[Drama] The Girl Who Doesn't Exist

[Victor Freud]

On the same day that the new dorm assignments were posted, Victor approached the desk of the secretary.

"Good afternoon. I'm here to see the Headmaster. Are they in?"

[Ballinger Lippincott]

"Of course. Just go right in, and I'm sure he'll be with you shortly."


Vic did have to end up waiting for about 15 minutes, before the new headmaster entered the room.


"Ah, yes. And what can I do for you, today?"

[Emilie]

Emilie came along, but waited outside the office in the waiting room. She didn't want Victor to think he had to fight her battles for her entirely alone, but the voice in her head reminded her that if they knew who she was exactly, they'd probably escort her off the property entirely. These new rules didn't seem to be particularly in favour of outsiders, and if this wasn't a mistake, that's what she was now.

She opted to instead awkwardly sit with the receptionist and chew gum.

[Victor Freud]

Victor put his phone away when he heard the door open behind him, his tie straightened and looking very neat - if colourful. Definitely not the more muted tones found among the smartly-dressed British.

"Ah, thanks for seeing me Mr... Lippincott is it? Am I pronouncing that right?

"Anyway, I'll try not to take up too much of your time. I'm sure you've already gotten a lot of feedback from students about their room assignments and unfortunately I'm here about a similar issue. Though it hasn't anything to do with who I'm assigned with I assure you, I'm willing to give it a go as they say."

[Ballinger Lippincott]

"That's the spirit. These new rules may seem onerous at first, but I assure you, they will pay off dividends in time. College is all about new experiences and getting used to things outside your comfort zone, and I hope that this will be a growing experience for all involved."

[Victor Freud]

"Which leads me to the issue at hand. One of the students is not involved, my friend Emilie has not been assigned a room. I was hoping we could resolve this oversight before people start talking and a bunch of drama happens."

[Ballinger Lippincott]

Lippincott frowned, and went over to sit at his desk.

"That is concerning, and I assure you, is entirely unintentional. Headmistress Minamida's filing system and authorization was...unorthodox to say the least, and it's possible something slipped through the cracks."

He began typing on his computer, bringing up some files.

"And what is the last name?"

[Victor Freud]

"Thursday. Emilie Thursday." Victor clarified.

[Ballinger Lippincott]

Lippincott typed in for a few minutes. "Very strange...I'm not finding any record of a 'Thursday' in the system. You're sure that's correct?"

[Victor Freud]

"It should be, that was the name the school assigned to her. Could she be listed under just 'Emilie', or 'Not Applicable'?" Victor mused.

[Ballinger Lippincott]

"'The school assigned to her'?" Lippincott asked, as he continued to search. "Would you care to be more specific?"

[Victor Freud]

"Well, she didn't have one when she was admitted." Victor's face was deadpan, as if he were discussing the weather, or what kind of ink cartridge the printer took.

"Sad to say that's not entirely uncommon among X-gene carriers. A lot of students come from bad situations where they've been taken from their homes and reprogrammed, experimented on, different stuff. Gosh there's gotta be half a dozen in the student body like that - though I might be remembering some from back in New York...."

[Ballinger Lippincott]

"Might be under Emile Doe, then....no, still no results.

And you say she's been here on campus the entire time?"

[Victor Freud]

"Mmm, since... the early fall? September? Definitely not too late into the first semester, that's for sure, she was able to catch up really quick."

And it had been warm enough outside that he'd be able to go work a walk in the middle of the night without having to put on a coat. He never did figure out the whole Li Ban deal.

"I could text her, she's got a driver's license, maybe that'll help."

[Ballinger Lippincott]

"I believe what we have here is a simple clerical error. Nothing too difficult to fix.

We'll just need Ms. Thursday to get statements and up-to-date grading information from all the professors she's had up to this point, confirming her enrollment and current academic progress. Then we can go about updating her in the system."

[Victor Freud]

"Oh, good. I was worried this'd turn into some kinda red tape nightmare." Victor breathed a sigh of relief and took out his phone again, tapping it. "Statements... grading info from teachers... enrollment and academic progress. Got it."

"I guess I didn't realize just how... topsy-turvy things really had been."

[Ballinger Lippincott]

"Oh, you'd be surprised. There's quite a few students here who have been rather halfhazardly and poorly entered into the system, not to mention a bunch of other incomplete or possibly contradictory filings. The previous headmistress did not, apparently, keep high standards of order."

[Victor Freud]

"I guess when the system is pretty much literally in your head, or you are the system, you don't consider other people having to access your records."

Victor got up from his chair, but considered something.

"Oh, so, what does Emilie do in the meantime? Does she just stay in the room she has now?"

[Ballinger Lippincott]

"All rooms on your floor have been re-assigned, so I'm afraid that's not an option for the moment.

Just get this paperwork done as quickly as you can, and we'll smooth everything over," he nodded.

[Victor Freud]

Victor didn't find that answer as reassuring as the previous ones. What if they couldn't get all of that information that day, or things took longer than expected, where would Em sleep? But at the same time he got the feeling that if he pushed the issue he wasn't going to get any further either.

"Alright, I'd better get on that then. Thank you sir." Victor turned for the door, and headed back to the waiting room where Emilie was sitting.

[Emilie]

"What's the verdict?" She asked.

[Victor Freud]

"He says they don't have you on file, so we gotta get the teachers to sign off that you're a student, and that you've been learning stuff. Once they do that, they'll 'sort everything out'." Victor of course airquoted.

"There's no other last name you'd be under, is there? We tried Thursday, Doe, Not Applicable.... I never asked about Freud but I doubt it'd be the case anyway."

[Emilie]

Emilie seemed reserved in her response.

"Lets get this done then. Most of them should be in their offices or classrooms, right?"

[Victor Freud]

"Right. You're gonna have a room tonight, I promise."

[Emilie]

Under Victor's pressing, Emilie went first to her photography teachers office to see if she was in at the moment.

If the professor wasnt there, she'd continue to go down the line until she did find someone.

[Victor Freud]

It took Vic and Emilie almost the rest of the school day to get the information needed, since they had to account for almost an entire school year. But having split up made it easier for them to cover the ground between teachers faster, which gave them more time to not only find the professors when they weren't in their offices or classrooms, but also giving said teachers time to look up Emilie's marks for her courses. Many of the administrative staff were getting ready to leave for the day when Victor arrived back at the waiting room with a fistful of pages in his grasp.

"Is Mr. Lippincott still in his office?" He asked the secretary.

[Ballinger Lippincott]

"Come right in, come right in," the headmaster said, waving Vic along in. "My door is always open."

[Victor Freud]

Victor was half out of breath, his shirt untucked and tie askew, but looking pretty triumphant as he stepped into the Headmaster's office and almost slapped the papers onto his desk.

"Miss Thursday's papers. From all of her teachers. Confirmin' her courses and her averages for each subject."

[Ballinger Lippincott]

"Excellent! Let's take a look here. Go ahead and sit down."

The headmaster started flipping through the papers, making occasional "hrm" and "yes, I see" and disapproving noises as he flipped through.

"And how old is Miss Thursday, again? And is she a domestic student or international?"

[Victor Freud]

"Ehm, she's twenty. And she's definitely international." Interdimensional to be more precise, but that would have just complicated matters further.

[Ballinger Lippincott]

"Alright. In that case, does she have any immigration paperwork? A passport we can scan for the system?"

[Victor Freud]

"Well she's not an immigrant, she's a foreign student. I'm fairly certain the previous headmistress helped her get her passport in order, so I can definitely see about getting it for you."

[Ballinger Lippincott]

"That would be wonderful. We just want to make sure all our students here are properly registered and adhering to all appropriate laws and statutes, exchange students included."

[Victor Freud]

"And that they have a place to rest their head tonight." Victor clarified, tapping out a text to Em.

[You got your passport?]

[Emilie]

[Yep. Need it?]

[Ballinger Lippincott]

"And that they have a place to rest their head tonight." Victor clarified, tapping out a text to Em.

[You got your passport?]

"You do understand the issue here, yes? We have someone claiming to be a student without any records thereof. We have to be careful about these things; someone could easily make that claim with ill-intentions in mind."

[Victor Freud]

[Yeah, we're running into a redtape hallway here. You should probably come in.]

"I understand that issue. What I don't understand is why it is more acceptable for a student to sleep on a park bench tonight because the school administration has misplaced the documentation it had previously collected. You have the equivalent of sworn affidavits from the teachers, the word of another student who is on the records, and soon the woman's passport. I would argue that to deny her a room tonight, the burden of proof falls on you, not on me. And you not being able to find the documents you're looking for is not proof that they don't exist, since you previously admitted that the system was a mess. We as students understand that this is difficult, and are trying to be as accommodating as we can. All we ask in return is that you be as equally accommodating during this process."

Victor was being frustratingly calm as he looked up from his phone and made his case.

[Ballinger Lippincott]

"I am not at all suggesting anyone sleep on a park bench. From my understanding, Maldon has some excellent hotels.

And you are correct that the system was a mess...but as far as I can tell, your friend is the only one who was not in the system, and we had some very odd cases to work through. In addition, she continues to use you as a go-between, rather than attempting to solve any of these issues herself. This is all very suspicious."

[Victor Freud]

"It seems rather silly for the school to pay for a hotel room rather than letting her stay in a vacant form room." Victor shifted in his seat. "So the problem is not that her file was misplaced, but rather that the rest of the files weren't misplaced.

"I offered to sort this out for her, because I am her friend. She actually did the lion's share of asking for the stuff from the teachers, as some weren't comfortable sharing that info with another student. I can get her in here if you'd like." Spoiler, he probably wouldn't actually like that.

[Ballinger Lippincott]

"I think confirming her existence with my own two eyes would help, yes. Is there a reason she chose to go through you for this, rather than coming to see me directly?."