Chapter 2 - Week One: Thursday – Linguistics

Jane knew that Mary Poppins would be removing herself from the group once introductions had been established, but the younger woman still wondered how she could lead a group on her own for the whole year. Once Mary announced this trickery, Jane pleaded her to stay and keep in charge but Mary was firm and still kept to her word.

"Oh Jane, you knew I was only a mere sponsor, not some nanny guiding the young from the fire didn't you? All you have to do is keep them from gallivanting like a pack of kangaroos – or is it a herd? – anyway, there's no doubts that they are a shy bunch, now stop giving me that look, we are not codfish!" And faster than she could say Supercalifragilisticexpialid ocious she was gone.

"I always hated that word…" Jane muttered to herself. Though after realizing what she had just said out loud, looked about to make sure Mary was no longer in earshot. Something about that woman still intimidated her. With a sigh, she continued to set up for the day's discussion, this time on her own with no idea how she was going to make this work

"Today, we are going to discuss language!"

Before Jane made this announcement, the girls had trickled in slowly usually along with their roommates, except for Meg who liked to do things on her own. Hardly any of them spoke to each other. Even roommates were silent unsure of how to behave in this group where social etiquette was not well discussed. However, they were all in agreement about one thing: as far as they were concerned, language was nothing more than a simple form of communication, certainly not worth talking about.

Disappointed, Jane still continued as this was her only plan for the day. "Now, I know most of you – if not all of you - think of language as simple and not really anything to think about, let alone talk about. I mean, you all know at least two languages, right? Maybe with the exception of Pocahontas and Tiana as you two are Americans…" She glanced nervously in the direction of the two New Worlders "And Americans don't always have the same education standards as the rest of the world…"

"Actually, I speak French Creole and a little bit of Spanish." Tiana piped up.

"And I speak my native language fluently." Came Pocahontas.

Jane was really starting up a sweat. This wasn't going well and her plan for the day was already going downhill. Her discussion members were obviously disinterested and not bothering to hide it. Meg had even decided to doze off! Jane was seriously considering running out of the room to hide her shame when all of a sudden, Belle spoke to Tiana.

"Comment allez-vous?" How are you?

"Très bien, merci! Mon français est mauvais." Very well, thank you! My French is bad. Though Tiana still had an American accent, Belle and Esmeralda were both very impressed.

"Ne t'inquiètes pas!" Don't worry! "Your French is better than you think" Esmeralda gave a reassuring smile.

The sudden bloom of French speaking encouraged other bouts of conversation, though no one else really had any languages in common outside of English. Many broke up into pairs or small groups.

Rapunzel purposely stayed close to Mulan in particular. "I know my native language is German, and I speak English pretty well." She smoothed out her long hair as she spoke. "But really, I've always wanted to learn Chinese."

Now Mulan was intrigued. "Really? That's not something I hear every day. What makes you want to learn?"

"Oh I don't know…the characters are so beautiful, and mystical! I've seen them in my books, you know. They look like the words that they mean, you know?"

Mulan did know, but she was amused by Rapunzel's explanation and encouraged her to continue.

"The sounds are also so soothing! Like a lullaby almost!" The long-haired girl seemed to float to her own personal reverie before Mulan interrupted her thoughts with a string of harsh sounding Cantonese words.

"lei gok duk jong mun hai ho lang dek mun wah ah?" You really think Chinese is a beautiful language? Rapunzel's green eyes widened as her mouth tilted into a large grin.

"See? That sounds just like German!"

By 10:30, all the girls seemed to have connected with someone else; all except Jasmine who watched while her roommate Mulan chatted with Rapunzel the entire duration of the group meeting. Jasmine and Mulan were supposed to have lunch together as they usually did during the late mornings before the afternoon classes. Granted, they had only known each other a few days and didn't have all that much in common, but she was still someone to talk to.

For a lonely girl from a misunderstood part of the world, Jasmine was distraught when Mulan canceled their lunch plans to instead go to the library with Rapunzel to tutor her in Chinese. It wasn't the fact that Mulan had canceled that bothered Jasmine, or the fact that she was having trouble connecting with her discussion group. It was the fact that she was never good at making friends in the first place.

As she strolled across campus wondering what to do with her free time, she thought back to her life in Jordan where at least she was held in high regard. Her parents were over protective and she was rarely allowed to go outside and explore, making it very tough to build the proper social skills to make friends. When she did go outside, (whether escaping her house or out on a family trip), all she had to do was mention her family name and she would be treated less like a human being, and more like a lifeless sack of gold. But she was still loved and adored by her family…

Al Muhaisen Jaber…Her own family name sounded like a spit whenever she said it out loud or introduced herself. Not so much the sound of it, but the meaning that came along with it. The meaning that screamed "Hey, I'm rich and royal and therefore better than you!" It was a curse. A terrible curse that threatened every bit of self-worth the semi-royal young woman wanted to preserve. All she ever wanted was one friend to rely on, to talk to and to introduce her to a world she never knew was out there.

Then she noticed that she was in front of one of the University's coffee shops. Considering it was one of the few days of the year that England was actually sunny, she figured she could take advantage of her free time and buy an iced coffee drink. However, when she walked in it wasn't the menu that caught her eye, but the attractive cashier who looked Arab himself.

Jasmine prepared her order as she approached the counter, determined to order in Arabic to see if he would take the bait and be impressed by her wit – or at least her beauty. If there was anything she was sure of, it was that her beauty was remarkable as she often received compliments because of it, sometimes even marriage proposals. Though she rarely liked to use her looks to charm people in Jordan, she figured that she needed something to make her feel good in England where she wasn't the most attractive woman about, even if it meant exploiting the one thing she knew how to.

"ana 'ayiza qahwa wa shay." Crap. She knew she made a mistake the moment she uttered her order. Charm and wit were sadly the qualities she wanted to work on the most, and were so far not going to much use.

The cashier was amused though. "You want coffee and tea? Inti majnoona! Fil haar?" You must be crazy! In this heat?

Jasmine blushed in her shyness, even though the handsome young man was smiling at her, maybe even flirting a bit. She could care less that he called her crazy, but instead focused on the fact that he was Arab after all, or at least could speak Arabic. "Maybe, just the tea then?"

He grinned. "Absolutely! Say, inti 'arabiya?" Are you Arab?

Jasmine nodded. "Aywa, ana min al'urdan. Inta mineen?" Yes, I'm from Jordan. Where are you from?

"Sorry miss, I don't disclose information to strangers. I'll be off in five minutes though. Why don't you have a seat and I'll bring your tea personally to your table."

Jasmine nodded again. "Shukraan!" Thank you! She wondered why she was still speaking Arabic even though he was speaking to her in English, but in her heart she knew that she was homesick and in need of some familiarity. Meeting this attractive Arab student was comforting to her, and allowed her to speak in her home language, even if she wasn't used to speaking to strangers in the first place.

He was right though, within five minutes he was out from behind the counter and sitting across from her at the table. She had a chance to get a decent look at him while he placed her tea in front of her. He was very tan, with a slight build and dark, wavy hair. She wondered if he was from Yemen or another Gulf state where it was common for people to be so dark, whereas the people around the Levant where she was from have more varied skin tones.

"To answer your question from before, I'm originally from Palestine, but I've been living here in England for over ten years." His words caused her heart to sink. Palestinian? She was automatically reminded of the strife between Palestinian-Jordanians and Jordanian-Jordanians and how tense situations are due to the large influx of refugees from Gaza and the West Bank into Jordan. Being a Jordanian-Jordanian, and from a rich family, she knew all too well what her family would think if they started dating.

She knew she was getting ahead of herself, but culturally speaking, when a young man and a young woman start talking and they aren't related, it's not unusual to have rushed thoughts and feelings. The young man sensed her discomfort. He knew something he said upset her, so he tried to find ways to change the subject.

"I'm Aladdin by the way. Aladdin Abbas. Sorry if I don't feel much like speaking Arabic. I can see that you do considering you haven't said a word to me in English at all. Do you even understand what I'm saying at all? I get the feeling you do because you've been responding to me. May I have the luxury of knowing your name?"

Oh no. He said 'luxury!' She automatically assumed that he knew she was rich! What would he think?

"My name is Jasmine…Darwish. I'm also Palestinian, but my family lives in Jordan now." She knew she was lying and she ransacked her brain for a Palestinian sounding name and decided upon the family name of the famous poet, Mahmoud Darwish. In an effort to hide her hyperbole of a story, she tried to flirt once again by flashing her winning smile. "And as you can see, Aladdin. My English is quite good."

"Well Jasmine, it's a pleasure to meet you. When you're finished with your tea, will you allow me to walk you to your next class?"

Jasmine was ecstatic to find someone to talk with, someone who shares her background…though deep down she knew she would have to tell him the truth someday if they progressed further beyond friendship, but she bit back these thoughts, hoping to at least have some fun before she would have to break the news to him.

Author's Note:
Hi again everyone! Thank you so much for the reviews!
disney-fr3ak, risingstar9328, and AndieTiggerPyro - means a lot to me! =]

In any case, I know this chapter is shorter. Just had my wisdom teeth extracted so I'm a bit loopy but I knew that I wouldn't have free time to write for a while so I decided to take advantage of the situation in any way that I could. From now on though each chapter will feature both Monday's and Thursday's as opposed to one or the other. Just for the sake of saving time and less room for babble. Plus I'm hoping that by doing that the story will move at a bit of a faster pace.

I actually don't speak any French, so if anyone who does reads this, please correct me if anything I wrote is incorrect! I do speak Cantonese and Arabic though and I love fitting as much in as I can. I also speak some Russian too so I can't wait to write Anastasia's section! =D (who yes, I do know is not Disney but her involvement in this story just seems to perfect with the international setting, I couldn't dare leave her out)

Anyway, hope you enjoyed! Please review, criticize, compliment, suggest...anything! I love hearing from readers! And everything is welcome. Thank you again!

-Suzerenma