Lessons of Many Kinds
"Hey, Heero," Wufei, like the others, was staring distastefully down at the class schedule he had been given. "Didn't you attend this school once before?"
"Not that anyone can prove. I destroyed all record of my stay." Heero wondered at how, when pretending to be normal, he had been in average and above-average classes, but now that his vast talent and expertise was know, he was in average and below-average classes.
The entire morning had dragged on. Occasionally someone would vocalize brief statements or questions, but a conversation had yet to take root.
Silence.
More silence.
"Classes don't start for another hour."
"I know. How can these people waste away their morning like this?"
Silence.
More silence.
"Won't we need books or pencils or something?"
Silence.
More silence.
Then the silence took on a quality that had each of them snapping back to reality, namely, that the formerly chatter filled dinning hall fell under a widening hush. The last echoes of conversation were fading away when the five were alerted by the skreeking of chairs sliding across the floor towards them. Dragging the chairs were three prim and proper students with practiced welcoming smiles.
"Hello." A young man forced his chair between Duo and Quatre, "My name is David Mouze." He sat down and offered his had to the pilots on either side, who shook politely. "And these beautiful young ladies…" Between Quatre and Wufei, a girl with faux-blonde hair in a large ornamental clip tried to inconspicuously slide her chair, and across the table, a brunette with chin-length curls planted her bottom between Trowa and Heero. David introduced them as Danielle Germaine and Violette Prov. "Welcome to our school!" they chimed in unison.
"Your school? I wasn't aware that this place was privately owned." Trowa's comment seemed to confuse the intruders.
David was the first to show weakness, as his smile did not reach his eyes. He was pale, yet lean, giving him the look of someone who spent a lot of time at the gym. His blond hair was a shade darker than Quatre's, and he had a feminine voice that sounded like a gust of wind. In this voice he stammered out how "school belongs to the students" and "residents claim residency" and other such nonsense. He seemed grateful when the blonde one (Danielle or Violette, they weren't sure) saved him with a well timed "How have you been enjoying your stay?"
She seemed to be expecting an answer, but no one immediately offered. Wufei spoke for his friends. "English isn't my first language, so I'm a little confused. Is she asking if were enjoying ourselves, or in what manner have we been enjoying ourselves since our arrival?"
"The first one, I would think, but it might be both." Duo was a native English speaker, but with so many other languages crowding in his mind, and so few chances to practice and maintain, he was some times lost, especially when faced with lingo that was above his street-rat upbringing. It didn't help, either, that the dining hall was still silent of every thing but whispers, and he could feel people staring at the back of his neck.
Quatre asked "What would be the traditional culturally accepted response?"
"Uhh...some variation of 'fine'" Duo held up his fingers as makeshift quotation marks as he said 'fine'. About a heartbeat later, the girl was given the spontaneous comments of fine/I'm fine/we're fine/doin' fine/fine, Thank you.
If these boys were dogs, or horses, they would have gladly admitted to the ability to smell fear. Since they were people, and Gundam pilots, they kept that ability to themselves.
The brunette decided it was her turn to chit-chat. "Are your accommodations to your liking?"
"Beats barracks."
"Or prison"
"Not as nice as my place at the circus, though."
Once again, their perfectly honest and sincere answers shot down the usually successful 'small talk starters' like an anti-aircraft gunblowing upa hang glider.
David settled on a divide-and-conquer strategy. "So" he said as slid one elbow on the table and faced Duo, effectively blocking Duo from seeing Quatre, "Where are you from?"
"Originally? Uhh…" Duo had to think about it. "I come from space. The L2 colonies, I think. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that Operation Meteor was my first visit to earth. But I could be wrong." Sensing that this was not what David had been looking for, he tried to make up for it. "Um, er, and what about you? Where do you hail from?"
If the pilots openly admitted to being telepathic, they would have said that all three aristocratic children had thought along the lines of finally!
"I'm from Bristol." David purred. "That's in England."
"Uh-huh." Duo turned back to reading his student handbook, just about ready to give this up for a bad job.
"My family is descended from French royalty" Curly-brown-hair was saying. "And Danielle grew up in Italy." She motioned over to blond-straight-hair, and unknowingly solved the identity problem.
"My biological Mother was of French parentage." Quatre, now finished with reading his own handbook, was ready to fall into the practice of benign social rituals.
"And where is your birth mother now?" Violette asked.
"I don't have a birth mother."
Violette did a double take. "Yes you do." She insisted. "You just said she was…"
"I said 'biological mother' not 'birth mother'"
"What's the difference?" David wanted to know.
"Biological parents are the persons from whom raw genetic material originated. A 'birth mother' is whoever carried you and actually birthed you in the hospital."
No one voiced the question of under what circumstances were the two not one and the same, or how you would exist without being carried and born.
Danielle and Violette switched to auxiliary function, and began strings of words that were similar to news casts, commenting on current events and the weather.
Wufei closed his student handbook abruptly, leaned back, and crossed his arms. "This school has too many rules."
"It was more fun with the sweepers."
"When I'm with the Maganacs, I make the rules. Even when I'm at my family's company I'm in charge. This is going to take some getting used to." Quatre looked glum.
"And are you at your family's company often?" Danielle looked ready to sink her claws into him with a predatory gold-digging look in her eye.
"Often enough. As heir, I'm expected to learn as much as possible before taking over."
"And who is running things in the meantime?"
"My sisters. Either they or their husbands will work for me at some point."
"How many sisters do you have?"
"Twenty-nine."
On Quatre's other side, David whistled. "Jeepers. Got any brothers at all?"
"Technically no." Quatre wondered what kind of guy said 'jeepers'. He was also making a mental note to chew out the others for leaving him to verbally fend off the weirdoes by himself. "But since I was adopted into the Maganacs, it's almost like having a whole lot of brothers."
"Do all of you have such large families?" Violette inquired.
The pilots just laughed.
Before heading to class, they found their lockers. Inside were all their books and supplies, with their names already on everything, from binders to pencils. Heero grabbed his text labeled 'en france' and followed the pilots of 02 and 05 to the language arts hallway, where he would sit alone in French class and laugh at the mental picture of his teammates struggling in English Lit. Wufei would have problems with the 'English' part, and Duo was sure to stumble over the 'proper' part. Trowa and Quatre headed to the third floor of the other side of the building for their not-so-early-for-them-but-early-for-the-rest-of-their-classmates pre calc class.
Things went as Heero predicted. He had a short conversation (in perfect French) as to what was expected in this class, decided he was doomed to a semester of boredom, and resigned himself to finding something to occupy himself when the teacher wasn't looking. Trowa and Quatre had similar conclusions. But Wufei was advised to apply for ESL (English as a Second Language) consideration, and Duo cussed out a fellow student with phrases that made the elderly English teacher have a feinting spell.
Exactly 55 minutes later, the five were back to navigating the halls. Heero, Quatre, and Wufei met up at their Geography/World History class, and 02 and 04 headed off alone, Duo to Physics and Trowa to his own English class (thankfully with a different teacher than the poor old lady who had been so traumatized the hour before). 55 minutes after that, Quatre and Wufei headed to the same French class that had bored Heero so much, Heero had to listen to that old lady give him a fifteen minute lecture on why swearing was such a no-no (he vowed to get Duo back later), Duo was in Math, and Trowa was in Geography/World History. Once that was over, they had their last class of the morning, with Trowa and Wufei in Physics, Heero in Math, Duo in Geography/World history, and Quatre in English (sans little old lady)
Lunch was sandwiches, roast beef on whole grain bread, with a side of salad. Heero threatened to shave Duo bald if he, Heero, had to sit through one more admonishment inspired by Duo's actions. All were starting to go stir-crazy in the horrible uniforms, but they had suffered worse, so no one complained (out lout). Then Heero and Quatre left for chemistry, Trowa and Duo had Spanish class, and Wufei was on his own in math class.
By now, they were all thoroughly miserable, convinced this was a waste of time, and were silently longing for the homes they had carefully carved for themselves over the past year. Homesickness is a bitch.
Luckily, the last class of the day for all of them was Phys. Ed. There they donned the (matching) gym clothes, and were able to crowd around each other, to, once again, discourage outside interference. In this first class they didn't do any exercising. The coach explained that they had been told to put on the outfits to make sure every one had one, and that every one's fit. Then he outlined his expectations for the year, mainly saying "your grades are based on effort and attendance" and that each student was expected to maintain a mandatory folder on their progress over the semester. He ended saying "We get done ten to fifteen minutes early for showers and changing out." He clapped his hands together. "Class dismissed ladies! Now let's see you hustle!" And he herded his (entirely male) class to the boy's lockers.
"Is it just me, or did he spend that entire class talking at us?" Trowa was slightly unnerved, and confided in Wufei.
"It's not jus you." Wufei they hypothesized that since the class was mostly upperclassmen, the instructor had recognized most of them as returning students, and knew that these five were the only ones who had never heard that speech. "We got his 'freshmen lecture'."
They reluctantly went back to their other uniforms.