The jangle of keys, the echoing clatter of sensible heels on hardwood, as the mathematics teacher of Caulfield Grammar picked up her pace for her first class.
A long disorganised line of students stood outside of the classroom, waiting to be let in.
She'd well enjoyed her break, and the second coffee was just starting to hit, as she fit the key in the lock and turned the handle.
As the door opened something seemed off in the darkness. Wrong. But without the light she couldn't tell what. She flicked the light on and gasped.
Behind her the students started to laugh, others began to sigh in frustration, others gaped upwards in wonder.
"So who's ready to get to work on non linear equations, Teach? Negative transformations today, right?" Banjo asked, from his now illuminated desk.
"Get. Down. From there."
"Negative transformations... does something to the parabola. Can't remember. Bah! That's alright, we'll learn it today..."
"Principal's office. Now!"
"Well... now that might be difficult..."
Every desk, every chair, was stuck to the ceiling. The posters that decorated the walls had been turned upside down, even the whiteboard at the front of the room, had somehow been detached and turned upside down in it's place. The markers and duster eraser had been attached upside down to the shelf of the whiteboard, either by glue or tape. Everything in the room had been moved. The attention to detail was impeccable.
"See... I'm wired in up here." He removed his hands from where he sat and remained unmoving, in his chair, at his desk, upside down on the ceiling. His grin widening further.
"OH! Upside down. Negative transformations make the parabola upside down. Write that one down... that'll be in the test, for sure..."
"OUT!"
A man in a disheveled suit and tie was led around the campus, in conversation by an older, more formal member of the faculty.
"--and as we leave the Science Wing, and pass through the Quadrangle to the otherside, we can now see the new Technical Studies, Electronics, Woodshop and Engineering Wing, which has recently been fleshed out in full."
"Nice. Nice. All above board. Pretty swanky." Banjo's minder said, as he looked around at the recently revamped facilities for the wing they evidently took so much pride in.
"Yes, I'm sure young-- what did you say his name was, Mr Ablett?"
"Errr-- Garry. Junior."
"Hmm..." Came the Principal's skeptical murmur.
"Two 'R's. I know. I hear it all the time. 'Isn't that like--?' No. No relation. Never heard it before we came to Melbourne, now it's all the time. 'Oh! Your name's like that footballer bloke'. 'Wha--! No. Two 'R's. But it's very similar.'"
"Anyway, I'm sure young... Garry. Ablett. Junior. Will make great use of this wing. Appeal to a lot of his fancies, yes?"
The Principal pointedly asked 'Garry Ablett Senior', holding aggressive eye contact until he finally caught the man's attention.
"With his... GREAT INTEREST in personal engineering and construction projects..."
The Butler finally caught the less-than-subtle pointedness of his comments, but was unable to place the why.
![](https://64.media.tumblr.com/faf2deba85acc750e4769a538d478165/tumblr_ohl5lez55R1qzrl3do8_r1_400.gifv)
"I'm sorry. We'll be unable to accommodate your son at this given time. Please collect him from outside of my office on your way out..."
The rejection was met with bafflement.
"Wha-- What di-- Hooooooow?" The Butler stammered and stretched out, as the pair sat in the front of his car, presumably in search of a new school for the boy.
"Three day weekend." Banjo replied glibly, reaching up his sleeve, to try and uncoil cabling, before throwing it in the back seat.
"That's not a bloody answer!"
The boy furrowed his brows. "Isn't it?"
"How do you get yourself kicked out when I'm just getting the tour of the school?"
"Hey, it's not my fault you were too busy to do the tour until after I'd already started... I'd been there like a week and a half."
"THAT'S NOT... ...that's not the point I'm makin', mate. And you know it."
"I'm more surprised they kicked me out, rather than had me fix it first... They're gonna wreck that room tryin' to take it apart now. So dumb..." A slight melancholy hint on the statement despite having been there for such a short period of time.
"Need your bloody head read..." The Butler muttered re-doubling his focus on the road with a shake of his head.
Banjo rested his hand on the door handle, reading the name plate of Rory's aunt, Lillian Morse. Holding a beat, before he turned the handle and stepped inside. Closing it behind himself.
He sat down in the chair and turned to look back at the door and saw the bare patch where the hanging clock was missing. He chuckled to himself.
Awkward silence. More of the awkward silence, and trying to use the weight of the social situation to get him to speak.
Seven... Eight... Nine...
"Now, last time you were here, we discussed that I would have a look at the feed from the Trial setting. You didn't decline, which as has been stated here is a tacit agreement to my doing so."
Banjo gave a wide smirk, and his nostrils flared with a single sharp exhalation.
"We also discussed that if you weren't willing to open up and respond, that I would be making enquiries about you outside of this environment, with the purpose of... coming up with enough information, that I might be able to do part of my job here. That being, come up with suggestions, comments, thoughts that might make things easier for you to come to terms with things in your life. Again, without declining this was accepted as tacit agreement."
His eyebrows raised and the smirk didn't budge as he waited for what would surely follow.
"Well, I've since begun to undertake... both of these things."
"And I haven't spoken to Rory, because I felt given the circumstances there may be some form of conflict there, and I don't want you to feel uncomfortable. But we'll start with the latter."
"So what I hear is that you--" "So, are we done here?" "--have a longterm girlfriend called Calliope DeLeon." She read off of her notes. "By all outside accounts you're very happy with her, and should be. You're majoring in Law. As is she. A lot of people have... very strong opinions on you." His smirk widened.
He wanted to say "Is that it?" but bit his tongue and just sat and let the words wash over him like a rock before the incessant tides.
"Does that all sound... accurate?"
Another question to draw response. Met with obstinate silence and a mildly amused expression. Lillian let the question hang for an uncomfortably long time.
"And I'm assuming that your decision to come here dressed in that uniform is probably either some kind of statement, or call for attention."
Banjo kept tight-lipped about the fact that he'd seen Rory wearing his own, although he couldn't be certain that in Rory's case he hadn't merely forgotten. He kept tight-lipped just in general.
"Would you like to move on to the events of the Trials?"
Another uncofortably long silence. Eventually punctuated by another singular nostril flared exhalation.
"So, what exactly is your relationship with this Haven Barnes?"
Another uncomfortably long silence. A provocative question. Getting desperate for response now, he felt.
"The two old--" "So, are we done here?" "--er men who appeared..? Were they both teachers of yours?"
Another lengthy pause of awkward, uncomfortable silence.
"How long have you had claustrophobia?"
Banjo's expression went from a cocky smirk, to one of disappointment.
"Really? We both know THAT would be on file."
He rocked his head back and stared at the ceiling. Amusement starting to wane and giving way to disinterest.
"I notice your limp is still there. Is there anything you want to share in regards to that?"
Complete disinterest.
Just pull the file. We both know you could just pull the file.
"Are you harbouring any resentment regarding that? Especially since it appeared to come from someone sharing the appearance of Calliope? Do you feel there was anything subconsious there? Again, do you think there could be any ties to how you view this Haven Barnes person?"
She pepered a few questions in. More provocation. Obvious provocation at that. The interest returned in the form of humoured amusement.
"The people older than you, all seem to take up antagonistic roles in your own Trials and how you see your life. Do you think this rings--?"
His head rocked back with a bored snap and he just stared at the ceiling shaking his head at it all. She interrupted her own question, she was so taken by the dramatic act of boredom, since it was an actual response to what was being said.
"So, are we done here?"
She checked her watch. Thirteen minutes. He'd gone early. What did that mean?
"What exactly are you hoping to gain from any of this?"
More prolonged painful silence.
"There are a few therapeutic methods to dealing with claustrophobia, if you would like us to possibly visit some of the--"
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"
He cried out. Breaking the silence.
"You know... you never realise how long an hour is, until you just keep repeatedly getting subjected to the same bullshit over... and over... and over... and over again. And then you can see on the horizon, that that same bullshit will be coming around next time as well."
Lillian looked shocked as he finally broke the social surface tension of the wordlessness.
"I get told I talk a lot... and I do. But I can take the awkward, prolonged silences. They're a doddle. I can handle them standing on my head. I can appreciate the provocative bullshit as an effort to get me to say anything, even in anger. It's just the repeated gearshift... crunching... back to the stupid... and tedious... It's bloody brutal." He gestured changing through the stickshift, and double clutching.
"I was actually gonna talk today, and then I got distracted by seeing how this was goin'. I thought there might actually be somethin' reasonable to discuss before I came. So how about I kick off?"
"My leg hurts me. For the most part it's okay. I got given painkillers but I don't much like the thought of taking them because I know what can happen. It doesn't normally start to hurt until I'm about two or three hours overdue for one." He rattled a small pill bottle. "But the pain isn't what's fucking hurting me. This is buggering up m' whole lifestyle. Diet. They've got me on a bullshit exercise and physiotherapy regime... I'm expected to do not only in my own time, but they also want me going for a daily physio session where I'm subjected to fresh Hell, because of the exercises they want me to do and they want some of it supervised so that my solo form isn't doing more harm than good. I hate it. As a general rule, I want to be left the fuck alone. And everything to do with THAT and this." He went from pointing to his leg, to swirling his finger around gesticulating to everything in the therapist's office. "Is not my bloody scene."
Lillian scrawled as fast as she could trying to take it down.
"I feel guilty because I feel I got off light compared with everyone who was stuck in there, and because I figured it out... twice. And then got overconfident and let this happen to me. So now I get to deal with the product of my own stupidity, branding me and screwing me over for three months, possibly longer. I usually am one to get irritated in life from time to time, but right now, I'm mad all the fucking time. Even when I don't show it."
Mad. Feelings of anger. She double underlined.
"I'm madder than a cut fuckin' snake. But I feel I got off light, and everybody else around me, if you've seen them, has clearly had it worse. So I've no right to shove it in any of their faces. I feel I owe it to them to keep things light around all of 'em, and it's worse for everyone else I come across who didn't go through it because 'Fuck 'em. Someone's gotta eat it'. And the worst part is, I'm mad about shit that most people have to deal with on a daily basis. What right do I have to be mad about having to eat right, exercise, and not use powers that most people on the fuckin' planet don't have anyway? So I'm mad. I'm mad about shit that I KNOW is stupid to be mad about, and it's the only thing relating to all of that which is still really bothering me."
"Calli's awesome. But somethin's askew. We're not talkin'. Not really. But again, I know she's been through worse than me, and I'll be damned if I'm going to dump my shit on her when she hasn't had time to process her own yet. To repeat, she's great. And if you say shit about her again, or imply shit with Haven, I'll shut down and get transferred and I don't give a fuck how much stupid I have to eat and keep my mouth shut through."
"And Haven's basically been like a sister to me. We came up through similar shit. Maybe you'd like to ask that question to your nephew instead. Likewise about the uniform. Fuck 'conflict', you want me to talk, you get the good with the bad."
"So, are we fuckin' done here?"
Finally, there was another pregnant pause in the room. But despite how long it hung in the air, it didn't feel nearly as awkward of uncomfortable as any of the previous. Perhaps it was that Lillian filled it with the scratching of a pen, or perhaps it was because it meant there was momentum now. A direction.
A long disorganised line of students stood outside of the classroom, waiting to be let in.
She'd well enjoyed her break, and the second coffee was just starting to hit, as she fit the key in the lock and turned the handle.
As the door opened something seemed off in the darkness. Wrong. But without the light she couldn't tell what. She flicked the light on and gasped.
Behind her the students started to laugh, others began to sigh in frustration, others gaped upwards in wonder.
"So who's ready to get to work on non linear equations, Teach? Negative transformations today, right?" Banjo asked, from his now illuminated desk.
"Get. Down. From there."
"Negative transformations... does something to the parabola. Can't remember. Bah! That's alright, we'll learn it today..."
"Principal's office. Now!"
"Well... now that might be difficult..."
Every desk, every chair, was stuck to the ceiling. The posters that decorated the walls had been turned upside down, even the whiteboard at the front of the room, had somehow been detached and turned upside down in it's place. The markers and duster eraser had been attached upside down to the shelf of the whiteboard, either by glue or tape. Everything in the room had been moved. The attention to detail was impeccable.
"See... I'm wired in up here." He removed his hands from where he sat and remained unmoving, in his chair, at his desk, upside down on the ceiling. His grin widening further.
"OH! Upside down. Negative transformations make the parabola upside down. Write that one down... that'll be in the test, for sure..."
"OUT!"
- - -
A man in a disheveled suit and tie was led around the campus, in conversation by an older, more formal member of the faculty.
"--and as we leave the Science Wing, and pass through the Quadrangle to the otherside, we can now see the new Technical Studies, Electronics, Woodshop and Engineering Wing, which has recently been fleshed out in full."
"Nice. Nice. All above board. Pretty swanky." Banjo's minder said, as he looked around at the recently revamped facilities for the wing they evidently took so much pride in.
"Yes, I'm sure young-- what did you say his name was, Mr Ablett?"
"Errr-- Garry. Junior."
"Hmm..." Came the Principal's skeptical murmur.
"Two 'R's. I know. I hear it all the time. 'Isn't that like--?' No. No relation. Never heard it before we came to Melbourne, now it's all the time. 'Oh! Your name's like that footballer bloke'. 'Wha--! No. Two 'R's. But it's very similar.'"
"Anyway, I'm sure young... Garry. Ablett. Junior. Will make great use of this wing. Appeal to a lot of his fancies, yes?"
The Principal pointedly asked 'Garry Ablett Senior', holding aggressive eye contact until he finally caught the man's attention.
"With his... GREAT INTEREST in personal engineering and construction projects..."
The Butler finally caught the less-than-subtle pointedness of his comments, but was unable to place the why.
"I'm sorry. We'll be unable to accommodate your son at this given time. Please collect him from outside of my office on your way out..."
The rejection was met with bafflement.
- - -
"Wha-- What di-- Hooooooow?" The Butler stammered and stretched out, as the pair sat in the front of his car, presumably in search of a new school for the boy.
"Three day weekend." Banjo replied glibly, reaching up his sleeve, to try and uncoil cabling, before throwing it in the back seat.
"That's not a bloody answer!"
The boy furrowed his brows. "Isn't it?"
"How do you get yourself kicked out when I'm just getting the tour of the school?"
"Hey, it's not my fault you were too busy to do the tour until after I'd already started... I'd been there like a week and a half."
"THAT'S NOT... ...that's not the point I'm makin', mate. And you know it."
"I'm more surprised they kicked me out, rather than had me fix it first... They're gonna wreck that room tryin' to take it apart now. So dumb..." A slight melancholy hint on the statement despite having been there for such a short period of time.
"Need your bloody head read..." The Butler muttered re-doubling his focus on the road with a shake of his head.
- - -
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________![](https://i.imgur.com/fnUOHKB.jpeg)
![](https://i.imgur.com/fnUOHKB.jpeg)
Location: P.R.C.U Campus - Lillian Morse's Office
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Welcome Home #3.033: So, Are We Done Yet?
Interaction(s): Lillian Morse - NPC
Previously: Cheap Wine and a Three Day Growth
Banjo rested his hand on the door handle, reading the name plate of Rory's aunt, Lillian Morse. Holding a beat, before he turned the handle and stepped inside. Closing it behind himself.
He sat down in the chair and turned to look back at the door and saw the bare patch where the hanging clock was missing. He chuckled to himself.
Awkward silence. More of the awkward silence, and trying to use the weight of the social situation to get him to speak.
Seven... Eight... Nine...
"Now, last time you were here, we discussed that I would have a look at the feed from the Trial setting. You didn't decline, which as has been stated here is a tacit agreement to my doing so."
Banjo gave a wide smirk, and his nostrils flared with a single sharp exhalation.
"We also discussed that if you weren't willing to open up and respond, that I would be making enquiries about you outside of this environment, with the purpose of... coming up with enough information, that I might be able to do part of my job here. That being, come up with suggestions, comments, thoughts that might make things easier for you to come to terms with things in your life. Again, without declining this was accepted as tacit agreement."
His eyebrows raised and the smirk didn't budge as he waited for what would surely follow.
"Well, I've since begun to undertake... both of these things."
"And I haven't spoken to Rory, because I felt given the circumstances there may be some form of conflict there, and I don't want you to feel uncomfortable. But we'll start with the latter."
"So what I hear is that you--" "So, are we done here?" "--have a longterm girlfriend called Calliope DeLeon." She read off of her notes. "By all outside accounts you're very happy with her, and should be. You're majoring in Law. As is she. A lot of people have... very strong opinions on you." His smirk widened.
He wanted to say "Is that it?" but bit his tongue and just sat and let the words wash over him like a rock before the incessant tides.
"Does that all sound... accurate?"
Another question to draw response. Met with obstinate silence and a mildly amused expression. Lillian let the question hang for an uncomfortably long time.
"And I'm assuming that your decision to come here dressed in that uniform is probably either some kind of statement, or call for attention."
Banjo kept tight-lipped about the fact that he'd seen Rory wearing his own, although he couldn't be certain that in Rory's case he hadn't merely forgotten. He kept tight-lipped just in general.
"Would you like to move on to the events of the Trials?"
Another uncofortably long silence. Eventually punctuated by another singular nostril flared exhalation.
"So, what exactly is your relationship with this Haven Barnes?"
Another uncomfortably long silence. A provocative question. Getting desperate for response now, he felt.
"The two old--" "So, are we done here?" "--er men who appeared..? Were they both teachers of yours?"
Another lengthy pause of awkward, uncomfortable silence.
"How long have you had claustrophobia?"
Banjo's expression went from a cocky smirk, to one of disappointment.
"Really? We both know THAT would be on file."
He rocked his head back and stared at the ceiling. Amusement starting to wane and giving way to disinterest.
"I notice your limp is still there. Is there anything you want to share in regards to that?"
Complete disinterest.
Just pull the file. We both know you could just pull the file.
"Are you harbouring any resentment regarding that? Especially since it appeared to come from someone sharing the appearance of Calliope? Do you feel there was anything subconsious there? Again, do you think there could be any ties to how you view this Haven Barnes person?"
She pepered a few questions in. More provocation. Obvious provocation at that. The interest returned in the form of humoured amusement.
"The people older than you, all seem to take up antagonistic roles in your own Trials and how you see your life. Do you think this rings--?"
His head rocked back with a bored snap and he just stared at the ceiling shaking his head at it all. She interrupted her own question, she was so taken by the dramatic act of boredom, since it was an actual response to what was being said.
"So, are we done here?"
She checked her watch. Thirteen minutes. He'd gone early. What did that mean?
"What exactly are you hoping to gain from any of this?"
More prolonged painful silence.
"There are a few therapeutic methods to dealing with claustrophobia, if you would like us to possibly visit some of the--"
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"
He cried out. Breaking the silence.
"You know... you never realise how long an hour is, until you just keep repeatedly getting subjected to the same bullshit over... and over... and over... and over again. And then you can see on the horizon, that that same bullshit will be coming around next time as well."
Lillian looked shocked as he finally broke the social surface tension of the wordlessness.
"I get told I talk a lot... and I do. But I can take the awkward, prolonged silences. They're a doddle. I can handle them standing on my head. I can appreciate the provocative bullshit as an effort to get me to say anything, even in anger. It's just the repeated gearshift... crunching... back to the stupid... and tedious... It's bloody brutal." He gestured changing through the stickshift, and double clutching.
"I was actually gonna talk today, and then I got distracted by seeing how this was goin'. I thought there might actually be somethin' reasonable to discuss before I came. So how about I kick off?"
"My leg hurts me. For the most part it's okay. I got given painkillers but I don't much like the thought of taking them because I know what can happen. It doesn't normally start to hurt until I'm about two or three hours overdue for one." He rattled a small pill bottle. "But the pain isn't what's fucking hurting me. This is buggering up m' whole lifestyle. Diet. They've got me on a bullshit exercise and physiotherapy regime... I'm expected to do not only in my own time, but they also want me going for a daily physio session where I'm subjected to fresh Hell, because of the exercises they want me to do and they want some of it supervised so that my solo form isn't doing more harm than good. I hate it. As a general rule, I want to be left the fuck alone. And everything to do with THAT and this." He went from pointing to his leg, to swirling his finger around gesticulating to everything in the therapist's office. "Is not my bloody scene."
Lillian scrawled as fast as she could trying to take it down.
"I feel guilty because I feel I got off light compared with everyone who was stuck in there, and because I figured it out... twice. And then got overconfident and let this happen to me. So now I get to deal with the product of my own stupidity, branding me and screwing me over for three months, possibly longer. I usually am one to get irritated in life from time to time, but right now, I'm mad all the fucking time. Even when I don't show it."
Mad. Feelings of anger. She double underlined.
"I'm madder than a cut fuckin' snake. But I feel I got off light, and everybody else around me, if you've seen them, has clearly had it worse. So I've no right to shove it in any of their faces. I feel I owe it to them to keep things light around all of 'em, and it's worse for everyone else I come across who didn't go through it because 'Fuck 'em. Someone's gotta eat it'. And the worst part is, I'm mad about shit that most people have to deal with on a daily basis. What right do I have to be mad about having to eat right, exercise, and not use powers that most people on the fuckin' planet don't have anyway? So I'm mad. I'm mad about shit that I KNOW is stupid to be mad about, and it's the only thing relating to all of that which is still really bothering me."
"Calli's awesome. But somethin's askew. We're not talkin'. Not really. But again, I know she's been through worse than me, and I'll be damned if I'm going to dump my shit on her when she hasn't had time to process her own yet. To repeat, she's great. And if you say shit about her again, or imply shit with Haven, I'll shut down and get transferred and I don't give a fuck how much stupid I have to eat and keep my mouth shut through."
"And Haven's basically been like a sister to me. We came up through similar shit. Maybe you'd like to ask that question to your nephew instead. Likewise about the uniform. Fuck 'conflict', you want me to talk, you get the good with the bad."
"So, are we fuckin' done here?"
Finally, there was another pregnant pause in the room. But despite how long it hung in the air, it didn't feel nearly as awkward of uncomfortable as any of the previous. Perhaps it was that Lillian filled it with the scratching of a pen, or perhaps it was because it meant there was momentum now. A direction.