup of tea, her thumb resting on the butterfly on the front of the mug. “I return the sentiment entirely.”

Rhys rolls his eyes. “You can’t just say ‘Yeah, I hate you too,’ like a normal person, can you? Nah, you have to show off your ‘extended vocabulary’ or whatever.”

“The mere fact that you feel the need to punctuate every other sentence with a meaningless filler word like ‘whatever’ just proves that more people, namely you, would benefit greatly from an extended vocabulary,” she replies without looking up from her book. “Did you know that there are close to two hundred and fifty thousand words in the English language and the average person only uses less than five per cent of them on a daily basis?”

“You know, I had absolutely no idea,” he says dryly. “Thank you ever so much for that fascinating nugget of information. I can’t tell you how enlightened I feel because of it.”

Merryn glances up then, giving him a thoroughly unimpressed look. “My dear brother, in simple terms even the simplest of people, namely you, could understand, piss off.”

Laughing, Rhys grabs another piece of toast and legs it out of the room, effortlessly ducking the plastic salt shaker Merryn hurls at his head.

(Their father stopped buying breakable kitchen utensils a long time ago, when he realised that their eventual purpose would be to serve as makeshift weapons of mass destruction. Wise move, Mr. Griffiths. Wise move.)



Rhys trudges down the stairs and back into the kitchen exactly forty nine minutes and twenty six seconds later. (Merryn timed him with her digital watch; he took four minutes and fifty three seconds longer than usual. Shameful.) His knobbly knees are poking out of his favourite pair of artistically distressed skin-tight jeans, and he’s tugging down the hem of a hideously patterned argyle jumper, which may or may not have belonged to their late grandfather, over what looks suspiciously like a pink and green flannel shirt.

(To be perfectly fair, Merryn isn’t exactly dressed any better. She herself is clad in a pair of bright orange jeans and a t-shirt with a bright blue TARDIS on it, emblazoned with the words 'Time and Relative Dimension in Space'. Suffice to say, it is probably her favourite shirt ever.)

So she’s willing to forgive her brother for the jeans and she’s willing to forgive him for the shirt and she’s even willing to forgive him for the jumper that’s on the verge of giving her a headache, but what she’s not willing to forgive him for are the non-prescription horn-rimmed glasses currently perched on the end of his nose.

“Rhys,” she begins, as her brother takes a seat beside her at the table, “I can't help but wonder, not for the first time, I might add, why you insist on wearing those infernal things when you have near enough perfect vision.”

“Rhyne, they’re part of my image,” he replies seriously, waving a hand in front of himself to sum up said ‘image’. “Without them, the whole look is worthless.”

She rolls her eyes at him. “You are such a poser it’s not even funny.”

“And you’re such a geek it’s not even funny,” he shoots back, shuffling his shoulders with a huff.

“Uh, look who’s talking,” she retorts.

“Yeah, but I can totally rock the hell out of geek chic,” Rhys points out, tossing his hair back from his face as if to illustrate his point. “You, on the other hand...” He trails off, raising his eyebrows meaningfully at her. Merryn smacks the back of his head with A Brief History of Time and he clutches at it in mock pain. “Hey, I thought we agreed you’d stop abusing me with inanimate objects that time you nearly stabbed me in the eye with a pair of scissors,” he whines, pouting ridiculously at his sister.

“I wouldn’t have nearly stabbed you in the eye if you hadn’t moved,” she reminds him with a scathing look. “Now hurry up and finish your toast. We have to be in school in less than half an hour.”

He perks up a little as he remembers the significance of today. “Can’t believe we’re going to be sixth formers,” Rhys marvels through a mouthful of toast, which kind of ruins what could have been a touching moment, really. “Feels like just yesterday we were little Year Sevens.”

“Quite,” Merryn mutters, reopening her book at the page she was on before she called upon its powers as a dastardly weapon. “I put your lunch in your bag and made sure your pencil case was in there too. Your coat is on the stairs and your shoes are by the door. Got everything else?”

Rolling his eyes, Rhys nods and swallows the last of his toast. “Yes, Mum. I’m going to go brush my teeth. Don’t leave for Benedict’s without me.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Griff,” Merryn says dryly.

He flashes her a grin and ambles out, letting the door shut quietly behind him. She gets to her feet, grabs her stuff and strides to the front door, winding her hand-knitted, multicoloured, ten-foot long scarf around her neck, and sits down on the second-to-last step to wait for her brother to finish getting ready.



They’re bickering about the optimum brand of toothpaste and the merits of Aquafresh over Tesco’s own brand as they head next door to their best friend Benedict’s house. They’re still arguing when they stop at the front door and Merryn gets out her key to open it and let the two of them in.

“Rhys, seriously, there is absolutely no difference between them,” Merryn is insisting as she shuts the door behind them. “Except the price, of course.”

“That is a lie! The taste is completely different!” Rhys is, quite frankly, outraged that Merryn would dare besmirch his favourite brand of toothpaste. “Aquafresh is made of fresh minty goodness and Tesco’s is simply just own-brand gunk. It doesn’t even compare.”

She rolls her eyes at him. “‘Fresh minty goodness’ or otherwise, Aquafresh is not worth the whole extra pound by any stretch of the imagination.”

“But it’s just not the same!” Rhys complains, his hair bobbing insistently to illustrate his point.

The kitchen door swings open then and Benedict’s cat saunters out. He’s a small, rotund tabby that Benedict has had for nearly as long as they’ve known him, and he loves it more than anything else in the entire world.

“Hey Einstein,” Merryn greets the cat, sinking to her knees to stroke his fur affectionately. “Where’s Benedict, eh? Where’s Benedict?”

The cat croons as if he understands her and inclines his head upwards. Rhys glances up and sure enough, Benedict is making his way down the stairs, his school bag slung across his t-shirt - a silhouette of Spock doing the Vulcan salute - and a wide smile on his face.

“’Morning,” he whispers, waving at the two of them as he jumps off the last step. “Nonni is still asleep but she says hi, and good luck for the first day. Not that we need it, obviously,” he adds quickly, too quickly to be innocent. “It’ll all be fine.”

Rhys smiles and slings an arm around his shoulders. “Of course it will, Ben. No need for you to worry,” he assures the boy indulgently.

“I wasn’t worried-” Benedict protests, his pale face slowly going red.

“Yes you were,” Merryn interrupts from the floor, where she’s still cuddling Einsteinto her chest. “You’ve been working yourself up about sixth form pretty much since your last exam, when you suddenly found you had nothing to worry about any more.”

“I just-” Benedict stops, licks his lips and tries again. “I just don’t want things to change, that’s all.” He lowers his eyes, embarrassed. “That’s silly, isn’t it?”

“A little bit,” Rhys agrees, nudging Benedict sympathetically with his elbow when his face falls. Rhys doesn't want to say, because they're not going to, or anything ridiculously cheesy like that. Not so much because of the cheddar, more because he's not sure even Benedict'd be convinced by something as trite as that. “Whatever happens, you'll still have us. Well,” he amends, “you'll still have me. You might have to compete with Einstein for Merryn's affections, though.”

The girl looks up at the mention of her name and Rhys smirks at her. “Hey Merryn, should we leave you and Einstein alone for a few minutes?” he teases, his eyes wide with innocence. Benedict erupts into giggles at his side, and Rhys can almost feel the tension easing out of his body.

Merryn glares at her brother and straightens up, dusting herself down with the flat of her palm. “Honestly, Rhys,” she mutters, shaking her head at her brother, “you have all the maturity of a prepubescent warthog, sometimes.”

“Thanks for the sometimes, Rhyne,” Rhys grins, fluttering his eyelashes at her. She rolls her eyes back at him, but she's hiding a smile at the corners of her lips.

They head out of the house a few minutes later, Einstein at their heels, and wait for Benedict to open the back door so they can get their bikes out. Since they invariably go to Benedict’s house before heading off to school in the mornings, they decided a long time ago that it would be altogether easier for all involved if they just left all three of their bikes at his house.

Einstein watches them from under Benedict’s grandmother’s car as they cycle off, their helmets on and their earphones in, a forlorn little expression on his face.



The cycle ride to their school is a good ten minutes long, depending on traffic. They make it there in nine minutes and thirty nine seconds. Merryn arrives first, screeching to a halt outside the school, joined shortly by Benedict, then Rhys. The bike sheds are beside the sixth form block, so after they’ve wheeled their bikes across the playground and secured them in the spots they’ve sort of adopted as their own during the past five years of their attendance, they head over to the block, joining the stream of other sixth formers heading in the same direction.

Once inside, they take up residence in a comfortable corner of the room near to the window, plonking their stuff and themselves down on the empty chairs. Merryn rummages in her bag for A Brief History of Time, shifts around on the chair to get comfortable and starts reading.

Benedict burrows next to Rhys, resting his head on his shoulder, and closes his eyes while Rhys untangles his earphones from around his iPhone to shove into their ears. Their music tastes are kind of radically different, but Rhys keeps enough soft rock on there to make Benedict happy, with the odd classical album for Merryn’s seal of approval. He tries to refrain from listening to the dissonant, arrhythmic math rock he loves when he's sharing an ear with either of them.

Thumbing on his iPod, Rhys scrolls through his playlists to find a song Benedict likes, settling on something by a band Rhys kind of hates. Benedict loves them, though, and Rhys can almost feel the other boy smiling as it plays, hear him murmur a quiet thank you into Rhys's shoulder. Rhys smiles back, and thinks that it's almost worth having to suffer through three minutes of a song he can't stand.

Merryn and Benedict are in the same form, but Rhys and Merryn were separated back in main school so they could both ‘grow as individuals and extend their social circle beyond each other’. It didn’t exactly help very much; though Rhys has several friends in most of his classes that he deigns to hang out with on occasion, the only friend Merryn has aside from Rhys is Benedict, and the three of them have been friends for the best part of ten years, so he hardly counts.

So when the bell rings and the sixth form block starts emptying, they all head over to school together, but they split up once they reach their respective form rooms. Merryn makes a beeline for a seat by the window fairly near the front and plonks her stuff down, motioning for Benedict to sit next to her.

The class is gradually filling up with people, most of them familiar since they’ve been going to school together for five years now, but there are a few new faces Merryn just about recognises from the induction day they did a few weeks after the end of school.

Their form tutor, a middle-aged woman with mousy brown hair and a kindly expression called Mrs Kettleworth, comes in a few minutes later and busies herself at the front sorting out the register. She’s a Biology teacher, if Merryn remembers correctly, and she just started at the school last year. Merryn wrinkles her nose.

“Class, can I have your attention for a few minutes!” Mrs Kettleworth calls over the loud noise of the group, rather fruitlessly since no one is paying her a shred of attention.

Well. Almost no one.

“Guys, shut up, Miss is trying to talk to us!” yells a girl sitting near the back called Frankie, and the class promptly shuts up. Frankie is a nice enough girl with light brown hair and a knack for making people laugh and getting people to listen to her. She pulled Merryn’s hair once, back when they were in primary school, during a game of hockey in P.E. one day. Merryn doesn’t like her.

“Thank you...” Mrs Kettleworth trails off expectantly.

“Frankie,” Frankie supplies with an obliging smile.

Mrs Kettleworth smiles back. “Frankie. What a lovely name. Anyway, I’m Mrs Kettleworth and I’m going to be your form tutor for the next two years. We’ll all get very close in that time, I’m sure. Feel free to talk to me about any problems you might be having, or just anything that’s bothering you. Or even just for a good old chat!” She lets out a nervous, high-pitched giggle and Merryn groans inwardly. She’s one of those teachers, all you-can-talk-to-me! keen. Merryn thought they were safe because she’s not in her early twenties and fresh out of uni like all the other new teachers seem to be. Alas, no such luck there. “So, has anyone got any questions they’d like to ask me?” Someone puts their hand up and Mrs Kettleworth pounces on them, her smile vaguely feverish. “Yes?”

“What’s a yu-kar-ee-ot?” the boy asks, looking up from a piece of paper which has something - presumably an incorrectly spelled form of ‘eukaryote’, Merryn thinks to herself - scrawled on it.

Mrs Kettleworth looks jargogled for a few seconds before she regains her composure. “Uh, well, a eukaryote is an organism whose cells contain complex structures enclosed within membranes. The defining membrane-bound structure that sets eukaryotic cells apart from prokaryotic cells is the nucleus, or nuclear envelope, within which the genetic material is carried. The presence of a nucleus gives eukaryotes their name, which comes from the Greek ‘eu’ which means ‘good’ and ‘karyon’ which means nut or kernel. Most eukaryotic cells also contain other membrane-bound organelles such as mitochondria, chloroplasts and the Golgi apparatus. All species of large complex organisms are eukaryotes, including animals, plants and fungi, although most species of eukaryotic protists are micro-organisms. Does that answer your question, um-”

“Andy.” The boy, Andy, smiles widely and turns back to his friends with a snicker.

“Andy, right,” Mrs Kettleworth says distractedly, but she forgets to smile this time. “Are you doing Biology, Andy?”

“No,” he says innocently. “I was just curious.”

“Okay,” Mrs Kettleworth says, still sounding uncertain. “Anyone got any more questions?”

Merryn winces. “For the love of God,” she mutters as she massages her temples, “it’s ‘does anyone have any more questions?’ Have. Not got. Have.”

Mrs Kettleworth doesn’t appear to have heard her, though, because she goes onto say, “Right then, time for the register.” And then she beams, a massive, face-splitting beam and really, there is nothing in her sentence that warrants that kind of enthusiasm. At all. At. All.

Merryn lets her attention wander, her hands itching for the book stashed safely in her bag, only jerking out of her stupor when Mrs Kettleworth calls out, “Mer- Mer- Mer-rhyne?”

“It’s Mer-rin,” Merryn snaps, straightening her glasses with an indignant flourish. Several people sitting near the back snigger a little at her consternation, but a quick glare in their direction soon shuts them up.

Mrs Kettleworth, however, looks suitably chagrined. “Right, Merryn, I’m so sorry.”

“So you should be,” Merryn mutters, but after near enough sixteen years of people continually pronouncing her name wrong, she can’t muster up the energy to be too angry about the mistake.

The rest of registration is spent giving out planners, the student handbook and their timetables. Merryn is pleased to note she has Physics next, with Benedict, and closer inspection of the timetable reveals that they are in the same classes for the two other subjects they are doing that are the same.

When the bell finally rings, signalling the end of registration, Merryn jumps to her feet and grabs Benedict’s bag, grunting as she hauls it off the table. “Dear sweet lord, Benedict. What have you got in here?” she demands as she hands it over to him, rolling her now-aching shoulder once she has been relieved of the weight. “It feels like a sack of bricks.”

“Pencils, pens, rubbers, rubber bands, paper clips, a scientific calculator, a non-scientific calculator, a graphical calculator, sharpies in all the colours of the rainbow, a pencil sharpener, tape, string, scrap paper, tissues, hand gel, plasters, scissors, post-its, highlighters, a hole punch, a thirty centimetre ruler, a fifteen centimetre ruler, a stapler, super-glue, board pins, a magnifying glass, a hairbrush, deodorant, a torch, nail clippers, Vaseline, painkillers, spare gloves, a pack of cards, a spork, spare earphones, an earphone splitter, a scarf, a top hat, a fob watch, a bow tie, a sonic screwdriver, a lock, a pair of gloves, sweets, lollipops and some ribbon,” Benedict recites, counting the last item off on his finger. “Oh, and my lunch box.”

Merryn sighs, giving him this weary, long-suffering look. “Benedict, we talked about this,” she says, in a gentle, I'm-trying-not-to-let-you-know-how-insane-I-think-you-are tone. “You don’t actually need all those things on you all the time. Remember?”

He shrugs innocently. “Hey, I come prepared - batteries not included.”

“Come on,” she mutters, shaking her head at him. “We’re going to be late for Physics.”