Kit's Office Hours Closed

The notes on the door read...

Office Hours:
Monday - Sunday
7:00am - 8:00pm
(starts when curfew ends and vice-versa)

Important to note: I may not be in my office at these times for a walk-in, but if you schedule an appointment with me in advance, these are the hours I am available.

Waitlist:

1. Kazuo Shimada
2. Levi Drakos
3. Aurora Ranvier
4. Aurelia Notrésvace

Lost and Found:

1. A single glove - found by Opeila Winters

Kit sat at his desk with a clipboard resting atop a casually bent leg. It was unknown why he required a clipboard when he could have simply used the hard, flat surface of the desk itself, but every so often the desk would rattle or shake as if something was trapped inside. The caretaker, however, carried on as if it were perfectly normal.

His office seemed to have few personal items of his, but there was a folding screen in one corner behind his desk and what looked like a large wardrobe next to it. That shuddered on occasion as well - as if it were attempting to communicate with the desk. Or, perhaps, it might have been trying to contact the caretaker's cabinet that rattled once in a while that leaned against the wall opposite.

If someone attempted to knock on the door for admittance, Kit would cheerfully permit them to enter wearing his default Cheshire cat grin.

"Hey, there," he'd greet informally with an American accent, raising a palm in acknowledgment as he looked up from his clipboard. Instead of writing on it with a quill, he used a mechanical pencil with an eraser instead. "Thanks for stopping by! Something I can help you with?"

"Opeila! Nice to see you again," the caretaker greeted with a bright smile on his face. He tucked his pencil behind his ear and leaned forward in order to hear what she had to say as well as get a better look at what she had found.

"Oh...that's a good idea,"he agreed, nodding at her suggestion. He leaned forward to accept the found item. "I'll put a list on my door of the lost things found and if someone can describe them to me, I'll be able to know if they're the real owner. Thanks for turning it in and mentioning the concept," he said with a grateful grin.

Noticing her looking at his mechanical pencil, he chuckled softly and removed it from behind his ear. "Like pencils? I can't seem to live without them. Mistakes are so much less stressful knowing you can erase them, right?"

He set the pencil out on the desk for her to examine and put his clipboard face-down on his chair as he grabbed a clean piece of paper to write on for a 'Lost and Found' list. Instead of a pencil, though, he chose a pen to write on it so no one could erase the items he put if they wanted to keep someone else from finding out where their lost things were.

"Hmm...do you think I should put who found it, or not?" Kit asked her seriously. "And what about where it was found? Should I include that, too? Or only tell them those things if it turns out to be theirs?"

@Opeila Winters

At Opeila's suggestion about the study room, Kit nodded. "That's not a bad idea, either. In fact, if you want, you or I can put another list like this one on the door of the study room as well so people know to come see me if they lost something. Otherwise they might not think to come all the way up this tower just to check if I might have what they're missing, right?"

He listened with a pleasant smile as she spoke of her own experience of pencils in math class and laughed when she said she couldn't understand why they were made to mostly use quills at Hogwarts.

"It's true that writing with quills takes ages, but maybe the inconvenience is meant to teach you something else. Like patience or how to be careful with your work or how to know what you're going to say before you put it down on paper in ink," he hypothesized.

"Then again, with things like self-writing quills, maybe that's not the case. Maybe wizardfolk just aren't used to pencils. Or maybe quill and ink is more elegant to them."

His good-natured expression persisted as the second year student seemed to consider what information to put down along with the lost item that she had found. But then she seemed to second-guess herself and change her mind.

"I'll just put down where it was found, then, if you want to stay anonymous," he suggested. "Does that sound good to you?"

@Opeila Winters

At the suggestion of putting the list in the small hall, Kit once again nodded in assent. "Brilliant. After all, it wouldn't be fair if only people who came to the study room or who thought to study there got the chance to see the list of lost things, right?" he asked, chuckling lightly. "I'll see if I can't get a list posted in the Small Hall, then. Perhaps on the bulletin board in the Entrance Hall, too. Thank you for the suggestion!"

He grinned at the mention of magical life hacks, tapping his chin thoughtfully as she made comparisons of her own. "Very true! That definitely could be."

When she said she thought it didn't matter who found it, he flourished a hand, palm up. "You never know. I find that more information can often be more helpful than less. For example, if someone lost more than one thing, they could ask the person who found - in example, this glove - if you might have seen their missing bag next to it or if you saw a certain student around it or something like that."

Since she seemed alright with it, he wrote her name next to the found object of the glove on the list and raised a hand in farewell. "No problem, Opeila. See you around. And have a good class!"

@Opeila Winters

Kit is open for the next visitor!

Counselling. Really? Kazuo had heard that the Caretaker had decided to shoulder the burden of school counsellor but he hadn’t thought it was serious yet the sign on Paine-san’s door clearly showed it to be true. He had wondered why the school didn’t have a counsellor of some sort, had even asked Nurse Brumby about it some months back. It was obvious to him at this point that the school needed a proper counsellor to help the students with their emotional and psychological needs. If nothing else, someone they could talk through their very legitimate fear of fire with… But Kit Paine? The American who was hired as Caretaker? Did he even have qualifications for the job? Considering he was an informal counsellor, Kazuo suspected not.

After dinner, Kazuo collected his journal and his current reading material, a textbook his father had sent him on behavioural research, and made his way up to the Caretaker’s office in the North Tower. It was not an area of the castle he visited with any frequently, having neither business with the caretaker, nor classes that would bring him there normally. It seemed a quieter corner of the perpetually busy castle, perhaps because he had chosen to visit in the evening, well after classes were finished. Eyes cast over the door, noting the sign, then he knocked politely, waiting to be invited in.

Upon entering the Caretaker’s office, he gazed around curiously, taking in the desk, the wardrobe and the screen with curiosity. How a person kept their workspace, the personal touches they chose to exhibit or not were the sorts of things he liked to study. They could reveal much about a person but what Paine’s office revealed about him Kazuo wasn’t entirely sure of yet. Finally his gaze settled on Kit, sitting behind his desk with a clipboard and he remembered briefly that the first time he had met the caretaker, he had also been carrying a clipboard. His head tilted slightly to the side as he wondered what the purpose of it was. Was it meant to instill that stereotypical image of a proper counsellor, taking notes? But no, he hadn’t been offering counselling when Kazuo had first met him, in the midst of a quest for mermaids. So... some other reason…

“Paine-san,” Kazuo greeted Kit as he settled into a chair, choosing to maintain a more formal address, despite knowing that the caretaker preferred to be called by his first name. The desk rattled and Kazuo arched a brow, a hint of surprise, but continued despite this strangeness. “I understand you have appointed yourself school counsellor and I have some questions for you.”

Hoodie of the Day

Reducio

@Kit Paine