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 Posted: Tue May 03, 2011 9:31 pm
Tallulah Cowden was weeding the front flower beds with a vengeance. Spring had hit Meadowview High School hard and fast, and with it came scraggly little dandelions and clovers and all kinds of plants growing where they weren't supposed to. Not that she objected to plants growing - usually she was all for it - but today was School Beautification Day and if that wasn't enough of a reason to rip them out of the ground then she was doing it in the name of stress relief.
Because just when she'd thought she was totally okay with being Single and Fierce again, they went and announced that they were finally, actually, for real this time, going to have Prom. It was all pomp and circumstance, but the sight of happy couples made her throw up a little in her mouth.
Tallulah rocked back on her heels and surveyed the empty flowerbed before her. She needed flowers!
She turned around and shouted back towards the group mingling at the landscaping truck. "Can someone bring me those flats of pansies?"
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Posted: Tue May 03, 2011 10:26 pm
Andrea was not too terribly stressed out lately in general, aside from some concern over his grades in mathematics, but he had plenty of opportunities to exercise to relieve it anyway. Dance classes had picked up a bit again, and he now seemed to have the workouts from running around on rooftops at night that came with the territory of being a senshi. School Beautification Day was just an extra benefit, even though maybe the black-haired boy didn't really need that much extra exercise.
He was working different muscles in soem cases, at least, which he figured could be beneficial.
An awkward encounter from several nights before had Andrea's mind sort of uncomfortably tied up with the thoughts of relationships, too, though, with Prom on the horizon and all. He was figuring he just sort of wouldn't go, unless his friends wanted to go and bring him along. The socializing was fun with friends, but all things Relationship ... just kind of made him feel weird lately. Bad weird.
He snapped back to reality as he caught a request for a flat of pansies and realized he had maybe been standing around leaning on a pitchfork for way too long. There were like three other guys there waiting to move mulch around anyway, and none of them seemed to be making a move for the flowers.
Andrea rubbed his forehead with an arm, then picked up the wheelbarrow that had been preciously balanced with flowers in his gloved hands to roll it over to where the girl who had made the request was kneeling. Then he picked one of the plastic containers of flowers out of the barrow.
"Are they okay just right here next to you?" he asked. "And how many do you think you need here? Is this bed supposed to be all pansies, or do we have to split them between this spot and the one on the other side of the door?" Someone had made a diagram somewhere, he was pretty sure, dictating what flowers went where, but Andrea had only seen it earlier and was not sure where it had gotten to since then.
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Posted: Wed May 04, 2011 5:58 am
Tallulah pulled a rumpled photocopy out of her shorts' pocket and unfolded it. She tapped the main entrance on the diagram. "Yeah, they both get pansies," she said, hopping to her feet. She went over to the wheelbarrow and found some shovels rattling around at the bottom.
"You want to help me plant?" she asked, quirking an eyebrow at the younger student. He looked familiar in that way that the entire student body started to look familiar after a while - you passed them in the halls, but she wasn't sure if she could put a name to the face.
She set the shovels down by the edge of the flower bed and lifted the second flat of pansies out of the wheelbarrow. Her lips curled thoughtfully as she carried them to a place beside the first.
She looked at the diagram again. "Doesn't say anything about the colors," she sighed in frustration. "Guess we're just making a pattern up, huh?"
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Posted: Wed May 04, 2011 7:54 pm
Andrea knelt beside her on the grass, knitting his gloved fingers together for a moment and stretching his arms upwards. He glanced back to the other boys hanging around the truck full of mulch who were apparently just standing around waiting for someone to need help lifting something, then back to the girl here with the flowers. There were other students scattered about helping here, too, and another handful combing the sports fields for garbage. Flowers seemed fine.
"Yeah, sure," he told her with a small smile. Leaning over a little, he glanced over the creased piece of paper with the directions for what flowers went well, and nodded. "Just tell me what colors to put where," Andrea added with a laugh. "Not sure if I could come up with anything interesting on the fly, unless 'random' counts as 'interesting'." He chuckled lightly and reached for a trowel.
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Posted: Sat May 07, 2011 9:26 pm
Tallulah rocked back on her heels, examining the flats of flowers. There were two colors, white and a nice Meadowview orange kind of shade. Very school spirited, if she did say so herself. "Maybe... well, you can never go wrong with alternating rows, can you?" she asked.
"Or, hmmm...." she studied the shape of the beds some more. "Diagonals? What do you think, um..."
She frowned slightly at the boy. "Sorry, what was your name?" she asked. "I'm Tallulah."
He might have known that. She'd made a little bit of a name for herself around the school, but it wasn't like she was anyone particularly important. And besides, it was rude to assume. "I guess we can just kind of lay them out in the pots and move them around until it looks right," she said, after a bit more thought, and pulled the nearest flat of flowers towards her.
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Posted: Sun May 08, 2011 12:36 pm
Andrea attempted to strike an appropriate balance between "reading the paper over her shoulder" and "being creepy", then sat back on his heels, figuring he would just leave the artistic planning to her. "Diagonals sounds cool," he offered, then chuckled lightly. "It'll look like we put more effort into it than if we just randomly arrange them."
When she introduced herself, he tugged off his work glove and extended his right hand to shake. "Oh, I'm Andrea. And it's fine." People had sort of been coming and going, moving around, walking off to different parts of the school grounds; there had been no real formal start to the landscaping venture. He smiled. "Pleased to meet you."
He got up to a crouch when she reached for the flowers, and put his glove back. Resting his elbows on his knees, the boy asked, "Do we put like, one flower in each hole or all four of the ones in each little box? I'm not really sure how big these grow and how much space they need and all." Andrea laughed softly again. "I mostly came to help with the heavy lifting, sorry. Don't know a whole lot about flowers. Just tell me what to do!"
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Posted: Sun May 08, 2011 5:48 pm
"One root ball, one hole," said Tallulah, lifting up a plastic container of pansies. "They spread out a bit, I've planted these before."
She motioned to the flowerbed, quickly doing the math in her head. "Put them about half a foot apart," she declared, holding her hands up to demonstrate what was roughly six inches. It might have been eight. "If you don't think we'll have enough we can space them out more, but don't put them closer."
She scrambled out into the flower bed. "Just alternate them, okay? White and orange, and start each row with a different color, they'll wind up diagonal..."
There were tricks to this, see? Tallulah wielded her shovel with cathartic glee. Zen and the art of gardening, right? "Anyways," she said over her shoulder as she eased the flowers out of their container. "What year are you, Andrea? I'm graduating soon..."
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Posted: Sun May 08, 2011 7:07 pm
Andrea's eyes gazed upwards as he visualized the finished layout, then nodded. "Okay, I can do that," he agreed. "And I think there might be ooone more flat of these back in the truck," he added, twisting around to glance back at the landscaping truck.
Picking up two containers of pansies, he crept carefully across to the top of what would become a flowerbed, and sat down again. "I guess I'll start sort of in the middle and work towards the top here, so I'm not leaning over flowers later." He stretched out on hands and knees to fetch his trowel, then counted the rows before selecting an orange flower to put in the first spot.
"Oh, I'm a sophomore," Andrea replied with a nod, then offered a faint sympathetic smile. "Is it nice with graduation so close? Or does it just make finals and all more stressful?" One of those things he had always wondered about, but had not really asked his upperclassmen friends about it. "Congratulations, though, either way, for sure. Two years seems like a long enough time in high school already."
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Posted: Sun May 08, 2011 8:04 pm
Tallulah considered the question as she dug another hole. "Finals are... mostly done. It's actually pretty low stress, everyone knows where they're going to college, the only thing left is the race for valedictorian..."
A race which, sadly, senshi activities had knocked her out of. Tallulah sighed through her teeth and and plonked a plant into the hole. "You're almost halfway done!" she said, with semi-forced cheerfulness. "It goes by really fast, I swear to god."
It was true: the last two school years had felt really quick. The last two years as a pretty-shorted crime fighter? Not so fast. "And then you'll be wearing a dorky cap and gown and shaking the principal's hand, listening to some kid you barely know give a speech about how your class is such a close family."
Clearly, Tallulah was not much for pomp and circumstance. Since her Ivy League dreams had been crushed, she just wanted her diploma and for things to be over with.
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Posted: Sun May 08, 2011 9:13 pm
Andrea laughed and nodded. "I guess it feels kind of weird that it's so late in the year already, but each individual day seems to drag on so slowly." He carefully removed an orange flower from its little plastic container and set it into the hole he had dug, then used his hand to push soil back around the stem. Occasional glances at Tallulah's work reassured him that he was doing his more or less properly.
He carefully lined up the next spot for a flower with his digging partner's current hole, then, and frowned at the dirt as he started digging again. "Evenings go so fast, though. I hate how school drags on and then my time outside it seems to go so fast. All of the excitement and activity that I don't have in class, I guess." He glanced up at her again briefly. "I guess after this year, I won't even have phys ed to wake me up right before lunch, either."
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Posted: Sun May 08, 2011 9:38 pm
Tallulah nodded in approval at Andrea's flower placement. "I mean, yeah," she agreed, moving on down the row. "I'm super busy, with the swimming season wrapping up," she sighed. The city championship was coming up, and their shot at beating Crystal was as long as ever.
She raised an inquisitive eyebrow at him as she futzed around with the flowers some more. Surely he'd explain more about his after school activities if she just gave him time. It couldn't be, could it?
Well, you never knew.
"Sorry," said Tallulah, "Are you in a sport or something?"
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Posted: Sun May 08, 2011 10:51 pm
"Oh, yeah, something like that," he replied evasively, taking a white pansy to plant next in line. It had never really crossed his mind to tell anyone about the whole Sailor Vindemiatrix gig; he had been referring to his ballet. Which was considerably more mundane, but also something he was decidedly reluctant to share. Especially in high school. With new people. Tallulah seemed nice and all, but he had just met her; no reason to be an open book.
"How's swimming going this year?" Andrea then asked, lining up his next flower and striking the soil with his trowel. "Is the team very big this year?"
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Posted: Tue May 17, 2011 6:51 am
"Pretty big," nodded Tallulah, still giving him a strange look. Something like a sport? The definition of sport was pretty wide. How could something be 'something like a sport'? She shoved a pansy into the ground, perhaps too forcefully, as her thoughts swung back to swimming. "It's... augh. I've spent four years of my life trying to beat crystal and no. We don't stand a chance of beating them at the city meet."
She moved on to the next pansy. "It must be the powder blue suits. They're magically treated to move faster or something. Four years on swim team and all it's done is gotten me a job teaching swim lessons and sitting tower duty this summer."
Not that she was complaining. It was a job that came with a free pool pass all summer long.
"So, how is something 'sort of like a sport?'" she asked, quirking an eyebrow at him as she squatted back on her heels. "Is that what we're calling costumed superhero theatrics these days?"
An awkward beat. She couldn't be serious, could she?
"I'm only joking," added Tallulah, tossing her empty pansy tray aside and going for another.
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Posted: Wed May 18, 2011 7:16 pm
Andrea shrugged a little, carefully patting dirt around the roots of his latest newly planted flower. "A job isn't all bad, though." He looked up at her and offered a small smile. "And you haven't lost yet, right? I wish you guys the best."
He fumbled his trowel a little at her next question, at once unable to keep himself from staring at her and also hoping that any sunburn he might have picked up beautifying campus would help hide if he should happen to blush or anything. Give any indication that she had actually hit fairly close to home with the "costumed superhero theatrics".
"Oh," Andrea laughed when Tallulah added that she had been joking. "I meant that I do dancing," he replied honestly. That had been what he was thinking of; it was just not something he usually brought up, certainly with people he had never met before. "It's a workout for sure, and I do competitions, but, you know, not everyone considers it quite a sport."
This just made him all feel a little more awkward. Andrea focused on planting the next pansy, and asked after a moment, "How long have you been into gardening?" in an effort to change the topic.
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Posted: Thu May 19, 2011 7:57 pm
"Since this morning," replied Tallulah, pulling a face and gesturing with her shovel. It was between this and pressure washing the courtyard and painting chalk lines on the football field. What would you do?
"Well, actually, no," she added. "My dad makes me help him with his roses." Woe be unto any late-night teenaged superheroes who trampled Angus Cowden's rose bushes. Prime offender? One Tallulah Cowden, who had spent three weekends in the dead of winter helping her father try to breathe life back into his crumpled beauties.
"Dancing's cool," she added, smiling at him. There were people who said swimming wasn't a sport, either, so they were kind of in the same boat. "What kind? Ballet? Tap? ...Clog?"
Well, probably no to the last one. But you never knew.
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