Adapting The Orchid Thief

[Pippi]

A brief moment passed between Amy and Claire calling out to Meg, and Meg's head poking out round her cunning hiding place of the doorframe. Not exactly marks for subtlety, there. Then again, it was probably for the best; if Meg hadn't been anywhere in the student centre, Amy knew that she and Claire would have looked stupid as shit.

As Amy took another sip of water, Meg "sneaked" over to the group, in the most exaggerated way possible. Amy couldn't help but smile, and shake her head at her antics. It was stupid, sure, but sometimes in the life, the stupid little things were the things to look out for. Besides, at least it showed Meg wasn't annoyed at being called out or anything. It was aaall gravy.

Meg seemed to want to continue her act as the world's most obvious ninja, speaking in a whisper as exaggerated as her walk had been. Amy laughed a little, and muttered "Hell's yeah, studying's what I live for!" at Meg's question. Amy was going to say something a little more truthful, but Gray and Claire were talking about the demo tape again, so Amy stayed quiet. Instead, she recapped her bottle of water, tucked it under her arm, and got a little plastic box of pasta salad out of her bag. Amy was not the world's greatest chef, she had to admit, but she could cook some things, and pasta salad was pretty easy. Pasta, mayo, chicken and some sort of healthy shit. Sorted.

Before she could start, Amy heard Gray mutter "Food fight", before chucking a ball of paper into the bin. She smiled, rather sympathetically. "Glad I wasn't caught up in that. Sucks about your punishment, though." Amy skewered a couple of pieces of pasta, before shrugging. "Least you got Alba into shit, so that's good, right?"

Amy was, again, about to say something to Meg, when Jesiree turned to her, asking how long lunch was. Amy thought that was kinda... iffy, especially in front of a group of people. As if she was saying she couldn't wait to get away from them. Nonetheless, Amy swallowed her mouthful of pasta.

"Uh, sure, just hold on a sec!" A little bit of juggling was required here. Amy could not hold her water bottle, pasta box and iPod at the same time. It was literally physically impossible. Somehow, she managed to unzip her bag whilst still holding her pasta, before dropping the water bottle inside and taking her iPod out.

"Uh... about ten, maybe eight minutes, give or take." Amy said, before putting her iPod into her pocket. Despite the fact it was pretty small, Amy realised she'd probably have to start eating. She was not the fastest at many things, as it turned out; running and walking were the obvious ones. Eating was another.

[Monad†]

Meg looked the group over one at a time, her bright eyes darting from one to the next with an exaggerated enthusiasm. When in a large group, she always got pepped up - it helped downplay any mistakes she might make or awkwardness she might bring, or so she thought. In reality, she could not be any more self-conscious at that very moment. Indeed, if it weren't for Claire she might have just passed on to avoid any potential embarrassment. But no it's fine because everything is normal and fine and no one would just be a jerk out of nowhere anyway right??? Right.

So she grinned when Gray tossed the paper ball. Had she something similarly harmless and clean to throw she might have even returned fire on behalf of the poor defenseless trash can. The severity of the food fight fiasco was lost on Meg - she had cleverly ducked out of the cafeteria as soon as it started, and missed the aftermath - but of course she knew about it. For bad boys like Gray, the kids who start food fights and shit, a little detention or whatever probably didn't mean anything. But Claire was patting the bench next to her, and Meg couldn't leave a bitch hangin'!

"That's cool, that's cool," she said, slipping through the gaggle of kids to sidle in next to Claire. She let her backpack slide off her shoulder to the floor. "I'm just uh," she grunted gently as she settled down. She took up more of the bench than she intended to, but she didn't want to be all obviously and awkwardly half-cheeked on there, either. "I'm just taking refuge from The Great fucking Gatsby. Ugh."

Meg had already read F. Scott Fitzgerald's famous novel once before, as part of a scholarship opportunity. She had read it, analyzed it and written an eight-page paper all about The Great Gatsby, and now Contemporary American Lit was having her do the same thing over again. Whether or not she got that scholarship, Meg didn't have much patience for fiction that just wasn't exciting. Even if she could see the literary value of the work and its social commentary, she just...couldn't care.

She had spoken at roughly the same time as Jesiree, so Meg took a half-second to parse what she had just asked Amy. It made her shift just a bit uncomfortably, but she dug into her first bite of pizza uninhibited by internal monologue. Sometimes these simple social interactions got almost impossibly convoluted - as if every one of them was bound to respond in some manner to everything that happened all around them, and that not responding to any individual represented some kind of statement against them. It was almost like there were too many of them in one area for every individual to have a hope of responding to every other individual in a way that was organic and made sense at the time. And yet nothing happened simultaneously, so they were all bound to reply, somehow, to everything. How so like life.

Meg wasn't really thinking about all that though. God damn, cafeteria pizza was way tastier than it deserved to be.

[Deamon]

After Gray had finished his very thorough description of what he had been talking about Claire filled Meg in on what she was up to.  She always seemed to be working on a screenplay though, not that Gray could comment; he was always practicing on his skateboard, or his snowboard...or his surfboard, depending on the weather. Gray was getting far to used to interruptions in his conversations though because Meg's random appearance and disturbance of what they had been talking about had turned into Claire asking Meg to sit with them and asking what she was up to. It was rather tame yes but at that point nothing even surprised Gray when it came to social situations at school. Especially since he'd experienced all of them bar like two over the course of a day. It would probably be a good story they could laugh about at the end of the year though; that much was for sure.

Jesiree was starting to look especially bored, not that Gray could blame her. The conversation for at least the past five minutes had been him and Claire having to explain the demo tape to Amy and then Meg after she had interrupted. It wasn't exactly a hard concept to grasp and became less and less interesting each subsequent time you heard it. He was broken from his thoughts when Amy started addressing him. It took him a second to realise she was talking about the food fight; it was honestly weird for Gray to hear someone other than a friend be truly sympathetic to what had happened. Then again she hadn't been in the cafeteria at the time and Gray couldn't help but wonder if she would still be as sympathetic to him if she'd actually been caught up in the food fight.

"The punishment wasn't that bad actually. It was more the abuse I got during it." Gray rubbed the back of his neck. "But yeah getting Alba into shit was cool. Sucks that Kyran ended up being banned from prom though." Now that Gray thought about it he hadn't seen Rachael since the food fight, he wondered how she'd react to him. After all he had been trying to get Alba to leave her alone when everything had broken down. Knowing his luck recently she'd probably react negatively, still it was something he was interested in. If only to satisfy his own curiosity. He'd have to remember to ask someone about it.

Regardless there was around ten minutes of lunch left if Amy was right and Gray had finished eating. Luckily he still had some Pepsi to keep him occupied during periods when he wasn't talking and was just required to listen. He didn't really know who or what the Great Gatsby was so he couldn't really comment on what Meg was saying although something in the back of his mind was telling him it was a book. He couldn't confirm it though after all his brain was the same one that accepted any stunt challenge it was given and thought throwing food around was a good idea.

[Laurels]

Well, this was turning interesting. Meg joined the group and expressed her issues with The Great Gatsby. Claire didn't have issues with the book. She knew it was difficult as hell to adapt (although Baz Luhrman was supposed to be attempting it later this year), but she enjoyed it nonetheless.

Jesiree and Amy briefly discussed how much longer they had left during lunch break. That made Claire somewhat worried, since she didn't want to leave just yet. She was hoping to work out a bit more of her screenplay or chat with her friends. Well, the bell would tell her when she needed to scramble. She didn't have to worry about that right now.

"Well, that sucks about Gatsby," Claire said to Meg. "I really liked the book, so I could probably help you with anything you don't get."

She then heard Amy and Gray mention the food fight. Gray mentioned being abused during the punishment.

"Abuse?" asked Claire. "What does that mean?"

[ThePureLight7†]

Amy had been saying something to Gray when she went to answer Jesiree's question. Jesiree didn't realize she and Gray were talking until after she answered the question. "Uh, sure, just hold on a sec!" she said before struggling to get her phone out without dropping all her stuff, like one of those circus performers who twirl plates around on sticks, "Uh... about ten, maybe eight minutes, give or take."

"Thanks," Jesiree said, taking another bite of her food. Ah well, Jesiree thought, Maybe whatever Gray and Amy were talking about will be interesting...

"The punishment wasn't that bad actually. It was more the abuse I got during it. But yeah getting Alba into shit was cool. Sucks that Kyran ended up being banned from prom though," Gray said. Oh hey, the food fight. Hallelujah, it's raining plot development. Jesiree turned towards the skater. She actually hadn't heard too much about the food fight. She wasn't in the cafeteria at the time of the food fight, so it didn't affect her and would not make a difference in her life based on how much or how little she knew about it; however, she'd be damned if it weren't more interesting than nothing. To top it all off, Gray apparently got some guy named Alba into shit, and Alba was a sweet villain name.

Claire apparently tuned into their conversation now, too. "Abuse? What does that mean?"

Jesiree leaned in a little. She liked the word "abuse" because it implied something psychologically damaging. Like in the future, Gray would be sitting in bed watching TV and he'd suddenly burst into tears with flashbacks of that time he had to clean the lunchrooms. He'd see images flash through his mind of children burning, bullets passing him right before his eyes in slow-motion, and pieces of gum laying in wait on the bottom of tables as if waiting for an ambush. "Yeah, what happened?" she said.

[Pippi]

It seemed to Amy that there were currently two conversations going on simultaneously in their little group, as well as Jesiree's previous question. Meg and Claire were currently discussing The Great Gatsby, which Claire apparently had enjoyed and Meg... less so. Amy was inclined to agree with Meg on this occasion. She was fairly sure she'd attempted to read the book at some point, but it had slowly grown more and more tedious, until eventually she'd chucked it aside for something vastly more interesting, like A Clash of Kings.

On the other side was the conversation Amy had started with Gray, about the food fight and the repercussions it had brought about. Amy had been a little apprehensive about talking to him more about it; it couldn't exactly have been super fun for Gray, and she was fairly certain that it would have been the first thing most people asked him about for the first few days afterwards, so no doubt he was pretty sick of the whole thing. He had been the one to mention it, but only in passing and as a joke. Well, whatever. Only time would tell if he was sick of talking about it or not.

Now, Amy wanted to say something in response to both conversations; despite not having properly tuned in, she was confident she knew enough about The Great Gatsby to have a conversation about it. She didn't want to sorta exclude Claire and Meg, either. On the other hand, she had started the conversation with Gray, so it would be rude not to completely listen to what he had to say.

Amy sat in content silence, eating her pasta and listening to Gray. Apparently the punishment hadn't been too bad, which was pretty great, and that Kyran had been banned from prom, which she hadn't actually been totally aware of. That definitely sucked; Amy wasn't super close to most of the guys in Kyran's general group, but she knew that he was a really nice and all around cool guy, so it sucked that he had to be placed in the same category as Adonis. What was most intriguing about Gray's speech was the fact that he'd apparently been abused during the punishment. What exactly did this abuse consist of? Were kids coming up to him, taunting him for doing his punishment or yelling at him for starting the whole food fight? That might have been fine, in a jokey sort of way, but Gray didn't seem to be fond of what had happened. Amy suddenly got a mental image of people beating him with sticks, yelling at him to work faster and to stop whinging, and a small smile appeared on her face.

Amy considered how best to stay attentive to both her current conversation and Meg and Claire's without offending either party. Before she could really think, however, her decision was thankfully made for her, as both Claire and Jesiree asked Gray what he meant by abuse. It was the question Amy had been thinking of asking, but she carried on eating her pasta silently; no point saying the same thing for a third time. Instead, she looked at Gray inquisitively, still slowly making her way through her pasta salad.

[Laurels]

((Skipping order because I need to go elsewhere))

Before Claire could hear what happened to Gray during his detention, she heard a familiar ringing sound.

Aw man! Stupid ass school bell! Just when I was going to hear something good.

Claire began to gather her stuff in her bag.

"Well chums, I've got to get to class," she said. "Gray, we'll talk about the tape later. Meg, I'll help you with Gatsby as well. Amy, Jesiree, nice seeing you guys. I'll see you around."

Claire got up and began to make her way into the halls to get to class.

Right, a few more classes, then I can focus on the really important stuff. Allons-y!

Claire disappeared into the crowds of students in the hall, hurrying to her next class.

((Claire Monaghan continued in No One Talks About It))

[Pippi]

((Skipping because it's been a while, and I want to get Amy to more places))

And then suddenly, there was the bell, ruining everyone's lunchtime by forcing them to go off to lessons, and cutting Gray off before he could respond to Claire and Jesiree. What an asshole. And Amy still hadn't finished her pasta salad. She half-jokingly held it out to the rest of the group, saying "Anyone wanna finish this? Totally hygienic, right?" before returning it to her bag. She almost left it behind, which she normally would have been okay with, but her mum had suddenly become very irritable about certain things going missing and lost, and small plastic tubs were apparently on that list of things.

"See you Claire!" Amy said, waving goodbye to her friend, before turning to the rest of the group. "Guess I'd better get going as well, huh? See you around sometime!" One last check to make sure she had everything, and Amy had also disappeared into the crowd of people. Again, she kept a fast pace, but it was far from jogging, or even speed walking. Getting to class on time was not that important to her. Especially when that class was Psychology. God, life was so cruel, eh?

((Amy Bachelor continued in Metal of Honor))