FicWad

Q. HOW DID THE TWO OF YOU FIRST MEET?






MIGUEL



Well, it's not the most awkward first meeting I've ever had. That record belongs to the time the prototype biogas converter blew a gasket and started spitting sewage water everywhere just as the Dean and the research grant committee chairman were walking into the lab. Imust have been swearing for five minutes straight before I noticed they were right behind me. God, the stink alone was-



Uh, sorry. Anyway, the first time I met her was nowhere near as half-assed as that, but it was strange. Then again, Ivy was involved so that shouldn't be too surprising.



The first time we met...



It was the height of summer. Right in the middle of registration for summer classes. Not as many people as there are during regular semesters, but enough to make the campus lose the half-deserted air it had during the Holy Week. More vehicles rumbling around, more noises, more figures going in and out of buildings and walking along the streets. Not just dappling shadows and the wind in the trees.



I was thirteen. A couple of weeks before, I completed my first year as a bona fide college student. I'd been allowed to take some higher Math courses back in St. Helene, but I still had some GE courses and I'd decided to take summer classes so I could get a couple of them over with. The fact that I'd get an allowance if I went to school didn't hurt.



It started as a limbo moment, the sort you get during summer. Registration is done online, so I finished sooner than I expected. I was supposed to meet up with Yna and the guys but that wasn't for a couple of hours yet, what with all of them still stuck waiting for an available computer at an Internet caf