Turtles?! [open]

[Noralei Harris]

//outfit

There was never a normal day in the life of Noralei Harris. Her life was so un-normal it warranted her own sitcom and fashion line in a generic Wal-Mart style store of choice. Maybe Target would buy it up? She could donate all the profit to the WWF and maybe they could finally do something about saving those pandas that everyone loved so much. Personally she wasn’t a raving fanatic about pandas; she read enough reports to know that the animals weren’t exactly letting themselves be saved. They had no natural predators, they only ate bamboo, which grows incredibly fast, and the whole world was falling head over heels for them. Yet you put two in the same living space for years upon years and they still wouldn’t procreate? That, in her opinion, was just a big middle finger to the entire human population. Pandas, bah. Cottontop tamarins, now those were animals that were worth saving. Cute little chattering monkeys that made the most adorable chirping noises on the planet, she would love and cherish any day.

Today, however, she was in the process of saving an animal that, while not endangered, was IN danger.

Busy roads were not good places for turtles. One would think that any turtle would know that- black, scorching asphalt, two ton vehicles whizzing by- just a few of the dangers that would normally be that start of massive a panic attacks, complete with flashing lights and alarming sounds. But yet she would find them in the middle of the street, oblivious to the SUVs and semi-trucks rushing past them. Today was no exception. She had been riding her bike around town, stapling flyers to light poles that gave websites that talked about the unsanitary and downright cruel conditions of puppy mills, along with the local humane society’s number. (She had been volunteering there since March, after she turned sixteen, and they really needed the help. Her boss said that if any more dogs came, they’d have to start euthanizing.) She had just finished stapling a sign up off Maple Ave. when she saw a small black blob in the middle of the street down the block- she thought it was trash until she saw its head poke out of its shell.

Nora all but flew down the street once she realized what exactly the blob was. Her bike crashed onto the sidewalk as she hopped off and, barely checking for traffic, ran out into the road to retrieve the poor thing, scooping it up. The turtle was of the painted variety, she could tell by the shell and its lack of a snapping beak. She hurried back to her bike and put the creature inside her purse before hopping back on, determined to save it. Besides, she could hang up some posters around the lake.

A couple minutes later found our reptile’s heroine on the sandy beach of Pilot Ridge’s local lake. She kicked off her flip-flops and waded knee deep into the warm water, pulling the turtle from her bag before holding it up to her face, attempting to give it a stern look. “Now, this is a stable and clean environment with a decent pH level and plenty of other turtles. So I don’t want to see you on the road again!” She wondered if she needed a permit to start tagging turtles so she would know if there were repeat offenders. She’d have to ask the people at the town hall what kind of permits she needed for that- it sounded like a valiant effort. With that in mind, she nodded to the turtle and set it in the water, where it promptly swam away with gusto.

Nora stood there with her hands on her hips, feeling proud of herself for a moment before turning to head out, ready to hang more flyers. She had duties to all animals after all, not just some chance painted turtle that had put itself in harm’s way.

[Jeffrey Dougal]

~outfit

Hammel got stuffy sometimes. Don't get him wrong--he liked the school...enough; he liked his teachers...enough; he liked his fellow students...enough, but sometimes he just needed breathing room. Preferably he liked going someplace where no one would walk close enough to him to get in his range of thought projecting. His training had revealed to him that his range was about a twenty foot radius, but not through solid walls, and crowded hallways tended to extend his range by maybe five feet. Though the more people in his circumference, the less clear the thoughts they got were--which was about as much as he could ask for if he was surrounded in the center of a hallway. It got tedious, having to make sure his thoughts were either in Korean, or to keep his eyes on the floor and not think about anything or anyone. He had to escape to really be able to think.

His usual destination was the lake. It was a pretty lake, and kinda reminded him of his life in Florida, but only because of the expanse of water. He was currently seated about ten feet from the water's edge with his headphones in his ears, people could recognize the Korean boy by his headphones better than they could his face; he wore them that much. He couldn't remember the band, or the song title that he was listening to, but the words were vaguely familiar. It was an English song, an American band. Like usual, he could really only enjoy the music and not the singing because it was too difficult to translate as well as enjoy the song because the references and poetic essence of the lyrics were lost on him.

Yeah, so he really should be better at his English by now, since his parents had been speaking English around him since he was born, and he'd been living in America for the passed four years but only two years of that total was spent really immersed in the American culture (i.e. High School), the rest he spent in his house simmering under a private tutor while his parents went off to work. When he was around his parents, he could speak Korean and get away with it, because they were both fluent, and he didn't really talk around his tutor but to answer direct questions. It was really counter productive, but upon arriving at Hammel, he really had to focus on his English--but in doing so, he had to think in English which would allow the people who he projected his thoughts to understand them, but if he thought in Korean, then they could not. But if he thought in Korean, then translating himself into English took a lot more work than needed and caused him to look like a fool with his mouth stammering and half-forming words.

He wished he could transfer to a meta school in South Korea--he didn't even know if there was one, but he knew his parents would never allow that. They were in the Army, and they knew what the different countries thought of and did with metas. They barely seemed to want him to go to Hammel. He would have to just deal with his confliction between languages and wait anxiously until he could leave.

He heaved a deep sigh, his thoughts brooding and bringing down his mood. He spotted a girl pelting away from the road and towards the water, and watched with curiosity and suspicion as she immediately waded into the water (after depositing her flip flops) and withdrew a dark round thing from her bag and held it up to her face. She was close enough for him to hear that (he'd half slid his headphones away from his ears) she was speaking to it, whatever it was, but not exactly what she said. He caught the stern tone, however. What in the world...?

She lowered the thing into the water. His brows furrowed in thought about what this could be. It wasn't a rock, he knew that much. Unless she was crazy, or something along those lines. But she was too cute to be crazy--even for a white girl. Crazy people didn't look so cute; they looked crazy.

Right?

He realized he was still staring as she turned around and started to walk out of the water. He blushed profusely because he was sure he was caught, and fumbled with his iphone in his lap to make himself look busy. She didn't catch him, right?

He peeked up before dropping his eyes immediately after, scared to actually make eye contact with the girl again.


(-pounce-)

[Noralei Harris]

If it was any consolation, Nora did notice the Asian teen staring at her- along with two joggers passing by and a child making a sand castle a few yards to her right. She was used to people staring at her because she was doing something weird. If she were younger she would have blushed and apologized for causing a scene, but now that she was older she rolled with it. She figured that if they saw her showing kindness to a turtle, they would stop and do the same, like those weird insurance commercials she saw when she watched TV with her little brother. A whole world of people helping animals would be a lovely place to live, in her opinion. She adjusted her hat and threw her braid back behind her and put her shoes back on, enjoying the feeling of the sand stuck to her feet.

She did sneak a glance at the boy, just in time to catch him looking at her before she turned and walked off to her bike. She didn’t recognize him from school, so he must go to that school on the hill, or he had just moved into town. Either way, she wasn’t going to randomly walk up to him and start a conversation. She wasn’t that weird. He probably thought she was weird already, because she had been talking to a turtle. Either way, she wasn’t going to get worked up about it- she wasn’t one of those boy crazy teenage girls anyway. She picked her bicycle up off the sand and hopped on, riding it off a few feet before stopping at a light pole that lined the path. Pulling her trusty stapler out of her back with a bright, laminated flyer, she put the paper to the light pole and attempted to staple it on.

She paused, realizing no staples and come out. “Oops.” She muttered, digging in her bag to find the tiny cardboard box that was filled with staple rows. She held the flyer between her teeth as she looked, locating the box after a little bit of digging. She had too many things in her bag- her hairbrush, her wallet, the flyers, her ancient (recycled) cell phone she insisted on using, her house key, and a couple random cans of cat and dog food were just some of the contents she had to shift around in search of the elusive metal prongs. She fitted the staples into the gadget before pulling the flyer from her mouth, wiping the saliva off it with the edge of her shirt before stapling it to the light pole, top and bottom. She nodded, content and shifted back on her seat, ready to ride again.

[Jeffrey Dougal]

So she didn't march over to him and yell at him for staring. That was good. His blush was slow to fade, but he involuntarily started watching the girl again. His eyes just followed her from the water to her bike then over to a telephone pole where she started stapling up something. His curiosity continued to bubble. What was she doing? He wracked his brain, just trying to come up with the answer. She put something in the water then started putting up that thing. He made his decision quickly and without trying to think too hard on it.

He pulled himself up from his seat, slid his headphones off his ears, and slowly (and a bit hesitatingly) made his way over to the telephone pole. He read it. Something about puppies and a mill. His brow furrowed. What did that mean? The only 'mill' he could think of, was those sorts of industrial mills that the CEOs outsourced to the third world Asian countries. He couldn't really link puppies and industrial mills together. He looked at the girl next to him, on the bike, now completely questioning her sanity.

"Excuseme," he didn't mean to mumble, but he was a shy think. "But uhm...could you...What is a puppy mill?" He asked, one eye was squinted in a wince as if she would just reach out and slap him for asking such a question. But really, he had no idea what that was. He hoped she would at least understand. He bit down on one lip, nervously awaiting her answer, of course he was also prepared for her to just roll her eyes and ride away. She didn't have time to answer stupid questions like that, or so he imagined. He was nothing but a stupid foreign boy that projected his thoughts 24/7 and who couldn't grasp the English language firmly. And she was a cute girl who was busy on her bicycle and didn't care about people like him. Or so his low self esteem, overly cryptic self believed.

Noralei, feel free to be as blunt as you like. Just talk slow because it takes him a moment to grasp things.

[Noralei Harris]

Being so absorbed in her work, Noralei didn’t even notice the boy until she turned her head and realized he was right behind her. She jumped slightly and gasped- a reflex left over from childhood- and put a hand over her mouth. “You surprised me.” She muttered, taking a deep breath to steady herself before looking him over. Now that he was closer she could see his features better. It didn’t help her much of course. Alas, she was part of the community that couldn’t tell one type of Asian from another. She threw out Chinese, deciding he was much too pallid. Of course, that was stereotyping, so she didn’t take herself too seriously. Maybe Japanese? What did it matter, anyway?

Of course, her wandering mind snapped back into place like a rubber band when he asked about puppy mills. She would have smiled and danced around from his sudden interest if it wasn’t such a sad subject to discuss. Next to no one asked her anything about it, excluding small children of course. She tried to put it in sensitive terms for them, but they still became very upset, and she had to deal with more than one scolding Mother figure on occasion thanks to her need to satisfy their curiosity. She pulled a flyer out of her bag and held it out to him carefully, trying not to hit him with it. He looked uneasy as it was, there was no need to assault him with laminated products.

“Puppy mills are places are commercial facilities where breeders intend to make profit rather than provide basic care to the canines they keep.” She paused, realizing that her technical jargon might confuse him. “It’s like... They put dogs in really small cages, and then leave them alone without food or water sometimes. And they don’t clean up the cages either. So the dogs can get infections and die, but they don’t care. Then, the dogs have puppies and they take the puppies away to sell before they’re ready to leave their moms. They sell them to people to make money. But the puppies aren’t healthy, so they could die. If they don’t die, a lot of them have trouble growing up, because they were raised in small cages with a lot of barking dogs and mean owners around. So, by reporting sick puppies or unlicensed breeders to the police, we can help shut down puppy mills and save the dogs.”

By the end of it, she seemed to droop and she looked very upset- she couldn’t imagine poor puppies living in small, damp cages like that. She nodded slowly before tilting her hat up so she could see the boy better. “Do you have any pets?”

[Jeffrey Dougal]

Jeff was a firm believer that first impressions make or break a relationship between two people. Sneaking up and scaring someone was not a good first impression and Jeff's expression fell a little as he looked down, ashamed of himself. "I am very sorry. I did not mean to." He obviously meant it. He looked up slowly, though because it seemed like she was still going to answer his question. He tried not to look as sorry as he still was for scaring her, but she seemed to have moved on.

When she started looking around in her bag, he fought the urge to lean forward and peek inside her bag--curiosity about what girl's really carry around inside of it. He didn't, however, because if he got caught, she might hit him or something. When she withdrew the flyer, he tried to read it and look at the information, but it was shaking just enough that he couldn't. He gave up and looked up at her as she started to explain.

It took him a sad moment to understand what she meant by 'canine' but he deduced it was another word for dog (thanks to 'puppy') and nodded his head. So it was like some sort of factory (hence Mill) where dogs were raised but not like healthily or with enough room. He was glad he could understand the concept of it--but was sad to hear about it. Jeff wasn't the type of person who understood the need to keep pets, but he didn't hate animals. He saw how sad she looked and wished he could do something--or say something--to make her look at least a little happy, but he didn't know what.

He looked down at his shoes while thinking but her next question he lifted his head and shook it. "No...they don't let us keep things in the dorms." She seemed like the type that loved all animals (maybe it was an animal that she put in the water? Like a turtle or something...) and she probably would get upset at him if he honestly said he didn't like pets. So instead he blamed Hammel and their policy on animal's in the dorms.

[Noralei Harris]

Nora was unnaturally good at explaining things to people, which was why she did all the things she did. Whenever the shelter needed a good representative, they often would send Noralei if she was qualified enough and could get to where they wanted her to be. She could throw around some bigger, flashier words, or dumb it down a bit for people who weren’t so good with the technical bits. As it was, she put the boy in front of her somewhere in the middle. He didn’t look or act stupid, but he obviously wasn’t straight out of veterinary school either. He looked like a typical high school student who wasn’t really planning on committing to the program like she had, he was just curious. That was just fine by her- she was perfectly okay with someone finally taking interest.

His explanation for his lack of a pet confused Nora for a second, and then she realized that he must be a Hammel student. “Oh, I didn’t know that. So you go to Hammel then? That’s cool. My parents tried to find a way to get me an application in, but I guess it’s by invite only or something.” Oh, if she only knew. But at least that meant she was actually making friends outside of school, anyway. If he was a new student he probably would’ve fallen in with the other groups instead, he looked clean cut enough to be on the preppier side of the sliding scale. Maybe Hammel chose him because of athletics? He looked thin enough.

Realizing she had yet to introduce herself, Nora shoved the flyer back in her bag and turned her bike so she wasn’t stuck between him and the telephone pole, leaning over to stand on one foot as she leaned over the handlebars. “I’m Noralei, but you can call me Nora. Everyone does. It’s nice to meet you, and all that.” She rarely talked to any of the Hammel students, after all. She knew a few because their siblings went to school, like Ethan’s brother and sister, but otherwise there seemed to be a line that neither of the two groups crossed. She heard a lot of rumors about Hammel, and one of her friends swore up and down that it was a government facility used to train spies- but then her group of friends pointed out some of the people who went to school there and disproved that theory. It was frustrating sometimes; they lived so close yet no one seemed to know what went on there.

[Jeffrey Dougal]

The only thing Jeff was really passionate about was his drums. You take his drums away, you might as well just kill him. He didn't have any causes he believed in, like this girl in front of him obviously did. He was too introverted and scared to poke his head farther out of his shell just because people might hear his thoughts--and that is never a good thing. He was so vulnerable everywhere. His most secret thoughts, just...broadcasted like he spoke them. He had no privacy.

It really sucked.

As far as following along with what she said, Jeff managed to keep up. She spoke slowly enough that his language bridge could hold up and she didn't use a storm of contractions--which was like his kryptonite--so he didn't have to ask her to repeat any of it. The information she told him truly did make his heart sink, his lack of passion for animals nonwithstanding.

He was a little surprised when she made the connection that he went to Hammel. It was strange, actually, but he nodded his head. "Yes, for a year and a half." Has it really been that long? Yeah. He was going to be a junior, at the start of the semester. Wow. He shrugged his shoulders, he went to Hammel because a recruiter showed up thanks to his thought projecting. He didn't really know if parents could contact Hammel and say that their student was meta. Jeff was under the impression that Hammel was omnipotent. If Noralei was a meta (maybe she wasn't), then she would have been invited. That thought made him widen his eyes a little. Jeff hadn't spoken to a non-meta since his arrival at Hammel--he rarely left the campus.

"A recruiter came to visit my parents," he admitted truthfully because it would have been rude not to answer her. The thought then occurred to him that, what if he accidentally though projected and freaked her out? He'd hate to make an ass out of himself (more than he already had, or so he thought). When she adjusted herself and introduced herself, he bowed faintly simply out of habit and respect.

Noralei is a pretty name. Unlike all those other weird American names. Why would a mother agree to name a daughter a boy's name? That never made any sense. "It is very nice to meet you, Noralei." His poor accent gave her name a good slaughter, but he tried his best. "My name is Jeffrey. My friends call me Jeff." That was a lie. His teachers sometimes called him Jeff, and whenever someone had to address him, they called him Jeff. He didn't have any friends.