Library, Monday

[intotheout]

Tip was trying to get actual library work done this week, she really was. But every time she focused on it, she kept seeing flashes of something dashing by out of the corner of her eye. She never saw what it was, exactly, and when she asked Bill he just gave her the bubble version of a shrug. It didn't matter if she was at the front desk or in the stacks. She tried just staring vaguely into space for a bit to see if she could track it down, but it only every happened when she was actually working.

"Right," she said. "Either there's a ghost in here who wants me to be a slacker, or I'm losing my mind."

[open!]

Comments

[always_someone]

"You probably aren't losing your mind," Norman noted as he walked up to the returns desk, carrying a small armload of books that were due back. "Is somebody flitting around the corners of your vision or something? They love doing that."

Messing with the breathers was one of the few ways they had to while away eternity, after all.

[intotheout]

"Only when I try to work," Tip grumbled. "It's driving me nuts." She dug up a smile for Norman anyway. "How's it going?"

[always_someone]

Norman offered Tip a little smile of his own, setting his books down on the returns desk.

"Not too bad, I think? I went to that Superbowl party last night, because I guess I'm giving masochism a try, now."

He wasn't into sports or being silently and constantly judged by his peers, really.

[intotheout]

"Wow," Tip marveled. "I skipped that one. Even Summer can't make football interesting."

She preferred a good game of sticky-fish. Football didn't even involve anything exploding or players bursting into song.

[always_someone]

"I was mostly there for the puppy bowl," Norman confessed. "I don't care either way about athletes, but dogs are usually a pretty easy sell."

He'd never had one of his own, granted, but Neil's dog was a pretty good boy. Much easier to play with when people didn't look at him like he was crazy for patting at thin air.

[intotheout]

"If she didn't have them in the actual common room, I'm still going to say I had the right plan," Tip said. "Seeing puppies I can't pet just makes me sad."

That wasn't entirely true, but it made a good excuse for her being lazy and antisocial last night.

[always_someone]

"Then yeah, you would have been disappointed," Norman replied, shrugging his shoulders. "So was Sidon, for what it's worth. He was expecting puppies and soup."

[intotheout]

Tip laughed. "Poor guy. At least there were probably cans of soup in the pantry for him?"

[always_someone]

"I was pretty tempted to go digging one out, honestly," Norman admitted. "I'm pretty sure Summer would have looked at us both like we were embarrassing party guests, though."

Which was fine with Norman, but he wasn't so sure Sidon could handle that sort of thing very well.

[intotheout]

Tip wasn't certain Sidon would have noticed.

"Well, I mean. The best way to be an embarrassing party guest is with at least one other person," Tip pointed out. "There's strength in numbers after all."

[always_someone]

"So I hear," Norman replied, laughing a little. "Either way, I figure I'll keep going to Summer's parties anyway. They're not a bad way to meet people, even if there isn't soup. Or puppies."

And a little spiteful part of him was committed to crashing every single party she threw until she told him what the heck her problem with him actually was.

[intotheout]

Tip would be pretty surprised to hear Summer had a problem with him. As far as she could tell the other girl was always perfectly friendly.

Of course, Tip had the advantage of not reminding Summer painfully of her little brother.

"I feel like the obvious answer here is that I need to talk Summer into throwing a soup-and-puppy party."

[always_someone]

"That mostly sounds like a recipe for spilled soup," Norman laughed. "But it could still be fun. There's an animal shelter in town, right? I wonder if they could be convinced to let us borrow a few puppies. Maybe outside, with supervision. It could even convince a few people to adopt."

He wasn't sure where else they would get the puppies, and who was going to complain about anything that was actually a good cause, right?

[intotheout]

"Maybe we could say it's, like, stress relief for the students," Tip mused. "You know, I think I put something about therapy dogs on my sign up sheet for StuCo the first time around. That's, like, practically a campaign promise. I should get on that."

[always_someone]

"I'm pretty sure delivering on therapy dogs would make you a shoe-in for president, when the time comes," Norman mused. "But also, I mean, dogs. I can't think of a single person who would complain about being overrun by puppies. Except maybe cat people."

And even then, he imagined they could probably be swayed.

[intotheout]

"Or people who are allergic," Tip pointed out. "Or, like, there are people who are deathly afraid of dogs."

Tip's family had a very large dog. She'd gotten to know pretty well that some people really weren't into them.

[always_someone]

"True, true," Norman allowed. "So make it into an event. Have a dedicated space set aside for the dogs, and make it clear that people should avoid that area if dogs aren't a great match for them."

He tilted his head a little.

"The rec room in the dorms, maybe? Or the pool. A puppy pool party, with little puppy life jackets..."

[intotheout]

"You know, I keep forgetting we have a pool. . . ."

[always_someone]

"I've never actually used it," Norman replied, "but yeah... I found it while I was getting acquainted with the dorms. I heard something about there being a ball pit up on the sixth floor, too."

In case they needed other options for a puppy party.

[intotheout]

"Clearly I need to do more exploring," Tip said. "Is that what you do when you can't deal with the living?"

[always_someone]

"Well, back home I'd usually just watch zombie movies or read comic books," Norman admitted. "But I have a roomie who's a semester away from graduation and I don't think she was in the market for a nerdy roommate who just sits around all day in his plush zombie slippers, reading."

He shrugged. Truth be told, he really didn't know what to do with a roommate, himself.

[intotheout]

"You, my dear Norman, are far too concerned with what other people want," Tip said. "It's your room, too. If you wanna sit around all day in zombie slippers and she gives you trouble . . . send her to me. I'll clock her for you."

She probably wouldn't. Not for that. But Norman seemed like he could use someone who was willing to casually threaten a little violence in his honor.

[always_someone]

Well, that got a little laugh out of him, at least. He wasn't convinced she'd do it, but she was right; he appreciated it.

"I get the impression that Mara isn't very easily clocked," he replied, grinning a little. "But I don't mind being out and about around here as much, anyway. The locals are weird, but who isn't? And only a couple of people have really been outright rude anyway."

So it was already an improvement on Blithe Hollow.

[intotheout]

"Who's being rude?" Tip asked. "Maybe I'll clock them too. I've been in training, I'm pretty strong, these days."

Tip, no.

[always_someone]

Norman shrugged his shoulders, still smiling.

"Some random guy at the coffee shop," he replied. "He was giving the barista grief for getting his order wrong, but I'm pretty sure it was the guy's first day. Started ranting on about how people were supposed to be understanding of other people's differences when he noticed me rolling his eyes at him for clearly being a jerk to the new guy."

It... didn't make a heck of a lot of sense to Norman. How dare he not be understanding of someone clearly being a dick? Ugh.

"Pretty sure he was barking up the wrong tree, feeding me that line."