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 Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2009 1:04 pm
Out of all his classmates, Merroth had to conclude that Casia was... not horrid. Possibly even the least horrid. Even maybe, just maybe, not actually horrid at all.
It had turned out, in the end, that Mr. Etoh had taken Merroth's score home with him, so there was nothing in the music classroom to find. The messy destruction of files and folders had been for nothing. Despite that fact, Merroth was glad he had done it, and if he could do it all over again knowing what he knew now, he still would have. No regrets.
This time, went he went to the music room after school, he did not require an excuse. He just checked his schedule, saw there was nothing on it for the afternoon, and went.
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Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2009 1:35 pm
Casia hadn't lied when she had told Merroth she came to the music room a lot. What had first been a way to escape a gnarly situation was rapidly turning into habit, and though she was getting more resigned to Jane and her new home, school felt more natural to the siren.
Right now, she was examining the mysterious world of sheet music. She had picked up a piece that was familiar to her and was trying to tease out the melody. It wasn't as much of a drag as she thought it would be. Her natural instinct for music was kicking in to help her, but because her studies had been interrupted when Anna left, her comprehension wasn't exactly golden, either.
"You say you've got everything you want,
And your bird can sing.
But you don't get me,
You don't get me!
You say you've seen the seven wonders,
And you bird is green.
But you can't see me,
You can't see me!"
She stopped and frowned at the paper in frustration. She knew what the notes stood for, but was she singing from the paper or her memory? She guessed she should have picked a song she didn't know very well after all. Letting out an annoyed click, she put the paper down and hummed the tune to herself. She could bring in a new sheet tomorrow and then she could actually get something going.
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Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2009 9:15 pm
Merroth was relieved to find Casia in the music room because while he had an excuse for going to the music room, it was lame and he preferred not to use it. He smiled genuinely as the door clicked shut behind him. "Fancy finding you here again."
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Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2009 9:31 pm
Casia turned around in her chair and her wings gave a nervous flutter, the door being shut was a worrying, final sort of sound to the somewhat paranoid siren. She relaxed slightly when at least the face in front of her turned out to be familiar and flashed him a smile in return, attempting to compose herself. "A groovy coincidence, you could say."
And then came the hard part, or at least what used to be the easy part but since Anna had left she was quickly learning was a hairier task than she had thought before. Continuing the conversation. After all, this was some boy she had just spilled her guts to for no good reason, and though it turned out they had a lot in common, that still had been a mistake. She was trying hard not to let her guard down so easily, if it happened again she might not be so lucky. And though Merroth had already got her story, she knew there was still more that she would much rather keep to herself.
She opened her mouth, but didn't want to say 'uh'. Only people who weren't in control said 'uh' and at least this time she would prefer not to lose control and start accusing him of things or, she didn't know, something equally horrifying. Instead she quickly said "Searching for another elusive score, then?"
Probably not the smoothest conversation starter in history, but it would do.
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Posted: Thu May 21, 2009 7:02 pm
"No, um..."
It was not a much easier task for Merroth who, having now arrived at this moment with several bits of prepared rhetoric, suddenly decided all of his ideas and notions for the conversation were, in fact, stupid and oh-so-lame.
Since he had started to reply, he had to say something. His mouth flapped for a moment like a fish and he quickly caught himself in a cough. "'Scuse me. I was looking for you, actually." He hoped it sounded somewhat smooth and debonair as he intended and not, well, desperately nervous and lame. He need not have worried completely -- it was a bit of a mix of both. "How's your, um, your mother?" That, on the other hand, was entirely lame-sounding.
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Posted: Sun May 24, 2009 11:27 pm
"Excused." the siren announced with an airy wave of her hand, but what followed the cough made her pause mid-pardon. "Ah. Did you need something?" she asked politely, silently hoping that she hadn't done something horribly lame like forget something in the music room the last time they had met. (She shed pencils like a molting pigeon shed feathers.) But something in his voice suggested that this might not be the case anyway. It was a weird kind of tone to hear from him, and the siren would have half-fancied he wanted to impress her if he had been anyone other than who he was. She had the feeling that if Tenebras Merroth Clark wanted to impress her, she would know.
Or at least that's what all the stories going around school about him suggested, but the more she awkwardly chatted with him, the more she suspected they had been exaggerated. It had already been established that they both had a bit of a showoffy streak in them, but some of those stories were the sort of ridiculous that belonged in a Beatles flick and were too incongruous with a kid who would not only carry around a handkerchief, but also lend it to the emotionally distressed.
She was pulled back from her thoughts by his question and it was her turn to cough, more out of surprise than anything else. "My mom?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. There were two ways the siren could take the question, and as she didn't know Jane Greystone's current mental state, she chose to answer in the style she would if a salesman asked her how she liked the dress she was trying on. This took some consideration. She wasn't exactly thrilled to live with Jane, but she didn't want to get into a conversation about parents sucking. Considering how many parents she and Merroth had been through collectively, it would probably be both long and painful. "I have to admit, she's getting better," Casia settled on amiably, quoting what was familiar to her even if she wasn't sure the boy would get it. "A little better all the time." Hesitating, she tried to think of something fascinating to say on the subject, but Jane was a mail carrier. The post wasn't exactly gripping material to work with. "Yours?" she asked instead. As she recalled, he liked her, so unless something tragic had happened that she wasn't aware of, it should be a safe question to toss back at him.
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Posted: Tue May 26, 2009 3:24 am
Not only was it a safe question, it was one that seemed to put Merroth at instant ease, and one he had an awful lot to say about. Possibly too much. "She's good, I guess. I mean, sometimes it can be hard to tell. She doesn't like it that I'm at school a lot of the time because she doesn't trust some of the teachers. She has a problem with the math teacher, Bea, maybe 'cause she was my math tutor first, and Boston's been really busy with a big new product launch thing lately so that's not helping any. I don't think my mom likes it when we're away." Merroth ambled the rest of the way down the music room steps and took a seat in a chair fairly close to Casia as he spoke. Not too close -- that would imply too much interest and he was trying to play it cool -- but close enough for easy conversation.
Merroth did not seem to have noticed that Casia was being a bit less forthcoming this afternoon, but he seemed to be quite willing to do enough talking for the both of them and then some, assuming Casia let him go on like this.
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Posted: Tue May 26, 2009 4:49 pm
Casia listened to Merroth attentively, partially because she was genuinely interested, but also because the amiable chatter helped to make her more comfortable. Not all of it made sense to her, and she came off with the vague impression that his dad built rockets. But some of it was very familiar indeed. Stretching her arms languidly, she turned to him as he sat down. "Honey pie," she sang playfully, thinking of Anna and her first day of school, "You are making me cra-zy. I'm in love but I'm la-zy, so won't you please come home?"
Sobering up a little, the siren straightened up in her chair and flashed him a grin. "When my old mom had to send me off to school, we sang that." she informed him idly. "She never really said she minded so much, but it always sucks to be left out." Like neverending Saturday, alone in Jane's house while she was at work, only with the added agony of knowing your were missing the company of someone you really cared about, a cocktail of boredom and loneliness. "She had her paintings to keep her busy though, I guess. Does your mom have anything she really likes to do?"
Something about the conversation nagged at her and after some reflection, she realized what it was. "Math tutor?" she repeated with evident surprise. This was the same kid who had been talking to her about algorithms the first time they met. (After interrogating Jane, she knew how to spell them and what they were, although she thought her way of spelling the word was much nicer.) Why would he need special classes when he seemed to know more about the subject than a normal student did? The siren had never been really boss at anything but music, and her actual understanding of that was more instinctive than anything else, so she had never considered the idea of advanced classes. If a kid required special tutoring, she automatically assumed they were behind the game.
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