"Yup." Isabella gets up and goes back for seconds.

Maggie finishes her stir fry not long later and goes back for more food herself. Maybe she should avoid the macaroni given Jackson's rather tepid recommendation . . . nah, he gave virtuality-running a pretty tepid recommendation too, no need to prejudge the macaroni on his account. She'll take a scoop worth and an oatmeal raisin cookie.

The macaroni is fine. Isabella has meatloaf, potato salad, and a slice of chocolate cake. She appears to consider sitting at a different table but ultimately returns to her seat.

Maggie will eat her macaroni and cookie quietly and contemplate going back for more cookies, the first one was pretty good.

Isabella finishes eating at around the same time as Jackson and he takes her tray without asking if she'd like him to do that and brings it to where they collect used dishes. Isabella facepalms.

"Wow."

"I can't even, like, chase him or anything."

"I'm not even sure chasing him would have helped. Did my getting him to move to a chair make things less weird, should I try that again if he kneels at you again or just leave well enough alone?"

"Yeah, it was less weird, I appreciated it. I don't really want to sit with him at all and wasn't sure if, if I left, he'd follow me, but it was definitely better than him kneeling at me the whole time."

"Glad it helped. I have no particular desire to sit with him either."

"Well, thank you."

"You're welcome." She scoots back her chair and moves off to bus her own tray, and also grab that couple of cookies for a snack later.

Isabella loads up a couple tupperwares and heads back to the dorm, containers under the non-cane arm.

Maggie's a faster walker than Isabella, so she gets back to the dorm first and goes to her room to think about magic. It feels like pushing and pulling bits of something immaterial around.

Nobody disturbs her. The next morning she has a class schedule slipped under her door.

Her first class today is chemistry and it's stupidly early, so she hurries through the shower and gets to breakfast well before the main rush. She gets a bowl of brown sugar with some oatmeal in it, and a couple of bananas, and a chunk of cheese.

Myeisha is at breakfast that early but Isabella and Jackson aren't and Myeisha's sitting with friends. She can be on time to chem if she doesn't dawdle.

It is too early in the morning for conversation. She will eat her oatmeal and her cheese and walk out of the dining hall with two bananas and into chem with half a banana. 

Chem is a pretty good class taught at her tested-into level, with a teacher who is entirely too morning person.