Basically, everyone’s been busy. Maria has converted the school nurse’s office as her little infirmary and has all the medicines firmly under lock and key. Mark’s constantly on the go doing something, Norah is forever busying herself with food things, and there’s a nice little stores setup to organise all the resources being brought in. Zain, the eldest of the boys who is just a month from being eighteen, is a bit of a spreadsheet whiz and has built some kind of inventory control system using something called macros.
Meh. When people start talking about stuff like that, I go all Jack O’Neil when one of his Stargate scientists starts talking. Their mouths are moving, but all I hear in my head is, “blah blah, blah blah blah, I’m hungry, blah.”
Well, we’re going to have lunch, then go and get Norah’s tractor and something called a rotary tiller that needs to be used with it so she can make clod-free seed beds.
Every day’s a school day.
And here, that is literally true.
NOVEMBER 28th, 2010
NOMADS
I’m excited Freya. Today we found some new friends, but also in the process discovered there are some other asshole survivors as well. Nowhere near the problem of the loopy death cult out east, or even the danger of Bancroft’s armed thugs, but they’re definitely a threat to any other local survivors out there, and to us if we don’t stay on point when out beyond the gate.
After we’d sorted Norah’s tractor and tiller the other day and brought it back to campus, Dean and I decided we needed to start collecting more foodstuffs and supplies, so we had a pow wow with everyone and decided four of us would head on out, with two experienced guns and two novices in the team. I find it hilarious that I’m considered experienced and a shining example of good sense, as that’s never happened to me in my life before. Still, Dean and I were the two leads, and the two coming out for more experience would be Sarah and… bloody Isaac.
If we were working in pairs then Dean should oversee Isaac and I’d look after Sarah. I had to tell him why and he sighed, shook his head at me, then agreed. Also, Dean said it might be nice for Sarah and I getting to know each other a bit better. We’re both super important to Dean and Maria, so if we could be friends that would make them happy. Perfect excuse for the pairings; Dean gets to assess Isaac because he’s already trained Sarah, and Sarah gets a female role model in the field.
Me? A role model? I’m still laughing as I write this. What a world we live in.
We went out in two vehicles. I took my trusty pickup and had Sarah riding shotgun so we could chat a bit, while Isaac and Dean were in the van.
I like Sarah. She’s witty, really smart – like… really smart – and I discovered a fun fact about her that I’m going to want to see in action. Turns out her mum was something of a piano prodigy and Sarah’s been playing the piano since she was five years old. Music is a passion of hers and she was planning on applying to fancy music colleges after finishing school this year, with ambitions to be a concert pianist. It had always been a dream of her mum, Andrea, and she’d never pushed Sarah into it, but she just loves playing the piano. What’s that old saying? If you find a job you love, you’ll never work a day in your life. Or something like that.
There’s a big grand piano in the school music department. As such, I’ve made her pinky swear (the most solemn and binding of all oaths) to play me one of her favourite pieces when we get some downtime in the next couple of days.
That drive was nice. I like her. She looks a little awkward because she’s all skin and bone and has that naïve innocent look about her with her auburn hair and freckled face, but that girl is strong, independent, and tough. Girl power for the win.
Seriously, if Isaac messes with the little crush she seems to have developed on him, I will staple his scrotum to my pickup and drag him round campus by his balls. Colourful, I know, but in a short time together I feel like I’ve really bonded with her. She possesses a natural affinity for sarcasm, and she’s got the smarts to do it well. I am officially adopting her as my new sidekick.
Oh my god! She plays piano. A piano has keys.
Locke and Keys! We have a full female action movie duo ready and waiting to be signed up for the new summer blockbuster.
First order of business was heading back to the lodge. I forgot to mention that Nate agreed to the moving of the security system equipment to campus. It has more value here than our little isolated outpost of three people. If they can have a camera at the end of the road that leads to the gate, cameras at the gate, and strategic places around campus, that’s a no brainer. So, before we went house clearing, we headed back to the lodge and spent about three hours there disconnecting, unmounting, and boxing up all the equipment Isaac needed. It was a much quicker and easier task to disassemble than it was to install, which was a bonus. If he can set that system up over on campus, that gives him a good project to be ongoing with here.
Also, while
