the hbs but it's a school

introductory slice of life

The problem with this school, Fina decided, was that the 13 year olds fucking sucked. All of them. Every single one of them.

Yes, Angie, that included you.

She rolled over and tried to cover her ears, because if they thought she was asleep surely Angie would stop letting Lindsey knock over and over and over, but nope. Didn't work. The little...delightful, wonderful young people didn't stop, so she hauled herself out of bed and stumbled to the door, wrenching it open with a grumbled, "What the hell do you want?"

Angie did not, unfortunately, look phased.

"Fina! We want to play with Akilah."

"Angie, it is the middle of the night."

"So? Let me see her."

Fina shut the door in their faces and went back to bed.

--

The next afternoon, when she was supposed to be coming up with ideas to get her hallway involved and making friends or whatever, she laid on the floor of Koty's bedroom and watched him eat an edible. She was pretty sure he'd give her some if she asked, but he was better at acting sober than she was. "Do you think Dan will buy me alcohol if I ask?"

"You're 21, buy your own," he replied, making her grin.

"Pretty sure Dan keeps forgetting that, so I think he'd do it."

"Dan knows how old you are."

"Does he? Are we sure he knows?"

A pause.

"You're all idiots, I don't know what any of you knows at this point."

She laughed. "Not much."

He nodded. "Exactly."

After a few minutes of companionable silence, as Fina stared at the ceiling, Koty said, "I think if you ask him when he's distracted, he'd agree."

"Fuck yeah, I'm gonna go try it."

"Not in front of the kids! Jared'll ride my ass over it!"

Fina laughed and flung herself out of his room fast enough to startle Anne and Peri, standing outside Koty's door ready to knock. "He's busy," she assured them, because they didn't need to know that "busy" almost always meant either sleeping or high.

When she got back to her room, the door was cracked open, which -- not great, given that she always closed it before leaving. That left three options: room inspections, one of the kids, or Damain. She pushed the door open and looked in to see, surprise surprise, Angie, Lindsey, and Liv playing with Akilah.

"You know, when I said no, I didn't mean 'come back later'." She leaned against her door and looked down at the three kids.

Angie shrugged. "You didn't say no, you said 'what the hell do you want' and 'it is the middle of the night'. That's not a no."

"You're my least favorite sibling."

"No, that's Dan."

Fina smothered a grin. Couldn't let the little monsters see that she was amused. "You ever heard of patience? Or knocking?"

"We both know I don't know what patience is," Angie replied, which was true. They had that conversation at least once a week.

"We know what knocking is," Lindsey said. Fina waited them out. "We knocked. You didn't answer, so we decided that meant we could come in and play with Akilah, since you were ignoring her."

"I was working."

"You were in Koty's room with the door shut," Lindsey countered. "Dan says you guys get high when you're in his room with the door shut."

"Dan's just salty he's not invited," Fina muttered. She sat down with the others and picked Akilah up, petting her. "You need to ignore him more."

As she could've guessed, the three kids gasped and pretended to be mightily offended on Dan's behalf. Like Fina gave a shit. She set Akilah in her cat bed and stood back up. "If you don't belong in this room, get out."

"I belong here, don't I?"

Well, she could've expected that.
"No, you don't. Out." When Angie still didn't get off the floor and out of her room, Fina gave in and nudged her out into the hall with her foot, over Angie's very loud protests. "I'm gonna start locking my door," she threatened.

"No you won't."

No, she probably wouldn't.

Damn kids.