Rachel Bauer
January 22, 2012 12:01 PM
Spreading Season's Greetings. by Rachel Bauer
It was, Rachel thought, probably more than a little lame to steal ideas from one’s eleven-year-old sister in general, but desperate times called for desperate measures. She didn’t know when the elections would be – if there was a way to know that didn’t involve doing something stupid, like breaking into the headmistress’ office when there was at least an even chance that Kijewski hadn’t even written it down there, she hadn’t yet figured it out – but she did know they would be fairly soon, and so, she had to work away as best she could until then. She might, if they were told ahead of time to stay behind after it, have the length of breakfast one morning to do some last-ditch focused campaigning, but she didn’t even want to count on that, or do it, if she could help it. It just seemed…desperate. So that meant working now as though it could be tomorrow.In theory, the ‘how’ of working like it could be tomorrow was simple enough. She just had to be a perfect student, and a perfect role model, and a perfect school servant, and generally unstoppably charming to everyone she came into contact with. Most of this, she did anyway, which was comforting to realize and think upon. It was just doing a little…more than usual. Just for a while.
With that in mind, she had gone back to the stationary shop the day after the big shopping trip with Momma and Alicia and come back with a stack of New Year’s cards, which she’d then filled out for everyone in fifth, sixth, and seventh years. She’d wanted to check it again once she got to Sonora, but it hadn’t really been practical to send all of them through the school owls, so she’d left about half of what she had at home for her mother to send through the post and had then checked around the Hall on the first night back to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anyone, made up two quick cards when she realized she had, and had run to the owlery this morning to send those and the other ones she’d brought along and then just hoped and prayed that they’d all actually arrive at the same time.
That was a lot of what was on her mind as she sat down at the table for breakfast on their first full day back, and though she kept up a conversation, her eyes kept traveling to the windows, looking for mail. When it started to look like things had indeed worked out, she felt almost physically relieved for a second, and smiled more brightly at her breakfast companion.
The notes on the pretty blue-and-silver cards were all much the same, written in her neatest handwriting, as cheerfully as she could make it without going overboard and beginning to dot letters with things other than dots, or using too many exclamation points. Some people might not mind that kind of thing, but she knew it could grate on some sensibilities, so it was better to be safe than sorry.
Welcome back! Here’s hoping we both have a fantastic second half of the term. Happy New Year!
Sincerely,
Rachel Bauer
One more thing was out of the way. Now she just had to get all of her presents distributed, and things would be pretty well under control for this week. It was a start, anyway.
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Rachel Bauer
Spreading Season's Greetings.
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