Thursday, January 8th, 2015
Uldartre Academy, outskirts of Roma, The Kingdom of Celeria
Stress was not an emotion commonly experienced by the man seated in the high-backed leather armchair, but he felt it now. Drumming his fingers on the desk, Miro Derali stood and looked the 5 examples of Havenic youth up and down one by one, and realised that his stress was entirely unnecisary: with their smiles and confident expressions, it was clear that he had selected them well for the task at hand, and he doubted he would be let down.
"I printed off a copy of the paperwork for each of you," he said in his charismatic, cheerful voice. "It won't do for you to not know anybody's name, the results of that last time weren't the best. If you all know what your do..."
"Will Higgins be involved again?" Jason Rosman blurted out, and the old stress threatened to grip the young head teacher again. Jason was a bright student, no doubt, however he did have the ability to say exactly the wrong thing at precisely the wrong time. This was one of those times.
"Mrs Higgins," he said, putting emphasis on the title "Isn't the liaison for this year no, everything goes directly to me." 5 sighs of relief filled the room: Mrs Higgins, the schools aged 'specialist history of the Eastern part of the Greater Vakolicci Haven' teacher was rhumoured to be psychopathic; their was a concensus on the fact that she was insane, the question simply was 'how' she was insane.
"As I was saying," Miro Derali continued, attempting to get the conversation back on track. "You've got at least half an hour before the first exchange students arrive. I'd suggest looking through the papers and putting names and countries to faces. The culture shock doesn't need to be quite so bad."
"Done it already," Maria Schtenko, the blonde-haided girl on the left stated simply. Ah...Maria; how was he still extracting money from her family? The question of why people kept their children in school until everyone left, even if they clearly didn't need to be their, perplexed him sometimes. Maria's photographic memory, aside from the fact that a sports career could beckon if she'd invite it in, meant that the cyborg didn't need to even be around. Derali was sure that if it was possible, Maria would manage to get more than 100 % on an exam, her answers were so precise. Often, it depressed him somewhat.
"If only you could find a way to transmit what you read to other people," was his only reply. "Unfortunately, that's not possible at the moment. You're all free until the students arrive, and then I suspect that even you, Maria, will be somewhat stressed."
The 5 of them filed out, the huge Velsturman ducking to avoid a collision between the top of his head and the doorway. The door slammed shut, and Miro settled down into his office chair, and prepared for hell to break loose around him.
Terminal 3, Roma City Airport, Uldinu approach, Roma, Celeria
Roma City airport was not a pleasant vision whatsoever. The steel, concrete and glass monstrosity poked into the sky like an accusatory finger at the thousands of aircraft that launched from that very location. Dr. Martino Resti, director of sciences, stood in arrivals with a forced smile and a banner. In truth, he was annoyed; the school had people to do this, in his mind it owned people whose job it surely was to do this. But here he was, an educated senior teacher, holding a banner proclaiming 'Uldartre Academy' attempting to hold his ground amidst a press of tourists, businessmen and the obvious shady individuals who for their own reasons wanted to enter the 1 country where whatever they did would be out of the reach of their own governments.
The area he stood in was typical of most Celari airports. After leaving the aircraft, it was where passengers would emerge into; where bags were claimed and citizenship could be obtained. No passport control, no boarder guard; just easy access: therefore, he hoped the first thing that students would see would be a large blue-suited man holding a banner proclaiming he was from Uldartre academy. "Foreigners," he thought to himself "Always need it handing to them on a plate."
For now though, he waited; waited for the first person he had to be friendly too in a very long career of teaching.
