Taking an unexpected step. on Labyrinth Gardens

Grayson Wright

November 29, 2019 12:05 PM

Welcome to Orientation, New Students! by Grayson Wright

He had, Gray thought, no-one at all to blame except himself. He had actually brought up the subject of Orientation at the last staff meeting and asked if he was up for it again, which had been taken as volunteering.

Admittedly, it was not the most onerous of duties, and he had to admit that Nathan had other things going. Wife, child, that sort of thing. Gray thought most of the staff wanted a moment or two to brace themselves against the oncoming storm of a new year, but if what he understood about small children was accurate, Theodora Xavier was at just the size where Nathan and Isis were not getting such a moment right now at all. Plus, Gray had the least going on in his personal life of anyone on staff, he thought - at least so far as his coworkers knew.

In reality, his summer had been...interesting. He put it out of his mind, though, as the wagons landed and he stepped forward to play the role of usher.

“New first years over here,” he called. To help out further, there was a sign directly over his head saying “1st Years Here” - the formatting deliberate, as he figured that even any students whose English wasn’t very good would be able to recognize the Arabic numeral and make some logical deductions. They would almost surely not all be Aladrens, but developmentally, they should all have some capacity for reasoning. Just in case, though, there were other signs, arrows, pointing them toward the clearing where he would talk a lot and then allow them to ask questions or get to know each other, as they pleased. “Leave your luggage with the wagon, please - it’ll be in your dorms after the Opening Feast. New first years over here!”

Professor Grayson Wright was thirty-eight years old, fairly tall but not to the point that his height drew attention to him in most crowds. He had dark hair and dark eyes and unremarkable robes - neither expensive nor cheap - a couple of shades brighter than navy blue. If there were students who were not good with names among the little throng which came over to him, he expected he would for some time - definitely at least for the day, unless they were Aladrens - know him mainly as That Professor With the Glasses, as his glasses were more distinctive than any of his facial features. He smiled pleasantly at them once he was sure he had them all.

“Hello everyone,” he said. “My name is Professor Wright. I’m going to be your Charms teacher, and if you have the honor of joining Aladren House after the Opening Feast this evening, I’ll also be your head of House. For now, I’ll be your orientation leader. Welcome to Sonora Academy.”

He shepherded them into one of the clearings in the Labyrinth Gardens, where a running fountain stood in the center and there were three tables off to one side, away from the roped-off entrances to other paths. On the first table was a number of folders, each the same forest green color as the students’ robes. These contained class schedules, school maps, and lists of the major school rules students would be expected to follow. On the next table was a variety of snacks – sandwiches, fruits and vegetables, cupcakes, cookies, and various other finger foods – and small plates to eat these on. On the third were small glasses and a selection of water, fruit juices, and fruit punch.

“Everyone be sure to collect a folder, there’s a lot of information in there which will be helpful for you as you get settled,” he urged them, and then began the speech. After several years, he had it down pretty well. “Sonora is a seven-year school which focuses on giving you all a thorough education in magical theory and practice. You’ll start out, for your first year, with seven classes – Charms, Care of Magical Creatures, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Herbology, Potions, Transfiguration, and flying lessons. You can drop flying lessons in your second year and start other electives in your third year, if you want to. In your fifth year, you’ll take your first set of major exams, the Critical Assessment of Talents and Skills, or CATS. After that, you may select classes to focus on, though you’ll need at least two to graduate and three if you want to pursue your education in the magical arts further after you leave Sonora.

“In the meantime, we know that you all come from different educational backgrounds now,” he said, because this was true. Some might have gone to Muggle elementary schools while others might have had specialized tutors for each subject while others might have had…more unorthodox training. Most fell somewhere on a continuum between the extremes of unschooling and specialized tutors for each subject. “Your professors all have office hours when we can give you extra help in our subjects if you need it, and Professor Skies, our Deputy Headmistress and your Transfiguration teacher, runs special sessions for anyone who needs help with reading and writing English more fluently, or with basic maths, or other general academic support. You can see times for those in the schedules in your green folders.

“Outside of classes, you have options about how you spend your time. We have some student-run clubs and sports here, and you’ll see notices about meetings posted around the schools when they’re ready to start up for the year. Breakfast is from 6:30 to 8:30 a.m, lunch is from 11:00 to one, and supper is five till seven, but you can find snacks and drinks there between those times as well. Curfew is at ten p.m., and at that time, you’ll need to be inside your Houses – those are parts of the building where your dorms are attached to a common room you share with other people in all seven years who were Sorted into the same group as you . They’re four groups of rooms, and tonight, at the Welcoming Feast, you’ll be Sorted into one of them by dipping the blank badges you have now into a cauldron. If your badge turns blue, you’re an Aladren – the House that values learning and problem-solving.” He might have sounded a little proud there; he was a former Aladren as well as Head of the House. “If it turns red, you belong in Crotalus, the House for people who like to be well-prepared for everything. Yellow means you’re in Teppenpaw, the House for our diplomats – and a House which has done very well in the House Cup recently,” he added, lest Teppenpaw sound lame to them. “Finally, if your badge turns brown, that means you’re a Pecari, the House for people who always land on their feet and are always willing to take a chance. All the Houses have other traits, though, so don’t worry if you don’t think any of those things sounds exactly like you – there’s a place for everyone here at Sonora.

“Your House will have prefects, who are older students, and a Head, who is a staff member – I’m the Head of Aladren, for instance. They’ll all look after you while you’re here. Your House can earn points based on things you do – excelling in class or in sports, or showing responsibility, or somehow helping the school community and showing leadership. The House with the most points at the end of the year earns the House Cup, and sometimes other privileges – Teppenpaw House has hosted the Cup for a good while now, but last year they tied with Pecari, so anyone can win.”

“If no-one has any questions about all of that, you can mingle and get to know your classmates for a while and have some snacks until we begin our tour of the mansion. If you do have any questions, feel free to come see me – and welcome again to Sonora.”

OOC (Out of Character) Note: Welcome first years to Sonora! You can post a reply here to ask staff questions or meet your new classmates. This thread is intended for first year students to have a chance to try out posting and get acclimated to the site before we throw you into the big Opening Feast, which is open to the entire school population and can be a bit overwhelming.

Now, go forth, new first years of Sonora! Post, enjoy, have fun! Everyone here is happy to help out, so if you've got a question, put it on the OOC board or try to catch somebody in the Chatzy and we'll try to get you an answer as quick as we can. Have fun and we’re glad you could join us!

[Credit to Nathan Xavier's author for the content of this OOC notice]

Subthreads:

I don't know about this by Mab with Morgan Garrett

Taking an unexpected step. by Mara Morales with Leonor De Matteo

Is this a trick? by Alexander Pierce-Beales with Alexandra Borealis

I choose upside down! by Theo Spurn with Joanna Rose-Turner, Josephine Clyde

#FreshStart #MeetingMrWright by Sadie-Lake Chalmers with Grayson Wright

16 Grayson Wright Welcome to Orientation, New Students! 113 Grayson Wright 1 5

Mab

November 29, 2019 3:02 PM

I don't know about this by Mab

Mab was excessively careful getting down out of the wagon. This was in part because she was wearing weird green robes and she was afraid she'd trip on its length. It was also because it had just flown all the way from Massachusetts and she was half afraid it was going to launch back up into the air without warning. She didn't know a whole lot about magic, but she did know it was capricious. Almost every fairy story agreed on that, and her experience with her new foster mom did nothing to convince her otherwise.

She saw the guy with the sign over his head and blinked at him a few times before shaking her head and making her way to his side, reluctantly leaving her luggage on the wagon. She didn't like leaving her stuff out of her sight - unguarded things tended to disappear in her experience (she was often the one who made them disappear, admittedly, but the point still stood) - but neither did she want to draw too much attention to herself by being the only one who was dragging her suitcase around. Numbers provided safety only if she didn't stand out.

Guy with Sign stood out. So if she stood near him, but not too close, people would see him and not her, so that's what she did. She was not remarkable in size among the other children standing there, though she had definitely been one of the younger ones and therefore one of the shorter ones on the wagon on the way here. She was a bit shorter than average for an eleven year but not significantly so. She was too skinny, though. Even a couple months of getting force-fed by her new foster mom hadn't fixed years of malnutrition. But her clothes were nice today, so she didn't look as raggedy as she normally felt on the first day of school. The robes were new, not second hand, and the shirt and jeans and sneakers underneath were all new as of this summer, too. Her foster mom was loaded and weirdly willing to spend her riches on Mab. But then 'weird' in the mythical sense had become almost quite normal since meeting Mab's new foster mom.

Case in point: flying wagons, guys with signs floating over their heads, and . . . Sonora Academy of Magic. She taken the right name for herself, that was for certain. Her life was a fairy story these days.

Guy with Sign introduced himself - Professor Wright, Mab noted, because names had power - and welcomed them to the school. He then directed them to an area away from the wagons. Mab watched hers for as long as it was in sight, but then hedges hid it from view. She'd just have to hope her things actually turned up in her new dorm. They reached a clearing with tables set up, and she took a green folder as instructed. She opened it and glanced through the pages inside, intending to look through them more carefully later, but needing to know there wasn't a fairy contract inside or something equally dangerous. It seemed like almost disappointingly normal stuff, though, and she turned her attention back to Professor Wright as she closed the folder again.

She snorted a little in spite of herself as he commented on 'differing educational backgrounds'. She hadn't meant to draw attention to herself on that one. Being the school's only fifth grade drop-out (or so she assumed) was not something she wanted to advertise. It hadn't been something she'd meant to do; she'd just wanted her mom back. It was probably good Bel Pierce found her when she did, so Mab didn't miss more than a couple months of schooling.

Though even if she had completed fifth grade, she wasn't sure it would have helped her much here. The two and a half months living with Bel as her foster mom had done way more to educate her about the ways of magic, which seemed to be what most of her schooling here was going to be about.

As Professor Wright explained the Houses, Mab wasn't sure which one she'd be put into. She thought she was pretty good at problem solving, but she also thought she'd proven pretty well that she could land on her feet, too. Honestly, she wasn't sure how those two descriptions were not considered the same thing. It was probably the 'learning' and 'willing to take chances' that differentiated them. Of the two, she liked learning better. Luck did not favor Mab.

She had no questions but a great interest in snacks, so when he invited them to do so, she headed over that way, stuffing a finger sandwich into her mouth right away and tucking away anything that looked like it would keep for a while into her pockets. Food wasn't as hard to come by since she started living with her new foster mom, but you never knew when it wouldn't be there anymore.

She happened to reach for a brownie that just looked too delicious to resist at the same time as somebody else. She gave that person a fierce looking face and snatched the brownie away from them. "Mine," she said.

1 Mab I don't know about this 1473 0 5

Morgan Garrett

November 29, 2019 3:41 PM

It's gonna be great! by Morgan Garrett

The windows of the Cadillac limousine were tinted, but the star could see flashes of bright light already, the flash-bulbs of the cameras eager to catch even a glimpse of her ride. The car swayed as it stopped, though whether from its own momentum or from the press of press vultures trying to get closer to the velvet ropes which would protect her as she walked between them and into the premiere.

Rudolpho glanced at her in the rearview mirror. "Ready for your latest triumph, Miss Garrett?" he asked.

Grace Garrett, the greatest film star of her age, allowed her red lips to curl into a smirk. "Born ready, darling," she said, and slipped on her huge dark sunglasses, which almost concealed half her face, and stepped out of the limo, careful not to step on the hem of her floor-length glittering sequined midnight-blue evening gown with one of her sky-high, knife-sharp stiletto heels.

It was bumping directly into something - the frame of the exit from the wagon, as it happened - which broke the fantasy and forced Morgan to remove the big red sunglasses she had bought during her last pre-school year trip to Walmart in order to see her way to the ground. There, she stood, a short, stout, slightly freckled, completely make-up free eleven-year-old girl in a baby blue t-shirt with glittery flowers on it and blue jeans - troublesome blue-jeans. They were stiff with all the starch they had been ironed with before she had been sent off, and they were slightly too long for her ('to give you room to grow,' all the adults had said) and thus kept getting caught under her eminently sensible, clunky, New Balance sneakers - one of the exactly three pairs of shoes she'd wear this academic year, short of her foot taking a notion to grow at an astronomical rate before Christmas or the Fourth of July.

Once she was out in the sun, though, she did put her glasses back on, because it was kind of bright outside, and besides - they were the glammest part of this outfit. She had had enough trouble just getting the big box of costume jewelry she had inherited from her auntie into her trunk (she had a trunk! A real-life trunk! Like the kind you'd hide a body in, in a film noir or a Poe story!); wearing a little to improve upon the utter boringnness that Mom and Dad and Sage and her grandparents all insisted should be Morgan Garrett's thing had been utterly out of the question, for fear the lot would get taken away from her.

She grinned at the glasses man gathering all the first years up, even though his glasses were just nerd glasses and not film star glasses, and followed along when they were separated from the rest of the student body. Nerd Glasses, it turned out, had a name: Professor Wright. Gosh, she was glad that was not her name - the jokes would keep anyone tied to comic roles forever! He was the Charms teacher, though, which sounded kinda cool, and she was surprised to hear him throw out a word she knew almost at once - Aladren. Her dad had been an Aladren, when he had been in school; Dad didn't like talking much about his past, but he had told her he had been in Aladren, and that "they decorate the place like a bruise, but it's good. If only they hadn't ruined my master plan!"

Dad's master plan was the element of his school years which Morgan knew the most about. Dad had been the Quidditch captain, and his team had been almost physically incapable of losing. He had planned, for their final championship game with him as captain, to somehow rig up some magic to make it play the Imperial March from Star Wars as they came onto the field, to poke fun at how the rest of the school kind of hated them by then. Sadly, however, the Quidditch had been cancelled that year, and so Dad had never gotten to walk onto a Quidditch Pitch to the Imperial March.

Morgan wasn't sure if she could play Quidditch - she had never tried, or been in much sports at all (as, her mother would comment, her waist could attest) - but if she could, she had already secretly resolved to make it happen for herself. Then she'd get to start her career as the infamous Miss Garrett.

There were a lot of other words, though, besides 'Aladren' and 'Quidditch' in this speech. She let most of it skim past her, knowing the same information was almost surely in the folder and that she could therefore read it at her leisure later, which was easier than listening to it, especially kinda quickly and in the middle of a courtyard or something where she couldn't even take notes, and where there was food looking a lot more interesting than Professor Wright. Given the chance, she found a little paper plate and went for it, only to nearly get into a brownie tug-of-war.

"Yeah, sorry," she said easily in a thick Kentucky accent, smiling, assuming the ferocious face the other girl had just made at her was a joke or something. "Plenty to go around though." She took another brownie for herself. "I'm Morgan," she introduced herself.

16 Morgan Garrett It's gonna be great! 1470 0 5

Mara Morales

November 29, 2019 4:17 PM

Taking an unexpected step. by Mara Morales

Mara looked around at all the people descending off different wagons, calling out greetings to friends and moving this way and that, mostly with airs of being people who knew exactly where they were and were perfectly comfortable being there. Her dark eyes took in the high hedges, the pink-colored Spanish colonial mansion rising up beyond it, the white dude in glasses under a sign summoning Mara and the other new kids over to him. Finally, she looked at the tall, thin, very very white thirteen-year-old standing next to her.

"This is it?" she asked, speaking Spanish.

"Yes," said Jessica, also speaking Spanish.

"I think there might be more kids on one school bus at home than in this entire place."

Jessica laughed. "Probably," she said, switching to English. "APS it is not."

Mara looked over her sister. Took in Jessica's long, shining pale red hair, swept back from her face with a silk headband that had to cost at least fifty dollars. Her diamond earrings. Her knee-length dark brown skort and perfectly back-to-schoolish short-sleeved camel-colored cashmere sweater. Her shiny, shiny black platform sandals and glossy pink toenails, which perfectly matched her glossy pink nails. "Jezi, what do you know about APS?" she asked with a half-smile.

"Enough from the news to never want to go there," said Jessica, and Mara laughed, unable to actually argue. The news did not paint a very good picture of APS. Mara was lucky that she had only previously attended public school in a very technical sense in Atlanta - that the father she shared with Jessica had paid the necessary bribes to get her into a fairly posh charter school. Mara knew she was lucky that way. Her mother only reminded her of that ten times a day even when Mara didn't set Carmela off by pointing out some way the system was kind of screwed up for some people even if not for them, and God help her if she ever complained that it was, perhaps, even slightly unfair that Jessica got to use Dad's name and that Mara and their baby sister Lola did not. She had long since learned her lesson about mentioning anything like that.

She was going to have to touch on it, though, now, she thought. She had also long since learned the trick of asking awkward questions when everyone involved was on the brink of action and separation, so they didn't have time to linger awkwardly over it.

"Jezi?"

"Hm?" asked Jessica, already looking around, presumably for her friends.

"If you ever come up - if I run into somebody who knows you, or know somebody who knows you, or whatever - what am I supposed to say?"

Jessica frowned, and Mara wondered if there was a scene coming, but Jessica wasn't reddening. "Tell them the truth," she said. "You're my sister. Lots of people have half-siblings, it's fine - here, anyway."

Here. Here where Arvale Cosmetics and the Groves political empire weren't things to consider. Here where Mara's existence wasn't a threat to the family reputation.

"Okay, I gotta go." Jessica tapped her fingers twice against her own lips, then blew Mara a kiss. "Love ya."

"Love you too," said Mara, and then watched Jessica walk off into the crowd, proud and lovely, fundamentally part of another world.

* * * * * * * *

White Dude was named Professor Wright, which, Mara thought, was possibly one of the Whitest Dude names ever. Still, wasn't like he could help it, and he seemed nice enough. Jessica had said she thought sometimes he was being sarcastic but wasn't sure, but he was mainly just giving them information without much elaboration now, which Mara liked. As his speech ended, she ran through it in her head, trying to recall as much as possible: Four Houses. Seven classes - or was it six? They could take extras in eighth grade. There was food between classes. Curfew was at ten. Try to win rewards for your group. Standard enough stuff, but with wizards.

One of Mara's hands was busy holding the green folder, but she smoothed down the skirt of the pastel-rainbow-striped sundress her mother had picked out for her first day of school, apparently not realizing that it was bound to wrinkle while Mara spent hours on a flying wagon trying desperately not to die before she ever got to Arizona. The denim jacket topping it and covering the fact that it had only thin straps over the shoulders, but it didn't occur to Mara to remove it - bare or nearly bare arms and shoulders were against the dress code at her old school. Instead, she rolled her shoulders under it, flipped her black braid to hang over the front of her shoulder so it didn't press the denim into her slightly sweaty back, and walked over to get some fruit punch.

"Hey," she said with a brief smile to someone else there. "Lot of info there, huh?" she added, remembering that she was a stranger in a strange land and therefore could not only be a polite Georgia girl to people she didn't know. She had to actually try making conversations, try making friends.

16 Mara Morales Taking an unexpected step. 1472 0 5

Leonor De Matteo

November 29, 2019 11:57 PM

Soo, this is happening. by Leonor De Matteo

OOC - Dialogue in italics is in Spanish.

Leonor was at Sonora. Leonor was a Sonora student. There was a good chance she was even far enough from her brother's age that she wouldn't be under his shadow all the time, and that made it all more exciting. However much she said she wanted to put Los Jardines de Plata behind her for now, Leonor practically wore it as a billboard. She wore a rose-colored linen dress that flared out where it fell to her knees. Cream colored ruffles matched a ribbon she wore in her hair. It was a much nicer outfit than most of what Felipe wore, and that's exactly how Leonor wanted it. She couldn't help being who she was, so at least she was going to own it.

That wasn't true for everyone, though. This had become obvious over the summer, and she wasn't sure what Felipe's friendship with Jessica Hayles looked like right now, but she didn't ask either. They didn't talk about these things. They had duties and priorities and Leonor was far more interested in making sure that she was going to have fun, and that she was going to look good doing it. Her nails were even painted with some of the polishes Jessica had provided her.

The older girl was pushed from Leonor's mind when Professor Wright began speaking. Naturally, Leonor already knew all the professors' names and subjects, and she could have picked Professor Wright out of a crowd before she met him. He gave his speech - providing no new information - and Leonor did as what was expected: she got her folder, she got a finger sandwich, and then she got interrupted.

She turned, already grinning, and ready to meet a new classmate, only to find that this was a face she already knew. They didn't know each other well, but they were the same age and their siblings - or "siblings" - were friends - or had been - and that was good enough reason to talk. Plus Spanish. Leonor was pretty disgusted with the fact that all of this business was in English, even if she was fluent. She would have preferred to go to a school in Italy or Spain.

"Mara," she acknowledged, dipping her head politely. "There is lots of information. It is meant to be informative, I suppose. What do you think of the Houses?" She eyed Mara for a moment before deciding that maybe she should start with something easier. "How much of this did you already know? Do you have questions?"

22 Leonor De Matteo Soo, this is happening. 1471 0 5

Alexander Pierce-Beales

November 30, 2019 12:16 AM

Is this a trick? by Alexander Pierce-Beales

It was hard to believe that Alexander had woken up in a group home in Seattle less than twenty-four hours previously. That the night before, he'd gone to sleep for the last time in the little bed that had been his for a while now. The one that was never really his. And now he had not only started on at a school where he was apparently going to be taught about how to do the weird things he did by accident sometimes, but also he had flown there. And he was wearing a potato sack for a dress.

Leaving his belongings was easy and hard for different reasons. On one hand, his one little suitcase only had a few things in it anyway, and it was all state-provided. On the other hand, he couldn't hide Barnabus as well in his pockets as in his suitcase. He retrieved the stuffed purple horse and did his best not to smush his legs up into his face as he tucked him into a pocket, surprised to find they were bigger than they looked.

Almost everything the professor - which was a weird title because Alexander was pretty sure that was what fancy college teachers were called - said was the sort of stuff that made Alexander think maybe he was actually crazy, like all those specialists said. Well, they didn't use the word "crazy" but that's what they meant. There wasn't a good label for Alexander. Or at least, there hadn't been until he'd been diagnosed with wizardry. The prognosis? Incurable. Treatment? Boarding school. Magic boarding school.

Maybe he was crazy.

Alexander was hesitant to approach his classmates, but he wasn't a bit hesitant to approach the food table. He couldn't help wondering if it were a trick, but everything just looked so delicious. He wondered if he could have has many sandwiches as he wanted. Maybe if he just stuffed a few extra into his other pocket, then no one would notice and he would have enough food for-- for what? School would probably feed him, right? He took two sandwiches anyway, eating one and putting the other in his pocket opposite Barnabus.

He approached the table to collect his folder and eyed them with some care before selecting one. Free handouts usually weren't very interesting, but this seemed more important. It was nice to have some structure, he decided, looking over the schedule. And there would be meals, that was good. The teacher had said that, but it was hard to be sure they were free meals.

With that settled, Alexander thought that maybe it would be helpful to at least know some of the people in his grade. Friendship wasn't on his mind - that would happen or it wouldn't - but practicality said a network would make him stronger. That was his in, and he could only hope he could offer something back. He needed to make himself worth it. It was always about who you knew, and Alexander didn't know anybody yet.

Making sure Barnabus was tucked safely out of sight, Alexander greeted the nearest student with a flat smile, showing off his dimples.

"Hi, I'm Alexander," he said simply, offering a hand to shake. "I'm from Washington."

22 Alexander Pierce-Beales Is this a trick? 1475 0 5

Mab

November 30, 2019 6:47 AM

Fairies of a feather flock together by Mab

The other person smiled. This was not the reaction Mab was used to when she fought for contested food. Plenty to go around, the other girl said, which explained it. There was plenty. Mab looked over the spread and there was way more than the small group of gathered eleven year olds could possibly eat in an afternoon, even if some of them were tucking food into their pockets like Mab was. She did spot one boy also do likewise, so maybe it was relatively normal to grab something for later.

I'm Morgan. The introduction brought Mab's attention solidly back to the other girl. Morgan? As in, Morgana le Fay? Arthurian legend. Different mythos than Queen Mab, but also associated with fairies and magic, also initially associated with good magic that over time and retellings switched her to the other side of the moral spectrum (Mab wondered if this correlated to when the Statute of Secrecy went into effect and muggles stopped having positive magic role models - she'd have to research that), also a strong female leader in an era when females had little power.

She finished chewing the mouthful of sandwich she'd already taken and swallowed it. A few months ago, she might have worried about eating food at a magic place like this, but she'd been with her foster mother long enough to know she was already trapped in this world, so there was no point in starving herself.

"I'm Mab," she returned the introduction, trying not to let her hopes and expectations show, trying not to have hopes and expectations that Morgan would recognize the mythological similarities of their namesakes and be as excited by that as Mab was. Most kids in her old school didn't know who Mab was until she told them. Morgana le Fay was a little more common, but there was no guarantee Morgan was actually named for her or even knew who she was. Though, this being a magic school, maybe the chances were higher.

On the other hand, the first person Mab had talked to in this new place was named Morgan and she couldn't help but take that as a good omen that maybe, just maybe, she wasn't going to be as out of place her as she had always felt in elementary school.

1 Mab Fairies of a feather flock together 1473 0 5

Morgan Garrett

November 30, 2019 11:08 AM

Better fairies than chickens. by Morgan Garrett

“That’s a cool name,” said Morgan when the other girl introduced herself. Mab. Short, definitely not a name one heard in elementary school classrooms in Industry, Kentucky a lot, but it sounded familiar...

“Is it from Shakespeare?” she asked. “Or a ballet? A fairy queen I think?” Not the Midsummer’s Night’s Dream - that was Titania - not from the Tempest - probably? - not from the Winter’s Tale, but...it was ringing a bell. “My aunt used to take me anywhere they did any of that stuff - plays and ballets - even when I couldn’t understand it,” said Morgan. “And we’d read all these...story retellings and stuff. I’m going to be an actress, so Anna said I had to know all the classics.”

Anna had said a lot of things. Other than her stepmother, Sage, and very occasionally her dad, Anna was the only person who had ever given Morgan what she thought of as good advice. One of the things that scared her most was the thought of forgetting things Anna had said, or what her aunt’s voice had sounded like. She tried to remember to play it in her head every day so she didn’t forget, but some days she forgot to do that and it made her worry all over again.

“But I don’t remember exactly which one I heard Mab in before. It’s a cool name though.”

16 Morgan Garrett Better fairies than chickens. 1470 0 5

Mara Morales

November 30, 2019 2:44 PM

Yep. Here we go. by Mara Morales

Mara recognized the other girl almost at once. Leonor, the smart friend of Jessica’s, and the one with distinctly less of a stick up her butt. Or at least the one who hid her butt-stick better, if she had one.

“Jezi told me most of that, yeah,” she said in Spanish. Leonor’s Spanish sounded slightly accented to her, but in a familiar way. Most of the Spanish-speakers at her old school - though by no means all - had also been from Mexico, or their parents had been. Some others had been from Puerto Rico or El Salvador. Mara’s mother, however, was from Colombia, and there were differences in rhythm and even usage. She thought her own Spanish probably sounded sufficiently Other to Leonor for any eccentricities to avoid giving offense, and she thought she was pretty good with Mexican Spanish too from school, but she was going to be careful anyway until they knew each other better. “She didn’t tell me, like, what time breakfast starts and stops, but I thought that was a little bit overkill anyway,” she said in English.

She took a sip of her fruit punch and then said, “Jez said there’s a...room that can have a pool in it sometimes here, too,” she said. “I didn’t completely get what she was talking about, but we can check it out sometime, if you want,” she offered. “Did your brother tell you anything else about this place?” she asked, trying to keep her tone carefully neutral on the subject of Leonor’s brother.

Truthfully, she had agreed with a lot of what Felipe had said, that day he’s very briefly visited them over the summer. The problem was, though, that nobody talked to her sisters that way, or about her dad that way, and got any thanks from her. Even if what they said was true.

16 Mara Morales Yep. Here we go. 1472 0 5

Leonor De Matteo

November 30, 2019 3:08 PM

Better us than them. by Leonor De Matteo

Leonor nodded. She suspected Felipe was more likely to be there at the start of the meal than she was anyway, and she didn't want to get up that early if she could help it. Felipe was the early riser, the planner, the ambitious one. He was the one that would get up early just to have more hours to get stuff done. But what worth was that if one of the things to get done was sleep? Leonor would take a good nap over a good work day any chance, since no one expected her to do that much work anyway. At least not important work. She was the behind the scenes helper and Felipe was the one that they really wanted to see. Which was dumb, because most people probably liked Leonor better anyway.

She didn't mean to be harsh. Truth be told, she liked Felipe most of the time. She just didn't like that they were two blocks hewn from the same stone, but only one was fit to be made into a throne. It wasn't fair, and neither of them wanted it that way. Sometimes she could sympathise with Felipe for it, and sometimes she was just frustrated that he had everything she wanted and still didn't appreciate it.

Leonor blinked when Mara mentioned a room where they could swim, and then she burst into a grin. "You remembered," she said happily. "That would be good. I forgot that you probably haven't really seen magic before, right?" She wondered how strange that must be. She couldn't imagine living life with a foot in both worlds, even if one world was pompous and crappy. Or at least, some citizens of that world were.

For a moment, she considered asking about Houses. Leonor was very excited that Felipe and Jessica were in the same House and two years older, because that meant they wouldn't have any classes together for two whole years, and she only had to hope she didn't get into one of the four houses. She doubted she was enough like Felipe to get into Crotalus, but she knew enough about the reputation of each to wonder if she might anyway. But then . . . Jessica was in Crotalus. So the reputation couldn't be very accurate. However, she didn't actually know Mara very well yet, and it seemed like dangerous territory to bring up their combusting siblings. Perhaps another topic was safer, and Mara had asked a question, so that gave Leonor the chance to help steer that. But what to pick?

"Bits and pieces," she said of Felipe's information sharing. "Mostly about the classes and the grounds. He is passionate about agriculture and I think he's been really taken with the landscaping done here." With the Gardens all around them, it wasn't really that hard to see why. "He said all the professor are really nice, and really helpful too, so that's good. Do you know do you know about what classes you think you'll like?"

He'd also said there were a lot of small people with small minds, but she wasn't about to tell Mara that. He hadn't said so with words anyway, just with the way he frowned a little when he mentioned the Mordues or the Brockerts or the Astleys. They were people with names and legacy was a sore spot for Felipe. With that in mind, it really shouldn't have been so surprising to him that Jessica would have kept things to herself. If they were as much alike as Leonor suspected, then Felipe would have done the same thing. Hey, Leonor would love to pretend she didn't have a brother. Either way, it wasn't Mara's fault and the younger offspring of Arthur Hayles was pleasant enough so far.

22 Leonor De Matteo Better us than them. 1471 0 5

Mara Morales

November 30, 2019 3:57 PM

I think we might be more capable. by Mara Morales

Mara shook her head. "Nope," she said. "I asked Jessica to show me some once, after she started here, but she said it was against the rules, and - well, you've met Jessica, you probably know. I think it would physically break her brain to try to break a rule," said Mara, with an amused, but not unaffectionate, smile at her sister's peculiarities.

That, really, was where she got off-board with Leonor's brother. It was one thing to try to gently encourage Jessica to think an original thought without immediately suppressing it, but the minute you showed any anger, Jessica shut down, because anger was against the rules. Mrs. H didn't like it. Proper Southern ladies didn't express their anger openly, or associate with anyone who did, and Jessica lived for her parents' approval. She had nearly had a breakdown - and had had enough of a lapse in self-control that Dad had seen her have a panic attack at the apartment - just at being forced off the conveyor belt life which Dad and Mrs. H had designed for her. It was sad, really - and more than a little sickening, when it came out on the surface like that, which was one reason why they all made a rule of not pushing Jessica too far at home. Truthfully, Mara was surprised her sister had done as well as she had when De Matteo had gone confrontational; she hadn't thought Jessica had that much spine.

"The landscaping is impressive," said Mara. "I wouldn't want the job of making all this grow in a desert." She glanced around at the hedges, wondering again whose idea that had been, and what might be lurking in them. Jessica assured her there were no Minotaurs or anything like that, but since when was Jess the sort to go looking?

She shrugged slightly at the mention of classes. "It's still all too weird for me to be sure," she said. "I'm keeping my options open till I see more. What about you? You know any magic yet?" she asked curiously, wondering if the rules were different for people who didn't live in the regular world more often than they lived here, or who had other wizards in their families.

16 Mara Morales I think we might be more capable. 1472 0 5

Leonor De Matteo

December 01, 2019 3:28 PM

I think you're right. by Leonor De Matteo

Leonor laughed softly. She couldn't tell if Mara was joking about Jessica but Leonor found the sentiment amusing. Diplomacy had taught her that a soft laugh could be passed off as appreciating the joke if there was one, or empathising if not. That was the safest option in most cases.

"I think it is not too hard to make it grow here," Leonor said, understanding Mara's thoughts on the matter. Most of the agriculture and plant life at Los Jardines de Plata was done without magic, as there were just too many non-magical eyes around to risk anything grander than that. The only differences were little spells here and there that wove an ambience of magic into the otherwise seemingly normal garden and farm. "They use magic to change the weather, so these plants have an easier time growing here than other places. That's why it's not so hot here, too. At home, Felipe and I care for plants without magic, so I agree; I would not want that job here."

Mara said it was too "weird" to be sure about classes, and Leonor grinned. It wasn't a word she would have chosen for Sonora or magic, as both things seemed perfectly normal to her, but she liked the idea that maybe they belonged to a crazy world. Life in color, blood running through magic veins, and a couple of weirdos trying to get to know each other.

"I haven't done any magic on purpose yet," Leonor explained. "But Mama and Papa use magic at home, so I know about those a little bit. One of our tutors taught us a little about magic theory in the course of learning the history of the magic world, but I don't know whether that will help me use any."

Surely Mara must have seen magic somewhere along the way, or she wouldn't be here. Whether it was her own accident magic or Jessica's, she would have seen something. Leonor wondered whether that was uncouth to ask. Was asking about magical accidents a bit like asking about bathroom accidents? Either way, Leonor was curious and she was happy to share, too, so she didn't see any problem with asking. If she didn't ask her questions, she'd never learn anything.

"How did you find out you were magic?" Leonor said, settling on a bit more diplomatic phrasing. "It must be from your father . . . your mom isn't magic, right?"

If there was one topic in magic theory Leonor had paid attention to, it was the role of inheritance and genetics and family trees. She didn't understand almost any of it yet, but one thing had stood out: someone long ago could pass their magic on to their descendants, even if the people in between weren't magical. Perhaps someone long ago could pass on the De Matteo legacy then, even if the people in between Leonor and leadership weren't right for it.

22 Leonor De Matteo I think you're right. 1471 0 5

Mara Morales

December 01, 2019 3:50 PM

Shall we start the revolution, then? by Mara Morales

Magic weather. She had read a bit about that in the literature they had been given at home, but hearing someone talk about it as an everyday thing brought it home in a different way, and also made some of Jessica’s poems from the past two years make a little more sense than they had when Mara had first read them. She had wondered why Jessica had suddenly started making bizarre parallels between weather and liars....

Though admittedly, some of that was probably just Jessica being Jessica. There was one long poem Jess had worked on a lot, with the typically dull title (Jess sucked at titles) “Waterproof Mascara,” which Mara thought might be about this or might just be Jess trying to take all the advice about how to be a modern poet to heart and, in the process, producing a lot of choppy gibberish.

“Neither of them are, but if it’s in the blood, I guess it must be from Dad’s side of the family somewhere. Since - well - me and Jezi. We found out the same way she did, though - one day we’re eating breakfast and some guy knocks on the door and starts talking what would sound like crazy talk, if I hadn’t already heard it already two years ago. So then we knew. I guess...maybe we should have before, but with my sister we never noticed a pattern and then I guess anything weird that happened after that, we blamed on her,” said Mara with a shrug. “Though apparently sometimes it was me. Maybe. It’s a thing when you’re flustered, right? I don’t get flustered much.” Surely she had not been somehow responsible for the time that jerk from school had had a bird do it’s business right over his head after he’d called Mara a name and told her to go back to Mexico. Surely not. She did not want to be responsible for all the bird bowels of Atlanta. That was way too specific a superpower for her to use or want.

16 Mara Morales Shall we start the revolution, then? 1472 0 5

Leonor De Matteo

December 01, 2019 11:30 PM

By all means, let's begin! by Leonor De Matteo

Mara was easy to talk to, and easy to get along with. Leonor could switch between two of her languages, she could say what was on her mind for the most part, and she could tell that she wasn't the only one who was trying really hard. Truth be told, it was the first time Leonor had ever met anyone that she could do that with, family aside. There weren't any magical people in Cuidad de Matteo that they knew of, and certainly not any of the children so far. There wasn't anyone for Leonor to be friends with except Felipe, because they were magic, and wealthy, and important. No one wanted to be friends with the daughter of the ruling family.

Plus, it seemed like Mara and Leonor had something to offer each other. Whatever was happening between thither siblings was one thing all on its own, but more than that, they were both sincerely interested in the other person. Mara could swim and play and share that with Leonor, and Leonor knew magic, knew people, and had some brains to offer. They were both smart, and it made everything easier. At least, it made everything easier so far. If Felipe and Jessica were anything to gauge by, friendships were never guaranteed. It was a depressing thought, and Leonor quickly chocked it up to Felipe being Felipe.

"Not just flustered, but often. Sometimes also when you're scared, or happy, or sad, or when you really want something. When Felipe was younger, apparently he didn't like to wear clothes over his diaper and sometimes Mama would go in his room to find him something to wear and find the whole closet was empty. Don't tell him I told you that." She didn't really care that much if Felipe knew, but supposed that he would probably be upset with her for telling. She'd heard the saying, 'secrets don't make friends,' but she thought that the inverse was true as well: friends make secrets. And they keep them. If Felipe was raging mad at her one day because of this story, then she'd know that Mara wasn't a good friend. "I think I made a couple of my toys float into the crib with me when I was meant to be sleeping, but I don't remember much that young."

22 Leonor De Matteo By all means, let's begin! 1471 0 5

Mara Morales

December 02, 2019 10:19 AM

One step at a time. by Mara Morales

Mara had to choke back a laugh when Leonor described what her brother had done with magic as a child. "I've got some stuff I wouldn't mind disappearing from my closet, when Mamá wants me to wear them," she admitted. "I guess I didn't want to that much, though, or we might have figured out something was up with me a little before we did."

She thought back through her memory, trying to pull things up that hadn't seemed right. "I guess...sometimes if I didn't want to go somewhere, the keys got lost. Or Mamá couldn't find the asparagus or something, even though she knew we had some. This is the kind of thing you mean?" she asked, looking at her own hands with curiosity. On TV, when people did magic, usually they pointed at things. She hadn't seen a lot of real magic yet, but they seemed to use those wand things to point, which meant one of two things: either it was sort of instinctive to do magic through pointing, or else it was just easier to do magic with a wand that way because hands were better at gripping sticks than most other parts of the body.

"Do you know if magic is just in your hands?" she asked, following her line of thought. "Sorry - I was thinking - what if you hold the wand with your foot? Or like this?" She crooked her elbow as though she were trying to hold a stick in the joint. "Would it still work, or do you know? How does it work? Are we, like, born with stuff, or is it...in the air, like - basic forces stuff?" she asked, remembering what she could put together about how they had explained how electricity worked in her elementary school science classes. "Or do we learn this in class? I started reading the books but they didn't get too far into it, at least as far as I got in them before today."

16 Mara Morales One step at a time. 1472 0 5

Leonor De Matteo

December 02, 2019 8:17 PM

Big steps though, right? Like running, jumping, hurdling steps? by Leonor De Matteo

Leonor had never thought too much about the nature of magic. She hadn't really needed to. At the same time, she probably should have done so sooner. This was the sort of information that could impact the people of Cuidad de Matteo and it was her (really Felipe's) responsibility to learn about it.

"I don't think it is based on place," Leonor mused, trying to think through the questions Mara had asked. "Because I have traveled a lot, and there was never any difference in my parents' magic. But I don't think it's just in our hands either. There are magical animals and plants and things." That made it sound like maybe it was an element of the world, and maybe some people could access it and others couldn't. Could a muggle be taught how to do magic somehow? The implications were a bit more than Leonor wanted to confront right now.

"I think the classes will talk some about this, and you can choose to learn more if you want," she said, smiling. She had also read part of the books - or at least had been told to by her tutors in their final meetings together - but didn't want to rub that in. Mara was proud of herself, and no one should smash righteous pride; there were too many things in the world that already did that. "Our hands . . . that is how we do. We do things. We act. We make. I think that humans just use their hands to make, and so we use our hands to make magic."

Leonor paused, looking at Mara with a contemplative expression. "I like you. No one's ever made me think about this stuff before."

22 Leonor De Matteo Big steps though, right? Like running, jumping, hurdling steps? 1471 0 5

Mab

December 03, 2019 7:20 AM

Fairies are infinitely better than chickens. I do not understand your need to clarify that. by Mab

Mab smiled as Morgan complimented her name and at least recognized its mention in Shakespeare, and more than that, she knew her as a fairy queen, which was the key point. “Yes,” she confirmed. “Queen Mab gets a mention in Romeo and Juliet.” She knew this more because she had scoured the internet for every mention of Mab’s name in popular fiction than because she was particularly keen on Shakespeare, and especially not his tragedies. Still, if it made her sound smart in front of her new classmate, she’d take it. “Mercutio gave her credit for Romeo’s dreams.”

She was a bit surprised by Morgan’s assertion that she would be an actress. Mab herself had no such dreams. Reaching adulthood at all had seemed uncertain enough just a couple months ago, though things did seem more stable now. Maybe she could afford to start thinking ahead that far? Actress though... didn’t really sound all that magical. Or, at least, not in the sense that Sonora represented.

“Are you muggleborn, too, or are there magical plays?” she questioned curiously. She wanted at ask about Anna, too, but that might lead Morgan to ask about Mab’s family so she didn’t. Mab’s family situation was kind of up in the air right now and she wasn’t sure how much of it she really wanted to talk or even think about yet. If she was lucky, maybe Morgan would clarify if Anna was her sister or babysitter or whatever without prompting.

But Mab knew perfectly well that she was not a lucky person so she wasn’t going to count on that.

1 Mab Fairies are infinitely better than chickens. I do not understand your need to clarify that. 1473 0 5

Morgan Garrett

December 03, 2019 8:35 AM

Fair point. by Morgan Garrett

Romeo and Juliet. Right. Morgan associated that one mostly with swooning and death (the latter not a favorite subject of hers), but it seemed impolite to say so and so she didn't.

"I'm...not sure I have a word really, but yeah, wizards have plays," she said. "I've only seen one - Dad and Sage - that's my stepmom - they took me last year as a Christmas present - but the special effects are awesome. It's almost like going to a movie that's...live and you're there, except that with a real movie, you know, it would look a lot less real if you were watching it be filmed, but the magic play wasn't like that exactly. It was cool, though," said Morgan, realizing she was bordering on rambling and that she should probably stop doing that.

"My dad's Muggleborn, and my momma's a Muggle, though, so I don't know exactly what that makes me. I don't know a lot about wizard stuff - Dad just mostly uses magic so he doesn't have to keep up with stuff around the house," she laughed. "Sage buys me picture books that move and stuff, but this is mostly new to me, too," she admitted. "Still, Sage and Dad both got through wizard school, and Dad even got to be Head Boy here, like, a million years ago, so we should be okay," she concluded. Dad was not the most together person in the world, so if he could manage it, someone who considered herself smart enough to learn parts and play them pretty much had it in the bag, along with...most anyone else probably.

16 Morgan Garrett Fair point. 1470 0 5

Mara Morales

December 03, 2019 9:06 AM

Is there another kind? by Mara Morales

Animals, plants, and things. That fit with the books, and also with the idea that magic was part of the natural world - maybe? Maybe they were all like electric eels - they could...how did electric eels work anyway? Did they generate electricity or just conduct it somehow? She made a mental note to Google it, then remembered that one of Jessica's complaints about this place was that they didn't have Google, and also that their selection of sources about regular topics was lacking at best, which made it a long shot to think she might find an ancient copy of the Encyclopedia Britannica lying around the library. Still, it was probably worth a look.

"That makes sense," she agreed with Leonor's explanation. Humans had evolved to rely a lot on their hands. It was the joy of opposable thumbs. "Though now I wonder if magic birds can do magic through their feet and their beaks," she said in Spanish, mostly joking, though she wouldn't object to finding out. She thought about watching the birds building their little nests in the springtime at home, how they used their feet and mouths to do it. Her mom thought it was the most awe-inspiring thing ever and tended to sing hymns whenever she saw it. Mara had not faulted her for that even before she'd considered the possibility of birds shooting lasers out of their faces.

She blinked, slightly taken aback, by Leonor's assertion. "Thanks," she said. "I like you too. You seem cool." By which she meant 'did not get your back up over being asked something' and 'don't seem to care about the whole thing that my family is different,' but that was a lot of words, especially when they really didn't know each other that well yet. Mara wasn't as secretive as her sister, but there was such a thing as getting a little too weird with someone the second time you ever met them, and especially when it was the first of those two times when you weren't mostly thinking about saying something very undiplomatic to that someone's brother.

16 Mara Morales Is there another kind? 1472 0 5

Leonor De Matteo

December 03, 2019 11:08 AM

My big dumb brother probably thinks you should tip toe. by Leonor De Matteo

Leonor grinned at Mara's comment about birds. It didn't feel like the time to actually get too much into the theory of magic, so even though she was pretty sure birds didn't do magic, they just were magic, she didn't say so. That was what it meant to be important and to be nice; Leonor had the power to make or break this friendship. Now someone needed to tell Felipe that. Big dummy.

"As a cucumber," Leonor agreed with mock sincerity before smiling again. Mara really thought she was cool? She got the impression that the girl didn't mean it the way she knew sometimes people meant it, with popularity and reputation backing it up. If that were the case, the adjective would have been something more awe-inspiring, as it should be. Instead, Leonor thought that Mara probably meant some level of approval by it, and Leonor realized that although she had the power to make or break friendships, she wasn't the only one with that power. It certainly wouldn't help if Mara was crappy.

She felt a little odd then, and realized that it was one of those moments that was sort of a fork in the road. This was a moment where they could politely excuse themselves, continue talking here, or go get more food. Leonor was always up for more food, but it meant a decision had to be made. Did she want to leave Mara and solidify the fact that they were cool and likeable, but ultimately not friends? Just acquaintances on behalf of their crappy siblings? Or did she want to actually maybe be friends with this person? The latter seemed dangerous and scary, but not as fatal. She could decide later not to be friends with Mara, but couldn't ruin it now and then decide later that she did indeed want to be friends. Plus, she really could use a friend.

"I'm up for more sandwiches and juice," she said, nodding towards the offerings. She paused, letting Mara make of that what she would. "Do you want to join me?"

22 Leonor De Matteo My big dumb brother probably thinks you should tip toe. 1471 0 5

Mara Morales

December 03, 2019 12:27 PM

My sister is the type to ride a conveyor belt. by Mara Morales

A clear invitation. Apparently, she had made a better impression than her sister had. Of course, she hadn't exactly had that much time to screw anything up, and Leonor already knew the Big Secret...

Part of her was still annoyed with Jessica for how she had put it, but...it was a strange thing. She knew, for instance, that her sister had not actually said anything that was untrue. Jessica and Dad did love her. She did matter to them. They were a family. Maybe they didn't look like most families, and maybe there were...tensions...but it wasn't like Mom was some kind of prostitute. Mara believed her parents did care about each other, just like a married couple with kids would, and there were no secrets or anything. Mom knew about Mrs. H. Mrs. H. knew about Mom. Mrs. H. knew about Mara and Lola, and had never made any effort to interfere in their relationships with Dad and Jessica. Jessica had seemed so happy about the prospect of them being able to be openly sisters - probably the happiest Jessica had really been in years....

But there was just the thing. She was happy when Jessica was happy. She loved her sister. She loved her dad. But sometimes, she wished it was somehow possible to express dissatisfaction with aspects of their lives without hurting them. Her mother, however, was firmly against that - that it was a show of ingratitude to Dad, and to America itself, and to Mom, and that it would definitely hurt Jessica. She didn't think her sister consciously used the fact that she could go from relatively okay to hyperventilating in the space of five minutes to try to control the rest of them or anything, but that didn't mean it didn't have that effect sometimes.

None of this, however, was particularly relevant to the moment, so Mara put it out of her mind.

"Sure. I think my head's quit spinning enough for food now," she agreed, and joined the other girl.

16 Mara Morales My sister is the type to ride a conveyor belt. 1472 0 5

Alexandra Borealis

December 04, 2019 12:52 AM

Time to make some friends by Alexandra Borealis

Alexandra had never seen so many clueless people in one group before, and she was counting herself in that group. She had been unaware that there were places like this school were kids actually learned magic. Her mom had been as surprised as her, when they received the news, as far as she knew, magic was passed down from tribe to tribe, from family to family. She was a little nervous getting out of the wagon, she tended to be more reserved at first, always testing the waters. But as she looked around, she came to the realization that they all were basically on the same boat. She was excited to meet new people and to make new friends.

Alexandra found the man standing there with the million signs. She was guessing it was for people who spoke other languages, to make it completely clear that the newbies had to follow him. She had in fact heard some Spanish speakers earlier but had decided to let them have their own time (she made a mental note to find them later). The man, having introduced himself as professor Wright, instructed them to pick up a folder full of information. Alexandra quickly put the packet in her bag, not wanting to lose it while she tried to make friends.

She walked towards the table with all the snacks, she was eying a particularly delicious sandwich, when a small, skinny boy introduced himself and extended his hand. She noticed his dimples and his very thin frame. She turned in all directions making sure he was definitely speaking to her and not another person behind her and extended her hand to shake his. “No way! My name is Alexandra!” She giggled as she thought this was incredibly funny to meet someone with the same name as yourself. “I’ve never been to Washington, but I’ve heard it’s terribly rainy! My mom is from the Amazon jungle in Colombia and my dad is from the states, we all live in New York City now.” She had this giddy feeling as she told this boy all of that information, I mean who knew they could become friends after-all. She felt like they should bond over something and the easiest thing she found brought people in common was food, “do you like any of the stuff on this table?” she said as she pointed to all the snacks there. She hoped he would join her for some snacks, and that they could make more friends, who knew where life here in Sonora would take her now.

42 Alexandra Borealis Time to make some friends 1474 Alexandra Borealis 0 5

Alexander Pierce-Beales

December 04, 2019 7:59 AM

So it's definitely a trick, then. by Alexander Pierce-Beales

Alexander smiled because Alexandra smiled. He wasn't sure whether she was laughing because she thought he had a girl's name, or because their names were really similar, but he hoped it was the second one. Alexander was not a girl's name, no matter what the other kids liked to tell him. He thought that this girl was probably nice, because she seemed like she was sincere, but there was no way to know for sure. Still, pushing her away wouldn't further his cause any.

"It is rainy," Alexander agreed about Washington, a little surprised to hear its reputation had traveled so far across the country. He couldn't think of anything he knew about New York except maybe that it was cold, but that was mostly because he knew it was in the northern part of the country and on the eastern side. Anything on the Atlantic was cold. He'd often daydreamed about visiting the east coast and drawing all the old buildings there, but doubted he'd ever get the chance. Well, he had doubted it until he knew about magic at least. "Have you ever been to the Amazon rainforest?" he asked, curious. He filed the information about her family away carefully, suspecting it would give him context later on.

The conversation turned to food, and Alexander debated retrieving his pocket sandwich as evidence that he did indeed find some of this interesting, but he decided it was better not to. He could still eat that later, and this way he could eat more now without having to worry about it. "It all looks great," he said, eyeing the lot of it with some skepticism. No one ever gave this much food away for free, so what was going on? Would it all disappear soon? If it did, would it disappear out of his stomach, too? "The sandwiches look amazing," he suggested, pointing. They were amazing, and better yet they were filling. That was important. "And the punch, too. What sounds good to you?"

It was a little easier to smile then, because maybe, just maybe, he'd made a friend. Or at least he'd made a connection. His network was growing already, and that meant he was going to survive.

22 Alexander Pierce-Beales So it's definitely a trick, then. 1475 0 5

Alexandra Borealis

December 05, 2019 10:11 PM

Did you hear? by Alexandra Borealis

Alexandra could sense his hesitation, it felt like a wall of ice similar to the ice forts she would build during Christmas with her dad. He had agreed about the weather, which made Alexandra proud that she had remembered a small detail like that. Maybe it was easier than she thought to make friends. She noticed that his pant pockets seemed to be full and she couldn’t tell if maybe he had tried to stuff food into it or if that was a new style. In any case, she wanted to make the conversation as easy flowing as possible.
Alexander had asked about the Amazon, and she could go on rambling about that because she loved her heritage, she loved telling people about her family, and the connection they all had to nature and to all living things. But she was completely aware that she had a tendency to ramble and having made her first acquaintance, she did not want to scare him away or give the impression she was a self-absorbed little princess.
“Yeah, I’ve visited my mom’s family a few times! Maybe I can tell you about it later?” she offered as a means to start building a friendship. “I did hear Professor Wright mention something about a feast?” she casually mentioned, leaving out that she had been completely distracted by her surroundings during the speech to pay any actual attention.
“Maybe we can have a sandwich but also save some space for dinner? I would hate to be sick because I ate too much…” as she often tended to do. Food was definitely her Achilles heel, she often dreamt about owning her own restaurant and eating anything and everything under the sun.
“Did you hear about the other stuff he mentioned as well?” Alexandra said nonchalantly. She hoped Alexander could give her more information and catch her up to speed, hopefully, he had paid attention if not… There was another lonely student standing nearby that could maybe help them.

42 Alexandra Borealis Did you hear? 1474 0 5

Theo Spurn

December 06, 2019 6:13 PM

I choose upside down! by Theo Spurn

Theo disembarked the air-wagon and regarded his new surroundings. There were two reasons why he followed the large arrows pointing first years in a particular direction but neither reason was being a first year or being supposed to do that. The first was because they were easily the most interesting thing in the immediate vicinity because they sort of seemed like a pirate map or maybe an elaborate trap, and the second was because dad had given him a lot of reminders about at least trying to follow instructions. Dad knew that was difficult, and he didn’t mind so long as Theo really did try his best, but he would appreciate it if Theo really, really tried because first impressions counted. Theodore liked that idea. He had imagined a whole hall full of First Impressions, which initially looked just like the words but then took on the more abstract idea of things having been pressed into surfaces and leaving a mark – anyway, lots of them were sitting around in big regal robes counting little stacks of coins. The image was whimsical enough that it stayed with him, and then he remembered why it was in his head and that following the signs would make dad happy, so he did.

Theo and his new friends (unless they were mean) were taken through to a clearing. Not many of his new friends (unless they were mean) seemed to be wearing their robes. Theo considered this for a moment. He did not dislike his robes. His mom had sewn a small strip of velvet into the inside of each cuff so that he would always have something soft to touch. Theo liked soft things more than anything else. However, what he was wearing under his robes was better. He removed his robes, dropping them next to the table where they had got their folders. There was a strong chance he would remember to pick them up later because of the velvet. He wasn’t good at keeping track of everything (there were too many things in the world for that to be practical) but he usually remembered where he left soft things. He had forgotten the part where he wasn’t supposed to leave his things lying around or that other people might not be trustworthy or nice with them.

So, there he was, ready to make his first impression count (its pirate treasure in a high high tower!). Under his robes, he was wearing a burgundy velvet shirt and fleecy pyjama pants with penguins on. Theo had never found pants he liked that were not intended as sleepwear. People seemed to think that pants didn’t need to be as soft as other clothes. He wasn’t sure what everyone’s legs had done to upset clothes designers but it wasn’t fair. Legs were very necessary bits to wrap in soft things because legs and bums were the bits that got pressed against a chair when you sat down (if you did it the way most adults expected) and therefore if something scratchy and unpleasant got between you and it, it was going to make keeping that posture even harder than it already was. He also had a bright pink streak down the middle of his otherwise very dark, slightly messy hair. This topped a skinny freckled face and had not caused an argument. It was not an argument because his parents did not argue, they just sometimes disagreed. Theo was not supposed to have overheard because he was meant to have gone upstairs for something but he’d forgotten what it was by the time he got out of the front room and he had also remembered how he wasn’t going to be able to touch the stairs carpet for ages and had stopped to pet it goodbye. The discussion was one that his parents had had several times before. Essentially, it involved Dad suggesting that Mom was making Theo stand out unnecessarily/in a bad way, and Mom argued that she wasn’t and that there was nothing wrong with Theo being himself until Dad backed down. Dad meant well but he wasn’t a fan of drawing attention to himself, and sometimes it meant that he worried about things that weren’t worrying anyone else. Mom had been charming her hair and so Theo had wanted his done too. If anyone was mean about it they could very strongly go away. He knew another word for that but he wasn’t supposed to say it.

Professor Totally Correct started saying lots of things, and Theo ran his finger up and down, up and down on the velvety arm of his sleeve watching the little patterns as it went against the grain (eeeee, kind of almost wrong but sort of tickly and nice at the same time – school is seven years) and back down (smooooth – Charms, Care of Magical Creatures, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Herbology, Potions, Transfiguration, and flying lessons). And up (electives) and down (exams). People often thought he wasn’t listening when he did things like this. He refrained from thinking that people were stupid because of this because dad had thought it for a long time and dad was definitely not stupid but people were confusing. Theo liked touching soft things more than he liked anything else. Therefore, he had a lot of them around. If he didn’t, it made him sad and anxious, wondering when he would get to touch them next and why everything had to be so cold and so hard that it felt almost stingy under his fingers and very uncomfortable. Uncomfortable people could not concentrate. If soft things were there but he wasn’t allowed to touch them, then he was just distracted by thinking about how much he wanted to touch them. He could keep his hands still and stare at Professor Wright and apparently a lot of people would find it quite pleasing if he did that for reasons that he could not fathom but he would not be listening. He would be thinking about how still he was standing and actively concentrating on keeping his hands off his sleeves. Sometimes he didn’t listen if people weren’t very interesting, and then they blamed his soft things which was very rude when it was their fault for not saying anything worth listening to. The fact that he was stroking soft things and not listening was an example of correlation not causation. He also stroked soft things a lot of the time that he wasn’t meant to be listening, and he also listened a lot of the times he was stroking soft things, and the fact that they only noticed the two when they went together was an example of confirmation bias. Firemen did not cause fires and people with colourful hair were not hoodlums.

After a while, he noticed that the lull of words had stopped accompanying the stroking of his own sleeves. They were meant to do something else. Theo had probably been standing stroking his own sleeve and thinking about confirmation bias for some of that time. No one else was doing much except standing and chatting though. He decided he could do that, as it was not mutely exclusive with playing with his shirt. He scrunched the ends of his sleeves over his hands in tight fists (the sleeves were deliberately too long for just this purpose) so that he could feel his knuckles pressing against the velvety insides of the shirt. This was one of the easiest ways to be touching soft things without overtly doing it. He gave himself a little rub on the nose too because that was nice, then walked over to someone.

“Hi. I’m Theo. I’m quite odd,” he informed them cheerfully. This was something they could probably figure out for themselves but it was something he found important about himself and also for some reason when people were left to figure it out for themselves they somehow then felt awkward about it, like maybe he didn’t know (he had met him before, more so than they had – he was very definitely aware) and they were going to have to tell him, or just they didn’t know how to handle it. He had a good remedy for that though, “If that makes you uncomfortable, a good solution is just going away and not being a jerk about it," he advised.

13 Theo Spurn I choose upside down! 1476 0 5

Alexander Pierce-Beales

December 07, 2019 11:26 PM

A bit. by Alexander Pierce-Beales

She would hate to be too full. Alexander could honestly say he'd never experienced that. He blushed a little at the comment, both from the embarrassment of being so insecure about his own food, and at the feeling that made his guts say he needed to defend himself. The problem was that there didn't seem to actually be a threat. Alexandra was just being nice, even if her approach was to alienate him by accident.

"We can just wait for that if you want instead," he said, backtracking on what had not been a popular suggestion. "I'd like to hear more about your mom's family," he added. And he really meant it! Alexandra was nice, and that was nice, and her family sounded nice, and Alexander wasn't sure to make about all that. But he did love hearing about people's families and their moms and their dads and what life was supposed to be like. It all seemed like a fairytale, but he would've said the same thing about magic schools just a few months prior. He still wasn't totally convinced he wasn't dreaming.

"He talked mostly about how we'll be sorted into Houses and what classes will look like," Alexander summarised, not sure what to do about the way his tongue felt heavy. Maybe it was the words that were heavy. He was going to have a House and classes. That was exciting. But he daren't be excited because then it would hurt more when it got taken away. "Do you know much about magic already? Or about Sonora?"

22 Alexander Pierce-Beales A bit. 1475 0 5

Joanna Rose-Turner

December 08, 2019 12:33 AM

Jo didn’t know what to think. by Joanna Rose-Turner

Jo was pushed with the flow of children walking towards the tall man with glasses, but her mind was elsewhere.

The whole wagon ride seemed like a fuzzy memory of questions that ran through her head. None of the country side that had flown by her window could penetrate past the internal dialogue that sped so fast it made her dizzy.

Are wizards the same as her friends back home?

How did one learn how to cast spells?

Something in the stories her parents had told her growing up just always seemed too fantastic to be real, really real. Friends and teachers assuring her it was all just fairy tales just seemed more convincing. What they believed in was right in front of them, in front of her, and magic was something that existed
beautifully in her own mind, but nowhere else.

Would it be like everything she dreamed of?

Since the stories she read were real, that meant the characters she loved were real. That meant she could potentially meet them. Maybe more.

Maybe make her own stories.

It was a thought she wanted so desperately to talk to her parents about. Her parents who were actually wizards, she thought. Did that mean they were still her real parents? Real wizards surely would be too busy having adventures and solving mysteries to have children.

What was it that they told her?

From the moment the acceptance letter had reached their front doorstep, to the moment she waved good bye from the wagon seemed like the blink of an eye. She remembered when her parents sat her down at the kitchen table to tell her about the school and what she would be doing there, but she couldn’t remember what they said.

Instead, she remembered seeing their worried faces. She remembered seeing their faces and crying, and being held by them until the tears dried.

She realized the man had stopped talking, and the children were all paired up already, leaving her alone.

Hi. I’m Theo. I’m quite odd.

Jo jumped as she heard Theo’s voice from behind.

Indeed, he did seem quite odd in his velvet shirt and pajama pants. Maybe he’d forgotten to change, she thought. She had done that once or twice, and upon arriving at school and taking off her winter coat, would realize her embarrassing mistake. Best not to draw any attention to it and make him feel worse about it.

Being odd also seemed something like a good thing. Being ordinary was more like a curse. If you were ordinary, no one would think you were cool or remember you.

Maybe being odd was something to look for in a friend.

“It doesn’t make me uncomfortable, I think I’m quite odd too.”

43 Joanna Rose-Turner Jo didn’t know what to think. 1478 0 5

Theo Spurn

December 08, 2019 4:51 AM

Think fun thoughts! by Theo Spurn

This girl said she was quite odd too. That was interesting. Not many people said that about themselves, and Dad wasn’t sure it was a good idea for Theo to do that, but he liked it better that way, just putting all the oddness out there and this just went to show how well that could go. He wondered what was odd about this girl.

“That’s good,” he smiled encouragingly. “What’s your favourite texture?” he asked. He was aware that there were a lot of ways to be odd, and it was quite likely that they did not have exactly the same quirks but that wasn’t really why he was asking. If the girl wanted to stay and accepted he was odd, they could talk about the things Theo liked, and he liked textures that felt soothing. After they talked about that for a bit, they could talk about what she liked because that was only fair, and maybe he’d discover what was odd about her. Or ‘odd.’ Not everything that other people gave that label seemed that way to him. From inside Theo’s own head, his own way of looking at things made perfect sense and he couldn’t understand why everyone else wasn’t bothered more by all of the bad textures. Bad textures felt like they sliced at his fingers, and they stayed there too long. Even after things had gone away, the memory or some part of the texture just stayed lingering on his skin. He had had enough conversations about how other people managed to deal with this that he had gathered other people literally did not notice the things he noticed. He found that mind-bending, but had long since come to accept that most people did not regard their lack of sensitivity to be odd, so that was probably not what this girl meant about herself.

13 Theo Spurn Think fun thoughts! 1476 0 5

Josephine Clyde

December 08, 2019 7:26 AM

Out with the old, in with the magic by Josephine Clyde

The robes had to be green. Josie played with her right sleeve and tried not to think about how she’d looked in the mirror when she first tried the robes on…or the look on her father’s face. When her father talked about his time at magic school he’d never talked about the color, just how uncomfortable they made him feel. She didn’t understand why because they were super comfy. It reminded her of all the beautifully soft textbooks she and her father had bought. As she ran her fingers over the covers and spines she imagined what they would be about. So maybe she started looking at them on the way to magic school inside of a flying wagon, but it didn’t last long. A. Flying. Wagon. Giddiness bubbled up inside of her like the baths she used to take with her mother. After years of listening to her father’s stories about Sonora it was impossible to believe that she was going to go there. Josie was finally going to learn about magic and witches and wizards and read soft as butter books and not have to force her father into it.

Getting out of the wagon was easy; following the flow of students towards the “1st Years Here” sign was a bit more challenging. She made sure to keep her hair around her face, like a curtain so that even the people next to her could only see the tip of her nose. Professor Wright. Charms. Aladren House. Opening Feast. Sonora House. It was, literally, a whole new world and she didn’t want to miss one drop of information. Especially when she was no better than any normal girl from her elementary school. This time, when the river of students followed Professor Wright into another area it was easier for her to go along. Josie snatched a folder off the table and resisted the urge to start reading it. The professor was talking and she couldn’t afford to miss anything. Charms. There was that word again. Care of Magical Creatures. Defense Against the Dark Arts. Herbology. Potions. Transfig…uration? And flying lessons. Flying. Flying! Everything she knew about Quidditch was from an ancient book she’d found in the attic and though it sounded like fun what had really interested her was the flying. Who on earth would drop such an amazing class?

Josie continued to listen with an open heart that was full to bursting with all of the delicious information that kept pouring in. Eating hours, okay, curfew, great. The Houses. This was what she was most excited about and nervous. After poking and prodding her father finally admitted that he had been in Pecari, not that it had meant much to her then, but as she listened now she felt bitterness creep in and invade the happy information. Always land on their feet? Like cats. There had been nothing cute and cuddly about the way her father had remarried so quickly. Nothing. She began praying that her badge wouldn’t turn brown. She wanted to be anything other than that. And there were older students who would help them out? The bitterness soaked in further. Well, if they were anything like Daniel and Samuel then she’d have to steer clear of them. Josie had always wanted an older brother, then she had two and they weren’t like anything she’d wanted. They must not have wanted her either.

What did it matter if her step-brothers were cold and nice and her step-mother was awkward and nice? She was at magic school. She was at Sonora and nothing was going to stop her from making new friends. Marching over to the table she saw a little group of people had formed and stepped right up to them. The boy had on some fluffy looking pants and seemed to be talking to a tall girl.

“Hi, I’m Josephine, but I prefer Josie.”

44 Josephine Clyde Out with the old, in with the magic 1477 Josephine Clyde 0 5

Joanna Rose-Turner

December 09, 2019 4:24 AM

Act natural. by Joanna Rose-Turner

Texture?

Jo had never been asked this question before.

When she thought about what textures she’d ever really noticed in her life, she could only think of all the different types of materials her parents had taught her about.

“Smooth stone or wood, I think. Both my parents make lots of cool things out of them, see?”

Jo took out her onyx pendant from under her shirt and leaned forward so the boy could take a look.

Jo could see Josie approaching out of the corner of her eye, so she turned her head to look.

She’s so pretty, Jo thought.

Making girl friends always seemed to be such a challenge to Jo. In her childhood, Jo had always made girl friends that would end up being something like bullies. They would make fun of her clothes that had gotten dirty from loose art supplies, or take her sparkly pens without her permission.

Boys just always seemed easier to talk to, as long as they didn't believe in cooties.

For a girl to come up and be so friendly right away made Jo a little nervous.

Best to just pretend like you don't care, Jo thought.

“Hi Josie, I’m Jo.”

43 Joanna Rose-Turner Act natural. 1478 0 5

Theo Spurn

December 09, 2019 5:34 AM

Why?? by Theo Spurn

Smooth stone or wood. That was interesting. It was mostly interesting that the girl was answering at all. Sometimes people didn't know how to answer his questions, and sometimes that meant they just ignored him, which he found rude. Those same adults then tended to take it very badly if he chose to ignore questions they asked that he deemed boring. He wasn't sure why they were allowed to have an expectation for him that they were unwilling to follow themselves. Luckily, there were not really any people like that in his daily life. His mom and dad didn't hang out with jerks. But jerks happened sometimes because the world was full of them.

"That’s pretty,” he acknowledged about her necklace, “My mom makes things too! She does lots of art. I do some kinds with her but it depends on the textures,” he commented. Paint was sticky. He sort of trusted painting with Mom because she would let him be slow and careful and had never, never made him do finger painting and had taken him away from the playgroup where they had made him because ‘everyone needed to join in.’ Mom had told them that was bull and that Theo had said no and that they should have listened, and she would rather have picked up a happy child at the end of the day than a crying one and a perfect freaking handprint animal. Mom was awesome. She had taught him to tell the world to go screw itself whenever it had a problem with him. He preferred collages to painting. And he liked art with mom but found galleries boring because you couldn’t touch. Sometimes he went because they made mom happy and he watched her looking at art and stroked her arms because she always wore something cool on gallery days. There was a recent trend for splatting big thick oil paints on canvases so thickly they were three dimensional though and it made his skin crawl because it was so painty and he thought about it not being dry when it would have been all sticky and then, once it was dry, it was spiky. The one good thing about wet textures (which were on a whole different continuum to dry ones) was that they could never ever be spiky and rough, and then someone had taken the two worst points of the two textures spectrums and combined them. He knew you were meant to believe in different strokes for different folks and all that (and strokes were so nice!) but there were some real psychopaths out there.

“Smooth stone and wood are both quite nice," he acknowledged fairly. He could understand their appeal. They were smooth and cold, which could be soothing. They were inoffensive textures, and he was okay around them. If he felt very hot or agitated, he could even get behind some of their properties. “They’re a bit like silk,” he observed, because most of his processing of texture related to fabric. “They’re good textures for hot days, and they are also on one of the opposite points on the Texture Triangle to rough.” The Texture Triangle was a concept he had been working on to explain the textures that were enjoyable versus those that were not, though currently he had only developed it for dry textures. He was about to launch into an explanation of this when they were joined by a third person.

“We’re talking about texture,” he informed her, “Do you want to join in?”

(OOC as we now have a multiperson thread, it will keep going in order. So, Josie's next, then back to Jo. This is so if people are in different timezones or one person is more busy, their character doesn't get left behind in the conversation).

13 Theo Spurn Why?? 1476 0 5

Josephine Clyde

December 09, 2019 6:53 AM

Disappearing glitter by Josephine Clyde

They’d obviously been in the middle of a conversation, but hopefully they didn’t mind her too much. She would never forget the stares her step-brothers gave her whenever she launched into her latest book summary.
“Look, Josie, I’m busy with homework and I don’t really care. Can you just go bother someone else?”
Daniel’s words had sliced at her. Her parents loved hearing her stories. It used to be a running joke between them that Josie always managed to find the weirdest ways to tell the most normal story. But her step-brothers wouldn’t even give her the time of day and her father no longer listened to her. Hopefully these two didn't feel the same way about her barging in on them.

“I’d love to, if that’s alright with you.” Josie looked at the black pendant around Jo’s neck, “Wow, that’s pretty. I always lose or break my necklaces, so my father stopped buying them for me.”

It was truly lovely and it looked like Jo might even have matching earrings. Deep down, Josie was jealous of the beautiful black rock around Jo’s neck, not because it was pretty, but because it gleamed from obvious care and just seemed well-loved. All of her mother’s jewelry had vanished into a box; the strands of pearls, winking blue gems clothed in muted gold, sparkling ropes of bracelets…they’d all disappeared without a trace. Sometimes she wondered if her father had sold it all. But she was determined to move past the bitterness. Or at least try.

“Oh and I like the texture of books! The pages, the ink, but especially the covers of old, leather books. They feel,” she shrugged, "Like bread?"

44 Josephine Clyde Disappearing glitter 1477 0 5

Joanna Rose-Turner

December 10, 2019 8:13 AM

I'm so cool right now... right? by Joanna Rose-Turner

“Thanks,” Jo replied a little cooly.

Jo imagined she was the big superstar and Josie was one of her adoring fans, desperately trying to get her autograph. Playing hard to get was of course what they always showed in TV shows to get people to like you, but Jo hadn’t yet had much practice using the method in real life.

She thought it was totally working. She bet she looked super cool at that moment.

Jo turned back to the boy, and realized she hadn’t asked for his name yet.

Was it too late in the conversation to ask? She wasn’t sure.

Rather than risk embarrassment, maybe it’d be better to just wait for Josie to ask him, or until they were in class and the teacher called on him, Jo thought.

And what was this “Texture Triangle” the boy was going on about? Jo had never heard of it before in her life. Perhaps it was on one of those confusing charts that filled the walls of her elementary classrooms, like the periodic table, and the teacher had just never gotten to it. Whatever it was, this wasn’t the moment in an introduction to show weakness and question it.

Maybe he would be impressed if she seemed like she knew of it already.

Fake it till you make it, as they always said.

“Leather that feels like bread… but in the Texture Triangle, bread does seem a bit on the rough side though doesn’t it? Maybe the inside of bread instead of the crust would be better?”

43 Joanna Rose-Turner I'm so cool right now... right? 1478 0 5

Theo Spurn

December 12, 2019 4:57 AM

Yeah, all the cool kids reference the Texture Triangle! by Theo Spurn

Breeeead???? Leather…. Leather and bread. Bread? Theo tactilised both (‘tactilise’ was the word he had coined to fill the gap for what you did when you imagined how something would feel. ‘Imagine how it would feel’ was a clunky long phrase, and visualising got a word all to itself, so why didn’t the other senses?). They were not a very close match but he was just excited that he had found two people who wanted to talk in depth about texture. Jo even referenced the Texture Triangle, which was exciting! He was still developing it as an idea, but clearly it made some logical sense if someone was able to reference it accurately in conversation after only hearing it mentioned once.

“Ohhhh,” he nodded, when Jo mentioned nasty crusty hard bread. Theo was less particular with food textures than hand textures because even though his mouth was more sensitive, it was already quite wet, so soggy things were less of a problem but spiky things were still generally unpleasant. He did not eat crusty bread. He was familiar with the concept though. His mind had gone first to very neatly sliced soft bread. He thought that leather probably fell somewhere in between those two, as he would definitely stroke leather but he wouldn’t stroke crusty bread.

“I would say that neither is an exact match. Crusty bread is very spiky,” he said with evident dislike. “But it is crackly, the same way book leather can be. Book leather is interesting! It is firm but soft at the same time. Most soft things have squish. Bread is very squishy. It had a lot of three dimensional softness which book leather does not. But book leather can get hard enough to crack which is very strange for something soft, and perhaps it’s the thing that goes right in the middle of the Texture Triangle!” he beamed with absolute enthusiasm, his speech having gained both speed and excitement as he chattered on. “You are good people. You can both stroke my shirt sleeves if you want,” he added, holding out his velvet shirt-clad arms for them. There were rules about touching and asking others to touch you but the closer you were with people the more okay it was and they were definitely friends and friends, in Theo’s world, stroked.

13 Theo Spurn Yeah, all the cool kids reference the Texture Triangle! 1476 0 5

Sadie-Lake Chalmers

December 12, 2019 6:34 AM

#FreshStart #MeetingMrWright by Sadie-Lake Chalmers

@CharmingChalmers posted: #OMG we’ve got some #BigNews! Not only is #SadieLake the #BirthdayGirl today (#11YearsOld #BirthdayParty #GardenParty #GirlTime) but she is making some real #GrownUpDecisions, #TheyGrowUpSoFast. These will be your last #SadieLakeMoments for a while followers. Sadie-Lake has decided that she would like some #seriousdowntime and will be going off-camera. She has always been #SoMature and we #100PercentSupport this. So enjoy our fab shots of her #PamperParty (we are loving these products by #CozmetikGirl for our #SpecialDay!) and wish her well in her #NewAdventures.

And thus, with a flurry of hashtags, she was gone. Her family #100PercentSupported this because they had no choice. Her mom had debated for a while about whether it would have been more convenient and more marketable if it had gone along with her turning ten because that was #DoubleDigits but had eventually concluded that was enough of #AThing in itself that it didn’t need extra. Eleven gave another year in which to have matured. And at least her birthday was at the end of August. That had saved Sadie from having to apologise for yet another thing that really wasn’t her fault, although her mom was still pissed about it all. As if she had any more control of when in their lives a wizard showed up on the doorstep – or the fact he had shown up at all - than she’d had over anything else, from her stupid name to her whole childhood being showcased on Instagram.

Sadie-Lake’s name had been just Sadie in her head for a while now. She had been considering dropping the ‘-Lake’ when she got to highschool, although she doubted that it really would have given her the fresh start she wanted, what with her family’s Instagram notoriety. They weren’t like… can’t-walk-down-the-street-famous but they made all of their income from selling their shiny middle class lifestyle to other people. And all it took was one person in her class finding out about it for everyone to know. It wasn’t like being called Sadie-Lake hadn’t been attracting enough attention anyway (which had always been her mom’s plan when she landed her with that #ClassicWithATwist) and it had never been something she had been particularly comfortable with. She almost felt a little guilty. Because if #WishesCanComeTrue then she had made this happen. She had been looking for an escape for a while. Telling her mom she wanted to just be called Sadie or didn’t want to be on camera would never have worked. Her mom just didn’t listen. After all, #EveryoneWantsToBeFamous (#SoGlam, #CheckMeOut). Sadie had been getting fed up with it for a while though. She wished they could spend more time having fun instead of posing to show they were #HavingSoMuchFun. She wished she could eat her food before it went cold being photographed from every angle. She wished they could all spend more time just… living life instead of #LivingLife. And she was so ready to not have their hashtags quoted @her in the playground.

Now, she had that opportunity. This was not just a weekend #offgrid doing a #techcleanse. She was going to be gone for months. As far as Instagram was concerned, that was like… dead.

It had been super weird being seen off without a million snapshots. She’d been able to just… say goodbye and get on the wagon. Her parents had been warned that a) their phones would explode and b) they would be in serious trouble if they got them mixed up with magic. She was pretty sure the former had been more persuasive, even though once she’d started referring to this secret statue thingy as ‘The Magic NDA’ her parents had got it more. So instead of getting everyone just the right amount of dewy eyed for #SoTeary shots, they’d said a real goodbye. Or tried. She wasn’t sure her parents knew what to do with themselves without cell phones in their hands.

Now she was here, and if she was honest, more than a little freaked out. She had wanted a break from a cell phone being shoved in her face but this was kinda extreme. She was in a new world, away from her family, and… well, first hurdle, there was a man collecting all the first years, and what if he did roll call? She followed him anxiously. The moment where he was most likely to do roll call seemed to pass but she was still kind of tense throughout his speech, finding it hard to listen to everything he was telling them. When it was done, really done, she managed to breathe.

She collected her folder, managing not to get drawn into conversation with anyone as she did so. By that time, most people had drifted into conversations. She was worried she’d look like a #TotallySuckUp going over to the teacher, but it was that of seven years of snickering and being called… Whatever kids this age could come up with. In elementary school, she had mostly got ‘Splish-Splash’ and, as their understanding of both Instagram and rhyme structure grew, Sadie-Fake. She was sure there was all kinds of creative hell highschoolers could wreak with her name.

“Hi?” she said softly, “Sorry to bother you professor?” her tone was hesitant. “I was um… wondering…. Do teachers use our full first names in roll call? And um… like… do they have to?"

13 Sadie-Lake Chalmers #FreshStart #MeetingMrWright 1480 0 5

Grayson Wright

December 12, 2019 8:48 AM

#Hello, #MeetingStudents, #OhDear by Grayson Wright

The part of Orientation where the students got to know each other was, beyond any shadow of a doubt, the part where Gray was most out of place. Fortunately, standing about a bit pointlessly (as his dearest wish was to remain irrelevant - since Orientation had been introduced, they had never had a single student decide to hex another - or try to do so - that he knew of, and he was emotionally invested in keeping that record intact) was something he was well-accustomed to doing in his life, and thus managed to remain in the background, one eye on the students, half his mind on reviewing the excuse he was planning to use to ask for a very necessary day off next month.

Could he trim it down to a half-day? He was doing that business under a pseudonym anyway, so all he really had to do was sign the final contract. He had even offered to let them trot out an actor who could pretend to be his fake name if necessary. There was no way he could possibly do this under his own name and not risk blowback from the school, which was the last thing he wanted. Not only did he find his job relatively congenial, he also was realistic enough to be fairly sure he'd continue needing it for a while...

He was distracted from this idea, however, by one student who appeared to be separating from the others. A moment later, he had to put it completely aside when the solitary child approached him.

"Hello. And no, we don't have to," he said, wondering what prompted this. He had never been called by his full first name in his private life, but he had not seen it as worth the trouble of making a point of it professionally, at least with authority figures. Some people, however, had their reasons. He sometimes thought Tatiana Vorontsova was so particular about her name just to make a point - adolescents seeking some form of control - but culture was culture, and one's name was one's name. "Most of the time, teachers won't do verbal roll calls after the first week anyway - we'll know you all well enough to recognize who's present and who isn't," he explained. "But you're certainly welcome to ask to use the name of your choice. What would you like to be called?" he asked.

16 Grayson Wright #Hello, #MeetingStudents, #OhDear 113 0 5

Josephine Clyde

December 13, 2019 12:14 AM

Pound cake is delicious thankyouverymuch by Josephine Clyde

Josie cocked her head at Jo’s response. Was it just her or did the other girl seem a bit colder? She wasn’t expecting friendship to magically start, but still. Back home they’d moved to a completely new area and Josie hadn’t had the time to make any friends before she came to Sonora. Maybe she’d been too weird? She thought she was being perfectly normal. At least she hadn’t started with a summary of her latest book! Actually, maybe she should’ve. Or maybe she was still just a little sensitive. Daniel and Samuel were the definition of cold; she was probably just over-thinking things. As usual.

Crusty bread? If her mother had taught her anything about baking it was that things should only be crusty if you want them to be. Her nose wrinkled slightly at the idea of her precious books being as rough and tough as the store bought loafs that Daniel crammed the cupboards with. She’d have to bake them a pound cake one day so that they could see just how soft bread could be.

“Well,” Josie began, “If you guys have time and the school lets me, I could make some soft bread on the weekend?” As the boy held out his arms for stroking Josie realized she had no idea what his name was, “And my mother always told me I should know someone’s name before I pet their sleeves. Also, what is the Texture Triangle exactly? Do you have a picture of it that I could look at? Or you could draw a picture?”

44 Josephine Clyde Pound cake is delicious thankyouverymuch 1477 0 5

Sadie-Lake Chalmers

December 13, 2019 6:25 AM

#Problems by Sadie-Lake Chalmers

‘After the first week’ was a nice thought, but a week was still more than enough time to have her life ruined. It wasn’t like people were going to forget her stupid name just because the teachers stopped saying it. Luckily, the professor seemed to think it wouldn’t be a problem. He seemed nice. Admittedly, she did not have a lot to go on at this point, but he didn’t seem super shouty or strict. He’d been chosen as the welcome guy. Maybe some people thought he was a bit too quiet and unremarkable to be like #HiThere! #WelcomeOnBoard! but Sadie preferred that. It was nice to be welcomed by someone quiet than someone who seemed like they might want to get everyone into some #FunIceBreakers and be all into #GettingToKnowYou. She was quite okay with not being known and with ice remaining solid.

Not that she felt completely at ease. She wound a lock of blonde hair nervously around her finger, and then realised she was doing it, and stopped. She was supposed to be all big smiles and confidence. She supposed she didn’t have to be that here… Even if… some (a lot? Many? Most?) of the kids here came from non-magical households, they wouldn’t know who she was. Hopefully. Maybe she really could just blend into the background. She thought she’d be more comfortable there.

“My name’s Sadie-Lake,” she admitted, very quietly, a quick glance around first having confirmed that all her peers were busily engaged in conversation. “Like… that’s my first name,” she added. Because if he hadn’t seen the student list, he might just assume she was called Sadie Lake, and there would really have been nothing wrong with that. If it had been read out in class, she supposed people might assume for a bit that she was called Sadie Lake-Chalmers. That was less horrific but still made her sound like a mediocre tourist destination, and any fictional Mr. Lake and Mrs. Chalmers who had got married – or anyone with a landscape feature for a surname really – would be best advised to put them the other way around, if you asked her. Which no one did. Ever. And anyway, eventually someone would call her Lake-Chalmers or something, and she’d either have to correct them or not correct them, or one of the teachers would refer to her by her first name or her surname and – well, she was trying to avoid that. “I’d rather just be called ‘Sadie,’ please,” she admitted, and she knew that her face was going really red, and just really hoped none of her classmates noticed that she was talking to the teacher at all, let alone about something that clearly embarrassed her.

13 Sadie-Lake Chalmers #Problems 1480 0 5

Grayson Wright

December 13, 2019 10:05 AM

#HopefullyNotTooMany by Grayson Wright

Sadie Lake. That sounded like an ordinary enough name...until she clarified, and then he recalled that yes, that did sound vaguely familiar. He had read the student list over a couple of times, and while it would take a few days of classes to get all the names really committed to memory, her name stuck out a bit. At least partially because he suspected he would struggle not to call her "Chambers" instead of "Chalmers" for a while, but giving a child the name 'Lake' also stuck out. Of course, he'd had students named Raine, Kyte, and Lily before and had only really registered Kyte as sounding unusual, so - was it really so much odder to be named 'Lake' than 'Raine'? Perhaps not, objectively speaking.

"Sadie," he repeated as she said what she'd prefer to be called. "That's a nice name. Yes, that should be easy enough to arrange." Classes started in the morning, but he could send a quick note to the other teachers with this bit of information. Compared to some accommodations, remembering to call the child Sadie when it seemed to mean a great deal to her - she seemed anxious and embarrassed just asking, which suggested she would rather not do it, which implied a certain strength of feeling about her name - was minor. "Welcome to Sonora, Sadie. I hope you enjoy your time here. Any other questions about classes or anything?" he asked, still mildly surprised by a child being curious enough about a point of protocol to approach him here. Crotalus or Aladren, he figured.

16 Grayson Wright #HopefullyNotTooMany 113 0 5

Sadie-Lake Chalmers

December 15, 2019 3:26 AM

#HeresHoping by Sadie-Lake Chalmers

Sadie was a nice name. Yes, there was nothing wrong with being called that. She wondered if there was a subtext there that Sadie-Lake was an utterly ridicuous one. Probably, but it wasn't his fault for thinking something that was objectively true. He was going to help though, and hopefully her stupid name wouldn't follow her throughout school.

"Thank you, sir- professor," she corrected herself hastily and with something of a questioning intonation, anxious brown eyes surveying him. The questioning note in her voice was more checking she had got that right, or not caused offence rather than to initiate a follow up question. She had about a million, as far as classes and like... real magic were concerned. Is this real? What do we even learn in magic class? for example. But she figured she would find that out as she went along. She was keen not to take up too much of his time, or for her classmates to notice and assume she was over here being a suck up.

"No, that's all for now. Thank you, professor," she said, more articulately than she'd managed before, and feeling just a little bit better, made her way to get some juice.

13 Sadie-Lake Chalmers #HeresHoping 1480 0 5

Joanna Rose-Turner

December 16, 2019 7:51 AM

Cat belly by Joanna Rose-Turner

So Josie liked baking. Jo would keep a mental note of that in case she ever wanted to bake something. It was always nice to bake with others. Hopefully Josie would be interested.

The prospect of being able to bake or not was also something Jo hadn’t thought about, but she felt like she probably should have. Cooking and experimenting was always fun. Some of her fondest memories of being home alone was when she could find a few things to throw in the blender to experiment with.

“Oh that’s a good question, Josie. Maybe we should ask that tall guy?”

It also started to occur to Jo how much she probably should have been listening to the tall guy with glasses. Come to think of it, she hardly knew what the schedule of the day was like. Maybe she could just follow these two and find her way from there.

Jo looked down at the boy’s sleeves. They did look especially plush.

She stuck out a finger and touched the sleeve gently.

Boy, it was pretty soft, she thought.

“What’s this made out of? It feels like a cat’s belly.” Jo giggled at the thought of two tiny kittens being hidden in the boy’s sleeves.

43 Joanna Rose-Turner Cat belly 1478 0 5

Theo Spurn

December 18, 2019 11:35 PM

The Texture Triangle by Theo Spurn

"My name is Theo," he informed her, giving his arm an inviting little wiggle now that he had fulfilled those necessities. He understood them. His dad often gave him suggestions like that. "And I will happily draw you the Texture Triangle!" he beamed.

"There used to be a baking club, back when Sophie was potions teacher. She's my cousin and my dad's god-daughter so we are related twice but not in a weird way and apparently god-sibling isn't a thing but if it was she would be mine. She's too old to be my sibling anyway but she has kids who I play with a lot," he was about to continue explaining about Wally and Stanley, and Tommy (who wasn't Sophie's but also counted) and Charlotte (who was but was smaller than Tommy so belonged there in this sequence) but then he remembered they'd been talking about baking and he tried to steer his brain back to that. "I don't know what Not-Sophie is like but maybe if they're nice, you can get their help." Mum was talking to the new Not-Sophie right now to find out if she was a butt or not. Sophie had sometimes been at Sonora when Theo was big enough to remember stuff but it had been very on and off even then because she had been busy having babies. Then she'd just stopped going back. It was long enough before he was due to start that he hadn't felt like he should expect Sophie to be here - she had been, sometimes, but now it was normal for her to be at home. He was confident that the new person was either not a butt to begin with or that mum could yell them into not being a butt, so that was fine.

"This is velvet," he replied to Jo, slightly surprised that she didn't know. It seemed very sad to have gone eleven and a bit years of your life without knowing about velvet. "It's in the top section of the Texture Triangle, which I will now draw for you," he smiled, happy with the strokes he had received.

Having procured a pen, he took one of the sheets from his orientation folder (which he had not yet lost! He had been standing still and was not near any horizontal surfaces but it was still good to celebrate when successes happened) and began to draw and equilateral triangle with its point facing downwards.

"The Texture Triangle demonstrates how texture works. At least, for me. It applies to dry textures only. In the top zone, are soft things," he wrote 'softness' across the top and drew lines dividing the triangle into thirds. In the top section he wrote, from left to right, silk, plushies, velvet. "These are all good things," he pointed out, though he felt this should be obvious. "There are two ways in which we can move away from softness," he said, looking slightly sad at this. He drew an arrow getting wider down the left hand side of the triangle and labelled it 'Hardness (increasing)' and another arrow, this one getting thinner, down the right hand side which read 'Smoothness (decreasing).' "Things like nice wood and stones go over here," he wrote them in the middle section on the left. "They are not soft, but it's because their hardness increased rather than because their smoothness decreased. The opposite is true for scratchy fabrics. They are still a kind of soft but they are not very nice," he explained, pulling a face. "The middle zone is things that I have mixed feelings about. Stones and smooth wood can be nice," he added because he didn't want to offend Jo and because they were sort of pleasant or neutral or calming to him. "But I do not like scratchy fabrics. But when you decrease both these factors, that's when things get really bad," he labelled the bottom point of the triangle 'Roughness (oh no!)' and filled it in with examples such as sand paper and jagged rocks.

"Like I said, it's sort of a work in progress, and it might imply that thinking of soft things as the best is correct, and I certainly have nothing against your stones or your leather," he nodded at each of them in turn, "So I will take that into consideration. I also don't like that I am expressing the joy of softness using something as pointy as a triangle but it alliterates, so there's that. You are good friends," he declared happily, wrapping a velvety arm around each of them and squeezing because not everyone wanted to hear about texture at length.

"Do you want to talk more about this or about something else that you like?" he asked because it was polite to share conversations and not only talk about his own interests.

13 Theo Spurn The Texture Triangle 1476 0 5

Josephine Clyde

January 01, 2020 8:02 AM

Elves and stuff by Josephine Clyde

Josie laughed alongside Jo as she pet Theo’s sleeves. They really did feel like the furry tummy of a cute kitty. Her hands had still been in the middle of petting when he started gushing information. So a woman named Sophie used to be the potions teacher and they were not not related, but then there was another lady who wasn’t that first one who was maybe not nice? Too much information. She shook her head and her brain latched onto the one thing Theo had said about baking. Baking club. There used to be a baking club. That would keep her grounded. God, to bake again. For fun! Josie smiled at Jo, baking with someone else, a friend, would be a nice treat. Pun intended.

As she watched Theo draw his Texture Triangle the details of it snapped into place for her. Soft things were always good things, but she adored the cold marble countertop in their old home where she’d spent hours baking.
“Thanks for the explanation! I understand it much better now.” She hummed, “What about other things you guys are interested in? I like reading really terrible books.”

Josie gave each of them a wide smile and hoped that it covered the glee she felt. This would be the make it or break it time for them. If they just stared at her then they’d be like Daniel and Samuel, but…But! If they were curious, asked questions, didn’t brush her off, then maybe…maybe! Maybe she’d find new friends. Friends that were worth the risk.

“My favorite one is about two elves falling in love, he’s a commoner and she’s the princess. They meet in an enchanted forest and fall in love.” She started illustrating things with hand gestures, “But their parents are super against it because she’s the princess and she already has a fiancé, but then they have to fight an evil witch with their plant magic powers and the commoner is the most powerful plant magic user. They defeat the evil witch, but then the princess’s fiancé shows up and challenges the commoner to a duel even though he doesn’t need to.” Josie took a breath and beamed, “Do you guys want to hear more?”

44 Josephine Clyde Elves and stuff 1477 0 5

Joanna Rose-Turner

January 03, 2020 10:14 PM

Changing the subject by Joanna Rose-Turner

While Theo’s texture triangle seemed interesting, Jo was kind of glad Josie changed the subject. Most textures Jo could agree with. Plush and velvet were really nice, and softness was always a factor of how she decided on which stuffed animals to add to her huge (100+) collection back at home, but there were also some good properties of rough things. Rough things, in fact, made other things smooth and soft, but this didn’t seem like the best time to have that discussion.

Jo had always loved fantasy books. Some turned out to be less than a fantasy than she thought… but she still loved the genre. Thinking about mythical creatures and far off lands always made her feel that there was so much to life, more than she could even understand.

“That sounds interesting Josie, I think I’ve read a few books like that, but why would you call that a terrible book?”

43 Joanna Rose-Turner Changing the subject 1478 0 5

Theo Spurn

January 11, 2020 6:54 AM

Good choice by Theo Spurn

It was time to move on. The Texture Triangle had had its moment, and been appreciated, and now other people were going to get to share too. And-

“YES!!” Theo enthused, bouncing a little when somehow he just totally lucked in (‘lucked out’ had never made sense to him as a phrase - he was very much not out of luck right now, he was deep, deep in and rolling around!) as somehow another favourite subject of his came up. “I love trash books,” he grinned. “The less literary value the better. Preferably things that come in series so you can just keep going and going.

“I read all these old boarding school books about girls at posh schools in England and they’re always like… busting smuggling rings and whatever and everyone says things like ‘That was a right lark’ and ‘jolly hockey sticks’ - they actually say that - and then I go around saying those things to my parents - they’re English,” he added, his own accent slipping slightly more towards that register and not just as he quoted the books but as he talked about talking to his parents too, “And my mum says that no one this century talks like that, and that she definitely does not talk like that, and that I am a horrible offspring. She doesn’t mean that,” he added for clarity. “Dad sometimes plays along and goes Very British Gentleman.

“I sort of want to know more but don’t spoil the ending,” he requested of Josie, his voice returning to its much more American cadences as he was talking to one of those again.

13 Theo Spurn Good choice 1476 0 5

Josephine Clyde

January 18, 2020 1:59 AM

Tally ho good sir! by Josephine Clyde

She was sure that her smile was full of evil feelings, but, hopefully, all Jo saw was a friendly one.

“Well, their names are Hojo and Marianne, or Jojo and Mara for short. Jojo only loves Mara because she looks like his dead wife and he only gave her the nickname Mara because that was his wife’s name. Also, there’s a big pink unicorn on the cover and it definitely plays an important role in the story, but I’ll keep that a secret for now.”

As she listened to Theo she grew more and more interested. Trash books? Oh, now that was delightful and accurate. She’d have to remember it for the next time she began one of her stories. They wouldn’t be awful books, but trash instead. Now that she thought about, she did remember hearing Daniel say that her stories were trashy, but he’d been rude about it.

“Theo, you’re British? My step-mother went to a magic school somewhere in Europe! Why’ve you come to Sonora if you could go to school there?”

Honestly, magic school anywhere would be nice, but having to leave home…Well, if it had been two years ago then it would be different. Two years ago Deidre Clyde was still alive and Josie couldn’t imagine going one day without her. Theo seemed to have a good relationship with his family. If he was really British (and his accent had been really good) wouldn’t he rather go somewhere near his home? But then again maybe he had been born in America. It definitely explained why his regular English was so good.

“Or…wait. Now I’m confused. I confused myself. Ignore me. What is a “right lark” and a “jolly hockey stick”? Aren’t larks birds? And is the happy hockey stick a metaphor for something?”

British English was kind of weird. Josie’s face scrunched a little as she thought more and more about the strange words.

44 Josephine Clyde Tally ho good sir! 1477 0 5