04.23: Dead Girl - Val

Valerie Cooper-Xavier was a handsome woman, not pretty but far from ugly, she had a face that Ruby would have called ‘characterful’.
They were in the large airy foyer in the centre section of the huge house. “Hmm. I like Deeg, let me know if you change your mind,” she said with a mischievous grin. “Second thoughts. Let’s start your tour outside. I need to get my phone from the office.” As they walked Val, she preferred that, pointed out a few things. In the wing behind them on the ground floor was the dining hall where everyone ate, the administration offices were there, although that would be moving to its own set of offices once the refurbishment was completed. Several staff lived there as did all of the students up on the first floor. Her office was at the front of the building, it had a desk but there the resemblance to an office ended.
“Oh I use this as my classroom too, it’s easier for people to find me here, and being inherently lazy the students can be moving around instead of me. The exercise will do them good.”
The woman did not come across as being indolent.
She took a phone in a nondescript case off the desk and pushed it into a pocket.
As they exited Jenny saw that a boy had arrived and was sitting on a chair outside the headteacher’s office, he looked to be about thirteen and wore a yellow t-shirt.
“One second,” she said to Jenny, and advanced on the boy. “Julian, sat outside the Head’s Office. What a surprise.”
The boy stood up. “It wasn’t my fault Miss. I didn’t start it. I was just-”
Val interrupted. “Julian, it is your lucky day, I am busy with a new arrival so go back to your lesson and try behaving for once. And I will remember this… so do not let there be a next time.”
The youth nodded sheepishly and looked very very grateful and skedaddled without having to be told twice.
She turned back to Jenny. “He’s a terror that one,” she said smiling through gritted teeth.
“Magic boy,” Val said laughing, “oh he is going to love that one. “Harry can be insensitive, he has not had the happiest of lives. Everyone has their demons.” She faltered for a second. “Not literal demons it’s just a turn of phrase.”
The campus was indeed beautiful.
Val told her how the Xavier Institute for Gifted Youngsters was a private school, externally funded by very rich patrons, and all the pupils were on bursaries, so they didn’t have to pay anything.
“To the outside world we are an elite school, one of the best in the world in fact. The reality is we have created a safe haven for mutants who may be in trouble. This was my late husband’s dream. He was a mutant, and probably the most wonderful person I have ever known. I am not a mutant but along with others, like our financial backers, I share the dream of making a world where baselines like me, and mutants like you can live together.”
They had passed outside and across the lawns Jenny saw a vast wrought iron greenhouse, inside she saw several children having a lesson. After a small dense copse of trees they walked out into a bright open space. There were sports fields, tennis courts and a cluster of what would probably in the past have been farm buildings. They had all been done up and now looked like the kinds of places that might be rented out as high-end holiday homes. In the far distance was a long narrow building, it looked old, Val said that was the bowling alley.
“The greenhouse is our main teaching room. It is configurable for many different functions, it has full climate control and the glass can be tinted to protect from the sun on hot days. Over there in the trees, if you strain your neck a little is our purpose built swimming complex.”
A little further on next to a football pitch three teenage boys were doing shuttle runs carrying fifteen kilogram weights above their heads while a female instructor hurled some very inventive abuse at them.
“We are very tolerant here but we do have rules. Those three smuggled sixty cans of beer onto the island, then held a party out on the woods and tested positive for marijuana the next day. We have a zero tolerance policy for illegal drugs. Being here is voluntary, but as an adult if you do stay there are certain levels of behaviour we expect. We have minors in our charge after all.”
They walked on a little more and eventually reached the cluster of buildings, through the trees Jenny could see a house with a garden. “That’s one of our faculty residences, they are scattered around the island. Most of our staff home here too. I live in the main house.”
The buildings around the courtyard were the new administrative offices, two gymnasia, a dance salon, a small theatre, a communal cafe and several others that they had yet to define a purpose for.
“If you stay it is up to you. This is a huge adjustment I know, you can take as much time as you need. You are clearly above school age but if you need college or university education we can help out there too. No pressure Deeg.”

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