Hanging together sounds nice in a not so morbid sense on Library

Alicia Bauer

June 22, 2013 3:25 PM

Library Tour. by Alicia Bauer

Alicia noticed that her reflection in the surface of her tea – green, since she needed soothing more than stimulation, the vegetal nature of the Chinese base softened by an overlay of five different flowers – was wavering, and that was how she noticed her hand was shaking, just a little. Carefully, using both hands, now, she took another sip, then put the cup down on the tray again. She could fix breaks easily, but she didn’t want to slop the liquid down the front of her dress. It had taken far too long to decide what to wear one time, she couldn’t go through the whole process again.

To calm herself, she thought of the preparations she had made. She had combed through books until she found a map of the library she could work with, copying it and covering over out of date shelf labels and shrinking it so she would have an accurate diagram of the shelves as they were today for the pamphlets she had made, double the number of them that there were of first years. She had made and remade those pamphlets three times, not because of her customary drafting habit, but because she hadn’t liked the color of paper they were on. She had tried out three different sizes of pale blue papers before deciding which ones to draw arrows on and space out among the more remote shelves, allowing anyone who got turned around by some of the side areas and dead ends of the Sonora library to navigate back to the central aisle which would bring them back to the circulation desk. She had personally checked that nothing seemed too dirty or out of place this morning, and had corrected it if it was. She had put almost as much effort into this as she had into planning activities for her friends last year during the challenges, and that meant it couldn't be too bad. She didn't do too bad even when she didn't care at all, which wasn't the case here.

Standing up, she ran her hands nervously over the front of her dress, knowing she had done all she could do to make a sixteen-year-old girl look the part of someone people should listen to as well. She had picked, after several tries, a simple, straight dark brown dress with a pattern of small light blue flowers, a sleeveless garment which covered her from neck to knees otherwise. Her shoes were also dark and sensible, round-toed and low-heeled. A few years ago, that second attribute would have been a problem, but she had noticed, to her surprise, near the end of the summer that she couldn’t really be called a short girl anymore. Her thick, glossy dark brown hair was mostly in a low bun, with her bangs sweeping across her forehead on one side and pinned behind her ear. Her only jewelry was a pair of plain gold earrings, and her make-up had been carefully done to seem as natural as her skill allowed. She thought she looked…not too professional, but not just like a casual student, either.

She just hoped she was right about that being the right look for this. All these years with Miss Diaz had left her with a lot of useful skills, but a sure sense for librarian fashion was not one of them.

Whether she was right or wrong, though, it was nearly eleven. She stood beside a small table with the pamphlets, holding their maps and wonderful descriptions of some of the cool things which could be found in the library and a few ‘legends’ she had run across or made up herself and an assurance that they would always find a friendly staff of monitors and assistants around to help them even though she had not a clue how scheduling would practically work out when everyone had classes, and smiled, forcing down her anxiety about how this might be received by both her peers and the Powers That Were in favor of putting forth nothing but confidence. At the very least, if people showed up, she could do this right, and worry about the consequences later.

She had a speech prepared, and had rehearsed it until she felt she could deliver it very naturally: “Hi, everyone! Welcome to the library, I’m so glad to see you here. I’m Alicia Bauer, I’m one of the student volunteers who helps out around here, and I’m going to kind of give everyone an overview of what we have here in the library. Right now, we’re at the circulation desk, this is where you’ll come to check out books and to return them. We don’t have a librarian right now, so you’ll see me or one of the other Monitors here a lot. We’ve also got our magazines and some papers and a group area just over here if you want to hang out – quietly – with your friends here instead of just studying.

“Probably the thing everyone will be most interested to know is that we've got the books on the mandatory subjects you’re going to take here at Sonora – your Charms, COMC, Defense, Potions, Transfiguration, you see. Beyond that we have more specialized resources, books about other subjects – those can be really good for supplementing your papers with, trust me, or helping you understand something from class better, or just really great for learning something you didn’t know about before. If you look at the maps in the pamphlets I gave you, you can see where pretty much everything is, including stuff for light reading – fiction, poetry, we have some comics, I think, that kind of thing. I hope all of you check that out sometimes.

“If you look at the ends of the aisles, you’ll see there’s some blue squares on them. Those won’t always be there. Those are up specially for today, and maybe the next week. As you go through the stacks, you’ll see more of those, they’ll point you back toward the middle of the room and the aisle leading up to the circulation desk if you get lost. That’s…not too hard to do when you’re new here, I did it myself a few times when I was a first year, but there’s almost always someone who can help you out soon if you need it, so don’t worry about that.

“Okay, if no one has any questions right now, you can take some time, look around, and I’ll move around some to help you guys out if you think of something later. Thanks for coming, and come get a pamphlet if you don’t have one.”

After, she thought she might need to scrub her brain with sandpaper, because being that upbeat for extended periods of time was about that grating to her, but it would work for first years. Well, hopefully. It would only do anything if there were first years to be upbeat around, so she guessed she had better take things one problem at a time.

OOC: First of all, Alicia, despite what she might wish to believe, is not staff, and so no first years are obliged, IC or OOC, to have shown up. If they do, assume she delivered her speech; if not, assume she waited around for about half an hour, stormed off, then came back two or three hours later to get her pamphlets. If just one or two came, she would have very cheerfully given them a personal tour. If other monitors came, she would have introduced them after she introduced herself, as “And these are my friends, [names here], they work in here, too”.

Think that covers most possibilities. Beyond that, posting works like classes/the feast/the pool party – you can break off into sub-threads without talking to Alicia directly. Enjoy!

16 Alicia Bauer Library Tour. 210 Alicia Bauer 1 5

Waverly Canterbury

June 24, 2013 10:34 PM

Joining in by Waverly Canterbury

Waverly had been pleasantly surprised to receive a note from Alicia concerning a library tour. She didn't really know Alicia all that personally, but she did see her often in classes and with library stuff. Waverly also knew Alicia as one of the only girls in the pureblood clique that had seemed to form. The only person Waverly had ever really talked to in that group was Cepheus Princeton, but he hadn't left a very nice taste in her mouth. She didn't think all purebloods were like that, but there were quite a few. Apparently Alicia wasn't one of them and Waverly was glad.

She dressed up for the occasion, thinking it was only proper. A little wave lingered in her naturally straight brown hair from the braid she had put it in last night, so she pinned it to the side and let the wave take it natural course. It looked so pretty Waverly smiled at herself in the mirror. With it she had put on some makeup, her pearl earrings, and the navy blue and white dress she had purchased last summer. It all looked really pretty and Waverly let herself take a little spin in front of the mirror before scrambling downstairs and making her way to the library.

Alicia was already there when Waverly arrived and she took her place by her classmate's side. "Wow," she said with a smile. "You really made the place look great." A tour of the library was a really good idea. She remembered coming here and being blown away by this place. It was part of her awe for the library that made her want to help out in the first place. Maybe this tour would be a good way to advertise the library assistant and monitor positions.

Waverly stood dutifully beside Alicia as her classmate gave a welcoming speech. She was surprised to be introduced as Alicia's friend, but she let it slide. Her Prefect badge was shining on her dress. The Pecari first-years should already know that she was their Prefect, but the other younger students could be reminded just in case they had forgotten.

Once they had all been dismissed, Waverly picked up one of the pamphlets for herself and looked through it. "These are really great," she said with a smile at Alicia. "You must've worked really hard on these." Alicia's ambition was admirable. Waverly could see Alicia as a strong potential for Head Girl even though Henny had received the prefectship this year. Though Waverly really wanted to be Head Girl herself, she didn't really consider any of the other girls of her year a rival. It was a friendly competition and an honor to be really proud of, but nothing to lose her head and her friends over. She still had the Baking Club and the Prefect badge to be really proud of.

19 Waverly Canterbury Joining in 218 Waverly Canterbury 0 5

Alicia

July 03, 2013 3:46 PM

We must all hang together, or else all hang separately. by Alicia

Alicia rarely touched others, but it wasn't because of an instinctive aversion to human contact. There were, in fact, lots of times when she really wanted to hug someone and had to restrain herself from it. Waverly Canterbury had never been one of the someones Alicia particularly wanted to hug, but when she saw the other fifth year come in dressed nicely and offering compliments, the Pecari abruptly joined the list. It was a disorienting feeling and Alicia hoped it didn’t happen again. There were too many huggable people in her life as it was and there was no future in adding anyone else to her affections, least of all Waverly.

“Aw, thank you,” she said, smiling and trying to look demurely pleased instead of a distinctly unpleasant combination of anxious and proud. She would give anything to have time to read every book in here, because surely, somewhere, someone had figured out a spell or potion which permitted control over physiological reactions like blushes and pupil dilations and other things it would help her acts a lot to be able to make happen or not happen on cue. “It’s mostly the prairie elves, though, I didn’t do that much.” She smiled again, noting the irony of their dresses – they had swapped House colors, almost. “You look really nice today,” she added cheerfully.

She refused to let her eyes either dart away from or linger on the badge. Part of her reasoning had been that if she took no risks – such as publicly setting herself up as an authority – she would reap no rewards, and partially that if there was a backlash instead of any rewards, she could at least protect Thad and Henny to some extent by seeming to be the biggest troublemaker of the lot and then hopefully talking her way out of it so they were all okay, but she knew the badge was part of why she had taken the rash (in retrospect, incredibly rash) step of associating her name with this. Before, she hadn’t done enough, so now, she had to do too much. If she ever lost again, she wanted to be able to properly hate somebody besides herself for it, because this knowing she had deserved all of the nothing she had gotten was miserable.

She might not have looked at the badge too much, but the feeling of inferiority after she saw it lingered long enough that she allowed herself a moment of self-congratulation when Waverly complimented her pamphlets. “About as much as my first homework of the year,” she admitted. “Most of the time was in research and on how to lay it out on the original. My stationer’s probably still wondering why I ordered so much colored paper right after the summer,” she joked. “I just wish we’d had the final lists of helpers this year so I could have included that, but I didn’t want to wait another week.”

Since by next week, they might all be neck deep in hot water and she might be far too busy playing lawyer to even think about first years. She did not, however, think this was really the thing to say to Waverly, who had, no doubt, never worried about whether or not her motives would be accurately deduced in her life. Sometimes, Alicia wondered if it would be as nice as it sounded to be open, or if the comforting thought that it would just be really boring could be true.

“Really, it should have been all done last Saturday, but Henny’s brother had his pool party then and I knew we couldn’t really compete with that.” She smiled to take any implied criticism of Charlie away. “Did you go to that party?” she asked. There had been a lot of people, and she hadn’t gotten around to seeing everyone while she was there even before she’d met up with Cepheus to gossip.

16 Alicia We must all hang together, or else all hang separately. 210 Alicia 0 5

Andrina Thornton

July 05, 2013 3:00 PM

Says Ben Franklin, nice line from 1776 by Andrina Thornton

Andri had seen many of the other fifth years reading messages from Alicia about a Library Tour and had seen signs. There was no way that the Aladren would allow for all of this to happen without her there. It wasn’t as if she wanted to take over, she didn’t. In fact, what she really wanted was to be there to help the first years like her cousins Rina and Mitri. Andri wasn’t really all that overwhelmed by the Library when she first started at Sonora (sure, she was a little bit, but wasn’t everyone?) however, other people weren’t as calm as she was either.

So, she wanted to be there for the first years.

In either case, she pulled out one of her blue and white sundresses for the occasion and slipped on her new white flip flops, putting her red hair up in a thick bun at the back of her head. Sure, she was almost positive she LOOKED like a Librarian, but she didn’t care. That was not her intent, but she made it work for her anyway.

The Aladren waited until just before the tour was to start and walked into the Library. She stood towards the back of the room as Alicia spoke to the lot of them. When Waverly was mentioned as Alicia’s friend, Andri was a bit confused. She hadn’t realized that Waverly had spoken to Alicia at all really. They weren’t in the same click of people. But when Alicia mentioned that SHE was her friend, she was really confused and her mouth almost dropped onto the floor. Wait… What? she thought, confusion not easing up at all.

Andri thought it would be distasteful to go over to Alicia after she finished speaking. She was a little worried something would be said that the first years didn’t need to hear, so she stayed away and waited to see if any of the first years would come up to her to ask any questions. Picking up a pamphlet as she waited, she read them to see what Alicia had come up with until she heard a tiny voice beside her.

0 Andrina Thornton Says Ben Franklin, nice line from 1776 214 Andrina Thornton 0 5

Waverly

July 05, 2013 8:43 PM

Hanging together sounds nice in a not so morbid sense by Waverly

Waverly wondered why she and Alicia had never really talked before. They did run in different circles, but it was a shame that cliques had to keep potential friends at a distance. The compliment was returned and Waverly's eyes brightened. "Thank you," she said with a tiny curtsy. Sometimes she didn't really know how to respond to compliments properly especially when people really meant it.

The mention of a stationer was unfamiliar, but Waverly shook the pamphlet in her hand. "It seriously looks really good even without the list of helpers. Waiting too long might not have been good anyway. Good job taking initiative." She smiled, meaning every word. Waverly believed in being honest with people, though tactful, and she thought if they all worked together they would make the library a really cool place. It was sad that the librarian had left like she had, but at least they, the library monitors, could still make up the library as great as possible. Even with little things like library tours and book displays they could possibly make a difference together. She was suddenly glad Alicia had taken this initiative.

There was still the thought of the Headmistress and what she would think of all this. Waverly wondered if Alicia had talked to the Headmistress about it at all. It wasn't like they were getting any of the paper from the school so it was solely the library monitors' project and Waverly thought the Headmistress ought to be proud of the fifth-years. They were actually doing things. Well, Alicia was, anyway, and Waverly would be happy to support her with this kind of project. It was crazy that she had done all this by herself.

Alicia reminded Waverly that there had been a pool party last week and she nodded. "Yeah, but I only dropped by, dipped my feet in and then left," she said a tad regretfully. "I had a lot of work and planning I had to do for the next Baking Club meeting that wasn't going to get done Sunday night." She wished she had spent more time being social at the party, but she knew it was essential to get started fast the first week or else fall behind for the rest of the term. Waverly liked being ahead of the game, but it wasn't easy and it meant a lot of long days and short nights.

"It looked like a lot of fun," she said, smiling again. "Did you go?" Then she frowned. "You heard about the new Sub Librarian, haven't you? Do you think he'll call a meeting where we'll get to meet him formally?"

OOC: I wasn't sure where to post, but since Andrina isn't a part of their conversation I'm continuing Alicia and Waverly's thread. I mean no offence!

0 Waverly Hanging together sounds nice in a not so morbid sense 0 Waverly 0 5

Alicia

July 16, 2013 11:05 AM

We can braid each other's hair and make friendship bracelets by Alicia

“Thank you,” Alicia said, blushing for real when Waverly congratulated her for taking the initiative and suppressing the urge to express regret over the idea not really being hers. She had stolen it from Miss Diaz and added a few touches of her own, which was all she ever did. Ever since she was little, Alicia had been fully aware that she was not really creative; given a problem, she could always work out a solution, and nearly always expand on someone else’s idea, but she had no ideas of her own.

Still, though the staff had probably noticed, the other students might not have, and she was not going to point that kind of thing out if she could help it. Besides, it was rude to protest too much when given a compliment, since that implied she thought the person who had paid her the compliment had poor taste and couldn’t tell good things from bad ones. There were few things Alicia would have liked more than to be rude to everyone she didn’t like and to bluntly inform most of them that if they didn’t go along with her, she wouldn’t rest until she destroyed them, but that wasn’t a privilege she had. Offense was one of those things social climbers weren’t allowed to experience or give, so she put her face on every morning and did what she had to do.

“Just trying to do my part,” she continued cheerfully. “We’re all in this together, right?”

Particularly if the staff recognized what was for her definitely and for Thad probably a power grab. They were, she thought, more likely than the others to be accused of bad intentions just because of who and what they were, both here and in the world outside. Therefore, being on good terms with the others was crucial. She just wished she could explicitly check that he was also aware of this and agreeable to using that they worked nicely with the others and the others’…traits…as defenses of their own virtues if necessary instead of trusting that he knew it. Trust just didn’t come that readily to her even with those she knew best and cared for most.

“I did,” Alicia said of the party, trying hard not to think about the implication that she wasn’t doing enough if she had time to go to a party. Socializing was not something she did to fill the time, it was no different than any of her other work, and she just had to figure out ways to work faster and later. She was a little surprised, though, to see Waverly play this game; she really had underestimated the other girl. “It was fun, all sorts of people were there.”

Which had been the downside, really, but before she had to say any more about it, Waverly caught her off-guard with something completely different. She had not heard this and wondered how on earth she had missed it.

“It would – that would be the only polite thing for him to do,” she said. And the only smart one, considering that they knew this place and the substitute, presumably, would not, but her opinion of the intelligence of anyone who had to get work as a sub was not high. It indicated a lack of networking skills. “Do you think we should take the initiative? Formally introduce ourselves as a group, or make a welcome basket, or put together some notes in a folder or something?”

As if they didn't have enough to do. This was worse than someone bringing along another, uninvited, guest of their own to a party after RSVPing for one. At least in that case, it was just a matter of discreetly slipping out another plate or something and being gracious for a few hours, where this might well last all year. "And did you hear an arrival date?" she added.

16 Alicia We can braid each other's hair and make friendship bracelets 210 Alicia 0 5