✏️ Under One Roof

9. One Meeting

This bonus chapter is dedicated to Clinton, with thanks again for all the support you gave me.

"Good morning, everybody!" a bouncy girl with shoulder-length blonde hair greeted them. Tegan found herself wondering if she was a student or a cheerleader, because everything about her body language said that she had a lot more enthusiasm than knowledge. "My name's Theodora, and I'm going to be introducing you to the wonderful world of Moistville today. We'll take a look around the campus, so that you can fully understand what life is like here before making your decisions and completing the paperwork. If you have any questions, just call out and I'll do my best to help you."

Tegan didn't say anything. Her mind was still full of questions, but none of them were really the kind of thing that she could ask a random representative of the university. In fact, most of the questions were things that she couldn't ask anybody except herself. They'd been buzzing around in her head all the way to Moistville, which was a longer drive than she had anticipated. And she hadn't expected Ness to be in the back of the car, either. Logan had insisted that he tag along, to see if he was capable of coping with university life, and that only raised more questions for Tegan. Like why he thought that studying would be a problem; was it because of behavioural issues like the way he had tried to humiliate her? Or, thinking back to the massive variety of books in his room, was he simply not capable of focusing on one thing deeply enough for academic study?

She knew she wouldn't get an answer to that, though, so they had sat in silence for the whole journey. Then Tegan had joined one of the tour groups for the late open day, while Logan had taken Ness off to meet some professor who was in charge of special educational needs. And now she was trying to focus on what she was being shown, in the hope that she could actually drum up some enthusiasm about studying here.

It wasn't Anchorage; she knew that. But it was still a university, and still had a music department. She'd looked up some of the staff, and seen a decent mixture of academic qualifications and industry experience. She was sure there would be something to learn, and a certificate at the end of the course as well. The only thing holding her back now was wondering whether it would be worth three years of her life. If she started now, it would be taking away any other options, and she wasn't sure what other possibilities might present themselves six months down the line. But then, she expected a lot of other people were in the same situation. And, of course, she had to wonder whether they would accept her. Most other universities had their student roster filled in months ago, so applying here was a hail mary for everyone around her; and she suspected that meant that the applications would be pretty tough. They would want to know why she was interested in the place, except through desperation, as well as why she hadn't applied earlier in the year.

The more she thought about this, the more it was stressing her out. A part of her expected that she would see the dilapidated facilities of an institution that hadn't been able to attract enough qualified students through the normal process, and had been telling herself that there would always be another option. But now, she was starting to see this as an opportunity that she really wanted. Even the campus was like nothing she had ever expected.

It was practically a city in itself. There were tall buildings entirely owned by the university; enough residences for all the students, as well as the stores that would support them. But since leaving Logan's car, she had barely seen any of the streets that connected the different areas. There were tunnels between the lower levels of many of the buildings, and bridges that stretched across between departments. It was like there was a completely separate street map for students on foot, as well as some dedicated bridges for the cyclists; and even a metro system, which looked more like a fleet of tiny elevators had decided to reject verticality and instead drifted along perspex tubes connecting some of the larger buildings high overhead. Everything was state of the art, and she could see why Moistville students and staff were all so proud of their campus.