Rotation of hips: threatening.
Predicted endpoint: the bleachers.
Occupied bleachers. Proof that freedom without geometry lead to tragedy.
She leapt up, panic and scientific duty battling for dominance. “Stop!” she cried, sprinting into the field. “Unregulated momentum is a public menace!”
For a people so attached to liberty, the Highlanders were remarkably poor at listening to instruction.
So Wanton did what any responsible scholar would do in a crisis: she abandoned reason and charged directly toward danger.
She raced forward, mud splattering, petticoats flying like distressed banners. One spectator was directly in her path—a startled piper with the physique of a startled piper—she shoved him aside with surprising ferocity. “Apologies! Peer-reviewed emergency!”
The massive caber-thrower took a step back, straining under the caliber of the caber. In seconds, that log would turn into a missile and exterminate half of Tavish’s clan!
In the absence of a proper war cry, Wanton yelled “Tally-hoo!” and barreled straight into the caber thrower’s back.
Note to self: acquire a more suitable field exclamation for hands-on research—something between “Eureka!” and “Hen o doddle dee!”
The impact was cataclysmic—but trajectory-bending.
They toppled like mismatched dominoes, sprawling into the grass in a tangle of limbs, plaid, and uninvited academic enthusiasm. The ground received them with a damp, undignified squelch—proof, perhaps, that gravity had an excellent sense of humor.
For a brief moment, all she could see was tartan, sky, and one very offended elbow.
The crowd gasped as the caber left the man’s hands at a new, improbable angle.
It spun through the air in majestic slow motion, twirling end over end like a wooden angel performing a Highland pirouette.
Wanton, still sprawled on the thrower’s back, grinned in relief. “Splendid! It’s cleared the bleachers entirely. Saved by geometry!”
Her triumph lasted precisely two rotations.
The caber, apparently insulted by her confidence, veered gracefully off course and sailed straight toward the clan’s corn stores.
It struck the wooden wall with a resounding thunk, vanishing halfway through like an enthusiastic spear of destiny. A cloud of grain exploded outward in a golden plume, settling over the stunned crowd like ironic applause.
Wanton blinked through the raining corn. “Technically, that still counts as a successful redirection of force.”
Someone screamed.
Everyone stared.
Wanton attempted a reassuring smile. “Good news! No casualties, except your winter supplies.”
The silence grew heavier. Then someone hissed, “The Sassenach did it.”
A murmur rippled through the clan, gathering mass and menace.
“She is sabotagin’ the Games!” someone shouted.
The cry spread like fire on whisky.
“The Sassenach ruined Malcom’s throw on purpose!”
“She’s here to bring the English fences!”
Wanton flailed her notebook above her head like a holy relic. “Sabotage? I was saving lives! My mathematics are unimpeachable!”
