1st Year Girls Dorm Room on Crotalus Commons

Adelita Garcia

December 06, 2008 11:25 PM

1st Year Girls Dorm Room by Adelita Garcia

Adelita blew lightly on the ink against her parchment, trying to have it dried faster than it would naturally. She had finished her homework… finally. When she had her tutor back home with some of the other neighborhood kids, homework hadn't really been important. They had it, on occasion, but it was always something her mother helped her with. More so than that, she wasn't learning how to do magic back then. She was learning how to read and how to write. Homework at Sonora was vastly different and Adelita didn’t really have anyone to turn to for help on it. Just her book. Although, she could probably ask her professors, she just didn’t feel comfortable doing so. Or she could go to one of her Tios or her Tia, but she wanted to do this on her own, so asking any of them was out of the question. At least for the time being.

Taking her bag full of finished homework up to her dorm, Adelita found herself in an empty room. She didn’t know where her roommates were, possibly out wandering or in the library. Although, it was getting late so they should be back soon.

Adelita set her homework aside on her desk and laid flat on her back on her bed looking up at the dark canopy over her head. This bed was bigger than the one she had at home, but she still missed her bed in San Francisco. It had a lacy pink canopy. The bedding was white with pink polka dots all over it. It was fluffy and it was cozy and it was Adelita. This bed was not Adelita. It was red and had no personality to it whatsoever. In fact, if Adelita hadn’t put her heart pillow, stuffed pony, and pink afghan on it, she wouldn’t have been able to call it hers at all.

Sitting up, Adelita looked around her space. She had put pictures of her parents and siblings around, as well as pictures of her dance friends, her instructor, and various relatives. Aside from photographs, Adelita had a poster of her favorite Ballet on her wall, The Nutcracker. Her parents took her every Christmas to see it. Lita always wanted to be the girl in the story. So beautiful, everyone watching her, the story about her. No matter how many times Adelita has seen that ballet, she still becomes quite enraptured with it every Christmas.

Lita looked longingly at her ballet slippers resting on her nightstand. She wanted to dance so badly, but was worried about doing it alone in case something happened. She held her slippers for a moment, looking between them and her feet. Lita hated her feet. They were scared and often calloused because of dancing. Her mother, whenever Adelita was hurting after a long practice and her old wounds reopened, would tell Lita to be proud of her feet because they were proof of her hard work. Still, Adelita couldn’t fathom anyone liking the looks of her feet.

Sighing, Adelita put her slippers back on her nightstand before she grew too heartsick to even look at them any longer. Instead, Adelita’s dark eyes focused back on her bed. A conversation between herself and Nathaniel returned to her thoughts and a smirk played on her lips. Climbing onto her bed, Lita stood in the center and glanced around. Still alone, she took the opportunity to test her jumping skills and the strength of the bed. Hearing nothing that indicated the bed was far too old for jumping, Adelita jumped higher. Twirling, kicking, spinning, the higher she went the crazier her jumping became. Fits of giggles exploded from her in her moment of innocence, completely enjoying the moment of simply being a youth.

In fact, Adelita didn’t stop jumping until she realized she was no longer the only one in the common room. This fact startled her so much that she nearly fell right off her bed, but merely managed to do a face plant into her mattress. “Ow…” Adelita commented when she regained her composure. She smiled sheepishly at her roommate, “I was-uh-relieving some stress. Since I couldn’t dance, I figure this was the next best thing.” Adelita shrugged slightly, but grinned just the same. So she was caught in an embarrassing moment. It could have been worse, right?

6 Adelita Garcia 1st Year Girls Dorm Room 136 Adelita Garcia 1 5

Charlotte Abbott

December 09, 2008 4:46 PM

What fun! by Charlotte Abbott

Charlie had been exploring, pretty much since the first day. She had gotten herself lost on several occasions, but most of the portraits could help her out. Which, by the way, she was still not over - talking paintings! That was just the epitome of awesome. She still felt weird being away from home and with all the magic and stuff. She missed her parents; Charlie hadn't ever been away from them apart from the occasional Girl Scout camp, and even then she could call them if she wanted to know something. They didn't even have telephones at Sonora - Charlie knew magic people used owls because her brother had some from his friends over school holidays, but it was so wrong not to have instant contact.

On the plus side, magic totally helped. She was learning to do real spells, and she'd some older girls using their wands to curl their hair! Charlie would bet you could do just about anything with magic, if you knew the spells. She was going to learn out everything she could, right when she was done getting lost.

Having finally made it back to her common room (though she did find a really cool locked room full of crystal balls and stuff), Charlie's surprises for the day weren't over when she found one of her roommates jumping for their life on the bed. Charlie couldn't help but giggle at Lita, and then some more when the other girl fell over.

"Bouncing's cool," Charlie nodded in understanding after Lita's explanation. "Ooh, and I love your cover," she added, distracted by the pink afghan. Charlie ran her fingers over its soft texture. "I brough mine from home, too," she said, pointing with her shoulder to her bed by the window, draped with a pale pink mock-satin comforter than had been on Charlie's bed for the past four years.

"And hey, we can totally dance if you want," she said with a smile. Charlie hadn't got round to asking her other roommates if they danced, but she already knew that Lita did. "Bummer, I don't have any music though," she added with a comical frown.

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Lita

December 13, 2008 10:42 PM

Isn't it?! by Lita

Rubbing her nose from her face plant, Adelita grinned at Charlie. She didn't mind being laughed at for her mishap. If it had been reversed, Adelita would have laughed too. But, it was still embarrassing. And so, even though she was grinning, her cheeks heated with embarrassment and she quickly pulled herself upright. "Thank you!" Adelita stated rather excitedly. Any sort of compliment was the best sort of compliment. "My Grand Mama made it for me for my tenth birthday." Adelita explained. It had been one of her favorite gifts she had received.

Adelita’s eyes took in Charlie’s own pink covered bed and her smile widened. It was surprising how much the two of them had in common. Lita still couldn’t believe how lucky she was to have found a roommate whom shared so much with her. The color pink, dancing, nervous about trying magic, etc. She wondered how much more they really had in common. It had seemed so impossible when Adelita began Sonora that shew ould be able to make friends at all. But, right from the start, she had met Charlie. Charlotte with the wonderful nickname. She had briefly spoken to her other roommate, Deepa, but that girl didn’t seem all that talkative towards Adelita. And Lita hadn’t really spoken to anyone else in the room. Odd as that was, it also made sense. Adelita usually kept to her side of the room. Personal space was important.

“Dancing would be fun.” Adelita commented, glancing back at her slippers. “Music won’t be too hard to come by. I can borrower my Tio’s wireless. I’m worried about actually finding a place that’s really suitable for dancing. I mean, there must be some place in this school that could be really good. Nice floors, maybe a bar available for use. A mirror would be helpful too.” Adelita was running through a list in her head of everything she could remember in her instructor’s studio. There were bars along one side of the wall, and mirrors on three of the four walls. She wasn’t sure if all dance studios were like that, but it was the only one she had been in for the last seven years of her life.

They might have been able to dance in their bedroom, but Adelita had never danced on a carpeted floor and wasn’t so sure she trusted herself on it. Plus, she didn’t know how their other roommates would feel if they took over their living space by dancing. “Do you think there’s some place in the school that’ll be good for us to dance in? I haven’t really explored much yet cos I’m afraid of getting lost. I can ask my Tios or Tia if they know of any place too.”

0 Lita Isn't it?! 0 Lita 0 5

Deepa Rajaram

December 15, 2008 12:41 AM

I think so! by Deepa Rajaram

Deepa hadn't spent much time in the first year girl's room since she got to Sonora. She'd shared a bedroom with several younger cousins at home, and since they had been such--annoying little nits, she thought, then censored herself--rambunctious children, Deepa had tried to spend as much time away from them as possible. The habit had carried over to Sonora instinctively.

Her little corner of the room was nice enough, though. The bed was relatively comfortable, and the dark red and silver bedspread the school had provided was really quite pretty, she thought. She had a few photographs up beside her bed--one of her mother and grandparents, one of the whole extended Rajaram family (all twenty-nine of them), and one she only put up at her mother's behest, of a fifteen-year-old boy in Hogwarts robes. Then there was, tucked surreptitiously under her nightstand, a small statue of the god Krishna dancing. It was spartan, but it was orderly, and Deepa liked it.

Then, there was the matter of roommates. She'd met Adelita in Charms, but hadn't spoken much to her. The only person she'd really spoken much to was that boy in Defense Against the Dark Arts, Daniel. Deepa distrusted men, but not boys--but she had a deep wariness of all women, whether still children or adults. The women in her life had never been particularly kind or welcoming to her.

So she'd been nervous and hadn't spoken--well--at all, really. And that had made her feel even more awkward around Lita, who really had seemed genuinely friendly. The other girls who lived in her room--there were two or three of them--she hadn't really approached. She had no idea what to say to them, though she was beginning to yearn for some sort of friendship.

So when Deepa arrived back at the room with a stack of books in her hands (most of them about human rights, as well as a condensed version of the dictionary) to find two of her roommates talking about dancing, she nearly dropped her books.

"Dancing?" she said. "I--" she stopped short, looking around, and cursed her awkwardness. "--like dancing," she ended lamely, crossing quickly to her desk to drop the books.

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Charlie

December 15, 2008 1:17 PM

Getting to know you by Charlie

If anything could be better than just Lita liking to dance, it would be that all of her roommates liked to dance. Charlie could barely believe it when one of the other girls came through the door and said that she liked to dance, too. "Oh that's amazing!" Charlotte squeaked. She had talked to Kendra a little bit, but not enough to discover if dancing was a hobby of hers. The only other girl she'd really spoken to was Lita. So with a big smile, Charlie introduced herself. "I'm Charlotte," she said, "but everyone calls me Charlie." It would just be wonderful if the other girls in her dorm were as cool as Lita - they'd all be the very best of friends!

There was still a question that needed answering, and Charlie hastened to not neglect it. "Well I've done a lot of exploring but not found much," Charlie admitted. "There's a lot of classrooms with polished floors - I'm sure not all of them are used. We could always ask our Head of House or something if there's a place for us to practise." Charlie wasn't sure how things worked at Sonora, but at her old school they wouldn't have let the kids stay inside for anything. They were just plain mean. Still, there would be no harm is asking. "And hey!" she said as a sudden afterthought occured to her. "We could all sign up for that concert thing and be a dance troupe!"

There was also the point that Lita had said Tia again - Charlie's Spanish wasn't good by any means, but she had taken it for a year at school. "Are you like, part Spanish or something?" she asked Lita. She didn't think the other girl would be offended by the question, as blunt as it was. Charlie was on the verge of asking the other girl where she was from, too, but she didn't want to be labelled 'tactless' forever, so she held her tongue... for the time being, anyway.

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Lita

December 16, 2008 8:07 PM

Getting to know all about you by Lita

In the midst of her conversation with Charlie, another roommate entered into the mix. "Hi Deepa." Adelita greeted, smiling hesitantly at the other girl, while Charlie immediately jumped on the excitement of Deepa possibly joining their quest to find a place to dance. Adelita was still under the strong impression that her roommate just did not like her, remained politely quiet while Charlie introduced herself.

Just as quickly as Charlie was to jump at the chance of Deepa dancing with them, she returned to the question that Adelita had posed moments ago about actually finding a place too dance in. To Adelita, that was most important thing for the time being. Music was easy enough to find. A space to dance was not so easy to find.

Adelita listened as Charlie explained some of the classrooms she had found and questioned whether or not they could go to their head of house for help. Would their professors allow for them to use an empty classroom for something fun for them? Would they require adult supervision? Would they tell them no because they didn’t feel a classroom was adequate for dancing, or that they were not to be used for such things? There were so many equations for this scenario that it was making Adelita’s head spin. She really wanted to dance, but she didn’t want to do it while sneaking around in fear of getting yelled at.

Charlie changed the subject on her by bringing up the Concert. Adelita had been thinking about joining it, but hadn’t really understood what it was all about. She had asked her Tio to explain during a brief encounter, but he could only tell her that it was sort of like a talent show only it wasn’t. They had to do it as a whole house or someone was voted as a solo. As much as Adelita liked dance, she knew she couldn’t do any sort of solo in front of the entire school and any other person invited to come. It’s too stressful and Adelita was sure to fail. But, if they did it as a group, Adelita would still get to dance and keep in shape for when she returned to her instructor for the summer recital. “Yeah, that could be fun.” Adelita exclaimed, her smile growing at the thought.

Charlie’s question had Adelita blinking at her for a moment. She thought that everyone had known Adelita’s nationality. At least, it wasn’t something that she had ever needed to explain. Then again, she was always with her family and if they couldn’t tell by her alone, they would be able to tell by her immediate family or her many extended family members. It probably also helped dilute her a bit since she spent much of her time in Mexico and Spain along with Los Angeles that had a high amount of Latinos.

“Mostly.” Adelita answered her after she got over her shock of being asked. “My Mama’s full on Hispanic, but my Daddy’s only half. My Grand Mama is English and my Grand Papa is Latino.” Adelita explained, not even thinking about the fact that her last name may have told which side of her father’s family the Hispanic part came from.

“Do you think we’ll be able to use an empty classroom?” Adelita asked, still concerned over whether or not they would be able to practice.

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