Wow, why does she hate social interactions so much aaaaaaaaah she's supposed to be okay at this! Shannon can't tell if Bella's body language is unfriendly or just distracted but she forges ahead. 

"Ummm, you met Raleigh before, right? What do you think of him?" 

"He seems nice - yeah, I got what I needed, sorry, I was just deciding whether to come for the next leg of the trip or double back."

(Sophie pillages cloth. She is so happy.)

"- Right. It's probably more dangerous to double back alone? I'm hoping the artificing supply room will have containers or bags or something." 

Shannon chews her lip for a moment. 

"....Ummmm, so - Raleigh is being really weirdly nice to me? And I don't know what he wants? He doesn't have to be nice to me, right, his parents already did me enough favours letting me have a slot here at all..." 

"Some people are just... nice? But I suppose it's not impossible that he's planning to suck your lifeforce out, do you have some reason to be suspicious?"

"- I mean, not specifically? Just, boys aren't...normally nice to me." 

"Specifically boys?"

Shannon considers this. 

"- Yeah, kinda? I mean, the popular girls aren't friendly to me, but - it's the boys who make fun of my braces or my hair and stuff. And - I mean, I don't know if it's like this here, I went to a mundane school, but - at school if a boy was nice to a girl then his friends would decide he liked her and never let him hear the end of it..." 

"Tell me you didn't come in here with braces still attached -" She peeks at Shannon's teeth. "I think everybody has more important things on their minds than teasing each other about having cooties or something."

Shannon absolutely still has braces still attached!

"I have a strong healing affinity!" she explains. "And uh my teeth are awful - my dad went to some special medical seminars for orthodontists and made me memorize all his notes so I can do the adjustments myself..."

Probably this is some kind of stupid ignorant mistake and everyone is going to think she and her parents are ignorant idiots about it and her braces are going to turn evil and eat her or something - 

"- if you say so. I would've gone with one of those invisalign things, or maybe an aggressive retainer, something that is not physically attached to your teeth, but if you can do it yourself I guess it's not that bad."

"Yeah, they're not actually that hard to take off if you know what you're doing. And, uh - I think it's something about the Canadian health insurance system, it's harder to get Invisalign? ....Sorry, this is probably really boring for you." 

"I'm allowing the first day for relatively unpressured getting-to-know people but possibly there are more interesting things about you than your braces."

"I mostly just wanted to know if I should avoid Raleigh. If he was nice to you too then maybe he's just like that as a person and I don't need to worry too much?" 

"Yeah, probably."

Just in time, because - 

"Shannon! I think I saw some mesh fabric in there, you could make a mesh bag if you know how to sew - do you? if not my mother made me learn - anyway, that's safer since you can see what's in it so mals can't just hide. Want to come have a look?" He holds out his arm. Again. 

Shannon gives Bella a helpless and confused look - 

- and then smiles her best Making Friends smile at Raleigh. "Sure! Thank you, I really appreciate how helpful you're being." 

"My pleasure." And he escorts her into the supply room, making sure to be in front and keeping an eye out for mals. 

....Interesting. Masozi isn't sure what the Raleigh kid wants from Shannon either, but - apparently he's at all capable of situational awareness, at least when he's making an effort? Good to know. 

He does a quick perimeter check on the supply room. Warns everyone about the nest of multilegged fluffy baby mystery-mals currently snuggled up fast asleep inside one of the bins, he doesn't see the mother - if they have one - anywhere near but he'll keep an eye out. 

He's still curious about Bella of the many notebooks, and his eyes follow her as well. 

Bella peeps at the baby mystery mals in case they are of a sort she might want to keep in a terrarium and try to poison. "Quattrias," she whispers, putting the lid back on. Might not be a bad choice but she doesn't have a terrarium yet and doesn't see here stuff that would make one. She collects some relatively fungible stuff that is currently abundant - screws, sandpaper - plus the beginnings of a terrarium - glass, caulk, some of the mesh once Shannon's had enough. Fits it all into her backpack with some effort and then watches the door while everyone else stocks up.

Masozi makes his rounds. Collects some screws and caulk, since those seem generically useful, and nabs whatever random extras he spots. He doesn't need anything specific, as far as he knows, but he's also increasingly aware that he's much less prepared than most of the other students here and has some catching up to do. 

He exhausts the random extras at around the same time that Bella finishes her round, and finds himself hovering on the other side of the door. Running a visual scanning-pattern from here doesn't take much concentration. 

"....So do you read a lot as well as writing a lot?" he asks her, not making eye contact because he's instead checking the ceiling vents. 

"- me? Yes, I do."

"You must be really smart."

His English phrasebook didn't say this explicitly or anything, but Masozi's intuition is that it's a good idea to say nice things to strangers if you want to - well, not necessarily convince them to be nice to you, because that's way too much to ask, but - cultivate a general atmosphere of niceness and friendliness and maybe-we're-on-the-same-side...? 

"...uh... huh? Thanks, I guess?"