Lunch, Friday Noon

[endsthegame]

Eating in a mess remained a comfortable habit. It was with no particular surprise that Ender found himself drifting there during the lunch hours, considering the day's options with a mildly curious expression.

Ham and cheese sandwiches, salad, and a kind of pudding that looked dangerous both in color and in shape, but he'd eaten worse things. He settled at a table that was neither in the corner nor particularly in the middle, and ate quietly.

If anything, it was a good place to watch.

[ lunch is always open. at lunch ]

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[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

Ah, the high school lunchroom; back home, it was like the very stomachs into which the food was shoveled, the bowels that took in masticated traits and personalities and digested it all in the bile of socialization, processing into cliques and groups clearly defined lines of territory. Where one group sat there, and another there, and, from one, a girl stooping to abolish her height while hiding behind a curtain of dark hair would watch another one, laughing too hard at a joke until milk started bubbling out of her small, upturned, unfinished-seeming nose.

Somehow, though, Cal had a feeling that the only familiar feelings he would have between this cafeteria and the others in his life was the continual and utter disappointment with what was considered a nice, rounded, healthy meal for growing young boys and girls.

As a result, he had a lot of sandwiches on that tray, and, in deciding on a place to sit, he noticed that Ender kid already there, drifted over. He didn't sit next to him, or even across from him, but in a proximity with the suggestion of nearby without being too much so, a little off the way, on the other side of the table. Close enough to jerk his chin up and offer a greeting. "Hey."

[endsthegame]

Ender had watched him approach, and let him-- more disconnectedly curious as to Cal's intentions than anything else. This marked three times he'd seen the boy, and so far, he hadn't been particularly unpleasant. His own head tilted upwards, his fork moving in the opposite direction from where it had previously moved some salad up to his face.

He supposed three times made them acquaintances, at least. "Hey," he returned, his voice easy and level. He should make some kind of inroad, offer Cal a chance for conversation; although he'd enjoyed the time to himself, Ender felt no particular need to facilitate his own isolation. "Did you find anything edible?"

He poked his pudding with his fork.

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

"Oh, it's all edible," Cal commented as he bravely ventured a peek to investigate what might lie between the slices of bread of his sandwiches. "Grass is edible. So's dirt."

And, clearly, the sandwich passed whatever test Cal was running it through because, with that, he smushed the bread back down back in place, picked it up, and took a bit. He'd had worse. Cafeteria food definitely did in a pinch when he was feeling too lazy to go down to Luke's and reap the benefit of free employee food.

[endsthegame]

"I think they might have put some grass and dirt in the pudding." He'd seen food far more questionable back in Battle School, and at times he'd wondered, with morbid curiosity, what brand of manipulation had gone into the food; little soldiers, lined up for whatever they wanted. "But I've seen grass cooked worse."

The speech rhythms of boy banter hadn't been completely lost to him. That much was becoming clear.

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

"Well," Cal mused; he himself had only a small portion of the pudding, "that's one way to get us to eat our greens."

[endsthegame]

"They're contributing to a varied diet," Ender said, wryly, chopping off a little bit of the pudding with his fork. He analysed its contents thoroughly. "It'll do the trick."

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

"And they can use the leftovers to caulk up any cracks in the roads," Cal added, picking at the crust of his sandwich. "Very resourceful, really."

[endsthegame]

Now, all he'd have to do was continue on this line; he'd forge a bridge of some kind into the local student community. And then what...? The school hadn't been where he wanted to be, but he was here now, and he might as well find a position in which he'd do some good.

"They must be planning ahead," Ender agreed, taking his own sandwich demonstratively. He wiggled it around in the air. "Better than concrete."

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

"Tomorrow," he said, "they break ground for the outdoor basketball court made out of these things. That deck? Last week's fishsticks."

[endsthegame]

"They'll add a penninsula to the island using the pudding," he replied, carefully touching the line of the groove this conversation had fallen into. "It's terraforming at its best."

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

"Terraforming," Cal repeated the vaguely unfamiliar word. "That...reinforcing the soil to make it work for plantlife and stuff, right?"

[endsthegame]

"I think the pudding has all the plantlife we'll ever need." He put the sandwich down, prodding the pudding again with his fork, as a demonstration. "Technically, terraforming means turning a planet into some place habitable for human beings," Ender said, "It could be shipped into space."

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

Cal considered the new information as he considered his pudding.

"It could be the ship in space," he added.

[endsthegame]

"I've never heard of shooting pudding into space before." Ender let his fork hit the table again. The conversation was ridiculous, but strangely nice in its simplicity, and he wondered how long that would last.

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

Cal grinned a little at that. "Finally; something you never heard of. After the singing rats dressed like pirates, I though you'd have heard of everything."

[endsthegame]

"There's an infinite amount of space with an infinite amount of details," he pointed out, "There'll always be something I haven't heard of." And once upon a time, that had been a constant worry.