The Muffin Trap

[Charity Croft]

Charity tried not to look like she was staring at the muffin basket she'd brought and set on the table. Well, not only had she brought the muffin basket, but she'd also made the muffin basket. well, the muffins, though this might be one of the baskets she'd woven during her basketweaving class; she couldn't be absolutely certain. At any rate, she'd brought the muffins to the teacher's lounge, since it never seemed like anyone ever really brought anything.

Then, she'd proceeded to wait, wait and nibble on one of her own muffins. It felt a bit like self-advertising or what have you, but Charity didn't see any issue with this. Plus, she figured that her muffins might be a great way of starting up conversations with someone. They'd be all like, who brought the muffins, and she'd be all like, I brought the muffins, aren't they great? And then they could sit down and discuss muffins. Bam, friendship made.

The problem was that no one was approaching the muffins for some reason. "Oh, these muffins sure are delicious!" Charity said as loudly as possible. "I sure do like to munch on these muffins. Yum, yum. I'm so glad that someone brought muffins to share with everyone! I think they're even homemade!" and Charity looked around, fully believing someone to have at least heard her. That would be progress, at the least.

[Bell Connelly]

The ever so distinctive smell of Muffins drifted lightly into the airs and wafted ever so gently towards a sofa where curled up anyone could find Bell Connelly curled up her bright red curly hair poking out from a collection of test papers she was happily grading one by one twirling a pen between her fingers. On the whole it was a reasonable successful test, for the most part. A few F’s here and there –Bell so hated giving them out- and a few scattered A’s but on the whole the class kept to a B-C average so Bell kept a positive mindset about the whole thing. They were mostly a group a good kids, just a few didn’t know how to apply themselves, but once they do Bell had no doubt they’ll fly.

She was just putting a large smiley face beside the A which was a common practice of hers, She liked to give a personal note to each one of her students. One of favourites to put down beside an F was her favourite CS Lewis quote: “Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success.” Hopefully they can take something away from the experience.

She was trying to think of the perfect note to leave a student when the aroma of muffins made it’s way toward her, causing her stomach to grumble, she tried to ignore it for the moment doing her best to concentrate on her work…

…but her sweet tooth was always her weakness… No matter how much she tried to resist she would always give in to it in the end.

Case in point; She couldn’t be expected to work on a empty stomach could she? Not to go and attack those muffins is clearly the irresponsible choice…

She set aside her papers and walked up to the muffins –and it’s very well made hand basket incidentally her mouth practically watering as she walked beside a fellow teacher who seemed to be admiring the basket too “Mhh” She nodded with approval at the box “They do look delicious don’t they? They smell amazing and they look even better. Remind me to thank whoever send these in. I’m famished.”

[Charity Croft]

Score! Charity had totally gotten someone to fall into her awesome muffin trap! Double score! They looked like someone who was about in her age range and would totally want to be her friend. Charity knew she'd have to play it at least a little cool though: she'd already scared off some people.

"They're super good," she repeated, after first coming off from her seat and walking over to where the other teacher stood. "And you so just thanked the person who sent them. Because that's me," Charity pointed at herself, swallowed, and continued: "I made the muffins and all. I figure that sometimes we get hungry and could use a snack and stuff and, yeah,' Charity took a bite of her muffin, before pointing at her face.

"They're really good," she said around the muffin, only spitting a bit of it as she went. Her hand went up to cover more and she flushed. Yeah, totally cool: the other woman would just be dying to be her friend now.

[Bell Connelly]

Quick tip, if you want to become a p fixture in Bell’s good books, bake her some pastries or at least some kind of baked good, Superman had kryptonite, Achilles had his heel and Bell? Bell had deserts. Resisting the siren call of them was near impossible to Bell. When asked about it in the past, she would compare herself to Scobby Doo. If she was asked to do something that she rather not do, she would obviously refused, but offer her a cookie, or a cake.

It was disquieting how much she had in common with a cartoon idiot dog…

She looked around for a moment as if she was about to commit some kind of criminal act. Would anyone mind if she just tried to take…one…or…maybe three or four. It couldn’t help could it?

Her thoughts were interrupted as a woman with dark hair approached her claiming credit for baking the muffins She couldn’t help but look from the muffins to the girl with a smle on her face she certainly seemed proud of her work “Well they look amazing! I think you might have become my new favorite person” She nodded moving a lock of hair out of her eyes “I’m afraid I’ve been a something of a scatter brain today and I’ve forgotten my lunch so a tip of the hat to you” She said trying to be as appreciative as possible

“Well I would lo-“ but Bell was cut off as her face was splattered with spit as he winched closing her eyes on impact, she paused for a moment before slowly wiping it off her face “Maybe you should chew your food before speaking."

[Charity Croft]

Charity practically bounced at the mention of being someone's new favorite person: especially an adult type person who apparently loved her cooking and all. Charity likely would have offered to share her lunch too, except then she did the whole spitting thing and Bell didn't seem thrilled.

Charity made certain to swallow before speaking. "I am so sorry!" she said, flailing her arms for a moment, reaching to grab a nearby stack of napkins. Yes, stack, because in her fair amount of panic she'd grabbed a handful instead of just one. Which led to her attempting to put them back, she dropped a few on the floor, which then meant bending down to pick them up, and that took a few tries, until Charity just gave up, plucked one, and handed it out.

"So, yeah, sorry," she said, offering another smile and gesturing toward the muffins, "muffin to make up for it?" she let her voice go up a little in pitch with each word, as though somehow that would make it more tempting.

[Bell Connelly]

“Oh no, it’s fine it’s fine” Bell said waving off the girls apologies after all it was just an accident and accidents happen especially considering when people talked with their mouth full of muffin it seemed to happen an awful lot. Besides it wasn’t like she did it on purpose at least Bell hoped not, She couldn’t think of anything that would merit food being spit in her face

…and even if she did spitting muffin in her face would be an odd way for someone to show anger…

“Let me jus-ok then…” Bell said a little wild eyed at how the muffin madam (and yes in lue of a name that was how she was going to think of her. Because nicknames were far more fun) She watched with a fair amount of bemusement as Charity grabs the mountain of napkins in a clear panic, leaving Bell to rock back and forward on her heels feeling just a little awkward. She was acting like she had just slapped Bell in the face. She pushed her arms in pushing down motions in front of her “Ok, maybe..maybe take some deep breaths ok..in…and…out again. Relax ok? It’s fine, I think I’ll somehow manage to survive.”

But then she mentioned muffins and Bell’s lit up amused at the way she phrased that question “Muffin to make up.” She nodded confirming that a muffin would in fact help her get over her emotional pain “Oh, I’m Bell by the way. I teach English, but I'm a part time desert enthusiast”

[Charity Croft]

Fine, fine, yes, even the other woman said it was fine. Charity took a few deep breaths, though she'd already practically flung napkins and asked about giving out more muffins and such. Well, at least Charity had her impressive baking skills to make up for things.

"Charity!" she practically chirped. "Is my name. My name is Charity. Charity Legrange," she nodded and pointed, "that's me. I'm, uh, a trainer here. I went to school here and all, but now I'm back. Training students. And making desserts but, like, just on the side and stuff. Mostly healthy stuff. Those are gluten free!" she pointed at the nearest muffin nodding. "Or... those are," she pointed at another one. "I sort of made a few batches..."

Charity paused for a moment, looking over the muffins before nodding and turning. "So, uh, are you new here? Or are you, like, older than you look?" Was that a compliment? It felt like one to Charity. She meant it as one...

[Bell Connelly]

Well she was high strung wasn’t she? Certainly energetic to say the very least. She reminded her of herself when she was about…God what? 14? 15? Years old and feeling very insecure about herself indeed. In fact she remembered doing something like Muffin Maiden is doing right now in order to win over friends. Baking a big plate of cookies and offering them to every random person she could find. Forcing baked goods I her didn’t exactly work out well them… but she eventually got over her shyness and meekness and decided to make friends the traditional way, which she found was a lot more effective then-

-Well whatever this woman was doing now. Should she be worried having around a woman that was clearly older then her acting like a teen?

“Oh of course!” Bell clasped her hands together “I know you, everyone’s favorite trainer! I’ve heard the legends of course. I wish I had trainers growing up like you. Mine all seemed to be retired sadistic drill sergeants” Bell shuddered at the memory there was one particular trainer that insisted of having her do push ups and run around the tracks till her legs felt like they were made of mental. She tried to point out that her powers had literally nothing to do with push ups or running but that just seemed to make him all the more angry.
 
…and lets not even talk about the time she tried to offer him cookies…

“Well I’m a teacher here” Bell nodded “English mostly, basically I buried myself in a mountain of books and never truly bothered to crawl out, so now I throw books at students for a living” Bell paused for a beat suddenly frowning “Not literally, obviously; That would be just a cruel and unusual form of teaching”

Bell blinked taken aback from Charity’s question. She was asked that question before but not in such a blunt way….That was a good thing right? That she was quite young. In fact it was nice to talk to someone around her own age “Well how old do I look? Because I get confused for a student an uncomfortable amount of time. I’m 25 and I’ve been teaching here for about a year or so. When I first arrived here It felt a little weird being so young and on the staff. Like I’m a student that somehow tricked the school into letting me teach a class, buttttt-” She paused and shrugged her shoulders smiling bashfully “That was before the heads of the school became two eighteen year old girls…”

[Charity Croft]

"Wait, seriously?" said Charity, blinking. Students were... talking about her? Charity hadn't even been here that long already. "Uh, you're actually probably thinking of my dad," Charity held out a hand at her father's height, which came up to about her hip. "Guy Legrange. Same last name. I actually took his after my mom said he was my dad and all," Charity bobbed her head for a bit, as if that was perfectly normal. She definitely wasn't going to mention the whole having a crush on him back when she'd been a student thing. Wasn't like he wasn't only, like, sixteen years older than her or anything.

Charity kept the head bobbing up as Bell introduced herself. English teacher, books, it all definitely made sense and answered most of Charity's questions. Apparently the whole age thing had been weird, and Charity definitely blamed nerves. She was a spaz, sure, but she normally wasn't this much of a spaz, more... quirky. It seemed like Bell was only a few years younger than her too.

"I know!" Charity said at the end. "I was like, twelve when they were born! I hadn't even been here that long I don't think..." she scrunched up her face before nodding. That did seem about right. "And now it's, like, I think I'm teaching people as old as some of them. Though I kinda prefer the younger ones," she leaned forward conspiratorially: "Less of a pain in the you know what." And Charity nodded. "So uh, just English? Like, in the broad with all the high schoolers or do you, like, do literature and stuff?" Hey, Charity had gone through school. She had her educator's license and everything!

[Bell Connelly]

Ohhhhh, That Legrange! For whatever reason when Charity mentioned her last name, Bell failed to draw a connection between the head trainer and Charity. Which to be fair she suppose was a common occurrence for her, because it wasn’t like it was difficult to tell either of them apart and she wasn’t just talking about the obvious physical difficulties between them…Well, lets just say Bell didn’t see him offering students hugs anytime soon

“Oh no. Somehow I doubt you know how fast news travelled in a high school. Especially considering talking about a trainer who offers hugs as an incentive” She smiled warmly “-and of course I know your father I can just see the family resemmmm...” Bell froze like a dear in the head lights as she just trailed off making “..mmmmmm” sounds for several seconds before jabbing her thumb behind her “Sooo..I’m going to go ahead sit down and eat these muffins. Yum” She murmured glad to chance the subject as she took a seat on a nearby sofa.

Sure Charity as a little…off to be sure but Bell was in no position to argue on that score, she had more moment where she herself wasn’t the most confident person in the world nor the most graceful. 
She tossed the muffin back and forward as Charity spoke her lips pursed just a little “Well, it’s good to see that nepotism is alive and well” She said the Bellefonte’s never her favorite topic of discussion but didn’t really feel like that was a appropriate to talk about, not to mention it was kind of a bummer.

“Oh the younger ones are so much better, That’s before they start showing off and they start getting smart with you” There always seems to be some kind of class clown that tries way to hard to be the funny one and trying to cut off Bell’s classes but they always seemed to calm down once Bell threatened them with punishment. “Oh, I like to think of myself as a Jack of all trades, but my specialty are books, I guess you could call it a life long obsession. “So yeah Literature and stuff…Lots of stuff”

Smiling Bell patted the place on the sofa right beside her tapping her hands on her knees “Come on lets take care of these muffins shall we? I have time for a quick two person muffin party” With one free hand Bell proceeded to do a half hearted –Raise the roof- “What What!”

[Charity Croft]

{not quirky my ass}

Charity bobbed, only to pause as it seemed as though Bell got derailed midconversation. She really saw a resemblance between Charity and her father? Because Charity figured that she mostly (entirely) took after her mother and the whole father thing had been particularly striking though her power did seem to sort of be similar to her father's and all. But---ah, it was the muffins! Muffins could totally derail conversations and all. Plus that just left Charity smiling and nodding.

And then shaking her head as nepotism was mentioned. "What? No! I, like, I have a license and my power is super useful for training and I've been studying to do this and all! The fact that my dad's the head trainer is a total coincidence. He didn't even really meet me till---" Charity paused, wondering for a moment if Bell hadn't been talking about the Bellefontes.

Best not to dwell: just agree with the whole younger student thing and look excited at Bell liking literature, yes, just like that. Then "Whoo whoo!" came out of Charity as she too raised her hands before moving to plop down on the sofa. "Though there are a lot of muffins here. I kind of was figuring to get a wide net and all. They do hire some scary people here. Like, that one guy they had a while ago who was about seventy percent muscle and stuff," Charity shrugged and moved to grab a muffin, figuring that she'd totally earned one now. At least one. One half dozen. Maybe. At least.

[Bell Connelly]

Phew. That was a close one, nothing was quite as distracting as the allure of a warm sugary baked good, Bell knew that better then most people seemed to do but thankfully Charity seemed to share her slavery to her sweet tooth. Thank God for that, Bell had just shown how well she seemed handled topics that she really shouldn’t talk about

IE. Not very well at all. Thank goddess for the magical powers of muffins.

…and oh dear it looks like Bell did it again, she had somehow said something she really shouldn’t have done so, she was learning quickly that Charity was quite a dramatic young lady. Just a little bit high strung after all over the course of this conversation she’s almost had a grand total of two panic attacks. That in it of itself was concerning to say the very least. She needed to learn how to calm down otherwise she might just explode one of these days “Charity you’re doing it again” Bell noted seriously. “Just take a few deep breaths ok? Like before? Remember?” Bell made the same breathing motion like before “In through your nose, and out through your month. J- Just sit down, keep calm and eat muffins..which I’m sure somewhere is the slogan for a motivational poster…” She admitted. If it wasn’t she would be stunned and maybe just a little disappointed, she should get to work on that in the near future.

“Oh, well I can’t be the only one to be…umm, trapped in your muffin net. Net of muffins. Maybe more people will come along. Buuuut, it won’t exactly break my heart if we need to finish us all these on my own” She nodded before taking her first bite of the muffin in her hand and once she did she couldn’t help but give off an innovatory moan of delight as the muffin danced apon her taste buds “Ah-ha. Yup. I can totally make room in my day for these.

She swallowed her bite and listened to Charity speak and she couldn’t agree with Charity more, there was a fair amount of…interesting people and more then a few were very intimidating “You mean the guy that looked like he’ll be more at home terrifying a local village and crushes princes heads?” Yes that’s right. That was a Game of Thrones reference. Bell was testing how cool Chairity really was (Fun fact: During that particular episode Bell screamed out loud and pressed her pillow against her face in fright) “There’s a few people like that here, like the janitor. I can’t be certain but he may or may not be a serial killer…I don’t know how to feel about that” Bell paused and shuddered a little deciding now would be a good time to chance the subject “Sooo, you mentioned that your power is super useful for training? What is it?”

[Charity Croft]

"Doing what again?" came out before Charity could really stop it. She paused for a moment as Bell continued, paused and mentally reviewed what she'd just said. What in there had she been doing... "Oh, right, I'm not a spaz, honest," she said with another little laugh. They were then moving and talking about muffins and moving and there may have been some moaning about just how delicious the muffins happened to be.

That last bit had Charity grinning again. She could totally keep doing this: just keep bringing muffins or other goodies. Hey, if she needed some sort of thing to get people's attention and separate her from the crowd, she'd totally go with it, especially if it involved muffins.

Well, muffins and talking, both of which Charity was fairly good with. Bell rolled right along with it. Charity let out a little noise of amusement, her head bobbing. "That's totally the guy!" she said, pointing. "he was, like, really intimidating," though she didn't quite get what the reference was there. She didn't need to. Soon her head was bobbing again. "I know, right? And there's the cat too! It's like they just asked people to think up the weirdest people they could find and they'd be hired."

Though arguably two of those sat right there enjoying muffins.

"Well," said Charity, smiling, "I can detect powers but, like, it's more than that. I can actually study someone and figure out how their power works for them. It goes beyond just obvious stuff, like," Charity gestured, "you could totally watch someone and be all like 'they're a telekinetic' but I'd be like 'they could lift twenty pounds and they have to lift their hands because it's connected to them and it works like that because of their brain,'" Charity nodded again, then took another bite of her muffin, looking fairly self-satisfied as she chewed.

[Bell Connelly]

“You know that thing? That thing you seem to do a lot?” Bell said softly as if she was trying to explain to a small child that he was drawing ever so slightly outside the lines “Your voice gets very high pitched and you talk way too fast for human ears to pick up on….I’m pretty sure you reached a level that only dogs could hear you” Bell shrugged almost apologetically, not to say that Bell considered anything wrong with that. Bell herself had a few…Not so dignified quirks of her own (Lord was that an understatement if ever there was one ) So if anyone could sympathized with Charity’s words.

“Maybe the next time you start getting a little you know…” Bell waved her fingers out in front of her “Nyagg! Maybe you should take a deep breath and..and just enjoy a muffin” bell nodded choosing to draw a line under her very good point by taking another bite out of her muffin” With a satisfied smirk on her face “It’s not possible to be in a bad mood when there’s a muffin at hand”.

Wise words to live by…

“ I know right? It’s less like teacher’s lounge and more like a insane asylum, honest to God some of the people here…” Bell said shaking her head before shrugging her shoulders “Well it’s nice to know that there’s one another sensib-“ Ok that didn’t work “…I mean Nor-“ Ok nor did that “ Another teacher around my age here”

Yeah that worked

“Oh really? Well now I have to ask; Can you tell me what my power is?”

[Charity Croft]

Thing she did a lot? Charity was tempted to argue and she snorted slightly as Belle continued. She so didn't do that. Most of the time. Just when she was a little excited and, well, that sort of fit how she felt right now. not that Charity was going to outright mention it or anything. Instead she just giggled at the mention of the muffing thing.

Charity chuckled again at the mention of the insane asylum. "Oh, it's okay, I know that some of the staff are a little off-kilter. You really can't blame any of us: we've all had these weird abilities and we're stuck here with teenagers who not only have hormones but are also loaded with the ability to, like shoot fire or something,' Charity bobbed her head again, letting a little of that training and understanding come out.

It sounded as though Bell wanted more. Charity took a bite of the muffing, smiling a little. "I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you," she said. Then she waited a beat, letting the joke sort of sink in before nodding. "Well, uh, let's see,' she studied Bell, her face scrunching. "feels like... something involving sleep? Like," Charity waved with her non-muffin hand, "like you put people to sleep somehow or something." Those kind of abilities were always hard to ID without seeing them in action, which almost seemed counterproductive, really.