The DollHouse

Chapter Four

Ms Jones hands us our papers and tells us to sit. Although it is only Tuesday, placements prefer that we do our induction at school, to maximise our available work time at the placement. So most of this week will be spent filling out forms and watching training videos. It seems I’m to be paired with only four other people at The Dollhouse, which makes me wonder what exactly we did to earn this as our ‘individual need’. No one else in our year level seemed to need it.

I look around at my group and fight the urge to sigh. I feel like I’m grouped with a bunch of kids. They’re all lower seniors doing their first year of placement, and the amount of acne and hair gel between them could keep the beauty industry booming for years.

The classroom door slams open.

“Sorry I’m late!” Another senior walks in, puffing as if he has been running down the corridor. I think his name is James, although I have no classes with him. If I feel like an adult in here, he must feel positively geriatric. He’s tall and fit with spiky blonde hair, and he walks with a kind of confidence you rarely see.

Ms Jones gives him a paper and smiles. “We’d only just begun. Take a seat.”

He scans the room, sees me, and for some reason smiles. He takes a seat next to me.

“Thank god there’s someone normal in here,” he mutters when Ms Jones turns back to the whiteboard.

I take a look around the room. ‘Normal’ isn’t a word I would usually pick to describe myself, but when I see who I’ve been grouped with, I guess he has a point. The other students must hide so well that I’ve never even seen them before. And now that I look, they’re all clustered together like a clique, with me on the outside. One of the girls is playing with a lighter underneath the desk, scorching the wood, while the boy at the front stares back at us with his finger lodged so far up his nose he could give himself a lobotomy.

“You have a point,” I mutter back.

“I’m Jules.” He holds out his hand. I was close with the name.

“Cam,” I reply, shaking his hand and grinning despite myself when he changes the shake into a complicated fist bump.

Ms Jones turns round and beams. “I’m glad to see you’re pairing up, since you’ll be working closely together on your assignments at The Dollhouse. The House relies on efficiency and currency, as you can see by the notes I’ve made on the board.”

I look at the whiteboard to see that she has written three dot-points:

Data collection

Maintenance reports

Statistical analysis

“Sounds magical,” I mutter to Jules.

He snorts loudly, making me laugh. Tracy used to snort all the time when something made her laugh. I think I’ll like Jules.

Ms Jones continues, unperturbed. “You will be assisting in the maintenance of the gaming floors,” she explains. “Which involves physical maintenance reports, collection of data regarding the usage of the floors, and analysis of this data with a view to improving user experience. In essence, you will be learning how to manage the system for maximum patron enjoyment.” She smiles suddenly. “This means a lot of play testing. I imagine you will all enjoy this work experience quite a bit.”

I disagree, but, of course, I say nothing. To my surprise, no one else in the room seems taken by the idea. Jules actually frowns.

“I don’t actually play The Dollhouse,” Jules whispers to me. Ms Jones picks up another stack of papers that look suspiciously like application forms, and starts handing them out. “It seems pretty boring to me. All those housewives tittering over a guy in a builder’s uniform.”