Out of the way of the real people is, naturally, doing the difficult work of sorting out the stuff! This means someone else will need to be on mal watching duty, which he doesn't like much because these people are all kind of shit at it, but there's a senior New Yorker nearby who sounds like he'll get plenty protective from that shouting in the hall, so probably it's as safe as it ever is to not be looking out for the monsters that want to eat you.
"Karen Tiu," she says to Vernon. "Uh, do you think you're likely to care about girls' clothes at all? I'm kind of short."
She attempts to inform him, via facial expressions and telepathy and vibes or whatever, that 'kind of short' means 'I don't actually have any other clothes'.
Oh yeah no he totally caught all of the facial expressions and telepathy and vibes or whatever.
"Spare fabric's valuable no matter what shape it originally comes in," he tells her, gently, so she can be aware that expecting him not to immediately take literally everything he can carry out is naive to the extreme and that she should have secured herself something better, "But nah, I don't mind, I think a lot of people are going to be a bit short on things this year. I'd be a right tosser if I just crossed my arms and said 'no.'"
Which is to say, in subtext: so you were dumb, but I'm not going to do anything about it and you get a freebie because I'm nice. Please remember that I am in fact a nice guy.
"Oh cool! Thanks so much. It'd be good to have another outfit."
The subtext about how she should have secured a better deal for herself is going completely over her head. Partly because she's totally unprepared for almost everything social going on here, and partly because she already has dibs on Julia's current furniture and is mostly just trying her luck at getting more free stuff while she thinks she can.
She's absolutely going to die the first year, isn't she. Poor thing. Realistically speaking, he should not get attached or let himself feel sad, only get her room number so that when she does inevitably die in this cruel, unfair world of theirs, he has a good chance at raiding her stuff before anyone else can. But it does pay for maintenance kids to be able to get along, because while they are in a sense competing with each other, they're also going to be working together and relying on each other basically all the time. It is the only way any of the shitty work the enclavers don't want to do gets done with a minimum of deaths. It's just smart to try to whip the once-mundies into something resembling a proper maintenance crew.
This is what he tells himself, anyway.
"Yeah, I heard about Chicago. ... You're adjusting pretty well, considering this is all new to you, but do you want tips?"
"Okay so you're on the right track," he says, with a little wave around them. Doing this kind of stuff. "But you need to advocate and fight for yourself more. You can't expect people to accommodate or defend you, for things you need or from mals. We're all busy trying to defend ourselves and that's hard enough already. But good instincts, you found one of the best enclaves in the world and get to sort through the stuff they don't want by helping them do what they want, that's a damn good first day."
Apparently he will! He has put a lot of thought into this.
"Clearly defined deals in advance and tangible gains traded at the same time are the smart way to go, be polite and make it a question of if you can. If they say no and it's not worth it even accounting for goodwill and enclave inflation, you're going to be busy enough that an excuse will be easy. And some people will try to screw you over, to get by one more day. Pay attention to people who keep the spirit of the deal over the letter, and be there and reliable for the ones that treat you fairest. Your priority is graduation, because that's going to be nasty, and people like us need to plan for it starting now, not junior or senior year. You need people to rely on to get out of here, that also want you to get out for reasons that serve them, too."
Oh, dear.
"... Generally they'll want to keep having help. Even when they're out of here and don't need it as much. And if they believe you'll be good for it, even outside where it's nicer, if you have actually been so unwaveringly dependable the entire time that they've known you that they don't think you'll book it the first chance you're out of Scholomance, they will want to get you out. For selfish reasons. Because you'll do something like guard duty for the next couple decades to keep their kids safe, for them, because they asked."
"Hm." Yeah there's definitely something social going on here that she doesn't get and probably doesn't have enough context for it to be possible to get, and she can't even put her finger on what specific thing it is, probably because it's lots of things. "I guess that makes sense."
Ohhhhhh no.
"It's a euphemism, not a description," he sighs, while organizing space themed decorating materials that Julia might like. There are a couple piles, some for building desks or painting things, some just to be pretty on their own merits. There's going to be a lot of scavenging and scrounging to figure out how to make her artistic vision a reality. "The monsters we're all flinching at? It's not because of the school. They're here for us, because of us. And the very worst ones can't quite get to us, and there is only one way they can get in. But they can just sit and wait by the exit. For when we leave."
"Uh." He lowers his voice, because he's aware that there are some survivors from Chicago here, he's been listening. "No. That's the big drama. We won't know until next year's batch of freshmen get brought in with explanatory letters. We do know that apparently the enclave is gone, though. And instead of all of the people that were supposed to be brought in from there, the spell for grabbing freshmen for Scholomance grabbed random mages who thought they were mundane. To fill out the roster."
She nods and smiles back. "They seem really nice." And she mostly means that; they are being super helpful, even if she's a little clearer on the fact that Julia is not really uncomplicatedly a friend, now.
She thinks Vernon is probably a friend, though. Maybe. A cynical friend, but hey, that's not disqualifying.
She dives into sorting through the next box of stuff, and this time she goes out of her way to occasionally ask him if he thinks they can do anything spaceship-y with anything promising.