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“What’s happening here?” Padme says as she comes up to the table where the other teachers of Coruscant High School are huddled together.
“It’s happening again,” Plo Koon, the history teacher who had introduced himself to her this morning, says. “Just watch.”
“What is?”
Instead of answering, Plo gestures at the long table they’re perpendicular to. A lanky student approaches the table, clutching a piece of paper in sweaty hands. They’re close enough that Padme can hear the boy ask, “Is this where I sign up for phys ed?”
The man at the table certainly looks like a physical education teacher. Padme was just hired to help teach Civics after a Mr. Dooku retired. The staff introduction barbeque was next week, but class registration came first. Functionally, this means the only person she knows is the aforementioned Plo, her friend Bail Organa, Mace Windu (the vice-principal who hired her), and Mr. Yoda (the principal).
The man at the table pulls his brown leather sandal-clad feet off the table, adjusting the long white socks he’s wearing before leaning on the table.
“Oh, so close! You’re looking for Mr. Kenobi. I’m Mr. Fett. Do you need to sign up for any of the algebra courses? May as well save yourself a trip.”
Padme catches the student doing a double-take, taking in Mr. Fett’s long socks and sandals, black athletic shorts, tight black muscle shirt, dark, close-cropped curls, a scar that curls around the outer edge of his left eye, and a dark mustache that belongs in a 70s porno.
‘Well, that’s certainly a Look,’ Padme thinks.
“You’re the math teacher?” The boy asks, tone disbelieving.
“Yup!” Mr. Fett says, popping the ‘p.’ “Mr. Kenobi is in charge of phys ed.”
He points across the gym. Padme follows his finger until it lands on a red-haired man seated at a table halfway across the room. A man dressed in a full three-piece gray suit with a gold tie and black loafers, stroking his beard as he looks contemplatively at the sheet of paper in front of him.
The student sounds even more incredulous as he nearly screeches, “That’s the phys ed teacher?”
“That’s right. Now, algebra?”
“How many is that now?” Plo asks.
“One sec,” says a woman seated at the table in front of Padme. She moves her finger across a series of tally marks. “That makes 17. I think we’re going to hit a new record this year. Who has more than 20 in the pool?”
“That would be me,” Plo says smugly. “And registration goes for another three hours. Guess who doesn’t have to chaperone a single event this year?”
“Don’t count your lack of breaking up horny teenagers before it’s hatched, Plo.”
“Are you sure you’re a Languages Arts teacher, Adi?”
“I’m sorry,” Padme interrupts. The woman turns around and Padme notes the nametag (Adi Gallia-Language Arts). “What’s going on here?”
“Oh!” Adi says. “You’re Padme, right? The new Civics teacher?”
“Yes. But, I’m sorry. What just happened?”
“It’s a bet,” Mace says as he comes up to their small group. “Between Cody Fett, our esteemed math teacher, and Obi-Wan Kenobi, our physical education teacher. No one remembers the terms. No one remembers the stakes. And none of us even remember when it’s supposed to end.”
“Considering six years it’s been, accepted, we all have, that it’s just going to keep going,” says Yoda, his cane tapping against the polished hardwood gym floor as he wanders over to their little klatch.
“A bet?” Padme says, baffled as she turns to look at the two men.
“A bet,” Bail Organa says as he stands up from his own table and joins them. “Hi, Padme. Glad you could join the faculty.”
“Thanks again for the recommendation,” Padme says as she gives him a little half-hug. “So, what’s the bet?”
“I don’t suppose it’s escaped you that our algebra teacher dresses like he’s about ready to run laps, and our gym teacher dresses like he intends to present his research at any moment.”
“I…yes. That’s not just for registration?”
Mace snorts indelicately.
“That at least would make sense. This…” he waves a hand at the two men in obvious despair, “is the closest thing they have to a uniform. It’s also the most confusing thing for students, parents, and staff. It’s disconcerting to see a man in a full suit running wind sprints in wingtips.”
“He…what?!” Padme sputters. “He works out like that?”
“Kenobi and Fett are insanely competitive. Luckily for us, Kenobi seems to have discovered the most powerful deodorant known to man. And we only get a few complaints a year that Fett looks unprofessional in those shorts of his.”
“Oh,” Padme says faintly. “I…suppose it keeps things interesting?”
“Lucky we are, that Fett did not choose a kilt for Kenobi. Traumatized more of us, they would have.”
“Traumatized?” Padme says faintly. Bail frantically shakes his head at her, but Plo seems too amused to let her question go.
“The Drama Department’s balcony set for ‘Romeo and Juliet’ got some extracurricular use when those two finally figured out their competitiveness was mostly how they showed their attraction.”
“For which I still haven’t forgiven them,” Mace says pointedly.
“We know, Mace. We know.” Bail says in what Padme recognizes as his double-duty consoling and condescending tone. “Anyways, Padme, we take bets every year on how many students get confused about which man teaches which subject when confronted with their…sartorial signals.”
“Eighteen,” Plo sing-songs cheerfully as a girl with long black braids by Kenobi’s table starts snapping her neck rapidly between Kenobi and Fett. Kenobi, for his part, seems remarkably serene about the fuss. He takes the girl’s registration paper, scribbles something down, then shoos her toward Fett after making what Padme assumes is a matching note on his own class registry.
“Fett’s moustache, it is,” Yoda says. “Confounds the mind, it does.”
“I say it’s the shorts personally,” Adi says, “But I haven’t seen a ‘stache like that in years.”
“I don’t think we’re giving Obi-Wan enough credit,” Plo says. “It takes commitment to wear a suit and play dodgeball.”
Yoda sighs.
“Get back to your registration tables, you should. Settle the bet stakes after, we will.” He turns to Padme. “Most welcome you are, Ms. Naberrie. Feel free to see Ms. Gallia for future bets, if a gambler, you are.”
“Thank you, sir,” she says faintly, still trying to picture the man across the gym from her playing dodgeball in a suit.
“Just roll with it, Padme,” Bail says sagely. “It’s better for the sake of your sanity, which the kids will drain out of you in no time.”
She gives him a wry smile.
“Thanks, Bail. Why did I come here again?”
“To mold young minds, of course. And to bet on one’s coworkers. The biggest pot was around when they would get together a few years back, but there’s still some pretty sizeable ones around when they’ll get engaged and where they’ll get caught making out next.”
“It better not be on another theater set,” Mace hisses. “I will strangle them, and no jury will convict me.”
“You keep telling yourself that, Mace,” Adi says, making another tally mark on her page. At her side, Plo does a little soft-shoe dance. “That would just mean you’d have to cover their classes. And the murder charges would probably mean you couldn’t run the Drama Club.”
“Semantics. Besides, we’re doing ‘Sweeney Todd.’ They could both just have an ‘accident’ with a prop razor.”
“I’m a little disturbed you’ve thought this out,” Plo says, before going back to watching Fett and Kenobi. “Annnnd 20!”
Padme glances up to see a boy with floppy blond curls look as though he’s having an existential crisis, finger pointing at Fett’s socks-and-sandals combo.
The others aside from Plo sigh, and the little group breaks up, dispersing to their assigned tables around the gym.
Padme lingers by Adi’s side for a moment until the other woman looks up.
“Yes?”
She hesitates for a moment, then looks up at Fett (twiddling his fingers in Kenobi’s direction) and Kenobi (straightening his tie a few times in what seems like a pattern and, judging from Fett’s salacious expression, just conveyed some sort of message).
“What are the odds on Kenobi wearing a kilt?”
The grin Adi gives her would look more appropriate on a shark. She starts flipping through her notebook as she says, “Oh, you’re going to fit in just great here! Welcome to Coruscant.”
Padme smiles as she says, “Happy to be here.”