here goes

[self_composed]

Bella schedules an appointment at Stanford. She breezes through sixteen hours of motorcycle class, mostly by demonstrating that the instructor is redundant and wouldn't he rather teach her exotic motorcycle tricks and then just mark her as passing the course? She plays in a soccer game against a Port Angeles high school and wins. She starts driving her bike to school, and she names it Tegu after a lizard of similar coloring, because it needed a name.

On Friday evening she's due to fly out, crash in a Stanford grad student's house overnight, interview on Saturday, and fly home that evening. She bikes for the airport, black leather gold-studded saddlebags over Tegu's back wheel carrying her luggage.

Comments

[self_composed]

[Hmm?] She's admiring buildings, and the nice weather. [Ridiculous how?]

[edgeofyourseat]

[I dunno, the whole getting-into-college process? Like, what does working with tsunami victims have to do with it?]

[self_composed]

[So if you were running a school and ten thousand people applied and you could only take two thousand, which ones would you take?]

[edgeofyourseat]

[I wouldn't run a fucking school,] says Alice. [And if I did, I'd pick people for terrible reasons. But we scrounge up enough high schools for everybody somehow; why not enough colleges? There's even less people!]

[self_composed]

[Well, yes,] Bella says. [I assure you that if I went to a tiny, terrible community college in Port Angeles, all I would have to demonstrate would be basic literacy. Maybe they'd want to make sure I could add. The good schools are good because they're selective - people want to go there so they can get the best teachers, and fraternize with the best classmates. There aren't enough bests to go around for everyone.]

[edgeofyourseat]

[I still think it's weird,] Alice maintains. He doesn't have a solution, but he doesn't see why that should stop him.

[self_composed]

Bella snorts quietly. [Well, that's the system, so I'm gaming it.] There's a dining hall over there; she decides to see if they'll feed her or if she has to be a student.

[edgeofyourseat]

Alice tags along. When it occurs to him that any food he conjures will get a free ride on his invisibility as long as he doesn't drop it, he spends a square on a turkey sandwich.

[self_composed]

Bella pays for a one-meal pass to the dining hall and tastes small dollops of various offerings from the buffets. [Well. Nothing phenomenal here. The macaroni and the lemon pie is okay though.]

[edgeofyourseat]

[Meh,] says Alice. [I'll stick with my invisible lunch.]

[self_composed]

[Enjoy,] Bella says lightly. [Man, the weather is nice here. It's like I've time-traveled to a land in which it is already spring.]

[edgeofyourseat]

[It's pretty great,] he agrees. [Snow's fun, too, though.]

[self_composed]

[Well, I imagine I'll visit Charlie some holidays, when I'm not going to see Renée instead.]

[edgeofyourseat]

[And if I do the magic doors thing, I can just bounce around until I find weather I'm in the mood for, anyway.]

Magic is awesome!

[What's your mom like, anyway?]

[self_composed]

[Well, she looks a lot like me, but we're not that similar in personality] Bella says. [She has no long-term attention span. I think the only reason she can teach kindergarten is that she gets to forget she was doing it once a year. Hobbies and stuff she's intense about for a few months, then drops. In a lot of ways she's very childlike - she used to screw up things like depositing her paychecks, never bad enough that we went hungry or couldn't pay the mortgage if the bank called to yell at her, but bad enough to be scary, so I learned how to help her with that sort of thing as soon as I could. She's good at her job, she's never embarrassed not to know how to do something new, she's often very insightful about people and how they relate to each other while completely missing plenty of relevant implications of whatever she's spotted.]

[edgeofyourseat]

[Huh,] says Alice. [I kinda like her already.]

That's not new, though. He likes a lot of people!

[self_composed]

[She might well like you too.]

Bella finishes lunch and departs the cafeteria.

[edgeofyourseat]

That is a pleasing notion to contemplate! He bounces happily after her.

[self_composed]

Bella explores Stanford, wending her way to where she's supposed to meet the soccer coach.

The soccer coach is in the soccer field with the soccer players.

Bella waits politely for her attention, and then introduces herself.

"So you're some kind of prodigy now that your ear's fixed, I hear," says the coach.

"I've only had a chance to play against high schoolers, but I think so," Bella says modestly.

"Great. You're a forward? Go shoot goals against Mackenzie."

Bella goes and shoots goals against Mackenzie. Bella has only excellent-human-level soccer skills and Mackenzie is pretty good, so Bella misses one of twenty goals. She does not miss the other nineteen.

"Damn," says the coach. "I had some other stuff for you to do but I think I'm done."

[edgeofyourseat]

Alice giggles over brainphone.

[self_composed]

Bella warmly expresses her enthusiasm for playing soccer at Stanford and bids the coach goodbye. [I wonder if I should feel bad about cheating,] she muses, heading for the orchestra conductor's office.

[edgeofyourseat]

[Nope,] says Alice, predictably.

[self_composed]

[I suppose I probably shouldn't feel any worse than people who really do have this level of genetic gift do. I mean, I'll actually show up to practices; I don't have the history of putting the effort in but I will in the future. Still. Seems vaguely like doping or something.]

[edgeofyourseat]

[Well, I don't think you should feel bad that you're cheating, but I'm not gonna tell you you're not cheating.]

[self_composed]

Bella mentally laughs. She doesn't laugh aloud; she does not wish to look like a crazy person.