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The smell of wild grapes. Walking across pine needles. Acorns half the size of their caps, especially when that means tiny, tiny, tiny. The world can be so good.
My good news: hit the climax sequence of Vol. 4, which is energizing
My bad news: spidey sweatshirt left at friends' dorm *cries, mourns, schemes*
Snippet for the Tuesday it has been:
Jess is a 'super' who gets kicked out of supers' school for not wearing an identity bracelet. She's at her first day in public school ...
My good news: hit the climax sequence of Vol. 4, which is energizing
My bad news: spidey sweatshirt left at friends' dorm *cries, mourns, schemes*
Snippet for the Tuesday it has been:
Jess is a 'super' who gets kicked out of supers' school for not wearing an identity bracelet. She's at her first day in public school ...
"Jess!"
She looked up. The line had inched up so she was close to the counter, one of the last few in the period's group. Her mother, like she'd thought she'd heard (and fervently hoped to be mistaken about), was wheeling through the room.
"I'll get you lunch on your way," she said, breathlessly, once in range to not have to shout.
"What?"
"I have to take you to the Bureau for a meeting, you're called in for a review."
"No way," Jess said.
She was impressed with how even she made it sound.
"This is not optional, Jess. This is official state--"
"No. I'm not leaving school."
"You ought to consider how much trouble you are already in, young woman."
"I am. I'm done with being forced to leave school when that's the whole issue in the first place. I won't go. If I'm such a freakin' criminal they can do what they like, I guess. But I'm not. And they can wait for the fifteen year old to get out of school, since they've forced her to be at a new school in the first place and the world over knows that's not a great thing."
Her mother was wordless. She just crumpled her face up, and lookeda round at the whole room now focused on them. She wen back with the sad, flattened stance of someone defeated when they didn't know it was a contest.
Jess got up to the counter and leaned hard with her tray. She found herself biting her lip, of all the drama-queen obviousness, and instead just tightened her jaw as she talked to the servers.
The rest of the aday went fine, but was still nightmarish. Jess kept remembering her mother's reaction to her refusal, and wincing inwardly. It made the minutes stretch. The stretchmarks made the hours blurry, just like a nightmare's memory. When she left the school building, irrevocably alone, she felt hollow, used up by the tension just sitting inside. She started when a horn blared from the parking spaces near the door, and saw her mother leaning on the van's wheel just so. The angry look on her face was incredible.
If she'd gone with her gut, Jess would have run, flown, crawled away. Her gut was right, in a sense. Nothing had ever happened to her as terrible as getting into that car with her mother so angry, with it all totally her fault. She could feel from the way her mother was sitting that she had waited for her there in the parking lot, blowing off the Bureau, steaming about the spat, and getting mad enough to use the car horn.
Jess got out on the other end looking forward to lectures or condemnation, to relieve the silence between her and her mother.
She looked up. The line had inched up so she was close to the counter, one of the last few in the period's group. Her mother, like she'd thought she'd heard (and fervently hoped to be mistaken about), was wheeling through the room.
"I'll get you lunch on your way," she said, breathlessly, once in range to not have to shout.
"What?"
"I have to take you to the Bureau for a meeting, you're called in for a review."
"No way," Jess said.
She was impressed with how even she made it sound.
"This is not optional, Jess. This is official state--"
"No. I'm not leaving school."
"You ought to consider how much trouble you are already in, young woman."
"I am. I'm done with being forced to leave school when that's the whole issue in the first place. I won't go. If I'm such a freakin' criminal they can do what they like, I guess. But I'm not. And they can wait for the fifteen year old to get out of school, since they've forced her to be at a new school in the first place and the world over knows that's not a great thing."
Her mother was wordless. She just crumpled her face up, and lookeda round at the whole room now focused on them. She wen back with the sad, flattened stance of someone defeated when they didn't know it was a contest.
Jess got up to the counter and leaned hard with her tray. She found herself biting her lip, of all the drama-queen obviousness, and instead just tightened her jaw as she talked to the servers.
The rest of the aday went fine, but was still nightmarish. Jess kept remembering her mother's reaction to her refusal, and wincing inwardly. It made the minutes stretch. The stretchmarks made the hours blurry, just like a nightmare's memory. When she left the school building, irrevocably alone, she felt hollow, used up by the tension just sitting inside. She started when a horn blared from the parking spaces near the door, and saw her mother leaning on the van's wheel just so. The angry look on her face was incredible.
If she'd gone with her gut, Jess would have run, flown, crawled away. Her gut was right, in a sense. Nothing had ever happened to her as terrible as getting into that car with her mother so angry, with it all totally her fault. She could feel from the way her mother was sitting that she had waited for her there in the parking lot, blowing off the Bureau, steaming about the spat, and getting mad enough to use the car horn.
Jess got out on the other end looking forward to lectures or condemnation, to relieve the silence between her and her mother.
