Time

Round 26: Spring 2023

Principal Betsy Carmody is 52, Kendal Draper is 47 and Joanna Draper is 28.
Students: Ethan Novak and Matilda Jacobson are both 17, Adrienne Novak is 16, Tessa Novak and Rebecca Kirby are both 14, Malcolm Novak, Dominic Lachance, Susannah Carmody and Nathan Collins are all 13 and Hope Collins and Julia Gray are both 12.

After months of pining after his older sister's best friend, Matilda, Malcolm has been looking at his friend Susannah in a different way.


He's tried flirting with her a little and he thinks she's flirting back. Not that he'd really know. He's only ever flirted with Matilda before and she most definitely did not flirt back.

Malcolm's not really afraid of rejection though, so he decides to just go for it. He makes sure they're in a very quiet spot in the school, near the lockers, so Susannah's mother, who is also the principal, won't see.

Betsy didn't see a thing but she has her hands full with her new teacher Joanna, who has just transferred over from teaching at the primary school. So far, Betsy isn't impressed with her personally, though she comes highly recommended professionally.

Joanna isn't so impressed with her new boss either. The feeling is more than mutual.

If Joanna can watch her tongue a little more, perhaps she'll keep her job. She's already proven herself in the classroom, managing to wrangle her Grade 7/8 class without too much effort. She was expecting more trouble from them. Even though Joanna is clearly capable, Betsy can't help dropping in to "check", much to Joanna's annoyance.

Betsy can't really complain about the way Joanna is running her classes but she's still not sure if she actually likes the woman.

Susannah is trying to concentrate on her book but her mind keeps wandering back to Malcolm. She's still not really sure what to think of this morning's new development. The kiss was kind of nice but does this mean Malcolm is her boyfriend now or what?

In the library, Rebecca and Tessa should be working but they're gossiping instead. They've told their teacher that they have a group project they're working on for another class, which might be more convincing if they had any books or papers in front of them.

Adrienne only wishes she had that kind of time to waste. She's got just over a year left of high school and Kendal is really pushing her to keep her grades up so she can get into college.

Ethan and Matilda are leaving for university in a matter of months so most of the work they're doing is really just busy work to them. Kendal feels it's important not to fall out of study habits in between high school and university, especially for kids like Ethan and Matilda, who are not naturally inclined to study.

Ethan is pretty glad he was a year behind his ex, Sarah, at school. It means he's able to enjoy his final year without any of that awkwardness. It's also let him become better friends with Matilda. In all likelihood, they'll be in the same dorm together next year so getting along will be a plus.

Matilda is really looking forward to college, apart from the part where Adrienne isn't coming with her. Being a year younger, Adrienne has to wait a year. So Matilda is just happy she won't be arriving on campus completely alone.

Hope spends a good portion of her lunch period flirting with Dominic, her brother's best friend. Nathan isn't particularly thrilled with this.

Hope's best friend, Julia is still nursing a crush on Nathan, who is still completely uninterested. He and Tessa are riding it out until she turns 15 and then they'll start dating officially.

This has made Tessa a popular topic of conversation for Julia and Hope.

Tessa hasn't really done anything to Julia, apart from getting to Nathan first, but the girls have made somewhat of a sport of making nasty comments about her behind her back.

Tessa isn't really concerned about what a pair of 12 year-olds think of her anyway. She's got Rebecca and Susannah to hang around with.

Susannah decides to tell her two friends about this morning's kiss with Malcolm and suddenly, all eyes are on her.

For Rebecca and Tessa, it's about the most exciting thing ever but they are both much more outgoing than Susannah. Right now, Susannah is just a little confused and unsure how to act around Malcolm.

Notes:

• Title is from Time by Ben Folds.
• So much more fun to do high school with a big bunch of kids! I should have added Gabriel, Rebecca's boyfriend, in but when I was enrolling them all, it seemed like I had enough kids already. One more probably wouldn't have killed me though!
• Malcolm and Susannah's first kiss was autonomous but I had to re-stage it. They actually kissed for the first time while I still had Malcolm posed, so only Susannah looked like she was actually kissing anyone.
• Susannah's rolling up wants to go steady with Malcolm but they roll away and come back. She's also had a consistent want to go out on a date with him since before they even flirted though, so she's a little confused. I'll expand on it more when I update on Susannah's family tomorrow.
• You probably know that Hope only has one nice point, seeing I have a profile up for her. Julia is her little "mean girl" buddy, also with only one nice point to her name. It was no surprise Hope turned out mean (both her parents are, as is Nathan) but Corbin and Pamela are both much nicer than that. Mean Sims are fun but I was getting way too many so I edit all babies' personalities in SimPE these days. There's still an element of randomness in how I do it but it's closer to how personalities were passed on in TS1.