Surrounded But Alone

Chapter 2- Getting to know you

Mitchum's Point of View;

I wanted to reintroduce myself to my former tour guide again. Gail looked more than happy to share the cookies around since she mostly offered them indiscriminately. So I went over to where the older students had just dropped another student off. Since my former tour guide was the only one I did know I used her name when approaching her. "Hi Kervani, you won't remember me but I was on your first tour."

At the sound of her name, she turned to me. First, she looked as if she was searching through all her thoughts as she tilted her head slightly before saying, "You're the fella who came with the quiet one that bought cake and donuts for everyone.  Oh, my gosh, that was the best tour I ever did."

I guess she did remember me well Presley that is. If I remember what happened correctly, we got there early and Presley bought two huge bowls filled with rice cakes and donuts. I think when she saw it and asked him if he bought them to share, he handed me the bowl and nodded. And again I was stuck sharing it with everyone until the tour was ready to start.

"Did he come with you? Any more snacks?" She asked excitedly as she continued.

"There are only three left, you can have one and call your two other friends over," Gail replied from behind me before I could and then offered her a cookie from the tray.

Kervani did call her friends as she took hers. "Looks like we have two bakers in this year's batch," she said as she bit into them.

"Oh I didn't bake these, Mitchum's roommate did. Aren't they the best thing you've ever tasted?" Gail replied as she pointed to me when she said that and I already knew where this conversation was leading.

"Yeah, it's the same guy who baked the rice cakes and bought the donuts. He's kind of busy with unpacking so he asked me to share them around." I answered before the question could be asked as I knew it was coming.

"This guy is really talented at this stuff. Anyway, I owe you guys a complete tour. You haven't seen the rest of the new buildings yet. We can wait for him to finish up first before we start," She smiled and said. I knew that Presley would in no way be finished anytime soon with the amount of unpacking he had to do.

"Well, you'll be waiting a really long time 'cause he really has a lot of unpacking to do and he's still expecting some of his stuff to arrive," She nodded to what I said to show she understood and then whispered to her friends something in a hushed tone.

All I heard was one of them saying "Ok" and then both left. I didn't get to focus on where they went because Kervani now turned our attention back to her.

"How about I show you around the block?" she asked. I agreed and Gail did also as she gave me back the tray to hold. So Kervani took us on our own personal tour through the building block.

It was a wide area in itself. As we walked on the resin ground pathway through where the trees were between the buildings she told us about them. I learned that there are five buildings providing housing for this year's incoming students. Each building had around thirty students and there were at least six rooms on each floor. Our buildings were all the same cream color with a white line of marble blocks separating each floor. The structure itself was very modern compared to the other buildings I'd seen on my way in. Well, the school has been around for more than fifty years and it would seem that they have now decided to move with the times. But even the old-fashioned buildings were well kept. So even though our buildings stood out as different because of the style, the entire school still maintained its charm.

From the end of our building block, a garden-like area separated us but I could still see some other buildings. Kervani told us that those were the older students building blocks and they are usually separated by the gardens. The building colors I saw for them weren't much different from ours except slightly more brown than cream. What stood out was the structure. It was very unique. You could tell it had something to do with Science as the aligned apartments were in the shape of a DNA molecule. The way the buildings were coupled on top of each other as they twisted into the shape and gave each one its balcony.