Not looking at Dean Winter's mole proved more difficult than Felicity expected. It was shaped like Texas and sat just below his left eye so that all of Felicity's attempts to maintain a respectful level of eye contact kept morphing into mole contact instead.
Keeping her gaze away from his toupee was almost as difficult. The color of ink, it sat atop his head like the pelt of a petrified animal. Even worse, it lilted ever so slightly to the right. Felicity's perfectionist fingers itched to reach out and straighten it.
In the end she resorted to Sara's tactic of staring at the boys' rowing team calendar pinned to the wall just behind the dean's left ear. She found that if she trained her eyes on the navel of the particularly well-built red head in the front row she could project the appearance of eye contact while actually basking the rower's ab-tacular glory.
"It says here that you're enrolled in Advanced Computer Science, Calculus I, English Literature, History of the Roman Empire, and French," the dean said, riffling through a file on is desk. "Does that sound correct?"
Felicity nodded. "Yes, sir."
He peered at her over the top of his gold-frame glasses. "And you are aware that the terms of your scholarship stipulate that you must be involved in at least one extracurricular activity?"
"Um." Felicity hadn't remembered that. She worried her bottom lip with her teeth. "It doesn't have to be a sport does it? Because I'm really bad on my feet. When I was twelve I got a concussion playing softball— it's a long story. Basically, I hit myself in the head with the bat. Huh. Guess it's not that long." She fiddled with a loose thread on her t-shirt. "Anyway, I tend to do my best work lying down." She froze. Oh God, please tell me I did not just say that."I meant like coding! I do it in my bed a lot of the time…" she trailed off as the dean's Texas-shaped mole twitched with displeasure.
"Ms. Smoak, that kind of crude humor may have won you friends where you come from but here at Pembroke we strive for a higher level of sophistication."
"I'm sorry," Felicity said in a small voice. "I didn't mean to be crude."
"As for your question—no it does not have to be a sport. There are plenty of other activities you could become involved in. The debate team perhaps?"
Felicity grimaced. With her tendency to put her foot in her mouth, the debate team seemed like the worst possible activity for her to join. Perhaps even worse than being forced to play softball again. A different idea sprung to her mind. "Could I tutor?" she asked. I could definitely do computer science but I'm also good at math, bio, and physics."
"Perhaps that would be best," the dean said wrly. He made a note on her file. "I'll let the head of the Peer to Peer Tutoring Center know that you'll be stopping by to set up your hours." He shut the file and folded his hands on top of it. "Do you have any other questions for me?"
Felicity shook her head. She was anxious to get out of there before she said something else she'd regret.
He waved a hand toward the door. "Then you're free to go."
Felicity was out of her chair in record time. As she laid her hand on the doorknob, Dean Winters called, "And Ms. Smoak—"
Felicity looked back.
"I meant what I said about holding yourself to a higher standard while at Pembroke. You are now a student at my institution I expect your comportment to reflect the utmost respect for that privilege." He said "my institution" the way other people said "my child."
Felicity swallowed. "Yes, sir."
"Go on, then."
As fast as she could, she went.
Felicity spent the rest of the time before dinner until walking around campus with her schedule, staking out all of her classrooms. She also went to the Tutoring Center and set up a tutoring timetable with the waiflike woman who ran it.
Everywhere she went, Felicity felt like there was a giant neon sign hanging over her head alternatively flashing "new girl" and "scholarship student". She hadn't thought to change into her uniform after showering and her combat boots, worn jeans, and Las Vegas University t-shirt made her about inconspicuous amongst the coiffed and uniformed student body as a cheesepuff on a platter of caviar.
Even if she had changed, she doubted that a uniform would have done much to help her blend in. Pembroke only had a few hundred students and most of them had attended the same private education institutions since their designer preschool days. Curious stares followed her across the quad, raking her up and down with unapologetic interest. Feeling like an exotic animal in a zoo, Felicity took to ducking her head as she walked.
When she arrived in the dining hall a few minutes past six Sara was sitting at the long table closest to the door with the dark haired girl Felicity had noticed follow her from behind the castle her earlier that day. Sara waved her over and Felicity sunk gratefully into the seat beside her.
"Felicity, this is Nyssa," Sara said, gesturing to the dark-haired girl. "Nyssa, this Felicity, the new girl in our dorm I told you about."
Where Sara was rumpled, laidback, and cute, Nyssa looked like she had just walked off a high fashion runway. She had flat cheekbones, wide, dark eyes, and an elegant nose. Thick locks of shiny black hair hung down to the middle of her back.
"Hi," Felicity said. "It's really nice to meet you."
Nyssa raised one perfectly arched eyebrow at Felicity before returning her attention to the slice of blueberry pie in front of her.
"Don't mind her," Sara said. "She's got the social skills of a particularly vivacious doorknob."
Nyssa continued eating her pie as though Sara hadn't spoken.
"How was your meeting with the Dean?" Sara asked, piling mashed potatoes into her plate. Dishes of foods littered the length of the table. There seemed to be no coherent theme linking them into a meal; the options ranged from bowls of candied carrots to platters piled high with golden brown grilled cheese.
"Just perfect" Felicity said, reaching for a grilled cheese. "As long as you ignore the fact that I implied I was a prostitute when he asked me about my extracurriculars."
Nyssa snorted through a mouthful of pie and Sara's eyebrows shot up.
"How did you do that?" Sara asked.
"I may have accidentally I told him I do my best work lying down."
This time Nyssa outright laughed. "That's hilarious." She set down her fork and offered Felicity her hand. "Hi. I'm Nyssa by the way."
Felicity grinned. "Felicity Smoak."
"Really?" Sara said, looking between them. "I literally just introduced you guys."
Nysssa shrugged and picked up her fork again. "I thought she was boring then. Now I don't. Got any other good stories, new girl?
Felicity was about to tell them about the shower incident when the boy in question strolled into the dining hall, followed closely by two other boys, one with dark skin, a shaved head, and muscles bulging through his button down, the other shorter and slighter with casually ruffled dark hair and dimpled cheeks.
"Oh crap," Felicity said, ducking her head behind Sara's shoulder. "It's him."
"It's who?" Sara asked glancing toward the new entrants. "You mean Oliver?"
"Oliver?" Felicity slowed lifted her gaze as the boys slipped into a bench a few tables away. Suddenly it hit her why the boy had seemed so familiar. "Wait. That's Oliver Queen?"
Sara sighed. "Pembroke Academy's one and only billionaire castaway. Did you meet him today?"
Felicity groaned internally. He had looked different in the pictures she'd seen on TV; emaciated, dirty, and bruised, with a straggly beard to boot. But now that she knew it was him she couldn't believe she hadn't realized who he was before.
"You could say that," Felicity said. She explained how she had used the wrong bathroom.
She spooned buttered peas onto her plate and watched them roll aimlessly into a puddle of ketchup. Felicity didn't know why the fact that it was Oliver Queen who had witnessed her embarrassment should make the whole thing any worse but somehow it did. She was living in a dorm with his family's name on it, for God's sake. And she had called him a boy-man.
Nyssa's grin gave her a foxlike appearance. "That's great." She looked at Sara. "I like this girl. Can we keep her?"
"Shut up and eat your pie," Sara said to Nyssa. She turned to Felicity. "Seriously don't worry about it. Trust me, Oliver has absolutely no business judging anyone. Once in first year, Tommy, that's the boy sitting next to him, the one with the dark hair. He dared Oliver to streak across the quad. Long story short, they were drunk and Oliver only made it halfway across the grass before he fell asleep under a tree. He was still there when everyone was going to class the next morning. Suffice it to say, 80% of this school has seen the Queen family jewels."
Felicity's brain was suddenly flooded with images of Oliver Queen butt-naked, curled up beneath a tree watched over by a family of inquisitive squirrels. Based on the extensive look at his body she'd gotten in the bathroom, her mind could construct the scene in intricate detail. She shoved a spoonful of peas into her mouth to cover up her burning cheeks.
"Anyway," Sara said, "forget about Oliver. You're both coming to my soccer game after this right? It's just a scrimmage but we're going to kick ass."
Sara's team did kick ass. Felicity cheered from the bleachers while Nyssa sat beside her maintaining a haughtily bored expression. Felicity couldn't helped but be impressed with the Nyssa's ability to appear thoroughly uninterested for extended periods of time without all of her features melting off her face. When Felicity was bored she turned into a drooling, glazed over idiot. Nyssa looked like she was unconsciously posing for a fashion spread. When Felicity told her this Nyssa smiled, for the first time without any hint of irony.
"We're definitely keeping you," she said.
By the time the game ended the sun had dipped behind the mountains and the tops of the trees glowed red and gold in the faltering light. Long shadows followed the girls across the grass as they made their way back up to the castle, accompanied by the low thrum of cicadas.
Sara and Nyssa dropped Felicity off at the dorm before leaving again for the showers. It was only eight o'clock but Felicity felt like she been awake for a full week. As she pulled on her comfiest pajamas, an old worn t-shirt of her mom's and a pair of panda bear boy shorts, she wondered when the rest of their roommates would show up.
Felicity slipped into bed and opened her laptop with the intention of teaching herself a new coding program. The next thing she knew, she was being shaken awake, dragged from the warm depths of slumber and back to reality.
"Uh-uhnn," Felicity mumbled, "five more minutes." But the shaking continued so she peeled her leaden eyelids apart and blinked blearily into the sunlight streaming in through the tall windows. As her eyes adjusted the white blur was replaced by Sara's face floating above her.
"Wake up, new girl," she said, grinning. "You don't want to be late for your first day."