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 Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2009 9:10 pm
Attending a new school would be far more exciting and significantly less depressing if Pasha had any friends here. Having just transferred to Meadowview at the beginning of the semester, an awkwardly tiny fifteen-year-old sophomore, he felt as if there were quite a few things that were significantly lacking in his experience here. Companionship, most importantly.
He was discovering just how lonely day-to-day life could be when there was nobody to babble nonsense to who could share his experiences. There was only so far his isolated activities could carry him, so he set out to solve that. There was some sort of "club fair" today, if he had heard the announcement correctly, and involvement was exactly what he wanted. Well, friends that came with that involvement, at least. He wasn't the best at remembering dates for community service projects and meetings and the like.
Also, fairs usually meant cotton candy and funnel cakes, and those were delicious.
When he arrived, he found nothing of the delicious sort, but there were plenty of people. Most everyone seemed friendly and willing to have an engaging conversation, or at least ask for an e-mail contact. Maybe he could have more e-mail e-pals! Bright-eyed and (theoretically) bushy-tailed, he practically hopped, skipped, and jumped all the way to the first table he could find, offering the most innocent of smiles to the girl there.
"Hello! I heard that you're looking for people to..." What had he heard? Nothing specific, just the words "club" and "fair" and "today". That was a problem. Wrong tactic. "Um, I apologize, but. What exactly are you looking for?"
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Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2009 9:19 pm
Things were a tiny bit slow at the Model UN table, to say the least. In a good year, they'd get just enough new members to keep the club going, but today, Tallulah had had the misfortune of getting saddled between Anime Society and Track & Field and as a result was getting positively ignored.
So when the kid came over and smiled at her, she smiled back. Wow, he was short! (She only knew it was a 'he' because of his uniform.) Was he a freshman? They got smaller every year. She knew it was a cliche but it was true. It was so, so true.
"We're the Meadowview Model United Nations," she said, picking a flag up off the table and giving it a twirl. It might have been Bangladesh. "We each represent a country, and we meet mondays to talk about world issues."
She put the flag down and gave a clipboard with a sign up sheet a tap.
"We have pizza at our meetings," she said, like this was an incentive. (As a general rule, it was.) "I'm Tallulah. What's your name?"
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Posted: Sun Oct 25, 2009 10:02 am
As she spoke, Pasha glanced over the various flags displayed, trying and failing to place them all. It troubled him slightly. A Model United Nations would probably help him in his classes, and the girl - introduced as Tallulah - seemed nice enough so far.
He temporarily ignored the squealing anime fan at the adjacent table, who looked like she might lunge and "tackle-glomp" him at any moment, to pick up a pen for the sign-up sheet. Even without the pizza incentive, he was convinced.
"Pavel Khruschev! Or Pasha. I'm sorry it's a little hard to pronounce, so you can just call me whatever is easiest." Pause. "Well, maybe nothing mean. I don't really want mean nicknames here."
A quick signature later, he glanced back up at her. "How long have you been at this school? I hope it's nice. It seems nice so far." That might have been the eternal optimist within him speaking.
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Posted: Sun Oct 25, 2009 7:56 pm
Tallulah watched him sign his name, beaming all the while. A new recruit, and one that didn't seem reluctant to sign up at that! "I'm a Junior," she said matter-of-factly, "so this is my third year. You just started?" she asked. "Freshman or transfer?"
The name made her perk up a bit. Pavel Khruschev? For real? She didn't want to stereotype and there wasn't really any sort of rhyme or reason to picking countries since she certainly wasn't Finnish by any means, but the Meadowview Model UN was sorely lacking a Russia since the previous representative had graduated. She picked up a flag with red, white, and blue horizontal bars and gave it a twirl.
"You want to be Russia?" she asked. "Unless, of course, you've got a different preference. That's fine, too."
Relax, Tallulah, she reminded herself. Don't scare the freshmen. We need them.
It was not her fault if not everyone was quite so enthusiastic as she was.
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Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 5:42 pm
Wow, a for-serious junior! Typically, he didn't care at all about grades or ages, but it was pretty cool to have an upperclassman speaking to him at all. Especially at a new school.
"I'm a transfer sophomore," he explained. People usually did confuse him for a freshman (or younger), but it really didn't bother him anymore. He might as well be a freshman, considering his status as a tiny new kid here.
Immediately excited by the idea of getting to be Russia - well, represent it - he nodded and looked like he might squeal with glee. Thankfully for his reputation, he didn't. Instead, he hesitated and glanced down at the Russian flag. He knew a little about his heritage, and enough about Russia from classes and old family stories, but certainly had no experiences of his own.
"But...wait. Do I have to really be Russian? Because I'm kind of not really. Just my family name is! And I think maybe my great-grandpa or something, but I don't really know him that well."
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Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 6:30 pm
"Do I look Finnish?" asked Tallulah, who did not think she looked at all Scandinavian. Actually, she wasn't sure if she looked any particular ethnicity particularly much, but then again her family was from all over. "You don't have to be Russian," she assured him. "Our Senegal is Asian and our Laos is white."
Some days she was pretty sure people picked their countries in the interest of being strange and obscure than in the interest of world politics. Some days it frustrated her, but they still got things done and with this new addition, they had all the superpowers covered
"Where'd you transfer from?" she asked, and handed him the Russian flag. "You can have this."
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Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2009 7:12 pm
A frown and a quick inspection didn't change his opinion on her appearance whatsoever. This opinion being that frankly, he had no idea what Finnish people even looked like. He mentally noted that he needed to have a small Google adventure upon returning home. In hopes of not looking stupid, he played along with a smile.
"Oh! Uh, no! Not really. Much." Pretty smooth, he thought. He was relieved nonetheless, because it would have been a great disappointment to lose his awesome new country after only five seconds.
"I'm from a really little town a couple of hours away - we had to move here for my dad's work. I kinda miss being back home, but it's okay here too!" After taking the flag from her, he gave it a little twirl, mimicking her actions. This could be fun. "Have you been here a long time? I sorta need someone to show me around...and I don't have many friends yet."
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Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 1:02 pm
"We've lived here in Destiny City since I was a little kid," Tallulah told him. Actually, she didn't remember ever living anywhere else, although she knew that she'd been born in another city. "How do you like Meadowview so far? Are you finding everything okay?"
The school grounds could be a bit disorienting. Especially when you were running around them in the middle of the night. But that was another story.
"I'll be your friend!" she added happily. "Oh! Do you like cats?"
It seemed like a random question, but if he was new in town then maybe he was in the market for a pet! She had some fosters that she really, really needed to find homes for.
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Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 1:42 pm
It must have been nice, growing up in such a fancy city. Where he was from, he was lucky to even have a school within five miles of his house.
"Mostly - I got pretty lost on my first day and then some seniors told me the wrong directions. I think maybe they were confused...but other than that, everything is great!"
Clearly, he was always this cheerfully unaware. He stuck his new flag of Russia in his pocket, wearing it like a badge of honor.
"Great! I'm really glad I found such a good friend already." The smile on his face showed how much he genuinely meant it. "Ooh, I love kittycats. And I like puppies, but big dogs kind of scare me. Anything small that I can hold!"
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Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 1:50 pm
"I work at the animal shelter," continued Tallulah, "and I foster cats to get them ready for adoption so that they don't get put down." She said this very seriously. Keeping cats from being put down was serious business. "But if I take any more home without getting rid of some first, my mom is going to kill me."
There was no way to be subtle about this. "Do you want a cat?" she asked brightly.
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Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 2:31 pm
Pasha didn't like the idea of cats having to be "put down" at all. They only needed someone to love and cuddle them, and maybe a little bit of food when they were hungry - not too much to ask, really!
His eyes widened at her question. "Really? I can have one, just like that?" It was almost like magic! "I'd love to have a kitty. I miss my friend's; they got all snuggly against my feet when I spent the night, and it was better than blankets and cuddling a stuffed animal." He was very emphatic about that last part.
"I promise I'd take really good care of it! And it could sleep with me every night, and I'd buy it lots of toys..."
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Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 2:35 pm
"Great!" said Tallulah, smiling widely. "Great! Uh, hold on."
She dug a scrap of paper out of her backpack and wrote something down on it. She handed the paper to Pavel. "Here's my address," she said. "Stop by whenever." Actually, not whenever, she realized. Maybe she needed to qualify that first. She took the piece of paper back and wrote down a phone number.
"Call ahead and make sure I'm home. I've got things to do after school almost every day." She said this with a smile, as if having a total overload of activities was the greatest thing in the world. "Thank you so much," she added, a bit giddy. "Thank you."
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Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 2:49 pm
His new friend looked so happy! Pasha was nearly bouncing in place as he waited for her to write everything down, his mind racing from one thought to the next. The focus always seemed to return to the fact that he had a new, truly-real friend and he'd made her smile all big and-
Right, it helped to take the number when she offered it to him. He held the scrap gently in his palm, momentarily worried over smudging it, then tucked it safely into his pocket.
"You're welcome! I'll see you really soon so I can come get a kitty." He waved a little before double-checking on the safety of the Russian flag in his pocket. "And thanks for being my friend, too."
With that, he wandered off to examine the other booths (cautiously avoiding the anime table for his own safety), curious to see what other new people he might find.
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