The Spelling Test
My spelling is Wobbly. It's good spelling but it Wobbles, and the letters get in the wrong places. ~A. A. Milne
OOC Date: March 8, 2010
IC Date: Day 24, month 2, turn 22 of Interval 10.
Who: Rorkes, Gabrion
Where: Harper Classroom, HRW
Gabrion goes to Rorkes to make arrangements for his extra spelling lessons, and comes away with a song for the scavenger hunt.
A private tutoring session with a couple of promising Weyr boys is just wrapping up, the two of them turning their beat-up student guitars in again as Rorkes finishes handing out a couple of essays to them. "All right, that's all for today, then," he tells them as they head out the door. "Surrock, watch your spelling and handwriting; I could barely read some of this. And you, Hardin, keep practicing those chords I showed you. You're both doing great, though. I'll see you next week."
Someone has been lingering in the hallway for the last few minutes of the lesson; hearing the music, said someone elected not to interrupt. But when Rorkes dismisses his students, Gabrion appears in the doorway, a shy smile on his very colorfully bruised yellow-greeny-brown face. He lifts a hand to greet Rorkes, tentatively. "Um, hi?"
Somebody waiting on him, Rorkes does not expect; someone bruised up, certainly not. While his students hurry past Gabrion, the harper just stops, staring blankly at the boy. "Can I... help you?" he asks slowly. And, with a wry attempt at a smile, adds, "I think the High Reaches Home for Wayward Boys is the next door down, whatever you might have heard to the contrary."
Gabrion's smile fades, and he looks sour - offended. "I'm not wayward," he says defensively. "I'm - I'm supposed to schedule lessons with you, I guess. My name is Gabrion, I'm a healer apprentice and... and I really suck at spelling, so the hall said I have to get extra lessons, or something, because I can't get promoted to senior apprentice unless I do better at it."
"Oh. Sorry," says Rorkes, sheepish when Gabrion takes offense. "It was a joke, one in very poor taste. I just seem to be accumulating more than my share of beat-up kids these days. Though, to be fair, I always thought my share was none, so maybe we're just making up for lost time." It's not quite babbling, but there's certainly a vaguely nervous explanation in there, that culminates in a sort of relieved smile when Gabrion explains his errand. "Oh, spelling, then. Hmm. Do you have a few minutes now, and we can see about maybe a practice test to see where you're at, and then when might be a good time for us to schedule a regular lesson."
"Have other people gotten beat up?" Gabe asks, partly in alarm, and partly out of pure gossipy curiosity. "...I guess I could. Do a practice test," he agrees grudgingly. "I'm warning you though, I really suck at it."
"Oh, er. Only one, really," admits Rorkes. "A friend of mine--a rider, few years older than you. You probably don't know him." He shrugs it off then, steps back from the door and gestures Gabrion in. "Don't worry, I'm sure I've seen worse over the turns. And if you can write already, well. That's a big step up from some of the people I've taught--and not just the kids; the grown-ups too. My name's Rorkes, by the way."
Gabrion's mouth opens slightly and he gets an odd look on his face - guilt, maybe? At the 'don't worry' he shrugs, though. "I can write," he says. "We have to do these stu- we have to do reports sometimes. I wrote one a few months ago about epidemics. That's when a bunch of people get sick all at the same time," he explains.
Rorkes guesses, bemused, "Stupid reports?" He turns to head inside, stopping by his desk to lean back against it and nod toward one of the chairs nearby. "Pull up a seat and we'll see what we can do, then. Let's see, I have paper here, and ink, and..." A quick rummage through his papers turns up a small book, which he flips through idly. "All right, try these out for me and we'll see how you do," he says, as he finds the pages he's looking for and gives Gabrion some time to set up.
Gabrion takes a seat, and picks up the pen, looking as resigned as a man trudging off to a term in the mines. He smoothes the paper down with one hand, dips the pen into the ink, and looks up, waiting expectantly.
When Gabrion's all set up, Rorkes begins reading, going through a list of words that starts quite easy--bat, cat, rat--and gets harder from there as he increases the grade level. After a couple of dozen carefully enunciated words, he sets the book aside and straightens. "So, let's see how we did, shall we, Gabrion?"
Gabrion does reasonably well with the easy words. It's when they get multisyllabic that his handwriting gets progressively messier and his spelling progressively worse. At least you can usually tell what he meant, because the words are spelled more or less like they sound. He grimaces as he turns the paper so that Rorkes can see it, and sets the pen aside.
"Well." Rorkes begins slowly, eyes scanning the page as he checks over his new pupil's spelling. "What's that letter? Oh, nevermind, I see. Hmm. We might have to work on penmanship some, too; that's as big a problem as spelling, if I can't tell what your letters are to know they're right," he points out, after he finishes reading over it all. "But! I think we have things here to work on, and we'll be able to fix you up in no time. Would you be able to come in a couple of times a week? I can work around your schedule fairly well, I think; I have several openings and I think Surrock and Hardin's spots might be free soon, too, if I can get them in the hall."
Gabrion's mouth opens as if to protest, and then he shuts it again, looking rueful. "I can probably get them to work it out with my schedule, yeah. Seeing as the Hall said," he says. "How long at a time? Maybe if we did it right after lunch, or right at the end of the day, that would maybe be easiest. If you have time then."
Rorkes thinks about this a moment, and steps back over to his desk to check the calendar there. "Let's see. I have classes most days right after lunch, but I can do the end of the day just fine," he confirms. "I should say about an hour, maybe less depending on how it goes. I promise I won't keep you all night, making you spell a dictionary's worth of words for me."
"Okay," Gabe says, and cracks a grin. "Good, 'cause if you did I'd probably rebel, and nobody likes a rebellious teenager." He sounds like he's quoting something, at the last bit.
That just makes Rorkes wince in exaggerated fashion. "Oh, you don't have to tell me that. Imagine trying to teach a whole class of them, and you have half of my days, you know. It's enough to make a man turn in his knot." Beat. "That, or start sending a few of them /your/ way."
Gabrion scowls at Rorkes in his best approximation of a threatening expression. It's somewhat enhanced by the bruises on his face. Then he grins again. "Thanks - I think," he jokes. "No, seriously, thanks, I appreciate you taking the time." He gets up out of the chair, and then snaps his fingers, having just remembered something. "You're one of the scavenger hunt people, right?"
"Not a problem," Rorkes waves off all the thanks, with a small smile. "It's what I'm here for, after all. And Faranth knows I need something to occupy my time, else I'll be sitting at home dreading the day my girls are teenagers, too," he jokes. As for the latter, he makes a face, but nods. "My oldest girl, Amdis, talked me into trying my hand at it again. I wasn't going to, after I got called back to the hall unexpectedly last time, and didn't really get to give anything out, but."
"What're we supposed to get from you?" Gabe asks, head tilted. "Maybe I could grab one now? I mean, since I'm here and all."
Rorkes hesitates, then confesses, "A song, actually. My other daughter's idea. She seems to have much faith in my abilities, possibly undeservedly so. Shall I play you one, then, or would you rather I just copy you out something--that'd certainly be easier to prove, at least." He shrugs. "I'm afraid I may not have thought this through very well. You're the first person to catch me for it--not that I've been hiding, exactly, but, ah." He looks a little guilty himself then.
"Oh, really?" Gabe looks thoughtful for a moment; then the look turns wicked. "Well, you could teach whoever asks a naughty song they could sing, to prove they got it from you?" he suggests, and slides his hands into his pockets and smiles angelically.
Rorkes laughs at that, shakes his head. "And you think I know any of those?" he wonders. "If I ever did, back in my wild years before I got married, I think I must have forgotten them all. Now it's just nursery rhymes and nonsense for my daughters. But... I may have a little something squirreled, all the same."
Gabrion snaps his fingers. "Thought I'd ask," he says with a smirk, though his eyebrows go up, intrigued, when Rorkes says he has something after all. "Yeah? You do?"
"It's nothing much," says Rorkes. He eyes Gabrion, sizes him up for a moment. "I'm sure you've heard worse, or at least I'm sure I had, by the time I was your age. But here." He rummages through one of the notebooks scattered around his desk until he finds what he's looking for: a well-defined melody line, but sketched-out lyrics at best. Nothing explicit, certainly, but maybe not the most family-friendly material. "It was going to be for my, er, wife," is Rorkes' defense, as he blushes. "But then I thought she might not appreciate it. And Faranth knows I'm not going to finish it--don't want to, can't, whichever--so I might as well give it to somebody who can maybe use it."
Gabrion is hardly a critic, when it comes to music. He scans the lyrics and his eyebrows go up even further, and he grins with delight. "/Awesome/," he says. "Hey, thanks!"
The praise only makes Rorkes blush more, and he rubs the back of his neck and tries not to look too awkward. "Ah, you're welcome, of course. Happy to help? Is there anything else, or...?" So much for not looking too uncomfortable, with his work handed out.
Gabrion shakes his head. "Nope. I'll see you, well, see you when it's time for spelling lessons." Joy. That takes the edge off Gabrion's glee at the song, but he does flash another grin as he lifts his hand in a wave and scoots out of the room.
"Right, right. Until then," says Rorkes, as he watches Gabrion leave. It takes him a few minutes to recover enough then to pencil in their lessons in his planner, then gather up all his stuff and follow suit.
OOC Date: March 8, 2010
IC Date: Day 24, month 2, turn 22 of Interval 10.
Who: Rorkes, Gabrion
Where: Harper Classroom, HRW
Gabrion goes to Rorkes to make arrangements for his extra spelling lessons, and comes away with a song for the scavenger hunt.
A private tutoring session with a couple of promising Weyr boys is just wrapping up, the two of them turning their beat-up student guitars in again as Rorkes finishes handing out a couple of essays to them. "All right, that's all for today, then," he tells them as they head out the door. "Surrock, watch your spelling and handwriting; I could barely read some of this. And you, Hardin, keep practicing those chords I showed you. You're both doing great, though. I'll see you next week."
Someone has been lingering in the hallway for the last few minutes of the lesson; hearing the music, said someone elected not to interrupt. But when Rorkes dismisses his students, Gabrion appears in the doorway, a shy smile on his very colorfully bruised yellow-greeny-brown face. He lifts a hand to greet Rorkes, tentatively. "Um, hi?"
Somebody waiting on him, Rorkes does not expect; someone bruised up, certainly not. While his students hurry past Gabrion, the harper just stops, staring blankly at the boy. "Can I... help you?" he asks slowly. And, with a wry attempt at a smile, adds, "I think the High Reaches Home for Wayward Boys is the next door down, whatever you might have heard to the contrary."
Gabrion's smile fades, and he looks sour - offended. "I'm not wayward," he says defensively. "I'm - I'm supposed to schedule lessons with you, I guess. My name is Gabrion, I'm a healer apprentice and... and I really suck at spelling, so the hall said I have to get extra lessons, or something, because I can't get promoted to senior apprentice unless I do better at it."
"Oh. Sorry," says Rorkes, sheepish when Gabrion takes offense. "It was a joke, one in very poor taste. I just seem to be accumulating more than my share of beat-up kids these days. Though, to be fair, I always thought my share was none, so maybe we're just making up for lost time." It's not quite babbling, but there's certainly a vaguely nervous explanation in there, that culminates in a sort of relieved smile when Gabrion explains his errand. "Oh, spelling, then. Hmm. Do you have a few minutes now, and we can see about maybe a practice test to see where you're at, and then when might be a good time for us to schedule a regular lesson."
"Have other people gotten beat up?" Gabe asks, partly in alarm, and partly out of pure gossipy curiosity. "...I guess I could. Do a practice test," he agrees grudgingly. "I'm warning you though, I really suck at it."
"Oh, er. Only one, really," admits Rorkes. "A friend of mine--a rider, few years older than you. You probably don't know him." He shrugs it off then, steps back from the door and gestures Gabrion in. "Don't worry, I'm sure I've seen worse over the turns. And if you can write already, well. That's a big step up from some of the people I've taught--and not just the kids; the grown-ups too. My name's Rorkes, by the way."
Gabrion's mouth opens slightly and he gets an odd look on his face - guilt, maybe? At the 'don't worry' he shrugs, though. "I can write," he says. "We have to do these stu- we have to do reports sometimes. I wrote one a few months ago about epidemics. That's when a bunch of people get sick all at the same time," he explains.
Rorkes guesses, bemused, "Stupid reports?" He turns to head inside, stopping by his desk to lean back against it and nod toward one of the chairs nearby. "Pull up a seat and we'll see what we can do, then. Let's see, I have paper here, and ink, and..." A quick rummage through his papers turns up a small book, which he flips through idly. "All right, try these out for me and we'll see how you do," he says, as he finds the pages he's looking for and gives Gabrion some time to set up.
Gabrion takes a seat, and picks up the pen, looking as resigned as a man trudging off to a term in the mines. He smoothes the paper down with one hand, dips the pen into the ink, and looks up, waiting expectantly.
When Gabrion's all set up, Rorkes begins reading, going through a list of words that starts quite easy--bat, cat, rat--and gets harder from there as he increases the grade level. After a couple of dozen carefully enunciated words, he sets the book aside and straightens. "So, let's see how we did, shall we, Gabrion?"
Gabrion does reasonably well with the easy words. It's when they get multisyllabic that his handwriting gets progressively messier and his spelling progressively worse. At least you can usually tell what he meant, because the words are spelled more or less like they sound. He grimaces as he turns the paper so that Rorkes can see it, and sets the pen aside.
"Well." Rorkes begins slowly, eyes scanning the page as he checks over his new pupil's spelling. "What's that letter? Oh, nevermind, I see. Hmm. We might have to work on penmanship some, too; that's as big a problem as spelling, if I can't tell what your letters are to know they're right," he points out, after he finishes reading over it all. "But! I think we have things here to work on, and we'll be able to fix you up in no time. Would you be able to come in a couple of times a week? I can work around your schedule fairly well, I think; I have several openings and I think Surrock and Hardin's spots might be free soon, too, if I can get them in the hall."
Gabrion's mouth opens as if to protest, and then he shuts it again, looking rueful. "I can probably get them to work it out with my schedule, yeah. Seeing as the Hall said," he says. "How long at a time? Maybe if we did it right after lunch, or right at the end of the day, that would maybe be easiest. If you have time then."
Rorkes thinks about this a moment, and steps back over to his desk to check the calendar there. "Let's see. I have classes most days right after lunch, but I can do the end of the day just fine," he confirms. "I should say about an hour, maybe less depending on how it goes. I promise I won't keep you all night, making you spell a dictionary's worth of words for me."
"Okay," Gabe says, and cracks a grin. "Good, 'cause if you did I'd probably rebel, and nobody likes a rebellious teenager." He sounds like he's quoting something, at the last bit.
That just makes Rorkes wince in exaggerated fashion. "Oh, you don't have to tell me that. Imagine trying to teach a whole class of them, and you have half of my days, you know. It's enough to make a man turn in his knot." Beat. "That, or start sending a few of them /your/ way."
Gabrion scowls at Rorkes in his best approximation of a threatening expression. It's somewhat enhanced by the bruises on his face. Then he grins again. "Thanks - I think," he jokes. "No, seriously, thanks, I appreciate you taking the time." He gets up out of the chair, and then snaps his fingers, having just remembered something. "You're one of the scavenger hunt people, right?"
"Not a problem," Rorkes waves off all the thanks, with a small smile. "It's what I'm here for, after all. And Faranth knows I need something to occupy my time, else I'll be sitting at home dreading the day my girls are teenagers, too," he jokes. As for the latter, he makes a face, but nods. "My oldest girl, Amdis, talked me into trying my hand at it again. I wasn't going to, after I got called back to the hall unexpectedly last time, and didn't really get to give anything out, but."
"What're we supposed to get from you?" Gabe asks, head tilted. "Maybe I could grab one now? I mean, since I'm here and all."
Rorkes hesitates, then confesses, "A song, actually. My other daughter's idea. She seems to have much faith in my abilities, possibly undeservedly so. Shall I play you one, then, or would you rather I just copy you out something--that'd certainly be easier to prove, at least." He shrugs. "I'm afraid I may not have thought this through very well. You're the first person to catch me for it--not that I've been hiding, exactly, but, ah." He looks a little guilty himself then.
"Oh, really?" Gabe looks thoughtful for a moment; then the look turns wicked. "Well, you could teach whoever asks a naughty song they could sing, to prove they got it from you?" he suggests, and slides his hands into his pockets and smiles angelically.
Rorkes laughs at that, shakes his head. "And you think I know any of those?" he wonders. "If I ever did, back in my wild years before I got married, I think I must have forgotten them all. Now it's just nursery rhymes and nonsense for my daughters. But... I may have a little something squirreled, all the same."
Gabrion snaps his fingers. "Thought I'd ask," he says with a smirk, though his eyebrows go up, intrigued, when Rorkes says he has something after all. "Yeah? You do?"
"It's nothing much," says Rorkes. He eyes Gabrion, sizes him up for a moment. "I'm sure you've heard worse, or at least I'm sure I had, by the time I was your age. But here." He rummages through one of the notebooks scattered around his desk until he finds what he's looking for: a well-defined melody line, but sketched-out lyrics at best. Nothing explicit, certainly, but maybe not the most family-friendly material. "It was going to be for my, er, wife," is Rorkes' defense, as he blushes. "But then I thought she might not appreciate it. And Faranth knows I'm not going to finish it--don't want to, can't, whichever--so I might as well give it to somebody who can maybe use it."
Gabrion is hardly a critic, when it comes to music. He scans the lyrics and his eyebrows go up even further, and he grins with delight. "/Awesome/," he says. "Hey, thanks!"
The praise only makes Rorkes blush more, and he rubs the back of his neck and tries not to look too awkward. "Ah, you're welcome, of course. Happy to help? Is there anything else, or...?" So much for not looking too uncomfortable, with his work handed out.
Gabrion shakes his head. "Nope. I'll see you, well, see you when it's time for spelling lessons." Joy. That takes the edge off Gabrion's glee at the song, but he does flash another grin as he lifts his hand in a wave and scoots out of the room.
"Right, right. Until then," says Rorkes, as he watches Gabrion leave. It takes him a few minutes to recover enough then to pencil in their lessons in his planner, then gather up all his stuff and follow suit.