ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY-SEVEN: About Pythons
187
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Engaging with the Unexpected was different that day. They’d made the shift from talking about superhero case studies to discussing personal experiences during the disaster. Most people were more serious than usual, and there was a reduction in the amount of arguing as everyone took time to listen to specific stories.
It was an appropriate change, but not without its downsides. While there were fewer arguments, the ones that started up were more likely to result in lasting hard feelings than the normal discussion topics. A few students seemed genuinely tense talking to each other, and Instructor Marion was being more proactive about directing conversations than usual.
And there was another change that Alden—who was partially distracted by imagining Boe on his way to look for the lost kid—didn’t notice until halfway through class.
At that point, Maria, the Adjuster girl with the summoning spells, was saying she felt that the class’s focus on responding well to unexpected events was useful, but that they’d missed out on having conversations about how to handle the aftermath of those events.
“We’ve been talking about dealing with problems that appear suddenly, but we haven’t been talking about how you can be stuck with days and days of more unexpected things because the first problem Brute-kicked you so hard you still haven’t come down. Getting woken up by sirens and sitting in a classroom in the MPE building, realizing that the news was talking about my neighborhood being underwater—that sucked. But I still think everything after it, combined, has been harder for me than that night.
“This morning my mom called to ask me how I’d feel about her moving to an Avowed zone instead of getting a new place here on Anesidora. That’s not a bad thing, is it? I’m eighteen. I don’t need her to live here. But it’s something she’s only thinking of because of recent events, and it’s really unexpected. And it’s the tenth confusing thing I’ve had to deal with over the past few days. They’re not catastrophes, but they just keep coming. I’m starting to wish I could hibernate for a year. I’d wake up and find out about all the unexpected stuff at the same time instead of getting hit with a little more every day. ”
Alden raised his hand. He was going to agree with her that talking about this kind of thing was a good idea. The class had been lacking on that front, and he felt like people tended to underestimate the way trouble could breed more trouble.