It looks like the start to a normal day, people arriving on foot or in the nearby parking lot. It's a nice day, nearing the end of summer, and people are standing outside in little groups.

A few people are a bit separated, on their phones or looking through their bags. Nobody seems to pay much attention to Joss.

Well. She's not going to draw attention to herself. And as much as she might like to linger outside, she does need to go and find the office. So, she heads for the main doors, hoping there will be a sign to direct her.

The main office is conveniently right by the entrance, with a sign labeling it as such. The receptionist looks up as she approaches and draws back the glass window between herself and the lobby area.

That is convenient.

"Hi," she says, tucking a stray strand of hair behind one ear. "I'm new," which is totally obvious, but no going back. "Jocelyn Costigan? Um. I think all the registration stuff was done, but I'm not sure? And, I mean I need my timetable, and...you know all this already." She grimaces. "Sorry."

"Oh, Jocelyn! Yes, I have all your files just here," she says, indicating a folder in front of herself. "I'll need you to sign a few forms, read over the code of conduct and so on?"

She gets out some documents.

Joss reads over what she needs to read quickly, and signs a few dotted lines. (It doesn't quite feel like she's signing her life away but it's not far off.)

"That everything I need to sign?" she checks, double checking she's signed everywhere it seemed to need her to.

"That should be everything," responds the receptionist. "But you'll also want this map."

Said map is offered with a smile. "It might be quite fortunate you're only joining a couple of weeks late, you should be up to speed quicker."

"Yeah," she agrees, although she doubts she can catch up on the whole actually interacting with other teenagers thing. She takes the map, managing to force an almost-genuine smile. "Thanks for this."

And she turns to go and try and find out where she needs to be now.

As she does so, someone trips in through the door, dropping notebooks and bits of paper everywhere.

There's the sound of giggling from outside.

Well. That doesn't seem friendly.

"You alright?" she asks, dropping to her knees and setting the papers in her own hands slightly out of the way to help gather up the stuff that got dropped.

The other girl leans up and, after shooting a bit of a glare back the way she came, puts her bag on the ground. "I – yeah, fine thanks," she says, starting to put some of the papers away into it.

She has a bit of an accent.

She holds out the bits and pieces she's managed to gather. "Is that a British accent I hear there?" she asks curiously. "I mean, it's obviously not purely a British accent, you've obviously spent some time...well, here for certain. I'm not actually all that good with accents, but I can normally- Oh, I just assumed. I might not have got that right? Sorry, I'll just shut up now." And she does, so, biting at her lip.

"Oh, no, it is," responds the other girl, putting the offered items into her bag. "I moved. Almost a year ago, now?"

"Good to know I'm not the only transplant here?" she says with a small smile. "What's it like? If you don't mind me asking?" If they seem to have got all the papers and notepads appropriately corralled, she will start to get back to her feet, picking up her own handful of papers.

"It's, uh. Mostly a nice place?" The girl looks back at the door warily but seems satisfied to get up from the floor. "It's a small town, though. Shows in some people."

"At least it's mostly nice?" she says, trying to seem more optimistic than she actually feels at that assessment. "Uh- yeah." She stops, and then shrugs slightly. "I, uh, don't have a lot of experience with schools in general? Never mind small town ones?"

"… I don't know what to tell you here, but – bad high school show? You'll miss the mark with some things but be broadly right?"

Joss chuckles slightly. "Okay, that I do get. Upshot of homeschooling: dear lord I know bad high school TV dramas." She pauses. "Joss," she introduces herself. "Annnd I should probably go and find where I'm supposed to be and stop bugging you. Nice meeting you anyway."

"See you around," says the stranger. "… I'm Jade."

And, conveniently timed, the bell goes.

Which leaves Joss with less time than she'd hoped to find where she needs to be first. Asking someone for directions does not immediately occur to her, but the map is accurate enough that she manages to find where she's supposed to be.

"Sorry," she says as she hurries in. "Got a bit lost."

"– Are you the new student?" asks the teacher, a (relatively) young man.

"Yeah," she nods. "Joss- Jocelyn Costigan." She stands there awkwardly, with absolutely no clue what she's supposed to do. Why wasn't there some kind of cheat-sheet for this?

"Welcome to the school," he responds, smiling pleasantly. "We're not too far into the course, so you should be able to catch up just fine." He asks her a few questions about her math ability and whether she's ever done calculus before (…wherever she's from).

She answers pretty quickly - she's not the best at maths, but she gets by well enough. Yes, she has done some calculus. (She does not admit to her dislike for the subject, that seems like a bad idea.)

He gives her a vague overview of the topics she'll want to make sure she has familiarity with – it is not a ton of calculus, it's a lot of trigonometry – and then directs her to sit down, as the other students are doing.

There are a few desks free: one in the front row, a few in the middle and two at the back. Most people are chatting (relatively quietly) among themselves.

After a moment of thought, she goes to hide at the back - she hopes like hell that no-one wants the seat she's claimed. She does not want to move.

Conveniently – ish – she is actually the last to have come into the class! … People may have been listening in while she was chatting with the teacher. Hopefully that was not too embarrassing.

The teacher does the roll call, homeroom occurs presumably as it will for the rest of her school life, and then they do some calculus.

Regardless of whether it was objectively embarrassing, Joss is kind of mortified at the idea of people overhearing.

She grits her teeth through calculus, tries to adapt to the rather different environment of doing it surrounded by other people compared to being on her own. (It might be noted that she's fairly easily distracted by her fellow students shifting and talking.) It won't take too long to adapt to that...she hopes.

The students are relatively quiet; perhaps the teacher is quite willing to punish them for disrupting class. The calculus is not impossible, but she may find it challenging. People fidget aplenty.

Then the bell for end of class rings, the teacher watches them carefully but dismisses them, and Joss can go have a thrilling hour of economics!

Everyone being relatively quiet helps. Some. It is challenging. Maths in general and calculus in particular - so not her strong suit. But she gets by okay. She hangs back a little so that the first surge of people is gone after the dismissal.

Oh. Yay. She is thrilled. Another class that is not one she would be doing if she had a choice. But she can do it. So she will. The problem of being easily distracted persists, but she tries very hard not to let her attention drift too much.

It passes by.

She has English next. The classroom is not very hard to find.

English is more her style. She doesn't claim to enjoy dissecting books, but she expects she can probably blag her way better in an essay than she can with incorrect calculations.

She looks around the classroom as she steps in the door.

She can see the girl from earlier, the one she met on the steps, sitting toward the back of the room, and she's just in time to see someone reach over from nearby and swipe a notebook from that desk!

The girl from earlier, Jade, looks after the notebook, annoyed, but just sighs and looks back at her desk. The teacher seems happy to ignore them for now.

Well then. The is definitely not friendly. (And the few times Joss has interacted with people her own age, bullies were the one thing she couldn't abide.) And, well, if the teacher isn't going to do anything...

Joss does her best to appear like she hadn't noticed (and she had plenty of practice pretending not to see things), as she heads for the back of the class, and will, if no-one responds quick enough, swipe that notebook back and drop it back onto Jade's desk. Without a word, as though she hadn't just done that.

The thief blinks, then turns to look at Joss, seeming affronted.

Jade puts her head in her palm, looking like she might want to sigh, and her other arm goes over the returned notebook. "… Thanks."

There's a seat free next to her.

Joss ignores the thief and points to the seat. "Do you mind if I take that seat?" It's polite to ask after all. And after a beat, much quieter: "You're welcome."

"Feel free."

The thief continues to look affronted. "You can't just do that!" she says.

Jade sighs.

Joss takes the seat, and then leans forward to give the thief a mock confused look. "Why not? You did first. Unless this is one of those one rule for one and another for the rest, and I'm really bad at remembering which rule applies to me. So...I don't think this conversation has any merit whatsoever. I'm gonna stop talking to you now." And leans back as though the matter is closed.

The thief manages to look even more affronted. She turns to the teacher, maybe considering trying to argue a point, but he takes no notice of her and simply starts talking about today's subject material.

Well...that's probably going to be a problem later. Joss decides she doesn't have the time to worry about it (but she will anyway), and tries very hard to pay enough attention.

It would appear they're taking a moment to focus on the various dialects and pronunciations of the English language, most particularly the various dialects in North America.

Jade looks interested, at least briefly.

Joss manages to listen for a little more time, and then gets distracted (and a little homesick) thinking about British English dialects. (She ends up doodling British slang down the margin of her notebook, when she hasn't managed to keep her attention on what she's supposed to be doing.)

The teacher references some essay they did last year, during the explanation, and Jade flips to a page of her notebook that seems related to the topic at hand.

It has a few red marks, in particular around what one might recognize as the British variants of words.

Joss squints at it, tries not to read too much, although...

She scribbles a quick note in the corner of her page underneath 'geet walla'.

'Can I get a copy of that essay for context or is it not that important? Teacher got a problem with Brit spelling?' She taps her pencil first slightly closer to Jade to get her attention and then on the note.

Jade tilts her head at the note, and flips to the back of the notebook to write a message of her own: 'Not too important, can copy anyway. Yep.'

'Thank you,' she scribbles back. 'Grab it later if that's okay?'

'Library has a copier.'

And they should probably stop before the earlier-thief can complain to the teacher about their note-making.

And Joss wrenches her attention back to the lesson, and manages to mostly keep it there for the remainder of the lesson.

The saga proceeds, as the earlier girl goes over to a friend and seems to rather energetically talk about something, indicating Jade and Joss as she does so. The friend then glares in their direction.

Jade seems quite happy to ignore them both.

Then Joss will ignore them both as well, although she will try to make sure she remembers what they look like.

Making enemies probably wasn't what her father meant by 'be normal'. Still, she has the fun that is the rest of today to look forward to.

Where next?

She has science! How fun.

Jade leaves the classroom reasonably swiftly.

Science is, in fact, considerably more her speed (it's weird, science numbers make considerably more sense than calculus numbers). Although she's not entirely sure how close she is to the level they'll be teaching here.

Still, Chemistry it is. She can do that.

Apparently, Jade also has Chemistry! She is carefully toward the back of the classroom, again, but seems to have a lab partner she gets on with okay enough.

The teacher notices that Joss is new, explains what they're doing right now (alkanes, fun) and then sets her up with a lab partner herself.

Class proceeds.

She does a better job at not getting distracted here, the subject matter more interesting to her and holding her attention better.

It still gets boring, but, she supposes, that seems to be a thing with school in general.

Knocking! Octane numbers! Other things relating to hydrocarbons and things! (Fractional distillation! Gosh!)

And then it's time for lunch.

Which is probably going to be another exercise in trying to figure out how the hell to avoid social if at all possible. Or trying to figure out how the hell to do it. One of those two things.

She could socialize with Jade! She could fetch that earlier essay off Jade!

Jade seems quite happy to grab some food and sit in a corner away from most of the others in the cafeteria.

That rather seems like the most logical way to go about things!

So, she grabs some food and heads over. "Mind if I join you?" she asks. "And would it be okay to grab a copy of that essay before we have to get back to class?"

"– Sure," she says. "Library should be open."

There are a couple of free seats at the table.

"Thanks," Joss nods, taking one of those free seats.

She doesn't start a conversation - because she really has no idea how to, and doesn't want to irritate Jade - but eats quickly.

"Where in Britain did you move from?"

She looks up, slightly startled, obviously not expecting to be addressed.

"Gateshead," she says, after a moment. "North-east England. Yourself?"

"Um, near Wells? In Somerset."

"I think we went to Wells once? Father had a meeting there or something. I don't really remember much about it - I recall it being pretty?"

"It has a cathedral? There's a museum near that, I think, and the whole place is pretty old."

"That's probably what I'm remembering."

By this point Joss has finished her food. (She eats pretty quickly.)

Jade is about halfway through! (Pasta, would be yum except cafeteria food…)

Joss isn't entirely sure how to continue a conversation (asking about the notepad incident seems rude, and asking about why Jade moved seems somehow too personal), so if there's no further immediate conversation, she'll take a moment to review her calculus notes.

Calculus has lots of symbols in it. (Some of these are shared with other languages and alphabets! Not that either of them probably know this. Not that this helps make it more understandable.)

It only takes Jade another few minutes to finish eating – "Lunch is pretty short here; I'm not sure if anyone ever mentioned that."

"I had a tendency to end up working through my lunch break," she admits. "But thanks for the heads up. We got time to make that copy? Or would it be better grabbing it after school?"

"We've got time," she says, getting up from her seat and picking up her bag and tray.

"I really appreciate this," she responds, following Jade's lead.

"Sure," she responds. "I'm not sure how helpful it'll be."

"Anything that helps me make sense of what a teacher is saying is helpful! Even if it is only slightly."

The library is not far away, and copying work for school use is free.

They have a few minutes before class when Jade's done with the copier.

"Thanks again," Joss says, and then stands slightly awkwardly. "Uh, what do you have next?" That seems like a relatively safe topic of conversation.

"History. You?"

"Geography," Joss says with a slight shrug. "I think I would've preferred history..."

"You could swap? Or – did you do the GCSE already, that might be why?"

"I haven't," she says thoughtfully. "I might see about getting it swapped." (Father had always insisted that Geography was more useful, but she'd preferred history.) "Thanks for the suggestion."

"Sure. I'll see you later, bell's about to go."

"Great. Uh, point a girl in the right direction?"

"– Oh, it's uh, kinda over that way?" She points towards the English block. "History is kinda opposite it, I can walk you halfway there."

"That would be ace," Joss says, giving Jade two thumbs up.

Jade starts leading the way to class, but looks confused by the latest comment. "I don't think I've heard that in a while."

Joss shrugs slightly. "I guess it's not said that much over here? ...Wait, should I be avoiding using British phrases? It...probably isn't something I can do?"

"I don't think I'd heard it much back in England – not sure if it's England-specific – but you will probably be fine, I think it was just me they took issue with."

"That...kinda sounds like a dick move? You seem canny mint te' me." And yes, her accent does thicken there, before she seems to remember herself and pull it back under control. "Cheers for helping me out, mind, you didn't have to."

"It's fine," she shrugs. "What else was I going to do today?"

The bell rings.

"Well, y'could've abandoned me to my fate," Joss says lightly. "Ta-ra," she gives a two-fingered salute and heads into her class.

Jade waves and gets to history.

There's a girl in Joss's class who wants to know why she's speaking to Jade. (Not aggressively, just… confused.)

"Because she's speaking to me? And being helpful?" Joss suggests, sounding confused as to why that's even a question.

… But there are other people who could be helpful and who could speak to her, also.

Most people don't talk to Jade?

Well. No-one offered, and Joss got talking to Jade, so it just sort of happened? And also why don't people talk to Jade? Joss can't see a reason for that.

She's kinda weird. Kinda always has been? There was an incident a couple of weeks after she got here.

Given that Joss has never found a valid definition for 'normal' that applies to people beyond 'conforms to the majority behaviour', she is sceptical at the idea of choosing to shun someone because of a nebulous concept. On the other hand, what's going on with that incident? (She doesn't exactly want to pry, but...she's curious.)

… She's actually not sure, you know? It was weird. Sasha or Annabelle probably knows.

Plus some people are very weird in, like, a bad way, so being weird can definitely be bad. Creepiness is not a good thing.

Joss writes it off for now, because it's obviously not that much of a big deal if not everyone knows about it.

She will concede the point, but she hadn't got any...bad vibes from Jade. Then again, she'll freely admit that she's not the best at people (even if she normally trusts her instincts). Still, this conversation kind of feels like it's going in circles right now, and she's pretty sure the teacher is going to start complaining at them at some point about it.

… Oh, Jade's not – not like the creepy type, she's just generally weird, just it seemed important to note that weirdness can be bad?

But yeah, teacher might notice, better do some work. (She turns away from Joss and continues taking notes.)

Joss shakes her head slightly, because she'll accept the logic, but it seems really weird to bring it up if it's not actually applying to the subject at hand?

She turns her attention back to taking notes as well. (Geography - continues to be pretty boring from her perspective.)

Geography does, however, pass by, and last class of the day they have gym.

Jade is also here. She's already changed by the time Joss gets there.

Joss is actually looking forward to this some. Physical activity! Just what she needs after a day of trying to concentrate. Physical activity does not, actually, take that much concentration, or rather, takes a less mentally exhausting form of concentration. She nods to Jade with a quick 'hi' and quickly changes into her own gym kit. (She considers saying something, but decides that right before gym is probably not the best time to be doing that.)

What are they doing for physical activity today?

Dodgeball! They've been doing basketball for the past couple of weeks, apparently, but are now going to have to dodge balls.

A group of the girls – including the one who tripped Jade, before school – get into a little group, looking like they might be planning something. Jade goes a little pale.

Joss sidles up beside Jade. "You okay?" she asks quietly, watching the girls who've just grouped together.

"Sure," she says. "I'll live."

One of the girls says something, then giggles, which starts off the rest of them.

Jade sighs.

"Could they be any more cliche?" Joss asks, wrinkling her nose. "They look like they stepped right out of a crappy high school show. Did I ever mention that daytime TV really sucked?"

She's worried about those giggles, but she's doing her best to not show that.

"I don't watch a ton of it, but I see what you mean."

The gym teacher seems ready to start class! Do they know the rules for dodgeball or does he need to explain before he leaves them to it?

How hard can it be right? The clue is in the name after all. And she does enjoy being active, and can probably avoid being too involved until she's sussed out any rules she can't immediately guess at.

The rules are indeed quite obvious. He does not explain them.

It does not take much more time before the dodgeballs start being thrown. A disproportionate amount of them go towards Jade.

Well that's just not cricket. She is close enough that she can catch one of the balls, and deflect a couple of the others, but that's about it. (And it looks more like she's defending herself than Jade.) She does identify one of the perpetrators and throws the ball in her hand back with perhaps a tad more force than is supposedly acceptable.

It might in fact be less force than some of the other balls flying around! A couple get flung back at Joss, directly, and some almost hit Jade.

Both teams' numbers rapidly dwindle.

Joss continues to be good at both catching balls and evading. And if they're going to play like that (because she can feel the burn on her hands from catching a ball travelling too fast), she'll just throw back at full force. And if she happens to aim just a little too high and go for the head of the girl who tripped Jade earlier, it's only because she was the first person Joss happened to notice.

The girl ducks and then smirks back at Joss, tossing a ball back her way.

A few more attacks follow.

Okay then. How about stomach? Legs? And attacking a few of the others. Although even Joss can only keep up evading and catching for so long, eventually she is going to get hit by something.

A few girls get hit, on both sides.

Jade manages to get one of the ringleaders before herself getting hit.

Joss doesn't cheer, but there's a definite vicious glee to her smile. And then she's hit in the shoulder. (She's managed to get at least one person out, she's sure, she stopped paying as close attention as she should have.) She sighs, shrugs, and retreats to wherever people are retreating when they've been hit out.

People are just standing to the side of the gym. Jade follows her.

A ball comes flying their way, quite clearly directed at them.

Joss manages to catch it, track it back to approximately where it came from, and lamps it back. About half a second before it's likely to make contact with anyone, she'll yell 'heads'. She's not completely vindictive.

Someone in the right region is hit, which causes a bit of confusion in the people near them – until it's noted that it was thrown from the side of the room and not by the other team.

The game moves on, with Joss getting a bit of side-eye; it's not long before it's over.

"Well that was exciting."

"That's one word for it," Joss agrees, flexing her hands slightly. "Seriously, hadn't realised school would be this cliched."

"That's one word for it," Jade echoes.

There's another game. Jade stays in for a bit less time, this round, but still a decent portion of the overall match given how many throws come her way. One of the girls on the other team is a bit more vicious this time, and manages to clip Jade's jaw with the ball.

Joss has a silent mantra going on about all the reasons why starting a fight is a bad idea. She manages to stay in for the majority of the game this time, and tries to vary who she aims at, even if she does target the girls who seem to have it out for Jade a bit more than other people.

They go out, one by one, and they don't all survive on the other team for the whole game, but they seem like they might have practice throwing and dodging things.

There's one last game before gym ends.

At this point, Joss is actually just fed up, and barely puts in any effort, very ready for the day to be over. She ends up spending most of the game leaning against the wall observing it.

Jade puts in an effort! She goes out about three quarters of the way through.

It's not every day that she meets someone new, so she makes a bit of an effort to seem friendly, by leaning against the wall and looking at Joss and trying to smile.

Joss gives a half smile back. "If I irritate you, let me know. Or just... don't feel you need to...interact. I'm bad at judging what people really think. And I know I'm irritating."

Jade's smile falters a little at that.

"I — yeah," she says, standing up a bit straighter. "I didn't mean to – whatever, or – y'know."

That was...not the reaction she was expecting. "Not that I'm not...grateful that you're still talking to me," she says quickly. "I just...don't want you to feel you... have to. I'm really not going to complain if you do want to talk to me?" She shrinks in on herself a little, with absolutely no idea what to actually say here. "I could...do with a..." She isn't entirely sure what to say there, she thinks the word she wants is 'friend', but she doesn't want to be too forward.

Pause.

"… Oh." She bites her lip. "Sure. I – did not realize."

"So, uh, mutually agree to keep talking? If that's okay with you?"

"That seems – I – yeah?"

Joss isn't sure that Jade is sure of that. But hey. Gift horses and all that.

"Champion," she says with a slight grin. "How much longer of this mess do we have left anyway?"

"I think – a few minutes, before class ends, you mean?"

"That's exactly what I mean," Joss confirms. "I. Uh. Hadn't actually realised just how exhausting actually coming to school would be, y'know?"

Jade sighs. "It is oh so terribly exhausting," she agrees. "Maybe less than doing A-levels, though."

"Exams suck," Joss nods. "And...yeah, actually, you're probably not entirely wrong about that." She runs her fingers through her hair.

Jade shrugs.

The gym teacher comes back from – wherever they were – just in time for the end of the third game. He calls the end of class, and Jade heads for the locker room.

Joss follows after her, ready to be done with the day. She is also paying attention to the girls around them, just in case one of them decides to do something. (She really hopes they don't.)

No attack seems to be forthcoming, at least yet. They give a few dirty looks but seem like they might be too tired to actually do anything.

Jade gets changed quickly.

Joss isn't far behind her in speed of changing. She is discovering a severe dislike for public changing rooms. Once she's changed she'll grab her bag and head for the door - pausing if Jade isn't already leaving.

Jade finishes a bit before Joss but opts to wait until she's finished to go, so they can leave together.

"… I don't suppose you have – some form of IM?"

"I have an email address?" Joss offers, slightly embarrassed. (She hasn't had a reason to need an IM before.) "Shouldn't be too much work to get an IM from that."

"– Yeah, you should be able to." She pauses briefly, then opens her bag and grabs a scrap piece of paper out of a notebook to write her own on.

She presents it to Joss.

Joss grins as she takes it. She quickly folds the paper over and carefully writes out her email in block capitals that are still a little difficult to read, before tearing along the fold and handing the half with her own details over to Jade.

"Thanks," she says.

"I'll, um, message you later? Or maybe see you tomorrow?"

"Definitely one of those two things," she agrees, nodding. "Maybe even both." She grins again. "Hope you have an okay evening."

Jade tilts her head a little. "I hope you do too?"

"Thanks," Joss grins, walking slightly backwards. "See you tomorrow."

She turns and heads off to start her walk home. (She's not entirely sure that she wasn't rude to just walk off, but she's pretty ready to be home now.)

 Jade messages her later that evening:

Hello!

I hope I copied the email right – it's Jade here.

Have you figured out an IM thing yet or should I point you to one?

Hey. I think this is working?

Looks to be working! Have you used it before or should I poke you at the useful things?

Poking me at the useful things would be helpful! I'm not a complete luddite, but I've never really used anything like this before.

Friends list! Reactions! Ability to add photos and show what TV shows / games / music / other media you enjoy! A ton of other utilities and features that you can waste years on!

Thanks.

I hope your evening's been okay?

Been doing English homework. You?

Geography homework. So boring.

Wait. Did we have English homework?

Uh – it was set on Friday so you weren't there for it. Maybe check with him about it tomorrow?

Thank god. Good plan. Jeez. I though actually going to school would mean I didn't have to do anything at home.

I thought you watched a lot of TV, didn't they ever do homework in that?

Okay, so it was an unrealistic expectation, but I was kinda hoping it wouldn't be as bad as TV portrayed it?

In some ways it's worse? Sometimes they overplay it.

I think you get used to it though.

I hope so. Otherwise it gets added to the list of things that make life miserable. How do you all concentrate with so many people around while you're working?

Aa. Ignore that question, didn't mean to ask it. Apparently lack of filter extends to IM now?

I can work with it *shrug*

People aren't hard to ignore.

I suppose I'll just have to get used to it then. Never really been around this many people before. So yeah. Probably gonna take me a while...

There any bright sides to this apparent hell?

You get a high school diploma and can move on to college to further your education?

Suppose that's true. If you want to go to college. ...I don't even know what things really look like over here in terms of quals and what you need to do what jobs...

As I understand it basically everyone goes into college? Sort of between how many people do A-levels and how many go to university. Job prospects look pretty bad without college but exist, like if you don't do uni or A-levels.

...Ugh. Guess we're stuck with it then.

Ah. Crap. Sorry, got to go make dinner. See you tomorrow?

See you then!

Joss sighs, shuts her computer down, and goes to see about making dinner.

The next morning, she gets to school about the same time as the morning before - despite not having to attend to things like registration. She's obviously just walked there.

She gets to see Jade standing near a corner of the main building, then, possibly as a compromise between remaining unobtrusive as normal and still being visible if Joss wants to find her.

Joss approaches slowly, giving Jade plenty of time to leave if she wants to, a cautiously pleased smile on her lips.

Jade stays where she is! She even pretends to be mildly surprised when she sees Joss.

"Hey."

"Mornin'," Joss grins, relaxing slightly. "How was your evening?"

"It was alright," she shrugs. "Had pasta."

"I made jambalaya," Joss says. "And then Dad really suddenly decided he didn't like peppers. Which is really weird because he's eaten jambalaya before and it's always had peppers in it..." She cuts herself off and gives a sheepish shrug. "Well. I guess we have another day of torture ahead of us?" Her tone is a lot lighter than her words and she's managing to continue grinning.

"It shouldn't be that bad!" responds Jade, trying to smile. "Just… keep away from certain people."

She tries not to look too obviously past Joss, at some of the girls from gym yesterday.

"Well. You've seen my attempts at social firsthand," Joss points out, taking a step as though to head into the main building, tilting her head at Jade, "I think I'm okay not trying to make any more new friends. They'd probably not take too kindly to me anyway."

"You didn't seem that bad, from what I saw. Not that that's saying much, I guess."

Joss gives a self-depreciating grin. "I haven't exchanged more than a dozen sentences with anyone else, and also, I think I very nearly torpedoed this entire attempt at friendship yesterday, but one of us somehow managed to rescue it?" She shrugs. "If it happens it happens, if not...well. It's not like I haven't spent most of my life without really interacting with people my own age."

Jade looks a bit awkward. "I don't think it was that bad…"

Joss grimaces. "And there goes my lack of filter again. Sorry. What do you have first? I get to fight with maths again..."

"Maaaaaath," says Jade. "I actually have it too. Must be in a different class from you." Pause. "Should probably go grab our stuff."

She starts heading lockerwards.

Joss laughs slightly as she follows. "Bane of all human existence?" she suggests, almost cheerfully. "I suppose that makes sense. I keep forgetting just how many people there actually are in this school..."

"It's not even a particularly large one, you should see one of the ones with like two thousand kids in."

"You remember the part where I'm used to being in a class of one?" Joss says lightly. "Two thousand sounds... have you actually been in one of those?"

"Fortunately not but I hear they get larger."

"Small mercies. I suspect I'd have gone-" she pauses, smile freezing. "I'll just be thankful we settled somewhere smaller than that."

"Yeah." Jade shrugs. "The cafeterias seem like they could be fun. Like four times the size of our gym."

"Probably easier to hide in," Joss agrees, brushing her hair back over one shoulder. "Also probably easier to find people to talk to I suppose?"

"Both, yeah." She nods.

The bell rings.

Joss gives a theatrical groan, and finishes pulling books out of her locker. "Well, if you don't see me later, I either decided to straight up give up on life, or I have been forced to take drastic measures to relieve my boredom. I'm not entirely sure what those drastic measures will be. But."

"Calculus can't be that bad." Jade raises an eyebrow.

"You haven't seen how bad I am at calculus," Joss jokes, grinning. "It's mostly just that I dislike maths. It seems kinda... I dunno. I can't see real world applications for it so much? I mean. There probably is. But..."

"If you go into something – STEM – then definitely, my dad uses it a bit for statistics-type stuff, but otherwise I guess not." Shrug.

"This is gonna sound weird but stats make sense to me in a way calculus doesn't?"

"I guess?" she shrugs. "It could be the practical application part."

"Sounds possible," Joss says, fails to think of anything else to add, and falls silent.

Paaause. "Do your – parents? – do anything mathy? … Slash mathsy."

"Uh, Dad's a minister," Joss admits, one hand reaching back to scratch the back of her head a little awkwardly (she has no idea how that's going to be taken). "Mam's not around."

"Oh!" responds Jade, not sure how to react. "Uh, Church of England minister, or?"

"Episcopalian. The breakdown of his marriage was a complete scandal." (And Joss' issues hadn't helped.) "But he recovered." (She's absently toying with the pendant she's wearing.)

"Ah." Paaause. "I don't know much about that denomination."

Jade, herself, doesn't seem to be wearing any religious jewelry.

"Honestly if he hadn't been a minister it probably wouldn't have even been a massive gossip point. But he was. So..." She shrugs. "What brought you over here anyway? Uh. If you don't mind me asking?"

Jade frowns in response, taking a moment to bite her lip before responding. "My dad's sort of – always wanted to move abroad? And he got an opportunity to work over here, for a bit." Pause. "The 'bit' turned into a while."

"Parents, ai?" Joss says, almost lightly. "...do you like it? Except for the, uh, obvious problems?"

Jade looks at her a bit sadly. "I guess?" She shrugs.

"I suppose you have to make the best of what you get," Joss murmurs.

Jade's expression falters a little, before she tries to smile again. "But anyway –" She gestures at a classroom they're coming up on. "I'll see you after math?"

Joss grimaces and then manages something approximately a smile. "Yeah. See you later."

And mandated education!

Mandated education!

After homeroom, the teacher continues in a similar way to the day before. It might not be obvious, but he does try to take extra care with Joss, making sure there are no obvious terminology gaps when he introduces old concepts. (He makes a couple of comments about her prior mathematical education that could be understood as disparaging, but does genuinely try to help her learn any missing concepts when he comes around the class.)

As much as she might feel slightly attacked by that, it's kind of reasonable. Still, she does her best, and isn't so proud as to not accept help where it is offered.

Then the hour can pass quite productively. Econ is next, and passes by again without much ado.

English, shared with Jade, is up after that.

Is Jade already there?

Yep! Sitting near the back, as before, with the same empty seat next to her.

She looks up as Joss enters the classroom, smiling lightly.

She grins back and heads for that empty seat. "Turns out maths is easier with someone who properly understands the subject matter explaining it."

"New teacher good, then?"

"Better than any of the tutors I've had before certainly. Home-schooled thing again."

"Ah." Jade nods. "Maybe… don't get your hopes up for English." She smiles, trying to make the statement light.

She grins slightly in response. "Eh, you might've noticed that I babble. English I can just like...babble at the subject matter until it looks like I know what I'm on about."

Jade laughs a little. "Don't let him catch you saying that!"

"Yeah, I'll definitely keep that particular skill of mine quiet."

Class proceeds, continuing from where it left off the day before. There's an exercise on some Australian slang, and they cover a couple of the quirks of Indian English, and the teacher reminds them about their homework, due tomorrow.

Joss will take the opportunity to clarify what the homework actually is - given she wasn't here when it was set?

There's a worksheet describing the task, which she can have a copy of! She'll get some leeway, not having been there when it was originally set, but hers will be due the day after the others'.

She can probably do that, thanks for the leeway.

Class over?

Class over! Since they both have Chemistry, they can walk over together.

"So… how are you finding it so far?"

"Hard to concentrate, but it could be a lot worse. It's...getting easier to tune people out now."

"That's… good?" she tries.

"Ah, hopefully. How's your day been so far?"

"So far, so good! No homework assigned yet…"

"Now that is always a benefit, yes!"

"Yeah! I'm hoping it keeps up."

"Careful, we might jinx it."