The Perk; Saturday Afternoon [05/26].

[white_oleander]

Astrid didn't even like coffee, but here she was, at the coffee shop, because it seemed like the sort of thing to do in a quaint, European-style village on an island, reading one of the many books on her reading list. She wasn't doing much actual reading, though, distracted as she was with people watching. She had to carefully count out coins she'd found on the sidewalks and in the grass on the way here, dropped, deposited, forgotten, to pay for the cup; she sketched the exasperated face of the harried barista and her irritated customers on extra napkins, not wanting to waste precious real estate in her quickly-filled sketchbooks. Was this what it was like for her mother, before she came around, paying for coffee in found change? At least Astrid didn't have to worry about a place to sleep or food to eat, paying for a couch with a poem or a smile, swiping food when no one was looking...

Maybe she should get a job or something. But who would hire a fourteen year old kid with no experience and bad grades? She didn't want to ask her mother, either, and she was pretty sure that wouldn't do any good, anyway. She pushed a few nickels around the table a little, frowning a little, wondering how long it would take to scavenge enough to buy a new sketchbook. Too bad there wasn't any tourism here, she could sell her drawings on a corner or something like that.

Maybe if she hadn't dropped more than two whole bucks on just a small coffee, too. Since when had coffee been so expensive, anyway?

[[open perk is open!]]

Comments

[always_someone]

It was kind of a crime just how expensive coffee was, yeah. Norman figured that at least half that price had to be reparations for dealing with some of the island's more rude customers. He was smiling, himself, as he went to the counter and ordered a hot chocolate, even in spite of the warm weather, and then thanked the barista again when it was handed to him and made his way over to sit down by a window.

Maybe to people watch. Maybe to pull a comic book out of his backpack and start reading.

He did pause before sitting down to offer a little nod hello toward the girl he recognized as Sabine's roommate, though. It was only polite.

[white_oleander]

Astrid nodded back, having not really bothered to hide the fact that he'd been a new addition to her current repertoire of people watching, and she tilted her head thoughtfully. She wasn't a social creature, really, but even being social seemed a better course than being bored and poor.

"Hey, you're in my phys ed class, right?" she asked. "And you won the boat race last week."

[always_someone]

"Yeah, yeah to both those things," Norman replied, considering the table he'd been headed for, and then changing his course slightly so that he could stake out a seat a little closer, for easier conversation. "But don't ask me how we actually won that boat race. I'm still kind of surprised about that one."

It didn't hurt that so many people who were faster or stronger had also been far more easily distracted, perhaps.

[white_oleander]

"Luck of the current," said Astrid, which was much nicer than the fleeting thought of those ears being used as sails. She shouldn't make fun, when they'd likely be the subject of a few sketches for sure. "I'm a little surprised my team did so well, too, but it was all Jason anyway."

[always_someone]

"I imagine there were at least a few people getting distracted by the weird rain, too," Norman offered. "But at least it seems like it went pretty okay overall. Not like that thing with the gremlins."

Not even Norman was patient enough to want to try to put a gremlin into a shawl.

[white_oleander]

"I still don't know how I feel about that one," Astrid admitted, because what else could she say about it? Colorful rain, she could at least pretend it had something to do with pollution or the hole in the o-zone layer, but those were definitely little gremlin-like creatures that didn't match her idea of what a gremlin looked like considering she had been convinced that Sidon was just a dude in a mascot costume. "I'm just glad I didn't get bit."

Worrying about being stabbed or mugged or poisoned were all totally valid high school concerns. But bit by a rabid little monster? What was that?

[always_someone]

That... was Fandom.

"Me too," Norman admitted. "And I'm even kind of used to the gremlins. I can't imagine what that contest must have been like for somebody who hasn't been here all that long." A pause. "Besides really, really stupid."

Look at him, getting all judgy.

[white_oleander]

By the look on Astrid's face and the faint, helpless nod, it appeared as though Norman nailed it.

And then her brow wrinkled in concern, "One of my teammates had a plan," she said. "Diagrams and patterns and everything."

She would have liked to have thought that at least Paris was the normal kind of crazy, but then again...

[always_someone]

"A... a plan for tying knots in ropes?" Norman grimaced a little bit. "Who was that? That sounds a little excessive, unless the plan involved not getting anywhere near a gremlin."

[white_oleander]

"Paris?" Astrid offered. She didn't want to be a snitch or anything, but she had a feeling that if anyone knew Paris, this wasn't going to exactly be news. "And, yeah, at that point, it was just a plan for tying knots. Way too complex ones for the time we were given, too, and if she anticipated the gremlin, that wasn't a part of it."

[always_someone]

Norman grimaced a little at the mention of the name. Yeah, he'd only met Paris once, but that one time hadn't done wonders for making him think highly of her, what with her basically insinuating that an entire race of people were just stupid fish.

"So, best laid plans and all that, huh? I can't imagine she took that very well."

[white_oleander]

That grimace seemed to be all Astrid needed to confirm her suspicion there. "I don't think she would have taken anything other than winning well," she mused, "and even then, she'd be sour because she had to share it with two slackers riding on her coattails."

Which...wouldn't be too far off.

"Who were you teamed up with?" she asked, as if she'd even know who they were, since she'd only met maybe five people so far, really.

[always_someone]

"Ahsoka and Jason, I think are their names," Norman offered. "I don't really know either of them very well, but they seemed pretty okay. Mostly we just picked through beads."

Which had been infinitely safer than gremlin dressing.

[white_oleander]

"There were some really nice beads," Astrid smiled a little wistfully, almost wishing she'd thought to pocket some at the time, but she probably would have just wound up feeling bad about it. "That was one thing I made sure I got in there, some of those pretty crystals, no matter what Paris's design might have called for."

[always_someone]

"I kind of really liked the little round ones, the ones that came in yellows and greens," Norman admitted. "But some of the crystals were really, really nice, too. It was kind of hard to pick, but I figured I could just look at the crystals at work if I was really sorry I didn't get to keep any later."

[spectre_alenko]

Kaidan slapped a 'Be back in 1/2 hour' sign on the door of the C.I.C., locked and alarmed the registers, let his current customers know he was dashing out for coffee and asked them if they wanted him to pick anything up.

It was a good thing he had a decent memory.

When his turn at the counter rolled around, he rattled off orders. "1 iced mocha latte, half soy, half almond, no whip. What? I don't know, make it the largest one. Do that for all of them. 1 iced masala chai. 1 quad shot espresso, didn't specify if they wanted it iced so I'm assuming that's a hot drink. 1 large regular black coffee, hot. All of this except the regular coffee is to go, please. Uh, food. A ham and cheese sandwich, add pickles please. Two plain bagels with cream cheese. And, uh, I dunno, give me a good selection of a half dozen pastries? Thanks."

Paying for and receiving his beverage carrier and bag of snacks, Kaidan headed to an empty table to enjoy the calm and his coffee.

He found out the hard way that in America, 'regular' coffee was 'plain' coffee. A tiny, aggrieved sigh escaped him as he went to the condiment counter to properly doctor it with cream and sugar.

He, too, was interested in people-watching. And people-listening, mostly to pick up on 20th-century idiom and slang.

[white_oleander]

It had started complex and just kept going. Astrid, overhearing the man putting in the lengthy order, had to quirk an eyebrow.

"Pull the short straw for the coffee run?" she guessed. Normally, she would have kept a comment like that to herself, but boredom and a rare sociability made for a potent blend.

[spectre_alenko]

"Mm, more like a bribe. Sole proprietor, and I forgot to pack a lunch or coffee for the day, so I asked the customers to kind of watch the store for half an hour, in return for returning with caffeine and snacks."

Well. Technically, he'd asked the raven to mind the store. He wasn't going to explain that, though.

Eyeing the sketches curiously, Kaidan commented, "Those are really good."

[white_oleander]

"Hm?" Astrid followed the man's gaze to realize he was talking about all the faces and shapes looking up from napkins in various crumpled states. "Oh. Thanks."

She smiled a little, a sheepish, shy sort of expression and shrugged. "I like to draw."

But she was far more interested in things that weren't herself.

Such as "What are you going to do if you return to your store and it's all ransacked and abandoned?"

Seriously, that was a lot more faith in other people than she'd ever possess.

[spectre_alenko]

Kaidan offered a wry grin, "Review the security tapes, file a police report, wait until they're caught, then litigate them into oblivion, probably. All the gear is insured." Taking a sip of his coffee, he mused, "I should probably look into hiring some help, now it's summer break. Are you from the school up the hill?"