Selina Skies
January 23, 2020 5:41 AM
Tumbleweed Trip by Selina Skies
The trip into Tumbleweed had been announced once the Quidditch team’s commitment to taking part in the fair had been confirmed. This had been some weeks prior to the event itself, allowing time for permission slips to be owled home. A brief outline of the safety measures that would be taken were included, as well as directions for parents to correspond via owl or Floo if they had any questions. Tumbleweed, as its name suggested, blew about with the wind, never fully staying in one place, thus it was quite impossible for the students to wander beyond the bounds of the town itself. The only ways in and out were via designated travel points. Additionally, the staff would be monitoring the different areas of the town, and students would be required to check in with the staff member in that area before moving onto another part.Over breakfast on the day of the trip, Selina gave a weather report for the town (a pleasant dry day in the high sixties - she defaulted to Farenheit, not aware this wouldn’t be common to everyone) and reminded them to be assembled and ready after lunch. The team was not performing until the afternoon, and going after lunch had been deemed a good way of managing things so that students wouldn’t need to spend money on food, as that wouldn’t necessarily be within everyone’s budget.
They were travelling down in two groups. The school had borrowed a… sort of car. It was car-like on the outside, but its capacity was above average and it drove itself. They were also opening up a Floo connection with a tourist office in the town. Given that the Floo could be disorienting for first time users, they had thought it prudent to offer any Muggleborns who weren’t sure about it a more familiar option - but recognised that wizarding children who were not familiar with cars might easily be alarmed or motion sick. They would all regroup upon arrival, so that people could pair up as they liked. Students were required to spend their time at least in pairs, and the staff would be noting who was with whom. They could swap partners or groups but they would have to inform a staff member.
The very literal ghost town of Tumbleweed had seen something of a shake up for the event. The main area of the town was the most untouched. It comprised a small shopping street which mostly sold tourist tat and which had the ‘saloon’ - a little rowdier at night and in possession of an evening liquor license but mostly a snacks and soda place by day. There were regular displays re-enacting old west life by the many resident ghosts in various venues along the street. Some of it was free to view street theatre, but there were a couple of historical buildings with more elaborate performances and a small museum which charged fees.
At one end of the town, there was a disused sports pitch. On an ordinary day, this was something of a curiosity. Whilst the locals had upheld the Statute of Secrecy, the melting pot culture was evident, with several odd fusion sports having arisen as people looked for new ways to amuse themselves and took influence from the Muggles around them. The ghosts would be providing demonstrations of these throughout the day, though their stadium was barely recognisable - the small town patch of dirt with its shoddy bleachers had been expanded (if not the playing areas itself then certainly the seating around it, and the number of vendors spillng out around it). There were also a couple more smaller pitches to the side, one with a batting range and various other games, and one where visiting teams would be putting on flying demonstrations. It was this smaller arena where the Sonora students would be showing off their skills, and whilst the main arena carried a ticketing charge and the games carried fees, the smaller field was free to enter.
Additionally, the old town hall was running a pop up market to expand the town’s offering in terms of shopping. Around the arena, Quidditch merchandise ruled, but in the hall was a wider range of trinkets - magical sweet stalls, illusions and novelty items. In anticipation of the Sonora students and their upcoming ball, a few clothes vendors had even decided to set up shop.
The students on the Quidditch team had about an hour between arrival and their show, and would have more time after it was complete. The others were encouraged to support their classmates by watching, but would be free to do as they chose.
OOC - welcome to Tumbleweed. We are hosting this on the gardens as we are still working on an ‘out of school’ space. The trip takes place over several hours so your character is certainly free to explore more than one location in that time. There are limits to how badly wrong the staff would let anything go, so if you’re thinking of causing trouble or getting into any, please run it by us. Members of the Quidditch team are free to make up their own details about what the display involves, again keeping it realistic to what the coach would have asked for someone of your character’s skill level.
Subthreads:Main Street
Ice cream! by Mara Morales with Leonor De Matteo, Jessica Hayles
"It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop." [Tag Heinrich] by Evelyn Stones with Heinrich Hexenmeister
Meeting the outlaws (tag Vlad and Tatiana) by Jean-Loup Arceneaux with Tatiana Vorontsova, Vladimir Brockert, Dorian Montoir
Uncle Killian or Mr. Row? by Killian Row
A fun day out (Jasmine) by Peyton O'Malley with Jasmine Delachene
Sports Grounds
Show me your skillz! by Anya Delachene with Freddie Zauberhexen
Meeting the family, part II (tag Professor Brooding) by Jean-Loup Arceneaux with Mary Brooding-Hawthorne
I got nothing to do today but smile by Beau Tate
Town Hall
I'm a fan of your company. [Tag Zara.] by Felipe De Matteo with Zara Jackson
Pre-game with me? [Tag Ness.] by Evelyn Stones
Arrival by Heinrich Hexenmeister
13
Selina Skies
Tumbleweed Trip
26
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5
Felipe De Matteo
January 26, 2020 1:49 PM
I'm a fan of your company. [Tag Zara.] by Felipe De Matteo
The fresh air felt nice. Felipe hadn't realized how much time he'd been spending indoors over the past week or so, and it felt a lot better than he expected just to get outside. He was no longer sore, he was no longer nauseous, and he was no longer so angry. He was also no longer taking any potions. Happy as he was for the Healer having provided something to calm him down in the first place, it wasn't something he wanted to do all the time. It also didn't seem like something the Healer wanted him to do all the time. There had been a lot of talk about hormones and puberty and stressors and things that he didn't want to talk about with anybody, let alone the Healer lady.It was just as well that he was feeling better, as neither option for getting to Tumbleweed sounded like anything his stomach would be happy about. He opted for Floo travel as it was more familiar and got the whole thing over with faster, and then took a big deep breath of fresh air that wasn't just that of Sonora's little bubble. This was a very different sort of place than he knew what to do with, in part because it seemed like the entire city existed for people to visit. There were other cities that were touristy and popular with visitors too, but there was always that extra layer where he can see the real lives of real people living just behind the stage curtains. He was sure that was the case here as well, but everything seemed so geared towards visitors - particularly the group of student visitors who would be taking over for the day - that it was hard to tell what was real and what was not. The ghosts floating around, engaging in all the various bits of frontier life that Felipe had read about, made the whole scene feel just a little bit more magical than other places did sometimes.
His excitement grew tremendously as he surveyed the town around him. He was going to spend the whole afternoon away from Sonora, with Zara (unless she had other plans at some point during the day), and without any of the "stressors" he'd had on his mind. Surely Jessica was going to be in Tumbleweed today, and Leonor was there to remind him of his family as well, but this day was a new one to explore and to adventure, and he got to do so with his adventure buddy. He turned to look for her, making eye contact with Leonor who stuck her tongue out at him and ran towards him as he tried very hard to ignore her.
"Looking for someone?" she asked in Spanish, her tone saying she knew the answer already.
"Not you," Felipe replied, still not looking.
She scowled. "Well that's rude. Maybe I wanted to spend the day with my big brother." Felipe raised an eyebrow, finally looking at her again for a moment. "Okay, maybe I don't want to. But I could hang out for a bit. Where are we going first?"
"You don't have any friends?" he asked, giving up on the search while he spoke with his sister.
Leonor looked him in the face for a very long time and seemed to see a lot. He hated when she did that. Their mother did that, too, and it always left Felipe feeling like he'd been left out to dry after a firm scrubbing. "We're not so different then." With that, she turned and left, her dark hair bobbing through the wandering students and eventually disappearing from Felipe's sight altogether.
He sighed, feeling bad in more ways than one, but pushed it aside. Today, he was going to have a good day. He was not going to be anything for anybody, except his adventure buddy because today was an adventure - not a tutoring trip, not a school day, not a diplomacy meeting - an adventure. Finally spotting Zara, he waved at her and allowed himself to relax, smiling sheepishly as he approached.
"Hiya," he said with a half-cocked, playful smirk. "Where do you want to go first? I was thinking we could look at all the shops and things if you want."
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Felipe De Matteo
I'm a fan of your company. [Tag Zara.]
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Zara Jackson
January 26, 2020 10:47 PM
How about town trail worksheets? by Zara Jackson
Zara was pretty excited for the trip into Tumbleweed. Sonora was great and everything but a change of scenery was always welcome. School trip days had always been the best thing in elementary school. Those were usually museum based, and came with an assigned partner and a worksheet treasure trail on a clipboard with a little pencil tied to the top. Clipboards were funny in that, in and of themselves, they were not super thrilling objects, but their powers of association spraked excitement. Clipboards meant you were going on a trip, or at least doing class outside - counting bugs on the school field or how many steps from one end of the playground to the other or something. Clipboards were a noble symbol of adventure.They didn’t have any such thing today, of course. This was actually just a social trip. In theory. As Zara stepped out of the Floo place, she took a look around the tourist office. There were various information leaflets, and she gave a quick appraisal of one marked ‘town trail’ - it mostly seemed to be a self-guided walking tour of historical spots. That was potentially useful and she pocketed it, just in case. But then her eyes lighted on what she had really been looking for. A cheap, line-drawing printed sheet with the words ‘Hey there, partner!’
Get to know Tumbleweed! it proclaimed in only slightly smaller and no less cheerful letters, whilst a friendly cowboy picture waved at her. Your wagon’s just rolled into town, and as any wise frontiersperson’ll tell you, you gotta get to know the lay of the land! Unravel the clues below to get your feet on the ground.
There followed a series of puzzle types and questions - from anagrams to fact finding and so on. Perfect. Now she just needed a partner. Luckily, she had a pretty good idea of who might want to spend the day with her, and was pretty sure Felipe would never find her lame, even if he found her odd. She bounced up to him, hoping that a day of fun would be had, and would be good for whatever had been going on with him lately. He had said he’d got sick due to eating some dodgy snacks he’d left lying around too long/stress. She was attributing it more to the former, or to the combination, because the idea that you could be literally sick from stress sounded extreme and also less controllable. She hoped that he was being more careful with his food choices and it was only that combination that led to barf, because she really didn’t want that to happen again any time soon. And that a day out in the sunshine would do the ‘stress’ part some good too.
“Hey,” she smiled. “Got us a worksheet,” she grinned, holding it up. “Uh sure, Town Hall is question number five,” she nodded to the question which read ‘What unique design tops the town hall door? Draw it here!’
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Zara Jackson
How about town trail worksheets?
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Felipe De Matteo
January 26, 2020 11:12 PM
Is that . . . what is that? by Felipe De Matteo
A worksheet. That was a word that Felipe knew for its role in classes and textbooks, not for fun. Looking down at the paper in Zara's hand didn't help too much, although it did feature a cowboy which felt apropos. It also did not look like homework, and Zara wasn't necessarily the type to seek out extra assignments. He couldn't even think of what that would be an assignment for. She also looked excited about it, and the worksheet wanted them to draw something on it. Felipe searched his mind, sure he must have some other idea of what this meant. Unfortunately, nothing came to him and he raised his eyebrows in a look of confusion."Worksheet," he repeated, turning the word over in his mouth and hoping for some inspiration. He shook his head. "What is it? What do we do? I'm happy to," he added to make sure she knew it wasn't that he thought it was weird or . . . well he thought it was a little weird but that was just because he could only assume it was homework and he knew that was a bad assumption. "I've never seen something like this except in class," he said, frowning at the paper as he tried to read some of the other questions and reading the first one he saw allowed. "'Number three: How many sheriff's stars can you find in the saloon?'" He grimaced, looking up at Zara with shock. It was very rare that he had no understanding of what was happening, but he only knew what a sheriff was of this and even that wasn't a concept he had a firm grasp on. Worksheet, saloon, sheriff's star . . . none of these were things he could picture. Was a saloon like a salon? "You're going to have to lead us," he cautioned.
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Felipe De Matteo
Is that . . . what is that?
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0
5
Zara Jackson
January 26, 2020 11:31 PM
Fun. Try it. by Zara Jackson
Obviously, she and Felipe had had pretty different upbringings. Like… obviously. It didn’t take their different reactions to a cheerful cowboy worksheet to figure that out, though she had to admit that this might be pretty emblematic of the whole thing. Her reaction was giggly, nostalgia fuelled glee, and Felipe’s was to look at the worksheet like it might bite him and utter the question about sheriff’s stars as if it physically pained him.If it hadn’t been for the whole ‘What is it? What do we do with it?’ thing, she would have concluded he hated the idea. As it was, she was forced to guess he found the worksheet strange/unfamiliar. And, on the one hand she got that. As noted, ‘we have different life experiences’ was practically evident from hearing either of them open their mouths. But she thought the cheerful waving cowboy and the fact the questions were things like ‘count some starts’ and ‘draw a picture’ were pretty big clues that this was not really a daunting prospect. Sure, ‘normal’ was a culturally relative standard and blah blah blah dad-anthropolgy lectures and not showing Westernised biased and all that. All that on the one hand. Happy waving cowboy guy on the other. And back on the dad-anthropologist non-Western-bias hand, she shouldn’t think ill of Felipe’s family for not exposing him to stuff like this but on the other it was very hard not to let the thought ‘Did your upbringing just not involve fun as a concept?’ creep in. Especially as she was starting to feel like that might be painfully accurate. She knew Felipe had been on more than trips for his education - he had travelled for it. But instead of doing the fun museum worksheets of the world, had it been like ‘Hey, today we’re going on a little educational jaunt to Portugal where you’re going to sit in on a trade negotiation?’ In a super non-judgemental, respecting how other people did stuff way, what was the point of that? Elementary school aged kids did not need to sit in on business meetings.
“It’s a thing for kids,” she explained, “Like, to encourage them to look around and learn. And if we complete it, we get to claim a caramel ghost!” she added happily, pointing to the text at the bottom of the worksheet. “I reckon we’ve got this,” she added encouragingly. “So, to the town hall?”
13
Zara Jackson
Fun. Try it.
1444
0
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Felipe De Matteo
January 26, 2020 11:50 PM
Hey, I've had fun before. Like at least twice. by Felipe De Matteo
Somewhere in the back of his mind, it registered with Felipe that he might not ever have actually been a kid. To be fair, at thirteen, he still sort of was a kid. Regardless, it wasn't as if he'd gone to Disneyland or something growing up. There were other things to do and if he took a spot in line at Disneyland, then he was taking it away from someone else. Someone else would have to wait longer because of him. The best thing he could do was help someone else get where he could be just by virtue of being who he was. Usually, that made some sense to him. As he watched Zara's eyes stifle some thought she'd had, he wondered whether that made sense to anyone else.For a moment, he tried to picture his little family of four, just as they were, walking around Tumbleweed with a worksheet. He thought Leonor might be into it for the caramel ghost, although she'd never admit as much. His parents would probably stop to look for litter or something. He couldn't picture any of them just having fun. The closest he thought he'd ever gotten to that at home was when he and Leonor were really small and could run around outside together, without a care in the world. Felipe couldn't have been older than six the last time that had happened, though. Now, it was his mother's warm smile as she hung up fresh laundry to dry, enjoying the little non-magical pleasures of a simple life. His father standing up to see the land he'd covered, proud to see it was further than he'd thought and he still had energy to keep going. Whether it was picking, planting, weeding, plowing, or surveying, the man was always going somewhere and he'd know when he'd made it because he would see how far he'd come.
Felipe hadn't come very far in his own opinion, and that made it a little harder to feel like he was allowed to just do a worksheet. But it made Zara happy, and that was a good thing to do. If it made him happy to make her happy, then that was just a happy side effect. Besides, he could count it as a special topics English lesson, should his parents ever ask about the trip they'd signed off on.
Leonor, undoubtedly, never thought like this. There was absolutely no way she worried so much about every little thing. Maybe there really was something wrong with him in the head, but that wasn't something to think about when he couldn't do anything to fix it. He almost wished he'd told Leonor to stick around so at least there'd be someone fun for Zara to talk to. But despite all odds, Zara did seem to like talking to him. He was adventurous if nothing else, and that was good for something.
He nodded, smiling. "Let's do it," he agreed.
He was trying to decide whether he should offer Zara his arm again, as they had done when walking through the Gardens before. It had been nice and easy, but it had also been private and he wasn't sure whether Zara would want to be seen with him like that. Plus it seemed a bit stiff. It was the sort of thing that Felipe's father would say made a 'good man' but that usually just meant it would make most of the girls Felipe had met really angry. Leonor would probably get to have some fun with that balance seeing as she was the receiver of attention, not the giver of it in most cases.
Last time, though, Zara had merely crooked her arm and that was invitation enough. He did the same, smiling a little at his friend as he offered her his arm, should she want it. "Are we supposed to wear cowboy hats?"
22
Felipe De Matteo
Hey, I've had fun before. Like at least twice.
1434
0
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Zara Jackson
January 29, 2020 8:23 PM
Are we in danger of exceeding your yearly quota? by Zara Jackson
Felipe seemed to be relaxing and getting into the spirit of things, which Zara found encouraging, and greeted with a smile.“I suspect it is encouraged round here. However, my willingness to glorify white American colonialism probably stops just short of wearing the costume,” she stated when he asked about cowboy hats. The period of American history they were here to learn about had some definite downsides. Zara was happy to do a worksheet and get a caramel ghost but that was probably about as far as uncomplicated celebration of American frontiersing was gonna go. The town had its whole mixed sports thing going on, and so there were occasional nods to the ‘melting pot’ idea, at least between some types of cultures, but she was still skeptical overall.
“Bonus question for the worksheet, which will result in me buying you candy, see if you can discover who this land actually belonged to before white people showed up,” Zara suggested. “I reckon the museum is the most likely bet for that, and I think my dad would be pretty mad at me if I didn’t check out a museum and report back, but I don’t think anything inside there is on this worksheet. Still, plenty of time,” she grinned, linking arms with Felipe and setting off for the town hall.
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Zara Jackson
Are we in danger of exceeding your yearly quota?
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0
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Felipe De Matteo
January 29, 2020 10:03 PM
It's been far exceeded. But I think I like it. by Felipe De Matteo
Felipe failed to suppress a smile but he didn't mind. He appreciated Zara's strength and knowledge and sunny disposition despite it all. He allowed himself a moment of bitter humor at the mental image of all the Muggles who might have lived in this part of Arizona over the years, seeing Felipe and Zara - of all people - strolling causally through the town together, wearing cowboy hats. Wholeheartedly supporting the decision not to do so, he nodded.He raised an eyebrow, however, when Zara asked about the people who had been on the land before white people took over. Then, he grinned, happy as Zara accepted his arm. "I know that already," he said. There were many times in Felipe's life when he was smug, although he tended toward pompous more than smug. However, in this moment, he was not at all smug. Instead, he was proud to have some knowledge he could share with his friend, and a little excited that he had won a wager without meaning to. "Leonor and I studied Sonora, the Sonoran desert, Tumbleweed, and most of Arizona as a special focus to our studies of the United States when it was decided that we would attend school here. Also, the boundary between modern day Mexico and the United States was sort of arbitrary and a lot of indigenous tribes have ties to our people," he added, referring as he often did to the people of Cuidad de Matteo as 'his' people. "They were the O'odham, Yavapai, Akimel O'odham, and Hohokam peoples, primarily."
His mouth twitched with humor and a feeling that he couldn't quite identify somewhere behind his breastbone. It was warm and bubbly and he thought it might be what people meant when they said they felt 'giddy'. Arm in arm with his adventure buddy, out in a new place, Felipe felt more giddy than he was used to and he found that he couldn't quite keep some form of smile off his face. "I'll let you off the hook for the candy if you think we'll each get a caramel ghost for this." He wrinkled his nose. Caramel was a sort of candy he associated with chewing or sucking. It was definitely not the sort of candy he wanted to share. "If not, then it's all yours."
OOC - Information about indigenous peoples in the Sonoran desert area drawn from https://native-land.ca/
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Felipe De Matteo
It's been far exceeded. But I think I like it.
1434
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5
