fandomhigh | Office Hours

Xander knocked on the doorframe shortly after classes ended. He was, oddly, carrying an apple in one hand. And looking a little perturbed, but that wasn't actually so odd for him this week.

"Hey, Ms. C. Can I bug you for a minute?"

Jenny looked up and smiled. "Hey, Xander," she said, closing up her laptop. "How's it going? Come on in, you can bug me any time."

Xander came in and shut the door behind him. He sat down without actually saying anything, and turned the apple over in his hands a couple of times before finally asking, "So, question. Is there some way to tell if somebody's got a spell on them? Or... I don't know, is still under the whammy of some old spell that's supposed to be broken by now?"

"There might be a way to figure that one out," said Jenny slowly. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her desk. "You okay? You don't look like you're feeling quite as carefree as you should be."

Xander twitched. "Sugar overdose maybe? I've got Professor MacGyver on one side and Marty on the other telling me I should eat something besides Twinkies." He held up the apple. "These allegedly keep the Doctor away. Which might be helpful if I were trying to get out of a Quantum Physics test, I guess."

Yeah, he's kind of aware that he totally dodged the question.

"Or you could bribe the Doctor with it," said Jenny. She grinned. "Healthy eating every once in a while is pretty much a good idea. I could probably recommend the occasional veggie and dip combo to get some dairy into your diet."

Jenny? Was a teacher. Which meant she pretty much had a degree in not letting students dodge questions. "So," she said, and tilted her head while looking Xander over. "What's going on?"

Xander sighed, though it didn't do much to make him look more relaxed.

"Okay, so the thing with the singing, last weekend? were you here for that?"

"Missed it, actually," said Jenny. "I would've preferred it to visiting my family, though. Bunch of stuffy old country types. Very boring. Kinda overly focused on a few old issues. I heard something about the singing, but I'm not so clear on what happened. Got any details?"

Xander stopped ~~fondling~~ worrying at the apple, and raised an eyebrow back at her. He even managed a grin. "Ok, you do remember I know who your family is and what their old issues are, right? Or was that force of habit after repeating it a million times for people from another dimension?"

He shook his head. "There... was random singing with occasional flurries of choreographed dancing. Of people, and if you believe the radio, my frog, though how the pirate managed to hear something I slept through, I probably don't wanna know. Aaaaand... then there wasn't. Poof. Stopped overnight on Saturday night sometime."

"Force of habit." Jenny laughed. "Just not so much wanting to get into the details, you know? Jenny and the Vengeance Curse doesn't really make for a soothing bedtime story."

"You have a singing frog? Though on the list of surprises, that's not a big one. Mostly because no homicide's involved." She shook her head. "So how does the sounds-like-a-spell-to-me singing and dancing relate to the question, anyway?"

"Well, he's never sung to me. Mostly he just ribbits and gives me dirty looks when I give him the food-sticks instead of the premium bloodworms. Crichton said he sang, on the radio, but then he was under the spell at the time, so who knows if he was right or just ..." Xander shrugged. "Suffering from spell-induced insanity?"

He looked back down at his apple. "Which I guess everybody was. I was just wondering if maybe that spell was still hanging around or something, even though everybody seems to have stopped singing." And what's actually bothering me totally started before that, but let's not let reality interfere with a good theory, right? "I mean, it didn't just make people sing, it made them sing weird stuff."

"Freaky frog. You ever think of changing his name from Jeremiah to Madison?"

"I don't know," said Jenny. "Nobody seems to be acting weirder than usual." She tilted her head, crossed her arms, and shrugged. "'Less there's something you haven't gotten to yet. Like the weird stuff they sang about, maybe?"

"He's already purple; I think I've traumatized the poor guy enough in this lifetime without changing his name on him."

Xander fidgeted with a seam at the knee of his jeans. "I think everybody sang about different...stuff, judging from the radio broadcast. But a lot of it was ...stuff...you wouldn't necessarily want to burst into song about. I'm gathering it kind of acted like a truth spell, except I don't really know if it was all true or just... " He shrugged one shoulder uncomfortable. "Geared for maximum embarrassment potential or something."

Jenny grinned. "Point taken."

"I might need to do some research," said Jenny. "To figure out what kind of spell this was. But lemme ask you a question: How is it that you don't know whether what you were singing about is true or not? I'd figure the people singing would be the ones to know, wouldn't you?"

OOC: I hate LJ. It ate my comment from last night and I didn't realize 'til just now.

Fidget. Fidget. Pick. Fidget. If he did that much more, when he stood up, his clothes might disintegrate. Which would at least serve the purpose of making that serenade last weekend actually less humiliating, by comparison, but...maybe time to switch back to fidgeting with the apple.

"Well, it seemed true at the time? But it was a little--" He shifted in his seat, and twisted the apple-stem so sharply that it broke off. "Unexpected, would be an understatement. And it.... seems like it might be hanging around after the singing wore off, which is... also un~~appreciated~~expected. For all I know there's some other magical gunk sticking to me, that just combined with the singing stuff like vinegar and baking soda in a 6th grade science fair volcano; around here pretty much anything's possible. S'why I wondered if you can tell if there's any spells on somebody."

Which would conveniently cover all kinds of stuff that happened long before the sudden musical interlude...

__
{NP! LJ's been doing that a lot this week.}

"I think there's a way to do it," said Jenny. "But I'd have to do some research, map out some parameters, things like that. You want to give me a week to check things over?" She gave Xander a sympathetic look. "If there is any mystical gunk, that'd be the first step to figuring out some kind of all-purpose aura cleanser, right?"

A week? Xander tried not to let the disappointment show on his face. It could be worse, in any number of ways he wasn't going to list out even in his head for the same reason that only morons ever say 'What could possibly go wrong?' out loud where the universe can hear you.

"Right," he said, nodding. "Sure. I can do that. You want me to check back in with you next Friday?"

"Yeah," said Jenny. "I should have something for you by then. Sorry it's gonna take so long, but I don't want to zap you with the wrong spell."

Xander made a face at the thought. "Fair point; all I need is something to make my existence even weirder while I'm trying to fix it." He stood up and tossed the apple stem towards the trash can. "Thanks for the help."

"Any time, Xander," said Jenny. "See you in class, 'kay?"

"Yep. Somehow I have the feeling you'd notice I was gone if I ditched." Xander waved, and turned to leave, still studying his uneaten apple with a small frown.

From somewhere around the corner, once he'd gone, discerning ears might have finally heard a crunch.

Bridge bounced over to Ms. Calendar's office and knocked on the door.

"Door's open," called Jenny.

OOC: Slowplay? *hopeful look*

"Animal spirits!" Bridge says, as he takes a seat.

ooc: oh god yes.

"What about them?" asked Jenny. She grinned. The good humor? Kinda infectious.

OOC: Yay! *cheers*

"Well, a lot of past Ranger teams drew their powers from animal spirits- the first Earth team, for example. Although... they were called 'dinosaur' powers, but really, only two of them were drawn from actual dinosaurs. Then they got these Ninja Powers, which drew on different animal spirits," he ticks them off as he goes, "there was also the team on the Terra Venture colony, and the team based out of Silver Hills from 2001."

[ooc: ack! problem with slowplay is i forget where i'm supposed to be!]

"Wow," said Jenny. "So that might explain what got Dr. Oliver into paleontology. Do you think the Power Rangers' connection to animal spirits has anything to do with animal spirits like you'd find in, say, Native American mythologies?"

"Maybe?" Bridge said. "The animal spirits chosen for each Ranger are supposed to match their personalities, in some way. Like, it's not just random."

"How is the spirit chosen?" asked Jenny. "Does the animal spirit choose, or does someone else do the matching up?"

"That's a very good question. I should probably find that out!"

[ooc: thus segueing in to this week's slowplayed thread, heh]

"Go for it, then," said Jenny. "Next week? All about the animal spirits."

OOC: Yay! :) And I have so much lint for you being OK with slowplay, given how busy my schedule is.

Office Hours

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sometime before lunch

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