fandomhigh | Welcome Party for the Summer Students and Staff

Entry tags:

!event: welcome picnic

Welcome Party for the Summer Students and Staff

Despite the slightly overcast sky, the weather is still good for welcoming all of the new arrivals for the Fandom High summer session. The graduation decorations (and gremlin debris) have been cleared from the front lawn, and replaced with tables of information packets, food, and drinks. A series of signs point the students to the information table first, where they can pick up their room assignments from the office drones, and then continue on to the food tables to mingle.

And no, there are no inflatable gremlins around today. It's far too early to start scaring the new folks. ~~That's what the mingling section is for!~~

[OOC: All right folks, have at it!]

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Conner would like to say it only took him a couple of quick trips up to 314 to get all his stuff put away, but unfortunately his idea of "quick" is still undergoing a major readjustment. There's "quick" as in "normal," and then there's "quick" as in "I used to be." Normal-quick is still kind of a bummer.

He's dribbling his miniature soccer ball across the lawn as he heads for the food tables, though. As usual. Because Conner McKnight without his soccer ball is a sign of the end of the world.

Z kept sneaking looks at the guy with the soccer ball out of the corner of her eye. Was that...no, it couldn't be. His kid, maybe? Did Conner McKnight have a kid?

Conner had spent an inordinate amount of time, his sophomore and junior years at Reefside High, honing the ability to Know When Girls Were Looking At Him. Granted, he ended up having a lot less opportunity to use said ability during senior year (the first time around) than he anticipated, but he refuses to let that practice go to waste.

"Hey," he said, kicking the soccer ball up into his hand and extending the other one to the girl. "Conner McKnight. You new too?"

Z mentally flailed, remembered something Cruger had said before she boarded the transport about 'challenges' at her new school, and pasted a smile on her face. "Yeah, I'm Z Delgado. First day."

"Cool name. I like it." Conner grinned and scanned the crowd, as if trying to find someone in particular, then turned back to Z. "So I found out about this place from my old teacher who got a job here -- how'd you end up here?"

"Uh..." 'I was sentenced here,' probably wouldn't sound good. Not everyone could be like Nadia. Z thought fast. "I was recruited to this training academy, but they're repairing the building from some accident, so they sent me here instead. The program's supposed to be really unique or something."

"Yeah, yeah." Conner nodded. "That's what I heard. Well, I sorta heard, anyway. Doctor Oliver -- that's my old teacher who's here now -- told me a little bit about it, but the guy's kinda vague about stuff. But when I found out they were doing a summer camp, I thought it'd be a great chance to do some research. I wanna start up a soccer camp for kids someday."

[OOC: Why no, I'm not out to break Z's brain already, noooooo.]

"Oh," Z said kind of weakly. "I'm sure you'll do great at that." What the heck? "Soccer camp, that's a really good idea. Yeah." Then she sharpened. "Did you say Doctor Oliver?"

"Doctor Oliver, yeah." Conner's eyes widened. He'd never expected his old science teacher to have a secret underground high-tech lair, way back when, so if Doctor O was more famous than he'd let on, well, Conner wouldn't be too surprised about that either. "You've heard of him? Tommy Oliver?"

"..." Z looked kind of faint. "Suddenly I think I understand why Commander Cruger sent me here.

Conner tilted his head. "Summer camp's a weird substitute for a training academy. What is it, like some super-secret training program or something?"

"Maybe? I dunno. I didn't really get a lot of advance warning I was coming here."

"Wasn't your choice, huh?" His lips quirked in an ironic smile. "Yeah, I know that feeling."

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Marie was dragging her suitcases along the lawn and almost ran right into the guy dribbling the soccer ball.

"Oh, excuse me!" she apologized.

"Whoa, hey!" exclaimed Conner, though more out of surprise than any kind of irritation. Not an hour on the island and pretty girls running into him already? This could be a good sign. "You okay there?"

"Yeah, just not paying attention to where I'm going," Marie said. "And trying to figure out how I'm going to get all these bags up to the fifth floor. I'm pretty sure castles don't come equipped with elevators."

"Need help with that?" Conner offered. "Stairs are not a problem for me."

Marie gave him a grateful smile. "That would be wonderful," she said. "Are you new here, too?"

Conner shoved the soccer ball into his pocket -- it was a miniature ball because it was portable -- and reached over to take her suitcases. "Yup. First day."

Abruptly, he put one of the suitcases down and stuck his hand out. "Oh! Conner McKnight. Hi."

"Marie D'Ancanto," she replied, shaking his hand. "And you don't have to carry all of them," she added, reading for the suitcase he had put down. "But you will save me from making multiple trips up to the fifth floor."

"It's okay," Conner insisted, wrapping his hand around the suitcase's handle again. Kira'd kill him if he started off on the wrong foot by falling back into his old habit of being an insensitive jerk. Maybe he was overcompensating here just a bit, but it was better than the alternative. "So you're on the fifth floor, huh? I'm on the third, but I haven't met my roommate yet. How'd you find out about this place, anyway?"

"My parents found it when they were looking for a summer camp for me," Marie said as they headed for the building. "How about you?"

"My favorite teacher from my last school got a job here. I've sorta been keeping in touch with him in email, but I found out about the summer camp part on my own. Sounded like a good idea, so here I am. Plus I gotta take my senior year over, so I'm hoping I can stick around for fall." Conner shrugged. "My hometown sort of . . . got a little weird over the past year."

"You're doing your senior year at a new school?" Marie asked. "That must be hard, leaving your friends behind. And who's the teacher you know? Is he nice? What does he teach?"

Conner smiled a little wistfully. "We were sort of going our separate ways anyway. Trent and Ethan were going off to college and Kira's trying to move to New York and get a music career going. Plus that stuff that got weird back home made it hard to sort of go back to a normal boring life when it was all over."

He readjusted his grip on the suitcases and looked over at Marie. "Doctor Oliver used to be my science teacher back at Reefside High. I think that's what he still teaches, but he might've mentioned something about driver's ed too. He's a great guy. Taught me a lot."