OS: Day Eleven < | Challenge Home Page | > OS: Day Thirteen
Jaz and Phoenix got ready, and headed down the road to the park as soon as they could in the morning. It might be raining a little bit, but at least it wasn't actually cold, so playing in the rain didn't seem like too bad of an idea. Jaz managed to make a couple of teenaged acquaintances, and was gratified to see that they didn't seem as judgmental as her same-age peers. She wondered if that was because they were older, or just because she was a little kid, and they just didn't care about her one way or the other. Her nerves were definitely acting up, though, because the park was simply packed with people, and her loner trait was making her extremely tense.
Max was showing off his umbrella skills, while Lucas obviously got bored and found some stuff to throw on the playground floor.
Trying to escape, Jaz climbed up on top of the Monkey bars (now that she was a master on the bars, she could do that...) and looked out over the crowd. Before long, Elsa joined her, commenting on the fact that at least the rain had stopped. The two chatted for a while, and slowly, Jaz's nerves were calming down.
Phoenix joined them, and all three decided to do homework. (Phoenix wasn't really doing it, of course, just pretending to.. because - well, he already was an A student, and they never really had to do homework, right?) Jaz and Elsa finished their homework, and were happy to see that Lucas Munch's older brother, Wolfgang, had made dinner for all the kids. Phoenix, on the other hand, had gotten bored of the homework gig and wandered off.
While Jaz was eating her hamburger, some kid came over to make fun of her ratty clothes and messy hair. Jaz tried to ignore it, but it still hurt. She made a couple of nasty comments back to the boy (who she'd never seen before), and was glad when he got bored and went to pick on some other poor soul.
Phoenix, on the other hand, was riding high. When he had thanked Wolfgang for making dinner, Wolfgang had actually started a conversation with him.... and hadn't walked away when Phoenix started asking questions. Wolfgang certainly looked cool in his black jacket and mean look, and Phoenix couldn't think of anything better than being just like him when he grew up, so making friends with him was a BIG DEAL.
The other BIG DEAL.. was that Phoenix had finished two things by talking to Wolfgang. He had raised his Social skill to 10, completing that and his aspiration, and also finishing his resolution for a skill gain... that he had only resolved a little bit before they went to the park!
Wolfgang finally noticed how late it was getting, though, and as the "adult" at the club meeting, he shuffled all the kids off towards home, and made sure Jaz and Phoenix got home safely before taking his little brother back to Windenburg.
At home, Phoenix and Jaz weren't yelled at for being late, which they'd been worried about. In fact, Marnie was so busy cleaning, and Bennie was cooking some meats on the grill... that nobody seemed to even notice they'd been gone at all. A little disappointed, the two decided not to push it by trying to watch the ball drop on TV, and cleaned up, ate, and headed to bed instead.
OS: Day Eleven < | Challenge Home Page | > OS: Day Thirteen
That was a successful day!