(Oh, oops! Sorry.)
Birdie stared at Meg's back for a solid couple of seconds, with her wide eyes.
She then nodded to herself and turned her back to Meg, continuing to unpack the small things still left in her bag.
Meg was a fairly meticulous person when it came to her space, so as she unpacked she would make sure that everything was somewhere where she could find it when she needed it. Except for a large notebook which she just threw on her bed alongside a small pouch.
She looked back at Birdie with a slightly raised brow when she felt her roommate staring at her. “Yes?”
(I'm cool to go to the next day!)
(Oh, oops! Sorry.)
Birdie stared at Meg's back for a solid couple of seconds, with her wide eyes.
She then nodded to herself and turned her back to Meg, continuing to unpack the small things still left in her bag.
Meg was a fairly meticulous person when it came to her space, so as she unpacked she would make sure that everything was somewhere where she could find it when she needed it. Except for a large notebook which she just threw on her bed alongside a small pouch.
She looked back at Birdie with a slightly raised brow when she felt her roommate staring at her. “Yes?”
(it's cool :p)
Birdie smiled dreamily.
"I was just wondering," she said. "If you're okay with me hanging changing in here, or would you prefer I go into the communal bathroom?"
Meg just shrugged. “We’re both women. As long as you don't stare, I don't mind. And I’ll give you the same courtesy.” she assured.
Birdie nodded and pulled a pair of plaid pajama pants from one of her dresser drawers.
She then undid her belt and turning her back on Meg, began stepping out of her jeans and into the pants instead, she then got a oversize T-shirt and changed her shirt quickly.
Meg rolled her eyes with a soft brief chuckle at the sight of her roommate’s night clothes and turned back to focusing on unpacking. Though she had to admit that she liked Birdie’s apparent no-nonsense attitude about doing things.
Birdie then quickly hung up her posters and unpacked her constellation patterned comforter, which she unrolled and sat on the floor, she then worked on changing the schools white bed sheets to her black ones, and put dark blue pillow cases on her two pillows, adding a few smaller pillows in the mix.
When she was done, she added the comfort back and viewed her twin sized bed with her hands on her hips and her legs slightly bent.
Meg’s side of the room was fairly simple with pictures of landscapes instead of posters and rich green bedding. Though she was always careful of the notebook she had left out. It stayed on her bed, for the most part, but always where she could see it and she never let anything cover it for a moment.
When she glanced over at Birdie’s side of the room, she couldn't help but smile softly. It was almost ironic how she had decorated in a very down-to-earth way while her roommate choose an astrological theme.
Birdie climbed under her covers, pulling them all the way up to her chin, where she looked back at Meg with wide, owl-like eyes.
"Are you planning to sleep soon?" She asked, stifling a yawn with the back of her hand.
“Might as well.” Meg shrugged, noticing the obvious clue that Birdie was tired. “We've got a big day tomorrow.” she commented as she turned around and changed into her pajamas.
“Good night, Birdie.” she said simply as she turned off the light and climbed into bed.
"Goodnight Meg." Birdie said into the dark in her melodic, dream-like voice, which was naturally soft.
"Remember to have nice dreams, nightmares do no one good, especially before an important event like the first day of classes."
She rolled onto her side and pulled her legs up slightly.
(i'm cool to go to the next day too!)
(Sorry I've been so spotty! I'm trying not to spend as much time on the site anymore… but here we go!)
Like any other school, the first day of classes at Brookstone Academy was chaotic. Young, lost first years wandered from wing to wing and room to room of the massive building until they eventually found where they were supposed to be. And for older girls, the day went by in a long, monotone fashion.
Mrs. LaSont ran her trigonometry classroom strictly and without any margin for error. Her sharp eyes constantly swept the classroom as the girls scrambled to transcribe their notes and the correct formulas before the board was erased in a few hasty wipes to make way for the next round.
Ms. Spades was over the moon about the new chemistry textbooks the school had purchased over the summer, so she dove right in as quickly as she could. She quite nearly forgot to hand out the class syllabus until she remembered five minutes from the end of the period. Afterward, she assigned the first 27 problems on balancing chemical equations for the night's homework.
Madame Rousseau graciously took the first few minutes to review the French fundamentals that had escaped all of their brains since the end of the last semester. But the class barely got to thank Madame before she began to teach an intensely hard lesson on the first of many different passive and future verb tenses.
By the mid-afternoon, Miss Lansing's English class was about to start. As the girls in her class would all soon come to learn, none of them would be able to predict the events that happened in Miss Lansing's class each day as they could with their other classes. To being with, Adalise was nowhere to be seen. She stood, hidden behind the door that led to her small living quarters, with her expression calm and relaxed. But truly, she was the furthest thing from it. Excitement coursed through her at the prospect of teaching her very first class at Brookestone.
(no worries! i've been the same lol)
Gayle walked quickly to her next class. She was usually one of the first students to enter the classroom, terrified of being late. She wasn't sure why she was scared of so many common things, but perhaps the ever-present fear of failure was the true culprit behind these many anxieties. She had done her hair in a bun today, leaving two curls dangling on either side of her face to frame it. She hated tying all of her hair up because it made her face look weird. She liked the comfort that those two strands gave. Today she had decided to wear a little concealer for her acne and some mascara and lip gloss. Why wasn't that annoying bout of acne of her cheeks going away? It was determined to stick out the entire first week of school, if not longer, and it made her insecurities flare up again.
At any rate, Gayle was trying not to think about it. Instead, she forced her mind to focus on thinking through the French verb tenses that they had been working on Madame Rousseau's class. It was actually helping to calm her down. Thankfully, she was really good at French, having already known some Spanish which made her better at conjugating since the two languages were relatively similar. The only problem was when she mixed them up a little (it wasn't her fault that some of the words were basically the same), but mostly she excelled in French. She was honestly pretty gifted when it came to school in general, luckily for her. Though that could be due more to the insane amount of studying she did than any innate talent. She hadn't always been great at math, for example. But her studying eventually helped her to get A's and B's. If there was one thing that could be said about Gayle, it was that she knew how to study right.
As she entered the English classroom, Gayle's eyebrows raised. The teacher was nowhere in sight. That was unusual. Well, maybe she was having a tough first day? Gayle decided to give the woman the benefit of the doubt. She sat down in her usual seat–edge of the second row. It was close enough to the front to get a good view of everything, but not so close that she was picked on to answer everything. Gayle hated getting chosen to read aloud or answer a question in class. The truth was, nine times out of ten she knew the answer, or could at least guess at it, but she always had a lingering fear that she would be wrong. She crossed her legs, waiting for the other girls to enter as well. In the meantime, she traced her finger over the desk, making invisible doodles in the polished wood.
Birdie followed suit, staring up at the ceiling dreamily.
She looked around with her wide protuberant eyes as she sat down in the first desk in the third row, near the teachers desk.
She then took out an unused purple spiral notebook, which she had painted books and pencils as well as quills sitting in inkpots on. She let it sit on her desk, placing her red No. 2 pencil neatly next to it, folding her hands and resting them in her lap.
Juniper struggled. Much of the courses were simple enough, but she constantly got lost, and was late to a majority of her classes. However, French was the easiest class of the day. She knew enough to be conversational, but nowhere near enough to be proper. She could thank her friends overseas for their help. Her next class was English. She walked in, a little early, which had her check her schedule twice. She looked around the room, and saw her roommate. She waved.
"Hey! Can I sit beside you? You seem to know what you're doing. Everything here is so confusing…"
Gayle glanced over as her roommate spoke to her, having been engrossed in tracing her finger over the desk in the shape of some doodles. She should probably get her actual notebook ready. She usually drew all sorts of things in the margins in lieu of actually getting a sketchbook or something. That would be too distracting. She didn't want to let herself imagine that art could be anything but an enjoyable hobby on occasion. Besides, she had always been best at painting.
She didn't mind helping out her roommate a bit. Gayle knew if she were the new one at the school, she would want someone to show her the ropes or at least stick by her side as she figured things out. "Oh, sure," she blinked, glancing at the seat next to her. "Starting at a new school can be intimidating." At the very least, she could offer Juniper some support.
Juniper sighed in relief.
"Thank goodness. When I tell you I've gotten lost several times today and I've been late to every class, I mean it. It's been horrible."
Juniper started pulling a notebook out of her backpack and set it hastily on the desk. She flipped to a blank page and began tapping her pencil on the desk.
"To be honest, I have zero clue what I'm doing here. I'm nowhere near as prim and proper as everyone else. And compared to you guys, I talk pretty funny. I'm from Scotland for the Queen's sake! The only class I sounded somewhat normal in today, was French! And even then, I got scolded for using slang terms. I'm starting to wish I was back home. With the people I know. And the horses. And my dog. Today has just been a rough day in general."
Gayle nodded, listening to her roommate's complaints. She understood how nerve-wracking going to a new school was, since she had been scared when she'd started her first year here too, though of course she lived much closer. Changing from a school in your hometown to one farther away, with lots of strangers and rules, was intimidating. Especially when said school was a boarding school.
After Juniper finished her short rant, Gayle blinked, glancing over at her roommate again. She had pulled out a notebook herself as her roommate sat down, starting to doodle in the margins already–today it was a field of flowers. She twirled a hair around her finger as she thought about what might be a good thing to say in response, finally coming up with something after what felt like an eternity but was probably only a few seconds.
"If you want, I could show you where your classes are," she offered. It wouldn't be too much work to at least point the girl in the right direction. Besides, Gayle was usually so early that she would have no trouble getting there on time even without the panicked hurrying she usually did. She was a fast walker, after all. It would be fine. "We're in the same grade, so it wouldn't be like I'm going out of my way." She was doing surprisingly well with this interaction, despite her current lack of ease around her roommate. Juniper's more outgoing and talkative disposition was definitely different from Gayle, but it might not be unwelcome. Just in case Gayle was thinking too hard on the subject and didn't actually need to offer help, she quickly added, "Only if you want to, I mean."
Juniper smiled.
"Oh stars that would be so wonderful. Maybe next time the French teacher won't massacre me for being two minutes late. Anyways, you look nice today. Gotta dress to impress am I right? Quick question. Has anyone ever met this English teacher? Or is she new?"
Gayle smiled at Juniper's affirmative answer, relieved. Maybe having a more outgoing roommate would be good for her. She was glad that her offer of help was, well, helpful. She did really enjoy being there for her classmates when she could, despite the anxiety interacting with them sometimes gave her. Lord knew that she needed more friends instead of just acquaintances. She had noticed Juniper come in late for French, and it now made sense why. Of course she didn't know her way around yet. Not everyone scouted things out before they had class to double check they knew the way, and Gayle had been going to this school for a few years since.
At the compliment, Gayle's smile widened a little, and she blushed slightly. She wasn't used to people actually paying much attention to her besides a side glance when she was too nervous to answer a question in class or something. She really was trying to look cute, so it felt nice to think that other people noticed the effort she put in. It wasn't as if everyone else was mean to her or anything, more accurately they just didn't speak to her much unless she was friends with them (which was a precious few members of her grade), and talking to someone felt nice.
As for Juniper's questions, Gayle had heard about the new English teacher. She was honestly pretty curious about the young woman, since their past English teacher was so boring it was a bit of a struggle to pay attention, though she had trudged through it, even taking notes. She already knew more about poetry in the 1800s than she had ever wanted to know at this point, and she was sick of looking for metaphors and symbolism in every text they had to read. Why couldn't a character wearing blue just mean that they like the color blue? It felt like everything had to have a deeper meaning with the past teacher. Maybe this one would be a little more lively.
"Oh, thank you," Gayle responded, glancing down for a moment. "You look nice too." And it was true. Juniper did look pretty today. "As for the English teacher, she's new. I don't really know anything about her, to be honest. I just hope she'll be a good teacher, you know?"
Adalise couldn't help but sneak a peek though the small crack in her doorway as the girls in her next class filed slowly in. It was slightly amusing as they noticed her absence and then glanced around to hesitantly pick their seats for the semester.
Before she could be seen, the woman ducked back with a grin and headed over to her small desk to gather a book and a clipboard in her hands. She settled both into the crook of her arm and made her way back to the door, checking the time. A minute before the class started. Surely, most teachers would be handing out materials now. Or at the very least, sitting at their desks. Not Miss Lansing.
The young new teacher spared a brief glance down at the book balanced on top of her clipboard. The cover was black with golden words pressed into the leather. Five Centuries of Verse. She'd owned it ever since she'd been a young girl, starting at Brookestone Academy. Her parents had never been cruel to her, but they'd never really had the chance. Adalise was sent to the boarding school as soon as she was of age. She could practically see the handwritten words on the first page, but she didn't open the book. Instead, the teacher waited patiently for the next minute before she would enter her classroom.
Juniper smiled at Gayle's compliment.
"Thank you. I tried to incorporate myself into this uniform. I have to show a little bit of personality. As for the teacher, I hope she'll be good. Looking around the classroom, and looking for the teacher, from what I can gather she's probably not contemporary. This should be interesting indeed."
Meg finally walked into the room, still clutching some of her papers from the last class. She had to stay behind with Madame Rousseau about her accent. The young student had always been interested in other languages. It was unlikely that she would travel or need to learn many for the job she wanted… but some part of her couldn't leave the idea of becoming multilingual alone.
She smiled a little as she took an empty seat and started organizing her things to be ready for this class.
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