✏️ Under One Roof

19. One Clique

By the time Tegan got to the café – glad that she'd heard the name Bentdick's spoken before reading it on the sign – she was already feeling drained. It wasn't even time for lunch, but an hour of filling in yet more administrative paperwork for the college seemed to consume as much energy as any number of violin lessons. The only upside was that she had her full timetable on her phone now, as well as contact details for all of her lecturers and tutors in case she needed them.

She had spoken to one of the tutors, and joined the end of a class, but there was no comment about what she had missed. The teacher had just handwaved it, and asked her to play something for the class. Apparently it was something the others had already done; a way to decrease any awkwardness between them by ensuring that everyone was equally unprepared. Tegan had looked around the classroom and decided the easiest thing to play without any preparation was probably the xylophone; putting together a brief medley of the music that had been on her mind for the last few days. Odd bits from the bridge of Cradle of Sacred Dreams, which seemed to grow more insightful every time she tried them on a new instrument, as well as a few bars from her stepbrother's mixolydian frankencanon. Everyone showed sympathy after she'd been put on the spot like that; and the tutor said that she clearly had enough experience not to need the more time-consuming series of tests she'd been putting the rest of the class through.

Now, Tegan was learning that university was very much not like school. She'd left the class with the admonition that if she needed help, she would be expected to ask for it; and that they were all responsible for making sure that they had understood what they were taught. But the thing that surprised her most was the realisation that she didn't have anything in her timetable until after lunch. So it seemed there was nothing better to do than return to Bentdick's – a name which made her glad she had heard it spoken aloud before she had an opportunity to mispronounce it.

It was like some of the hipster cafés she'd seen with her friends, all dark wood and exposed brick. Given that all of the university buildings seemed to be constructed into and on top of each other, she doubted there was any actual brickwork in their construction; so she could only assume that the slightly run-down atmosphere of the decor here was a deliberate choice to appeal to a specific clientele. There were chalkboard menus behind the counter – with a discrete QR code in the corner for anyone who wished to view the same information on their phones – and an eclectic mix of armchairs, office chairs, and wicker furniture clustered around an equally varied selection of small tables. When it came to proving that they weren't run by some corporate directors, Tegan thought, this place had maybe leaned the other way so hard that someone was likely to fall over.

She'd seen the place briefly before, when she was coming in through the pedestrian access on the third floor and leaving on the street level below, but now Tegan properly had time to check out the place. And as weird as it seemed, she found the faux struggling-local-business atmosphere was actually kind of endearing.

Theodora was easy to spot, her blonde hair shining in the sunbeams filtering through skylights. She was sitting with a group of four other students, and from a first glance Tegan guessed that she would be the youngest person around the table, while Theodora could have been the oldest. She hurried over, and a couple of the others joined in waving shortly after Theodora herself did.

"Tegan!" the older girl said, her infectious smile quickly spreading around the table. "Hi! Glad you found the place okay. Come meet everyone - this is my little gang of reprobates."

"Theo's told us there's a cool newcomer we should meet," one of the group said; a lanky guy with a mop of unruly dark hair. Tegan immediately started to feel self-conscious, almost questioning her determination to start her friendship group for the next three years here. But they all looked to be friendly, the kind who would say mean things and never mean it rather than talk about her behind her back, and she was sure that was exactly what she needed. She was a bit shy, but hoped she could make a good impression. As overwhelmed as she still felt by the newness of university life, she knew she needed to put herself out there and start building a social circle.