Second Floor Common Room; Thursday Evening.

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

This was it. The calm before the storm. Turtle had noticed that the week had been exceptionally quiet. Graduated people leaving. Other people leaving to pursue other adventures in life. And then, next week, the start of a new semester. Turtle had experienced a few of these shifts in the population of Fandom, like the ocean tides, just further spread apart, before, so she knew what was coming. She knew what today was.

"Ahhhhh."

Turtle had spread herself comfortably on the couch of the common room, taking up as much space with sprawling, awkward teenage limbs as much as possible and let out a comfortable sigh, closing her eyes. Enjoying the silence. Coming up, the silence might be rare. Ebb and flow. New people made people go all crazy and social and she'd have to network like a fiend and possibly hire in some new people, but for now? For now, she took in the quietness of the week and the emptiness of the common room. She pointed her toes so that she could take up even more of the couch and that was it. Just laying there, comfortable, and that was it. Enjoying it while it was there. She sighed again.

"Ahhhh."


[[ common room = open, natch! ]]

Comments

[morpherboy.livejournal.com]

Marco came into the room, and seeing opportunity, threw a Nerf ball at Turtle.

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

Turtle opened up one of her eyes after a Nerf ball had bonked her in the head, her restful peacefulness so rudely interrupted. She tilted her head back to see who had thrown it, although she had a pretty good idea.

By 'pretty good idea,' she meant that she'd narrowed it down to three potential culprits (it would have been four, but Annette had graduated). She was glad to see that the small ratio had still left her being correct.

"Not cool, Conrad," she muttered, and tried to toss the ball back at him.

[morpherboy.livejournal.com]

"Oh come on Wexler, what's a little Nerfballing between friends?" Marco said as the ball came back to him. "Ready to terrorize the new students?"

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"Almost," Turtle said, nodding slightly as she closed her eyes again and took in a deep breath. She held her hands out in front of her a little, partially to balance her chi or spirit or whatever the heck it was that people balanced when they did stuff like this, and partially so they'd be ready to maybe block any other assaults. "I'm getting all Zen tonight, or something, so that I can be good and ready to terrorize to the best of my ability and to the fullest capacity."

"Or something like that. I don't know. I read about it in some article."

[morpherboy.livejournal.com]

"Zen, shmen. We need a plan." Marco informed her and plopped down on the couch. "Something new, something creative, something....hm."

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

As Marco plopped down, Turtle opened her eyes under a frowning forehead and shifted so that she was sitting up. "We?"

[morpherboy.livejournal.com]

"You realize that if we can combine talents we can terrorize more than twice as many people and with far greater efficiency?" Marco figured Turtle liked efficiency.

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

She certainly did.

"Of course I do," Turtle said. "I just weren't aware that we would be. You have any particular ideas? Most of mine so far have involved advertising campaigns."

[morpherboy.livejournal.com]

"Advertising for what?" Marco asked, curious. "I was thinking that we at least need a list of made up school rules...something referring to teachers who eat students, and oh, I don't know, a couple things that actually did happen here."

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"What do you think?" Turtle asked. "The store! There's potentially a whole flock of fresh meat coming in that need to know about all the great deals and prices that Turtle & Canary offers!"

There was a slight pause.

"...Cannibal teachers is good. I like that..."

[morpherboy.livejournal.com]

"You can claim that your store sells protection from the cannibal teachers!" Marco exclaimed.

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"Marco," Turtle gave him a very serious look. "I can't claim something that I might not potentially be able to follow through on. Yes, I realize I can be all, 'see? No teachers trying to eat you, ta-dah!' But then what if one of the new teachers for the summer workshops is a cannibal? Or we're invaded by cannibal teachers? Then, guess what, big fat false advertising lawsuit for T.R. Wexler, no thanks."

[morpherboy.livejournal.com]

Marco worked that out in his head. "... I don't think teachers are allowed to eat the students."

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"There are a lot of things people aren't allowed to do, Marco," Turtle said importantly. "Doesn't stop them from doing them. I wouldn't do it, but, then again, I'm a law abiding citizen. I'm just saying, you have to think about these things from all angles. And I highly doubt that invading teachers would give a rat's behind about what they're allowed and not allowed to do."

[morpherboy.livejournal.com]

"You make my head hurt." Marco complained.

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"Because you need to use it more," Turtle said with a nod. "The brain's a muscle." No, it wasn't. "You have to keep it in shape and work it out a bit."

[morpherboy.livejournal.com]

"I do to use my brain!" Marco said. "Like right now...when I'm trying to come up with ways to torment new kids."

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"And the best you've come up with so far," Turtle pointed out, "is telling them that the teachers eat people."

[morpherboy.livejournal.com]

"I'm working on it, I'm working on it!" Marco frowned. "Wasn't there something about a locker?"

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

Turtle eyes shifted slowly. "...there...might be? I know Jeff's gotten in trouble with a closet a few times before, but, yeah, I think I do remember hearing something about a locker before."

[morpherboy.livejournal.com]

"Putting more than fifty articles of clothing into your closet causes an immediate and permanent gender switch." Marco made up.

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"They say," Turtle added importantly. "You have to add a they say or a supposedly to it, so that if it ends up not being true, you're not liable. And fifty's not much, Marco. Not much at all. You wouldn't understand, because you're a boy. Girls usually have a lot of clothes, Marco. We should up it to...132. One hundred and thirty two articles of clothing, and they say you will experience an immediate and permanent gender switch. We can tell them that once, someone tried, they got to one hundred and thirty one, and then they went crazy."

[morpherboy.livejournal.com]

"All right, 132. But if you ad the 'they say' they know you're lying." Marco pointed out.

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"Not necessarily," Turtle argued lightly. "I mean, if someone was all, they say that if you jump off a bridge...the thing, by the way, not the person...you could break your leg. Or crack open your skull. Or drown if there's water. Wouldn't you believe them?"

[morpherboy.livejournal.com]

"...Maybe? Depends on how good they are at the whole lying thing." Marco thought for a moment. "We need something about the roof."

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

Turtle tapped her chin in thought.

"It should involve a lack of pants," she decided.

[morpherboy.livejournal.com]

"Or shirts. The roof can only be visited while half dressed - school rule."

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"Wait, but that's not--"

And then Turtle blinked, a grin spreading across her face.

"Ooooh, that's a good one, Marco, nice!"

[morpherboy.livejournal.com]

Marco smiled. "I try, I try. Let's see...all vending machines require a dance of offering."

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"And," Turtle offered, "not shopping for at least something at Turtle & Canary on Saturdays brings really bad luck. You're the only one who can spread taht one, though. It'll be too suspicious if I try to. Although then I could add that I used to roll with the mob, and so it's," she raised her hands for finger quotes, and adopted her best Chicago accent, "'bad luck, see?'"

"OH! Tell them about how I used to roll with the mob! I know it's true, but that'd be so cool."

[morpherboy.livejournal.com]

"And since I usually am in T&C on Saturday's..." Marco nodded. "You used to roll with the mob?"

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"Mmhmm," Turtle hummed an agreement as she nodded importantly. "Sure did. Back in the 1930s. Remember those angel statue things? I got sent back to where the mob was. I was just about to testify for Jimmy Franko on an alleged gambling bust when I got the letter to show up in London. Let me tell you, if I'd have had any idea, I just might not have taken up on it. I was gonna hit it big back then..."

[morpherboy.livejournal.com]

"...and then people don't believe me that I got to meet the dinosaurs."

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"...We all got to meet the dinosaurs, Marco," Turtle said. "Remember? Last summer? That's when I wrote my first will."

[morpherboy.livejournal.com]

"I was a T-Rex?"

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

Turtle blinked, then tilted her head.

"Did it totally suck to have such short little arms?"

Yes, that came with a gesture with her arms tucked up to imitate such a thing.