Leap 006 - Tag II

A friend and I are writing a story together, bit by bit, trading view points.  It is set in a slightly AU 1800s Boston where both of our characters have been sent to Miss Marple's School for Girls which is currently have a joint beginning of the school year ball with Watson's School for Young Gentlemen.  My character, Joanna Tempany Capall, has been at MMSFG for three years.  Her character, Leemara Trogsworthy, just arrived, both after being unlady-like naturally.  :)


    I was trying to keep my mind on my table, honestly, but those at my roommate's table kept distracting me.  Most of the girls in our dorm are sensible creatures but Leemara happened to get stuck with what appeared to be the most ninnyish of the half a dozen new girls at our school.  Another first year who needed to learn that there was more to life than herself and boys.  What joys.  Dragging myself back to our table I smiled halfheartedly at the servant who replaced my steak plate with the next course.  Staring back up at me was a red snapper on a bed of lettuce.  As quickly as possible I speared a lettuce leaf and deposited it over
the fish's head.  I love to eat fish but cannot stand to have them balefully reproaching me as I enjoy their muscles.  Sounds indecent either way but food should not stare back.
    I must have been making faces at the fish because several of my table mates were poorly hiding grins and giggles when I glanced up to offer a topic of conversation to the strangely silent table.  I gave a sheepish grin as a light blush crept up my cheeks.  "Does anyone have any exciting news?"
    Various familial events were offered including two marriages, three births and several leaving for the West.  Now this was interesting.  Whole families leaving their homes, likely forever, for places they had never seen.  The thought was frightening and thrilling at the same time.  I had heard the whispered opinion that no truly decent upperclass family would undertake a move to such a shocking place.  Decent people stayed home and let the middle and lower classes venture out.  How quickly they forgot their own family's origins, somewhere across the ocean.  Discussion of the western territories and the dangers likely to be encountered carried us through to dessert, a heavenly custard with freshly sliced strawberries and a drizzle of chocolate sauce.  So much for the first year's waist line I thought wickedly.