Wonders of Orchid [Sophie]

[Nadia Donovan]

The library was one of Nadia's favourite places. Probably her favourite place at Orchid... inside anyway. It was somewhere you could come to relax and read a book in peace and quiet; which was something which Nadia really loved to do. Reading was her favourite hobby and the common room was really too noisy to be able to submerse yourself in a book and get into the characters' skins. As for her dorm, even though she was pretty unsociable, she didn't really want to come across as being unsociable. So she had come to the library.
The Grand Library at Orchid was the best library Nadia had ever been in. Not that she had been in that many. It was perfect really. An easy to use navigation system for the non-fiction and also had a brilliant selection of fiction. Not that Nadia really needed that, but it was nice to have a choice aside from the mini-library Nadia had towed to Orchid.
The non-fiction had been a brilliant help in her research so far and she was looking forward to reading in detail about the Orchid war... well the war that centered around Orchid. She didn't really know much about it, how it started, or even what the current situation is.
The library had loads of comfy sofas interspersed between the tables and shelves of books and windows. Nadia sat herself at an empty table, not wishing to intrude on others and also for the solitude.
She preferred by only a slight margin to read at a table - it meant you could rest your arms on the table, rather than holding a book up. Also Nadia had some maths homework left to do. Maths was one of her favourite subjects, the other being French, and it came simply to her. As such, it didn't take Nadia long to finish it; she had been wondering for a while whether or not to offer tuition but so far had backed out of advertising. She was still new and didn't know whether it was acceptable at Orchid to suggest that you were way better than anyone else in a subject. Unless you had some sort of power that enabled you to do much better at certain things that is. Also as it was still the start of term, she doubted that anyone would need any help for now; it would be nearer the exams most likely.
She put her maths books back in her bag and pulled out her current book - Marley and Me - and started reading.

[Nadia Donovan]

Nadia was in the middle of reading Marley and Me. She had reached the point of when John and Marley went to the beach when she felt someone looking at her.
She glanced up and despite the empty room, it took her eyes a minute or so to focus on a girl, her year or the year above most likely looking at her. She wondered why the girl was looking at her. It was only at that point that Nadia realized the library had emptied, leaving only her and the other girl. She wasn't sitting too far away so Nadia could see that whatever the girl was supposed to be doing wasn't happening. Only a growing design on the side of the page showed any sort of work. She looked at the question... differentiation. Nadia was quite willing to admit that she was weird about maths, but she loved differentiation. She hadn't done it in a while - it didn't seem to be such a popular topic so far in her maths class this year - but she still knew what to do. She started to work one of the questions out in her head.
It took several worked-out-questions later to work out that the girl wasn't actually doing any of it. Nadia figured it couldn't hurt to see if she needed any help. She glanced at her page number in Marley and Me before putting the book in her bag. She stretched her arms up to relieve the deadness that had set it from holding her arms in one position for so long before getting up and going over to the girl.
"Um, hey... I was wondering if you needed help? You looked kinda confused about it all..." Nadia wondered how the girl would respond. Some people hated it when others offered help. Nadia just hoped the girl would be nice.

[Nadia Donovan]

Yeah she needs help... she doesn't even know what a gradient is...
"The gradient? It's the, uh, the slope of a straight line or curve. It's how much it slopes. Um... if the line is vertical it had a gradient of zero as it doesn't slope at all. Likewise for horizontal lines. It has no slope so it has no gradient. For curves the gradient is how much the line is sloping at one point. You can't just say what the gradient of a curve is in general as the gradient changes from point to point... Does that make any sort of sense? I'm probably not the best at explaining things..." Nadia wasn't entirely sure what the best way to explain it was. She hadn't heard an explanation of what a gradient is since, what.... third year? Regurgitating that information was not the easiest process.
"Oh, I'm Nadia by the way."

[Nadia Donovan]

"I'm Sophie," It was quite clear to Nadia that Sophie had no idea what she was on about. She looked down at the page, seemingly to try and make some sort of sense out of what Nadia had said.
"I haven't see you around before, are you new?" Nadia had almost forgotten that she had only come to Orchid Hill this year. She was already so familiar with it and she could put names to a lot of faces. Perfect memory certainly helped with that. Nadia remembered hearing in the corridor somewhere that Sophie had made quite an impact on arrival. It had not been directed at her so she didn't know what that impact had been. Her entry into Orchid had been quite discreet. No drama or fuss.
"Yeah, I transferred here once I had enough money. I'm in lower-sixth. What about you? I've heard your name a few times since arriving."

[Nadia Donovan]

"All good, I hope," Nadia thought about it. A lot of what she'd heard had been praise, but the clear majority was pure jealousy. Nearly everyone she'd heard talking about Sophie was extremely envious. It was clear why. She was incredibly beautiful and so far she seemed to have a decent personality. There had been a few rumour Nadia had heard in regards to Sophie about a certain guy - Jack Trove. Nadia wasn't sure how much of them to believe but the smirk on Sophie's face said she had heard the rumours. She didn't seem particularly worried about them either. Maybe they weren't true at all. Then again, maybe they were true, and she was confident of no one finding out. Who knew? "Upper-sixth. Can't get out of here fast enough, but then this wasn't my first choice," Nadia found it odd that she didn't want to be here. Nearly every other person she'd talked about it to had been really glad to be here. Nadia hadn't heard of any other schools which taught you about special abilities. She couldn't understand.
"Oh really? What was your first choice then? I couldn't think of anywhere I'd rather be at the moment to be honest." Certainly not at home. Then again, Nadia didn't suppose that she really had a home anymore. Not now that she'd cut off all ties. Nadia couldn't say that she really cared.

[Nadia Donovan]

"Home," Sophie said softly. Nadia wondered what had happened that Sophie couldn't be there. But it was quite likely that Sophie didn't want to say. Especially to someone she'd only met a few minutes ago.
"Where's that then?" Nadia could tell that she was from somewhere in Europe. Possibly french, possibly italian. Nadia was rubbish with accents.