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The pep squad has another practice.  Routines are discussed and worked on.  It's a very relaxed sort of thing, lots of hard work but with no real harsh competitive edge.  The basketball team is in the gym today, still in the process of try-outs.  Both groups finish practice and hit the refreshment table for cups of Gator-Aide and conversation.  Some fun is poked, and there is some laughter.  It seems to be a fairly relaxed situation.  Sylvia begins to pick up the murmurs of the thoughts around her.  Mostly what's coming out of mouths with the normal exceptions.  Girls thinking guys are hot and the reverse.  "I think you have an admirer." Gladys says, touching Sylvia on the shoulder.  Sylvia follows the other girl's gaze into the bleachers, but she already knows who it is.  Gladys is a senior, and a little on the short and stout side to be a cheerleader at any school that wasn't Oak Park probably.  The person that had caught Gladys' eye was none other than the glacial mind of Logan Darklighter.  He had been there every practice, at least every practice since Sylvia joined the squad.  "I've seen you two eating lunch together."  Gladys continues.  "Is he nice?"

"Sure," Sylvia says.  She's heard that, when CIA employees meet each other outside of work, they're not supposed to acknowledge a connection.  They're just supposed to pretend they've never seen each other and move on.  Thoughts like that have kept her from going over to chat with him, or even wave to him, but she does smile in his direction.  Cheerleaders are allowed to smile at boys, aren't they?  "Do you want me to introduce you?"

"Could you?"  she asks, almost shocked.  Sylvia feels the spark in her brain, I made the pep squad.  Anything could be possible, right?  "You think he's got a date for the dance Friday?"

Sylvia feels a tweak of . . . what is that?  She refuses to analyze it.

"I doubt it.  C'mon."  She leads the way toward Logan, climbing the folding bleachers to get to him.  "Hi," she says when she gets there.  "Living vicariously?  You're tall enough for the squad, you know.  You could be out there.  It could be you."

"I might do that.  You guys are really starting to look good out there."  Sylvia can see it in his body language, and the way he speaks.  He's not being the Logan that has lunch with her, he's being the Logan that everyone at Oak Park knows.

Sylvia finds that almost as interesting, perhaps more so for its novelty, as his real persona.  It's like Donnie's D&D games.  They're playing characters.  He's the hunky student-body-leader type, and she . . . ?  Well, she's a cheerleader.

She acts like it, trying to put a little more pep in her step (sore as it is) and a little lilt in her voice.  Like the Big Bopper says, a wigglin' walk and a gigglin' talk make the world go round.

"Have you met Gladys?  This is Gladys.  She's new, but she really looks the part, doesn't she?  You should see her front walkovers."

"Hi Gladys."  he says brightly, with an offered hand that she shakes.  "You have Economics with me, right?"

Gladys almost sits from the shock, Ohmygod, he remembers me from class?  "Y--yeah."  she manages to choke out, clearing her throat after.  Sylvia is keenly aware of the chemical cascade of emotion in Gladys, and the clarity of her thoughts is also sharp in the room.

Sylvia struggles with her paranoia, but post-traumatic stress forces her to keep a sharp eye on Gladys's internal processes.  She doesn't want to set Logan up with a stalker.  "Are you going to the dance?" Sylvia asks Logan, lobbing a nice, slow pitch so he can see it coming.

Logan meets her gaze for a second, and then his attention turns back towards Gladys.  "Sylvia has a boyfriend, and so I'm guessing she's paving the way for you to ask me?"

Gladys' hand comes to Sylvia's shoulder for support.  she's in a mild teenage panic.  "I--uh--well."  She swallows, "If you weren't already going with someone."

Logan smiles, "I hadn't been asked."

Sylvia feels Gladys lock up.  Indecision floods her brain.  Ask.  Ask!  "Would you like to go to the Valentine's Dance with me?"  squeaks out almost mouse like from Gladys.

"I'd be happy to.  I'll get tickets today."  He writes his number down on a slip of paper and gives it to her.  "Call me tonight and we can work out the details, okay."

Gladys can only nod, and it's a little bit before she reaches out to take the offered number.  "O-okay."  she says, and Sylvia can feel the girl's brain racing through every possible outcome for the night.  Mostly harmless, some with her in tears.  "I need to go shower."  she says, "See you in there Sylvia."  she says, making her way down from the bleachers.

"She seems nice."  Logan says, "You seem a little distracted, everything okay?"

Sylvia follows Gladys back toward the other cheerleaders with her eyes.  "Yeah, just feeling like a watchdog on the Fourth of July.  Nervous, you know?"  She lands her gaze on him.  "So really, what are you doing here?"

"Just came to watch the pep squad practice."  he says, "Maybe I'll write a story for the school paper about it."  he smiles.

"You lech," Sylvia says with admiration.  "You put on that Most Likely To Become President face, but you're really here to look up their skirts."  She gestures at the other cheerleaders who are going on without her.  She told them she was on the rag today to explain the fact that she's moving like an old woman.

Logan smiles, "I'm still a teenage boy."  he says, gathering his stuff.  "I'll see you at the dance if not before."

She smiles and lets him go.

There is a bit of conversation in the locker room as Gladys tries to explain that she asked Logan to the dance and he said yes.  Lots of shocked looks and congratulations.  "Hey Sylvia?"  Hannah says, "Can you get me a date too?"

Sylvia laughs.  "With Logan?  Will Gladys share?"

"Heck, at this point with any cute guy."  Hannah says with a laugh.  There is some joking about asking someone herself.

Samantha Vincent's locker sticks closed again, and she gives it the customary curse and yank she's been giving it, and it opens.  the door also comes off in her hand, the hinges giving way where they are welded to the locker.  She makes a giggle sound, and then "Opps."  and the other girls laugh.  Samantha looks around slightly embarrassed.  "This isn't my day."  she says, setting the door on top of the lockers and getting her cloths.

"Mine either."  Lucy says as she laces her shoes, "Is it just me or is everything breaking lately?"

Several of the other girls nod and agree.  They seem to have been involved in a number of incidents the last few days where things just seemed to break on them.

Sylvia hides the way her smile is setting on her face like frost by turning toward her open locker.  You're paranoid, says the little voice in her head.  You're traumatized by a semester's worth of random death, human wickedness, and unnatural science.  No one is trying to kill or otherwise alter the cheerleaders.  Again.

Oh, all right, the voice relents.  I admit the possibility--

She gives the door of her locker a yank.

OOC: Make a Fate Roll.

Fatality! (1d20=4) (http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1977172/)

The door seems sturdy and well attached.  It makes the squeaky sound it always makes when it moves.