Titanic: Could It Be Saved?(First Draft)

Chapter 2: The Project

"All right class is over for the day, I hope you were all paying attention because there will be a project on this soon." Mr. Arven dismissed them.

"Wait up!" Iris turned; no one had ever uttered that to her before. Walking quickly to catch up to her were Becca and Salali. "That was pretty impressive. Taking over the history class and all. Really. You should be the teacher- you make it a lot more interesting than Mr. Arven." Salali agreed.

"If we can work in groups for our project, can you join our group? If you did, we would not have to research at all! Salali and I would like to apologize for treating you the way we did. We just thought... you know."

Iris laughed. "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Slow down! If I join your group, you still have to do some research. I am not going to give you all the answers. Besides, I don't know everything about the Titanic."

"OK. I guess we'll do some research. By the way, do you want to walk to class with us?"

"Sure!"

~=+=~

Iris was much happier now that she had the possibility of some friends.The three girls did almost everything at school together. A few weeks passed. There was no further mention of the project that was supposed to be done on the Titanic. Finally, the teacher gave them the information they had been waiting for.

"Good morning, class! I am sorry that I didn't get the information about the project out sooner, I had things I needed to sort out. Anyway,you get to work in groups of four. Once you have your groups sorted, send one of them up here to get your starter information. Go!"

Iris,Becca and Salali got into a group. "We need one more," Becca announced. No sooner had she finished saying this when T strode up.

"May I join your group? You said you needed another person and if you hadn't noticed, I have no friends of my own."

"I..." Becca started to stutter.

Iris butted in. "Sure you can!" She smiled at T. "Sit down."

The group sent T up to get their starter information. Salali glanced at the sheet. It read:

'If you could go back and experience the Titanic in all its glory, what would you do knowing that it sinks? Would you sail on it, counting on your gender to save you, or would you just watch it and meet the people that would sail on it? You and your group must come to an agreement on what you would do first, second, and last.'

"Anyone got any ideas?" she said at last. Everyone but Iris shook their heads. "Well? Iris you must have something then."

"Yes and no. If I could go back in time, the first thing I would do is find J. Bruce Ismay and Thomas Andrews."

"Why?!?"Chorused the group.

"I would talk to them and try to convince them to add more lifeboats. If that didn't work, I would get a first class ticket on the ship and try to get Captain E J Smith to read all the warnings and tell him not to heed Mr. Ismay when he tells him to speed the ship up to maximum knots. Finally, if all else failed, I would tell Mr. Charles Lightoller to fill all the boats to capacity and hope for the best."

"Sooo, you would try to change the sinking of the Titanic! What about the ripple effect?! What if The titanic didn't sink? We may not be here!" T was very worried about changing history.

"Weeeeellllllll.....I guess I didn't think about that."

"Still I think it is a great idea! What about everyone else?"

"Yes! Let's do it! I was a little hesitant about it first, but..... you made your point. If we could change history or minimize the amount of people that died maybe....." She was cut off by Iris.

"Oh no!"

"WHAT?!?"

"I forgot about one thing. Because of the Titanic sinking with such a great loss of life, sailing on a ship was changed."

"How?"

"Having enough lifeboats became mandatory, lifeboat drills had to be held regularly, and if you were close enough to hear the signal, you had to respond. If the Titanic hadn't sunk, the rules might still be the same as back then!"

The group hadn't thought about that, but they were still game with the idea. After school was over, the four of them headed out to the library to research what went wrong.