Logs:You Are Here

You Are Here
Dramatis Personae Avi, Roscoe, Spencer	2023-09-01 My folks think jail is terrible!
Location <???> a little bit of everywhere
It's a whole other world out here -- not literally, thank God, they're not on that kind of trip. But a crisp cold sky overhead casts brilliant light down on a glittering expanse of lake; in the distance behind it, the frosted peak of Denali rises craggy and tall over a spread of evergreens. Outside it's barely touching freezing, and maybe it's the fact that he's just come from the sweltering muggy New York City heat that prompts Avi, as he steps out of a side closet, to drop his small wheelaboard suitcase on the cabin floor with a THUMP and run straight outside in his shorts and tee and sandals, but then -- maybe that's just Avi. "Holy shit," on the cabin porch he's whirling in a circle, arms spread wide and smile spread wider, "are you kidding me." Roscoe, wandering over to Denali by way of Rottnest Island, where it was a disappointingly moderate sixty degrees, seems less impressed with the weather, but then he's also wearing shorts and a tee -- maybe his high school gym uniform, judging by the peeling logos printed on them -- and his arms are already going goosebumpy even as he wraps them around himself. He sticks his head out the cabin door after Avi, then promptly draws it back inside -- "Sheesh, none of you understand the point of summer vacation," he says. "Where's the pool?" It's not just Avi. Spence skids to a stop after bounding in from another room -- and, presumably, another closet -- his eyes wide with wonder. "Whoa! Is this the Alaska one?" He has no suitcase, having presumably come as he was in a blue t-shirt with a graduated cylinder filled with a stack of adorable cartoon moles, black cargo shorts, and red lowtop sneakers, his kippah black with a glimmering spiral galaxy. He disappears -- -- and reappears beside Avi out on the porch, presumably so he can get there without pushing past Roscoe or slowing down. If he's chilly he either hasn't noticed or doesn't much care at the moment. "Isn't it amazing?" he demands of first Avi and then Roscoe. Then does a double take. "Oh hey! I'm glad you came! There's a place with like three pools --" He points to the room he'd just come from. "-- a couple of doors down." "Looks like Alaska. Feels like Alaska." Avi's hands drop to his side when Spence appears, though his eyes haven't gotten any less wide. "I had to sneak out," he confides, "but I think I got at least another month of my moms feeling relieved I'm not dead before she kills me for things like this. And I'm sure someone's gotta have picked -- wait a couple doors which way?" He's darting back in to the closet he emerged from, peering at a hand-drawn note tacked up nearby. "This is mad confusing, what's y'all's picks? Mine's in Mexico I'onno if there's a pool but it's gotta be warm, at least." He squints at Roscoe, curious. "Yours got a pool?" He's looking at the diagram as if he could divine which branch of the sprawling complex goes Somewhere Roscoe Might Like before hazarding, "You Barbados?" "I snuck out too," says Roscoe; to this he adds, after a moment of consideration, "Lol." His already toothy grin has gotten toothier since Lassiter -- he got his braces off. He holds the cabin door wider to let Avi run back in past him. He tries, first, to look around the Denali cabin, as though he will be able to locate his pick from here, before giving up and following Avi toward Sriyani's map, jabbing one finger at a different branch -- "Kyoto. There should be a pool, I definitely asked for a pool." "Oh! Right, I should have been paying attention to those, maybe." Spence peers at the note over Avi's shoulder. "Your families don't let you go on vacations? Or just, not without them?" He's trying to control his tone, but it's hard to tell whether he's trying to suppress sympathy or incredulity. At least he's trying? "Kyoto! Rad! I haven't been since spring. Oh man oh man, what part of Mexico is yours? Mine's a desert house in Morocco. I mean it's in an oasis in the desert. No pool, but we have pools enough to go around." "Bruh I know your family's all anarchists but most of our folks think going to jail is -- you know, bad. I'm grounded till I'm fifty, probably." Avi sounds good-natured about this, all things considered. "They're in a shabbat-prep hustle so I slipped out. Left a note so they don't think I'm back in a nightmare or anything. Mines is this silly-pretty spot just outside Mexico City, I'd say hope you brushed up on your Spanish but if you didn't I guess you can just step over to Australia no problem." He's squinting at the map just a moment longer before strolling into the nighttime treehouse next door. "Kyoto, that's -- rad?" He's tilting his head curiously at Spence and Roscoe. "Is it rad, I never been to Kyoto, what's to do in --" He's frozen in his tracks, though, stopped short of the closet he was probably aiming for to look out one of the large windows. "... is that a real giraffe." Roscoe nods along sagely -- "Hell yeah," he says, and sticks one hand out for a commiserating fist bump. He abandons the map quickly and just opens the nearest door into -- disappointingly -- a very regular bathroom. "I never been there either, but I wanna see the bamboo forests and the deer and --" He, too, cuts his train of thought off abruptly -- "Actually I wanna see this giraffe," he says, hurrying after Avi into the next cabin. Probably he was looking at the giraffe before he left Alaska; he is not looking where he's going, which is a very direct collision course with Avi. "I've never left the country before." Spencer frowns, looking a little confused. "My folks think jail is terrible! That's kind of...why we're anarchists? I mean that's not the only reason but like..." Is he trailing off for some reason other than being distracted this time? It's hard to say, but he does rapidly jump to, "Oh man Kyoto is so beautiful there's all this imperial era architecture and the most amazing cherry blossom festival in the world. My...kinda-sorta-not-quite brother is from there. Kinda. Wait y'all met Daiki right --" This time he definitely just got distracted. "Oh wow! I think it is but also like. I'd be even more impressed if it was like a robot giraffe." He's going right up to the glass and gazing out across the landscape. "This one's Sriyani's right? This is all so amazing." "Boy," Avi is saying to Spence with a continued amusement, as he taps his knuckles against Roscoe's, "you live on a whole other crazy-ass planet than the rest of us." He's been continuing a little closer to the glass now -- and then a lot closer as Roscoe crashes into him; he thumps up with hands planted on the windows and his eyes huge-wide looking out at the grazing giant beyond. "Sriyani's wild so this uhhh -- tracks." He doesn't quite peel himself away from the window just yet, transfixed by the landscape outside. "... I was born in Japan," he ventures finally, as he straightens, "but I was a whole baby still when we left. Don't know nothing about..." He's trailing off, squinting curiously at Roscoe like he's trying to weigh something. "... deer," is what he finishes, a little awkwardly. Roscoe laughs, but he doesn't have anything else to say about this 'jail is terrible' business -- he's too busy walking into Avi with a startled, "Ope! Sorry." Probably he hasn't learned his lesson -- already he's tilting his head at the far wall, zeroing in on -- "Ooh, zebras" -- with wide eyes. He does drag himself back into a normal frame of vision before he moves, plopping himself down on the sofa. "The deer park is outside Kyoto," he explains, as though this is the only explanation anybody should need. "Is Daiki the one who made the documentary? The first one. I never saw it." "I don't live there," Spence murmurs, low, "I just pass through it coming and going. But if it's crazy that my parents don't punish me for...getting punished, I sure wouldn't want to be sane." He seems more thoughtful than subdued, but is slow to return to his usual baseline enthusiasm. "Oh, yeah that was him. I wouldn't recommend watching it. Like, I'm in it, and I was even dorkier back then. Nobody should have to see that." His smile is bright, but maybe just a little forced. "I don't remember the exact reason originally -- it was something religious -- but people have been forbidden to hunt them for like hundreds of years, so they're super tame and will just come right up to you." "Boy," comes again, and this time in Avi's tone there's considerably less amusement; his eyes snap to fix on Spencer with a sharp and noticeable annoyance. He's quite clearly on the verge of saying something else, but seems to very deliberately reconsider. The frost in his tone doesn't thaw so much as get deliberately scraped off, and his baseline enthusiasm returns quick. "Zebras, I'on see no -- ohhh you doing you thing, where's the zebras at --" He's spinning around, redirecting toward the far wall kind of hopefully as he hustles to one of its windows instead. "Aiight we got a whole entire safari, we got tame deer, we got smack in the middle of Denali, we ain't careful we gone get out this vacation seeing a whole-ass zoo but no others humans." After a short pause to consider: "... guess maybe for some people that's half the point." Roscoe's eyes snap to Avi when his tone shifts, then to Spence when it shifts again. He's still mostly amused -- "Dude, give me some credit," he says mildly. "I'm being punished for way cooler stuff than going to jail." He is not elaborating on this dubious claim; he is gesturing expansively with both hands in the direction of the zebras -- "They're behind all the trees," he tells Avi unhelpfully; he stretches his arms across the back of the sofa and closes his eyes, tilts his head up and back at the ceiling -- "Not a zoo," he says. "No cages."