Winston Pierce
January 23, 2018 12:43 PM
Claiming front row seats by Winston Pierce
Upon getting off the wagon and bidding his sister good-bye and good luck at her Orientation, Winston went directly to the Cascade Hall. Firstly, he was famished. It was a long trip from New England to Arizona and he’d only had one single apple along to snack on. He was a growing boy. He needed sustenance.Secondly, he wanted to make sure he had a good seat where he could actually see the sorting this year. He normally didn’t care all that much about seeing where the first years ended up, but this year his sister was among the new students and, with the new sorting method, it was much harder to see from across the room where one specific eleven year old ended up.
So after claiming a seat near where the first years had done their badge dunking last year, Winston began filling a plate with a couple small sandwiches and some pretzels, not enough to ruin his appetite for the feast later, but sufficient to settle his yammering stomach.
After a little while, someone sat nearby and Winston nodded politely. “Welcome back. Do you have anybody getting sorted this year?” he asked, as much to be a conversation opener than to hear the answer. He thought he already knew which of his friends and acquaintances had relatives starting with Caitlin, but confirmation was never a bad thing.
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Winston Pierce
Claiming front row seats
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Simon Mordue
January 28, 2018 7:08 PM
Carefully wording and intoning things. by Simon Mordue
In theory, it was Simon’s job to look after both Nathaniel and Sylvia. In actuality, the two of them were joined at the hip by the time they got into the wagon, so he ended up feeling slightly superfluous, which was usually something he failed to find entirely pleasant but was never something he entirely failed to see coming in these situations.“Well, good luck at Orientation,” he told them when they reached the Gardens. “Not that you’ll need it, of course, Sylvia.” He left it up to them whether to interpret the specificity of that remark as a reference to the fact that Nathaniel more often acted like a lapdog trailing after Sylvia than anything when the two of them were together – observation made Simon think that Nathaniel might occasionally actually think a thought for himself, rather than just adopting whatever Sylvia or Aunt Cynthia said as gospel, but the evidence was not extensive – or a reference to the fact that Nathaniel very much needed luck when it came to meeting and socializing with the new people, considering his…situation.
Simon knew his parents had thought of this, too, but he had been amazed when Father had actually asked him his opinion of whether it might not be better to send his cousins off to school in Canada. After a moment’s thought, Simon had said he thought it was a better idea to do that – a better idea not to remind Americans that Nathaniel and Jeremy and Aunt Cynthia, and therefore Uncle Nicky, existed – but that it would of course make Sylvia miserable. He had had to admit that in the interests of honesty, even though he’d known it would swing Father far toward the option they had in fact taken, which was sending Nathaniel and presumably eventually Jeremy here instead. What Sylvia wanted, Sylvia usually got.
One thing which Simon knew Sylvia wanted was already seated in the Cascade Hall when Simon reached it, but Simon had not yet decided whether or not he should assist her in getting it. “Good afternoon,” he said, taking a nearby seat and evaluating the snack options.
“My sister – along with yours, I think,” he said when Winston asked about associates who happened to be new students. “And one of our cousins is here as well.” This was added casually, an afterthought, to diminish its importance. “Did you have a pleasant summer?”
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Simon Mordue
Carefully wording and intoning things.
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