LTSV - Side Stories - 1 - Cecily's First Day at Breckenridge 2/4 (Patreon)

“Which club did you join?” Cecily asked, genuinely curious. If it sounded interesting, she wouldn’t be opposed to joining a club where she already knew someone. 

“I joined the First Aid Club,” Viola said. “We take turns in the nurse’s office, taking care of students with minor ailments or preparing simple medicines. The nurse showed us how to take blood samples and do tests for blood type as an ice breaker exercise. You should join!”

Cecily really thought about that. She didn’t really care one way or the other about Negentropy as a school of magic, but Father had started refusing to take her to doctors after their family physician had started asking too many questions about how ‘accident prone’ Cecily had gotten. Maybe it would be a good idea to learn some first aid?

“Ladies,” Senor Coventry interrupted Cecily’s thoughts. She had a low, melodic voice for a girl her age and Cecily had the sense that her pitch would probably get lower and richer as she got older. “The tour will begin shortly. We will begin in Breckenridge Hall and then continue to the outer buildings. If you have need of the facilities or a water fountain, there is a comfort room just inside the large doors. Please return here at the top of the hour.”

“We should use the water closet while we can,” Viola advised her. “There’s hardly any toilets except in the dormitories, the dining hall, and the sports field.”

Cecily had thought about taking the opportunity to eat, but using the water closet sounded like the better part of valor so she followed Viola inside. The ladies’ comfort room was a nicely-appointed powdering room with a drinking fountain and a resting couch in an antechamber outside the toilet stalls. There was a little bit of a line so they only got back with a minute to spare before Senior Coventry began the tour.

The tour was informative and Senior Priestly was a patient tour guide, although she didn’t encourage conversation or dawdling. Some of the other girls started to bristle when she failed to respond to their invitations for chit chat, but Cecily could tell that they had a lot of ground to cover and that (just maybe) Senior Priestly wasn’t given to casual conversation.

She took them to see the club building, the library, the four main class halls, the dining hall (sadly closed until dinner), the sports field, the walking garden, and the dormitories before they finally ended back where they’d started at Breckenridge Hall.

“The next event in this series will be held at the Club Building,” Senior Coventry explained as she brought them back to the sign-up table, where an unfamiliar boy had replaced Randall. “There will be a Welcoming Dinner held at the Dining Hall at five o’clock, which will be announced with five tolls of the bell.” She indicated the tall bell tower at the front of Breckenridge Hall. “Please be punctual.”

Viola sighed and shook her head as Senior Coventry turned on her heel and walked away without another word. Then she turned to Cecily, wrapped her arms around Cecily’s elbow, and said, “Don’t take it personally. She and my other sister, Vesper, are just like that. They aren’t naturally friendly people and don’t mean to be rude. Let’s head over to the Club Building! There’s a recruitment fair going on and I want to make sure you see the First Aid Club before anyone else.”

“That sounds fun,” Cecily agreed, happy to have a friend already. 

The recruitment fair was a raucous assembly of tents and tables with upperclassmen trying to snatch every freshman passing by to pitch their club.

“You get an increase in budget for every new club member at the beginning of the year,” Viola whispered as they dodged flyers from the Cooking Club, the Gardening Club, the Light Music Club, the Sewing Guild, and the Equestrian’s Club. “The First Aid Club has the best budget, aside from the Duelling Club, because we do work for the school so we don’t have any membership dues. Our Advisor uses it to invite external Negentropy teachers for workshops and we still always have enough for an end-of-year party.”

The other clubs were interesting and Cecily gave her decision real thought, but she ended up choosing the First Aid Club and filled out her application on site, rather than taking the form away with her to think about it. The other clubs that had caught her eye all looked interesting and would give her valuable experiences, but she would have had to dip into her limited school funds to pay for activities and she wouldn’t be able to make as many lace pieces during the school year unless she compromised on sleep and that seemed like a bad plan. 

Viola pulled a delicate gold watch on a green velvet ribbon out of her jacket pocket to check the time. “Oh, no wonder I’m famished! It’s so late and they won’t feed us for another few hours.”

Cecily brightened and took the wax-wrapped sandwich out of her pocket. “You’re in luck! We can…” she started to say. 

“Oh, you’re a life saver!” Viola sighed and took the sandwich out of her hand before she could finish suggesting that they split it. “I was getting faint. Come on, let’s go find some shade on the green.”

Cecily’s mouth snapped shut. She ruefully acknowledged that she should have led with sharing the food rather than waving it in front of Viola’s face when she was already hungry.

They found a soft patch of grass under a thick oak tree and took their break there. Viola unwrapped the sandwich and held up one of the cut halves to marvel over it. Cecily had made it with a crusty baguette, thick-cut ham from last night’s leftovers, slices of semi-soft sheepsmilk cheese, a pile of spicy greens, and a generous spread of grainy mustard on one side and mayonnaise with cracked black pepper on the other. “What a pretty sandwich! I am hopeless in the kitchen. Mama says I’d better not risk getting dishpan hands so I never get to practice.” she said. “Did you know the dormitory had a shared kitchen? I’m going to commission you to make me all kinds of sandwiches.” 

“Oh, that’s good to know,” Cecily chuckled. 

Viola looked like a little chipmunk, with her cheeks stuffed as she ate, and Cecily was hopelessly weak to cute animals. She reached for the apple she had stashed in her pocket for dessert and her stomach chose that moment to complain loudly that she’d just given her lunch away.

“Oops!” Viola laughed. “Sounds like you’re hungry too. Here, eat this.” She handed over the other half of the sandwich.

They both laughed at the same time and Cecily decided that maybe making friends wouldn’t be as hard as she thought it would be.

After they ate, they went to the dormitory to check their room assignments. The house mothers had pinned up keys with names on tags attached to them on the big wooden boards in the front corridor, which Cecily was given to understand usually had club announcements and other updates posted there.

“Oh good, I got a room to myself!” Viola cheered when she found her name. “Mama put in a request for me to have a single, but the school said they couldn’t make any guarantees. It looks like it’s one of the two-bed units, though. At least I’ll have some space!”

“You can host study groups,” Cecily agreed as she scanned the lists. That was odd. The keys were in alphabetical order, but she’d gotten all the way through the ‘R’ names and hadn’t found hers. She’d paid the room fees and even had her receipts in her trunk. “I don’t have a key.”

“What?” Viola said, frowning. “Did your parents forget to pay the room deposit?”

Cecily winced because Viola had forgotten, in her shock, to regulate her volume and all the other girls turned around to look at them. “No, I have the receipt. Do you think someone took my key by accident?”

“Oh, that’s more probable,” Viola agreed, finally dropping her tone. “Let’s find the house mothers and check with them?”

They found one of the house mothers, Mrs. Dawkins, on the second floor, where she was supervising a porter as he delivered someone’s luggage. She listened to Cecily’s problem with a frown. “No, miss, you have a room. I recognize your name. Come with me and I’ll check the records.”

Mrs. Dawkins went to the chaperone’s office on the first floor and brought out a ledger from the large desk inside. “Let’s see… yes, Cecily Rousseau is meant to have bed 2 in room 34. Let’s see who’s in there.”

They tramped back up the stairs and found that, yes, there were two girls already unpacking her things in room 34; a pair of sisters who hadn’t expected to get roomed together and were actually happy about it. Cecily’s heart dropped when both of them showed Mrs. Dawkins their correctly labeled keys and they seemed sincere when they promised they hadn’t fiddled with the labels. 

“I think they’re telling the truth,” Viola said when Mrs. Dawkins' frown started to turn thunderous. “Cecily would have still had a key if they switched labels, right? Here, I got a room to myself. She can have the spare bed in mine and then no one has to move!”

Mrs. Dawkins frown turned on Viola and she squeaked. “Miss Coventry, the dormitory is at full capacity this year. You should have had a roommate already. We made it clear to your Lady mother when she asked that the single rooms are reserved for upperclassmen who have earned them through academic merit. Both of your older sisters have shared their rooms in the past without complaint.”

Viola flushed and Cecily noticed her brows crinkle in the middle. “Mama only asked,” she defended herself, struggling to maintain her composure. “Anyway, Cecily needs a room and I have one to share. Isn’t that a problem solved?”

“I’m happy to room with Viola,” Cecily said, feeling awkward. The two sisters were hugging each other behind Mrs. Dawkins’ back and looking scared at the possibility of being parted.

Mrs. Dawkins stared at them for a while and Cecily felt herself being weighed, measured, and judged before the older woman finally decided she hadn’t conspired with Viola to rig the room assignments. 

“There’s still the matter of the missing key,” she said, at last. “If it doesn’t reappear then you four will be required to split the cost of a replacement. It will cost one gold sovereign.”

Cecily felt that number like a punch to the gut. Her lacework paid in silver tabs. She had never even held a silver sovereign, much less a gold one. There were a hundred tabs to a sov and, what’s more, there were ten silver sovs to one gold sov. One quarter of a gold sov was two hundred and fifty silver tabs! That was the same fifteen laceworks! At six hours per work, that was ninety hours of tatting! Half a month’s labor!

“I’m sure it will turn up,” Viola said carelessly and turned to Cecily, unaware that Cecily had broken out in a full-body cold sweat. “Let’s go see our room?”

‘I am going to tear this whole building apart to find that key,’ Cecily promised herself and let herself be dragged off.