✅ The Last New Start [NaNoWriMo2021]

108. Absence and Opportunities

Tess twirled into the kitchen, half dancing. She'd just jogged back from the bus stop, arriving home from school a minute or two sooner than normal, but there was no mistaking that something great had happened today. Something good enough that her joy had persisted through a conversation with Tami about some restaurant at the far end of the country that was incorrectly advertising their meaty feasty pizza as kosher, and a big debate about food labelling laws that seemed to have taken over just about every online community with even the faintest hint of politics.

Tess didn't care about politics. She didn't care about getting an uncomfortable seat on the bus home. She didn't care that there was still a little chill in the air as she ran back from the bus stop.

But once she was in the kitchen, she glanced at the whiteboard on the wall, with its collection of magnetic weather symbols, and forced herself to be a little less excited. She didn't know if Gabby would be home yet, and she didn't want to get drawn into a conversation that dealt primarily with Spike's issues.

"Don't worry, she's working late again," Ffrances called, speaking before she even stepped through the door from the lounge. "What's got you two so excited?"

"Two?"

"I assume this is a Spike thing. You're always excited to share good news, even if it's only happiness by proxy. But you don't want to get Gabby ranting about how she doesn't trust him again. Right? No worries if I'm wrong, don't mean to pry."

"No, it's... nothing happened really. Nothing major. But Mr Connors was trying to be a traffic cop again. Did you have a teacher like that? Stands in the middle of the east hallway where the stairs to the art department turn out when everybody's coming out of class, hands on hips so he blocks as much of the corridor as possible and everybody's crushed together. And he demands people stay on the left, or tells you to go faster or slower, like he can never make his mind up. Sometimes tells people to go a different way without even knowing where they're going. Just standing there yelling orders, like he can't understand that it would move quicker without him in the middle of the hall?"

"I certainly had one of those," Ffrances giggled. "Mr Deux. I used to study the way he stood. I mean, there was something about the pose and the tone that made him feel like he had authority, and nobody ever barged into him. Weird kind of dominant posture, you know? It was my first time wondering about how people see authority. Like... you can seem to be in charge just by acting right and talking right, whether you actually have the power or not. Big psychological thing. I guess that was about the time my interest in how we think was piqued. And being able to instantly command respect was so useful when I became a TA at uni. I think that pose I learned from the traffic cop teacher was actually what first got Gabby staring at my– Anyway, you were saying? Mr Connor, right?"

"Yeah. He's standing there getting in the way as usual, and one of the spiteful angry girls from the final year is laughing at something. I wasn't looking that way, but I think she tripped her, right? I can't say for sure, it could have been just a stumble. But she nearly falls down, and it takes one of her minions to keep her from falling. Some people laughed, and... ugh, I hate that. I really don't like Mindy, but I don't like that you would laugh at somebody else's misfortune. That's like kicking them when they're down, and she's been so nervous lately, I wonder if she's just keeping up the bully act because she's too scared to be a victim. But that's not the point, I'm not going to ask that. But I was getting to the happy bit, right?"

"You don't like seeing someone laughed at," Ffrances confirmed. "Not for something they can't help. Even someone who's hurt you in the past, you don't want them to be the victim. You really are a nice person. So if not schadenfreude, what made you smile so much?"

"Well, it was Mr Connors's reaction. He turned around to see what people are laughing at, and I think he's leaping to tall conclusions in a single bound, but he says it loud enough that it cuts over everyone else's conversations."