Wooden nickels

Along with playing the Carmody family yesterday, I took Betsy down to the high school to get all the new students enrolled. Not as crazy as the primary school was in Round 18 but these kids kind of had minds of their own, in a way I have not quite witnessed before in a school update. The way it played out really didn't lend itself to anything close to story telling, so this will be more commentary-like than usual.

All the new students, bar one, are pictured here. Cordy and Luc are 16, while Rose and Joanna are both 14.



The youngest new student is 13 year-old Ione. She's already making quite the impression on the boys at school.

But she's just happy to be reunited with some of her friends from primary school, who are a couple of years ahead of her.

Half of Betsy's new class works quite well.

But as soon as she's got her back turned, Rose is awkwardly flirting at the back of the room.

Here's where they started getting minds of their own. This round, I spent most of the time letting the kids wander around doing whatever they wanted. Half ended up in the music room. I watched them for a while, only to head over to the library where Cordy and townie Stephan were getting rather close. They'd actually made friends (all the way up to about 85 daily) all by themselves.

Stephan had the want for his first kiss (Cordy couldn't care less about her first kiss, apparently - I don't think she's ever rolled that want) so I let him go for it. It was a little awkward when they bumped noses.

But they got into the swing of it eventually.

More awkwardness followed though, when they could barely look at each other afterwards without giggling. Probably not a match made in heaven, but at least Cordy will have some experience under her belt if she ever decides to try things with Eliot, when she's older.

Poor Ione's hunger was in the red, even though the rest of her classmates' hunger was at about 50%. So she was all prepared to eat lunch by herself.

So she was pretty thrilled when the rest of the class entered the cafeteria and Stephan sat down to eat his own lunch at her table.

She tried to talk to him about sports but I guess tennis isn't his thing, because he kept his eyes on his pancakes (real healthy lunch, Sullivan High!) the whole time. The time he wasn't staring at Cordy, anyway.

Forget him. Another townie, Gordon, has taken a shine to Ione. She's a tad embarrassed by all the attention.

He's a better conversationalist than Stephan, at least.

Rose and Joanna insist on hearing all the details when Ione sits down to seconds (well, I said she was really hungry, didn't I?!)

Rose soon realises she's looking at Luc in a whole new light.

Autonomous, people! Never have I had two playables autonomously share a first kiss! That I can remember, anyway. They only have one bolt too.

Then, mere minutes later, Ione and Gordon are sharing a first kiss of their own. Also autonomously.

Ione runs straight outside to share this new development with Cordy. Relationships formed at 13 rarely go very far but it's exciting when you're 13 anyway.

So it was just first kisses all around and not much else this time! Ione and Gordon and Cordy and Stephan have decent chemistry but they're townies so I'm going to try to avoid them. I really prefer to pair up my playables, when I can!