On the subject of Hats (Jean)

[Miles Clay]

Quietly humming "the house of the rising sun" to himself, miles ambled slowly down the hallways of Hammel. He was on lunch break, and felt the need to stretch his legs after a particularly useless session with Alice. He was absorbed in his own thoughts, and wondering what, if anything, could get through to the girl. He had tried to explain that mailboxes do not move, think, or see, had tried convincing her to get to sleep, and had even videotaped the stationary mailbox for two weeks, and offered Alice the evidence. Somehow, after all this, he couldn't help feeling that she was doing a better job of convincing him than he was her.

Out of nowhere, a blur of motion charged round the corner, and smacked Miles in the stomach. This was a particularly small blur, and so had little effect on the tall, weighty man, but rather bounced off, hitting the floor with a rather noisy clamor. As it hit the ground, Miles noticed that his unintentional assailant was not in fact, a blur, but a twelve year old boy, who was already back on his feet, and staring up at him in amazement.

[Jean Manne]

Class was out, class was out, class was out! Jean burst out of his last class for the day full to burst with energy. He was always like this after the last class of the day: about ready to explode if he didn’t do something that didn’t require him to sit down and listen to someone talk about something boring. Usually, Hammel was far more interesting than this. When you suddenly had powers, classes felt just that much more unnecessary to the preteen.

Sprinting through the hall, Jean thought about what he would do for his few hours of freedom before RC tracked him down and made him do homework. He could kick around a soccer ball, he could go climb some trees, he could—

And suddenly, through a series of events that Jean’s overexcited brain couldn’t really process, his speedy path to freedom was abruptly interrupted and suddenly, Jean was on the floor, a little stunned.

His first thought was that he ran into a tree or something. And the thought about trees indoors didn’t even cross his mind when he finally was able to focus on what exactly he’d just ran into. Which turned out to not be a tree at all, but some guy.

A really, really tall guy.

“Whoa.” Jean breathed. “You’re really tall.” Jean: master of the obvious. He clambered to his feet, “I didn’t even move you, did I? Wo-ow.” Jean was appropriately impressed; maybe one day he’d get that tall. “I’m Jean, I can do alchemy and I’m thirteen. Almost.” He held out his hand like adults did. “Who’re you? What can you do? Are you a teacher?”

[Miles Clay]

Miles was used to hyperactive children, having worked at an elementary school for several years. He hadn't expected to see any at Hammel, a fact which threw him for a bit of a loop, but he kept his composure, smiling at the boy as he shook his hand. "I'm officially Mr. Clay, but you can call me Miles if you want. I'm a counselor," he lowered an eyebrow in mock sternness, "so I don't expect you to be seeing me too often, right? My power is," he accented with a flick of his wrist, "Interdimentional clothing retrieval. I can make hats." As he spoke, his hand was suddenly adorned with a small cowboy hat, which he offered to the boy.

[Jean Manne]

"Hi Mr-- Miles." Jean grinned. He kind of liked the fact that teachers didn't need for the students to call them Mr. This and Ms. That. It made them seem a little cooler and far less stuffy and old. Even Miles, who was probably super old, didn't seem like it, since he wasn't making Jean call him Mr. Clay. Which was a weird last name anyways, if you asked Jean.

Jean shook his head adamantly at Miles' mock serious question, "Nope! My mom would be super mad if I got into too much trouble." Which was true. His mom would take no nonsense about behaviour issues. And RC would never let him forget it.

When Miles showed off his power, Jean's eyes went wide. "WHOA~! That is so cool!" He took the cowboy hat from Miles and inspected it closely. It looked real enough. It didn't dissolve in his hands. This was the best day ever.

"Oh!" Jean looked pleadingly up at the tall official, "Can you make a wizard hat? Like the one Mickey wore in that one movie?"