fandomhigh | Cultural Appreciation, Period Four

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cultural appreciation

Cultural Appreciation, Period Four

Class was meeting in the Danger Shop today, which was set up to look like a movie theatre. Complete with popcorn, candy, and pop available for the students to grab as they filed in.

"Today we will be watching La Céleste Praline, a movie about how a small chocolate shop helped to transform a community," Thor said, and then pressed the button to begin the movie.

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Sholeh was still pretty flustered from the weekend and her wakeup, and the movie was not distracting her sufficiently.

"Excuse me?" she whispered, trying to get Theo's attention. "Are you all right?"

"Huh?" Theo glanced around and then blinked a few times at her. "Oh. Yeah, guess so. Just dealing with a headache. Pretty bad one too."

"I have headache pills in my satchel, if you'd like one?" Sholeh offered. "I get dizzy spells when I don't eat enough and they give me headaches, too. I don't mind sharing."

Seriously, Excredrin was one of the best inventions this world had to offer.

Theo wasn't sure if that would work, if he was honest. Considering the source of his headache, he didn't know if a painkiller would work but it couldn't hurt.

Ange and Dev continued their persistent bickering and Theo winced at one particularly loud exclamation from Ange, of all people.

"Maybe I should give that a try," Theo said after Ange had quieted again. "Before it gets worse."

Sholeh nodded and retrieved the pill bottle from her bag. Glancing at him, she shook out two, just to be safe. She'd seen the wince, after all.

"Here," she said, holding them out to him. "I'm glad you decided to take them. I might have had to insist, otherwise."

Well...okay. Tried to insist. Asked really nicely, maybe. Sholeh wasn't the insistent type, especially not with boys she didn't know.

"Do you want me to go and get some water, too? There's a fountain not far away and I'm pretty sure I can find something to use as a cup?"

Theo took the two painkillers and looked at them sitting in the palm of his hand. He almost missed her next question because of his distraction with the pills.

Dumb boy.

He glanced up and said, "Uh." He was proving his eloquence. "I mean, I can do it. I don't want to put you out or anything."

"You have a headache," Sholeh pointed out. "Do you really want to move around a lot right now?"

The water fountain wasn't that far, either. She was going to the hallway, not to the moon!

Though, to be fair, Sholeh would probably at least volunteer for a moon landing if she thought she could be helpful.

"You're not putting me out. I'm volunteering."

"I'm Theo," he said, which probably sounded random considering their conversation. "Just thought maybe you should know my name since you're helping me so much. So, Theo."

And Ange and Dev but he was not introducing those two rambunctious aliens right now.

"I'm Sholeh," she said with a smile, choosing not to introduce her sisters, either. A bit of selective introduction worked for both of them, then. "And I'm not helping all that much. You have a headache! Who wouldn't offer something to make you feel better if they could?"

Theo thought he could list a few people but he didn't. And they weren't people here anyway. So, moot point.

"You're right," he said with a little laugh. "I'm just not used to it. I pretty much take care of myself. Or, I mean, that's how it typically goes for me."

"If you want to pretend to have persevered through the headache all by yourself, I won't say otherwise," Sholeh promised, eyes dancing. "But I'm about to go and get you that water unless you say otherwise."

"I'm not going to stop you because swallowing these without water is probably going to be...gross."

He'd done it accidentally before and yeah, it was gross. Really bad.

"They are," Sholeh said. Voice of experience there. "I'll be right back."

It took her a little longer than she'd said, since she decided it would just be easier to head to the cafeteria rather than search for something to use as a makeshift cup, but a few minutes later she was back with a bottle of water.

"You might also be dehydrated," she said, handing it over. "So maybe drinking the full bottle might help."

"Are you a doctor?" Theo asked and didn't even mean it jokingly or condescendingly. He was actually serious because this place was strange and she could be something medically related in whatever world she was from.

"That's a very open minded way of thinking," Ange said, taking a break from her arguing to tell him that. "Very encouraging. Perhaps aging up changed you."

Dev groaned and shook his head.

"And thanks too." He downed the pills quickly and then gulped down about half the bottle before taking a breath.

"I'm taking First Aid?" Sholeh said, because maybe that was close? Now she was blushing, because she wasn't sure if Theo was teasing or not. "And I read a lot. I mean, I get headaches, too, so I've read stuff about them, not like I just read random books and that somehow counts."

"Oh, don't blush, don't blush," Theo said hurriedly. "I was serious, I promise. I'm new but what I've got from this place is that people are from so many different places that you could be a doctor. I didn't mean to upset you."

He winced at himself and smacked the side of his head. "I'm a dummy."

"No!" Sholeh said, trying to keep her voice down as Theo went and whacked himself. "How is that supposed to help your headache?"

=You could point out that you didn't go to all that trouble just for him to give himself a concussion on top of it,= Zeela suggested, because her definition of helpful was special.

::Then he might feel worse!:: Sholeh protested. "Please don't say that! I blush all the time about all sorts of things! Ask anybody!"

Beat.

"Okay, maybe not anybody because I don't know a lot of people, but of people who know me, they can tell you." She nodded quickly. "It's not your fault. I'm just kind of awkward."

But honest about it?

"You're fine," he said and made a face at Ange scolding him. That didn't help his headache and he wanted to tell her that it was her fault (and Dev's) that he felt bad in the first place.

But, talking to no one in the middle of class would probably be weird.

"I don't know a lot of people either. Downfall of being new."

And talking to people in your head.

"Sorry."

Hey, he was talking to the one person in the class who would probably understand!

"I'm not actually new," Sholeh said, blushing once again. See, Theo? It really wasn't your fault. "I've been here for almost a year now. I'm just bad at getting out and interacting. I mostly spend time at the library."

"Haven't been there," Theo admitted with a little laugh. "At least the books can't make you blush like I just did?"

Shoeh giggled. "That's how I know you've never been to the library," she told him. "Because yes. Yes they can. And sometimes they do."

"...they can?"

Okay, that stopped both Dev and Ange in their tracks because now they both wanted to hear this explanation for very different reasons.

"How?"

"The books aren't exactly sentient, but they manage to get into mischief sometimes," Sholeh said with a weary sigh. "And around Valentine's Day, they get a little--" hey look! Another blush! "--amorous. Especially the romance novels."

"They get amorous?" Theo repeated, eyebrows arching up towards his hairline. "...with each other?"

Sholeh was just going to hang her head, sigh, and nod. "They mingle pages," she said. "And--look, the library can be really odd. The books also like to pick fights."

"This is the strangest place," Theo breathed, huffing out a little laugh. "Strangest place."

And he'd been to other worlds that were pretty darn strange.

"It sounds like something out of a horror movie. Or a science fiction movie. Who cares about killer dolls that come to life because this place has books!"

He chuckled again.

"If it helps, they mostly attack one another?" Sholeh offered, trying to make it sound less weird. "The war books especially. They like to gang up on the atlases."

...Nope. Still sounded that weird.

"And here I thought a frog fight in my biology class back home was strange," Theo said though he was laughing a little.

Ange was still sore about that frog fight and scowled at Theo to let her know. Dev just laughed.

"Might be the most interesting library I've ever heard of."

"I work on Wednesdays if you want to stop by sometime," Sholeh offered. "Granted, because I invited you, the books will probably be on their best behavior for weeks now, but you never know."

Why was everything on this island so darn contrary?

"And I guess trying to surprise the books would just be silly to try," Theo said and then shook his head at the fact that he'd just suggested trying to surprise books.

"It's harder than it sounds," Sholeh assured him, because, yep, this was their life now. "We're outnumbered."

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Cultural Appreciation, Period Four

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