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Sylvia, Colin, and Kelly all manage to find Monnitoff's room without too much trouble.  He's a young guy with short hair and a beard that needs a lot of practice before it's really considered a beard.  As you arrive he simply asks you to have a seat.  After the last of you arrives ((Or 15 minutes if anyone blows the invite off)) he puts away what he's doing and comes around to sit on the front of his desk.

"Hi, I'm Ken Monnitoff, I teach literatur here at Oak Park.  The reason I asked you all to drop by today was one of my other responsibilities here, as the faculty liason for the school newspaper.  As luck would have it I inherited the job this year when the last faculty liason retired and just found out that all of the former students that had been working on the paper last year, were seniors and graduated."

"I need some help.  I asked around and heard some good things about you three.  Sylvia and Kelly, I'm told you guys have some real talent as writers.  I'm nost sure how much experience you have with this type of thing, but I'll be able to help out until you get your feet under you.  Colin", he says turning to face the young man, "I hear you have an excellent eye with a camera.  We have some equipment you could use, and a paper really needs a good photographer."

He stands from his desk, "If you guys are interested, I'll take you down to the office where you'd be working.  As Freshman it's not a class you can take, but I've convinced the Principal to let it be a credit towards your art requirement this year and next year it's a class you can actually take."

"I'm really in a bind here guys, so if you could see your way to help me out I'd really appreciate it."

Kel, settles atop a desk in a thinking position as he listens to what the guy has to say.  As the words Kelly rolls off his tongue, Kel interrupts and justs says, "It's Kel."  When the man continues he says, "Sounds pretty interesting, and you said it's worth an art credit?  Whew, that's good, though I might have to draw or sing or something to get that."  Kel visibly shudders at the idea of doing either of those things.

Sylvia, for whom the first week of school has been a gauntlet of perilous choices that might affect her health and well-being for the next four years, is more cautious.  "What kinds of stuff would we have to report on?"

"Kel, got it.  You guys can call me Ken when we're in the office or not in the halls, but it'll have to be Mr. M or Mr. Monnitoff in the halls.  The administration is pretty strict about students and teachers being too friendly.

Mr. Monnitoff looks at Sylvia and shrugs, "Whatever is newsworthy.  There is a lot of discretion about what goes into the paper left up to the students.  It's your school, and your paper.  Whatever impacts the students, anything interesting in the community.  We just have to keep the integrity high, no gossip or liableous pieces and we should be fine."

"Like that guy who killed JonBenet," Sylvia says unhelpfully.  At least she's keeping up on current events.


She shrugs.  "I'm okay with it."  But it's like she's telling Kel more than Mr. M.  Apparently it's a package deal as far as she's concerned--both or neither.

[OOC:  Sorry.  What year is it again?]

Colin is beaming. "Wow, thank you, Mr. M, I'll gladly help with the paper!" His eyes go around for a moment behind his huge glasses as he thinks of all the possibilities.
Then he turns to Kel, hoping he will accept too.
"Uhm... Maybe we should start with that hole on the third floor. That's newsworthy, isn't it?"


OOC: IIRC, it's September 4th, 2007.

Kel laughs, "Oh yea, I almost forgot about that..."  He then shrugs, "I don't know, I'm not really the investigative type, but I figure if it's true and people are talking about it, they'll want to know about it."

"That's one story," Sylvia says.  "We're gonna need a ton more, aren't we?"

[OOC:  Let me just mumble-mumble my way past the JonBenet quip, then.]

"Yea...I'm sure there's a lot of big stuff going down this week, I mean it's the first week of school." Kel takes up a serious thinking pose as he starts trying to remember anything he's heard in the halls.

"Cheerleading tryouts," Sylvia suggests half-heartedly.  She was thinking of going out for those.

"Well."  Mr. M says, sroking his less then impressive beard, "The hole is sort of a mystery, and I know there was a lot of chatter about it.  So, yeah, that's nesworthy.  Plus, you can do interviews with people.  I know there will be some people that the other students might want to hear about, sort of the celebrity types."

Mr. M gets up, "C'mon, I'll show you the office."

The three of you follow him down to the ground floor, around to the far end of the school near the old wings.  There he opens a door with the School logo on the door and simply "Newspaper" underneath it.  Inside there are a number of work desks, computers, a dark room and layout tables.  "You'll do format and layout down here and then it'll all get saved in electronic format and sent down to the basement for printing.  A couple of the econimics students will be taking care of teh advertisements, I found some graphics arts studetns interested in layout.  I just need writers and photographers."

Mr. M lets the three of you look around some.  There are archive copies of previous editions laying about, as well as a bulletin board of headlines and stories that were carried over by the local papers about stories that got started here.  "So, any questions?"

Kel laughs and laughs hard, then stops and thinks again, "Actually, tryouts might be a good place to check out, maybe some major changes to the team rosters.  Stars leaving, up and coming young kids just stepping out onto the field." He smirks as he thinks about all the idiots flocking to be the picturesque group of teenagers in their teem colors.

"Stars?"  Sylvia makes a face.  "They're not stars.  They're just girls who don't do real sports."  She looks at the front pages of the paper's previous editions.

Kel laughs, "Sorry, I was thinking more about the Cheerleader's male counterparts.  Football players and their ilk."  He then looks around the room, starting to look over one of the desks and computers, then looking at Mr. M he says, "No, no questions at all Mr. M."

"So, does that mean you guys are in?"

Sylvia nods in that diffident fourteen-year-old way and then says, "Yeah," which is as much of a commitment as Mr. M can expect.

Looking up from the desk he has now situated himself at, Kel says, "Uh-huh."

"Ooh, a darkroom. So we can work both on analogic and digital. Wonderful.?"
Colin looks around attentively, as if to take in every detail.
___

"I have a question Mr.M. What are our deadlines?"
___

"Football players. I think I heard something about them. They'll have a freshman quarterback play next game. He must be good if they leave out John Maxon for him. Do you do sports, Sylvia?" he asks innocently.
___

"I'm in Mr.M. I hope you'll be a bit forgiving as we get started, since we're all new to the job."

"Excellent."  Mr. M tells the three of you to hang tight, leaving for a couple of minutes.  He returns with keys to the office, giving one to each of you and having you sign the key log for them.  "Ok, it's official, you guys are the staff for the Huskie News.  your first deadline is next Monday."

((OOC: For the most part we'll assume that you can fill the space you need to with no trouble.  We'll only worry about things that you guys want to look into specifically, like the hole in the wall and other stuff that comes up and screams "PLOT"))

Wth that he makes sure you guys have his contact numbers and then heads out of the office.

"I used to do gymnastics back home," Sylvia says mournfully.  Anything she says about 'back home' is bound to come out with a kind of teen-noir regret.  "You?"

Kel murmurs to himself as he immediately begins to type out an outline of ideas for himself on the computer.  He then says, "So with a game on friday, and deadline being monday, we can actually critique this new quarterback kid.  Heh, this is looking to be a pretty sweet gig."

"So."  A voice says from the door, "You guys are gonna be the writing staff huh?"  a young woman comes in and shakes everyones hand, "I'm Gretchen Ross, I told Mr. M I'd do layout and stuff."

(http://www.kfaq.net/marvels/2011/Faces/Gretchen_Ross.jpg)

"I guess we're gonna be spending some time together then."  Gretchen says, going over to the layout table and checking out the setup.  "You guys are all Freshmen?"

Kel tosses his hair back over his shoulders, he smirks and then says, "Yep, all freshman."

Sylvia looks up long enough from her conversation with Colin to look at Kel.  She's elected him her PR guy, it seems.

((OOC: Sorry, missed Colin's question about deadlines.))

"The paper goes out on Wednesday, the deadlines are the Monday night prior.  Everything has to be ready on Monday so the printers can have it out by Wednesday."

"Well, the cool part about that is you get to go to all the proms and stuff without having to find a date from the right class."  Gretchen sits down and spins the chair so she can see the others.  "You get to go to the games, dances and all that for free, since you're working and all."

"Gymnastics..." Colin repeats slowly, and Sylvia can tell he's picturing it in his mind, then he smiles to her again "How lucky you are. You know how to fly. Me, I am bound to my two wheels. I do mostly biking. Do you miss your old friends a lot?". Yeah, Colin has a way of coming up with difficult questions out of the blue.

___

"Nice to meet you, Gretchen. You're the one that will cut and reject all my photos, I guess." he says with a wink.


OOC: Gretchen! I love you secretoracle! :D

When she mentions the idea of going to all the games and such, Kel responds, "Sounds like loads of fun..." He then looks her over and says, "So what about you, what grade are you in?"

Sylvia gives Colin a pained smile and nods, but what is there to say, really?  She used to goof around with her buddies in gymnastics and her friends in school.  She used to be the master of her environment.  Now she's the weird new kid.

"I'm a sophmore, so not much different then you guys.  Still pretty far down on the pecking order."

Gretchen comes over to Colin, "You have anything I can look at?"  She asks, pulling a chair from one of the desks nearby to sit by him, "I'm not a photographer, so maybe you can give me some idea of the stuff you've done."

"Oh! Sure. Just a moment." He rummages into his school bag, which probably wasn't meant for school but for the outdoors, and which has probably already seen its fair share of them. While he bends down, he whispers to Sylvia: "You'll get new ones. Lots. You know how to fly." he finally gets out a leatherbound collector and winks at her.

"Here you go, Gretchen." He shows Gretchen, but also Kel and Sylvia if they're interested. There are about 50 photos, most of them prints taken from a digital camera, but also some analogic ones. There are sepia portraits of people likely to be members of his family, unusual pictures of Oak Park, rooftops on a moonlight night, dawn over a deserted highway, lots of people, laughing, working, kissing, an old couple reading together the same book on a park bench, a red butterfly on a white rose, lightning bolts in a darkened, almost violet sky, a melting snowman looking at the sky, sea gulls flying among skyscrapers. Not all of them are perfect, some have being slightly altered or recolored with a computer. Nearly all of them seem to tell a story.
Colin remains silent and lets them speculate about them.

OOC: should I make a Visual arts roll?

Sylvia finds it hard to believe such beautiful images came from a city she's doing her damnedest to loathe.  "Those are all from around here?"

"Wow"  Gretchen says as she flips through the pages.  "These are great, you really took these?"

((OOC:No need for a role, I'll assume you took 20))

Kel lets out a low whistle as he looks at the pictures from over Sylvia's shoulder, "That's pretty damn impressive."

Colin explains where he took the ones that Sylvia likes most. They're mainly taken in Oak Park, some in River Forest, some in downtown Chicago.

"I took these in the last two years. I've taken maybe a thousand photos, one or two every day, but only few come out... right. I never go anywhere without my camera, and I hope to find the right ones. Speaking of which, shouldn't we make an impression of the new editorial staff?"

He looks for a nice place and prepares his camera's self timer. "Say "Squeeze"!" he commands as he dives among them before the flash goes out.

"Kel, Sylvia, now you have to let me read something you wrote."

Kel smirks, "I'm afraid that's impossible, don't carry anything I write on me."  He just shrugs stepping a bit away from the pictures.

Sylvia grimaces.  "I don't think my talent is as great as Mr. M's desperation."

Colin's eyes, magnified by his lenses, are just like a puppy's as he wonders if he said something wrong.
"Oh, well. Some other time. What do we do now?

"The hole?" Sylvia suggests.  "Pictures?  And maybe we should try to find some witnesses  to something?"  She's uncertain.

Kel smirks, "I say we head out for the moment, it's one of the first days of school, and that hole can wait till tomorrow.  I like to ease back into school.  We can attack the hole and the sports and all that stuff tomorrow, if not later in the week.  Besides, I want to get a gauge of who are audience is."  He looks at Gretchen, "People hang out at Tasty Dog, right?  I say we go there, and see if we can pick up on what people are talking about, what they want to know and read about.  Then tomorrow we can get on it."  He stretches where he stands, "Plus I'm kinda hungry."

Sylvia doesn't dare mention that she's sort of a vegetarian.  Mitzi doesn't cook meat, and Carolyn cooks only on holidays.  She nods and says, "Okay," like she eats there every day.  If she's lucky, they'll have textured-vegetable-protein dogs.  If not, she'll try not to think about what constitutes the ground-up matter in the typical wiener.

Gretchen gets up, "You guys mind if I tag along.  I'm not a writer or anything, but I have  craving for a chocolate shake."

Kel shakes his head, "Not at all."

((I'm gonna close this thread and archive it unless anyone has something important to say.  We'll assume you guys arrive at the Tasty Dog after Seth has finished his set and is sitting with Sarah and her friends.))