[ showcase #11 - the farthest star ]

[green_lantern]

[ Mayfield High School ]

[Guess what, students? You might just discover you have a new elective- Astronomy! Right in the middle of the semester...right before a major holiday. Whatever, this town is effed up, just roll with it.

At any rate, at least the instructor currently writing his name on the board is easy on the eyes. Unlike the drone teachers' classes, this one is decked out to the max. Absent displays of cursive handwriting, pithy 'Hang in there!' signs and motivational posters with pictures of mountains, the walls are littered with star charts of every kind, eerily realistic-looking pictures of various celestial bodies (that might just have a mild greenish cast to them), x-ray photos and artistic representations of cosmic phenomenons. A shiny, though definitely 50's in execution telescope sits parked by the window.

Oh shit. This guy's legit.

He's also not altogether very pleased. While Hal's job as a firefighter for the town didn't require a huge amount of brain power to pull off, it was familiar. True, some of the men were batshit insane, but if it came down to another zombie invasion, he knew he'd always have access to medical supplies, weaponry and a bigass vehicle with which to run things over.

His notification of the sudden job change came through via an unlikely source, the Jordan drone kids, who'd taken the liberty of shaking him awake and informing him that he was going to be late for school. He sat in the empty class for a little while that Monday, considering his options in the gathering dusk. All right, you bastards. Challenge accepted.

Which brings us back to Wednesday morning, Hal in his Friday-casual dungarees and his dad's leather jacket hanging off the back of his chair. He dusts his hands off and points a thumb back at the board, where 'Mr Jordan' has been neatly rendered.]

Right, Class, welcome to Astronomy. I'm Mr Jordan, and if you couldn't tell before now, I'm obviously not a drone.

[He hands off a sheet of notebook paper and a pen to a nearby student, then sits on the edge of his desk.]

Write your name down and pass it back, this is just a formality so I can take roll in the future and keep this class drone-free to the best of my ability.

You'll find your books for this class on your desk. It's pretty dry, incredibly out of date by my standards and better served as a doorstop, but try not to lose them, I have this thing about destroying books. We will be covering Astronomy primarily from an Earth-based perspective, starting with its history and evolution into the branches of observational and theoretical astronomy, and then we'll take a lot of time just looking at a lot of really awesome celestial stuff.

Any questions?

[ Mayfield High School - Lunch ]

[So. Lunchtime. Fellow teachers, anyone offering up a seat?]

[ Grocery store - late afternoon ]

[...how do you tell if a squash is ripe? Maybe he should pick something a little easier to get adventurous with. Oh, if his friends and comrades could see him now. Anyone in the vicinity might see him accidentally disturb a display of sweet onions, and Hal scurrying to pick up the few that scatter.]

Comments

[High school]

[demonoaths.livejournal.com]

[The only reason as to why Mao would ever go to school is to avoid droning, thus why he only comes in about every third day or so. He's always late, has no homework to speak of, usually gets detention for bringing comic books into class and is perfectly fine with it.

So when he comes in that morning while Hal is probably in the middle of a lecture, he takes his sweet time about it. He kicks the door open, then strolls right on in, reading a comic book.

Then he looks up.]

Jordan?!

[Highschool]

[pants-yourmove.livejournal.com]

[[Raises hand.]]

[High school]

[agentof-fortune.livejournal.com]

[It's probably obvious off the bat that this one's not a drone, mainly since she appears to be wearing her not!brother's clothing to class.]

Yes, actually, I have one. How closely will we be following the textbook, exactly? Much of what's in it has been disproven since before I was born.

high school

[foretastes.livejournal.com]

[Terezi has pushed her desk up to the wall and has crawled onto it to try to get at some of those posters. she touches a star chart and inhales the sharp green scent of a poster depicting a planet she doesn't know.]

Are these all pictures of the humans' universe? [Her strange wording is accompanied by a soft and wondering tone.]

[viridian-knight.livejournal.com]

[Hal had been in the middle of talking about Babylonian astrology, which generally involved a lot of chalkboard sketches. He's putting the last touches on one when Mao makes his entrance.

A moment later he's wiping away the thick line of chalk he managed to swipe down it when the kid surprised him.]

Nice of you to join us, Mao.

[high school]

[perfektsymmetry.livejournal.com]

Ah, pretty much all the books in this school are terribly skewed to the point of propaganda, so I'm sure astronomy is no different.

[viridian-knight.livejournal.com]

[Points at him.]

Name and question?

[High school]

[viridian-knight.livejournal.com]

Good question, Miss...?

We'll be using the book as a basic outline for lesson plans, and maybe as a little compare/contrast with the updated material, but that's pretty much it. Unfortunately that means you guys will be doing a lot of note-taking.

high school

[viridian-knight.livejournal.com]

[...Great work, Hal, making the class acceptable for the blind. He makes a mental note to ask her to stay after, so he can find out how to properly accommodate her abilities.]

...Terezi, right? Yes, that's correct. While the syllabus is going to be biased more toward knowledge from my universe, I will make the time for each of you to share what you know from your homeworlds. Do some show and tell.

Can you push your desk back, kiddo? I can bring the posters to you.

[high school]

[viridian-knight.livejournal.com]

Name, please? And that would be another reason why they're being used as a loose outline. The class syllabus I was provided with was a mess of Red Scare psychobabble, so we're having to work from scratch here.

[Mayfield High]

[apathetic-lion.livejournal.com]

[ You've probably noticed by now, but there's a single student in your class that hasn't so much as coughed since he arrived. You're not even sure if he's really paying attention or just staring off into space. What's a teacher to do? ]

[Mayfield High]

[viridian-knight.livejournal.com]

[Hal waits while the rest of the class are scrambling for pencils and paper, then takes a sheaf himself and begins to fold it as he starts in on the day's lesson. Fold fold fold, fold fold fold, crease...

When he's finished, as he's moving to the board to start writing, he gives the airplane's tail another little fold, and then promptly launches it at the student's head.]

[Mayfield High]

[apathetic-lion.livejournal.com]

[ And the plane will meet it's intended target with a small thud. The thing is, Squall is already used to this level of immaturity back home, so it doesn't really bother him. Other than the fact that it's, you know, the teacher doing it. At least you have his attention now. ...If it doesn't feel awkward having the most stoic teenage boy ever staring at you. ]

What?

Grocery store

[ooeeooahah]

[ There are a few onions that escaped a little further, to be stopped by a pair of low-heeled pumps. ]

You know, Tarte a L'oignon sounds like a great idea.

[ Ilsa stoops to pick up the onions near her, dropping them in the basket on her arm. ]

[Mayfield High]

[viridian-knight.livejournal.com]

[Hal's smack-talked some of the most powerful beings in his home universe. Though he's unimpressed, Hal can tell a thousand yard stare when he sees one.]

See me after class.

[And his attention returns to the board. No sense following in the footsteps of his most hated teachers and trying to throw the book at the kid. Contempt breeds contempt.]

[Mayfield High]

[apathetic-lion.livejournal.com]

[ An inward groan. Like he hasn't heard that a million times by now. Whoever told him non-drone teachers were better are obviously horrible liars. The drones barely paid any attention to him, and he liked it that way.

Still, it's not like he's exactly a delinquent either. After the bell rings to dismiss class, he'll stay behind as told. Mentally preparing himself the inevitable awkward pep talk that will likely ensue. ]

...

[Mayfield High]

[viridian-knight.livejournal.com]

[He's momentarily surprised that Squall actually stayed behind, but pleased, insomuch as he can be. It's so weird, taking this teacher thing to heart. Luckily for the teen's sake, he'd rather not make this anymore awkward than it has to be so he gets right to the point.]

I've seen that look before. Friends of mine who came back from deployment wore it like a mask.

Listen- [He checks his roster] -Squall. I'm not here to tell you to 'Keep your chin up' and I make a pretty crappy guidance counselor, but...talk to someone, all right?

[agentof-fortune.livejournal.com]

Shirogane. And that's fine, I generally do so anyway.

[Mayfield High]

[apathetic-lion.livejournal.com]

[ Surprisingly, this didn't go as bad as he had expected. Maybe he had just grown too used to his former instructor's constant nagging about the whole 'talking to others' thing. But seriously? He was about as close to 'talking' to anyone as he was suddenly becoming mister sunshine. Still, he knew better than to tell this teacher to buzz off like he would anyone else back home. Sometimes, the most simple way is simply agreeing. ...Not that it means he's actually going to follow through with it or anything. ]

Talk to someone. ...Sure. Is that all?

HS -- Astronomy

[anonnomnomnom.livejournal.com]

[In the spirit of strange and untimely occurrences, have a student wandering in in the middle of class... through the window. (We will assume it is on or close to the ground floor.) The telescope's caught his eye, and eventually so will the rest of the decked-out classroom.

Anon's spent the past couple of days having drones natter at him about delinquency and 'high school', and, now that he's finally figured out where and what 'high school' is -- well, the results are as mentioned.

Eventually, he chimes in--]

This is a place for learning, right? What do you learn from this tube?

[Telescopepoke.]

[demonoaths.livejournal.com]

What the hell are you doing here? I thought you had another job!

[This...wasn't something he expected, really. Sure, when he'd heard there was a new subject, he'd assumed they'd gotten someone, but he thought it would be a drone, not the guy he saw every so often.]

[viridian-knight.livejournal.com]

[He makes a note in the class roster for Mao...and adds an extra note after, before finishing the chalk drawing.]

Believe me, kiddo, you're only half as surprised as I was. Now grab some paper and a pencil, we're taking notes.

[viridian-knight.livejournal.com]

That's good to hear, Miss Shirogane.

I know that this place isn't very conducive to getting a good education, but I'd like to try and remedy that, even just a little.

[Mayfield High]

[viridian-knight.livejournal.com]

[He can tell by the insouciance in Squall's gaze that his advice might be going unheeded in the near future. At least he can try. Game, set, match.]

Just one more thing. Don't assume you're the only one who isn't happy to be here.

Grocery store

[viridian-knight.livejournal.com]

I have no idea what that means. [Cradling three in his hands, he gingerly replaces them on the display.]