During the day, Mark had to spend a few hours cleaning up the mess he had made in the aero lab. It turned out to be a lot easier to clean the glue off of the metal lab table than off of him. He then carefully sanded out the repaired winglet and installed a few more air sensors and strain gages on the wing. He smiled at his project and the rumble in his stomach told him that it was time for dinner. He turned out the lights, locked the big steel door, and made his way back to the dorms.

The three girls were already sitting down to dinner when Mark arrived at the dorm cafeteria; he saw the three of them as he swiped his meal card at the end of the serving line. After going through the serving line, he walked over their table holding his slightly overloaded tray of well-balanced food and sat down next to Cassandra who was picking over a salad. They chatted amiably about various things from the day that mostly didn't really matter to the fate of the universe.

Bored with the chitchat, Mark asked Suzi, "You are a Hanson with an O, right?"

She smiled and answered with a dramatic hand gesture, "Susanna Belle Hanson at your service."

Jenny looked shocked and exclaimed. "Susanna Belle, really? No wonder you have your friends call you Suzi."

"You've known me three years and you never knew my middle name! I'm not ashamed; it's a good family name. I was named after my Grandmother...who was born in 1926 when it was probably a little more fashionable to be a Belle!"

Cassandra looked up and asked Mark. "Suzi is a Hanson and you are a Hansen. What's the difference?"

Mark explained to the group. "The E is Danish and the O is usually Swedish. It's not always totally accurate because sometimes the Irishman at the dock in New Jersey or New York spelled the name wrong."

"But," he continued. "In my family's case, it is, my great grandparents came over from Denmark in the late 1890s. I think that Great Grandpa Hansen didn't want to get drafted into the Kaiser's army. Their village was near the Prussian border and that stuff happened all the time, I guess."

Suzi nodded while munching on something pretending to be a fresh carrot. "Similar story here, paternal great-grandparents came over from Sweden in 1878."

"What about your family Cassandra?" Mark asked to break the ice about her background.

Cassandra looked at him and then to her two roommates and instantly decided that she could trust them. She put her fork down and answered in a more confident voice than usual. "My father's family is Hindu. During the Partition of India in 1947, their village ended up being on the Pakistan side of the line. The Muslim-Hindu violence was horrific and they had to leave in the middle of the night with just the clothes on their back and move east to India."

"Wow!" Mark exclaimed. "What did they do then?"

Cassandra continued her story. "They had no money, no place to live, and were in a Red Cross camp with ten thousand other people. They had been promised that they would be relocated to a new village and given some land to farm, but India is a pretty crowded place and there were a lot of displaced people so they decided to emigrate."

Cassandra went on. "There really wasn't much of a government yet, just the remnants of the colonial administration. As luck would have it, my grandfather worked for the British OSS during the war and had some connections with the embassy so that's how they got the visas to the USA."

"So what about the family name? Surely Banner is not Indian," asked Suzi.

"When they got off the boat in 1949, they had a very long and difficult to pronounce Hindi name."

She laughed and continued. "The man at the immigration counter, and I don't know if he was Irish or not; made them change it to something he could spell, so it became Banner. So as the family story goes, we lost a few letters at the dock!"

Mark thought to himself: she sure is pretty when she smiles and then asked. "What was it originally?"

Cassandra answered proudly. "In English, it would come out as Bannereschgee...and, don't ask me to spell it! Someday, when I'm rich and famous, I might change it back. After my grandparents got established, they were able to help several other families; all related to us in one way or another join them here. So in my hometown, there is a well established Indian-American community; they even have a Nata-Mandira, which is a kind of community meeting hall."

Cassandra then asked Jenny. "What about your family?"

Jenny responded with a proud smile. "We've been Lincolns as long as anyone can trace back."

"Cool," said Mark. "Any relation to the guy on the penny?"

"Not that we can prove, but one of my aunts is doing research; she thinks that we are related to Honest Abe's great-grandfather, John Lincoln back to the early 1700s."

"That's awesome. I hope she can get proof."

With a slight pause, Mark then looked directly into Suzi's eyes and said with mock seriousness. "Babe, as to our shared Scandinavian heritage, we're not going to be able to get married and have all those blonde, blue-eyed babies you are thinking about."

"Why's that?"

"My Grandmother does not like Swedes since they took Norway back from Denmark in 1814."

Suzi threw a grape at him.

The group made some small talk about how Thursday night was always party night and more so during the summer schedule because there were no Friday classes. Cassandra picked at her salad and was not saying much again. Suzi and Jenny both finished their meals and got up. They both said that they had hot dates and had to get ready.

After his two new friends left, Mark asked Cassandra. "Are you doing anything tonight, hot date, or other plans?"

She smiled cynically and said simply. "No, no plans at all..."

"Well, I have a hot date at the lab. I have to check on a part of my project, some epoxy is curing and I want to make sure everything is okay."

She laughed. "More glue, do you need adult supervision!"

"Smart girl..." He said, and continued. "Why don't you come with me, it's cooled off outside and it will be a nice time for a walk, and I can show you the scene of the crime, as it were. I'll also throw in a VIP tour of the aero lab."

Cassandra hesitated for a moment. "Okay, but I need to go to my room to get a camera."

She then explained. "The evening light after sunset is just right and you never know what might make a great picture."

Mark nodded. "No problem, I have to the get the keys from my room anyway. I'll meet you in the lobby at seven."

The two new friends left the old brick dorm and walked across the campus. They stopped at the duck pond were Cassandra took some pre-sunset pictures of the birds and plants and even of dragonflies. As they got to the steep steps leading up to the lab, Mark unconsciously reached over and took Cassandra's hand. She did not protest.

He unlocked the big steel door to the lab and turned on the powerful overhead lights.

"Why the giant door?" she asked.

He pointed to some of the large equipment and machinery and said. "Um, so you can get stuff like that into the room."

He gestured to a full-size jet engine that had been cut away to show all of the internal parts and some other large machinery. "It's mostly old government surplus left over from before the day. You never know when you might need a twenty-ton hydraulic press or ten thousand rpm centrifuge."

"I guess I should have figured that out for myself."

He told her about the freshman year lab projects of calibrating thermos bottles, super-accurate scales, and manometers. She asked quizzically. "What is a manometer?"

He showed her the big board with many tubes of colored water and detached one of them from his wing project and handed it to her. He put his arm around her slim waist. "Blow gently across this probe and watch the green tube."

Cassandra gave him a puzzled look and complied. She smiled as the water level in one of the colored tubes moved a few inches. He laughed and explained. "So that is a pressure of just over two inches of water. We use the manometer board to measure very low air pressure gradients extremely accurately over a wing surface in the wind tunnel."

He replaced the tube and they walked over to a long narrow table under the window. It had a four-foot airplane wing, some support structure, and various wires, plastic tubes, and electronic sensors and equipment on it.

"So what exactly am I looking at? It looks like a toy airplane wing to me."

He gave her hurt feelings look and started to explain. While he was speaking, Cassandra walked around and started taking photos of various items in the lab.

He gave her a quizzical look, and then smiled and continued with his explanation. "Have you ever noticed how the newer airplanes flown by the airlines have winglets on the end of the wings?"

"Um, not really. I have only been on an airplane a couple of times when I was little."

"Well okay, here's how it works. The airflow along a wing spills over on the wingtip and causes drag."

With mock irritation, Cassandra asked. "I'm a fine arts major. What's drag?"

He thought for a minute. "Have you ever stuck your hand out the car window and played with the air?"

"Sure, like this." She said while demonstrating with her hand. "It used to drive my mom crazy."

He took her hand and demonstrated. "Well, when your hand is parallel to the wind like this, that's lift and when you hold it flat and perpendicular to the wind, like this, that's drag."

She couldn't help but notice the warmth of his touch.

He went on. "That diagram shows what makes an airplane fly."

He pointed to the wall where a diagram from the '60s showed the forces acting on a plane in flight, the forces of lift, drag, weight and thrust all in equilibrium. "Do you know what really makes an airplane fly?"

"Is this a trick question?"

Mark smiled. "Money is what makes an airplane fly. If you can reduce things like weight and drag, the plane will use less fuel, which means less money per flight hour. That's how engineers get paid. So this wing test is to demonstrate is how much drag is reduced with both an upward and downward pointing winglet."

He showed her the wing jig and pointed to the winglets on each end. "So I designed and built this wing, and instrumented it with various air pressure sensors. When it's all done I'll put it in the wind tunnel and check the results at various airspeeds and angles of attack. I pretty much know that this works but in order to get a passing grade on my senior project, I just have to prove it."

Mark pointed at a puddle of hardened glue on the long table and said. "Here is where the infamous glue incident of June 7th happened. I still have to clean up the glue I spilled on the bench or Kurt the lab technician will have my ass. I also had to redo the part I messed up. See here, it looks like it's cured properly."

Cassandra smiled and batted her eyelids playfully. "That's nice you know. I'm like a dog looking at TV here!"

While he was showing her some of the other equipment, tools, jigs, and various measuring devices, she continued to take pictures from different angles of all of it.

"What are you going to do with the happy-snaps?"

She said with authority. "These are NOT happy-snaps. They are the basis for fine art design themes and concepts!"

She then smiled thoughtfully and went on. "I'm not sure, but the industrial look of all this stuff is pretty cool and totally different from my usual artsy subjects. I figure I can maybe combine the cold mechanical stuff with something pretty like a bird, colorful flower or...or you know sort of a Beauty and the Beast theme."

Mark looked around and then asked his new friend. "Can I borrow the camera for a minute?"

Cassandra handed him the camera and he motioned her towards the jet engine cut-away and took a couple of shots of the thin girl with the turbine section in the background and then handed the camera back to her and said softly. "Colorful flowers...or a beautiful girl."

She looked at him and then at her shoes like she wanted to say something, but then to change the subject she pointed at the upside-down and apparently non-working clock above the adjacent storeroom. "What's up with the broken clock?"

"Beats me, it's been like that as long as I've been here. With the long hour's guys put in here, I guess time has no meaning..."

She paused, tilted her head a bit, and then took a few more shots of the clock. Cassandra then knit her brow and said to herself. "I think that there is potential here for a great project, I'll have to sketch out a few ideas."

"Hey, whilst we are here, would you mind taking a few pictures of my test rig, I need to put some photos in my report."

"Sure thing, I'd be happy to, but you'll have to show me what you want."

They took the pictures of the test gear from various angles. Cassandra could not help but feel the electricity of his touch as he gently maneuvered her arm and camera to just the right angle for each picture. When they were done she took a deep breath, regained her composure, and asked softly. "Color or black and white?"

"Can you do either with that camera?"

"Sure, no problem, that's what software is for."

"Black and white then; easier and cheaper to copy."

Finally, Mark showed her the giant plate scale. "This was our first project as freshmen; we had to calibrate this baby from zero to five hundred kilograms with only three kinds of test weights. Allow me to demonstrate."

He went to the sturdy steel table behind the scale and picked up a shiny metal cylinder which was marked 10 kg. He put it on the scale and the needle went to exactly 10.00 He then picked up a second metal cylinder also marked 10 kg and put it on the scale; the needle went to exactly 20.00 He then carefully stepped up and got on the scale and smiled as the needle went to 95.05. He hopped off and left both of the test weights on the scale and then said quietly. "Okay, your turn, hop up there and we'll see what happens."

There was a look of fear in Cassandra's beautiful green eyes as she put the camera down and slowly stepped on to the scale. The needle went to 61.95 kg. She shook her head and got off the scale silently. She picked up her camera and the two of them walked to the door. Mark turned out the lights and locked the door. They left the lab without saying anything else to each other.