Friendship is Magic! [Malcom]

[Chloe Singleton]

Chloe had taken over the staff lounge while she waited for Ella to finish up her paperwork. Her classes were over for the day and she had a fresh load of essays to grade, so she decided to use the time responsibly. With the stack of papers in front of her, her pink laptop (complete with My Little Pony stickers) sitting open next to them with both her grade book and iTunes up on the screen, her fuzzy pink headphones blaring obnoxious pop music, and her favorite sparkly pink pen grasped firmly in hand, it was almost like walking into the bedroom of a five year old girl.

That or an explosion of pink just went off in the lounge. Not only were her electronics pink, but also her shoes, which had been kicked off for comfort, and the nail polish on her toes, which were wiggling in time with the music, and the oversize flower in her hair. Basically, she's a wannabe Disney Princess and a five-year-old stuck in the body of a 24-year-old.

She was actually grading at a pretty good clip, even leaving notes of encouragement in the margins of the student's papers, and she managed not to grimace at all while reading Samuel Rixon's paper. (That's a difficult task, mind you.) But then shuffle decided to work against her favor by playing one of her favorite songs: "Part of Your World"

Gasping, Chloe dropped her pen and unplugged her headphones, letting the song play through the laptop speakers at full volume. She was out of her chair in seconds, spinning delightedly across the room as she sang along. About halfway through the song, after she had been doing her best to imitate ballet dancing that she'd seen on TV, she noticed that she was no longer alone. Squeaking in both surprise and embarrassment, Chloe lunged for her laptop and pressed the mute button. Looking up at the man, she gave him an awkward little wave.

"Um... please tell me you didn't see all of that?"

[Malcom Black]

What was it with the staff lounge being full of people lately? He thought that he’d taken up such strange hours that he’d managed to set up being alone most of the time. Not there was anything wrong with being with other people. It was just, well…after dealing with students all day, Malcom wanted two things. To be left alone, of course. And a drink, a punching bag, and…

Well. Make that three then. Or possibly four or five if you counted every drink as separate. Nah. Make it six.

It was the end of the day, but only the middle of his shift. So he was heading for the staff lounge to sit back and rest for a little while. He’d grabbed a Dr. Pepper from the fridge in the security room—of course they wouldn’t have a beer, because that would have been nice—and swigged it as he opened the door.

And then he saw it. First, the pink. Malcom was no stranger to pink. When you had as many siblings as he did, you got used to pink. He had even sat, suffering silently through the multiple Disney movies he’d been forced to watch as a teen only hoping that this would give him the kind of thing to talk about to actually give him success with girls.

He didn’t know if that had ever happened, but hey.

So it was with surprise, bemusement, and glum recognition that he watched as the young blonde woman danced around, singing “Part of Your World.” She wasn’t bad. Although he wasn’t sure about that ballet imitation. And when she realized that he was standing there, he gave a glum little wave and finished off the Dr. Pepper, tossing it into the recycling bin with telekinetically-assisted accuracy.

“Yup,” he said, then realized that wasn’t the answer she wanted and gave a sheepish smile and a shrug. “I mean, no? Not if you want me to. Uh. I was just coming to get my lunch? Can I, uh….enter the treasure trove? Any thingamabobs here?”

Yup. He’d seen that movie WAY too many times.