Mogtober 2022

Day 9: Hobbies

"Good morning, everyone!" Miss Cheery, the conductor of Unit 919's hometrain, greeted the nine children. As always, she passed around the jar of cookies, and everyone took one or twelve before settling into their usual seats.

"I know this is a little unusual," She began, "but I'm curious. What is your favorite thing to do over break?"

Everyone started trying to talk over one another, louder and louder until no one could hear themselves think.

"ALRIGHT! Alright!" Miss Cheery hollered over the chaos. "Clearly I went about this wrong. Let's try one at a time. Anah, why don't you start?"

Anah shifted in her chair, a little uncomfortable. "Well," she began, "I like to read medical journals. All of the new advances in my field are very interesting to learn about."

The others nodded encouragingly. Anah blushed.

"Hawthorne, what about you?"

Hawthorne, Morrigan's best friend, grinned. "I like playing with my little sister, Baby Dave."

"Baby Dave?" Thaddea said, a little confused.

"Yeah. Her name's Davina, but we call her Baby Dave."

"Ooo-kay. Next?"

"Archan! What about you?"

Archan was twisting a card between his fingers, trying to make it disapear and reappear behind Lambeth's ear. He looked up when he heard his name.

"What? Oh. I generally like to learn some new magic tricks." He turned back to Lam.

"Thadea!" Miss Cheery exclaimed when it became obvious that Archan wasn't going to say any more. "What do you like to do?"

"Well," Thaddea said, "Every year, my family holds a competition to see who's faster, who's stronger, you know, stuff like that. It's so much fun, and even more if you win. I usually like to train for that whenever I can."

"Francis!" Hawthorne called. "You're up, buddy!"

Francis smiled. "Well, I enjoy baking cookies. I recently found this recipe for something called Mallowmelt Cookies, and I can't wait to try it out."

"Mahir, what about you?" 

Mahir shrugged. "I mostly just like learning new languages."

He thought for a second. "I like puzzles, too."

"Lambeth?"

Lam looked up shyly. "Oh, whenever I'm home, I like to play with my sisters. I don't get to see them often, so I try to make it up to them whenever I can."

"Cadence's turn!"

Cadence glared at whoever had put her on the spot. 

"I... Mostly just hang out with Morrigan and Hawthorne at the Deucalian." She muttered.

"Morrigan's next."

Morrigan thought for a moment. "Well..." She said slowly. "I like to read, and hang out with Cadence and Hawthorne. Oh! And whenever Jack's home, I help him practice his Witnessing. What about you, Miss Cheery? What do you like to do?"

Miss Cheery waved her hand. "Oh, nothing special. I mostly just go to the Gobleian Library, fight  a few books to the death."

Everyone nodded before realizing what she said. 

"Wait, what?"