For rix_scaedu‘s prompt, combined with ankewehner‘s prompt
This is in the Stranded World Setting, which has a landing page here (and on LJ).
Mellie’s roommate was fighting with her mother again. They could hear it from the other side of the room, easily, so the three of them had headed into the hallway.
“I’d say it gets worse around the holidays,” Mellie murmured, “but it’s hard to tell. I’d need a decibel meter to get an accurate read.”
“That’s…. pretty awful,” Bishop frowned. “How long has it been going on?”
“As far as I can tell, since the first week of school. I’m not sure what’s going on, exactly, but it seems like her mom has a new complaint every week.”
“Damn.” Bishop shook his head. “My roommate fights with his folks, too, but it’s not that bad.”
Summer pursed her lips thoughtfully. “I have an idea.”
“You always have ideas.”
“Callie’s a nice girl. And Jacob has been really patient with us all year long. I know we’re going to Melinda’s family’s house for Christmas – but the rest of the vacation. Let’s make a holiday here for them. Jacob and Callie, my roommate doesn’t really like me, but I know Basil’s having a hard time, and the Californian twins.”
“What about their families?” Melinda offered cautiously. “Won’t they be mad they’re not coming home? Family’s important.”
“Blood’s thicker than water, etc,” Bishop murmured.
“Well, they can be mad all they want. What it comes down to is that we like these people, we’re nice to them, and they like us, or at least they’re nice to us. Let’s give them a family dinner the way we know it ought to be.”
Bishop nodded, slowly, Melinda echoed it. “We can do that.”
“Yeah. The dorm kitchens should be pretty empty. We can make this work.”
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May be some of those people can’t afford to go home for the holiday…
Could be! Since I only went to school 4 hours away, it never really occurred to me.
I know I couldn’t afford it in terms of time at Thanksgiving (break was a four or five day weekend, which was not really long enough to justify the flight home). I hope they can convince everyone to go back to school a couple of days early. Possibly with a pretext of “lots of homework, want to concentrate”?
Well, I think the goal was to convince everyone to stay there at school and hang out.
Hrm, I feel obligated to point out that at my (small liberal arts) college, in order to stay during official breaks (Thanksgiving, winter, spring, etc.), you had to pay extra by the day.
At T’s, they turned off the dining halls and the vending machines, but you could stay. I do not remember what they did at my state school, because I never stayed.