Gonna Make Friends with the Dictionary (Nancy)

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Todd was hanging out in the library. He really wanted to do well in school and do his parents proud. Although his parents would probably be proud of him no matter what he did. But still, it was the principal of the thing. Todd didn’t really want to fall behind with his work and that involved studying.

So Todd was sitting at a table, several books lay opened and he was currently consulting one with a serious face, following the words with his finger as he read. A pen rested behind his ear and there was a notebook on the table somewhere. It had gotten lost in the shuffle. Speaking of getting lost, Todd looked up thoughtfully, suddenly realizing that his beloved turtle was nowhere to be found. Weird.

He shifted around some books until he found said turtle huddling happily under a book that had been overturned. “There you are Jake,” he said happily. He scooped up the turtle and set him on a small stack of books, not too far away. “Okay, so I wanted you to hear this. Apparently only virgins can capture unicorns and they have to be captured with a golden rope of some kind. But in this story here,” Todd pointed to a different book on the table, “it wasn’t really a rope. The girl used a strand of her hair. Because she was blonde. And that kind of counts as gold I suppose, but not really. Do you think it’s only girls that can capture unicorns? Or can boys too? I’m just curious, you know? In most of the stories it’s only girls. But you know, I bet boys can too.”

Yes, Todd was asking the opinion of a turtle. And yes, he was writing a research paper about unicorns. And yes, he was receiving some very odd looks from everyone around him, but he was too absorbed in his own work to notice.

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Books had always had a soft spot in Nancy Panic’s life, just as much as they had in her mother’s, probably. Books were friends when human beings weren’t quite sure what to make of you. Books never told you to just back off before giving you a chance. They wanted to be read, wanted to make as many friends as possible, almost like they held souls that were as lonely as the people who loved them the most. That was what had the slim blonde brush her fingers reverently over the bindings of the books…well, that, and imagining her mother spending countless hours in here, whether she was looking for a way to spin straw into gold, or for a brand of fiction that wouldn’t stress her out like Tintagel’s atmosphere.

She was standing in a room that carried her family’s history, in a weird way. She remembered one story that her mother had told her, about an outbreak of amnesia that had swept the school. She and her father had wound up being at the library around the same time, and they sort of stared at each other from across the room, not knowing, but knowing each other at the same time. This was long before Della realized how much she loved Panic, but still, Nancy had always found that story to be terribly romantic. She couldn’t help but wonder where her mother had stood, with a book half off the shelf, she imagined, when she found herself caring about the face of what she thought was a stranger’s. Was she, in fact, standing right where she had been now? That thought made her smile even more: literally filling her mother’s shoes.

Yet her sentimental thoughts could last very long, and a part of her didn’t expect them to. Unlike her mother had been when she first entered the school, Nancy was prepared for chaos…well, okay, nothing could really prepare you for whatever this school threw at you, but she was at least expecting the unexpected at all turns. Hopefully she wouldn’t inherit her mother’s tendencies to have her mind controlled, though. Nancy rather liked having her free will, thanks.

Thankfully, it seemed that her first official interruption at Tintagel was going to be rather harmless. When she poked her head out from behind the bookshelf, she found a rather thin boy with messy auburn hair (the color actually reminded her a bit of her mother’s now that she thought of it) chatting happily at what she soon realized was a turtle about unicorns. To most, this was surely going to be enough of a reason to stay away from a very odd person that would probably trap you in a conversation you didn’t want if you didn’t steer clear. For Nancy? It was just the opposite. The fact was that a combination of her father’s shape shifting and her mother’s imagination resided in her, which basically meant that she fully understood having a kinship with animals, and talking about unicorns was more than acceptable…now that she thought of it, she could probably shape shift into a unicorn if she really…

Wait…no, she wasn’t going to do that now. A unicorn in the middle of the library, even a library at Tintagel Academy, would probably not be a very good way to make one’s first impressions at your school. Shaking her head, she slipped out from her sort of hiding place like a fawn learning to walk. She was a shy girl by nature, but she liked to think she would be able to approach someone else, at least if that person seemed to love animals as much as she did.

“Excuse me…if you don’t mind my input, I think unicorns aren’t that crazy about boys…or did I get that from Harry Potter…” she now wondered out loud…and wow, this wasn’t seeming like such a good idea anymore. Way to go, Nancy, now you’ve got a very awkward pause ahead of you, I’m sure… she mentally cursed herself. Still, she managed a tiny little smile at the boy. Maybe he’d be nice about it? He seemed nice enough.

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Todd was legitimately looking for an answer from Jake. Not in the form of a verbal answer of course. He knew that animals didn’t talk here and Jake wasn’t a talking turtle anyway. But sometimes he seemed to nod his head and Todd liked to think that Jake understood him. Whether or not that was true he’d never know, but it gave him hope.

Todd looked up as the pretty blonde girl came over to talk to him. He smile at her, because smiling was always a good place to start. People usually responded well to smiling and she seemed nice anyway. He nodded. “Yeah, according to my research that’s what it says. But it was in Harry Potter. I have that book around here somewhere. It’s in there.”

Any other person probably though Todd was crazy for even talking about unicorns, let alone the fact that he was talking to a turtle. “You can sit. You know, if you want to. If you don’t that’s cool too. I’m Todd.” He held out his hand for her to shake. “And this is Jake,” he said gesturing at Jake, who was still perched on top of the stack of books. “He’s my pet turtle.” Todd felt he needed to clarify in case she thought he had randomly stolen a turtle from somewhere. But he didn’t. His parents had given him a turtle for his birthday one year.

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It would seem, however, that Nancy’s internal panicking (mention the pun and face a broken nose via the nearest large book, even from someone as meek as Nancy) was for naught, because the boy was smiling. People who were annoyed by you butting in didn’t tend to smile, and in spite of herself, her own smile broadened because she just felt so relieved about that. What luck, running into someone who was friendly. Her mother had told her that it’d be a mixed bag, most likely. Sure, it always was no matter where you went, but there was something about Tintagel that made the results all the more extreme.

Even better was the fact that he had apparently read Harry Potter as well. Sure, that wasn’t quite as surprising as the fact that he was totally okay with her unexpected input, but it was a nice touch. After all, the series wasn’t socially required reading anymore, was it? She wouldn’t have been surprised if there were some “normal” schools that were starting to study it, actually…which would’ve been cool, she would’ve admitted. And she could have done an excellent project on the beasts that emerged in the series too…something about shape shifting made her want to study that kind of thing…

Focus Nancy! Shaking her head force herself out of her daydreams, because after all, he had mentioned that he agreed with her. She laughed weakly. “We should probably look into other sources, much as I love the books…” Upon realizing the implication in her words, she quickly added, “And by “we” I meant, y’know…both of us. Separately…unless you actually want to research together, because I’m open to that too.” Smoooooooooooooth, Panic, she mentally cursed herself. She had to admit though, she would rather have that than mentally cursing this guy. That happened sometimes. Just because you were meek didn’t mean you didn’t recognize the jerkwads of the world, but it would seem that this guy, who was apparently just as likely to be smooth as she was, was perfectly nice. Even trying to be a gentleman, just like she was trying to be polite…and they were both stumbling awkwardly as they did. There was something comforting in that.

“Thank you, I’d like that,” she responded, slowly settling down, and she couldn’t help but smile more when Todd introduced her to his turtle. It got her thinking that perhaps she should get a new pet herself. She had a few growing up…that was, if her father’s “cat time” back when she was little to cheer her up counted….yeah. A real pet would be a good idea.

“Well it’s nice to meet you both…I’m Nancy, Nancy Panic.” Her gaze moved slightly from the turtle to Todd, seeing as she was pretty sure the turtle wouldn’t be able to comprehend the concept of surnames. Animals didn’t need such things. It was like how humans didn’t need fur, so they probably wouldn’t be able to understand just how it felt. Oh sure, there were fur coats (which Nancy found revolting beyond measure), but it wasn’t the same thing, having the roots deep in your skin. It felt so different from the tiny little hairs on her arms…just like it would’ve been confusing for a turtle, explaining surnames…and was she seriously thinking about a thing like that? Seriously, her brain needed to stop running away like that.

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Todd was pretty well read. He loved reading though not as much as he loved poetry of course. And Harry Potter was freaking awesome, you know? So it was pretty exciting to talk about. You know, Harry Potter and unicorns were pretty epic, in Todd’s opinion. So he nodded along at her suggestion. “Well I’m already in the process of researching, but you’re welcome to join me. I’m doing a research paper about unicorns for one of my literature classes,” he explained, gesturing to all the books splayed out on the table.

It could have been pathetic that Todd was willingly writing a research paper about unicorns, but really why not write a paper about he liked? If he was going to put in the time and effort then he might as well do it about something that he actually cared about, you know? That was Todd’s philosophy anyway. He wished he could say that he didn’t really care what other people thought of him, though that wouldn’t be entirely true. He did kind of moderately care a lot about what other people thought, but if they were going to tease him he could always blame it on the teacher. Yeah, that would work!

Todd thought Nancy had a nice name. And Panic sounded a little familiar. Her parents had probably gone to school here too and his parents had told him stories about her parents and that was probably why it all sounded familiar. Yeah, it was probably something like that. But then again, with Todd’s parents it seemed like anything was possible.

“It’s nice to meet you too,” Todd replied pleasantly and with a smile. He looked down at Jake, who had tucked his head back into his shell. “Er…sorry about him. Jake’s a little shy. But I’m sure he’s glad to meet you too. He’s just really shy around people he’s just met.” He was rambling a little bit, but only because he wanted Nancy to like Jake too. He and Jake were like best friends so it was only natural for someone to want their best friend to be liked.

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It made sense, honestly, that Todd was doing a research project here. It certainly explained the presence of the overabundance of books that, in spite of herself, had Nancy lighting up. So not only were they books, but they were about unicorns? How could she not find something to be happy about there? Along with a love of books, Nancy’s mother was sure to have an exciting story for her when she went to bed when she was a child (and to be perfectly honest, there were times when she convinced her mother to tell her one even now, for old time’s sake she said, but they both knew that it was because Nancy simply couldn’t get enough of her mother’s stories). These stories were always the sort that would fall under the genre of fairytales…except they weren’t. At least, if fairytales were meant to be entirely fictional, something that Nancy knew wasn’t the case. It was probably part of what made her stand out so painfully in elementary school: the fact that it appeared that she had no separation between fiction and reality, when the fact was that so much “fiction” was reality.

It was just nice, she realized, being in a place where you could research unicorns without too many raised eyebrows. “You know something? I’d love to help,” she answered, motioning at one of the empty chairs as if to ask if he minded. Even though, obviously, he wouldn’t have offered if he minded, would he? She somehow doubted he was expecting her to just stand, but…still. Best to be polite.

She actually hadn’t given it all that much thought to Jake hiding, probably because she could understand why he did. Nancy was a shy person after all, and she had yet to come out of her own shell. It was actually a wonder that she hadn’t tried to become a turtle at the times when people startled her. So when Todd was attempting to explain Jake’s less than sociable behavior, she actually let out a laugh…oh, she hoped he didn’t think she was laughing at him.

“Oh, don’t worry about it. I definitely understand being shy,” she assured Todd, sending a smile towards Jake all the same. It was just easier for her to feel at ease with the animal’s presence, apparently. It gave them she and Todd could absolutely talk about, if he was as much of an animal lover as she was. “I’m sure Jake and I are going to get along pretty well…” Then her eyes went back to Todd, showing she hoped it’d be the same for the two of them.

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Todd honestly had not expected that Nancy would just so easily accept that he was writing a research paper about unicorns and actually want to help him. That was weird for him, though not unpleasant. Other people probably would have laughed and thought he was kind of odd, which he was okay with, you know, all long as other people were happy. Todd liked to make other people happy more than he liked to make them like him, so if they were happiest laughing at him, then so be it.

And it just about made Todd’s life when Nancy said she wanted to help. She actually wanted to help him. Not only was she super nice, but she wanted to help him and didn’t mind being seen with him. Catching her gesture Todd immediately felt bad for not asking her to sit before. “Oh, here, please sit. You can’t research standing up. Thanks ridiculous, you know? Sit.”

Nancy had a nice laugh Todd thought, though he wasn’t quite sure if she was laughing at him or not. People had a tendency to laugh at him, though he usually just shrugged it off. But it was probably because he was making excuses for his pet turtle. People always laughed at him when he did that, but that was because most people didn’t understand his bond with animals. The only one who really seemed to understand his special bond with animals was his mother, but that was probably were he got his love of animals. And as much as he loved his dad and looked up to him, he really just didn’t appreciate animals the way he or his mom did. Though Todd was pretty sure that no one appreciated animals the way his mother did.

But Nancy did say she understood being shy so maybe she wasn’t laughing at him after all. Either way Todd didn’t mind too much. “Well, Jake gets along with pretty much anyone. I mean, he’s a turtle. He likes most people. You know, except for the people that want to make soup out of him. Not that I would ever let that happen, because he’s my pet and that would be terrible.”