|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 8:59 pm
Going to public school took getting used to. It was much easier to be late to class when you had to go further than a couple buildings over. Teachers were less inclined to be understanding when you weren't a gifted student at a special school. The class sizes were bigger, the school was bigger, and that made it harder to stand out. For a while, Tara was sure she would hate it.
But every day, lunchtime made her change her mind. If Meadowview had anything over Barren Pines- aside from the fact that it (hopefully) wasn't trying to kill them all- it was the fact that there were no assigned meal groups.
Tara didn't really know anybody yet, but she was content to sit at a table by herself, with her newly purchased Star Wars lunchbox next to her. She had told her brother in no uncertain terms that she was sick of school lunches, and went grocery shopping with him to make sure that there was plenty of food suitable for quick and easy lunching.
So it really wasn't a surprise to open her lunchbox and find a cracker-stacker Lunchables kit there. It didn't matter that she probably looked like she was five, Tara punched her fist in the air and set about stacking crackers with slices of mass-produced "cheese" and "ham," all the while humming the theme from E.T.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Jan 19, 2010 2:49 pm
Lunch was a daunting thing, to be overcome by determination and planning only.
In this case however, there hadn't been much planning. With the (awful, terrible) result of Aggie not having anywhere to sit - all her friends (or the people she'd leeched onto and desperately called friends, in some cases) were sitting with someone else, at already packed tables.
It was times like these she really, really missed the seating arrangements from Barren Pines.
"Um, h-hi. Can I.. sit here?" So at least there seemed to be a few nearly-empty tables, and Aggie carefully selected the ones closest to her before greeting the sole occupant with a shy smile. Such a pretty girl! She wished she had hair like that, all shiny and dark and gorgeous.
"I-it's alright if you don't want me to, I can just, um, find somewhere else!" She shifted on her feet a bit, ready to get rejected once again.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2010 8:26 pm
Tara's arm jerked, toppling over the small tower of food. This didn't seem to upset her much, as she was now more interested in the girl who distracted her. In fact, she was elated. Someone wanted her! Was there a problem only she could help solve? A disaster in the making? Was Timmy stuck in a well?
A quick scan of the area showed that the only real problem seemed to be a lack of seats. Deflating a bit, Tara nonetheless nodded and scooted down the bench a little, to make sure that there was enough room for both of them. "Sit, sit! I could really use a second opinion on my architectural endeavors."
Without further ado she began stacking her crackers and cheese again, though she kept her eyes on the other girl as she spoke. "I'm Tara. Just transferred in." She didn't specify that she was one of the organ ring kids; if it wasn't obvious, no one had to know. "Hey, do you have any advice? I'm having a little bit of trouble settling in."
Tara doubted that advice would help the real problem- that she was used to going to a boarding school that never existed- but it couldn't hurt to ask.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 11:41 am
"S-sorry, I'm pretty new myself." Aggie smiled hesitantly and sat down her tray on the table beside the other girl's. "I'm, um, probably n-not the best person to a-ask." At least not if you wanted actual real, useful advice. She could probably make something up, but the validity wouldn't exactly be guaranteed.
"What's your problem, t-though?" Her face got red as she realised that that'd sounded much better in her head than it had out loud, "Oh gosh, I mean, oh, I'm so sorry! I d-didn't mean it like that."
"I just, um, m-maybe it'd help to talk about it?" Her bright red face clashed spectacularly with both her uniform and her hair at this point. What an awful thing to say and she'd said it!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Feb 01, 2010 7:06 pm
Another new student? Tara's eyes widened slightly. She had learned from her previous mistake of thinking she was the only newbie from Barren Pines. Not everyone could afford Crystal, after all. If this girl was another survivor, she had another chance to get more information about what had happened. At least, if she played her cards right.
While she was thinking of how to phrase her question, Aggie's words made her burst out laughing. "Don't worry about it," she said lightheartedly. "It's nothing I haven't heard before. And anyway, you're probably right. It might help to talk about it."
Pausing, Tara put a square of cheese and a circle of ham together at the top of her tower, then looked squarely at Aggie. "Have we met? I feel like I know you from somewhere."
A lie, meant to jog memories if they were there. Tara rarely remembered people she hadn't been repeatedly introduced to, but maybe this girl's memory was somewhat better.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Feb 02, 2010 6:29 am
"Y-you do look sort of familiar, but I don't t-think so?" It was voiced as question, just in case the other girl was testing her somehow.
Tara was alright though, Aggie thought as she admired the tower, she'd laughed and been and everything. Score one for new potential friend! Or score two, because the other girl had shared her table. Hmm..
"I guess we could've s-seen each other at the grocery store or something. I'm n-not very attentive at the grocery store." She hated shopping for groceries, in fact. The redhead scrunched up her face, trying to remember if she'd met the other somewhere.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Feb 02, 2010 9:07 pm
Well, that was a bust. Tara couldn't completely hide her disappointment, but she shrugged it off. "Probably my imagination then," she said, selecting a slightly crumbly cracker for the top of her tower. "I'm... new in town, sort of." Technically Barren Pines had been in town, but she wasn't sure that going to a boarding school that was never there counted, to say nothing of being dead for a while. "But that doesn't really matter, I guess."
She carefully placed the cracker atop the tower, moving slowly and steadily. It balanced perfectly. "Done!" Tara exclaimed, clapping her hands together with pride. A bad move, since the movement was enough to topple the topmost layers of her construction.
"Ah well." Sighing, Tara popped the cracker into her mouth and thought about where to go with the conversation. If this girl was just a run of the mill new student, she wouldn't be able to help with much information. Which meant that maybe it was her turn to be useful. "So, grocery shopping's boring. What kind of shopping do you get into? Or is there something else that gets your motors running?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Feb 09, 2010 9:00 am
"Oh n-no!" She looked much more devastated at the collapse of the Tower of Lunch than its creator did; it'd looked way cooler than Aggie's boring, unstackable lunch did.
And it was a much, much better topic than her own hobbies. Anything was, really.
"Oh hey, I'm n-new in town too!" Like that, the awkwardest shift of conversation ever. But it was better than discussing her own dorky interests, she held onto as the plastic smile on her face started to crack slightly. "So, um, w-where did you live before? My hobbies are all, like, v-very boring. Mmhmm. S-so what do you do? I mean, spare-time-ish. Or, um, if you have a j-job or something because that doesn't really count as spare time but it's still something you do, right?" Que awkward laugh. Let's see her get through that barrage and find the red herring!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2010 11:26 pm
"It's okay," Tara said reassuringly. "We can rebuild it. We have the technology."
As if to prove her point, she took a cracker and a piece of cheese and started building again, slowly. "It's kind of like matter. I mean, it is matter, obviously. But think about it. Matter can neither be created nor destroyed. Things might fall apart, but the pieces are still there, so you can always do something with them. Or," she added, swallowing a piece of cheese with minimal chewing, "turn into energy. See?"
Tara winked. She loved talking about what she was interested in. While she was curious about the other new girl, boring interests or no, she did like to spread the word about awesome stuff. "I don't have a job yet, but I should probably start looking. Other than that, the usual stuff. Cheerleading. Lightsaber combat. Alien tracking. Science-"
She paused in the middle of saying "Science Club." Technically she wasn't part of Meadowview's club, having been unable to approach it yet. The memories of that fatal day at Barren Pines were still too strong. Someday, she told herself, she'd be able to go back and enjoy it. But not yet.
"I'm looking into the AV Club though. It would be fun to learn to use all that equipment-" or more accurately, mess around with the equipment- "don't you think?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Feb 11, 2010 1:05 am
"T-that is.. awesome." She'd be lying if she said she'd ever thought about things that way; science (and some would argue, thought) was not something that often made a scene in Aggie's life. Sure, she had an alright grasp on it - had to, really, to read the books she prefferred - but it wasn't something she applied or thought about regarding everyday things.
Like impressively impressive Towers of Lunches, Now in Plural! (tm)
"Yeah, that d-does sound fun. Do y'think t-they get to like, make their own short films and s-stuff?" That'd be sort of cool, actually. "And what s-sort of job are you looking for? Maybe I could help k-keep an eye out."
And that'd totally be a good excuse to get Tara to talk to her again sometime. (Which'd definitely make them count as friends, right?)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Feb 11, 2010 1:29 am
Tara nodded sagely, glad to see that they were on the same wavelength. "It is most definitely awesome. Kind of one of the few things that makes school bearable. It takes getting used to, I guess... my last school was kind of special."
If by 'special' you meant 'not really there except to kill everyone who wasn't already dead,' of course.
"I hadn't thought about that," Tara admitted, genuinely intrigued. "I'm not really sure what they do there, except that it involves cameras and projectors and other techno-gizmos. But that's part of why I want to try it, you know? To see what they let us do." Or more accurately, what they let the students get away with when no one was looking.
As for the job, Tara frowned and stacked two pieces of ham on top of each other. "I really haven't thought about that either." Did she think about anything other than lunch and atoms? Perhaps not. "Not food, if I can avoid it. Retail would be okay, I guess. I mean, it's not like they're going to give high school kids decent jobs."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Feb 11, 2010 1:42 am
"Yeah, mine was, um, special too." She smiled, feeling a bit of common ground. Bonding time!
"W-well, it's probably maintenance, b-but they'd have to do stuff themselves too, r-right? I mean like, the art clubs sometimes have e-exhibitions and stuff. Like that, right?" If that made any sense at all - Aggie had the fleeting notion that really ought to work on her coherence sometime. "I think you s-should, though. It sounds f-fun." She did her best to smile encouragingly, because it really did sound sort of fun (she'd never really thought about that, either).
"I g-guess not. Cash register stuff would be, um, pretty nice though. You could like, meet people and stuff. A-and I guess you wouldn't need to take the work home or anything, l-like if you were in an office."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Feb 11, 2010 2:07 am
"That's right," Tara said, getting exciting. "I mean, it's not like we can have a display of the proper cleaning of VCR heads. Do you know if Meadowview has a film club? If not, we should talk to the AV people about it!" She paused. "If there is an AV club."
She said she was looking into it. She never said it existed. But if it didn't, Tara felt it would be pretty easy to get one moving. Having students take care of equipment so that the teachers didn't have to had to be a good thing for everyone involved. Even better if they could make movies!
"Eh, I'm not sure working as a cashier is stimulating... but not taking work home would be nice. Homework is bad enough." Tara was talking easily, but something was bugging her. Something she was overlooking. They both went to special schools, they were both new in school and new in town, entering at the same time. Tara believed in coincidence, but this seemed like evidence to the contrary. She needed to know, one way or the other, and the only way was to ask.
"Were you one of the organ ring kids?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2010 7:32 pm
"Y-yeah, that'd be a pretty boring display." She grimaced and then smiled, happy that they seemed to be getting along. Maybe she needn't have been so worried about starting at a new school in first place? Tara, at least, seemed to bode well for the niceness of the other students. "Well, t-there's gotta be one of them, right? I mean, um, maybe not both clubs at the same s-school, but there's bound to be at least one f-film-oriented club, I'm sure."
"Homework is awful, especially English homework." There was a vehemence in Aggie's voice and a lack of stuttering that spoke of confidence in her subject - but then again, what (semi-)normal teenager couldn't vouch for the horribleness of homework? It was a well-known thing.
Which was why the sudden jump in subject came as a bit of a surprise. Or maybe it was just the blunt way the question had been delivered.
"W-what?" Aggie blinked, looking taken aback and just a bit confused. What sort of thing was that to spring on someone else? They'd gotten along, right? She hadden made any sort of hidden faux pass.. had she? "Um, w-why do you ask?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2010 11:05 pm
Tara shrugged and took a sip of her fruit punch juice box. "Film-oriented, sure. But I don't want to just watch films, unless they're really specific films. I didn't even want to make them until you suggested it, but wouldn't it be fun? And then we could be responsible for the recording and the editing and the displaying, and that's all AV-related. If it doesn't exist, we should try to get them to start one.
"And tell me about it," she continued, sighing. "I hate English too. It's just essay after essay, and they take so long! There's so much more important stuff to do than write ten pages on why authors are boring." Because in Tara's opinion, most authors she read in school were boring. Sadly, wormhole theory was not on the suggested reading list.
Tara tried to judge the reaction, but she really couldn't tell. "I was," she admitted, since the subject had come up. "It just occurred to me. The new kids I think are strangers are from there, so it was a guess. But I guess I was wrong, huh? Ooops."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
