ArchivedLogs:Lunch with Ducky

Lunch with Ducky
Dramatis Personae Ducky, Kai
In Absentia	2013-06-21 '
Location <XS> Great Hall
The first day of the summer session has started at Xavier's, and while the school isn't as full as in the other terms, there's still that first-day sort of excitement -- at least for the students not repeating courses. But it's there. Even the Great Hall, set up for the mid-day meal, has a heady sort of feel to it. (Who cares if there are only about half the normal amount of students in it? These are kids, after all. They can fill any empty space with noise and excitement.) Many students gather in their social circles, happily discussing their activities in the small break. Some do not have wide circles, and so they sit mostly by themselves. Kai is one of the latter, although he doesn't look overly unhappy about his solo state. Dressed in jeans and a Xavier's t-shirt, he sits at one end of a table, a math book open in front of him for easy reading. On his plate, there is about two-thirds of a hamburger, and some well picked-over french fries that are being ignored as Kai transcribes something from the book into a spiralbound notebook with careful precision. For the first time in just over a year, Ducky is actually attenting school - and this has the teenager rather nervous, albeit excited, about the idea. She's currently, however, on her lunch break, and now stands, tray in hand, just outside of the pickup line for food. Being relatively new, she knows few other students, and is looking around in confusion, trying to find an open seat that won't be too horribly awkward or crowded. She shifts from one foot to the other, scratching her exposed calf with the bottom of her shoe - she's wearing a pair of cargo shorts that hang loosely on her thin waist, paired with a Xavier's t-shirt and her normal black hooded vest. A bright yellow backpack hangs from her shoulders, which are currently absent of any bird life, heavy with the weight of books and supplies. At last, the mousy looking girl sets eyes on Kai, and she smiles, happy to see at least one face she recognizes, and makes a bee-line for his table. "Um, hi, Kai. D'you mind if I sit at your table? If, uh, if it's too much trouble, I can find another place to sit, but," she shrugs, and glances around, as though trying to find where she could sit if he said no. Kai does not see Ducky's approach, focused as he is on whatever it is he's working on. So when she speaks, he looks up sharply, his eyes a bit wide. Upon spotting Ducky, they immediately slide into happy crinkles, and he nods at the empty seats around him. "Hello, Ducky! Yes, please join me. I am just doing some math from the book they gave me this morning. It is very interesting, but division is still hard." He smiles, and puts down his pencil to close the book. Then he seems to remember his food, and he snags up a fry, waggling it at the girl. "How have your classes been, this morning?" Once Kai gives the okay to sit down, Ducky takes an open seat opposite the young man, sliding her back pack off her shoulder to sit it down on the ground beside her seat. "Thanks for letting me sit with you. I, well, I don't know many people still, and it's kinda an amazingly huge room. Still can't quite get over just how big this place is," Ducky muses for a moment, glancing around the Great Hall with wide eyes. The mention of division gets a wrinkled nose and a slight grumble, "I've got to take geometry again, since I didn't complete the year at my old school. Don't like math." Shaking her head, she offers a shrug, "It's good to be back at school, and it's stuff I've had to take before, but didn't get to finish cause I ran away." She pokes at her salad, idly nibbling on a piece of tomato, "How're your classes?" "You will meet more people," Kai predicts, popping the fry in his mouth and chewing it with a small smile. "I still do not know very many other students, but the ones I've met are mostly nice." Thin elbows get placed on the table, and the Korean boy leans forward, a bit. "I do not know exactly what geometry is," he confesses. "But I have heard other students talking about it. It is the one with shapes?" His burger is picked up, and he studies its contents for a moment. "It is good that it is familiar, yes?" he asks of the repeated courses. "You can take comfort in the parts you know, and look forward to the things you didn't get to learn." Yay, optimism! The question about his own classes gets a wide grin. "They are /very/ good classes," he says happily. "I am not taking the same kind of classes as the other students, but they are very interesting." His smile slides a bit wider. "I am looking forward to seeing what the afternoon will bring." Ducky nods, "Yeah, at the base, it's the one with the shapes. It's a lot of formula and stuff which I'm not that good at memorizing. I've got tutoring sessions on the side to get me back up to speed on stuff. In theory, anyway. I'm hoping it comes back to me. If I screw this up, I've got to take remedial classes to relearn the basics." She ruffles her hair, and continues poking at her salad, idly arranging the letuce and other ingredients into little designs, playing with her food. She tilts her head curiously at the mention that Kai isn't taking the same classes, blinking at him curiously. "So what kinda classes are you taking?" She smiles and nods, "I've got biology this afternoon, so I'm looking forward to that. It's what I was good at before, so hopefully I'm not horrible at it now." Kai wrinkles his nose. "It sounds very difficult," he says sympathetically, and bites into his burger before continuing while he chews. "I hope that you do not have too much trouble with it." Then his eyebrows raise as Ducky mentions tutoring, and he swallows a very under-chewed bite. "I have a tutor! My very good friend Ivan is my tutor, but he is in Russia right now. Tutors are a very helpful thing." Another fry is snagged, and he gnaws on that while he answers the question. "I am taking classes of the sixth grade," he says, lifting a shoulder in a little shrug. "It will be some time before I am taking things like geometry and biolology." Ducky bobs her head as she chews on her salad, shrugging slightly, "It's kinda tough, but it could be worse. I'm just happy for the chance to be at a school again." She tilts her head a bit, "I haven't met my tutor yet, I'm just supposed to be getting one, once people settle back in to classes. So for now I'm just taking classes and all that jazz." She waves a hand slightly, as though indicating her classes and work, "I should be graduating next spring or fall, maybe. I'm sort of repeating half of tenth grade, and would have actually graduated next spring, if not for the whole running away thing." She tilts her head in the opposite direction, looking at Kai curiously, smiling slightly at the misprononciation of the science class, "Guess you didn't really get much time to go to school and all before. How old are you? Outta curiosity. I'm 17," she offers with a nod, and a ruffle of her hand through her hair, as though she feels suddenly conscious of how old she is. "This is the first school I have ever been in," Kai says, looking around at the expanse of the hall. "I did not know what it would be like." He nods at Ducky's assessment, and pokes through his remaining fries, finding one that's super-crispy looking and crunching into it. "Back in the place where I was born, our farm was very poor, and there was no time for things like schools. We were needed to work in the fields." He says this very matter-of-factly, his expression still bright and excited-looking. Until Ducky asks him his age, and then he pauses with sort of a dumbstruck expression. "I...am not sure," he confesses. "My family did not mark birthdays, and I do not know how long I was with the bad doctors." He wrinkles his nose. "I will have to ask Doctor McCoy, or the Professor. They might know." Poking at her salad some more, as though expecting it to suddenly taste so much better than a collection of leaves and roughage, Ducky pauses and looks up at Kai. "Wow, I, well, guess that's kinda how the US was, a few generations ago. It was only the really rich who got to go to school, and even then, there were some kids who had to drop out to help on the farms. But now I guess we're in a stable enough economy, in theory, that kids in the US hafta go to school. But most of us don't realize how lucky we are." She looks a little surprised, that Kai doesn't know how old he is, "Really? I... huh. Have you ever had a birthday party? Even since you got here? I mean, I guess not, if you didn't really keep track of birthdays," Ducky blinks curiously, munching on her salad. Kai tilts his head, and furrows his brow as Ducky speaks of America's past. "Oh, yes!" he says suddenly. "Like the books about the girls in the little house. I have read some of those. There are boys in them who do not go to school in the warm weather because of working on farms. I remember. Yes!" He beams at this unexpected connection, and he bounces in his seat a bit. "They are very good books. I should read more of them." He lifts a shoulder. "I do not think it is lucky to go to school instead of farming so much as different. From what I have read, many countries have similar cultures to this country's, and many do not. It is just that sort of difference." He tilts his head at the question, and he considers it. "I have read about such parties, and there are often such things on televisions shows, but I have never had such a thing, no." He waves a french fry in the air. "I do not even know the date of my birth," he says. "My mother would only say it was the hottest part of the summer." Ducky smiles at the connection of the books to the conversation, "Yeah! Little House on the Prarie? I loved those books when I read them. Ooh, If you liked those, you should totally check out the Boxcar Children. It's kinda a little bit more recent, but they are good if you're just getting used to reading. Sorta like mystery novels, about kids who were trying to live on their own. They're good." She just nods sheepishly at the comments on cultures, finishing off her salad as she listens to Kai, head bobbing in agreement. "Huh. Hottest part of the year? Around here that's something like mid to late August. 'swhen my birthday is," Ducky nods and grins thoughtfully, "Though I guess if you're from another country, then the hottest part of the year might be kinda different. Still though, I'll totally share my birthday cake with you if I get one this year. Cause birthdays are more awesome with friends." She nods emphatically, smiling, apparently happy at the idea of being able to share something with a friend other than a bird. Kai's eyes light up at the mention of a new series of books to explore. "I like mysteries," he says with a bob of his head. "I am reading a book about the Hardy brothers, who solve many mysteries. I will have to ask the librarian if there are any I may borrow." He takes a couple more bites of burger as he listens to Ducky theorize on his birthday, and swallows when she offers to share. "Why is there a cake for birthdays?" he asks, reaching for his napkin to wipe some errant ketchup from the corner of his mouth. "Is there a meaning behind them?" Ducky nods, "I'm sure they've got them here. I mean, we've got a /huge/ library. And if not, it can probably be ordered or something." She moves on to her sandwhich, a turkey club on rye, picking up half of it and munching, looking thoughtfully at Kai for a minute, swallowing her mouthfull before talking, "Well, it's kinda an old tradition, I think. The idea was birthdays were a big thing, because it meant that a child had survived through a difficult time - like in the 1900s, infant mortality and childhood mortality was kinda common in the US. I think. I mean, there's likely more to it than that, but that's my basic understanding of it. So you celebrated a kid making it that far." She nods slowly, nibbling on her sandwich, "Now-a-days it's an excuse for cake and ice cream. sometimes people get gifts and stuff on their birthdays. It's kinda just a celebration of being alive, I guess? And a birthday is just a convenient time to celebrate it, since it's a certain day each year." Ducky shuts herself up by eating a nice big bite of sandwich, chewing it slowly in an attempt to stop her constant babbling. Kai absorbs the information on birthdays, leaning back in his chair and pursing his lips. "So, they would celebrate because a person had lived a whole year?" he echoes, his brow furrowing. "And now it is just an excuse for cakes and things?" There's some part of the culture gap that he can't quite make happen, no matter how hard he tries. Eventually, he just gives up, and shrugs. "I will talk to the Professor, and perhaps we will figure out a birthday for me," he says, in a tone that says that's exactly what he believes /will/ happen. "And then there will be a cake for me that I may share with /you/!" Which is a sudden, happy realization. "What is your favorite flavor of cake?" he asks, shifting in his seat. "I like the white kind that is fluffy, but there is one they made last week for dessert that tasted like bananas that was very good." Ducky finishes chewing her food, giving her brain a chance to catch up with everything that her mouth had spouted without consulting the rest of her mind. "That sounds like a plan. It's just kinda neat to know your birthday, sometimes, cause you occasoinally find people who share the same birthday as you, and it can be a conversation thing. And then there are milestone birthdays - like being 16 and supposedly getting to start learning to drive. Or being 18, and getting to vote, and stuff like that." She nods emphatically, again, then pauses to consider the cake question, "I really don't know. Haven't thought about it. I like sugary things - especially poofy ones. I think my favorite is strawberry angel food cake. It's all sorts of floofy." In the middle of her babble, Ducky's phone buzzes grumpily, the alarm going off sounding like a repetative duck's quack. The teen glances at her phone, blinking at the device for a long moment before realizing what it was telling her, then giggling, "Oh. Oh right. Classes. Heh. Almost forgot." She stands, shouldering her bright yellow backpack with a grin and picking up her tray, "Hope your afternoon is full of neat classes and suchforth. See you around, Kai. And good luck with the birthday quest - hope the Professor can help you out." With that, she bounces over towards the tray return, before darting out the door for class, offering a little wave over her shoulder to Kai.