There were a number of areas in which Lynn excelled. Few of them were entirely legal and none of them involved social graces. Leaning back against the tree, the infuriating mixture of impotency and confusion started gnawing at her. Shit, had she done something wrong? She'd lit the fucker's cigarette, what more did he want? The European seemed irritated more anything (last time I light a cigarette for you) and a few others with lighters (don't flip those on near me) just seemed miffed. Must've thought she was showing off. Lynn generally wasn't one for showing off-perhaps she suffered a bit from a Napoleon complex, but she preferred to leave and be left alone. 

A few more were there, some Lynn had missed. Rich bitch with snakes for hair. Lynn had developed one hell of a poker face over the years-it never helped to show you were alarmed or rattled, and as such, Lynn managed to keep her surprise to herself-but that had been a bit of a surprise. Huh. She'd figured people would be, you know, weird, but that wasn't what she was imagining. Snakes for hair. Damn. She had a sudden, childish urge to tie all of them in a knot. Snakes was talking to her, then. Lynn gave her a cold smile, not rattled by the hint of condescension. Didn't seem to be much use replying to her, but she added "Oh honey, my clothes are still on. The party tricks haven't even started." Snakes didn't seem like her type of girl. Rich. Visibly rich. That was a bad way to be. Snakes probably flew in here on her private jet, tipped her chauffeur with a few hundred dollars. Lynn didn't like people like that. Not one bit. She felt her fingers began to burn, the kind of adrenaline tingle that had nothing at all to do with her power, and as Lynn looked away from Snakes she found herself wondering just how much that little necklace of hers would go for, if those snakes were sharp enough to notice a missing purse worth more than everything Cordelia Lynn Holmes had to her name.

Lynn felt the weight of the stares of the others-it was nothing new. The few times she walked through the financial district or moved into the touristy areas of Chicago, she picked that up real quicklike. She shrugged it off with indifference, continuing to stare at a point that focused on no one and everyone all at once. Some white girl who didn't seem fond of keeping her eyes to herself was talking to the European now. Lynn was too preoccupied with the issue of how this-[i]this[/i]-would work to bother with small talk. What were the rules for this sort of thing? It'd been a while since she'd been in high school, and it'd been even longer since she'd had too much of a semblance of a middle class teenage life. She was out of the loop. All these people reading and...damnit. Fuck! This was a mistake. She should've taken juvy, that was what she knew, this was...this wasn't her, this-

Lynn took a deep breath, closing her eyes and trying to gather her thoughts. Stay cool, Holmes. Take your mind off stuff. New kid stumbled up. Oh, God. This one looked terrified. Jesus. Lynn almost felt a twinge of sympathy for him. [i]Put the gameboy down, pull the tampon out. C'mon buddy. You're not the one worst off here.[/i] Lynn reached the butt of her cigarette-damn, this one had barely lasted two minutes-and curled it up in her hand absentmindedly, letting the last little bit obliterate itself in her cupped fist. She wiped the ashes off on her pants and resumed her normal pose. Couple people trying to break the ice. European looked to take charge. Lynn would've preferred they dropped the charade and just enjoyed the quiet, but it wasn't up to her. New game, new rules. Gotta play along.

"Hi," Lynn said. "My name is Lynn and I'm an alcohol-ah, shit, wrong meeting." Lynn pulled out another cigarette, just to have something to do. The scared looking one from earlier, his name's Casper. Good to know. Lynn privately felt that, whenever reading assignments inevitably came her way, Casper might be the one who would help her out. Casper probably wasn't aware of this, but Lynn had a sneaking suspicion that Casper would respond favorably to a bit of pressure. 

Oho! And then there's this fucker Greg. Lynn put two and two together. Kid can read minds. That's cool. Lynn was surprisingly fine with this-she very strongly doubted that Greg would handle her lovely inner psyche very well. [i]Go ahead buddy. I can barely stand it in here, I know you can't. Stick to the books, they've got happy endings.[/i] Lynn glanced. Casper was seated relatively close to her. She wouldn't whisper in front of everyone, that wouldn't be cool, but it also would be a dick move to humiliate him in front of everybody. That wasn't cool. Lynn figured if this guy didn't man up here soon he'd be a little doormat for Snakes and the rest of her condescending little rich friends sooner or later. 'Course, might've turned out Casper was a regular Jay Gatsby himself, but Lynn was going to give him the benefit of the doubt. She reached for her pack to offer him a cigarette, but paused. Huh. He...probably didn't smoke. Lynn turned and looked him over for a minute. Yeah, he....probably didn't smoke. It'd probably light his haircut on fire, as low as it hung. She went back to staring out, burning through her cigarette. The heightened glow cast up over her face, making her eyes glitter just a touch, her long scar darkening. Any other way to approach the kid? Nothing really came to Lynn's mind, no common ground she could bring up with this kid. He probably didn't enjoy rap and probably was still in school, so there weren't two big conversation starters. Oh well. She'd keep an eye out for him-Lynn had a soft spot for the underdogs, for rather obvious reasons. Not everybody got a million dollar birthright the way Snakes probably did. She glanced away before Casper got any wrong ideas (old habits die hard, Lynn supposed) and sighed, making another tenth a cigarette crumble off and fall to the ground. [i]Oh no, guess I made another Indian cry or whatever.[/i] 

Lynn resisted the urge to ask what time Mrs. Frizzle and the Metahuman School Bus were coming by to pick them up. They'd be here whenever. Or maybe this was like the first test or something. She halfway expected them to send, like, a bunch of bees or bears or whatever at them to see how they'd react. That was how it happened in the movies, right? Well, if that was the case, she was just going to pick up one of Greg's dumbass books and bore them to death. Maybe she'd just threaten to call Snakes' lawyer and watch the test suddenly get cancelled. Who knew? Lynn was full of surprises.