Why do we do this job? on Sonora Lounges

DH Skies

February 18, 2018 11:52 PM

Why do we do this job? by DH Skies

On the plus side, immediately after she’d finished with the intermediate class, it was lunchtime. On the downside, wine was not a socially acceptable option at lunch in the middle of the week. Deciding that the student body en masse was not something she particularly wanted to look at right now, she collected her usual lunch of a baguette and a piece of fruit (except she replaced the fruit with cake, because she felt that was entirely justified today) and retreated to the staff room.

She was used to the intermediates presenting certain challenges, but mostly it was ogling each other instead of concentrating, and the occasional melodramatic break up, either of a couple or of friends over the subject of a boy/girl. Whilst she never liked dealing with those issues, she had raised two daughters, and was perfectly adept at everything teenage girls could throw at her - Krisalyn had been next to no trouble in herself, but she had been pretty and popular which attracted its own genre of cliqueness and backstabbing, whilst Emarette had been the stereotypical wild child, dyeing her hair and rebelling against her mother. Boys she was less used to, but they mostly just needed to be taught not to be jerks to girls and be left to figure out how to be less disgusting.

“Are the intermediates being awful to you too, or am I special?” she asked wearily as another member of the faculty came in. “I had a fire from Mr. Sparks - which was “an accident,” - and then someone dyed my hair pink,” she added.

13 DH Skies Why do we do this job? 26 DH Skies 1 5

Professor Wright

February 20, 2018 6:22 PM

Money, dear boss. by Professor Wright

There were many things Gray was good at. Keeping track of smallish objects was not one of them. He was sure he had had a letter he’d received yesterday in his pocket this morning, but now he did not have it, and so he was retracing his steps. He was reasonably sure he had dropped in the faculty lounge between breakfast and his first class, and so at lunchtime, he went back there again to look for the letter.

A quick glance did not immediately reveal it, which was a disappointment and left him stumped. If it was not here, then either an elf had gotten it, a student had gotten it, or it was somewhere in the masses of paper that constituted Gray’s room or Gray’s desk. All of those options failed to appeal. As he had no chance of digging through all the papers in his room or his desk in the space of lunch, however, he nodded to Selina, who seemed to be taking some refuge in cake, and was trying to think of another excuse when the Deputy Headmistress spoke on a different topic.

“Not today – so far,” he amended. “But we had, uh, a bit of a – fuss yesterday. Jozua Sparks…I think he tried to ask Lily Spencer out, and, you know, adolescents, stress, it’s a Ball year. Or that’s what they tell me, anyway. Nothing happened to me, though,” he added to round off this comment and confirm that Selina had had it worse, with fire and pink hair.

16 Professor Wright Money, dear boss. 113 Professor Wright 0 5

DH Skies

February 22, 2018 7:48 AM

I'm going to start demanding much more of it at this rate by DH Skies

“Jozua? And Lily? It was them that were playing up in my class too. I mean, I didn’t catch Lily doing anything but she was certainly finding it all very amusing,” she explained, rather overlooking the fact that, at Lily’s age, she possibly would have found a teacher with bright pink hair amusing too, or that amusement at that did not necessarily warrant suspicion. “I’m not sure I’d quite buy Mr. Sparks’ excuses. I don’t remember this sort of thing happening last time. Was it fire again?” she asked. Jozua had always been a bit more fire-prone than the average student, but she also had the sneaking suspicion that Daniel was right and that wasn’t entirely an accident. The fact that he had always done it… It worked as a point for both sides, but it certainly didn’t enhance his credibility as a fine upstanding student.

“I did wonder whether…. Cleo,” she sighed, feeling bad for suggesting it, but it certainly seemed like something strange was going on. “She wasn’t that far away. But she’s not responsible for my hair, that’s for certain. So, unless she’s causing the chaos and then someone else is taking advantage of that to try and pull a prank… I suppose we just keep being vigilant.”

13 DH Skies I'm going to start demanding much more of it at this rate 26 DH Skies 0 5

Professor Wright

February 22, 2018 3:14 PM

I don't suppose you'd add the rest of us to your petition? by Professor Wright

Gray frowned slightly in thought as Selina described the situation in her room in more detail, and her suspicions that Jozua was perhaps lying about the source of his trouble. He had seemed very sincere in Gray’s class, but as Selina pointed out, Gray had really not been back at Sonora for very long. He liked to think that it was unlikely that Jozua was really just That Good of an actor, but….

“No, it wasn’t fire with me,” said Gray when asked. “Sparks – not his last name. They were….” Gray wondered why the English language hated him so much sometimes. He had been its devoted slave since he was barely old enough to hold a pencil – his mother had photographs of him, about age six, sitting at a far-too-large desk in a corner of the living room, scribbling his ‘novels.’ These had usually consisted of one badly-spelled paragraph, but he’d had the ambition even if not the skill. His spelling had gradually improved, but putting words in the right order was still often more task than pleasure.

He gave up the task this time in favor of taking his wand and causing it to emit a few blue sparks. “Sparks like that – I don’t remember the color, but magical sparks.” There were the two words he’d been looking for. “Everywhere, but mostly toward Lily.”

He hesitated, wondering if he had the nerve to more or less contradict or question his employer by explaining that he had found Jozua’s performance quite convincing – the apologizing and actively asking for help getting it stopped and then worrying about Lily’s well-being later. It had seemed genuine enough to Gray, but, well, he was not an administrator or even someone who’d been dealing with this for years. He and Daniel were the new guys, and Gray specifically the one whose previous job had largely entailed creating scenarios where kid heroes or stand-ins for same were not actually in the wrong. His judgement was possibly not to be trusted….

“Of course,” he said when Selina brought up the specter of the Intermediate class’ other major firestarter. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think she had anything to do with what happened in my class – Jozua said he’d had a similar problem one time over the summer before school started, so Cleo obviously wasn’t affecting him then.”

16 Professor Wright I don't suppose you'd add the rest of us to your petition? 113 Professor Wright 0 5

Selina

February 23, 2018 7:01 AM

We, the undersigned, demand danger money. Seems fair. by Selina

“Hm,” Selina frowned, as Gray explained the sparks. “That does seem more like something he’d do by accident - I mean, I can’t imagine him wanting to do that to Lily. Hopefully not to most of his classmates to be honest, but especially not her.” Had she been too harsh on him, and the rest of the intermediates? “But really, he should have nonsense like that under control, especially if it’s nothing to do with Cleo,” she added, as Gray explained that the incident definitely seemed unrelated.

“So… Our conclusion is what? Cleo’s… ‘fine,’” she used air quotes to demonstrate that she knew this was a relative value of ‘fine’ that did not really encompass Cleo’s overall wellbeing but merely the fact that she was inciting her yearmates to set fire to things. “But Jozua has turned into some kind of horrible problem child? I mean… more so,” she clarified. On the plus side, that meant it was less her problem and more- oh. Damn. Again. How and why did this keep happening? She glanced around, checking that neither Nathan nor Isis was in eashot, and lowering her voice anyway as she muttered to Gray.

“Do you think Nathan’s just cursed? Surely Teppenpaws, and sweet little girls who like gardening, should not normally be this much of a handful?”

13 Selina We, the undersigned, demand danger money. Seems fair. 26 Selina 0 5

Gray

February 23, 2018 9:21 AM

If our demands are not met, we'll unleash the Scary Tepps. by Gray

When Selina began glancing around, Gray was momentarily nervous, worried about what was going to come up now, but it just turned out to be semi-serious (at least he hoped it was only semi-serious) speculation about poor Nathan and his ever-increasing web of complications involving students.

“I don’t know,” he said, also in a lowered tone. “They shouldn’t be, but – Teppenpaws aren’t what they were like when I was here,” he said. He paused for a moment after saying that, thinking through each word and how they went together before saying, “Oh Merlin, I think I’m officially old,” in a flat, matter-of-fact sort of way before continuing, “but they aren’t – when I first got here, Daniel mentioned Jozua, of course, but he also said Joseph Umland tried to hit the headmaster one time, too! I’m glad those two aren’t in the same class anymore – in my day – “ he officially, he thought, needed some damn kids to chase off his lawn, but while there were plenty of kids all around, he lacked a lawn at present – “Teppenpaws just didn’t do that, you know? We didn’t even have many Pecaris who did – and I don’t think any of them even would’ve gone for the boss,” he added in fairness to his old classmates. “I think it’s just these kids, not Nathan. Unless Nathan’s cursed somehow so all these kids show up now,” he added, covering all possibilities he could think of offhand the way he would in a brainstorming session with other show writers.

16 Gray If our demands are not met, we'll unleash the Scary Tepps. 113 Gray 0 5

Selina

February 23, 2018 10:25 AM

Seems reasonable by Selina

“Wait until you teach the children of the first set of children you taught. That’s a super fun one. Wait until you have colleagues born the same year as your own children,” Selina retorted, when Gray had the audacity to say he felt old. “Especially colleagues born the same year as your youngest child, who then sit and complain about feeling old,” she added, giving him a wry smile.

“I think technically he tried to hit John Umland, and the headmaster just… got in the way. And John… I mean. Obviously students should never hit each other. But there are some who you feel much less surprised than others when it finally happens, put it that way. Anyway, Joe’s not continued to be a menace. Has he?” she checked. He had never been a menace to her, but she was aware that she was quite firm and had impressive seniority, and Gray… Gray looked more like a librarian than the librarian did.

“Ok, so it’s either Jozua specifically, rampant Teppenpaws with a lack of due respect and adequate Teppishness, or Nathan being cursed?” she summarised. “I suppose dealing with cursed faculty would make it my problem again… Maybe we should get the Prarie elves to check the water supply to Teppenpaw?” she suggested, starting to feel somewhat better. Yes, the students were all mad and out of control, but at least they could still laugh about it.

13 Selina Seems reasonable 26 Selina 0 5

Gray

February 23, 2018 8:10 PM

Excellent. I’ll gather the cavalry. by Gray

It took Gray a moment to catch the implication in what Selina was saying, and then he looked surprised. Due to his glasses and none-too-distinguished chin, he knew this was an absurd look on him. “Really?” he said without thinking. “Huh. Wouldn’t have thought that.” Which was more because it was difficult to think of his colleagues here having such elaborate lives off the school compound than because Selina looked dramatically younger than his mother, but he had enough sense not to clarify. “Still - I accept your argument and withdraw that remark.”

John Umland...aside from presumably being related to Joe, the name rang a bell - oh! He’d been one of the seventh years the term Gray had started teaching. Gray wouldn’t have remembered him particularly except he had been odd even by Aladren standards - withdrawn into his own world to the point it was hard to tell if he’d ever heard a word Gray had said, but given to performing with almost openly contemptuous ease. Which would explain Selina’s comment nicely, so he probably was correctly matching the person and the name.

“Not that I’ve noticed,” said Gray of Joe. “As far as I can tell he’s completely reformed and a model citizen.”

Gray nodded at the summation. “Maybe Pecari too, since Lily’s been somehow involved twice...maybe that could make it at least partially Isis’ problem.” Cursed water would also probably fall into her court, but a good rule of conversational thumb was not to point that kind of thing out.

16 Gray Excellent. I’ll gather the cavalry. 113 Gray 0 5

Selina

March 02, 2018 8:25 PM

And wine. Wine would be good. by Selina

“Thank you,” Selina said, deciding to take what Grayson had said as a compliment. When that sort of remark came from children, it usually meant that they hadn’t considered their teachers might be real human people and not beings that had simply morphed into existence for their convenience, and then who melted away when no longer in use, like the MARS room, or went back into their little boxes at the end of the day. From a fellow adult, however young a one, she thought it was more likely to be a compliment, and Selina was someone who had taken a great deal of care of her appearance. For all that the lotions and potions could not make her actually look young any more, she did look good for her age.

“Oh, I’m pretty sure when I was your age, I spent all my time bemoaning how old I felt. And all the years in between. And I’m sure that, somewhere down the line, when I’m teaching the grandchildren of the first children I taught, I’ll look back at this and wonder what I was complaining about. I think it might just be human nature. Well, maybe a certain set of us anyway… I don’t recommend it though, it you can at all help it.

“Maybe,” she nodded, when he said it might be Pecari too. Lily seemed to be a not-so-casual bystander rather than actually doing any of these things herself but… Lily and Jozua teaming up to cause chaos… Didn’t exactly sound like an unreasonable suggestion. “Guess we just all need to keep an eye out,” she shrugged. “Maybe have their heads of houses have a firm word if it carries on.”

13 Selina And wine. Wine would be good. 26 Selina 0 5