Milford-Gaudier Academy [IC, OPEN, Pt. I]

[Segral]

Teddy Clarke
October 19th, 2019

A call of "Wah gwaan, Teddy?!" came from the kitchen as his mother washed dishes, the family dog Carlton lapping at her feet. As usual, her son was taking forever to get ready, and he was going to be late if he didn't go get soon. The boy spent an unearthly amount of time changing, taking five minute to put his shirt on, five minute for pants, ten for his shoes, and another twenty for everything else! Granted, it was good the boy cared about his appearance so much, but it was quite the inconvenience!

"EVERYTHING'S IRIE MUM, I'M ALMOST DUN!" Teddy shouted back frantically from his bedroom, fiddling with the buttons of his suit jacket in front of the mirror. He was dressed in a fairly simple suit-and-tie get-up, with a grey suit jacket and pants over top of a pink shirt, adorned with a slightly crooked black tie in a somewhat crude imitation of a Windsor Knot. The suit fit well, hanging slightly loose over his tall, thin frame, only slightly short at the wrists. It was the only suit he owned, he didn't care much for formal wear. All he had was this suit, two collared shirts, and two ties. He just never had many opportunities where he would need a suit, he didn't go to weddings, didn't go to fancy parties. It was basically a homecoming suit by this point.

Finally, he was finished, he couldn't think of what else to look over, he looked fine. And right on time, his mom yelled out again. "TEDDY, COME OUT NOW OR MI BEAT YOU, YOU 'BOUT TO MISS THE BUS BWOY!" she called, her voice practically blowing his door down. Wincing slightly, he scuttled out the door, practically yelping in response. "Mum, I'm here, I'm here. Can I go now?"

"Alright, go get, hop on the bus." his mother said with a dismissive wave, turning back to her pot of soup. "Remember, no chargie business, stay safe, have fun at the party."

"Mum, for the last time, I'm not a loggerhead, I'm not going to get into no trouble."

"That's what they all say. Now go!" she said with a smile as Teddy reached over for a quick hug and kiss, petted Carlton on the head, and dashed out the door, grabbing his coat from the closet as he went out the door. She wasn't sure what she was going to do with the boy. She loved him, but he could be so absentminded and scattered at times, so unaware of his surroundings. She couldn't imagine what was going to happen when he went off to college or started living on his own. Probably calls for help on how to clean his house! Well, she had time to worry about that. For now, he was just a high school student.

[Elejamie]

Erin Sarenda

It's been a month and a half since Erin first arrived in the States. It had been mostly what she'd expected, an interesting experience living in a foreign land far away from her parents. For a start, she's made a few friends, so that's that out of the way. Not just that but she was able to find a girlfriend of sorts; Vivian, an outgoing girl who enjoys making movies to the point where she usually carries a recorder around. She wasn't exactly sure where they were in terms of a relationship, if there was anything there, but they seemed to get on well enough that a step forward wouldn't be too out of the ordinary. And she's been doing alright in her lessons, doing quite well in maths, science and music and average everywhere else. Not due to a lack of trying, mind you, it's just how she normally works.

However, one of the big things she's been doing was helping her roommate Damara learn English. After all, considering that she grew up in a Romani commune and had only arrived in the USA at the same time, her English wasn't the best when they first met. But, fortunately, Erin was nice enough to help her improve it. Sure they hit a few snags on the way, namely with Erin's New Zealand accent making things hard to understand at first, but they soon managed to sort things out. Erin showed her clips from American, British and even a few NZ films and TV shows, just to give her an idea of how words are said and how they could be used. When it came to writing words, she decided to use Commonwealth English, namely because it's what she grew up using. And she even taught a few Kiwi slang words ("bro", "cuz", "sweet as", "chur" and "togs"), just to let her know what the hell she was talking about. Though she was still far from fluent, Damara had improved significantly since that first day. At least, Erin thought that was the case.

And so it was time for the dance. Originally, she didn't really have that much of an idea of who she should take as a date, narrowing it down to either Yixuan (since he wasn't sure if he was comfortable with going with another guy) or Damara just so she wouldn't go alone, she eventually decided to go with Vivian just to see how far she could take this whole thing and if they could actually become proper girlfriend and girlfriend or if they'll have to settle for just being mates. Dress-wise, she wore what was both formal wear and church wear for her: A black puletasi with a tribal design in white and a pair of black flats, as she simply didn't like wearing anything with a high heel, even if it was a big chunky one that could support her weight. The only bit of makeup on her face was a bit of eyeliner, as it's pretty much the only makeup she ever really wears. And, of course, she had a shower just before she got changed, so the hint of scented shampoo on long, flat shoulder-length hair and a fainter hint of deodorant lingered around her.

She was sitting down on her bed, smiling as she was watching Damara modelling her outfit. Upon being asked for her thoughts on it, she simply smiled and said "You look sweet as." Nothing more, nothing less, partly because she couldn't think of anything else to say and because a couple of seconds Damara asked if a boy would dance with her. With a small hint of surprise in her voice for being asked a question like that, Erin replied with "Well, yes. I mean, I don't know if you've asked anyone or if you waited for someone to ask you but you might get a few looks from the boys. And that Finnish bloke who tried to hit on you might be there. Of course he forgot he was leaning back on one of those push doors and accidentally fell into the girls' room, so I don't know if he's a good choice." After a second or two of silence, mostly because she wasn't sure whether or not to add a little something at the end of the following sentence (which she decided to do, albeit say something completely different to what she originally wanted to say), she then added "And if I was a boy I'd probably dance with you. So just be calm and confident. You'll never know."

[Normudria]

Girl's Room 04
Vivian Rodgers

---

Vivian was nervous. Sure, she had gone to dances before, and sure, she'd gone on dates before, but this felt different. Maybe she just had the standard social anxiety that came with a first date. Part of it had to come from her dress, which was much smaller than last year's. She might spill food on herself at dinner, or drop her camcorder at the dance, or step on Erin's toes, or...

What good would all this worrying do?, she thought, laying back on her bed. She had worn herself out worrying about what could go wrong. It felt like she had tumbled down an ever-quickening tunnel of anxiety that only got worse the farther she fell in. She didn't have time for that now. There was so much to be done, and so little time before she had to go pick up Erin from her dorm! Suddenly becoming a tornado-like fury of speed, she raced around the room. First, she threw on her dress, then began using a curling iron in one hand while googling "jersey city vegetarian restaurants" with her phone in the other. Vivian had never been a vegetarian, so she was worried that the cuisine would be limited, but her fears were assuaged by the discovery of Indian food. Sure, she'd never had it before, but she'd had Vietnamese and Thai food before, and if that was anything to go off of, it would be spicy as hell. Vivian liked spice. She absentmindedly touched the iron with her finger and yelped in pain, but she didn't have time to burn. She stumbled in her Converse sneakers (no way would she wear her dress shoes out and around all day) over to her computer, where she used her webcam as an impromptu mirror to apply makeup with. She didn't do anything too fancy, just the two dots she always had under her eyes and a little bit of a silver-winged flair around her eyes. Then, with some spurts of perfume and a mint in her mouth, she felt like she was finally ready to go.

An Arctic Monkeys album slowly spun itself out on Vivian's turntable as she dumped all the things she thought she might need into her purse. She knew how long the album was, and had put it on as a sort of egg timer that would stop playing music once she had to leave for Erin's dorm. The last thing she had to do was boot up her camcorder and stuff it in her clutch. The camcorder in question was a battered thing; she had used it heavily since she first got it in sixth grade. Sure, it wasn't professional quality, and it was very easy for hand shake to show up on any captured footage, but it looked good enough to be used for vlogs or something. Unplugging it from her charger, she tucked it into her clutch and sighed.

As "I Wanna Be Yours" died down and the needle popped off of the shiny black record, Vivian finally decided to make the walk down the hall. Still balled up with anxiety, her hands shook as she swung open the door and stepped out into the hall. A few deep breaths and she was in front of Erin's door without even remembering the process of going between points A and B. After one last deep breath in, then out, then in, she swung her closed hand against the door softly.

"Erin?" She called out. "Sorry if I'm too early; I think I found a cool place to eat."