Tamar Harris

[Tamar Harris]

The easy S T U F F . . .

Name: Tamar Sophia Harris
Nickname: Not that she would introduce herself as.
Age: Twelve
Member Group: Student
Power(s): Tamar's power is teleportation. At the moment she is not very good at it and has only done it a couple of times. She was glad to figure out that she takes anything she's touching with her, like her clothing. Since she can't really control it at the moment she's never tried to teleport with another person or even an animal, so she's not sure if she can do it yet. This is something she won't try for quite awhile since she doesn't want to be responsible for severely injuring or killing someone. The furthest she's teleported is a mile and that left her feeling very ill. She hopes to improve this distance significantly as she gets older, of course.
As far as she can tell the side effects of her power are that she is disoriented when she arrives and feels dizzy. She's also experienced headaches and nosebleeds after teleporting. She also has to have been there before. She has to be able to picture the place she wants to go.
Play By: Danielle Campbell

Let it F L O W . . .

There are over 6,300,000 car crashes in the United States every year. Over 41,000 people are killed. But it only took one of these crashes to kill the parents of three year old Tamar Harris. She doesn't really remember her parents. All she has are a few scattered memories of a woman leaning over her or a man handing her a toy. She barely feels connected to these people in pictures she has. They’re simply faces of people who were once a part of her life that she doesn’t remember anymore.

Ever since then she has spent her life in foster care. By the age of twelve she had already been through five foster homes. After her parents died she became a ward of the state because there simply wasn’t anyone around to take her in. Her father was estranged from his family and her mother was an only child whose parents died when Tamar was two. Without her parents, there was no one else.

...

Taylor was screaming from the room over, he was having one of his temper tantrums again and Louise Collins – or Mrs Collins as the foster kids were supposed to call her – couldn't get him back to sleep. Tamar rolled over in her bed to face Isis who lay in the bed adjacent to her own. “God, we're never going to get any sleep at this rate.” Isis complained, her pillow over her head.

“I bet Mrs Collins is going to be in a shitty mood tomorrow.” Tamar snickered. She and Louise Collins didn't get along well. Tamar had been living with the Collins' for almost two years, since she was seven, but she was beginning to doubt that it would last much longer. Tamar couldn't stand the way the woman acted as though she were doing everyone a huge favor by taking in the unwanted children of the world. It made Tamar feel worthless. Worse yet were the rules, there were rules for everything in that house. Rules and charts. When you broke a rule you got a black dot by your name and when you did something “good” or “nice” you got a gold star. Tamar had many more black dots than gold stars. Isis and Tamar would already have had a black dot by each had Mrs Collins heard what they'd just said. One for using the Lord's name in vain and one for swearing. Unlike Tamar, though, Isis tried hard to conform to Mrs Collins' rules when she was around.

...

The back wall of the gym was lined with those large, fold out tables. Each table had stacks of folded clothing and adults went from table to table putting clothes in bags while children meandered about, talking, playing, reading.

“These look like they might fit.” Louise Collins held up a pare of jeans against Tamar to check the size. “Yeah?” She turned the pants around so Tamar could see the front.

“They have pink butterflies on them.” Tamar said in disgust, wrinkling her nose.

“Tamar, people donated these things out of the goodness of their hearts and you should be grateful. Besides, you're not the easiest person to find clothes for.” Right beggars can't be choosers, Tamar thought bitterly. It was true though, it was difficult to find clothing to fit Tamar. She was skinny and all arms and legs. It was difficult to find something that both fit her waist and didn't leave her ankles embarrassingly bare. What she wanted to wear was just plain jeans and t-shirts, comfortable clothes without pink things or frilly things or stupid butterflies. But Tamar rarely got to choose her own clothing. What she got came almost exclusively from places like this, where people donated clothing and there weren't exactly a lot of choices.

...

”Tamar, what are you doing?” Sally, the social worker, looked sternly at Tamar through the rear view mirror. Tamar had a hard cover copy of Peter Pan open to the last page and was writing with a sharpie on the inner page. “You shouldn't write in books, you know.” Sally said, turning around when they got to a stop light to try and see what Tamar was doing.

“Mmm,” Tamar answered noncommittally, shifting her book so Sally couldn't see. Sally was one of those people who liked to have everything perfect. Her hair, her clothes, her papers and folders. Tamar was pretty sure that the only reason she'd become a social worker was because she wanted to make all those unperfect children and families fit into her idea of what was right. Dog earing and writing in books was one of Sally's pet peeves, but Tamar didn't care about that sort of thing. Her Peter Pan book was full of writing and underlines in both pen and pencil. Two pictures of her parents were also taped into the blank pages at the front. It was the only thing that had managed to stay with her from her own home. She didn't even like to read all that much, but for some reason she loved Peter Pan. She had the book memorized she'd read it so many times.

She finished writing the name of her last foster family, the fourth on her list. 'Winters, Collins, Farmer' and now 'McCarthy.' She was ten years old and already had passed through the homes of four different families. She wasn't sure why she felt the need to write their names down, but somehow it formed a sort of closure. Besides, almost every foster kid kept their own list of families.

“I'm sorry the McCarthy's didn't work out.” Sally said, it was either a coincidence or she'd seen the list. Tamar knew that Sally had thought that the McCarthy's might be 'the one' and for a moment Tamar had even dared to begin to believe it herself. They were definitely better than the Farmer's, that had been a complete disaster lasting only a few months.

“Whatever, their son was a dufus.” Tamar said, shutting her book. She leaned her forehead against the car window and watched the buildings of Portland as they passed by. She knew the McCarthy's didn't want her anymore because they were expecting another baby. She'd been with them for over two years and Tamar wrestled with the feeling of disappointment, pushing it down. She had actually liked Thomas, their seven year old son, but it was easier to pretend she didn't.

...

“Tamar, I really think you could put more effort into your school work.” Mrs Cooper looked almost pained as she spoke to Tamar from her desk. “I know it's difficult, but I also know that you're a bright young girl and if you would just try harder you could be very successful.” You don't know anything. Tamar thought, but instead she just stared sullenly back at Mrs Cooper without saying a word. It was pointless to try and explain. She hated these kinds of conversations from adults. They always thought they could somehow change her or make her better. It didn't matter though, because in a few months, a year tops, she'd be getting the same lecture from yet another teacher or foster parent. It was always the same, only the person giving it changed. She wanted to say all this out loud at Mrs Cooper, tell her you're not so damn special, but she was already in trouble for giving Kevin Riordan a black eye.

What those adults didn't seem to understand was that they weren't special. While they tried to preach that every child was individual they said the same things as thousands of other people. Each adult that had this talk with Tamar seemed to think that they were going to be the one to finally “get through” to her. But Tamar didn't buy into it, she knew they weren't going to stick around so why should she listen to what they had to say?

...

Tamar felt someone tug on her hair. She shifted in her seat and brushed her long, brown hair over her shoulder. A few seconds later a crumpled up piece of paper hit her in the back of the head. Tamar looked up at the teacher, but he was busy writing on the board and hadn't noticed anything. She spun around in her seat angrily to glare at Anabel White. “Tamar, face forward, please.” Mr Kleinman said irritably, barely glancing in her direction. Anabel gave Tamar her most sickly sweet smile. As soon as Mr Kleinman's back was turned Anabel poked Tamar in the back with a sharpened pencil.

Tamar whirled around again. “Leave me the hell alone, Anabel.” She snarled. Anabel gasped and looked over to Mr Kleinman. She gave her best wide eyed look of innocence “But I didn't do anything, Mr Kleinman, I swear.” Tamar had to withhold a gag. Anabel was every teacher's favorite student, a classic teacher's pet. She was the self proclaimed 'do-gooder' of the school and had considered Tamar one of her 'special cases' but when Tamar had turned her down and told her she didn't need 'a prissy little girl' helping her out, Anabel had instead taken to antagonizing her at every opportunity.

Mr Kleinman sighed, looking almost pained, and said, “Tamar, that will be detention after class for swearing.” Tamar opened her mouth to protest, but Mr Kleinman gave her a look that said there was no use. Tamar slouched in her seat, resigned to the fact that she was going to get detention for a completely unfair reason. She'd learned to know when something was futile and had decided to get back at Anabel later.

As she was walking to detention after class Tamar stopped in the hallway outside the classroom and leaned against the wall. She closed her eyes. It wasn't fair, she thought. Why did she have to be here when she hadn't even done anything wrong? What was the point in trying when every time she walked into a new classroom the teachers expected her to act out? The moment they saw that she was a foster child they resigned themselves to the fact that she was going to be “difficult” before even meeting her. Admittedly, she wasn't the most well-behaved child but she knew she had her merits. She didn't want to go into detention. Tamar thought of the park near the Cotters', her current foster family, house. She really liked that park, it was peaceful and there was a fountain that she liked to sit by. She could see all around the park from there and watch the people.

Suddenly Tamar felt like she was being squeezed. The wall she was leaning against seemed to disappear all of the sudden and she snapped her eyes open, gasping for breath. She lost her balance and stepped forward. Her foot caught on something and she felt herself falling and landed with a splash. Tamar found herself sitting in what seemed to be a very deep puddle. The world was spinning and she felt sick to her stomach. It took a few moments for things to come back into focus and when they did Tamar found that she was sitting in the fountain at the park.

Nobody believed her, of course, when Tamar tried to explain what had happened. She got in a huge amount of trouble for leaving school and skipping detention, not to mention the supposed outrageous lying. Once again Tamar found herself in trouble for something she didn't do.

...

A few weeks later Tamar was informed about Hammel Institute and her powers by a recruiter. She found the entire thing pretty amusing, actually. After so much time feeling like nothing she has suddenly found herself to be something quite special. The looks on the faces of Sally and the Cotters was particularly priceless too, when they realized she hadn't been lying. She's glad to go learn about her powers and to get out of the foster care system. Of course, she isn't all carefree about the whole thing. She's just as suspicious of new people and wary of getting close to people as she's always been.

Behind the M A S K . . .

Name: Grace
Age: 19
RP Experience: Almost six years.
How did you find us?:Ad on RPG-D.

Show your S K I L L S . . .

Hogwarts was a very difficult place to get used to for a boy like Edwin Cooper on many different levels. There was the magic, of course. Edwin was muggleborn and hadn't even known that wizards existed before he received his Hogwarts letter. That was difficult enough, but add to that the fact that Edwin came from a low class family and had never even been to school. It was difficult getting used to the extravagances that he was experiencing at Hogwarts. He wasn't complaining, by any means, but it did take some adjusting. He wasn't used to wearing shoes, for example. At home he only wore shoes when it became too cold to go without and at Hogwarts he was expected to wear them all the time. He actually had blisters from them. Neither was he used to sleeping in a bed by himself. He usually shared with his brother.

School was difficult too. Edwin barely knew how to read and basically couldn't write anything besides his name. He was glad he would be able to learn, but it sure wasn't easy. He wondered what his friends would think if they could see him now. At this time of day they would all be out on the streets, rags in hand, shining the shoes and boots of rich men. Edwin didn't miss working, but he couldn't help but feel like he was doing something wrong when he got up in the morning and didn't go out and earn money. He'd been doing it for so long that it just didn't feel right without it.

Edwin thought about these things as he walked down the halls of Hogwarts. He wasn't really going anywhere, but he liked to walk around the castle when he didn't have classes. It was an interesting place. Edwin could hear a girl's voice singing ahead of him and around the corner and he decided to find out who it was. As he turned the corner he saw that it was Faith Tucker. He remembered her from his classes as someone who seemed to come from the same sort of situation as him. Someone he could relate to.

"'Ello Faith." Edwin said, giving her a grin. He didn't feel as self conscious around her because he knew that she wouldn't judge him. "It's only me." Edwin said, then asked "What's he s'posed t'eat if he can't eat no mice?" All week Edwin had been trying to talk like the posh, upper class students, but now that he found himself with Faith his speech was quickly lapsing back into the way he spoke at home.

[Admin!]

Accepted!
Welcome to Hammel, Grace! Now go do your claims, then have some fun.