2019-03-10 - A New Student Appears: The Sequel

Summary:

Peter Parker continues helping Kori Anderson adapt to Midtown High.

Log Info:

Storyteller: Spider-Man
Date: 2019-03-10
Location: Midtown High

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Theme Song

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Lunch was a very animated scene. Peter had explained the concept of the sneeze guard (guarding against contamination, not theft), the rough assessment of the groups on campus, and a couple of sobering lessons about sarcasm and mockery (no, he was not really royalty; no, the cheerleaders were not his concubines).

Kori was an enigma. She said she was from Malta, but the tiny hiccups in her story were growing in his mind. There was a special otherworldliness about her. He was going to have to pull out his Intro to Communication text from last year and give it to her.

The rouladen was good—slightly bitter to the taste, but a good dish overall. He glanced over to Kori to see if she was enjoying it.

~~

Kori's table manners are … off. She eats some food with fingers and some with awkward mis-use of fork and knife. Her posture is perfect but she doesn't have any problem slurping up leftover pan sauces. Not any one thing that says 'this woman is unrefined or rude' but just a series of tiny little stacking observations that suggest she's *definitely* not a local.

"Friend Peter, I think I am having 'the understanding'," Kori concludes. She finishes her bite of food and casts her gaze around the cafeteria. Thank God Peter was able to convince her not to near-shout everything. "The jacketed ones are your warrior caste, strong but mentally inadequate," she says, and aims a spoon at the jocks. "The pretty ones in the matching skirts are the leadeers of the cheering." She identifies a few other cliques that Peter's laid out. So far, the two of them are getting a mixed bag of uncertain looks from the other students. Koriand'r seems completely unphased by the glares and rebukes and curious glances, responding to all eye contact with a pleasantly warm smile.

"It is unfortunate for you at this juncture that you are not a 'the jock'," she tells Peter. "They seem to be largely socially dominant. My home p-country has similar castes. However a warrior is not honored until they survive a battle, so we might best know their quality. Recruits are considered worthless until that time."

~~

Peter looks thoughtful. "Personalities notwithstanding, they *are* a well-trained team. Out of the last twelve games they have played, they have won eleven of them. They are not life-and-death battles, but injuries are commonplace, and the strategies employed are similar to major battles."

He doesn't even seem to mind that one of them nearly sucker-punched him not ten minutes ago.

"You know, Kori, I'm not a complete pariah. I do have friends. Those guys that were waving earlier are part of the science club. Some very smart people there."

A new voice coming from behind Peter says, "Methinks the boy doth speak far too little of himself."

Peter turned and blinked.

The teenage girl behind Peter is…compelling. Dark red hair the color of heart's blood, green eyes alight with humor, a heart-shaped face, a body possessed of health, warmth, and a little innocent sensuality. She wears a t-shirt with an arrow pointing up and says, "LOOK UP THERE TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY." Skinny jeans, new tennis shoes, and a gold bracelet complete the ensemble.

Peter blinked, then smiled crookedly and stands up. "Oh! Hi, MJ." He turns to Kori, then back to the other redhead. "MJ, I'd like you to meet a recent transfer from overseas. Her name is Kori." He looks to Kori. "Kori…I want you to meet a good friend of mine. Mary Jane Watson."
Mary Jane smiles and offers her hand to Kori. "My friends call me MJ. I would like you to, as well."

~~

Kori gives MJ the same puppyish, enthusiastic smile she's given everyone. The handshake is given a look for half a beat before Kori remembers what to do and she shakes MJ's hand with great solemnity.

"Then you must call me Kori," Kori assures MJ. "My full name is Kori Anderson, but Peter has been explaining to me how important diminutives are. For instance, Peter Parker is for formal occassions, and I should call him 'Peter' or 'Pete'. But not 'Petey' or 'PDQ' or 'King of the Nerds'," Kori clarifies.

"Or Little League, skinnybritches, Peter Dorker, or— 'Penis Parker'," she concludes. "Which confuses me, because he claims he is male and that is a common component of male anatomy here, isn't it? Unless," it occurs to her, "his sexual organs are so notable that they are worth of special mention." She gives Mary Jane a look of owlish curiousity. "Do you have any thoughts on that?"

~~

MJ is smiling as Kori introduces herself. She blinks as she goes into detail…after detail…and then she does into TMI territory and MJ's smile drops. She tilts her head speculatively and says, "First off, that is a little more information than can be discussed in polite company. He and I have dated, but we never got THAT far." She looked to him. "Let's see…out of six dates, you were late for…"

Peter sighed. "Five of them."

"And what happened on the sixth?"

Peter looked to his now-empty plate. "I didn't show."

MJ nodded, then looked to Kori. "He's a decent guy, but he'd be late to his own funeral."

~~

Kori nods at MJ. Then: "Those are not days of the year where tardiness is acceptable?"

Language integration is a work in process.

"I am also unclear how someone can be late for their own funeral." She looks skywards in sincere though, a finger resting on the tip of her chin. "Unless the person transporting a corpse was unavoidably delayed by circumstance," she conjectures. "But on the other hand, a funeral without a corpse is not a funeral anymore, is it? So by definition a funeral cannot start until the corpse has arrived."

~~

MJ gazes at her, then looks to Peter. "She serious?"

Peter shrugs. "Different social upbringing, and English is not her first language."

"Uh-huh." She looks to Kori. "I guess he hasn't covered the concepts of metaphor and similes yet. It's like when you….hmm. YOU tell her, Peter, you're MUCH better at it."

Peter chuckled. "MJ is trying to explain the concept of metaphor. Using an example to convey an idea. The metaphor here is that I am so unforgivably late to everything, that I would be late to an event I should not logically be late for."

~~

"Oh!"

Kori thinks about that for a minute, then bursts out laughing. It's an utterly uninhibited sound and carries easily. "That is so the funny!" she declares, eyes glistening with good humor. "I understand now. You are very clever," she tells Peter. "Thank you for explaining it to me."

She looks from Peter to MJ. "So you are doing a 'the dating', yes?" she confirms. "I have heard this term on the televised vision system. It is… a mating ritual which leads to copulation, and eventually to matrimony and a 'sub-urban residence'," she says, carefully elocuting her words.

~~

Peter blushes FURIOUSLY. MJ smiles sadly. "Yeah, Kori, except we never really got that far. Peter's sweet, he's just…well, he's not very reliable. He's the epitome of the stereotype of the absent-minded professor." She shrugs. "It didn't work out between us. As you can see, we're still friends."

Peter nods, looking wistful. Then he looks over MJ's shoulder and blinks. "Oh, my gosh, HARRY?"

MJ's eyes widen and she turns to look at the new person approaching the table. He is thin with a thin face, but he is jovial and smiling, as if having told a good joke and enjoying the reactions to the punchline.

"PETESKY," the new arrival says, and Peter, who should be put off by the use of the name, stands up and hugs the man brusquely, clapping his back.

MJ leans towards Kori. "That's Harry Osborn. His father owns that big multi-national company OsCorp."

~~

Kori leans towards MJ, watching the boys embrace one another. "I do not understand how one can be a professor absent a mind. Or how Harry is Peter's 'the gosh'," she says, out the side of her mouth. "They do seem very affectionate with one another, do they not?"

She remains seated because no one's told her otherwise about standing up to meet people. She doesn't seem like the height differential makes her feel very vulnerable, though. When Pete and Harry break, she flashes a megawatt smile at Harry. "Greetings, Harry Osborne. I am pleased to make of you the acquaintancing. I am Kori Anderson," she tells him.

~~

MJ says quickly, "Another metaphor. Pete should work with you on those." She smiles gently. "Peter's probably the best friend Harry has, because he doesn't care about Harry's money. Harry could probably BUY your entire island, but Peter couldn't care less."

Peter ends the hug, then leads Harry to where Kori is seated. Harry is surprised at Kori's stature. "Wow. They grow 'em pretty big in…Malta, right?"
Peter nodded. "She's new and I'm helping her out."

Harry nodded, then smiled to Kori. A roguish smile, but not a mean one. "You're in excellent hands, then, Kori. Peter's the smartest guy in the room. Maybe the school. He's got an IQ of 250. Now, you have to have at least 180 to be considered a genius."

Peter is still blushing slightly. "Harry, are you done embarrassing me?"

Harry grins. "ALMOST done." He winks to Kori. "I saw you out on the football field. If anyone hasn't approached you about joining the athletics program for one of the MANY sports they have here, they will before too long."

~~

"I don't have an island," Kori whispers back at MJ in confusion. But then Harry's addressing her in a friendly fashion. "Yes, I have been told my height inspires madness," she explains to Harry.

There's a beat and she looks at the others. "The barista at the Star Buck said I am 'crazy tall'," she says, with exaggerated finger quotes.

"I am unsure if I wish to participate in the ritual war games," she tells Harry. "Your The Coach was most unpleasant and there are many rules and courtesies that I am unfamiliar with. I am also afraid I would hurt someone, the people playing games here are terribly fragile."

She stands up suddenly and waves. When she doesn't get the reaction she anticipated, she cups her hands to her mouth. "EUGENE THOMPSON!" she bellows. The gym goes *dead* silent and everyone looks at her— including a sheepish Flash trying to sneak into the buffet line. "I AM SORRY FOR THROWING THE FOOTED BALL TOO HARD AND WOUNDING YOUR MALE MAMMARIES!"

Laughter explodes from the cafeteria and a furious Flash dives into the buffet line to hide from the laughter.

"Peter has impressed me with his knowledge," Kori tells Harry, like nothing had happened. She settles back into her seat. "He seems highly educated on a number of topics. He has been helping me understand metaphors, lab safety, and has promised to teach me how to be a woman!"

A student walking past with tray in hand almost drops their meal and looks from Kori to Peter to back again, with wide eyes, and then scurries off to their more distant table.

~~

Harry and MJ seem amused by the inadvertent humiliation of Flash, then nod approvingly at her assessment of his intellect.

Then Kori drops the last comment like a kid dropping an M-80, think it is a firecracker. SLOWLY THEY TURN to look at Peter, who is standing there with his mouth slightly ajar.

Their reactions are different. MJ's eyes narrow at him, and she says suspiciously sweetly, "Peter, I sincerely hope she does NOT mean what I think she means…"

Harry, on the other hand, chuckled under his breath. "Petey, you DOG!"

Peter holds up his hands, wishing he was somewhere else, dodging hails of gunfire. You know, where it's SAFER. "Whoa whoa whoa whoa WHOA! It's not like that!" He looks to Kori. "Kori, tell them that we're just friends, okay? We only just met this morning!"

~~

"We are just 'the friends', and we only just met in this 'the morning'," Kori tells MJ and Harry with an dutiful nod of assent.

"Perhaps some context would help!" she suggests, brightening. It's not hard to sense the sudden turn in Pete's composure or the duality of expressions from MJ and Harry. "I was obtaining from him the digits of his phone," she begins. "And then we were proceeding from the football field after the The Coach made my presence feel unwelcome. I remarked how the players were no doubt envious of Peter's enhanced intellect compared to their raw physical attributes, and reassured him that intellect is a more favorable trait." She rolls her eyes skywards in recollection.

"And then he said I was powerful and athletic and told me 'this is a-do-le-scence', which confused me, because this is high school, and he explained then that we are in the process of becoming the 'an adult' and he would tell me all the things I need to know about becoming the 'a woman'."

~~

MJ's face relaxed. She even had the good grace to look a little sheepish. "I'm…I'm sorry, Peter. I should have remembered who you were."

Harry, on the other hand, looked disappointed. "Ah, well…I suppose you can't help being you. Although I could have given you a few POINTERS…"

Peter looked to Harry. "Aren't you dating that Swedish model?"

Harry sighed. "Turned out she was high-maintenance and expected me to pay for EVERYTHING. Including her trip to Aruba with her male 'best friend,' whom she assured me was JUST a friend. Found out she was sleeping with him." He rubbed his face, looking almost supremely saddened. Then he looked at MJ and Peter, and something in him warmed. It is easy for Kori to tell how much Peter and MJ means to this lonely heir to the OsCorp dynasty.

"So, Pete…are you going to be chasing Spider-Man again?"

~~

There's a lot of Harry's diatribe that goes right over Kori's head, but for once she opts to merely be silent and nod. It's a good default move because no one stops to inquire why she's confused about the gift of pointers, MJ's amnesia, female maintenance, and the issues of cohabitation and sleeping.

Honestly it'd be enough to drive some people crazy.

Kori tilts her head sharply at Harry's question and gives Peter a quizzical look. "Ooh! I know 'The Spider-Man'!" she gasps. "I have seem him on Me Tubes," she clarifies. "He is a little on the small side, but has the buttocks of the tautness!" A high-pitched squee escapes her voice. "But I do not think he is actually a spider, given his lack of a segmented thorax and that he has only four limbs. It is possible the The Spider-Man is in his larval state, yes?"

~~

Peter blinks, startled. Harry comes to the rescue. "Yeah, I think he looks human. It's just the powers, you know. I bet he's some handsome young guy with those hero looks, the whole nine yards. That's a metaphor to mean 'everything,' Kori."
Peter says helpfully, "I have a theory that he is a human/spider hybrid. Genetically engineered in some lab."

MJ rolled her eyes. "Talk to me about SHAKESPEARE. THAT topic I understand."

Harry turned back to Kori. "Yeah, there's some footage of him in Central Park stopping a bunch of armed robbers in a new suit. Probably a good idea, that old suit looked like it was made out of scrap cloth."

"Didn't stop him from saving all those people two months ago," MJ said with a wry look.

~~

"I do not know this hero Shakespeare," Kori tells the trio sadly. "He sounds most mighty if he foiled thieves in a new suit, though! And quite dapper, I am sure," she adds.

"But on the topic of Spider-Man, it seems Friend Harry has made the most logical deduction," she points out. "It is less likely that he is a maimed giant arachnid."

"Friend MJ, what is it you aspire to do after completing the High Schools?" she inquires of her fellow redhead. "Peter says he intends to do the sciencing and Harry is… a prince of some kind?" she hazards.

~~

Harry chuckles. "You'd think so. But royalty ain't all it's cracked up to be. Dad doesn't think much of me coming down here and escaping the tutors to hang around with my friends. And I think he'd rather have PETER as a son than ME."

"Harry, take it easy," Peter said uncomfortably.

"He keeps after me to convince you to work for OsCorp after graduation. Wants me to bring you over for dinner. I swear, I don't know which he wants worse, you or Spider-Man."

"He wants Spider-Man?" Peter blurted out.

Harry nods. "Yeah. I think he wants to vivisect the guy to see what makes him tick." He sighs. "Sorry, I should be leaving the drama to MJ. She's going to be an award-winning actress in ten years."

"FIVE years, Harry." She grins to Kori. "Yep. I'm even in the school play. Playing Helen of Troy in the play FAUST. It's about a guy who sells his soul for power."

~~

"Oh oh oh! I know of this 'theater' idea!" Kori says, excitedly. "It was on the televisions. I thought a rendition of The Romeo and The Juliet was customary however," she confesses. "I was not aware of other programs." She frowns. "And often it seems the only part of that story that anyone is interested in is an opportunity for the actors to kiss, especially over some deep and lingering tension. The overall story is very depressing," she observes. "Everyone dies horribly and no one is happy. The infatuations seem to create much hardship for the students in the high schools."

~~

MJ smirks. "Well, Shakespeare is not a hero. He's a playwright that lived hundreds of years ago. His plays were designed to appeal to the people of his time, but he was a brilliant author." She leans closer to Kori. "Maybe sometime next week you can convince Pete to bring you to the theatre while we are reheasing."

Harry hmmed. "I'd like to see that myself."

"You just want to see me in a skimpy Greek dress." MJ shook her head. "Peter the Brain, and Harry the Ego. See what I have to deal with?"

~~

"I would enjoy that, I think," Kori agrees. She wags her chin at MJ with a nod of agreement and then looks to Peter. "If you would not mind helping me find the rehearsals. I do not wish to offend someone again by walking into the wrong place at the wrong time. The players all seemed very upset."

She finishes her lunch and sets the tray aside. There's a *dingalingaling* of the school bells ringing and she looks around in puzzlement as students rise and start shuffling out, dumping their trays as they go. "Where is everyone going?"

~~

Harry looks around. "I better get back to OsCorp. I'll have the driver pick me up."

MJ nods. "I have to go to Algebra. What about you, Peter?"

"I have to get to the Bugle. Spider-Man stopped a bank robbery this morning and I have to get the pictures sold at the Bugle. I have to make sure the lights stay on and the water still runs at our house, so everything I get goes to ConEd." He looked to Kori. "Your next class is down that hall, I think. You have my number. You have any kind of question at all, text me and I'll try to answer, okay?"

~~

Kori digs in her small bookbag for her schedule and reviews it. She brightens immediately. "Oh, joyous day!" she cries. "Friend MJ, I too have The Algebra class. Hooray! We shall learn how to do the variables and the graphings," she informs MJ.

"I am in your debt, friend Peter. I shall text your number with my questions for any assistance." She embraces Peter with another bone cracking hug, then Harry gets the same, holding both off the ground. "I will follow you the class, friend MJ!" And off they go!

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