>> “Don’t sell yourself too short, Mr. Holloway. But don’t worry, you are in very capable hands. I’ll make sure to make you look beautiful.”

Nate smiled, less because of the compliment and more because Alice sounded like she was cracking out of her shell, bit by bit. "I can't wait to feel pretty," he joked, "And I'll be sure to take care of your face. I'll get you looking even more adorable and all the boys will do double-takes." For a moment, he considered that the girl might not even be interested in boys, but he was sure if he offended her, there would be a comment.

The teacher picked up three crayons: sky blue, sapphire blue and royal purple. He started at the corner of the sketch's left eye, with swirling lines blossoming outward to wrap over her eye toward her forehead, as well as down her left cheek.

As he started a similar pattern budding from the right-corner of the the girl's lip, he figured he would take advantage of the girl's increasing comfort level by striking up more conversation. "So have you found any new friends at the school yet? Or did you just get here?" If she was living at the school, it was possible she had a roommate already, but that did not guarantee they got along.

"I can't wait to feel pretty. And I'll be sure to take care of your face. I'll get you looking even more adorable and all the boys will do double-takes."

Alice giggled at first, until Mr. Holloway finished his statement. Boys? Adorable? Double-takes? She felt her cheeks burn again, and she wondered if her teacher was really just joking. And his Southern accent seemed to add a charming element to his words, further flustering her. “Um...I guess all the ladies will be chasing after you, too,” she laughed awkwardly, trying to return the joke.

She continued with the crayons, debating whether to draw a big ol’ heart on her teacher’s cheek or not. Would that be too strange? Or give him the wrong idea? She thought it would be funny, but would that mean she was not taking the assignment seriously enough? Although, painting on each other’s faces did not exactly scream “stoic” or “sober” either.

"So have you found any new friends at the school yet? Or did you just get here?"

She bit the bullet and drew a small purple heart right in the middle of Mr. Holloway’s cheek. “Well...I’ve only been here for a few days, but my roommate is really cool!” she replied with a smile, recalling their interactions when she moved in. “Her name is Kaitlyn.”

>> “Well...I’ve only been here for a few days, but my roommate is really cool! Her name is Kaitlyn.”

The name of Alice's roommate was enough to bring a chuckle out of Nate. He had ironically had the young Kaitlyn in a class earlier in the week. It was an interesting interaction with a student, but it certainly started-- actually, no, he would not cheapen what happened with an explosion pun.

Instead, he just nodded. "Yeah, I met her. Nice kid; just try not to rile her up for the sake of your room." The desk-victim had already been removed by the custodial staff, (God bless them,) but the faint traces of blast markings were still visible on the floor if one knew where to look.

Nate could obviously create his pattern at a faster pace than the students, so he took a moment to look around. Alice's choices were basic, but definitely those of a young teenage girl. (He was going to suck it up, be a man, and wear that heart with honor.)

He looked around the room and most of the students were behaving and having fun. And then, like the tide, he spotted one student drawing... well, something less than appropriate on his friend's forehead. With a groan, he put his crayon down. "'Scuse me a second, sugar," he muttered, getting up from his seat to scold a stupid teenage boy for being a stupid teenage boy.

As he was walking away, another stupid teenage boy approached Alice's desk. "Hey new girl." Without waiting for her to reply, he snatched the paper she was coloring on. He scanned the paper and laughed a weasely laugh. "A heart? On a guy? That's stupid." Clearly tact was a ways away for young Gunther's emotional development.

"Yeah, I met her. Nice kid; just try not to rile her up for the sake of your room."

Alice tilted her head in confusion at her teacher’s response. His chuckle and his comment on not riling Kait up did not make any sense to her, and she wondered if this was going to be a regular occurrence with him, if she was going to be in a perpetual state of perplexity around him. “Uh...” she began, unsure if she should question him or not, “Nevermind.” She decided against it, accepting that there were some things she was just not going to understand when it came to Mr. Holloway.

"'Scuse me a second, sugar."

The teenager nodded and continued with her drawing, waiting until his back was to her to watch him march up to another student. Said student, when he noticed Mr. Holloway approaching, instantly froze, eyes wide, hand scrambling to scribble over whatever obscene object he had drawn on his partner’s portrait’s forehead. She rolled her eyes and tried to stifle a giggle. Boys were such―

“Hey new girl.”

Alice had barely enough time to look at the speaker before her paper was stolen from her, taken right from her unprepared fingers. “Hey! Give that back!” But the boy promptly ignored her, instead sneering.

“A heart? On a guy? That's stupid."

She frowned as the doughy, obnoxious boy insulted her picture. It wasn’t any of his business, was it? So why was he butting in with his oversized, stupid head? But she could not, of course, bring herself to actually say such things out loud. She was the new kid. How she handled her next few choices could cement her standing at Xavier’s, or at least in her art class, for the rest of the year. “Can you please give me back my paper?” she asked as calmly as she could, trying very hard not to call him any names.

Gunther responded with a taunting wave of the page, his teeth glinting in a mean grin. “Or you’ll do what? You gonna tell the teacher? You little teacher’s pet.”

She did not know what she had done to warrant such rudeness, but the brunette decided she did not want to play nice with the boy, despite her regularly friendly disposition. She had already asked nicely. “Listen, jerk. Give me back the paper. Now.” Alice tried her hardest to be intimidating, eyes squinting in an attempt to seem tough. She wasn’t very convincing, but it seemed for a moment that Gunther was considering relenting. But then he heard his friends snicker at his failing resolve, and he knew that if he stopped, he would never hear the end of how he’d bowed down to some dumb new girl.

With a krrrrsh, Alice watched in horror as her paper was ripped in half, right down the middle, the torn sides floating in slow-motion to the ground. It was only a simple sketch, she knew that, but she still felt like crying. The boy was just so...mean! And she had tried so hard. She stared at his snickering retreating form, and dazedly wondered how the situation had escalated so rapidly. Her eyes settled on the remains of her picture as she sighed in resignation, shoulders slumped.

Nate was busy scolding and scraping fresh facepaint when he heard Alice's perturbed voice and turned just as Gunther tore Alice's sketch with a loud rip. Nate's scowl was instant and he walked back to the desk with a quick pace, mentally reminding himself that the rules of student punishment were woefully lenient compared to his childhood.

"What in the HECK do you think you're doing?"

Gunther was not expecting Nate's quick, volatile reaction, and stammered, "Um, I was just--"

"Can it, boy." Nate picked up the remains of Alice's sketch, glad to see it was only in two salvageable pieces. "Ripping up another kid's work is a rude and disrespectful thing to do, and I won't be hearing excuses. Be glad you ain't a kid when I was, else you'd get a proper a--butt-whooping." Had to remember his position as a teacher for a moment there.

"Go to your desk and rip up your drawing. You'll be getting a zero for the day and writing an apology to Miss Tyler."

Gunther started toward his desk, already feeling the cold weight of punishment, but Nate still added, "And if that apology isn't good enough, I'll be making sure to find a nice week for you to be on Danger Room clean-up duty."

Gunther mumbled a, "Yessir," and retreated to his desk. Nate sat back down and turned his focus on Alice. "I'm sorry about that, hun. Some kids can just act stupid. You can still work on the pieces since there's only two, if you'd like."

It seemed Mr. Holloway's accent intensified as his anger did, giving Gunther the scolding of his life. He even made allusions to his own childhood, where corporate punishment was prevalent. The scope of the boy's punishment seemed a little drastic to Alice, who was surprised that her teacher would react in such a strong way. The mixture of shame, slight fear, and regret painted on Gunther's face said it all in regards to his own feelings.

She was glad he was being reprimanded, perhaps even a bit smug, but then she became acutely aware of the whole class silently watching their teacher order Gunther to write an apology to her. The scene Mr. Holloway was creating in the classroom caused her to blush in embarrassment, and she suddenly wished that she had not anything to the obnoxious bully at all. If what he had said was true...if the other students really did think she was a suck-up... Well, that opinion was certainly not going to change anymore.

She sighed and watched as Gunther shuffled back to his desk, head hanging in dejection.

"I'm sorry about that, hun. Some kids can just act stupid. You can still work on the pieces since there's only two, if you'd like."

Alice nodded and cleared her throat, head reeling over all of the drama that had occurred in such short minutes. "It's okay...I was almost done with it anyway. We might as well move on to the face painting..." she trailed off, collecting the pieces from her teacher and fitting them back together as best as possible. Eventually her classmates turned away, the buzzing teenage chatter filling the room again.

>> "It's okay...I was almost done with it anyway. We might as well move on to the face painting..."

"Sure. Since it's your assignment, you can paint first," he offered. She was the one who was being graded for the assignment, (even if it was lenient grading,) so it was more important to get her painting done. He would paint Alice's face with whatever time might be left in the class.

As Nate kept his face as steady as he could for Alice's benefit, he started thinking about what just happened. He scolded Gunther because he deserved it, but it was possibly Alice would feel responsible, or singled out. The silence that his tongue-lashing inspired probably did not help.

If possible, he wanted to keep Alice from working up any unnecessary tension. "I hope you don't worry too much about Gunther. This is the third time he's written one of these for being a bully this semester." It was the second, but it might sound more impressive as his third.

"He needs to be reminded that bullying is not something I'm okay with in the classroom, so don't let yourself get worked up over this, okay?" The last thing Nate wanted was for well-behaved students to blame themselves and poorly-behaved students to blame the well-behaved; it was quite counter-intuitive.

Mr. Holloway gave his consent to move on to the next phase of the project, which she was grateful for. He seemed to calm down as she grabbed the paints and adjusted her position to directly face him. He kept still when she began to sweep a brush across his face, but the silence between them was uncomfortable. She did not know what to say, exactly. Should she thank him for helping her? Or would it be better to cease dwelling and forget the incident ever happened? As she dipped into a bright magenta color, the color the heart would be. She reconsidered painting it, hesitating for a brief moment, but decided to go ahead with it. Gunther was a jerk anyway.

...A jerk who may have labeled her a teacher's pet for the rest of the year. Nay, for the rest of her life...

"I hope you don't worry too much about Gunther. This is the third time he's written one of these for being a bully this semester. He needs to be reminded that bullying is not something I'm okay with in the classroom, so don't let yourself get worked up over this, okay?"

It was as if Mr. Holloway had read her mind. The fourteen-year-old eyes widened a bit, surprised at her teacher's insight, and she briefly wondered if he had some hidden telepathic mutation he had neglected to mention to her... "Oh...thank you. I won't." She did not know why she thanked him, but a part of her did feel grateful. For his correct intuition, perhaps? Or his overall kindness?

Suddenly, she became very conscious of the proximity between their faces. Her hands...had touched his face. She instantly blushed and scooted back just a bit, dipping her brush back into the magenta paint as an excuse.

"Oh, Mr. Holloway, if you could see your face now..." she joked, attempting to direct attention away from her embarrassment, "I must say, you pull off a heart very well. Very, uh, manly."

Wait... Did she just call him manly? Shoot. Me. Now.

>> "Oh, Mr. Holloway, if you could see your face now... I must say, you pull off a heart very well. Very, uh, manly."

Nate chuckled at the compliment before remembering to keep his face as still as he could for the young painter. "Thank you. I will wear the heart proudly as the manliest of men!" Seriously, his sarcastic sense of humor was being wasted on people too young to appreciate it.

He was keeping as still as he could, but when she was focused on areas away from his mouth and jaw, there was no harm in continuing some of the welcome wagon stuff. "Really though, it ain't easy joining a school so late, so if you need any help with anything, you're certainly welcome to come to me or Mama T, or one of the other staffers here." He always dropped Gemma's name to new kids because no one made them feel at home more than the school councilor.

"Thank you. I will wear the heart proudly as the manliest of men!"

Alice couldn’t hold back her giggles, taking care to remove the paint brush from her teacher’s face before she slathered magenta all over his eyeballs in the middle of her laughing fit. When she was finished, she moved on to his forehead, using a cyan shade to color in a star-shaped pattern. As she painted safely away from his mouth, Mr. Holloway spoke.

"Really though, it ain't easy joining a school so late, so if you need any help with anything, you're certainly welcome to come to me or Mama T, or one of the other staffers here."

“Thank you,” she said, once again grateful for her teacher’s consideration. “But...um, who is Mama T?” she asked, unfamiliar with the moniker. It was likely she had come across “Mama T” at some point during the past few days but had simply forgotten in the craziness of settling in. It didn't help how horrible she was at remembering names.

>> “Thank you. But...um, who is Mama T?”

Nate did take for granted sometimes that not all new students might know Gemma's nickname. He was accustomed to using it because many recognized her as such, and it suited her so well. She was the kindhearted one to go to if you needed help or guidance or someone to be there for you. Indeed, it was hard to picture the Mansion without Mama T. "Right, sorry. She's Miss Taylor, the Guidance Councilor and one of the acting heads of the school. She's the best, if you ever need anything." He remembered how helpful she was to the lost child, Stephen Graves once upon a time.

Looked up to the clock in the corner of his eye, it appeared that class time was nearing its end, but Alice was finishing up her designs on his face, so there was just enough time for him to give her a mask of her own. "So how is it coming along? If you're almost finished, I'd be happy to give you your own lovely visage."