[Roosevelt High] "Well, Miss - " the woman on the other side of the phone paused, provisional. "Usually we like to have our volunteers commit to one school. It's important that the students create a relationship with you. I do have a few places where you can fill in - see how things go. Though the schools you mentioned," another pause, this one more delicate, " -well, how do I say this? Those are difficult neighborhoods. You might feel more comfortable in the elementary schools than you would in the high schools."
---
It took Moira the better part of three days to find a volunteer program that provided volunteer assistance to the nutrition programs in Chicago's inner city schools. That was with the assistance of two of her former colleagues from Hill House, pouring through the lists of their contacts, searching out old acquaintances, all with a certain delicate sense of timing, with care that the search be as bare bones, as passing, as unremarkable as possible.
In the end, she found the number for Our Schools, Our Selves, attached to "one of those storefront churches" in the inner city, an outgrowth of the PTA of Roosevelt High School, run on a shoe-string budget from a storefront in one of Chicago's blasted inner city neighborhoods, with a handful of volunteers and interns, no paid staff.
Over the course of two weeks, Moira volunteered at three elementary schools in inner city Chicago. The lunchroom staff took one look at her and assigned her the task of handing out milk, apparently mistrusting her with the scooping of creamed corn on the serving of biscuits or the slopping of gravy. If nothing else, the time she spent at each of the schools was a depressing experience. The school lunches included little in the way of fruits and vegetables, despite the requirements of the USDA. Fully fifty percent of the calorie content came from the Whole Heart Foods donations - fat and carbs, carbs and fat, all of it, used to extend the reach of minimal amounts of fatty, second-rate meats. Except for a few bright points, the children were dull, sluggish on the diet, with little in the way of fiber or nutrients.
Now - five a.m., Monday morning, Roosevelt High School - a huge red brick building that dominates a whole city block in Cabrini-Green. There are chains for basketball nets on the courts on the asphalt yard, and a huge chain-link fence topped with loops of razorwire tha make the high school look like a jail. Even at this early hour of the morning, a bored-looking security guard mans a metal detector at the front door, and waves Moira in with a wand. It is early enough that there are no students arriving yet, but a handful of teachers and other staff are either waiting in line, or already through.
"You're new." The guard, a sallow-skinned woman notes, stifling as yawn as Moira climbs the steps and enters the school by the front entrance. " - got a school ID card, already, honey?"
[Moira Murray] Moira assessed the school grounds and the large red brick building that dominated an entire block with disdain. Her head shook as she made her way to the front door and the bored security guard. Eyes flicking over him as her hand came to rest on the strap of the canvas messenger bag bouncing at her hip. She kept her clothing to a nice casual dress that would allow her to fit in with the teachers she's seen around the place.
Her throat clears as he called her 'honey', a slight furrow of eyebrows as she pins a look on the haggard woman. "No, ma'am, I haven't received a school ID card yet. I was instructed that I would need to receive one from inside the school."
She offers the security guard a bright smile, "And yes, I am new." Cheery and polite.
[Roosevelt High] "Well, then - " the security guard picked up a clip board from the industrial looking faux-wood desk beside the metal detector, something surplus from the 1970s, with peeling plastic veneers and a certain aura of abused neglect about it. One that matched the school, one that matched the vague, half-sickening scent in the air - some mixture of industrial disinfectant, grease, and sewer gas. " - why don't you just sign yourself in here, and scoot on over to the vice principal's office and get yourself an ID card."
The clip board says, VISITOR'S LOG in capital letters across the top of the printed page, the date alongside. No other visitors have signed in, so early in the morning.
[Moira Murray] Moira receives the clipboard from the Security Guard, handling it with ease as she pulls out a pen from her pocket to use instead of the one provided. Her hands covered in leather gloves to protect against the cold air. She paused for a second to think on a name and writes it down. The penmanship different than she normally signs her signature, a little messier as she uses her right hand (off-hand) to write it. The name 'Caitlin Tasgall' scribbled onto the first line of the visitor's log. She hands the registry back to the Security Guard, nodding once.
She lifts up her bag, taking it off and opening it up for the woman to search through without making a comment, showing little resistance at all to make the process go faster. She carries nothing suspicious in the way of items or weapons that would lead the metal detector to set off. Once this was finished, Moira collected up her things, and pulled the strap over her head again as she walks off to the vice principal's office.
[Roosevelt High] The process is quick; painless. The vice-principal is a dowdy looking white man with a significant gut and a balding pate and a suit that appears to be made entirely from polyester. The fabric is so slick, so unnatural, so manufactured that it looks like an oddly scratchy brown oilslick has engulfed his rotund figure. He asks for her driver's license with a sort of bored disinterest, then directs her to stand in front of a flat, off-white blind as he takes her picture.
Four minutes later, Caitlin Tasgall is walking down the wide central hallway of the still-empty high school by herself, the ID card still warm from the laminating machine hanging around her neck by a cheap plastic lanyard. She has directions to the cafeteria in the bowels of the school, and finds it easily enough. There are signs posted on some of the walls, although at least half of these have been vandalized, tagged or other defaced and never replaced. The scent of meat - nameless, fatty - and the sort of dry-dust scent of pulverized oatmeal, glutenous porridge, fills the air as she approaches. The serving lines open onto the commons, but all of the tables have been folded up and pushed back against the walls. Though the lights are largely off in the school, light does spill out from into the commones from the serving lines, and the kitchen somewhere behind the hotlines. Moira can hear the sound of metal utensils against metal pots, the low call of voices back and forth, beneath the kitchen din.
There's another security guard idling in the far corner of the commons, seated at one of the few tables not yet folded up, drinking coffee from a paper cup. If she glances at him, Moira finds him looking at her - a reasonably attractive man, white, with dark hair beneath a blue ballcap that says SECURITY in white letters across the brim. He doesn't gesture her closer, just tips his hat to her as she walks past.
[Moira Murray] She has to do her best to keep down the bile that wants to rise in the back of her throat as she stares in quiet horror at the appearance of the vice principal. She had expected something... different. The necessity of home school had not prepared Moira for this type of environment. She was lucky to have never experienced the public education system, and yet missed some of the social aspects of it.
Moira provides the "appropriate driver's license" for a Caitlin Tasgall that had her face on it. The alternate identity had proven useful in the past and she kept it renewed for such purposes, seeing as Moira Murray couldn't drive at all, and she used her mother's maiden name on all her official documents, not her father's surname, Tasgall.
She accepts the new ID, turning it over between her fingers as she made her way down the halls. Her eyes turning up and down, left to right, drinking in the state of the building. The lines of her mouth curl downward, saddened by the decrepit state of the high school. She brings a hand up to her nose, pinching at it as she reached the serving lines.
Her eyes taking in the male security guard sitting at a table, having coffee. He tips his hat to her in greeting, Moira nods to him. She feigns the prettiest smile she can for the male guard, saying nothing to him when she passes him. She continues on towards the kitchens, looking for someone to speak to.
[Roosevelt High] The serving lines are closed down, the stainless steel perhaps less than gleaming, the inserts in the steamtable covered, the lights off. Beyond the steam table, the kitchen is a large, open room - though small, really, compared to the amount of equipment contained therein, compared to the number of students served by the school. She sees three woman in the kitchen, all of the middle-aged or older, one white, two African-American. The three of them are heavy, and already look exhausted from the morning's work. One is pulling biscuits out of an industrial oven, another tends to a huge metal griddle covered in cheap sausage patties, monitoring and flipping them, flipping and monitoring them. The third, closest to the steam tables of fronting the serving lines, tends a great expanse of bubbling steel cauldrons. She is the oldest of the three, and has a stooped-over appearance, her back bent, her movements the restricted, pain-marked movements of an arthritis patient. She is dressed in a pair of second-hand Crocs, blaze orange, and a flower-patterned dress under a white apron. When Moira enters the room, she looks up with distinct frown - consideration, thoughtfulness, rather than disdain - and then lets out a loud, whooping sort of laugh, born deep in her chest.
" - I know you ain't the volunteer they said we was getting today. Are you, child?" Then, when the answer is confirmed by the most minute of gestures from Moira, the laugh deepens. " - well, honey, you sure you up to it? This ain't ornamental work. S'gonna be hard."
[Moira Murray] The dark haired kin was quickly recovering from the slight shell-shock she experiences every time she enters a new room or sees a different part of the school that reflects the same theme that is continuous throughout the place. She shakes her head, allowing her breath to roll out into a soft sigh. She brings her hands up to her hair, gathering it all back and up off the nape of her neck to keep it out of the way, pinning it down with a couple of hairpins she steals from her front pocket.
Blue eyes alight with confusion as the older of the three woman appears to give her a thoroughly glance over. She blinks, face tilting down to look herself over and then meets the woman's gaze with a raised eyebrow. Her cheeks flush with color, smiling coyly at the woman when she crows with laughter.
Moira clears her throat, her voice becomes polite and pleasant, reflecting back on her southern roots as it drawls out lazily, almost humbly, as she answers with a quick nod of her head. "Yes, ma'am, I'm that volunteer." Grinning now, "I may not look like much, but I can pull my own weight. Hard work ain't nothing I ain't used to, ma'am. Mama didn't raise a slacker... and I know my way around a kitchen if that helps to ease your fears any."
She starts to pull off her leather gloves, tucking them into the pocket of her coat. Tucking at the edges of the long sleeved shirt she wore under her coat to keep the white lines of scarred wrists hidden. Her nose crinkling as she addressed the older woman.
[Roosevelt High] "Hmmmph." The older woman's dark skin shines with sweat. Steam banks through the air around her, washing off the many pots on the stove in great, humid waves. From this distance, Moira can see in the closest of them the milky-white sausage gravy ubiquitous throughout the south, swirling with vague bits of gray - something - that might well be an approximation of meat. Somehow, the head cook manages to tend the boiling and simmering pots while still taking Moira's measure. There's a moment where her regard is direct and flat, assessing.
Then, something in the wall of her formidable countenance breaks, and the cook offers Moira a mildly ironic smile. "Well then, we are gon' put you to the test today, young miss. I'm Mrs. Opal Randolph, and you kin call me Mrs. Randolph. That there's Mrs. Stickler - " she continues, indicating the white woman, who is clearly the youngest and fittest of the three, with mousy brown hair and a pinched, frowning sort of face. Then, indicating the other African-American woman, she continues," - and that one's Mrs. Maybelline Beverly, and she likes to be called Mrs. May or Mrs. Maybelline. You got that?
"Now, you can find a hair net and apron in the stockroom. We got a little desk where you can keep your personal things, too. Then I'll put you to work on the potatoes, and we'll see how your momma taught you. How's that Miss - ?" clearly awaiting a name by white to address Moira, still somehow absently stirring the gravy behind her.
[Moira Murray] Names flutter to her mind to match along side the faces of the other hardworking women in the kitchen. She listens attentively, giving Mrs. Randolph her full attention as she spoke. She sets her hands on her hips, an eyebrow arched as the woman assessed the skinny girl with a direct and flat expression.
"I got it." She replies quickly, "And it's Caitlin." Fingers hold up the freshly laminated school ID to show the old black woman. "Caitlin Tasgall, but you're welcome to just call me Cait." pronouncing it like 'Kate', "Or Miss Kate."
Moira is sure to give Mrs. Randolph that she isn't the type to balk at hard work, or had a sensitive constitution. She seems eager, more so than the kin might realize for the experience alone. Her natural affinity for desiring to be helpful bleeding through. She waits until she is directed to the stockroom, where she'll pick up a hair net and an apron. Her bag stashed away before coming back to where Mrs. Randolph was standing stirring gravy.
[Moira Murray] (appends!)
Moira makes sure to check the stockroom and parts of the kitchen she passes for any signs of product that carry the Whole Heart Foods brand logo on it.
[Moira Murray] [perception+alertness -2diff for cooking!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 5, 6, 6, 8 (Success x 5 at target 4)
[Roosevelt High] The stock room is larger than it looks, but dimly lit by flickering flourescents overhead, half of them blown out. It could double as the setting for a horror movie, in the right circumstances. A direct light hangs over the desk Mrs. Randolph indicate, casting a long cone of light over the green metal desk, tucked amidst the metal shelves containing huge cans of peaches and corn, green beans and "MEAT PRODUCT" lining the walls. There are three coats hanging from a coatrack above the desk, and no entrances or exits apparent except through the kitchen.
Moira's attention flickers through the products lining the shelves. She finds that a good 60% or more of the dry goods on the shelves are Whole Heart Farms products - from the obvious biscuit and roll mixes, from the pizza dough mix in huge 50 pound sacks, to the potted meat products, the canned corn, the sloppy joe mix, shake'n'bake, the dehydrated onions. The powdered milk, the huge plastic containers of vegetable oil. There is very little in the way of whole foods. No sacks of potatoes or onions, none of the usual root vegetables that are cheap, inexpensive, and filling. Everything is canned and prepacked, loaded with sodium and drenched with cheap fillers, corn syrup, and hidden fat. These are hardly the building blocks for healthy meals.
Moira picks all this up as she passes through the storeroom on her way to the desk. On her way back, she espies half-open bags of biscuit and dinner roll mix from which she could easily swipe samples. Both are folded up and tucked back, out of the way.
--
Mrs. Randolph eyes Moira on her return, a slow, critical survey. "Alright, then. Miss Kate," the woman says, with a hint of a harumph still evident in her voice. "We gon' do hashbrowns for this morning's breakfast, too. Don't get no real potatoes any more - "
The white woman tending biscuits in the back speaks up, then, over the din in the kitchen, a hint of aspersion evident in her voice. Mrs. Stickler, the head cook introduced her as. She has mousy hair, a pinched face, and a voice to match. "You'd think you people would be grateful for what you get."
Mrs. Randolph's mouth tightens minutely, and she says, in a too-loud voice, "And we are." before returning to Moira, voice lower. " - so, as I was sayin, we don't get them fresh potatoes no more, but we got them dried ones. You kin find them in the third shelf on the far side. Gotta soak 'em, first. Press the water out, then fry 'em. You think you kin handle that, Miss Kate?"
"She don't - " Mrs. Stickler, the white woman, pipes in again, "look like she could handle a five pound bag of 'taters, let alone one of them twenty-five pounders. Best thang to do is put her on milk duty."
[Moira Murray] With a quick mind and a overly perceptive eye, Moira rummages through anything and everything she can get her hands on with haste. A brief thrill of exhilaration runs through her as she works quickly to not get caught taking the samples from the open bag of biscuit mix. She made sure to come prepared for the sample collection. Plucking out a small ziplock sandwich bag from the inside of her coat pocket and a clean, sanitized spoon from home to get untainted samples for Imogen. She rolls these up quickly and stashes them back into her coat.
Her eyes roaming around to look at the cans of processed food, upper lip peeling back in a quiet snarl of disgust. She hunts for any small-sized cans of the "meat product" lining the walls that could be stashed into the canvas messenger bag, making room for it before tucking it away into the desk. Once everything was done as quickly as possible, Moira heads back out to join the women of the kitchen.
She wears the most humble and good-nature personality she has as they try to assess her again with a critical eye. She grins wryly at Mrs. Randolph, almost laughing when Mrs. Stickler tries to put up a fuss. Moira rolls up the long sleeve to expose her left bicep and flexes for the women, showing off a small muscle definition. "I can lift 100lbs easily. I do plenty of gardening, lugging around bags of fertilizer builds muscles..." she admits cheekily, "And boxing helps."
She shrugs, "But I can do milk duty, doesn't matter to me." rolling down her sleeve again, she watches the women for a reaction. "I can handle it."
[Roosevelt High] [PAUSE PAUSE.]
[Roosevelt High] Moira fills her baggies with samples, labels them quickly and quietly. Pulls the smallest cans of meat and vegetables, of pre-packed boullion and the like from the dusty old shelves and stashes them away in her bag, then tucks the bag carefully into the drawer of the desk.
"You gon' be finished with them biscuits an' them dinner rolls afore the first bell, Fran?" Mrs. Robinson addresses the pinch-faced Mrs. Stickler familiarly, with more than a hint of irritation in her voice. The white woman is covered in flour - or, most like, industrial strength biscuit mix - and is pulling a huge trays out of the ovens, setting them aside on vast wire racks to cool. Her skin is flushed from the heat of the ovens, or the physicality of the work, and there's a dull, flashing glint in her eye when she looks back at Mrs. Robinson and shakes her head, mutely, no. "'n half our students don't take no milk anyhow. So why don't you remember who's head cook 'n who ain't 'n git back ta work. Used ta be," she continues, clucking in the back of her mouth. " - we made our own rolls. Everone always wanted seconds when I made 'em up from scratch."
"Now," Mrs. Robinson continues, turning back to Moira with a wide smile, genuine enough to crack the the strain of arthritic pain evident on her round face. " - honey, I hope you won't take that to heart, none. You wanna give us a hand, I ain't gon' insult you none by pretending you some little miss. You feel up to them dehydrated potatoes them folks donated, you bring 'em on out. I'll git you bowls for the soaking and then you kin git to frying them 'taters up."
[Moira Murray] She is more amused at the interaction between the kitchen workers than taking offense at what they say. Her head bobs in a quick nod to Mrs. Robinson. Moira doesn't dally as she goes off to prep the dehydrated potatoes, checking over the product, as Mrs. Robinson went to fetch her the bowls for soaking them.
[Moira Murray] Perception + Intuition +1
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 7, 7, 9, 10, 10
[Moira Murray] Perception + Intuition +2
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 8
[Roosevelt High] The morning wears on. The work is hard and it is physical. Moira grabs a sample of the dehydrated potatoes, too. Maybe she snatches the nutrition information from the pack of a discarded sack during a quick dash into the stockroom for salt, or boullion, or some other necessity, to spare Mrs. Roosevelt and her aching feet and her aching back the trip. The first bell rings and the three cooks - plus Moira - load up the steam tables and serve free breakfast to hundreds upon hundreds of students, nearly all of them African-American, most of them bleary eyed with sleep given the hour of the morning.
Moira has the station at the beginning of the row, offering hash browns and biscuits. The gravy and doubtful looking sausages and other fixings are down the line. There's nothing here that would constitute a full breakfast, but the students take up the meal with alacrity.
Mrs. Stickler - the pinched-faced white woman - mans the gravy and the meat. Moira notices, though, that although she's generally as stingy with the gravy and meat as the rest of them are with the rest of the food ("we've gotta make this food last honey," laughed Mrs. Randolph, the head cook, "all morning."), she encourages extras on some of the students, generally boys, some girls. These aren't the kids who call out affectionately to Mrs. Randolph or Maybelline as they move through the line. They aren't the jokesters, the jocks, they aren't fronting, or putting on one of those two-adult tough kid acts so necessary in the inner city and watching them as they get that extra helping of MEAT PRODUCT sausage slopped only the tray by Mrs. Stickler's gray hand, from her spindly spoon, Moira sees varying levels of dull stares, some apathetic, others vicious, but most chillingly, simply: disengaged.
The banter between the women, too - it not simply good-natured ribbing. Mrs. Randolph does not like Mrs. Stickler, and Mrs. Stickler, who is already ready with a whiplash comment for Mrs. Randolph, rides Moira whenever she can, testing her work, mocking her resolve, and needling her with harsh comments throughout the breakfast service.
Two more bells ring, a good forty-five minutes of breakfast service passes. When the last student has passed through the line, the steam tables are almost entirely empty. Mrs. Randolph tells Moira to have a cup of tea, to take a fifteen minute break before they start breaking down the breakfast tables in the now-(mostly) empty commons, sends her out to the commons to have a seat, to take a load off before beginning the work for the lunch rush.
[Moira Murray] Moira handles everything in stride. She holds onto that bright, almost obnoxiously cheery attitude she has adopted. Never once missing a beat in the way she speaks, or the slow, lazy drawl to accentuate her speech in a Southern tongue that she spoke with when first addressing Mrs. Randolph. She goes out of the way to try and counteract Mrs. Stickler nasty demeanor, offering kind, polite remarks in return to the harsh comments, never once giving the woman fuel to upset Moira.
Her resolve seems to get her through the day. The Fenrir kin is cautious with the way she works with the food, always making sure to wash her hands, or properly sanitize tables and dishes when she does washing. She also goes out of her way to never eat the food present. Even when she takes a break, Moira would rather suffer on an empty stomach and elsewhere than partake of the food they cook.
She tries to commit everything to memory. Later in the day, or after she is done, she'll go back to Hill House and see what sort of background checks can be gotten on the three workers. During her break, she'll take quit notes in short-hand as to everything she witnessed and saw, which she'll write up in a report for Imogen after she was done here.
[Moira Murray] [Stealth + Dex: Sneaky Sneaky! Papparazi!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 4, 6, 8, 9
[Moira Murray] [Perception + Alertness]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 2, 2, 8, 8
[Moira Murray] [Stamina + athletics]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 5, 7, 8, 8
[Roosevelt High] By day's end, Moira is tired, though not as exhausted as might have been expected. Her bright presence is a counterpoint to Mrs. Stickler's dour countenance and constant barbs, and Mrs. Randolph takes an obvious shine to her, fixed her hot tea for her breaks, which Moira is careful not to drink, recommending extra portions of creamed corn or salad, to put some meat on her bone.
---
There are other things she notices, before the day is over. The security - the white man who greeted her in the morning - his name is also Stickler. He ducks his head into the kitchen once, offers Moira a charming, oilslick smile, and asks " - where's my mom?" He turns that smile on her again, sliding in beside her at the tables between breakfast and lunch, chatting her up quietly, an easy charm to him. When she leaves the building, later that evening, he flashes her a lightning little smile, flashbright.
---
- in the middle of this all, Moira nips into the storeroom and paws through the purses, slips Francine Stickler's driver's license out of her wallet, takes a quick photo of both that and her paystub. Francine Stickler's real name is Francine Hollings, from Elk Grove, Illinois. The paystub, though, is for Francine Stickler, with a Chicago address. She notes the other women's names, as well, both of whom are from Chicago proper.
---
It took Moira the better part of three days to find a volunteer program that provided volunteer assistance to the nutrition programs in Chicago's inner city schools. That was with the assistance of two of her former colleagues from Hill House, pouring through the lists of their contacts, searching out old acquaintances, all with a certain delicate sense of timing, with care that the search be as bare bones, as passing, as unremarkable as possible.
In the end, she found the number for Our Schools, Our Selves, attached to "one of those storefront churches" in the inner city, an outgrowth of the PTA of Roosevelt High School, run on a shoe-string budget from a storefront in one of Chicago's blasted inner city neighborhoods, with a handful of volunteers and interns, no paid staff.
Over the course of two weeks, Moira volunteered at three elementary schools in inner city Chicago. The lunchroom staff took one look at her and assigned her the task of handing out milk, apparently mistrusting her with the scooping of creamed corn on the serving of biscuits or the slopping of gravy. If nothing else, the time she spent at each of the schools was a depressing experience. The school lunches included little in the way of fruits and vegetables, despite the requirements of the USDA. Fully fifty percent of the calorie content came from the Whole Heart Foods donations - fat and carbs, carbs and fat, all of it, used to extend the reach of minimal amounts of fatty, second-rate meats. Except for a few bright points, the children were dull, sluggish on the diet, with little in the way of fiber or nutrients.
Now - five a.m., Monday morning, Roosevelt High School - a huge red brick building that dominates a whole city block in Cabrini-Green. There are chains for basketball nets on the courts on the asphalt yard, and a huge chain-link fence topped with loops of razorwire tha make the high school look like a jail. Even at this early hour of the morning, a bored-looking security guard mans a metal detector at the front door, and waves Moira in with a wand. It is early enough that there are no students arriving yet, but a handful of teachers and other staff are either waiting in line, or already through.
"You're new." The guard, a sallow-skinned woman notes, stifling as yawn as Moira climbs the steps and enters the school by the front entrance. " - got a school ID card, already, honey?"
[Moira Murray] Moira assessed the school grounds and the large red brick building that dominated an entire block with disdain. Her head shook as she made her way to the front door and the bored security guard. Eyes flicking over him as her hand came to rest on the strap of the canvas messenger bag bouncing at her hip. She kept her clothing to a nice casual dress that would allow her to fit in with the teachers she's seen around the place.
Her throat clears as he called her 'honey', a slight furrow of eyebrows as she pins a look on the haggard woman. "No, ma'am, I haven't received a school ID card yet. I was instructed that I would need to receive one from inside the school."
She offers the security guard a bright smile, "And yes, I am new." Cheery and polite.
[Roosevelt High] "Well, then - " the security guard picked up a clip board from the industrial looking faux-wood desk beside the metal detector, something surplus from the 1970s, with peeling plastic veneers and a certain aura of abused neglect about it. One that matched the school, one that matched the vague, half-sickening scent in the air - some mixture of industrial disinfectant, grease, and sewer gas. " - why don't you just sign yourself in here, and scoot on over to the vice principal's office and get yourself an ID card."
The clip board says, VISITOR'S LOG in capital letters across the top of the printed page, the date alongside. No other visitors have signed in, so early in the morning.
[Moira Murray] Moira receives the clipboard from the Security Guard, handling it with ease as she pulls out a pen from her pocket to use instead of the one provided. Her hands covered in leather gloves to protect against the cold air. She paused for a second to think on a name and writes it down. The penmanship different than she normally signs her signature, a little messier as she uses her right hand (off-hand) to write it. The name 'Caitlin Tasgall' scribbled onto the first line of the visitor's log. She hands the registry back to the Security Guard, nodding once.
She lifts up her bag, taking it off and opening it up for the woman to search through without making a comment, showing little resistance at all to make the process go faster. She carries nothing suspicious in the way of items or weapons that would lead the metal detector to set off. Once this was finished, Moira collected up her things, and pulled the strap over her head again as she walks off to the vice principal's office.
[Roosevelt High] The process is quick; painless. The vice-principal is a dowdy looking white man with a significant gut and a balding pate and a suit that appears to be made entirely from polyester. The fabric is so slick, so unnatural, so manufactured that it looks like an oddly scratchy brown oilslick has engulfed his rotund figure. He asks for her driver's license with a sort of bored disinterest, then directs her to stand in front of a flat, off-white blind as he takes her picture.
Four minutes later, Caitlin Tasgall is walking down the wide central hallway of the still-empty high school by herself, the ID card still warm from the laminating machine hanging around her neck by a cheap plastic lanyard. She has directions to the cafeteria in the bowels of the school, and finds it easily enough. There are signs posted on some of the walls, although at least half of these have been vandalized, tagged or other defaced and never replaced. The scent of meat - nameless, fatty - and the sort of dry-dust scent of pulverized oatmeal, glutenous porridge, fills the air as she approaches. The serving lines open onto the commons, but all of the tables have been folded up and pushed back against the walls. Though the lights are largely off in the school, light does spill out from into the commones from the serving lines, and the kitchen somewhere behind the hotlines. Moira can hear the sound of metal utensils against metal pots, the low call of voices back and forth, beneath the kitchen din.
There's another security guard idling in the far corner of the commons, seated at one of the few tables not yet folded up, drinking coffee from a paper cup. If she glances at him, Moira finds him looking at her - a reasonably attractive man, white, with dark hair beneath a blue ballcap that says SECURITY in white letters across the brim. He doesn't gesture her closer, just tips his hat to her as she walks past.
[Moira Murray] She has to do her best to keep down the bile that wants to rise in the back of her throat as she stares in quiet horror at the appearance of the vice principal. She had expected something... different. The necessity of home school had not prepared Moira for this type of environment. She was lucky to have never experienced the public education system, and yet missed some of the social aspects of it.
Moira provides the "appropriate driver's license" for a Caitlin Tasgall that had her face on it. The alternate identity had proven useful in the past and she kept it renewed for such purposes, seeing as Moira Murray couldn't drive at all, and she used her mother's maiden name on all her official documents, not her father's surname, Tasgall.
She accepts the new ID, turning it over between her fingers as she made her way down the halls. Her eyes turning up and down, left to right, drinking in the state of the building. The lines of her mouth curl downward, saddened by the decrepit state of the high school. She brings a hand up to her nose, pinching at it as she reached the serving lines.
Her eyes taking in the male security guard sitting at a table, having coffee. He tips his hat to her in greeting, Moira nods to him. She feigns the prettiest smile she can for the male guard, saying nothing to him when she passes him. She continues on towards the kitchens, looking for someone to speak to.
[Roosevelt High] The serving lines are closed down, the stainless steel perhaps less than gleaming, the inserts in the steamtable covered, the lights off. Beyond the steam table, the kitchen is a large, open room - though small, really, compared to the amount of equipment contained therein, compared to the number of students served by the school. She sees three woman in the kitchen, all of the middle-aged or older, one white, two African-American. The three of them are heavy, and already look exhausted from the morning's work. One is pulling biscuits out of an industrial oven, another tends to a huge metal griddle covered in cheap sausage patties, monitoring and flipping them, flipping and monitoring them. The third, closest to the steam tables of fronting the serving lines, tends a great expanse of bubbling steel cauldrons. She is the oldest of the three, and has a stooped-over appearance, her back bent, her movements the restricted, pain-marked movements of an arthritis patient. She is dressed in a pair of second-hand Crocs, blaze orange, and a flower-patterned dress under a white apron. When Moira enters the room, she looks up with distinct frown - consideration, thoughtfulness, rather than disdain - and then lets out a loud, whooping sort of laugh, born deep in her chest.
" - I know you ain't the volunteer they said we was getting today. Are you, child?" Then, when the answer is confirmed by the most minute of gestures from Moira, the laugh deepens. " - well, honey, you sure you up to it? This ain't ornamental work. S'gonna be hard."
[Moira Murray] The dark haired kin was quickly recovering from the slight shell-shock she experiences every time she enters a new room or sees a different part of the school that reflects the same theme that is continuous throughout the place. She shakes her head, allowing her breath to roll out into a soft sigh. She brings her hands up to her hair, gathering it all back and up off the nape of her neck to keep it out of the way, pinning it down with a couple of hairpins she steals from her front pocket.
Blue eyes alight with confusion as the older of the three woman appears to give her a thoroughly glance over. She blinks, face tilting down to look herself over and then meets the woman's gaze with a raised eyebrow. Her cheeks flush with color, smiling coyly at the woman when she crows with laughter.
Moira clears her throat, her voice becomes polite and pleasant, reflecting back on her southern roots as it drawls out lazily, almost humbly, as she answers with a quick nod of her head. "Yes, ma'am, I'm that volunteer." Grinning now, "I may not look like much, but I can pull my own weight. Hard work ain't nothing I ain't used to, ma'am. Mama didn't raise a slacker... and I know my way around a kitchen if that helps to ease your fears any."
She starts to pull off her leather gloves, tucking them into the pocket of her coat. Tucking at the edges of the long sleeved shirt she wore under her coat to keep the white lines of scarred wrists hidden. Her nose crinkling as she addressed the older woman.
[Roosevelt High] "Hmmmph." The older woman's dark skin shines with sweat. Steam banks through the air around her, washing off the many pots on the stove in great, humid waves. From this distance, Moira can see in the closest of them the milky-white sausage gravy ubiquitous throughout the south, swirling with vague bits of gray - something - that might well be an approximation of meat. Somehow, the head cook manages to tend the boiling and simmering pots while still taking Moira's measure. There's a moment where her regard is direct and flat, assessing.
Then, something in the wall of her formidable countenance breaks, and the cook offers Moira a mildly ironic smile. "Well then, we are gon' put you to the test today, young miss. I'm Mrs. Opal Randolph, and you kin call me Mrs. Randolph. That there's Mrs. Stickler - " she continues, indicating the white woman, who is clearly the youngest and fittest of the three, with mousy brown hair and a pinched, frowning sort of face. Then, indicating the other African-American woman, she continues," - and that one's Mrs. Maybelline Beverly, and she likes to be called Mrs. May or Mrs. Maybelline. You got that?
"Now, you can find a hair net and apron in the stockroom. We got a little desk where you can keep your personal things, too. Then I'll put you to work on the potatoes, and we'll see how your momma taught you. How's that Miss - ?" clearly awaiting a name by white to address Moira, still somehow absently stirring the gravy behind her.
[Moira Murray] Names flutter to her mind to match along side the faces of the other hardworking women in the kitchen. She listens attentively, giving Mrs. Randolph her full attention as she spoke. She sets her hands on her hips, an eyebrow arched as the woman assessed the skinny girl with a direct and flat expression.
"I got it." She replies quickly, "And it's Caitlin." Fingers hold up the freshly laminated school ID to show the old black woman. "Caitlin Tasgall, but you're welcome to just call me Cait." pronouncing it like 'Kate', "Or Miss Kate."
Moira is sure to give Mrs. Randolph that she isn't the type to balk at hard work, or had a sensitive constitution. She seems eager, more so than the kin might realize for the experience alone. Her natural affinity for desiring to be helpful bleeding through. She waits until she is directed to the stockroom, where she'll pick up a hair net and an apron. Her bag stashed away before coming back to where Mrs. Randolph was standing stirring gravy.
[Moira Murray] (appends!)
Moira makes sure to check the stockroom and parts of the kitchen she passes for any signs of product that carry the Whole Heart Foods brand logo on it.
[Moira Murray] [perception+alertness -2diff for cooking!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 5, 6, 6, 8 (Success x 5 at target 4)
[Roosevelt High] The stock room is larger than it looks, but dimly lit by flickering flourescents overhead, half of them blown out. It could double as the setting for a horror movie, in the right circumstances. A direct light hangs over the desk Mrs. Randolph indicate, casting a long cone of light over the green metal desk, tucked amidst the metal shelves containing huge cans of peaches and corn, green beans and "MEAT PRODUCT" lining the walls. There are three coats hanging from a coatrack above the desk, and no entrances or exits apparent except through the kitchen.
Moira's attention flickers through the products lining the shelves. She finds that a good 60% or more of the dry goods on the shelves are Whole Heart Farms products - from the obvious biscuit and roll mixes, from the pizza dough mix in huge 50 pound sacks, to the potted meat products, the canned corn, the sloppy joe mix, shake'n'bake, the dehydrated onions. The powdered milk, the huge plastic containers of vegetable oil. There is very little in the way of whole foods. No sacks of potatoes or onions, none of the usual root vegetables that are cheap, inexpensive, and filling. Everything is canned and prepacked, loaded with sodium and drenched with cheap fillers, corn syrup, and hidden fat. These are hardly the building blocks for healthy meals.
Moira picks all this up as she passes through the storeroom on her way to the desk. On her way back, she espies half-open bags of biscuit and dinner roll mix from which she could easily swipe samples. Both are folded up and tucked back, out of the way.
--
Mrs. Randolph eyes Moira on her return, a slow, critical survey. "Alright, then. Miss Kate," the woman says, with a hint of a harumph still evident in her voice. "We gon' do hashbrowns for this morning's breakfast, too. Don't get no real potatoes any more - "
The white woman tending biscuits in the back speaks up, then, over the din in the kitchen, a hint of aspersion evident in her voice. Mrs. Stickler, the head cook introduced her as. She has mousy hair, a pinched face, and a voice to match. "You'd think you people would be grateful for what you get."
Mrs. Randolph's mouth tightens minutely, and she says, in a too-loud voice, "And we are." before returning to Moira, voice lower. " - so, as I was sayin, we don't get them fresh potatoes no more, but we got them dried ones. You kin find them in the third shelf on the far side. Gotta soak 'em, first. Press the water out, then fry 'em. You think you kin handle that, Miss Kate?"
"She don't - " Mrs. Stickler, the white woman, pipes in again, "look like she could handle a five pound bag of 'taters, let alone one of them twenty-five pounders. Best thang to do is put her on milk duty."
[Moira Murray] With a quick mind and a overly perceptive eye, Moira rummages through anything and everything she can get her hands on with haste. A brief thrill of exhilaration runs through her as she works quickly to not get caught taking the samples from the open bag of biscuit mix. She made sure to come prepared for the sample collection. Plucking out a small ziplock sandwich bag from the inside of her coat pocket and a clean, sanitized spoon from home to get untainted samples for Imogen. She rolls these up quickly and stashes them back into her coat.
Her eyes roaming around to look at the cans of processed food, upper lip peeling back in a quiet snarl of disgust. She hunts for any small-sized cans of the "meat product" lining the walls that could be stashed into the canvas messenger bag, making room for it before tucking it away into the desk. Once everything was done as quickly as possible, Moira heads back out to join the women of the kitchen.
She wears the most humble and good-nature personality she has as they try to assess her again with a critical eye. She grins wryly at Mrs. Randolph, almost laughing when Mrs. Stickler tries to put up a fuss. Moira rolls up the long sleeve to expose her left bicep and flexes for the women, showing off a small muscle definition. "I can lift 100lbs easily. I do plenty of gardening, lugging around bags of fertilizer builds muscles..." she admits cheekily, "And boxing helps."
She shrugs, "But I can do milk duty, doesn't matter to me." rolling down her sleeve again, she watches the women for a reaction. "I can handle it."
[Roosevelt High] [PAUSE PAUSE.]
[Roosevelt High] Moira fills her baggies with samples, labels them quickly and quietly. Pulls the smallest cans of meat and vegetables, of pre-packed boullion and the like from the dusty old shelves and stashes them away in her bag, then tucks the bag carefully into the drawer of the desk.
"You gon' be finished with them biscuits an' them dinner rolls afore the first bell, Fran?" Mrs. Robinson addresses the pinch-faced Mrs. Stickler familiarly, with more than a hint of irritation in her voice. The white woman is covered in flour - or, most like, industrial strength biscuit mix - and is pulling a huge trays out of the ovens, setting them aside on vast wire racks to cool. Her skin is flushed from the heat of the ovens, or the physicality of the work, and there's a dull, flashing glint in her eye when she looks back at Mrs. Robinson and shakes her head, mutely, no. "'n half our students don't take no milk anyhow. So why don't you remember who's head cook 'n who ain't 'n git back ta work. Used ta be," she continues, clucking in the back of her mouth. " - we made our own rolls. Everone always wanted seconds when I made 'em up from scratch."
"Now," Mrs. Robinson continues, turning back to Moira with a wide smile, genuine enough to crack the the strain of arthritic pain evident on her round face. " - honey, I hope you won't take that to heart, none. You wanna give us a hand, I ain't gon' insult you none by pretending you some little miss. You feel up to them dehydrated potatoes them folks donated, you bring 'em on out. I'll git you bowls for the soaking and then you kin git to frying them 'taters up."
[Moira Murray] She is more amused at the interaction between the kitchen workers than taking offense at what they say. Her head bobs in a quick nod to Mrs. Robinson. Moira doesn't dally as she goes off to prep the dehydrated potatoes, checking over the product, as Mrs. Robinson went to fetch her the bowls for soaking them.
[Moira Murray] Perception + Intuition +1
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 7, 7, 9, 10, 10
[Moira Murray] Perception + Intuition +2
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 8
[Roosevelt High] The morning wears on. The work is hard and it is physical. Moira grabs a sample of the dehydrated potatoes, too. Maybe she snatches the nutrition information from the pack of a discarded sack during a quick dash into the stockroom for salt, or boullion, or some other necessity, to spare Mrs. Roosevelt and her aching feet and her aching back the trip. The first bell rings and the three cooks - plus Moira - load up the steam tables and serve free breakfast to hundreds upon hundreds of students, nearly all of them African-American, most of them bleary eyed with sleep given the hour of the morning.
Moira has the station at the beginning of the row, offering hash browns and biscuits. The gravy and doubtful looking sausages and other fixings are down the line. There's nothing here that would constitute a full breakfast, but the students take up the meal with alacrity.
Mrs. Stickler - the pinched-faced white woman - mans the gravy and the meat. Moira notices, though, that although she's generally as stingy with the gravy and meat as the rest of them are with the rest of the food ("we've gotta make this food last honey," laughed Mrs. Randolph, the head cook, "all morning."), she encourages extras on some of the students, generally boys, some girls. These aren't the kids who call out affectionately to Mrs. Randolph or Maybelline as they move through the line. They aren't the jokesters, the jocks, they aren't fronting, or putting on one of those two-adult tough kid acts so necessary in the inner city and watching them as they get that extra helping of MEAT PRODUCT sausage slopped only the tray by Mrs. Stickler's gray hand, from her spindly spoon, Moira sees varying levels of dull stares, some apathetic, others vicious, but most chillingly, simply: disengaged.
The banter between the women, too - it not simply good-natured ribbing. Mrs. Randolph does not like Mrs. Stickler, and Mrs. Stickler, who is already ready with a whiplash comment for Mrs. Randolph, rides Moira whenever she can, testing her work, mocking her resolve, and needling her with harsh comments throughout the breakfast service.
Two more bells ring, a good forty-five minutes of breakfast service passes. When the last student has passed through the line, the steam tables are almost entirely empty. Mrs. Randolph tells Moira to have a cup of tea, to take a fifteen minute break before they start breaking down the breakfast tables in the now-(mostly) empty commons, sends her out to the commons to have a seat, to take a load off before beginning the work for the lunch rush.
[Moira Murray] Moira handles everything in stride. She holds onto that bright, almost obnoxiously cheery attitude she has adopted. Never once missing a beat in the way she speaks, or the slow, lazy drawl to accentuate her speech in a Southern tongue that she spoke with when first addressing Mrs. Randolph. She goes out of the way to try and counteract Mrs. Stickler nasty demeanor, offering kind, polite remarks in return to the harsh comments, never once giving the woman fuel to upset Moira.
Her resolve seems to get her through the day. The Fenrir kin is cautious with the way she works with the food, always making sure to wash her hands, or properly sanitize tables and dishes when she does washing. She also goes out of her way to never eat the food present. Even when she takes a break, Moira would rather suffer on an empty stomach and elsewhere than partake of the food they cook.
She tries to commit everything to memory. Later in the day, or after she is done, she'll go back to Hill House and see what sort of background checks can be gotten on the three workers. During her break, she'll take quit notes in short-hand as to everything she witnessed and saw, which she'll write up in a report for Imogen after she was done here.
[Moira Murray] [Stealth + Dex: Sneaky Sneaky! Papparazi!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 4, 6, 8, 9
[Moira Murray] [Perception + Alertness]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 2, 2, 8, 8
[Moira Murray] [Stamina + athletics]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 5, 7, 8, 8
[Roosevelt High] By day's end, Moira is tired, though not as exhausted as might have been expected. Her bright presence is a counterpoint to Mrs. Stickler's dour countenance and constant barbs, and Mrs. Randolph takes an obvious shine to her, fixed her hot tea for her breaks, which Moira is careful not to drink, recommending extra portions of creamed corn or salad, to put some meat on her bone.
---
There are other things she notices, before the day is over. The security - the white man who greeted her in the morning - his name is also Stickler. He ducks his head into the kitchen once, offers Moira a charming, oilslick smile, and asks " - where's my mom?" He turns that smile on her again, sliding in beside her at the tables between breakfast and lunch, chatting her up quietly, an easy charm to him. When she leaves the building, later that evening, he flashes her a lightning little smile, flashbright.
---
- in the middle of this all, Moira nips into the storeroom and paws through the purses, slips Francine Stickler's driver's license out of her wallet, takes a quick photo of both that and her paystub. Francine Stickler's real name is Francine Hollings, from Elk Grove, Illinois. The paystub, though, is for Francine Stickler, with a Chicago address. She notes the other women's names, as well, both of whom are from Chicago proper.
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