Excerpt: Oddity Hall

"First of all," Tristan said to the dozen or so new residents gathered in the lobby (and the handful of returning residents who just wanted to enjoy the show), "yes, the wings are real. I am one of the MidianCorp chimeras; if you have heard of them, great, if not, I'm sure one of your professors will cajole me into a lecture about my origins at some point in the semester. People seem to find a winged boy interesting, for some reason. However, I suspect that some of you already know that I am not the only or most interesting character on this campus. For instance, allow me to introduce my minions-- I mean my fellow RAs." He gestured, and Keisha and three other students stepped forward.

"Hello, my name is Phil Horowitz," said the first boy. "Let me pass out the handbooks for you." And the booklets stacked on the ping pong table rose up and floated over to each new resident. There were a couple of gasps, and even a shriek, but Keisha could feel mostly surprise, interest, and even relief. "I can't really move anything heavy," Phil continued, "but I've got good control, and I will send my pingpong army after you if you break the rules." He tossed a couple of ping pong balls in the air, had them trace a few figure eights, and grinned and stepped aside for the next RA.

"Hi, I'm Carmen Zellmer," she said, "and I'm also the vice president of the Mad Scientists' Club. You're welcome to come join us, we're always looking for more subjects--"

"Carmen," Tristan interrupted.

"Members! I meant members!" she said quickly. Several people laughed.

"I don't care! Recruit later!"

Next was Keisha; she took a deep breath and smiled brightly. "Hi, I'm Keisha Smith, and I'm an empath." A bit more nervousness at her announcement than at Phil's; as expected, but still disheartening. She added quickly, "I can't read your mind, so I won't know what you're thinking, but I [i]will[/i] know if you have a guilty conscience, so watch out."

"Can you tell if we think you're hot?" one of the new boys called out.

Keisha snorted. "It doesn't take an empath to tell [i]that[/i]. But I've already got a boyfriend, so you're out of luck."

More laughter, and a few, "Aw, man."

"I'm available," Carmen called out.

"You don't want a boyfriend, you want a test subject," Phil said.

"Shut up!"

Tristan whistled sharply. "Can we get back on track, please?"

"You're no fun," Carmen complained, but she quieted down. Keisha stepped aside for their last coworker.

"Hola," he said, "I'm Al Murillo, and I'm not going to tell you what my special ability is. If you figure it out, though, I'll give you a special prize." He winked, and Keisha heard somebody snort. She glanced around and saw Alyssa rolling her eyes. She seemed more amused than anything else, though. And interested.

"So what is this?" one of the other students said. Keisha racked her brain. Charlene. Alyssa's roommate. "A special dorm just for freaks?"

Keisha cringed at the antagonistic undertone, but Tristan took it in stride. "Something like that," he said. "You'll find that nearly all of the residents here have some sort of mystical ability or background, or something equally unusual, like Carmen and her fellow mad scientists. Something that sets you apart from the rest of the world."

"So the college just dumps us all together here?" Charlene said incredulously.

"How do they even know who we are?" one of the guys demanded. His eyes darted back and forth, as if looking for a spy or hidden camera.

"They don't," Tristan reassured them. "The university actually doesn't have anything to do with this. It's part of the magic of Olliver Hall itself. Those who need to live here.... just do. It's pretty much a haven where you can be yourself."

"What, so within these walls, anything goes?" Another guy whose name Keisha couldn't remember, with black hair longer than most girls.

"Not quite [i]anything[/i]," Tristan said. "There will still be consequences if you, say, break a window or somebody's arm; but people not connected to the dorm just won't notice that you did so summoning a poltergeist instead of swinging a bat. That said, please don't summon a poltergeist. Someone tried last year, and got a giant squid instead."

"Which is why the rec room in the south wing still smells like fish," Keisha put in.

"But on the plus side, it was the best calamari I'd ever had," called one of the old students.

"There's a seafood place not ten minutes from here that does great calamari," Tristan said pointedly, "and it's cheaper than the cleaning bill I'll slap on you for trying it here. Which brings us to the dorm rules. If you look at page 5 in your handbook, you'll see the official rules, which are more or less the same rules you'd find in any dorm: no open flames, no pets, no visitors after midnight, leave your laundry unattended at your own risk... these rules should be followed with the same disregard as in any other dorm, except for the open flames, which I will crack down on really hard because I'm paranoid about it." A few people snickered. "You think I'm kidding, but have you ever smelled burnt feathers? It's not pleasant, let me tell you." A few still laughed, but Keisha noticed a couple of people wincing. [i]Good,[/i] she thought. She hadn't started college when that incident happened, but she could still feel Tristan's remembered pain when he thought about it. "In addition to the usual rules, there's some etiquette about talking about people's abilities. Like I said, this is a haven where you can feel safe, but if you've been keeping your clairvoyance a secret, you might not feel comfortable suddenly sharing it. So the rule of thumb is, you're allowed to ask a person once about their ability, and if they want to tell, they can. But if they don't want to, they just say so, and you don't push it. Pretty simple, right?"

"What if we just lie about our gifts?" someone asked.

"Well, there's no rule against it," Tristan said, "but it generally annoys people when they find out, especially if you're just doing it for attention. This is basic etiquette we're talking about, remember."

Alyssa raised her hand. "What if we don't have any special abilities or gifts or whatever?"

Tristan leaned forward. "Not everyone does. Or at least not everyone knows what their abilities are," he said. "Magic tends to be stronger here at Oddity Hall than in most other places. You may just not yet have had an opportunity to find out what you can do. But if you're here, you're here for a reason."

Alyssa and a few of the others nodded cautiously. "Okay," Tristan said. "Phil, if you would?"

Phil grinned and raised his right hand. A ratty blue shoe lifted itself from a display case and floated to just over his shoulder. "Repeat after me," he said. "I-- insert name here--"

"I-- insert name here--" a dozen voices obediently chorused. Keisha smiled.

"--do solemnly swear to relax, be myself, protect Oddity Hall and its inhabitants whenever possible, to leave the world a little better and a little crazier, and to never call our dorm head "Angel." I swear this on the Sacred Shoe of Saint Presley."

Alyssa frowned. "Don't you mean Governor Presley?"

"Do I?" Phil said innocently.

"He can't be nominated for sainthood until he's dead," Al pointed out.

"Bah, this is Oddity Hall! We can declare him a saint if we want!"