Author's note: Firstly thank you to those who have reviewed. I am not
going to demand reviews. If you want to then please do so, all comments
are welcomed as long as they are constructive. There are some who have
contacted me and asked to do a cameo and I say - be careful what you wish
for, you may get it! Those unfortunates have been added to the faculty of
the University and are now in my hands for me to deal with as I see fit.
Don't worry darlings - I will be gentle .
I am currently in the process of moving locations from UK to Canada, so the posting of chapters may be a tad erratic, I'll be very grateful if you will bear with me on this.
Part Six - Stand by your beds!
Mattie was dreaming about boots. Lots and lots of boots, stamping and crunching up and down. In the dream, she was trying to pull a boot that was way too small onto her right foot. She could get her toes in, but not the whole foot no matter how she crammed, pulled, squeezed or cursed. She could only vaguely make out a figure standing close-by which appeared to be Morrigan. She had Mattie's other boot in her hand and she seemed to be pouring something into it from a large jug. A something that looked viscous and yellow. Mattie squinted, but in the nature of dreams, the more she looked the less she saw. Morrigan's mouth was moving, but Mattie couldn't hear what she was saying for the thunderous sound of marching feet. She got up and hobbled over to the System Lord intending to ask her to speak louder, but as she did so, her subconscious dreaming mind gave itself up to the conscious world and Mattie struggled to wakefulness. As she did, the one word which stuck firmly in her conscious brain was 'custard'.
The thunderous sound of marching boots became reality as she opened her eyes. The full realisation of where she was and why hit her like an express train.
"You'd better get up." Said a familiar and very anxious voice near her head. "It's 7.15am and we have to be in the main briefing theatre at 07:55. We've got to have breakfast yet. Some of the others have been up for hours. I was beginning to think you were unconscious, but then you did the eye-blinking thing and you were muttering to yourself."
Mattie emerged from her cocoon of blankets, sat up slowly and then slumped back groaning loudly. Her head felt dull and sore, as though a thousand Jaffa had been marching around in it all night. She rubbed at her eyes, which felt gritty and stuck together.
"Oh god. Oh god." She said hoarsely. She reached over for the bottle of water she'd left on the nightstand and drank deeply. "I wish I was unconscious. Unconscious sounds like a real nice place to be round about now."
"Well, you'd better get up and get showered and dressed, because they're marching up and down the corridors turfing everyone out of their pits." Said ColonelSam, not without some sympathy.
Mattie blinked. "Pits? You mean like armpits? How can someone turf you out of your armpit? It sounds revolting."
She wondered which particular fanfic crime had that kind of punishment.
ColonelSam howled with laughter. "Not armpits you doombrain. Pits, like bed. A pit is a slang word for your bed."
Mattie swung her legs over the side of her bed and then drew them back quickly yelping in shock as the cold of the floor hit the soles of her feet.
"Oh, I see. Must be something you say in England. We don't use that term where I come from."
She located her towel, shampoo and soap and staggered in the direction of the small shower. ColonelSam lay back on her own bed with her arms folded behind her head. A couple of seconds later an outraged voice could be heard from the direction of the shower.
"Good grief ColonelSam. What in heck were you trying to do in here? Practice your breaststroke? There's more water outside the darned shower than there is in it!"
ColonelSam grinned to herself and closed her eyes. A fiendish plot bunny was beginning to nibble at the edge of her imagination, probably inspired by actually being in the SGC itself. She was thinking Jack and Sam as students here. She was thinking teensy, weensy little showers. My god, what was she thinking? She sat up shuddering and immediately nipped the plot bunny in its floppy ears before her confused brain cajoled her into writing the dreaded 'ship'.
The door suddenly burst open and two very familiar figures, followed by a rather harassed looking mini-troll who bore a suspicious resemblance to Harry Maybourne, marched into the room.
"STAND BY YOUR BEDS! On your feet you lazy muppets. I want you out of bed, like yesterday!" Screamed the Maybourne mini troll.
ColonelSam flinched and slid off the bed, Major Kowalski rolled his eyes heavenward and Sgt Davis hid a huge grin.
"Okay, okay Maybone. You might at least take it down to a dull roar. We ain't deaf yet, but we're sure as hell gonna be if you keep that up." Drawled Kowalski.
"Only trying to help whip them into shape Major." Maybone protested. He slunk into the background with a sulky expression on his face.
"You never let me have any fun." He muttered under his breath and scowled ferociously at ColonelSam who responded by taking a hasty backward step.
"Fun comes later. They haven't been inducted yet. You know that Miss S says 'softly, softly' till after the induction." Said Kowalski cheerfully.
He did a circuit of the room, which didn't take very long considering how small it was. He stopped beside Mattie's unmade bed and lifted one of the rumpled blankets between thumb and forefinger. ColonelSam glanced at her blankets, which were rolled into a ball in the middle of her bed and surreptitiously tried to straighten them without anyone seeing. Maybone spotted her and gave a gleeful chortle. He took his pencil out and started writing laboriously on his clipboard.
"Too late! Bed unmade. Untidy bedspace. Absent roommate." He intoned as he scribbled.
"I'm not, I mean, I wasn't." Stuttered ColonelSam blushing furiously. "It's not my fault."
"Is that 'its' or 'it apostrophe s'? Queried Kowalski, dropping Mattie's blanket down on the bed.
ColonelSam was completely flustered. She frantically scrabbled around in her brain to work out which was the correct one, only she couldn't remember what context she'd used it in to start with.
"Can you repeat the question?" She asked nervously, desperately playing for time. Contractions weren't something she usually had problems with.
Kowalski walked all around her, then stopped dead in front and looked her up and down. She flushed bright red under his intense scrutiny.
"It's a simple question Airman. Is it 'its' or 'it apostrophe s'?" He asked in a deceptively quiet, almost conversational tone.
The frequent use of the word 'it' in his sentence only served to confuse her even more.
"I c.can't remember." She stuttered.
"WRONG ANSWER! Down on the floor and give me ten Airman, and repeat after me. "It's with the apostrophe is the contraction for it is and its without the apostrophe is the possessive form of it." He ordered, his tone rising a couple of notches.
Mattie came out of the shower, dripping wet with her hair flopping about her eyes. She was immediately presented with the astonishing sight of ColonelSam, practically purple in the face with her efforts and sweating buckets, struggling with press-ups at the feet of Major Kowalski who was bending over her repeating the same litany over and over again.
"As a rule of thumb, it's best never to use contractions in formal writing. If you adhere to this rule, you will never have to worry about the difference between the two; if you find yourself typing an apostrophe, you will know that it's a mistake. If, however, you choose to use contractions, you must simply remember that it's is always a contraction. It's never a possessive! It's really not that confusing, because each word has its own function."
Mattie let out a giggle, which she immediately smothered as soon as Kowalski's intense gaze shifted from ColonelSam and latched on to her instead.
"Repeat the difference between 'its' and 'it apostrophe s' Airman. This student doesn't seem to know even this simple grammatical rule!" He snapped at her indicating the prostrate ColonelSam.
"I've got it down on her fanfic crimes list Major." Piped Maybone in a voice filled with glee and satisfaction.
Mattie's gaze slid from Maybone to Sgt Davis to Kowalski and then to ColonelSam huffing and puffing away as she tried to complete the required number of press-ups.
"Um, one is possessive and one is a contraction of 'it is'." She said immediately, keeping her fingers crossed behind her back.
There had been a time when she didn't even know what contractions and possessives were, until a kindly fellow fanfic writer pointed the grammatical errors out to her after reading one of her abysmal earlier fanfic efforts. Even now she occasionally still got it wrong.
ColonelSam's arms finally gave out and she slumped to the floor in a winded heap, groaning loudly.
Kowalski glowered at Mattie from underneath his brow for a minute, then he smiled.
"Very good Airman."
Mattie heaved a sigh of relief, but the relief was short-lived as Kowalski continued in a more brusque tone.
"On the other hand, I've never seen such sloppiness in a bedspace as I've seen here. When induction and the day's events are over, you will report to Sgt Davis in the Control Room in fatigues. I think a little 'housekeeping practice' might be in order. I can't have slobs on my duty watch. I got a bet with Colonel O'Neill that my team will be the best and you're gonna help me win that bet."
Mattie stared at him like a rabbit caught in the headlights, completely bereft of the power of speech for the moment. She could literally feel her mouth hanging open. Housework was something she only ever did sporadically in her apartment and what was the point of making beds if you were only going to get in them again later on?
"Hunh?" Was the only thing she finally managed to say.
Oh way to go Mattie, she told herself sarcastically, that was a masterful and articulate protest if I ever heard one.
"Say 'Yes Major Kowalski, sir'" Said Kowalski in a kinder tone. "Did anyone mention to you about the mouth open thing?"
Mattie snapped her mouth shut. She was feeling more than a little victimised over this.
"Yes Major Kowalski, sir." She repeated dutifully, but underneath she was seething with resentment. Did ALL of the teaching staff know that she tended to go slack-jawed when faced with surprises and shocks?
He winked at her. "Nice going Airman. I'd get dressed if I were you. It's nearly 07:45, you've only got ten minutes before you gotta be in the main briefing theatre."
He left the room followed by Maybone and Sgt Davis who flashed the girls a sympathetic look. Mattie and ColonelSam could hear Maybone sounding off in one of the rooms further down the corridor.
Mattie dried herself quickly and checked her watch. Oh my god, she thought, we've only got five minutes to get to the main briefing theatre. She struggled with her boots and managed to tie one set of bootlaces before ColonelSam grabbed her arm and hustled her through the door.
"Come ON!" She yelled. "We've only got five minutes. So much for breakfast."
Mattie allowed herself to be dragged along the corridor, stumbling over the untied set of laces. She lifted her leg and hopped along after ColonelSam, frantically tying the laces as she went, consequently she didn't notice the figure walking along ahead of her in a leisurely fashion until she was right on top of it. They would have both fallen in a heap if the figure hadn't managed to take a hasty step backwards. As it was Mattie ended up with two handfuls of filmy clothing.
"Do you mind? I just had this outfit made especially for the new semester. Students are such insolent, disgusting creatures."
Osiris raised a disdainful delicate eyebrow and disengaged Mattie's grasping hands from his clothing with a look of loathing in his bright blue eyes. Mattie stared in utter fascination at the elegant vision in front of her. Guinea gold ringlets tumbled artlessly from Osiris' head and there was a distinctly contemptuous curve to the perfectly sculpted lips.
Mattie was instantly reminded of the time a couple of years previously when she had fallen in love with the spiral ringlets disported by Osiris/Sarah Gardner and had paid quite a lot of money to have her hair done the same way. When the hairdresser had finally finished, they were both bad tempered, red hot and sweaty. Mattie remembered her first glimpse of herself in the salon mirror. She had nearly fainted when she saw, not the vision of perfect shining pale blonde ringlets tumbling to her shoulders she had expected, but this strange and horrifying shock of an orange-gold chrysanthemum of tight little curls exploding all over her head. It had looked like an afro of the worst proportions. She had wept buckets all the way home.
The curls didn't tumble loosely around her face and each despairing attempt to make them straighter by blow drying resulted in a dry frizz. Her family hadn't helped by laughing so much they couldn't breathe and nick-naming her 'Dandelion'. Her sister had eventually managed to make her look at least a tad presentable by cutting her hair short, practically a grade one all over. All the time she was sliding the razor over Mattie's head, Mattie could hear the strange wheezing and gulping gasps of laughter emanating from her. She had gritted her teeth as the cloud of frizz drifted to the floor and promised herself all kinds of revenge, on her family, the hairdresser, Osiris and the world in general.
"Mattie, for furgling heck's sake will you come on?" ColonelSam dragged her away from Osiris.
Mattie was on the point of asking whether ColonelSam knew where the theatre was, when she spotted a queue of green clad bodies, all shapes and sizes waiting patiently outside a set of double doors which had a huge number 47 painted in white on them. To her astonishment, interspersed among the green BDU's were some distinctly Tok'ra like outfits and even more astonishingly a number of students dressed in extraordinarily fancy garishly coloured clothing decorated with shiny baubles. High pointy collars, boots and wide sleeves prevailed. One girl appeared to be dressed entirely in about four strips of cloth and thigh length boots. This would have been fine had she not had rather a lot of flesh to cover. She seemed to have a permanent blush, all over, not that Mattie blamed her, and kept trying to make herself look either very small or pull the strips further over the expanse of flesh. A couple of SF's stood nearby ogling her unashamedly. Eventually one of the BDU clad students took her jacket off and gave it to her to cover her embarrassment.
"Frelling Goa'uld wannabe's." Said ColonelSam in a low voice.
Mattie nodded and felt relieved that her focus had always been on the military team rather than the more garishly dressed Goa'uld or boring Tok'ra. She noticed that there were also a fair number of Jaffa, one girl looked distinctly uncomfortable dressed in the grey armour. The collar of the armour which was meant for the headdress to slot into was far too high for her and only her eyes peeped out.
They spotted Daniellzgurl and Chloe waving frantically at them. They were standing with a tall slender girl who had dramatically black hair cut in a twenties bob, she was dressed in a tight fitting gold and bright blue all- in-one outfit with silver high heeled boots. Mattie and ColonelSam pushed into the queue to stand with them, ignoring the protests and grumbles of the other students behind who had to shuffle back a few steps in order to make room for them.
Chloe opened her mouth to introduce the other girl, but was abruptly interrupted by the doors being flung open and the familiar voice of Major Paul Davis ringing out.
"Okay troops. Start filing in. In an orderly fashion preferably. Fill the front rows first, then the middle and so on and so forth."
The briefing theatre was shaped like horseshoe. The seats were graduated upwards and there were three aisles running down towards the stage. The only thing at the front of the stage was a podium upon which stood a lectern with a light and a microphone. At the back of the stage behind the lectern there were three rows of seats. A large viewscreen stood to one side. Beside it was a table with an LCD projector on it. A mixture of SF's and Jaffa guards stood at intervals around the room and across the front.
Mattie filed in obediently with the rest of the students and settled into one of the seats. At first there was a light chatter and muffled giggles as people shifted restlessly in their seats and craned their necks to see if they could see anyone interesting. Mattie spotted DocMcKay sitting not too far away in front of two Jaffa and the scantily dressed Goa'uld. She waved and he grinned and waved back when he saw her.
Major Davis came into the theatre, spoke briefly with Kronos with a K and O'Neil with one L and then stepped over to the lectern. A breathless hush suddenly descended over the theatre. Davis tapped the microphone and spoke into it.
"One, two, three, four."
Someone in the audience snickered, but immediately turned it into a cough as one of the huge real Jaffa guards in the room turned around with his staff weapon and glowered at the hapless perpetrator.
There was a moment's silence and then the doors on either side of the stage opened. Major Davis cleared his throat.
"STAND UP!" He yelled, and the startled students all got to their feet without even thinking twice.
I am currently in the process of moving locations from UK to Canada, so the posting of chapters may be a tad erratic, I'll be very grateful if you will bear with me on this.
Part Six - Stand by your beds!
Mattie was dreaming about boots. Lots and lots of boots, stamping and crunching up and down. In the dream, she was trying to pull a boot that was way too small onto her right foot. She could get her toes in, but not the whole foot no matter how she crammed, pulled, squeezed or cursed. She could only vaguely make out a figure standing close-by which appeared to be Morrigan. She had Mattie's other boot in her hand and she seemed to be pouring something into it from a large jug. A something that looked viscous and yellow. Mattie squinted, but in the nature of dreams, the more she looked the less she saw. Morrigan's mouth was moving, but Mattie couldn't hear what she was saying for the thunderous sound of marching feet. She got up and hobbled over to the System Lord intending to ask her to speak louder, but as she did so, her subconscious dreaming mind gave itself up to the conscious world and Mattie struggled to wakefulness. As she did, the one word which stuck firmly in her conscious brain was 'custard'.
The thunderous sound of marching boots became reality as she opened her eyes. The full realisation of where she was and why hit her like an express train.
"You'd better get up." Said a familiar and very anxious voice near her head. "It's 7.15am and we have to be in the main briefing theatre at 07:55. We've got to have breakfast yet. Some of the others have been up for hours. I was beginning to think you were unconscious, but then you did the eye-blinking thing and you were muttering to yourself."
Mattie emerged from her cocoon of blankets, sat up slowly and then slumped back groaning loudly. Her head felt dull and sore, as though a thousand Jaffa had been marching around in it all night. She rubbed at her eyes, which felt gritty and stuck together.
"Oh god. Oh god." She said hoarsely. She reached over for the bottle of water she'd left on the nightstand and drank deeply. "I wish I was unconscious. Unconscious sounds like a real nice place to be round about now."
"Well, you'd better get up and get showered and dressed, because they're marching up and down the corridors turfing everyone out of their pits." Said ColonelSam, not without some sympathy.
Mattie blinked. "Pits? You mean like armpits? How can someone turf you out of your armpit? It sounds revolting."
She wondered which particular fanfic crime had that kind of punishment.
ColonelSam howled with laughter. "Not armpits you doombrain. Pits, like bed. A pit is a slang word for your bed."
Mattie swung her legs over the side of her bed and then drew them back quickly yelping in shock as the cold of the floor hit the soles of her feet.
"Oh, I see. Must be something you say in England. We don't use that term where I come from."
She located her towel, shampoo and soap and staggered in the direction of the small shower. ColonelSam lay back on her own bed with her arms folded behind her head. A couple of seconds later an outraged voice could be heard from the direction of the shower.
"Good grief ColonelSam. What in heck were you trying to do in here? Practice your breaststroke? There's more water outside the darned shower than there is in it!"
ColonelSam grinned to herself and closed her eyes. A fiendish plot bunny was beginning to nibble at the edge of her imagination, probably inspired by actually being in the SGC itself. She was thinking Jack and Sam as students here. She was thinking teensy, weensy little showers. My god, what was she thinking? She sat up shuddering and immediately nipped the plot bunny in its floppy ears before her confused brain cajoled her into writing the dreaded 'ship'.
The door suddenly burst open and two very familiar figures, followed by a rather harassed looking mini-troll who bore a suspicious resemblance to Harry Maybourne, marched into the room.
"STAND BY YOUR BEDS! On your feet you lazy muppets. I want you out of bed, like yesterday!" Screamed the Maybourne mini troll.
ColonelSam flinched and slid off the bed, Major Kowalski rolled his eyes heavenward and Sgt Davis hid a huge grin.
"Okay, okay Maybone. You might at least take it down to a dull roar. We ain't deaf yet, but we're sure as hell gonna be if you keep that up." Drawled Kowalski.
"Only trying to help whip them into shape Major." Maybone protested. He slunk into the background with a sulky expression on his face.
"You never let me have any fun." He muttered under his breath and scowled ferociously at ColonelSam who responded by taking a hasty backward step.
"Fun comes later. They haven't been inducted yet. You know that Miss S says 'softly, softly' till after the induction." Said Kowalski cheerfully.
He did a circuit of the room, which didn't take very long considering how small it was. He stopped beside Mattie's unmade bed and lifted one of the rumpled blankets between thumb and forefinger. ColonelSam glanced at her blankets, which were rolled into a ball in the middle of her bed and surreptitiously tried to straighten them without anyone seeing. Maybone spotted her and gave a gleeful chortle. He took his pencil out and started writing laboriously on his clipboard.
"Too late! Bed unmade. Untidy bedspace. Absent roommate." He intoned as he scribbled.
"I'm not, I mean, I wasn't." Stuttered ColonelSam blushing furiously. "It's not my fault."
"Is that 'its' or 'it apostrophe s'? Queried Kowalski, dropping Mattie's blanket down on the bed.
ColonelSam was completely flustered. She frantically scrabbled around in her brain to work out which was the correct one, only she couldn't remember what context she'd used it in to start with.
"Can you repeat the question?" She asked nervously, desperately playing for time. Contractions weren't something she usually had problems with.
Kowalski walked all around her, then stopped dead in front and looked her up and down. She flushed bright red under his intense scrutiny.
"It's a simple question Airman. Is it 'its' or 'it apostrophe s'?" He asked in a deceptively quiet, almost conversational tone.
The frequent use of the word 'it' in his sentence only served to confuse her even more.
"I c.can't remember." She stuttered.
"WRONG ANSWER! Down on the floor and give me ten Airman, and repeat after me. "It's with the apostrophe is the contraction for it is and its without the apostrophe is the possessive form of it." He ordered, his tone rising a couple of notches.
Mattie came out of the shower, dripping wet with her hair flopping about her eyes. She was immediately presented with the astonishing sight of ColonelSam, practically purple in the face with her efforts and sweating buckets, struggling with press-ups at the feet of Major Kowalski who was bending over her repeating the same litany over and over again.
"As a rule of thumb, it's best never to use contractions in formal writing. If you adhere to this rule, you will never have to worry about the difference between the two; if you find yourself typing an apostrophe, you will know that it's a mistake. If, however, you choose to use contractions, you must simply remember that it's is always a contraction. It's never a possessive! It's really not that confusing, because each word has its own function."
Mattie let out a giggle, which she immediately smothered as soon as Kowalski's intense gaze shifted from ColonelSam and latched on to her instead.
"Repeat the difference between 'its' and 'it apostrophe s' Airman. This student doesn't seem to know even this simple grammatical rule!" He snapped at her indicating the prostrate ColonelSam.
"I've got it down on her fanfic crimes list Major." Piped Maybone in a voice filled with glee and satisfaction.
Mattie's gaze slid from Maybone to Sgt Davis to Kowalski and then to ColonelSam huffing and puffing away as she tried to complete the required number of press-ups.
"Um, one is possessive and one is a contraction of 'it is'." She said immediately, keeping her fingers crossed behind her back.
There had been a time when she didn't even know what contractions and possessives were, until a kindly fellow fanfic writer pointed the grammatical errors out to her after reading one of her abysmal earlier fanfic efforts. Even now she occasionally still got it wrong.
ColonelSam's arms finally gave out and she slumped to the floor in a winded heap, groaning loudly.
Kowalski glowered at Mattie from underneath his brow for a minute, then he smiled.
"Very good Airman."
Mattie heaved a sigh of relief, but the relief was short-lived as Kowalski continued in a more brusque tone.
"On the other hand, I've never seen such sloppiness in a bedspace as I've seen here. When induction and the day's events are over, you will report to Sgt Davis in the Control Room in fatigues. I think a little 'housekeeping practice' might be in order. I can't have slobs on my duty watch. I got a bet with Colonel O'Neill that my team will be the best and you're gonna help me win that bet."
Mattie stared at him like a rabbit caught in the headlights, completely bereft of the power of speech for the moment. She could literally feel her mouth hanging open. Housework was something she only ever did sporadically in her apartment and what was the point of making beds if you were only going to get in them again later on?
"Hunh?" Was the only thing she finally managed to say.
Oh way to go Mattie, she told herself sarcastically, that was a masterful and articulate protest if I ever heard one.
"Say 'Yes Major Kowalski, sir'" Said Kowalski in a kinder tone. "Did anyone mention to you about the mouth open thing?"
Mattie snapped her mouth shut. She was feeling more than a little victimised over this.
"Yes Major Kowalski, sir." She repeated dutifully, but underneath she was seething with resentment. Did ALL of the teaching staff know that she tended to go slack-jawed when faced with surprises and shocks?
He winked at her. "Nice going Airman. I'd get dressed if I were you. It's nearly 07:45, you've only got ten minutes before you gotta be in the main briefing theatre."
He left the room followed by Maybone and Sgt Davis who flashed the girls a sympathetic look. Mattie and ColonelSam could hear Maybone sounding off in one of the rooms further down the corridor.
Mattie dried herself quickly and checked her watch. Oh my god, she thought, we've only got five minutes to get to the main briefing theatre. She struggled with her boots and managed to tie one set of bootlaces before ColonelSam grabbed her arm and hustled her through the door.
"Come ON!" She yelled. "We've only got five minutes. So much for breakfast."
Mattie allowed herself to be dragged along the corridor, stumbling over the untied set of laces. She lifted her leg and hopped along after ColonelSam, frantically tying the laces as she went, consequently she didn't notice the figure walking along ahead of her in a leisurely fashion until she was right on top of it. They would have both fallen in a heap if the figure hadn't managed to take a hasty step backwards. As it was Mattie ended up with two handfuls of filmy clothing.
"Do you mind? I just had this outfit made especially for the new semester. Students are such insolent, disgusting creatures."
Osiris raised a disdainful delicate eyebrow and disengaged Mattie's grasping hands from his clothing with a look of loathing in his bright blue eyes. Mattie stared in utter fascination at the elegant vision in front of her. Guinea gold ringlets tumbled artlessly from Osiris' head and there was a distinctly contemptuous curve to the perfectly sculpted lips.
Mattie was instantly reminded of the time a couple of years previously when she had fallen in love with the spiral ringlets disported by Osiris/Sarah Gardner and had paid quite a lot of money to have her hair done the same way. When the hairdresser had finally finished, they were both bad tempered, red hot and sweaty. Mattie remembered her first glimpse of herself in the salon mirror. She had nearly fainted when she saw, not the vision of perfect shining pale blonde ringlets tumbling to her shoulders she had expected, but this strange and horrifying shock of an orange-gold chrysanthemum of tight little curls exploding all over her head. It had looked like an afro of the worst proportions. She had wept buckets all the way home.
The curls didn't tumble loosely around her face and each despairing attempt to make them straighter by blow drying resulted in a dry frizz. Her family hadn't helped by laughing so much they couldn't breathe and nick-naming her 'Dandelion'. Her sister had eventually managed to make her look at least a tad presentable by cutting her hair short, practically a grade one all over. All the time she was sliding the razor over Mattie's head, Mattie could hear the strange wheezing and gulping gasps of laughter emanating from her. She had gritted her teeth as the cloud of frizz drifted to the floor and promised herself all kinds of revenge, on her family, the hairdresser, Osiris and the world in general.
"Mattie, for furgling heck's sake will you come on?" ColonelSam dragged her away from Osiris.
Mattie was on the point of asking whether ColonelSam knew where the theatre was, when she spotted a queue of green clad bodies, all shapes and sizes waiting patiently outside a set of double doors which had a huge number 47 painted in white on them. To her astonishment, interspersed among the green BDU's were some distinctly Tok'ra like outfits and even more astonishingly a number of students dressed in extraordinarily fancy garishly coloured clothing decorated with shiny baubles. High pointy collars, boots and wide sleeves prevailed. One girl appeared to be dressed entirely in about four strips of cloth and thigh length boots. This would have been fine had she not had rather a lot of flesh to cover. She seemed to have a permanent blush, all over, not that Mattie blamed her, and kept trying to make herself look either very small or pull the strips further over the expanse of flesh. A couple of SF's stood nearby ogling her unashamedly. Eventually one of the BDU clad students took her jacket off and gave it to her to cover her embarrassment.
"Frelling Goa'uld wannabe's." Said ColonelSam in a low voice.
Mattie nodded and felt relieved that her focus had always been on the military team rather than the more garishly dressed Goa'uld or boring Tok'ra. She noticed that there were also a fair number of Jaffa, one girl looked distinctly uncomfortable dressed in the grey armour. The collar of the armour which was meant for the headdress to slot into was far too high for her and only her eyes peeped out.
They spotted Daniellzgurl and Chloe waving frantically at them. They were standing with a tall slender girl who had dramatically black hair cut in a twenties bob, she was dressed in a tight fitting gold and bright blue all- in-one outfit with silver high heeled boots. Mattie and ColonelSam pushed into the queue to stand with them, ignoring the protests and grumbles of the other students behind who had to shuffle back a few steps in order to make room for them.
Chloe opened her mouth to introduce the other girl, but was abruptly interrupted by the doors being flung open and the familiar voice of Major Paul Davis ringing out.
"Okay troops. Start filing in. In an orderly fashion preferably. Fill the front rows first, then the middle and so on and so forth."
The briefing theatre was shaped like horseshoe. The seats were graduated upwards and there were three aisles running down towards the stage. The only thing at the front of the stage was a podium upon which stood a lectern with a light and a microphone. At the back of the stage behind the lectern there were three rows of seats. A large viewscreen stood to one side. Beside it was a table with an LCD projector on it. A mixture of SF's and Jaffa guards stood at intervals around the room and across the front.
Mattie filed in obediently with the rest of the students and settled into one of the seats. At first there was a light chatter and muffled giggles as people shifted restlessly in their seats and craned their necks to see if they could see anyone interesting. Mattie spotted DocMcKay sitting not too far away in front of two Jaffa and the scantily dressed Goa'uld. She waved and he grinned and waved back when he saw her.
Major Davis came into the theatre, spoke briefly with Kronos with a K and O'Neil with one L and then stepped over to the lectern. A breathless hush suddenly descended over the theatre. Davis tapped the microphone and spoke into it.
"One, two, three, four."
Someone in the audience snickered, but immediately turned it into a cough as one of the huge real Jaffa guards in the room turned around with his staff weapon and glowered at the hapless perpetrator.
There was a moment's silence and then the doors on either side of the stage opened. Major Davis cleared his throat.
"STAND UP!" He yelled, and the startled students all got to their feet without even thinking twice.