Prologue

Even though it was only spring, Zeus was sweating profusely. The sweat from his forehead began to drip into his eyes and the salt stung. He brought his arm up to his face and dragged his sleeve across his brow to mop up the sweat. He looked briefly at his sleeve. It was damp now with his sweat of course, but also covered with dirt and blood. He wasn’t sure at first if the blood was his or someone else’s, but he touched his forehead with his fingers and felt that he was bleeding. How did that happen? There were so many possible instances, it was difficult to pin point which one had caused the wound.

He turned to the man next to him. “Put out these fires,” he said. “All of them. And if there’s anyone still left in the buildings, shoot them.”

“Yes sir.”

The man turned to leave, but Zeus called out to him. “Wait!” The man stopped obediently. Zeus walked over and spoke a few centimeters from the man’s ear, talking very slow and clearly so as not to be misunderstood. “Anyone with smoke or ashes on their face is to be shot on sight. The same for anyone with gunpowder on their hands. Make sure the men keep the area sealed off so that no one can get out.”

“Yes sir.”

“Okay, go.” The man ran off.

Zeus rolled his head and stretched his muscular neck from side to side. He touched his forehead again. It was still bleeding. And what’s more, the awareness of the wound was now causing it to sting, even though it hadn’t bothered him before.

“The leader,” he growled to the men next to him. “Why haven’t you brought me the leader?”

One of the three men spoke up. “Well our agents are going through the prisoners now sir, but, well, there doesn’t appear to be a definite leader. There seems to have been a large degree of equality among those involved. Of course we’re…”

Zeus cut him off. “Bring me someone. I want someone to make an example of. If you can’t find their leader, than bring me someone but…”the word ‘but’ was spoken loudly. Zeus pointed his index finger in the man’s face and shook it to emphasize every word following, “I want him to be someone credible. Someone who was involved from the beginning. Someone who looks like a leader. Someone strong, good looking, well known and…” Zeus paused briefly, “someone who’s still in relatively good shape. I don’t want anyone who’s already half dead.”

All three men nodded. “Yes sir.”

“Go.” Zeus waved them off with his hand. They went running.

He was feeling a little light headed. He was in excellent shape for his age. He was stronger and faster than most men twenty years younger. But it had been an exhausting day. And that wound in his head…He touched it again. Maybe it was bleeding more than he thought. He looked for a place to sit down.

There weren’t any chairs around. Of course he was standing outside, but he doubted there were any chairs anywhere on the campus. Any chairs that existed would have been smashed up and thrown onto the barricades long ago. And they were probably now burning with the rest of the campus.

To sit on the ground would have been out of the question. One does not inspire authority by sitting on the ground. There were a lot of stones and blocks lying around. Most of them were too close to the burning buildings for his comfort, but he managed to find one a little out of the way. It wasn’t a smooth or flat surface, but he didn’t even notice. As a soldier, he was used to enduring much worse hardships.

He looked around at all the flaming buildings. It was a shame. This had been such a beautiful campus. And it was he and his men who had started the fires. But it had to be done.

The buildings had all been built in the classical style, and so were built out of stone blocks. The insides might burn for a while before his men managed to extinguish the fires, but they would not burn to the ground. And then, when this was all over, they would start rebuilding. They would restore everything just like it was before. No! Better than before! In a couple years, you wouldn’t even be able to tell that anything had happened. Except that there would be a monument to the bravery of him and his men and the forces of law and order. A statue, or a reflecting pool, or…something. Design wasn’t his strong point. He would let others figure it out.

The crackle of fun fire off in the distance reminded him that the fighting was not completely over. He was alone now, having sent all of his men off. But he never even thought to look around him to check his safety. Even though he couldn’t really justify it in rational terms, he had always had a feeling of his own invincibility. He was like one of those heroes in the old stories. Whatever encounter he ventured upon, he would always emerge victorious. In fact he felt so secure that as he sat on the rock, he almost dozed off a couple times.

Eventually he was awakened by the sound of his returning men. And they had one of the students with them. The student’s hands were tied in front of him. He seemed a bit dazed, and every so often one of the men would hit him from behind when he started to slow down. But he was walking on his own power. That was a good sign.

As they came closer, Zeus noticed the prisoner’s face was covered with blood. That was slightly discouraging. Someone with a clean face would have been better. A bloody face might draw sympathy from the crowd. But at this point it would probably be impossible to find someone who wasn’t bloodied.

The thought made Zeus remember his own wound. His face probably looked just as bad. Automatically his fingers moved up to touch the wound again, as if he doubted whether it was still there or not. Touching the tender area just made it sting more. He knew he should leave it alone, but it was not in his nature to just leave things alone. Everything in his life was divided into things he controlled, and things he was trying to control.

As his men and the prisoner came up to him now, Zeus decided he was very pleased with their selection. He didn’t show it of course. It was his philosophy to be very sparing with any praise. But he was satisfied. The prisoner was tall, well built, and looked strong enough that, under different circumstances, he might even have been thought of as intimidating. He didn’t look intimidating now with his hands bound and the dazed bloody look on his face. But one could easily imagine him on the barricades hours earlier, holding a rifle and fighting with the soldiers. He wouldn’t be pitied by the crowd.

Zeus glanced down at the man’s hands just to confirm what he already knew. There was gunfire powder and small burns across the back of the hands. Well, that settles that then. He was guilty. Zeus didn’t need to have any reservations about what he was about to do.

The man’s blond hair was just slightly longer than what was usually considered acceptable. It didn’t quite cover his eyes, but it lay in a mess across his forehead. In spite of the blood, his face had a handsome look to it. He had sharp blue eyes, which stood in contrast to an otherwise soft face.

Actually, in a way the blood made him look more handsome. At least to Zeus. It was as if the blood was some sort of badge of honor that validated the man’s struggle. “But,” Zeus concluded, “That’s probably just the military man in me.”

His men had indeed done well. Zeus was careful never to show pleasure however. He turned his head and spat to the side as a way of looking distracted and uninterested, then turned again to look at the student. “What is his name?” he asked the captain.

“My name is Stephen,” the student broke in.

So, he still had some spirit left. His men had done even better than he thought. Zeus allowed himself to smile. His smile seemed to simultaneously frighten the prisoner and cause his captain to sigh with relief.

“So, you’re one of the leaders, are you Stephen?”

Despite being obviously nervous, Stephen managed to answer, “We have no leaders here. That’s your world. Our world is based on equality.”

“Mmmm hmmm,” Zeus muttered in a distracted way. He had heard this rhetoric before. He dug the toe of his boot into the ground and looked at the dirt he kicked up. Then he looked back up at the prisoner. This was too easy. “Well, then, I should probably tell you that all the other uprisings have been put down. Every single University in Fabulae has been pacified. In fact you were the last hold out. And now that you and your friends have been defeated, the revolution is over.”

Stephen didn’t seem surprised by this. He had probably already known. Even behind the barricades they sometimes got news of the outside world. “The revolution isn’t about physical victory,” Stephen answered without blinking. “It’s about ideas. And we have the truth on our side. Everyone on the side of truth listens to us.”

“What is truth?” Zeus asked. And then, turning to his captain, Zeus suddenly changed his tone of voice to his usual commanding voice, and began barking orders. “Take him to the city center, and have him publicly flogged. After that I don’t care how you kill him, but make sure it takes a long time, and make sure he suffers. If there is any revolt left in the streets, I want it to be extinguished by seeing what happens to this man. No more romantic deaths on the barricades from now on, but long, slow, painful deaths. I want him to cry out for mercy before you let him die.” Zeus locked eyes with his captain. “I know you know what I mean.” The captain simply nodded. He had worked with Zeus before, and knew exactly what was expected of him.

Surprisingly, Stephen’s face still looked serenely peaceful as they dragged him away. Maybe he didn’t fully comprehend what was going to happen to him. He would find out soon enough.

This was the way you dealt with these people. They had been too lenient last time. But now no half measures. Fabulae would thank them in the end.

Part 1: Chapter 1

I rapped on the door impatiently. I had been here so many times before that it was almost like a second home to me, and I had long ago lost any formalities of pretense of politeness.

When no one answered the door, I knocked again. I took a few steps back to get a wider view of the house, but I could see no one moving inside. I went up to one of the side windows and pressed my face against the glass. “Hello! Hello!”

Through the glass I could see a figure moving leisurely across the room. She must have known it was me, because she displayed none of the promptness that would have been shown to any other guest. I did not take offense to this. It was a sign that they considered me almost part of the family.

The door opened. Her face looked tired, with deep lines underneath her eyes, but she smiled warmly when she saw me. “Hello Jonathon.”

“Is David in?”

“I think he’s still up in his room. I didn’t hear him go out. Unless he went out while I was hanging up the wash.” She paused to think about what she had just said. “But if he had gone out, he’d probably be with you now, wouldn’t he? Why don’t you go upstairs and see what he’s doing?”

“Thanks,” I called out as I ran up the stairs. David’s mom said something in reply, but I was already up the stairs and couldn’t hear it.

I threw open the door and burst into the room. David was sitting on the floor, with his back leaning against the wall directly opposite the door. I could tell my sudden entrance had initially startled him, but he was not surprised to see me. “Oh, it’s only you,” he said.

“Where were you this morning?” I demanded.

David shrugged. “I told you yesterday I might not come.”

“Simon and I were waiting for.”

“Well you shouldn’t have been. I said I probably wasn’t going to be there.” This was true. He had said that, and I remembered it, so for the moment there wasn’t anything more to say on the subject. I saw a small white ball on David’s desk, and I walked over and started bouncing it against the floor. “What did you and Simon end up doing anyway?”

“Nothing. There was nothing too do. We were bored. And besides, you know how Simon is…” I trailed off on this last point, but David nodded his head as if he understood.

I put the ball back on the desk, but as I turned to face David again, I noticed something I hadn’t seen the first time. There was a book across his lap. He had been sitting under the window so that he could read by the sunlight. “What the hell are you doing?”

The abrupt change of subject confused David. “What? Jon? I’m just sitting here. What are you talking about?”

“What’s that?” I pointed accusingly.

“This?” David held up the book as he pointed at it. He still seemed confused, but I nodded to confirm that the book was indeed the subject of my anger. “It’s a book Jon. What does it look like?”

“What the hell are you doing reading during summer break? We do enough of that during school.”

“This isn’t for school Jon. It’s for fun. Besides, what do you care?”

“You skipped out on Simon and me so that you could read a book?”

“Jon, I told you yesterday I probably wasn’t going to come.”

“A book?”

“Come on Jon, I told you this isn’t for school. It’s something I was interested in.”

“A book?” I could feel my face growing red as I raised my voice. “And Simon and I were standing around doing nothing all morning so that you could read a book? During summer break?”

“I’m under no obligation to keep Simon and you entertained.”

“But it’s summer break. We’ll be stuck in school the whole rest of the year reading books. This is our time to go out and have adventures.”

David tossed the book aside with an air of resignation. “Alright Jon, fine. What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know. Simon and I were trying to think of something to do all morning. There’s nothing to do in this town.”

David rolled his eyes in exasperation. “Well if there’s nothing to do anyway…”

“It’s out there somewhere,” I said. “Besides, anything is better than sitting in here reading a book on a summer afternoon. Are you coming or what?” David slowly got to his feet, and I practically pushed him out the door.


***************************************************

Simon had gone back to his home by this time, and that was fine with me. I always felt like Simon was more a friend of David’s than he was of mine. It was fine if the three of us were hanging out together, but there was something about Simon that just rubbed me the wrong way when it was only he and I.

Because it was a hot day, I wanted to go to the river and try and catch some fish. Neither one of us had any fishing equipment, but I figured if one person stood upstream and chased the fish, maybe other person could catch the fish further down.

We didn’t catch a single thing, but we had fun trying. At least I did. David argued with me for a while about what the point of it was. I tried to convince him that there was no point. And then he didn’t want to get his clothes wet. But once he actually got in the water, I think he had a lot of fun.

First I tried to chase the fish down, and David tried to catch them. When this was unsuccessful, we traded positions. The water was shallow, but the bottom of the river was slippery, and David was a little less steady on his feet than I was. He tripped over a rock and fell flat on his face. I yelled that he was letting all the fish get away. There was a short debate over who was most at fault, and then he tackled me and we were both drenched by the stream. We wrestled for a little while without anyone gaining the upper hand, until we were so exhausted that we dragged ourselves to the shore of the river and just watched the fish swim by.

After a while we decided we’d had enough, and started to head back into town. We walked along the brick road, and stopped to stare at various stores along the way. I really wanted to buy something at the sweets store, but I knew David didn’t have any money with him, so we just looked instead.

On the window of the bakery was a portrait of Angelo’s face, with the words written underneath: “We Salute the Heroes of the Restoration on the 20th Anniversary”

“Do you have a pen on you?” I asked David. I knew he didn’t, but I felt like I had to ask anyway.

“What? No.” David had still been eyeing the sweet bread, but he turned to me when he heard the question. “Why Jon? What are you going to do?”

I looked around and saw some charcoal lying on the side of the road. It must have fallen out from a cart that had just gone past. I picked it up and headed back to the bakery window, smiling at David. “This picture isn’t interesting enough,” I said. “Let’s add a mustache to it or something.” No, not original enough. I thought again. “Or donkey’s ears. And a tail.” I snapped my fingers as another idea struck me. “And a pitchfork, just like the devil.”

David positioned himself firmly between me and the picture. “No Jon, you’re just going to get us in trouble again. Besides, I thought Angelo was a friend of your father.”

“Yeah, well he’s not my friend. Besides I’m not going to hurt him. I’m just going to make his picture more interesting.”

David allowed me to push him aside, but didn’t stop his complaining. “Jon, will you stop and think for once? This is a stupid idea and you know it.” I had already started drawing on the picture. David’s voice became slightly more frantic. “Jon come on. I promised my mother I wouldn’t let you get me into any more trouble like this.”

“We’re not going to get in trouble.”

“That’s what you always say. And we always do. And…” David paused to look carefully at my work. “…and what are you drawing anyway?”

“I told you. Donkey ears and a tail and a pitchfork, just like the devil.”

“First of all the devil doesn’t have donkey ears, he has pointed ears, just like an elf. No, I said pointy, what are you doing? No, don’t try and scratch it out, you’ll just make a big smudge. Jon, look at what you’re doing!”

Now it was my turn to be exasperated. I let my arm drop to my side, and turned on David. “Oh come on will you? This isn’t art class.”

“Yeah, but look at that. It’s just a big smudge. No one could recognize that. I can’t even recognize that, and I know what it’s supposed to be. Here, give me the charcoal.” I handed it over. “Thank you. Now, see how I’m doing this Jon, with the nice straight lines? If you hadn’t smudged this all up first we’d be able to see it a lot clearer, but you get the idea right? Because we can’t see the ears very well, lets darken the eyebrows a little bit. Big eyebrows mean evil. Everyone knows that. Shall we put on a mustache as well?”

“The devil doesn’t have a mustache.”

“Sure he does. He’s got a long thin one like this. And whenever he’s thinking evil thoughts, he twirls the end of the mustache with his finger and laughs, just like this,” David demonstrated by twirling an imaginary mustache in the air. “I don’t have a mustache, but you see what I mean, right?” David held the charcoal at an angle so that he could draw a thin line for the mustache. “There we go. Now what else did you say you wanted on here? A tail?”

At that moment the baker came running out of his shop to witness us desecrating his window. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he yelled at us. “It’s Restoration week. Don’t you have any respect?”

I had started running almost immediately. David stood frozen where he was, and I had to dart back and tug at his arm to break him out of his daze.

I knew the Baker wouldn’t chase us. He was fat, and red faced, and it looked like the mere effort of running out of his shop had tired him out. But you never know who else is going to be around. This city was crawling with police.

Sure enough, the fat man’s cries soon brought a policeman. “After them,” the baker screamed, pointing at us. “They ruined the Restoration posters.”

We had a good start by this time and were already halfway down the block, but the policeman took after us at full speed. His legs were a lot longer than ours and he was able to cover more distance with each step. He also blew into his whistle as he ran in order to alert other police in the area. And there was never any shortage of police in the city.

The next time I looked behind me there were two policemen running. And then three. They seemed to be coming out of every alley and side street.

I figured our best chance was to head towards the center of town where the crowds were. Once we got to the market place, we could plunge into the center of the crowd, and the police would never be able to find us.

I was running so fast I could barely breath, and couldn’t find the air to voice my thoughts to David. I turned down the street towards the center of town; he kept running straight. Our eyes caught each other’s as our paths split. I tried to wave him over in my direction. He made a sudden attempt to change directions in mid stride, his feet spun on some of the loose gravel, he skidded briefly and then his feet came out from under him. He fell face forward onto the hard brick road.

Under different circumstances, it might not have been the kind of fall that he would have been soon up from. He might have gotten up slowly, looking over his injuries to make sure he was all right. Today there was no time to pause. I stopped, ran back to him, extended my hand, pulled him up, and we were off again.

But I noticed that he was not running as fast. What’s more, the police had gained even more ground while David had fallen, and they were continuing to gain ground with every step.

We turned another corner, and the market place was in sight. At the same time I noticed that David was running with a limp. He started to fall behind me. I slowed down a bit, and ran beside him, trying to urge him forward. When that didn’t seem to do any good, I reached out and grabbed his arm to pull him forward with me. That didn’t seem to help either.

The whistles kept blowing, and more police were coming out of every corner. Just a little bit more David, I thought. Please keep going just a little bit more.

We ran into the market, but didn’t slow down. I weaved in and out of people, trying to work my way through the dense crowd. I bounced off of fruit stands and stall frames. I briefly lost track of where David was. I bumped into someone carrying a box of fruit, and he dropped it on the stone ground. I could hear him yelling after me as I plunged deeper into the crowd.

As I ran, I strained my neck backwards to see how close the police were. I could still see them, but they were losing ground now. They were big and awkward, and not able to weave in and out of the crowd as well as I was.

Just as I was turning my neck straight again, I ran smack into someone. It was like hitting a wall. I bounced off of him, and fell backwards on the ground. He didn’t even move.

Dazed, I sat on the ground and looked forward at the muscular legs in front of me. I moved my eyes up to see the whole figure. I took in his massive frame. He was wearing a shirt that seemed to small for him, and was stretched tight against his muscles. He seemed like a giant towering over me, but his face was young like mine. He was only a few years older than me. In fact he looked very familiar. I think I’d seen him around school, but I was still dazed from being knocked to the ground, and I had a hard time placing him exactly.

Suddenly David was there, helping me up to my feet as he apologized to the older boy. “I’m sorry he didn’t see you there. He didn’t mean any harm.”

Even once I was standing, the older boy was still taller than me, although he didn’t look quite as gigantic as he had looked from the ground. He had very soft features in his face, which almost seemed to contradict his athletic build. His cheeks were well rounded, and his brown hair seemed very fair and light. He had soft brown eyes, which were almost exactly the same color of his hair. His eyes looked very deep and thoughtful, and I could tell he was studying me with them.

“He didn’t mean any harm,” David repeated. Then he prodded me, “right Jon?”

After the initial shock of the fall, I was beginning to come to myself again. “Right, I’m sorry. I was looking behind me. I didn’t see you standing there.”

The boy’s eyes looked past me at the approaching policemen. Then he looked at me again. And then, kind of a half smile broke out on his face, and there was a glow in his eyes that indicated he understood everything. “Hide in there,” he said, pointing with his finger. David and I followed the finger to see what he was referring to. It was a small market stall just like all the others. “There’s no one using that one today,” he explained. “It’s empty.”

I looked at David to see how he felt about the idea, but he offered no helpful comments. He just looked back at me. He was probably waiting for me to make a decision.

Hiding in an empty stall in the middle of the market seemed almost a bit too obvious. The police were sure to find us there. And there was nothing I hated more than simply sitting down and waiting for them to find me. I could handle being chased, but I couldn’t bear just sitting and waiting while they searched around. Besides, I didn’t even know this other guy, and I had no idea if he was trustworthy or not.

And yet, in spite of all these objections in my mind, I found myself following his suggestion and going into the stall. David followed me. The older boy threw a tarp over the stall to cover it up, but sunlight still streamed through the cracks and I could see David’s face blended between the sunlight and the shadows.

David now had time to examine his wounds. He put his leg into the sunlight, and looked at it from different angles. It was really scrapped up, but what do you expect from a fall like that? No deep cuts however, and the bleeding seemed to have mostly stopped already.

There was so much noise and confusion in the market place, that it was hard to tell when exactly the policemen had past us. I expected the older boy would let us know when the danger was over, or give us some sort of all clear signal, but nothing. We waited and waited, but nothing.

At first David and I waited in silence with our ears straining to catch something from the outside. He looked at me, and I looked at his face, which was half buried in sunlight, half streaked by the light. But neither of us dared to say a word.

I don’t know how long we were in there. 15 minutes? A half hour? Maybe it was only 10 minutes. I honestly don’t know. We were both so nervous, and we had nothing to do except just stare at each other in silence. Time seems to stretch on forever in those types of situations.

I signaled to David that I was going to peak outside. He nodded. I lifted the tarp up slowly and looked around. The market place was filled with people, but there were no signs of the police, or of the older boy for that matter.

I signaled for David to come out. The bright sunlight caused us to squint at first as we stepped back into the market. David was still walking with a bit of a limp, which caused me to remember his injury. “Is your leg all right?”

“What? Yeah, it’s all right.” My question had suddenly reminded David of his injury, and he re-examined his leg. “Just scrapped up.

The sunlight was still hurting my eyes. I put my hand to my forehead and squinted as I scanned the market place. “I don’t see any police. And where did that other boy go? He looked kind of familiar, didn’t he?”

“You mean Orion?”

Was that his name? I tested the sound of the word by saying it aloud. “Orion.”

“You know who Orion is, don’t you?”

“He looks familiar. I think I’ve seen him around school.”

“Jon!” David’s voice showed annoyance at my ignorance. “He’s the President of his class. He’s captain of the sports club. He’s one of the most well known people at school. I can’t believe you don’t even know who he is. He’s only two years above us.”

“Oh.” I dismissed it with a shrug. “I’ve never been interested in all that class leadership kind of stuff anyway.” My thoughts lingered on the incident briefly, and then I thought of a new point. “If he was a class leader, why would he help us run from the police?”

David raised his eyebrows in a quizzically way as if to bounce the question back at me. “I don’t know Jon. The way he looked at you, it almost seemed like he knew you. ”

I had to admit, the whole thing did seem pretty odd. “But hey, was that the coolest thing ever or what? Can you believe we outran all those police?”

That was the wrong thing to say. David did not share my enthusiasm. “Damn it Jon, I told you that was a bad idea to write on that picture. We almost got caught.”

“But we didn’t.”

“That was just luck. If you keep this up, one of these days you are going to get caught. And when that happens I really hope you don’t drag me into it.”

Ah, the ingratitude. David never appreciates all I do for him. “I save you from having a boring life. If it wasn’t for me, you’d still be reading that book.”

Again, apparently the wrong thing to say. David exploded at this. His hands flew up in the air. “I want to have a boring life. I like reading that book. Just once I want to have a quiet afternoon reading a book instead of having to run all over the city.”

David could get like this sometimes. Don’t misunderstand me, he’s a great guy. Really, he’s the best friend I’ve ever had. And good friends are hard to find; everyone knows that. But David can bend things out of proportion sometimes. The trick in talking with him is to get him to see the larger picture, while trying to avoid further antagonizing him. It’s a balancing act no doubt, and I don’t claim to do it perfectly.

David may seem upset now, but if I stopped taking him out on my little adventures, he would be bored stiff in two days. I know that, and he knows that. At least I think he knows that. [Tense?]

But every once and a while he loses perspective on things. And then what can I really say to him, without upsetting him further? I mumbled, “Sure, you say that now, but just wait until…”

David didn’t even let me finish. “I’m through for the day Jon,” he yelled as he walked off in the direction of his house. “I’m going back home to read my book. I’ll see you around tomorrow maybe, OK?”

You would have thought I forced the charcoal into his hand and made him draw. “OK, right. Take care. See you round tomorrow.”

And then after that, what was there really left to do but head home. I lived on the outskirts of the city, so maybe it wasn’t a bad idea to start heading back early anyway.

I walked through the down town area along the brick road. I passed the church where David and his family attend. Just a little further from that was our school. I hurried past the church and the school as quickly as I could. I considered it bad luck to linger around either. I had a sense that, even though the school was closed for the summer, it might suddenly come back to life and suck me back in if I was foolish enough to linger around in front of it. As for churches, they always contained in them an air of stuffiness that might leap onto me if I wandered too close.

Past some more shops. I could see the University off in the distance. Or actually all I could really see was the chapel tower with the huge cross on the top of it. The rest of the University was hidden by the large wall surrounding it.

Even though the University was really just another kind of school, it held a certain attraction for me. Mostly I was just curious about what it looked like. I wanted to see what was behind the wall.

However they were very strict about it. They never let anyone besides University students inside. David and I had tried to get in before.

And so I had to be content just looking at the large crucifix balanced on the chapel tower. The large cross towered over the rest of the city. It was like a large eye protecting the city. Even I had to admit it was a sight to behold if you saw it at the right time of day. Now it was the evening, and the sun was just setting down behind the cross. Rays of sunlight spilled out from behind the cross, and the sun was obscured from view. You almost got the impression that the cross itself was the origin of the light. And the cross, by its benevolence, scattered the golden rays of evening on all the houses and shops below.

I came to a river and crossed a bridge. On the other side of the river the brick road ended, and a dirt road began. The dirt was hardened by horses hooves and the wagon wheels, but my feet managed to kick up some dust as I walked along.

There were still houses along both sides of the road, but the houses were now slightly apart, and there was a small garden between each house. As I continued along the road, the gardens became bigger and bigger. The houses were getting bigger as well.

I came upon another church. This was the one my family and I attended on Sunday mornings. It was a lot newer than the one David and his family attended. It was bigger also, even though less people attended it. Due to my fear of churches, I hurried past it as quickly as I could.

Finally I arrived at my house. I was pretty sure the only one home was Abel, not counting the servants. My father usually worked late.

I walked along the path through our garden and to the door of the house, I tugged at the huge door handle, and it opened with a loud creak.


I hate it when the door makes a noise. I like to come and go without people knowing about it. Once the servants saw it was only me, they went back to their usual business. Only the butler stayed.

“Welcome home Jonathon. Is there anything you’ll be needing?”

“No, I’m fine. Where is everyone?”

“Your younger brother is taking a nap. Your father is still with the Duke, and won’t be expected home for a couple more hours. He did leave instructions though that you were to clean up before dinner tonight. I can draw your bath whenever you’re ready.”

“Not just yet. I’m going to go out back and play with the dogs for a while,” I answered. “I’ll be back inside soon.”

**********************************************

My father’s eyes narrowed in the candlelight. He had been very quiet all dinner, and I could tell that his mind was still at work even though his body had come home. He was staring off into space with his usual distracted expression as he slowly chewed his food. Abel and I occasionally looked at each other, but both of us were more than happy to let the dinner pass in silence, and neither of us tried to talk to my father.

As I was reaching across the table for another piece of bread, my father’s hand suddenly shot out and grabbed my wrist. “Hey!” I yelled out in protest. I tried to pull my arm back, but he held firm on my wrist and then turned my hand over. He pulled my whole arm into the candlelight and examined it.

“I left specific instructions that you were to clean up before dinner. Did you get my message?”

Because it wasn’t really a question, it never crossed my mind to try and lie about it. He knew that the butler had told me. “Yeah, I got it.”

He tightened his grip on my wrist. “And?”

“I was going to, but I lost track of the time. I’ll clean up after dinner.”

It was always difficult to tell how he was going to react. He was very unpredictable. Depending on his mood, or what kind of day he had at work, or how much sleep he got the night before, or a million other unforeseen factors, he might either choose to overlook this, or he could make a big deal about it and lecture me for the rest of dinner, or he might even explode into an angry temper tantrum and shout at Abel and I for the rest of the dinner, maybe throw some plates onto the ground, and then stomp angrily into the other room.

He gave my arm a final tug forward, practically bringing me out of my seat and onto the table myself. He tightened his grip, looked into my eyes and said slowly, “This doesn’t happen again. When I tell you to do something, I expect you to do it.” And then that was it. He let go of my arm, and went back to eating his food. I had gotten off easy.

Once the food had been cleared away, and the servants brought him coffee and his pipe, he became more pleasant. He lit his pipe and took in the first few puffs to get the flame going. He sipped his coffee, and then leaned back in his chair.

Abel and I were not considered old enough to have either tobacco or coffee, but we were stuck at the table until my father officially dismissed us. He made an effort to engage us in conversation. Turning to me first, he said, “So tell me Jonathon, what did you do today?”

“Nothing really. I hung out first with Simon, and then David in the afternoon. We looked at the pictures of the Restoration heroes down town.”

He groaned. “Oh, the posters? Don’t talk about that now. I just spent all day getting ready for Restoration week. I’ve told Flash again and again I don’t think any of it is worth it. And Angelo. He is obsessed with having his poster all over the city. You would not believe the headaches Angelo is causing me.”

“I saw his picture,” Abel said. “Was Angelo the greatest hero?”

My father let out a small laugh, took a drink of his coffee, and then answered. “Well, you would certainly think so by looking at the posters, wouldn’t you?

“Depending on which one you looked at,” I chimed in.

For half-a-second, my father gave me a puzzled look, then disregarded me and turned his attention back to Abel. “Angelo wasn’t any more of a hero than the rest of us. I did just as many heroic things as Angelo. And of course Flash was the biggest hero of us all.”

Abel leaned forward eagerly. He was always like this when my father told the old stories. “Tell me about the Restoration again,” Abel pleaded. “Please, please tell the stories again.”

I cringed at hearing these words, because I knew my father never turned down a request to talk about the old days. Not that I blamed Abel for asking this. When I was his age I never tired of hearing about the Restoration either. But I was feeling a little too old to sit through these stories once again. Besides I had heard it all a million times before. “Can I go now?” I asked.

My father turned sharply on me. “You will sit there until I dismiss you,” he yelled.

I leaned back in my chair and folded my arms across my chest in a sullen manner as my father turned back to Abel. He inhaled a mouthful of smoke and let it out slowly, contemplating the wisps of smoke as they curled upwards. At last he said, “You should have seen Flash. “The way he commanded the men, the way he inspired them, it was something. I’ll never forget the way he lead the charge up the hill. Jonathon, don’t roll your eyes.” I didn’t think he could see me, but like all parents he had extra senses. He didn’t even break his rhythm, but kept on with his story. “I was right at his side the whole time. So was Timothy. The Blues poured down bullets on us like rain, but the three of us stayed in the front of the charge till the end. We got to the top, and Flash wanted to be the first one to fire his revolver into the Blue stronghold. His gun misfired right at the moment when they were coming at us. The Blues would have had him then if I hadn’t fired twice.”

“You saved his life?” Abel said in amazement.

My father smiled and dismissed Abel’s comment with a shake of his head. “It was nothing. I had my revolver ready and I fired twice at the Blues. It was what any man would have done. I was a dead shot in those days as well. Hit the Blues right between the eyes, both of them. They fell to the ground like anvils, their heads hitting first. Flash didn’t even stop to thank me. He just took their guns off of them and then plunged into the Blue fortress. It was pure suicide, but he always had to be the first to go anywhere. He saved my life many times. I saved his life that once. It was just what he expected. No words of thanks were necessary.”

“And Angelo?” Abel was leaning forward eagerly to hear every word.

“Angelo was there as well. He came into the fortress right behind us. Angelo was ruthless in those days. He wanted to kill every single Blue. Flash was more generous. Once we had defeated the Blues and secured the fortress, Flash let all the surviving Blues go. Timothy and I agreed with Flash. The Blues had fought just as bravely as we had. They deserved their lives. But Angelo was furious. He wanted to avenge all our dead. He wanted to kill all the Blues in revenge for the men we lost. Flash won the argument of course.”

My father took a deep breath. “Ah, the Restoration days,” he said. He was looking in Abel’s direction but his eyes were looking past Abel. “Those were great days. The Whites and the Blues taught each other how to die like heroes. You never see that kind of heroism these days. The best men all died in the Restoration battle. Like Mucius; he took two bullets, one in the leg and one in the shoulder. It knocked him clean to the ground. We all thought he was done for the day, but he stood back up. With blood pouring out of his leg he kept running up the hill. The Blues had never seen anything like it before. He got cut down in the next volley, but he died like a hero. Timothy and I picked his body up and shielded it from the Blues. We brought it back to be buried at our home in the country.” His voice was getting a little weak at this point. No matter how many times he told this story, his voice always got scratchy when he mentioned the burial.

There was a moment of silence. My father was lost in his own thoughts, and Abel was too awed to speak. Even I thought it would be disrespectful to disturb him now. And then, becoming aware of the silence, he snapped out of it. “That’s why Angelo wanted to kill all of the Blues; in revenge for men like Mucius. And I could understand his reasons, but in the end I sided with Flash. The Blues had fought just as bravely as we had. There were heroes on both sides. I never hated the Blues. I respected them for their bravery. And they didn’t hate us. When we finally won, you should have seen how eagerly they bowed down to Flash. There wasn’t a trace of resentment or anger in them. It was touching to see how much they admired Flash, even though he had beaten them. And after the battle, Flash pardoned every single one of them; all the ones that survived the charge at least.”

“Are there any Blues left?” Abel asked.

“No, the war has been over for a long time now. The Restoration was 20 years ago, before either of you were even born. There are no Blues or Whites left anymore.”

“But I want to fight in the war,” Abel protested.

My father chuckled. When he was in a good mood, his voice had a deep, rich, almost friendly quality to it. “I don’t think this country could handle another war like that. The last one was bad enough. That’s why I fought in the Restoration; to make sure there would be peace when my children were born. We won, and there has been peace in Fabulae ever since.” And yet despite his words, there was something in my father’s voice, which suggested he was pleased with Abel’s comment.

Although he hadn’t finished all of his coffee, my father pushed his cup and saucer to the side. The servants, who had been watching silently, descended un-beckoned to clear away his coffee and the remainder of the table decorations. My father stood up, indicating that the dinner was officially over, and we were dismissed. “I’ve got a lot of work to do tonight, so I don’t want to be disturbed,” he said. “If you boys can’t occupy yourselves quietly tonight, I will find things for you to do. And don’t stay up too late either. Remember we have church in the morning. I don’t want either of you oversleeping tomorrow morning.”

******************************************************************************

My head was still a bit groggy. It was eight in the morning. Eight wasn’t early, but then early is a relative term. During summer vacation I usually slept in till around nine every day. Eight seemed like the crack of dawn. If it was during the school year, when I was used to getting up early, it wouldn’t be so bad. But now my head was heavy with sleep, and I lumbered around the room. I wanted nothing more than to just fling myself down on the bed and go back to sleep, but…

“Jonathon, hurry up! I told you last night specifically not to oversleep.” Even though he was on the bottom floor, my father’s voice came up to my room loud and clear. I tried to shake the sleepiness off as I made my way towards my clothes.

My Sunday clothes were in an entirely different part of the closet than my regular clothes. They didn’t get touched except for Sunday. They were also year round clothes, which meant they were all right in winter, but in the summer heat they were stifling. I sat down on the bed as I put on the long black pants, then the socks. I always thought my black Sunday socks were very itchy, but I knew they weren’t designed for comfort.

My Sunday shoes were slightly too small for my feet, but my father insisted that there was no need to get a new pair since I only wore them once a week anyway. I crammed my feet into them. The itchiness of the socks now combined with the tightness of the shoes. It wasn’t so bad now, but I knew during the sermon it would drive me crazy. Because I was only 15, I still wasn’t expected to wear a tie to church. And yet the stiff collared shirt alone was bad enough in summer. I could feel the stiff collar rubbing my neck.

I put my finger under the collar in a futile attempt to stop the rubbing. As I pulled at the collar, I walked to the window and looked outside. It was a beautiful morning.

“Jonathon!” His voice had risen in pitch. He was losing patience. I decided it would be unsafe to keep him waiting much longer.

“Coming,” I yelled back. I buckled my shoes, and was out the door. I put on my belt as I walked down the stairs, and met my father and Abel standing at the door.

My father looked at his watch impatiently. “So you’re going to make us late this week again as well Jonathon?”

I glanced at the grandfather clock down the hall. “We’re not late yet.”

“Well we’re not going to be early either,” he said sternly. The tone of his voice checked me from making some sort of remark in reply.

Abel was five years younger than me, and had not yet learned when it is best to stay quiet. “I don’t want to go to church today,” he whined.

Abel was standing directly in front of my father, so he was within easy reach. My father’s hands came down and grabbed Abel’s shoulders. Abel winced as my father’s hands squeezed his shoulders, but I knew it was only a warning. “Don’t you ever complain about going to church again,” my father said. Adding one last squeeze for emphasis, my father released his grip. Abel was silent.

My father opened the door, and we walked out.

**************************************************

The church was only about a ten-minute walk from our house. In fact all the families that attended lived nearby. Most of my school friends lived close to the center of town, and that meant there was almost nobody I knew at our church. The only classmate at my church was Rosa, and she never talked to me anyway so it was just as if she wasn’t there.

Abel was luckier than I was. He had about 5 or 6 friends from school at the church. They always played together after the sermon, while I was left standing with my hands in my pocket or making small talk with the adults.


The church had just been remodeled, and still looked new and shiny from the outside. It had the usual steeple and stained glass windows, which I suppose are standard on every church. Inside it had rows of pews are facing the large cross at the front. Below the cross was the minister’s pulpit. He was already standing at the pulpit and beginning the service when we walked in. My father hated being late, and he glared at me as we entered.

The ushers quickly showed us to our seats. There were three open spaces in a pew toward the center back. As I sat down, I noticed that we were sitting directly behind Rosa.

No sooner had we sat down then the service began. The minister held his hands out over the congregation in his standard blessing pose. “And now,” he said in his deep voice, “let us pray.” My head immediately dropped down to a bowed position out of years of habit. “Dear God, we thank you today for all the blessings you have given us. We thank you that we are so gifted to live in a wonderful country, and so blessed with great abundance of wealth. We thank you for the era of peace that we now live in, and we thank you that you have sent your servant, the Duke, to watch over our land and to keep our people safe and prosperous. We pray God that we may serve you better…” His voice drowned on in monotone. I had a hard time concentrating on what he was saying, but I kept my head bowed and my eyes closed in a reverent position.

I always felt a little light heading after praying for a long time. With my head bowed down, the blood swirled down into it. I couldn’t see anything because my eyes were closed, but if I kept my eyes closed long enough, I began to imagine that I actually did see light patterns playing off the back of my eyelids. The longer I concentrated on those patterns, the more light headed I got. Eventually I decided to discreetly open my eyes for a while, and see if that helped to clear my brain.

Abel was always worse than me. Now that my eyes were opened, I could see him fidgeting in the other seat. Because my head was still bowed down, and because my father was sitting between Abel and myself, I couldn’t see him well, but I could see the movement.

My father must have noticed the same thing, because out of the corner of my eye I could see my father’s hand come down strong on Abel’s neck, and force Abel’s head back into a bowed position.

I closed my eyes again. The minister seemed to be wrapping up his prayer. “And we pray God that you may continue to bless our nation, and continue to bless our gracious leader the Duke. In your most holy name, Amen.”

Everyone raised their head and opened their eyes at once. I blinked a few times. The church seemed to be unusually bright. “Please open your hymnals and turn to page 93,” the minister said, “and sing with our choir.

As the singing began, I noticed several people were turning around and looking toward the back of the church. Rosa, who was sitting in front of me, turned around and looked backwards. Her eyes looked right past me. I smiled at her in a greeting, but she didn’t appear to notice me. After years of going to Church and school with her, I knew that her ability not to notice me was almost superhuman.

At last I also turned my head to see what everyone was looking at. The Duke had just entered the back of the Church. He almost always arrived late. There was a seat reserved for him at the back of the church. He slipped into calmly and grabbed a hymnal and opened it up and starting singing, as if he had been in the church from the start of the service.

Old Flash wasn’t that interesting, so I returned my gaze to the front of the church and continued singing the hymn. Rosa as well turned around and looked at the front, without ever having given any indication that she even noticed I was there.

We finished the hymn, and the minister directed everyone to sit down. Between the hymns that the congregation sang, and the songs that the choir performed, there was always a lot of music in church, but I have a hard time remembering any of it. Church music always sounds the same to me. After a while it all blends in into the same song.

The minister began his sermon on the importance of holiness. My father kept a strict eye on us to ensure that Abel and I did not sleep during the sermon, but I had a hard time concentrating just the same. My mind wandered in and out. I began to imagine things on the wall behind the minister. I looked at the large cross standing behind him. How many lines could I intersect with that cross vertically? What about perpendicular? How many more crosses of the same size could fit on the wall? I usually figured about 3 full size crosses, and then one half, but every week I rechecked my measurements.

The sermon ended. We sang a closing hymn. The minister gave us his benediction, and then everyone stood up to leave. Rosa turned around and made a beeline for the exit, again walking past me but taking no notice.

The Duke shook hands with everyone as they were leaving. In every handshake he exuded a warmth and friendliness that flowed out of his body. He smiled at each person and made them feel like they were his best friend. And, a natural politician, he was able to do all this without showing effort. He was a regular presence at this church, and everyone was used to seeing him, and most were on friendly terms. However my father was the only one close enough to the Duke to address him by his nickname.

“Flash, how are you doing?” he called out as slapped his palm into the Duke’s outstretched hand.

“Not too bad,” Flash said with a wide smile. “I hear Angelo has been working you hard lately.”

My father made a face. “I swear this whole nonsense with the Restoration anniversary–.”

“Now don’t you start that again,” Flash cut him off. “I’ve been listening to you complain all week.” Flash was the same age as my father, but he had aged very well. There were some streaks of gray in his hair, mixed in with the black, and his face was looking slightly weathered but without wrinkles. His eyes still had a youthful look in them. And whereas My father had developed a slight gut recently, Flash was still as fit and trim as ever. He looked very statesman like. “And how are you doing, Jonathon?” the Duke asked.

“We’re all busy trying to keep him out of trouble,” my father said.

“Now Paul, let the boy talk. School’s starting again soon isn’t it? How old are you this year Jonathon? Sixteen? Seventeen?”

He was smooth that Flash. No one else told ever told me I looked that old. I knew he was just flattering me, but I swelled up with pride just the same. “I’m fifteen.”

Flash shook his head in disbelief and looked at my father. “I still remember the day Jonathon was born. It’s amazing how fast he’s growing up.” He looked back down at me. “Before you know it, you’ll be working for me just like your father.”

“Oh, that’s a long way off yet,” my father put in hastily.

“It will be here before you know it,” Flash said. “He’s fourteen now. Only eight more years and I’ll be listening to him complain about the Restoration Anniversary.” Flash looked at me again. “What have you been doing this summer Jonathon?”

I wasn’t sure how to answer this. I knew the Duke didn’t want to hear about everything single thing I had been doing, and yet I didn’t feel that my summer adventures lended themselves to short sound bites. “Nothing.”

Flash seemed to think this was incredibly funny. “Now that’s a lie if I ever heard one,” he said after a hearty chuckle. “You’ve been getting into all sorts of trouble, haven’t you? You’re father is always telling stories about you. Aren’t you Paul?”

This is a prime example of why I hated talking to my father’s friends. It was like I wasn’t really part of the conversation, but simply a conversation prop for the two of them to talk about. I looked past the Duke and saw the sun streaming in through the door. “Can I go outside?” I asked my father.

“Jonathon, the Duke is talking to you.” My father couldn’t yell at me in the Church, but his voice had a strained quality to it.

The Duke only laughed. He turned his head around to follow my gaze out the door. “It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it Jonathon? You go ahead.”

I had no more friends outside than I did inside. Abel and his friends were running and laughing and playing some sort of tag. But there was no one my age. Rosa, even if she would have acknowledged me, was already walking home with her family.

But outside was always better than inside, if for no other reason than to escape the stale, stuffy air that stays inside the church. Although, basking in the warm sunshine only made me more conscious that I had spent the morning in its absence.

The Church was on a hill, and from the doorway I could see out over the whole neighborhood. In every direction were elegant looking mansions and expansive gardens. I could hear a dog barking from somewhere.

Abel and his friends ran in front of me, briefly distracting me from my thoughts. I followed them with my eyes as they ran around the churchyard. Since Abel was younger, he was allowed to still normally for church. I couldn’t imagine running around in my Church clothes. I moved so stiffly in them. Plus my father would kill me if he caught me running around and wrestling on the grass with these clothes on. I longed to be home already and fling all of these clothes on the floor.

Many of the adults said good-bye to me as they left the church. Eventually my father and the Duke left the church, still laughing and talking to each other on their way out the door. Then Abel and I walked home with our father.

We walked most of the way home in silence. My father was obviously brooding about something, but I thought it best not to ask. Sometimes if you leave him alone long enough, his anger eventually passes by itself. Then again, sometimes he can turn unexpectedly and angrily bring up something that happened hours or days before.

When we were halfway home, my father turned to me suddenly and said, “You weren’t very polite to the Duke this morning.”

I waited to see if he would elaborate, but he just looked at me. “I’m sorry,” I replied automatically.

“When he is talking to you, you answer his questions fully. If he asks you what you are doing this summer, don’t you ever say ‘nothing’ again.”

“But you just answer the questions for me anyway,” I said.

He grabbed my arm and spun me around to face him. “What I say has nothing to do with this. I’m talking about how you act in front of the Duke. And don’t you ever, ever ask to go outside while he’s still speaking to you.” The prospect of a long conversation with old Flash did not thrill me, and it must have reflected on my face because my father took it upon himself to convince me further. “You know, you’re going to be working for him someday. You might as well get on good terms with him now.”

“What if I don’t want to work for the Duke?” I knew better than to say that, but I acted without thinking.

“Don’t be stupid Jonathon,” my father replied, as if the question was not even worth addressing. He started walking again. Abel and I followed him. We walked the rest of the way home in silence.

Chapter 2

A little excitement can sometimes be a dangerous thing.

You think to yourself that if you just had a little excitement, you could get everything out of your system. But excitement is addictive. The more of it you have, the more of it you want.

You might think that after being chased by the police the previous week, I would have had all the excitement I could handle for a while. Instead the opposite began to happen. I began to wish for more trouble.

My whole life suddenly seemed to be incredibly dreary. I went to school. I sat down in my seat. I sat and listened to what they had to say. I did what they told me to do. I went to church and sat in my seat and listened to the minister. I went home and listened to my father. I was always sitting, always listening, always doing what other people told me to do.

When the police had been chasing me, it was the one moment I had felt truly alive. The blood pounding in my ears, my legs leaping off the road, the speed that I was capable of, all of it became a fixation for me.

Of course the running in itself wasn’t special. I had run lots of times before. They made us run in gym class, and I always hated it then. But with the police in pursuit everything was very real. Every movement I made counted for something. Every burst of energy was important. After I had done that, how was I could I run in gym class ever again? Even the games I played with Simon and David seemed pale in comparison.

I never really planned anything. I never made a conscious decision that I was going to court danger again. It was just an impulse. A sudden, foolish impulse.

It was still summer, but the weather was unseasonable cool that day. A gentle breeze was in the air. It was a small breeze; enough to gently cool my face, but no more. It was the kind of day that just made me feel like running.

I was on my way to David’s house, when I passed a police station. It wasn’t the main police station, just one of the small neighborhood branches. There were only two officers there. One was inside, the other was standing outside. The one outside nodded a greeting to me, and I automatically nodded back.

I kept walking but I could see him from the corner of my eye. He was obviously tired from standing outside all day. He took off his hat and set it on the window ledge next to him while he ran his fingers through his hair. A bucked filled with water was hanging from a rope next to the police station. He walked over and began to drink from it. I stopped and starred at the hat.

I don’t think I had ever seen one up close before. I always saw it off in the distance on the head of a police officer. Now it was in my reach. It was mostly black, with gold stars on the front. It was new and sparkled in the sunlight. I had to have it.

The policeman was still drinking. The bucket was significantly bigger than his mouth, so that as much water was spilling down his chin as was going down his throat. He didn’t seem to mind. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down greedily even as the water fell off his chin and onto the brick road. It was a long drink, but it would be over any second.

If I had time enough I might have thought carefully over all the potential consequences. But since I had no time, I simply acted. As the policeman tilted his head back for one final gulp, I dashed forward, grabbed the hat, turned, and ran.

I’m not sure when he noticed me, but I could hear his heavy footsteps behind me soon enough. I was running for all I was worth. I don’t know what would happen if he caught me, but I was sure it wouldn’t be good.

He was relatively young as police officers go. Probably in his mid-twenties. His legs are longer than mine, and a lot faster than me as well. I may have had the head start, but I could hear his footsteps getting closer and closer. “Why couldn’t you have stolen a hat from someone old and out of shape?” I asked myself.

I was running wild now. My arms were moving back and forth as fast as my legs. Up ahead is the main street. I burst out of the side street and onto the main street with him right behind me the whole time. I had so much momentum now that I could hardly turn, but somehow I managed to turn down the main street and keep running.

I couldn’t feel my legs. I was terrified, but I was also filled with the excitement. My numb legs carried me down the street. We passed all the shops. We passed the bakery where David and I had drawn on Angelo’s face. There was a new poster of Angelo on the window, but I didn’t have time to notice it.

He’s almost got me now. I could hear his footsteps right behind me. I could even hear his breathing. I felt at any moment he could reach out and grab me. I would never make it to the market like last time.

The adrenaline had kept me running so far, but it was beginning to catch up to me. My breathing was getting heavy as I was gasping for breath. My side was beginning to hurt. Part of me wanted to just slow down and let him catch me. He was going to get me anyway. Why delay the inevitable?

I didn’t consciously decide to slow down, but my legs seemed to guess what my brain was thinking, and slowed down on their own. Out of the corner of my eye I could see his arm reach out to grab me. No, not yet, I decided. I’ve got a bit more energy in me yet. He’s not going to catch me yet. I gave myself one final burst of energy. He snatched at the air.

In a desperate attempt I turned off down an alley, not knowing what I would find. The very suddenness of the turn took him by surprise. He kept running down the street as I darted into the alley. By the time he changed directions, I had gained a little more time.

It was a small narrow alley. Brick houses were lined up on either side. And at the end of the alley was a small wooden wall. A dead end.

I kept running forward anyway. Under the wall was a small crawl space underneath for the rainwater to run. I was small enough to fit under it, but I didn’t think he was.

I lost a little bit of time getting down on my hands and knees, but he was still catching up. I could just barely squeeze under the fence. I tossed the hat through to the other side first, and then wriggled my body through. First my head came out the other side. Once I got my arms through, I use them to push against the wall, and the rest of my body came through much easier. I was almost all the way through when I felt him grab my ankle. He gave my leg a rough pull and half my body was jerked back under to the other side.

But the crawl space was too small for him to pull me all the way through. It was only with a lot of wriggling and squirming that I had made it halfway through in the first place. I knew, especially if I put up a fight, that I couldn’t be pulled back through again against my will. He was able to pull my legs, but my upper body refused to go under the wall. I used my arms to brace against the wall and pushed in the other direction.

He jerked hard on my leg. I hollered in pain. I kicked wildly with my free leg. Beneath the soles of my shoe I felt my foot hit something. He loosened his grip, and I quickly pulled my legs through.

I scrambled to my feet on the other side. As soon as I was standing, I ran over to the hat and made sure it was okay. It had some dirt on it, but once I brushed it off it still looked as new and shiny as ever.

But my relief was cut short. I heard some clattering noises, and looked behind me to see that he had actually found a way to climb over the wall. He must have climbed up on one of the windowsills on the adjoining houses. Then from there he could probably reach the top of the wall, and pull himself up. When I realized what was happening, he was already swinging his legs over the wall.

I started running again. I turned down the first street I could find, and then down the next one after that. I was weaving in and out of all the alleys and back ways. My hope was to be able to loose him before he could catch up to me again, but I soon heard this heavy footsteps pounding behind me.

[Tense change? Present tense for more vividness?] It was only a matter of time before he would get me now.

I ducked down another alley, only to notice that it was another dead end. There was a red brick wall at the end of it. I didn’t have time to ponder my bad luck. All I could think about was how to get around it.

As I got nearer to it, I realized that it was the church wall. And there was no way under this time. And it was too high to climb over.

Except for maybe that tree standing next to it. I could climb the branches. The first branch was just out of my reach, but maybe….

First I tossed the hat high into the air and it went over the wall and onto the other side. Then I ran and jumped and latched onto the first branch. I was hanging by just my arms at first, and I had to struggle to pull the rest of my body up with me. I pulled my chin up to the branch, and then he caught me again. He grabbed me around the waist and tried to pull me down. My arms stretched out, and my chin bumped the branch as it went back down, but my hands held tight.

I squirmed and kicked against him. He loosened his grip and I tried to pull myself up to the branch again. He grabbed me and pulled down again. This time I simply let go. With the added force of his tub, my body fell into him and it knocked us both to the ground. He hit first and I landed on his soft body.

I got back up before he had a chance to realize what happened. His hands reached to grab me, but he catches only the air.

I still had a few seconds before he gets to his feet. Instead of jumping for the branch again, I climbed up on the windowsill of the neighboring house. He was beginning to sit up now, still dazed from the fall.

From the windowsill I can step onto the branch. I put my hand on the trunk to steady myself. I put one foot on the branch and then shifted my weight forward onto my outstretched leg. The branch bent slightly. Instinctively I backed off.

The policeman was standing. I put my weight onto the branch again, and stepped off from the windowsill. The branch wavered. I hugged the trunk for support.

Once I have reached the first branch, the others are all close by. It’s almost like climbing a ladder as I quickly stand on one branch after another.

The policeman, enraged, grabbed at the first branch. He was taller than me, so he could reach it easily, but by this time I had already moved on to the other branches. He grabbed the first branch and made an effort to pull himself up. He managed to get his neck above the branch, kicked his legs in the air while his face reddened with the effort, and then, decided it was taking too long, and dropped back to the ground.

He ran to the windowsill and climbed up on that. He leaped recklessly to the first branch. He landed his jump perfectly, but the branch snapped under his weight, and he tumbles to the ground. He was sprawled out on the ground now, using swear words I didn’t even now existed. He got up, but I noticed that he got up very slowly. He walked over to the tree with a noticeable limp.

I was at the top of the wall by this time. I could drop over to the other side any moment, but I waited to see what he would do. I already had one foot over the wall. He looked up at me. Our eyes locked for maybe ten seconds. And then he limped away.

[tense change?] Getting down was almost as tricky as getting up. There were no trees in the church on which to climb down. There were, however, soft bushes directly under the wall. That at least was an improvement from the hard bricks on the street side. I supposed I should be grateful for small blessings.

I lowered myself off the wall slowly. First I put one foot over, then the other. I grabbed the edge of the wall with my hands, and hung down with my legs dangling below me so that I would only have a short way to fall before I reached the bushes.

I let go. The bush broke my fall nicely, although I had broken the bush. It was crushed under me and its nicely trimmed branches were now broken and pointing in every direction. I took a moment to examine myself for injuries. One of my elbows was bleeding, but other than that I was fine. Satisfied with my examination, I got out of the bush. I knew I should leave before the church groundskeeper saw me. This wasn’t my church of course. It was the downtown church, where Simon, David, and the rest of my classmates went. Still, better to get out of here just the same.

The hat was lying on the ground near the bush. I picked it up and dusted it off. As I held the hat, I suddenly realized that it was mine. There was no one chasing me now. It was all mine. I had actually managed to take it, and I had escaped. The glory of what I had done enveloped me. I was so enamored with myself, I temporarily forgot about the flattened bush and the groundskeeper lurking somewhere. Then, a sharp sound startled me back into reality. I think it was the sound of a dog barking nearby. It wasn’t barking at me, but the sound still jolted me back to my senses. I looked around to make sure there was no one else in the yard. And then I ran around to the front of the church, out the gate, and back into the street.

I couldn’t wait to tell David. I could already imagine the look on his face. Somehow I still had the energy to run to his house.

I rapped on the door impatiently. When no one answered, I knocked again. I took a few steps back to get a wider view of the house, but I could see no one moving inside. I went up to one of the side windows and pressed my face against the glass. “Hello! Hello!”

I thought maybe I could see a figure moving. She was walking leisurely across the room-…Nuts to this! I didn’t have the patience to wait around today.

David’s room in the basement had a small window that was level with the street [go back and change from 1st chapter]. I got down on my hands and knees and pounded on it. I cupped my hands around my face so I could see through the window. The glass wasn’t very clean, but I could see a blurry figure of David sitting against the wall and…He was reading some sort of book. He noticed me, but he was slow in getting up. I tried to pry the window open from the outside in my impatience. When that didn’t work, I rapped on the window again. Finally David came over and opened it with an annoyed look on his face.

“What Jon?” The two words had an unusual crispness to them, as if David was trying to indicate his annoyance by his clear enunciation.

I slid my legs through the open window and then jumped down into the room.　　I had the hat hidden behind me at first. With a very deliberate motion meant to build up the suspense, I slowly revealed the hat. Once it was out in the open, I held out the hat triumphantly to David. He looked at it blankly for a moment. Then suddenly his eyes widened. “What the hell is that?” His voice had changed from annoyance to anger, but I knew him well enough to detect a note of amazement hidden underneath.

“It’s a police ha-…”

He didn’t even let me finish. “Have you lost your mind?”

“No I, I…” Wait just a minute. What did he think he was doing putting me on the defensive like this? “David would you just let me tell my story?” I blurted out. “I came all the way over here just to tell you about this.”

He sighed. “Fine Jon, go ahead.”

I launched into my story. I told the whole thing, with all of the details, right down to the weathered look on the policeman’s face. [Go back and add]. David tried to interrupt at one point, but I stopped him. “Come on David, you said you’d let me tell my story,” I complained. He shut his mouth, and just motioned for me to continue.

As I told the story, I could tell he was getting more and more into it. He was fighting it, but he couldn’t help getting swept away by the drama of my story. I could tell just by watching his expression. He found it harder and harder to hold his stern face. And by the end of the story, his face had gone over completely to one of amazement.

As I finished my story, David’s face broke into a smile. “You’re incredible man. Insane,” he took a breath, “but incredible.”

“This hat is nothing,” I said proudly. “I’m going to get myself a whole uniform next time.”

He laughed dismissively. “Yeah, whatever. I’d like to see that one Jon.” But even then there was a look of admiration in his eyes, as if he really thought I could do it. And at the moment, I really thought I could do it as well.

Excitement still flowed through my limbs, and I felt that I couldn’t stay here confined in David’s small room. I felt the walls closing in on me already. “Come on, let’s go outside,” I said.

I started for the window again. “Are you sure?” David asked. “Don’t you want to lay low for a while or something like that?” He was trying to sound like a gangster, and not doing it very well. “Until the heat dies down I mean.”

“No it will be alright. Let’s go find Simon and show him.” And then we were out the window and back into the streets.

We never did find Simon. He wasn’t at his house, and his mom didn’t know where he was. We went around to all his usual hangouts, but he was nowhere to be found that day.

In the end I was happy just to have spent the afternoon outside. After the excitement of the morning, my blood was racing too much to be indoors. And I was happy to spend the time with David. He was a good person to talk to. He had a way of making you think that whatever you were talking about was the most fascinating thing ever. We skipped rocks in the stream, and I babbled on about life and home and my father and brother, and he listened to me the whole time. He made small comments every now and then, but never tried to change the focus of the conversation.

And then, once the church bells rang at five O’clock, I parted ways and I headed home.

Once I got home, I circled around to the back of the garden where there was a small wooden tool shed. The door gave a lot of resistance as I pulled it open, and the air inside the shed was very and old smelling. The shed didn’t get a lot of use anymore, and I figured it would be safe to hide the hat there for a couple days at least. But, just to be safe I hid it in a corner on the back shelf, behind some old sacks.

It wouldn’t have been safe to just walk into the house with the police hat. Even if my father wasn’t home, the servants might say something. And even if the servants didn’t say anything, Abel was sure to blab about it if he found out. Abel could never keep his mouth shut about anything.

With the hat securely stowed away in the tool shed, I made my way back to the front of the house, and strolled in the front door. I was immediately greeted by one of the servants. “Your father’s waiting for you sir,” he said.

Evidently my father overheard, because he shouted from the dining room. “Jonathon! We’re in here.” I entered to see my father and Abel already eating.

“You’re late,” he said. “I told you dinner was going to be at 6 tonight.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, slipping into my chair. Again, this was the sort of thing that he could either explode at, or simply let pass, depending on his mood. He chose to let it pass.

“Your dinner’s cold,” he said sharply. “You’re lucky I let you eat dinner at all. Your grandfather would have sent me straight to bed without anything to eat if I arrived late at the table. When I say six, I want you here at six Jonathon.”

“Yes, I’m sorry,” I said again.

For a couple minutes, the silence was only broken by the clink of spoons against soup bowls, and the slurping of the soup itself. Then my father asked us, “so, what did you boys do today?”

“Nothing,” Abel whined. “I was in this house all day doing nothing. I hate summer.”

“Well if you feel that way, I have a lot of work around the house that needs to be done,” my father answered. “That should keep you busy.”

The pitch of Abel’s whining went up. “I want to go into town.”

“You can’t go into town by yourself until you’re older.”

“But Jon goes-” Abel began.

My father cut him off. “Don’t argue with me Abel,” he said sternly. “You can’t go by yourself until you’re older.”

There were a couple more minutes of silence following this outburst. Then my father addressed me. “And what did you do today Jonathon?”

“Nothing,” I answered.

“You were gone from this house all day, and you didn’t do a single thing?”

“Nothing important.”

“Well, why don’t you take Abel with you when you do nothing tomorrow?”

“He can’t keep up with us,” I protested.

“If you’re doing nothing then it shouldn’t be a problem.” Underneath the sternness there was a bit of sarcasm in his voice. He thought he was being clever.

“But Dad-.”

“Don’t argue with me Jonathon.” His voice was trembling slightly, and I could tell he wasn’t far from one of his explosions. I decided to shut up.

“School will be starting in a week anyway,” he continued in a slightly calmer voice. “And then we won’t have to worry about how you boys spend your spare time. In the mean time, just take your little brother with you when you go into town.” He stopped there and went back to eating his soup, but shortly afterwards he started up again as if struck by a new thought. “And watch him Jonathon. Don’t just take him to town and leave him there. Keep your eye on him.”

After dinner the servants cleared away our plates. My father stood up and dismissed us. “I want you boys to get to bed early tonight,” he said. “No more staying up late, and then sleeping the morning away. You’re going to wake up early tomorrow. School is starting again soon, and you might as well get used to that schedule.
“I want to hear about the Restoration again,” Abel pleaded. “Can you read to me about the Restoration before I go to bed.”

My father took out his pocket watch. “I do have some work left to do tonight. But I suppose I could read to you about the Restoration a little first. Jonathon, do you want to hear as well?

“No, I’m going to go outside and play with the dogs,” I said.

“Don’t stay out too late. I mean what I said about not sleeping all morning again.” I nodded. Abel was now gently tugging at my father’s arm to get him to come into the reading room. My father laughed. “Okay Abel, you go ahead of me. I’m going to see if I can find one of the books on the Restoration around here. Then we’ll read it together.”

Chapter 3

“Wake up Jon! Wake up!” I lay still and pretended not to hear. Not only was Abel being too loud, his voice was way too cheerful for this time of the morning. What time was it anyway?

“Wake up, wake up, wake up!” He shook my body.

“Go away,” I grumbled. My hand made a lazy backwards swing in his general direction.

“Dad said I wasn’t supposed to let you sleep late.”

At this point I knew it was useless. I sat up in bed and rubbed my eyes. Abel drew back the curtains. The sunlight streamed in through the windows. It was morning already.

I was tired, but even still, summer mornings are never altogether unpleasant. Once I had woken up, I realized that today was another free day to fill up anyway I wanted. Except…

“Don’t forget I’m coming with you today,” Abel chirped.

I got out of bed and walked to the window. It was too early in the morning to deal with Abel. I stood there for a minute in my pajamas and welcomed the new day. Then I walked over to the closet up to get some fresh clothes.

“I’m still coming with you, right?” There was a slight desperation in Abel’s voice. He feared that if I didn’t confirmation it, it would slip away from him.

Because it was early in the morning, and because I was still cranky from sleep, I had the urge to play on Abel’s fear. In the end I would have to take him, but I could scare him first. Since my father had already left for the office, there would be no recourse left for Abel other than to beg and plead with me. And then in the end, when I finally relented and agreed to take Abel, I would feel better about it because I made him suffer first. And maybe he would even enjoy his day out more because he had to earn it.

But I suppressed this urge. I wasn’t angry at Abel. I understood that he wanted to get out of this house. I would have done the same thing if I were his age. I was upset that I was the one who had to take care of him, but that wasn’t Abel’s fault. “Yeah, you’re coming with me,” I said. “It’s still early yet. Go down and tell the cook to get some breakfast ready.” I fumbled around for some new clothes, and then went downstairs to find the water basin to wash my face with.

After breakfast, we set out. It usually took me about an hour to get into town, but with Abel’s slow, meandering walk it took double that time. I went by David’s house first, and then Simon’s. Neither of them were in. I eventually found them near the town center.

Simon was less than pleased to see Abel. “What is he doing here?” Simon demanded.

I figured the best thing to do was dodge the question. I tried to act as if Abel hanging out with us was the most natural thing in the world. “He’s coming with us today,” I answered casually.

“He can’t keep up with us,” Simon protested.

This was true in one sense, but it was also unfair in another sense, because we hadn’t even decided what we were going to do yet. For instance if we ended up just sitting down and fishing by the river, like we sometimes did, then Abel wouldn’t have to keep up anything.

I shrugged my shoulders. “What do you want me to do Simon? My Dad says I have to take him with me today.”

“It’s okay,” David put in. “We can go swimming in the river. He can do that with us.”

“I don’t want to go swimming,” Abel said in a whiny voice.

“Will you shut up?” I yelled at him. “You’ll do whatever we decide.”

But David didn’t seem to mind Abel’s finickiness. He just paused for a moment and looked off into space while he tried to think of another suggestion. “Well…OK,” he mumbled, and then seemed to strike upon a new thought. “I suppose he could stay at my house while we go swimming. My mom could watch him while we’re out. He could even help her with the cleaning.”

Abel’s voice now wailed worse than before. “I don’t want to help with the cleaning.”

“How about this then,” Simon cut in. He stopped and licked his lips before continuing. He seemed slightly hesitant, as if he knew what he was going to propose might be unpopular. And I had a feeling I was would be the one who wouldn’t like it. “David and I can go off, and you can stay here with your brother, and just meet up with us some other day.”

That bastard! I opened my mouth to yell at Simon, but as I turned to look him full in the face I saw someone coming down the street. “Hey, is that Emma?” I asked.

Simon and David turned to look. “I think it is,” David responded.

Emma was a girl in our class. She hadn’t seen us yet, but she was walking by herself and headed in our direction.

The wheels in my head began turning. Emma was a girl. And girls liked taking care of little kids, right? Perhaps this was the answer to everything.

“I’ve got an idea,” I announced to David and Simon. I turned to Abel. “How would you like to play with Emma this afternoon?”

“I don’t want to play with girls,” Abel said.

I was loosing my patience with Abel fast, but David stepped in before I could yell at him. “Emma’s not like the girls your age Abel,” he said soothingly. “She’s like an older sister for you. Didn’t you ever wonder what it was like to have an older sister?”

Abel shook his head no, but stayed quiet as he contemplated David’s words. David could be really good with Abel sometimes.

“Yeah, she can show you about dolls, and dresses…” Simon began.

“Damn it Simon, you’re not helping,” I snapped. I turned on Abel next. “You will go where I tell you to go and be quiet about it! If you blow this thing with Emma, I’ll…I’ll…I’ll leave you here all alone for the rest of the day. And then I’ll go home without you.” This seemed to frighten Abel into silence.

Emma had reached us by now. Once she saw usm she broke into a huge grin and waved her hand. She bounced over to us. “Jon, David, Simon, how are you guys doing?”

“Good,” I answered. “What are you up to Emma?”

“Me? Oh, nothing much. Just out for a walk.”

“Not doing anything at all?”

“No. Why?” She looked eagerly at me, almost as if she were expecting some sort of invitation.

“How would you like to take care of my little brother Abel for a while?”

Her face fell. “What?”

“Just for the afternoon. He’s a real cute kid. You could have all sorts of fun playing with him.”

She thought for a moment, and then her face lit up again. Maybe I had managed to say the right thing. “Sure…. If you pay me.”

“Pay you?”

“Yeah. I’m not going to baby sit for you unless you pay me.”

“But look at what a cute kid he is. Just think of all the fun you could have with him.”

“Well Jon, if he’s so much fun, why don’t you take him with you?”

“He slows us down. Besides he’d be much happier doing girl stuff with you.” Abel must still have been scared from the warning I gave him earlier, because he did not object to this.

Emma knitted her brows and thought for a moment. “Two units an hour,” she declared at last.

“I’m not going to pay you,” I said.

“Then I’m not going to take him Jon. What are you guys doing that is so important anyway?”

“Nothing,” I responded automatically.

Emma smiled triumphantly. “Well, there you go then. There’s no reason you can’t watch him yourself.”

Oh, everyone was having fun with that joke now. Emma and my father must meet at nights and plan these things out. It was a figure of speech and they both knew it. “You know what I mean,” I said irritably. “I mean we don’t have any plans yet. I didn’t mean we’re really doing nothing.”

“Really?” Emma said playfully, as if she enjoyed seeing me squirm like this. “What sort of things do you usually do?”

It was on the tip of my tongue to say “nothing special”, but I checked myself. “All sorts of things.” Emma responded to this by simply raising her eyebrows. “I can’t talk about it in front of Abel,” I sputtered. “We do all sorts of dangerous things.”

Abel hopped up and down. “I want to know. Tell me. Why won’t you tell me?”

This comment sparked something in Simon. “Hey, that reminds me Jon, is it true what I’ve been hearing about you?”

Emma seized on this. “What have people been saying about you Jon?” she asked.

I looked at David. “Oh, yeah I mentioned to Simon about the other day. I hope that’s all right.” He had an apologetic look on his face, but I was not upset. I wanted my heroics to be talked about.

I turned back to Emma and Simon. “I’ve been busy,” I answered proudly. I wanted to say more, but I didn’t trust Abel with too much information. He couldn’t keep his mouth shut, even if he wanted to. Sooner or later he was bound to let something slip in front of my father.

“What did you do?” Emma sounded irritated at being kept in the dark. I decided to use this as leverage.

“I can’t say in front of Abel. But I’ll tell you if you agree to watch him.”

Emma simply rolled her eyes at this offer. She turned to Simon instead. “What did he do?” she demanded.

“He stole a Police man’s hat,” Simon blurted out.

“Simon you idiot!” I took a step towards him.

David quickly inserted himself in between us. “Easy Jon,” he said, gently pushing me back.

I allowed David to stop me, but I was still furious at Simon. I couldn’t believe his nerve. Had I not made it perfectly obvious I didn’t want Abel to know? “Are you brain dead? He’s going to tell my Dad now.” I pointed to Abel with my finger.

“No I won’t. No I won’t.”

Emma laughed. She was very pleased at the ease with which she had broken our ranks. “So that’s why you want me to watch your little brother? So you can steal hats off the heads of the police?”

“We do different things everyday,” I said defensively. I was beginning to be sorry I had ever asked Emma. She had so quickly turned the situation to her own advantage.

Emma gave me a mischievous smile that made me uncomfortable. “O-kay,” she said, drawing out the word, “If you’re so brave Jon, why don’t you hit the policeman in the back of the head,” she stopped to scoop up a stone from the ground “with this stone here.” She pointed with her left hand to indicate a policeman on the far side of the street. With her right hand she tossed the stone up in the air and then caught it. “If you can do that, I’ll take care of your little brother for the afternoon while you boys go off and have your adventures.”

It was an impossible request, and I saw that as an easy out. “I can’t hit him from here.”

“Then get closer,” she said, still tossing the stone up and down.

David must have sensed I was slightly tempted, because he spoke up in a bit of a panic. “Emma, don’t be ridiculous. Why in the world would he nail a policeman in the back of the head with that stone? That policeman didn’t do anything to us.”

“I just want to test his bravery,” she said. “I want to see if it’s true.”

“He can show you the hat,” David said.

“That hat doesn’t mean anything,” Emma responded. “For all I know the policeman gave it to him.”

“Emma don’t tempt him like that, you’re going to get us all in trouble.” David was practically shouting now. Emma just looked at me. She didn’t even need to say anything. Her eyes gave the challenge.

I stepped forward. As she threw the rock up, I snatched it in mid air. I could hear David yelling. “Jon, no!”

I started walking towards the policeman. I wasn’t sure if I was going to actually throw the rock or not. I figured I would make up my mind as I was walking over there.

As I started walking, I could hear movement behind me. David was running after me, but it was Emma’s hand that sprang out and grabbed my wrist. “That’s enough Jon,” she said. “I just wanted to see if you actually had the guts to do it.” I stopped walking and dropped the rock. I could hear David draw in a deep breath. Simon’s face showed that he had been slightly worried. Even Emma seemed more at ease now that I had let the rock go. “I have to admit,” she continued, “I didn’t think you would actually do it. I’m impressed Jon.”

There was a slight pause during which I think everyone expected me to say something. Maybe give a short inspirational speech about my bravery, or something like that. But my mind was swimming and I was trying to figure out what had just happened. Was I really going to throw the rock? Did I have that in me?

Emma spoke, once she realized I wasn’t going to make a reply. “Well, fair is fair I suppose. I’ll watch your little brother for the afternoon then.” There was a slight air of defeat, or maybe just resignation in her voice. “But this is for today only,” she added quickly.

She stretched her hand out to Abel and as I looked over at Abel I noticed the new way he was looking up at me. There was a look of awe on his face. And pride I think.

This seemed like a perfect time to remind him about the importance of secrecy. If he was ever in a mood to listen to what I had to say, it was now. “Remember,” I said in my best authoritive voice. “Don’t tell Dad about anything that happened today.”

“I won’t!” he exclaimed. “Really Jon I won’t tell him anything.” He was desperate now to gain my trust and approval. I could tell he meant it, but it wasn’t his good intentions I doubted. He just couldn’t keep a secret even when he wanted to.

Emma bent down so that she was eye-level with him. “What did you say your name was?”

“Abel.” He had lost all shyness around Emma. [Add shyness earlier?] He kept his back straight and looked right into her eyes.

“Abel, how would you like to spend the afternoon with me?”

Abel gave one more look in my direction to see if this was what I really wanted. Yes, yes, for heaven’s sake go with her. I motioned with my hands for him to go with Emma. He followed my directions unquestioningly.

As Emma started to lead Abel away, she looked back at us and added, “Remember this is for today only. And next time, why don’t you invite me along on one of your adventures?” We agreed to meet again at 4 in the same place at the end of the day. And then Emma and Abel left.

And so, as easily as that, the problem of Abel was solved, and we were free to do whatever we wanted for the rest of the day. The complete freedom possibility stretched out before us.

In the end we ended up doing nothing. We argued for a while about what we wanted to do. We couldn’t decide on anything. I had a bunch of good ideas but Simon didn’t want to do any of them. Even simple things like swimming in the river he objected to in the strongest of terms. “That’s a stupid idea Jon. It’s almost fall now. It’s getting too cold to go swimming in the river. Besides, I don’t feel like getting wet today.”

And then he proposed a bunch of stupid ideas that I immediately shot down. Eventually it was lunchtime, and we were hot and cranky from arguing in the sun in the middle of the street all day. We were also very hungry, but David and Simon didn’t have any money on them to buy lunch. So we went back to David’s house where his mom made us sandwiches. Then we just ended up down in David’s room talking.

With summer vacation quickly drawing to a close, I thought it was criminal to waste a day like this. We had to be sure the same thing didn’t happen tomorrow. “What are we going to do tomorrow?” I asked.

“Tomorrow?” David paused as if mentally checking something, and then replied, “Jon, tomorrow’s Sunday. We’ll be in church all day.”

“Is it?” It was easy to lose track of the days during summer vacation, but I tried to count on my fingers the number of days since I had last been in church. Let’s see…it was Monday when we went hiking. The next day when Simon, David, and I went fishing was Tuesday. And then Wednesday and Thursday we went swimming. That means yesterday when I had stolen the hat was Friday, and tomorrow is… “Sunday,” I said aloud. The weeks just fly by. Tomorrow I had to sit through church all over again. “Damn it.”

David flinched slightly. “Jon, watch your language. You can’t swear when you’re talking about church.” Simon nodded in agreement. Of course both of them swore just as much as me, and I pointed this out. “It’s worse when you’re talking about church,” David maintained firmly.

I tried to justify my position. “I’m not mad at God or at Church. I don’t mind church by itself. I have no problem if other people go. I’m just upset that I have to go. So it doesn’t count because I wasn’t swearing at the church, I was swearing at the idea of going to church.”

“Jon, that’s the same thing as swearing at the church.” David’s voice was getting annoyed.

“Church isn’t so bad,” Simon said. “It’s only in the morning, and besides it’s a chance to see everyone.”

Typical Simon, always thinking only of himself. He didn’t even stop to think that his situation was different from mine. “You guys get to see everyone else,” I said, laying emphasis on the “you guys” part. “No one else goes to the same church as me.”

“Your church is much better than ours,” Simon said. “Our church is left over from before the Restoration. Your church is clean and brand new.”

“Were you listening to what I just said? I don’t care about the building. No one I know goes there.”

“Rosa does,” David volunteered.

“Yeah, there you go. Rosa goes to your church,” Simon said. “She’s the most beautiful girl in the whole school. I would love to be able to sit and watch her all morning.”

“You be my guest then. You stare at her all morning, and you see how friendly she is.”

“You’re just shy Jon.” Simon said.

“Well how come I never see you talking to her then,” I said.

“I’ve got my eye on someone else,” Simon said.

I waited for him to elaborate, but then I realized he intended to leave the mystery hanging. “Well, who is it?” I asked impatiently.

Simon didn’t answer, but he gave a quick look over to David, and I realized that the two of them had some sort of confidence I was not in on. Simon must have confided to David long ago which girl he liked, and I had been left out of the loop.

It’s amazing how the feeling of being left out plays on your mind. A couple minutes before, I could not have cared less who Simon liked. I wouldn’t have listened even if he told me. Now, suddenly the fact that the two of them both knew, and I didn’t, drove me crazy. “Come on Simon, just tell me who it is.” When Simon still didn’t respond, I looked appealingly at David, but I knew David well enough to know he would never betray a friend’s secret.

“Do you really want to know Jon?” Simon asked. “If I tell you, you can’t tell anyone else.”

“Of course I won’t,” I said irritated. That last part was such an ancient and well known piece of the school yard code that I felt Simon was patronizing me just by mentioning it.

“I like Leda.”

“Leda!” I hadn’t been expecting that. Sure, she was pretty enough, but… “Isn’t she going out with Joshua?”

“No, they’re just good friends.”

“But they’re always together.”

“That’s because they’re good friends.” Simon’s voice rose with annoyance as he repeated himself.

“Yeah, but…” But of all the girls in school, why fall for someone who was so attached to another guy, even if they were only good friends? But I wasn’t quite sure how to phrase this last part without starting a fight, so I opened my mouth, gaped like a fish for a few seconds, and then looked appealingly at David to see if David might be thinking the same thing I was. David’s face was flat and unemotional, and gave no signs of sharing my objection, so I just closed my mouth and dropped it.

But Simon could see my confusions, so he continued. “When you think about it, why in the world would she be going out with Joshua anyway? I mean he’s not good looking. He’s not strong. He’s got absolutely no athletic skills. Really there’s nothing about him at all which would attract a beautiful girl like Leda to him. They’re just good friends because they’ve been neighbors ever since they were little kids. That’s all.”

He did seem to make a good point. But enough about Simon. It was time to get the conversation back to me. “I don’t think I’d mind church quite as much if I could go to the same church as you guys,” I said. “But there is absolutely no one to talk to at my church.”

David made one last attempt to cheer me up. “Flash goes to your church, doesn’t he? That must be exciting.”

“Exciting? How do you figure that? Flash is the most boring person imaginable.”

“But at least you know him Jon. I’ve never even seen him. We’ve all heard the restorations stories about him ever since we were born, but I’ve never seen him once. And you’re good friends with him.”

“He’s my dad’s friend.” David just shrugged his shoulders as if the distinction was unimportant, so I pressed the point further. “You don’t hang out with your dad’s friends, do you? It’s the same thing.”

David mumbled some sort of acquiescence to my point, and then let the point drop.

We talked about pointless things for the rest of the afternoon. And then it was four and it was time for me to get Abel back from Emma. I had to leave at four because of the long walk home. David and Simon both had another couple hours before they had to worry about being back for dinner. Just as I was leaving, Simon and David were getting ready to go swimming in the river. Simon seemed to have forgotten his earlier objections to swimming in the river, and the two of them seemed excited to be actually doing something after we had sat around all day. I cursed Simon under my breath as I left the house.

I met up with Abel, and thanked Emma. My conscious was beginning to catch up with me, and I now felt slightly guilty about leaving her with my little brother all afternoon, but she didn’t seem to mind too much. “Oh, it was no problem really,” she said. “We had a good time together, didn’t we Abel?” Abel nodded vigorously in response to this. “Just don’t stick me babysitting every time Jon,” she added. “Next time I want to come out with you guys. What did you guys do this time anyway?”

“Um, nothing I want to talk about in front of Abel,” I answered.

She looked at me intently for a minute. “You didn’t do anything, did you?” Smart girl that Emma. When I didn’t answer, she just yelled out, “I knew it. I knew you guys weren’t going to do anything this afternoon. That’s what you get for ditching me with the little kid. You should have let me come with you. Then you would have had some fun.” She didn’t seem upset, just pleased with herself for guessing correctly.

I think I would have preferred it if Emma had been angry. Her gloating about it was almost unbearable. She was so happy when she found out we had wasted the afternoon. She began talking about all the fun things she and Abel had been doing together, but I cut her off and said that we needed to start heading back or my father was going to be furious.

This also didn’t faze her too much. She didn’t react to being interrupted, and just said, “Okay, well I’ll see you at school on Monday, right Jon?”

Ah, don’t remind me Emma. I mumbled something in reply, trying to avoid the subject of school, and then Abel and I headed home.

Abel didn’t talk much about what he and Emma had done that afternoon. Which was just as well, because I didn’t want to hear it. If Abel and Emma really did manage to have an exciting afternoon while Simon, David and I sat bickering in David’s room, then I didn’t want to know about it.

I did try and impress upon Abel the importance of keeping his mouth shut about the day’s events. “Don’t say anything to Dad about how I almost threw the rock at the policeman,” I said. “And whatever you do, don’t tell Dad about how I stole the policeman’s hat. And,” I added with a certain amount of weight, “this is very important: don’t tell Dad we left you with Emma all day.” I wanted to give special emphasis to this last point because I figured it was the one he was most likely to mess up.

Abel had a confused look on his face. “What do I say when Dad asks what I did today?”

“You can tell him about today. Just don’t tell him about any of those things I told you not to.”

“But then I won’t have anything to say.” There was something about Abel’s voice. It was almost like a perpetual whine.

He did have a point though. If he didn’t talk about the time he spent with Emma, he wouldn’t have much to talk about except going to the city and then walking back again. I decided to give in on this point. “Okay, you can tell Dad about spending the day with Emma. But don’t tell him how about the policemen or the hat. Can you do that?”

“I promise I won’t tell. You can trust me Jon, I promise.”

I was worried despite the promises, but what could I do? There was no taking the knowledge back from him. At this point he knew, and there was nothing I could do about it.

We arrived at the house. It was still light out, and my father’s carriage was not back yet. “Can I see the hat? Can I?” Abel pleaded.

We were still out in the yard at this point, but I was seized by an irrational fear that some of the servants in the house would overhear. “Not so loud!” I glanced around nervously. “You see what I mean Abel? You’re going to blow everything.”

“No I won’t.” Abel was distraught at how easily he had lost my trust.

I hesitated. On one hand, I was uneasy about taking loose-lipped Abel to the scene of the crime. On the other hand, what damage could it possibly do? He already knew everything.

“Alright, come on,” I said, putting my finger to my lips to indicate silence.

There was nothing wrong with going into the backyard, and nothing about it was inherently suspicious. Yet we still felt like criminals doing it. I took the long way around, staying behind the bushes and out of view from the house windows. Abel followed my lead.

We arrived at the shed. I grasped the door handle with a grand gesture, and perhaps a bit of showmanship. I slowly opened the door. Abel, not willing to wait for my dramatic introduction, rushed inside as soon as the door was open enough for him to slip his body through. I was annoyed that my ceremony had been disrupted, but I chose not to say anything.

With Abel jumping up and down by my side in anticipation, I removed the hat from behind the old sacks. I held it out. Abel’s mouth dropped open in awe. A ray of light suddenly shined through the window, illuminating the hat. Or at least it did in my mind. And I could have sworn I heard angels faintly singing as well.

Abel reached eagerly for the hat. I was appalled by this sacrilege and jerked the hat away. “What are you doing?” I asked angrily.

Abel immediately assumed the face of a penitent sinner. “I just wanted to see it,” he said. I looked at the hat protectively. “I won’t hurt it.” Abel’s voice was so quiet I could hardly hear it. I thought for a minute, and then handed over the hat.

Abel carefully took the hat from me, very aware of the importance of what was in his hands. “Wow,” he whispered. The hat was balanced loosely on the top of Abel’s hands, as if he were afraid he would damage it by gripping it firmly. “How did you get this?”

I shrugged. “I just took it. He took it off his head. I grabbed it. Then I outran him.”

“Tell me,” Abel pleaded.

So I told him the whole story with all the details, just like I had done for David. I might even have exaggerated a thing or two, or made it slightly more dramatic than it actually was. With each time I retold this story it was getting more and more fantastic.

Abel interrupted me frequently with questions, which I did my best to answer. When my epic tale was finally completed, Abel and I went into the house.

Our father had come home while we were out back. He greeted us in a cheerful voice when we walked through the door. “Good evening boys.” He was in a good mood. Work on Restoration Week was finally nearing completion. “Glad to see you’re still together. Abel, has Jonathon been taking good care of you the whole day?”

“No, he left me with Emma as soon as we got into town.”

I cringed. Damn it Abel! Sure, I had told him he could talk about Emma, but I was hoping he would have phrased it a little differently. This is a perfect example of why I never wanted him to have any potential harmful information. He just had no sense about how to use it.

“What? Jonathon is this true?” 　The look on my father’s face was almost more of betrayal than anger.

“No. Well I did leave him with Emma. But she really wanted to take care of him so I thought that it would be a good idea. He couldn’t have kept up with us anyway. We did a lot of running around today. And he had fun with Emma so everyone was happy.” The words spilled out of my mouth rapidly. I was trying to get all my explanations out before he cut me off.

“I did have fun with Emma,” Abel confirmed.

“Jonathon.” My father didn’t shout, but there was enough of a heaviness laid on the syllables of my name that I knew he wasn’t happy. “Jonathon I hope you didn’t take advantage of that girl.”

“What? No, I-.”

“Did you pay her any money?”

I was confused as to what would be the right answer, so I just replied with the truth. “No.”

“Well, it sounds like she did you a favor. You should give her some money the next time you see her. Her family doesn’t have a lot of money you know. I don’t want you taking advantage of her generosity.”

“But she didn’t ask for any money. She wanted to play with Abel.”

“She did you a favor Jonathon, and her family needs the money. Five units an hour sounds like a fair price to me. How long did she watch Abel for?”

“All afternoon,” Abel volunteered before I could say otherwise.

“So why don’t you give her 40 units for that. We’ll take it out of your allowance money. Does that sound fair to you?”

Well, no, not really, but what was I supposed to say. “Yes,” I said in a reluctant voice with my eyes on the floor.

“I’m doing you a favor Jonathon,” my father continued in his usual self-righteous voice. “It’s important that you learn generosity at an early age. And I want you to be sure to always treat Emma with kindness when you see her. Remember that not all families are as fortunate as ours.” I nodded automatically. “Now then, I think dinner is almost ready. Shall we sit down at the table? If you’re good tonight, I’ll read you some more about the Restoration.” This last bit was directed at Abel.

“I don’t need those stories anymore.”

“Oh you don’t?” My father raised his eyebrows.

“No. I’ve got a new hero now. Jon.”

I blushed slightly, but beneath my pride I was also nervous about where this line of conversation would lead. But Abel stopped there. The kid wasn’t doing bad after all.

My father didn’t know how to react. He was surprised, but I could tell he was not entirely unpleased. Even though he said, “I think you need to find a new hero Abel.” Abel ran in ahead to the dining room, and my father just turned around and looked at me with a curious expression.

Chapter 4

Everyone wishes summer could go on forever, but nothing is as constant as time. Despite all my efforts to will it away, the first day of school arrived.

I awoke, or rather was awakened by my father, at an early hour and washed my face with the cold water. It still felt like summer outside. The air was still warm, and the summer birds were still singing, but all this only felt like a mockery; like a prisoner who can still see the green fields from his cell window.

I walked Abel into town and then dropped him off by the primary school before going to my school.

Because it was the first day of school and mid-term fatigue had not yet set in, everyone showed up a little bit early, and we stood around and chatted while we waited for the doors to open. My friends Simon and David were there of course, but there were also many other people that I hadn’t seen all summer. To begin with there was Ajax.

Actually there was a good reason why I hadn’t seen Ajax all summer. I hated him, and he hated me. When school was out of session, we did our best to avoid each other.

Ajax was flanked on each side by his friends Hector and Teucer. Both of them loved to push people around, but they weren’t as strong as Ajax, so they had befriended him and made sure to stick close to him when doing their bullying.

Next there was Icarus, with his blond curly hair spilling over his forehead and almost covering his eyes. He was blabbing on about something, but it didn’t seem like anyone was really listening to him. Icarus didn’t always make a lot of sense, so none of us paid too much attention to what he said.

And there was Christopher and Varro in the corner talking to each other. They were the two kiss-ups of the class. Both of them were extremely serious about their schoolwork. I couldn’t hear what they were talking about, but whatever it was I knew it would be boring.

And there was Rosa. Rosa I had seen, if not talked to, every Sunday of the summer. But the other girls around clustered around her like Sophia and Vera I had not seen. It was no good talking to them now though. They were closed off in a tight little circle like a wall.

Joshua and Leda were off by themselves talking. Clodius and Ares were wrestling. LJ was sitting on the ground with his back leaned up against the school wall, and immersed in a book like he always was. Emma was talking to Philip.

I went straight to David and Simon. “Did you bring the hat with you?” Simon asked.

“I got it,” I said patting my book bag.

David rolled his eyes. “Jon, why would you bring something like that to school? It’s only going to get you in trouble.”

“I’m not going to show the teachers,” I said. Really, how dumb did he think I was?

Emma broke off her conversation with Philip and came over to talk to us. “Do you have the hat?” she asked me in a conspiratorial voice. I patted the book bag proudly. “Well, let’s see it then,” Emma demanded impatiently.

“Come on Jon, let us have a look,” Simon said.

David didn’t say anything, although I could almost feel the displeasure flowing from him.

I glanced around just to make sure that there were no teachers around. Then I started to open the bag up.

Ajax must have seen noticed that we were up to something because he came over, with Teucer and Hector following in his wake. He elbowed David aside and came into our circle. I stopped opening the bag, and kept the hat inside.

“What is everyone doing over here?” Ajax demanded. Although the question was directed to everyone, he looked only at me.

“Nothing that concerns you Ajax,” I replied. “Why don’t you and your friends go and play somewhere else?”

Ajax acted like he didn’t hear me. “What have you got in that bag,” he said, pointing.

“Books, notebooks, pencils, paper…”

“And a policeman’s hat?” Ajax said.

This shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did. I should have known that by now the story was traveling around, and that it would eventually get to Ajax. But I guess I just wasn’t expecting him to know already. I was temporarily at a loss for words, and Ajax broke into a huge grin when he saw he had upset me. “Maybe a policeman’s hat,” I answered at last, trying to regain the confidence in my voice.

“I don’t believe it,” Ajax said. “If you’ve got it, then lets see it.”

Ajax had been speaking in a loud voice, and a small crowd of students gathered around to see what we were arguing about. I reached inside my book bag. I held my hand concealed in the bag for a moment and then, with a bit of drama, I pulled out the hat. The crowd closed in on us as the other students tried to get a better look.

A brief flicker of amazement flashed across Ajax’s eyes. He quickly suppressed it and assumed his condescending look again.

“That doesn’t prove anything,” I heard Hector yell. “The policeman could have given it to him.”

But Hector was already being drowned out by the other voices. “How did you get that Jon?”
“Did you really outrun him?”
“Tell us what happened.”

There were so many questions I was unsure of which one to answer first. I looked around at the crowd trying to decide who to answer, and then I became aware that everyone was stepping back. An older boy was entering our circle, and they were making room for him. Even Ajax and his friends stepped back respectfully and gave him a wide berth.

The boy had a familiar look to him. Despite his stern expression, my mind connected him with some sort of positive association. Something inside me was saying he was an ally. And then it clicked. This was Orion, the boy who had saved David and me from the police a few weeks before.

“Jon, right?” he asked. I nodded. His eyes were focused on the hat. “So you’ve moved on to bigger things?” I nodded blankly. He didn’t ask any questions, but he knew just by seeing the hat what had happened. There was a silence, and, as with our first meeting I could see that his eyes were moving up and down. He was studying me. “You’ve got a lot of courage,” he said at last.

I struggled to think of a suitable response to this. “It was just an impulse.”

He nodded slowly, but his far away look gave the impression of not having really heard me. And then he walked away.

There was silence after he left. The crowd around me had ceased asking questions. Ajax didn’t try and challenge me any more after that. Instead, Ajax just turned around and walked away, with Teucer and Hector trailing him as always. “How did he know your name?” David asked.

The bell rang. We all filed into the school and into the classroom. I sat next to David on his left, and Simon took the desk to David’s right. David pressed his question again. “How does he know your name anyway Jon?”

“I don’t know. When we ran into him in the street that was the first time I’d ever seen him.”

Simon overheard this. “You must have seen Orion before. He’s one of the class leaders.”

“Jon doesn’t pay attention to that stuff,” David responded in a sarcastic voice.

“Really? You don’t know who any of the class leaders are?” Simon was surprised at this, but he seemed to accept it without any more follow up questions. Although after a moment’s reflection, he added, “strange, isn’t it? Orion is the most well known person in the whole school, and yet didn’t even know him. And you are an absolute nobody, but he knows who you are.”

I was about to thank Simon for phrasing it so elegantly, when the teacher walked into the room. “Good morning class,” she chirped.

“Good morning,” we replied in a grunt. Obviously none of us were happy about being here. Only Christopher’s voice had a tint of enthusiasm to it.

We knew this teacher already from last year. There were only a few teachers who taught at the school, and we knew them all. She was not a novelty to us, and we were not new to her.

“I hope you didn’t forget your lessons over the summer,” she said. Of all the teachers, I hated her the least. She had a cheerful voice, and it never sounded forced. Like all teachers she could be strict sometimes, but she as teachers go she was actually one of the nicest ones.

“Did you review your lessons every day like I asked you to?” she asked again. A small rumbling murmur of nervousness mixed with embarrassment flowed through the class. Was she asking because we were going to be tested on it? Seeing the other nervous faces, I thought I in good company.

“Let’s review just in case some of you forgot,” she said at last. This meant there wasn’t going to be any test. A flood of relief passed through the class. “Does anyone even remember what we were talking about?” she asked. Christopher’s hand went up. “Yes, go ahead Christopher.”

“We were talking about the Canaan Wars,” he answered.

“Thank you. And who remembers what the cause of the Canaan Wars was? Yes, Varro.”

“To restore the Church in Canaan,” Varro answered.

“Good. Good. Who remembers the other reason?” Only two hands were in the air now: Christopher and Varro. The teacher seemed almost on the point of calling on one of them again, and then she decided against it. “This year I want to try and get as many students participating as possible,” she suddenly announced. “Last year I felt like it was always the same few people answering all the questions. Matthew, do you know?”

“No Ma’am, I’m sorry.”

“Icarus, what about you?”

“No Ma’am.” [Alternate: some ridiculous Icarus style answer (probably overkill, but just an idea)-or some other student entirely].

“We studied this last year. Are you telling me that nobody besides Christopher and Varro remembers?” There was growing frustration in her voice. Somebody needed to answer this question quickly or we might all be in trouble.

Fortunately LJ raised his hand. “Lucius, thank you,” the teacher said in a grateful voice. “What was the other cause of the Canaan wars?”

“Fabulae was still split after the Restoration,” LJ answered. “The Duke needed the support of the Church, and he needed the support of the conservatives, so he embarked on a popular war to attempt to restore the church to Canaan.” In his own way, LJ was probably a lot smarter than even Varro. He rattled off all that complicated bookish type stuff as if that was how he always talked.

The teacher was momentarily unsure of what to do with this answer. She nodded as if she were thinking about it and then answered, “Noooo,” in a drawn out voice. “No,” she said a second time with more confidence. “No, that’s not one of the reasons we learned in this class. Please try and contain your answers to things in the textbook. Can someone else give me another reason? Sophia, what about you?”

I hated history. Five minutes into the new school year, and I was already bored out of my mind. I leaned over to David to continue our conversation. “Well, whoever he is, and however he knows me, he certainly shut Ajax right up, didn’t he?” I whispered. “That was wonderful to see.”

“Huh?” David’s face was confused. It took a few seconds for him to remember what we had been discussing. “Oh. That still.”

“Well somebody needs to do it. Ajax is a real thug, and his friends are just bullies. And they’ve been like that for as long as I can remember. Do you remember the fight I got into with them last year?”

“Yeah.” David usually gave me brief one word answers when we were talking in class. He was always afraid we were going to get in trouble.

“They picked that fight with me. I wasn’t even doing anything. Ajax just wanted a fight.”

“I’ve never had a problem with him,” David answered. Of course David never had a problem with him. David was too nice of a guy to have any enemies. And because he himself never had any enemies himself, he always assumed that I must be partly at fault for all my quarrels. He never seemed to understand that there were bullies in the world, and that someone had to stand up to them. “If he’s always bothering you, he must have a reason for it.”

Now this was the part I could never get David to understand. “No, see Dave, that’s the point. He has absolutely no reason.”

“He must have some reason. Did you ever to something to him?”

“I never did anything!”

“Jonathon! David!” We’d been caught by the teacher. I must have raised my voice too loud on that last statement. “Will you two please shut up and listen to the lesson?”

“Yes Ma’am,” we both answered. Fortunately for us it was the first day of school, and she was one of the nicer teachers, so she let it go at just the scolding, without any punishment.

“Now,” she continued in her teacher’s voice, “the high priest was forced to flee from Canaan. The Duke naturally invited him to come to Fabulae until the crisis was over, but the priest went to the neighboring country of Amicus instead. And there he formed his own government in exile…”

David, if I left him alone, actually seemed interested in this stuff. He followed the lecture with a thoughtful look on his face. I suddenly noticed that Emma, who was sitting on my right hand side, was furiously scribbling down notes. I began to feel slightly guilty that my own notebook was still blank. I looked at the white pages of my own notebook shining back at me, and at my pen lying still on my desk. Then I looked over at Emma again. Her hand was still moving quickly. What could she be writing that was so important? I leaned over to get a closer look.

“The Duke wanted to preserve the reforms of the restoration and Icarus stop chewing on your pen also wanted to restore the church to LJ does that book have anything to do with this class? No? Well then put it away to restore the church to Canaan for which he would have the eternal gratitude of the true Canaan people Sophia look up here don’t look out the window…”

Emma was writing down every single word the teacher spoke whether it had to do with the lecture or not. I guess you have to do something to make this class interesting. If we weren’t permitted to talk to each other, then you had to be creative.

The teacher seemed to notice it the same time I did. She leaned over to see what Emma was so busy writing. The teacher turned pale when she saw it. “Emma, for heaven sakes stop it. If the headmaster had seen what has been going on in this class, it would mean my dismissal.”

There was a bit of shocked silence after this, and I think we all realized we had been taking advantage of the teacher’s good nature. Emma looked down at her notes and then immediately tore them up.

The rest of the class proceeded without incident. I didn’t pay attention, but I didn’t try and talk to David anymore either. Like Emma, I was too fond of this particular teacher to want to get her in trouble.

The next teacher was a different story however. I wouldn’t have minded seeing his dismal at all. He was one of the strictest teachers at the school. He loved seeing students suffer. You could see it in his eyes. Actually he didn’t even have eyes. He wore eyeglasses which reflected the light and make it look like he didn’t have any eyes at all, but just two round discs. He was impossible to like.

I tried talking to David to occupy my mind, but David just shot me a dirty look and I shut up. After fifty minutes, the bell rang and we packed up our stuff.

“What’s with you?” I asked David.

“Jon, listen, it’s the first day of school. Do we have to get in trouble on the first day?”

“But I was talking about something important.”

“We can talk about it at break,” David answered as he swung his book bag over his shoulder. David exited the room while I was still packing up my books.

The rest of the day went without incident. Or I should say, with only the usual incidents. I hung out with David and Simon during the break. After lunch, Icarus tried to climb the tree, and for some reason, I ended up being one of the people encouraging him on. He fell off, but was not badly hurt. Ajax and Hector had a good laugh when Icarus fell, but they always had a good laugh whenever someone else got hurt.

After school I should have gone straight home, but a number of us decided to play sports outside the schoolyard instead. I ended up eating supper at David’s house. Since I had not told my father I was going to do this, I knew it would get me in trouble. But it was the first day of school. I couldn’t just go straight home and study for the rest of the night. What kind of a start would that be.

Even after dinner at David’s house, the walk home made me hungry again. I went into the kitchen to get something to eat. The noise from the kitchen must have attracted my father. He snuck up behind me. “Home late again, Jonathon?” I jumped, startled.

“I’m sorry, I lost track of the time,” I answered quickly.

“Didn’t they feed you at David’s house?” He knew that was where I had been without me having to say anything. I was always at David’s.

“No, they did. I’m hungry again.”

“You didn’t tell me you weren’t coming for dinner tonight, so your food is still on the table. It’s cold now of course, but if you’re still hungry, that’s what you’re eating. You’re not helping yourself to anything else from the kitchen.”

I nodded, too tired to argue, and simply went into the dining room. He followed me. I silently braced myself for the coming onslaught. “You better shape up and learn how to follow directions. You’re going to be working with the Duke someday.”

“Yes I’m sorry,” I answered as I picked over the cold food on my plate. After standing and picking at the food with my hands for a while, I decided I was hungry enough to eat the whole thing and slid into the chair.

He remained silent for a while, watching me with a disapproving expression. When he spoke again, it was in the same harsh tones as before. “The first day at school and already you are coming home late. This is a terrible way to start off. I thought we agreed you were going to take your studies more seriously this year?”

“I will,” I mumbled through a mouthful of food.

“I hope so. Am I going to have to meet with your teachers again this year?”

“No sir.”

“Good.” He went over to the cabinet and brought out a flask of alcohol. He unscrewed the top and poured some for himself into a small glass. “Good because I’m really sick of that. You had better stay out of trouble at school this year.” He brought the glass to his lips and took a drink. I always marveled at how he could keep a straight face drinking that stuff. On the few occasions when I had snuck a drink, my face had gone into all sorts of violent contortions as soon as the alcohol entered my mouth.

“And I mean it this year,” he continued. “You will not have another year like last year? Do you understand me?”

“Yes sir,” I mumbled again.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full.”

“Sorry sir.”

“You know why your behavior is important, don’t you? People know who you are. You realize that don’t you?” I nodded. “And when you persist in making a jackass out of yourself at school, it reflects badly on me and it reflects badly on the Duke.” There was silence. He took another drink. “You realize that don’t you?”

I was annoyed at having to answer the same question twice. “Yes.”

The tone of my voice caused my father to explode. He slammed his hand on the table and yelled, “Well then maybe you can act like it this year.”

There was silence as he glared angrily at me. My throat constricted, but I forced myself to swallow the food that was in my mouth. “Sorry sir.” This was how he usually worked. He exploded unpredictably at small things to indicate his larger anger at me in general.

For a short time I just sat silently under his angry gaze. Then his face softened slightly, and he tried to change the subject. “How was the first day of school,” he asked.

“Good.”

“What happened today?”

“Nothing.”

“Well what did you do after school?”

“Nothing.”

I knew this line of conversation was his attempt at an olive branch, but I didn’t feel like opening up and talking about my day after the reprimand he had just given me. He didn’t press it. “Well, I’m going to bed now,” my father rubbed his hand over his face to indicate how tired he was. “You will be home for dinner tomorrow. And you had better not get in any trouble at school this year.”

Chapter 5

But the very next day I got in trouble.

It was after lunch break. We were all out in the schoolyard. Icarus was climbing that damn tree again, in spite of having fallen out of it the previous day. The sun shown brightly through the leaves and seemed to blind him in his ascent.

This time I was not one of the voices urging him on. Clodius and Ares were at the foot of the tree, urging Icarus on to greater glories, but I was on the other side of the schoolyard talking to David and Simon.

I was speaking to David, but I had my back leaned against the school wall so that I could see out across the schoolyard, and I had a clear view of what everyone was doing. There was Icarus climbing the tree. There was Rosa holding court with her circle of girls. And there was Ajax, Teucer, and Hector. Ajax was surveying the schoolyard with a contented look, like a lion who was certain he was lord of all he surveyed. Hector and Teucer were pacing with more pensive looks. They were the dangerous ones. They were the ones who had something to prove.

Simple minds are always easy to read. I could usually tell what they were thinking just by looking at their faces. Right now it was clear that they were scanning the schoolyard for victims.

Suddenly Hector’s face made a sneer. It was an expression that reminded me immediately of some sort of wild dog which has picked out its prey. He elbowed Teucer in the side, and then growled something that I couldn’t hear from the far side of the end of the school year. They both set out.

I began to pay less and less attention to what David was saying to me, and watched these two more and more intently. I thought at first they were heading towards LJ. He was usually a favorite target of theirs. But instead they walked right past him and headed towards Joshua, who was talking to Leda at the time.

This didn’t surprise me either. They loved to make fun of Joshua. And he never stood up to them. Which is what you need to do to bullies. You need to stand up to them. You need to let them know that you’re willing to throw a couple punches if it comes to it. Then they’ll treat you with respect. If you’re always nice to them, then they’ll walk all over you, just like they did with Joshua.

Teucer went and stood directly in front of Joshua, and Hector stood behind. They were still too far away for me to hear what they were saying, but Teucer was asking Joshua questions with that stupid leering grin of his. Ajax was laughing at whatever Teucer said.

Leda looked upset by the situation. She was walking back and forth angrily, and, at times resorting to flank attacks on one of the two, yelling something in their ear. Again, I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but I can imagine. “Go away! Leave us alone! Stop it!”

Joshua, by contrast, was the picture of calmness as he dealt with all of Teucer’s questions. He seemed to be explaining everything in a calm manner, and not bothered at all by the fact that they were obviously making fun of him. The fact that Joshua refused to get upset had a way of ruining their jokes, and Teucer and Hector soon began to loose interest in him. Besides, Leda was much more interesting.

I had now stopped listening to David entirely, and was completely focused on this unfolding scene. David had followed my gaze. Somehow he knew what I was thinking. “Stay out if Jon,” he cautioned. “Let the teachers handle it.”

But Simon disagreed with this. “Someone’s got to do something,” he said, and for the first time I think I actually felt closer to Simon than I did to David. Of course Simon had a personal interest in all this, but I have a feeling that even if Leda hadn’t of been involved, he would still have sided with me. In some respects Simon and I were very much alike. We both had a desire for excitement and at times a bit of a rough edge on us. David, on the other hand, would do almost anything to avoid a conflict.

Hector and Teucer were now focused on Leda, asking her leering questions and laughing at her. Whatever they said her face turned bright red. And at last, through Leda, they had found their way of upsetting Joshua. He shouted something at them, and they seemed to take this as an excuse for force. Teucer turned back to face Joshua and shoved Joshua backwards.

I began walking over in their direction. My blood was hot, but I was very careful to keep my pace at a steady walk. I didn’t want Hector or Teucer to think they had upset me. That would have meant I considered their actions to have some sort of importance. It was very important that I acted like I didn’t care about them.

I could hear Simon’s footsteps following behind me. He wasn’t rushing either. Once again I felt a sudden, unusual feeling of closeness to him. Without me saying a word, Simon understood inherently the importance of a calm approach.

More and more people were beginning to take notice of what was going on. Rosa was watching everything silently with a kind of detached interest. The other girls around Rosa followed her example and looked silently in the same way. Christopher and Varro and Clodius and Ares and LJ were all looking over as well. Icarus continued to climb the tree, oblivious to everything else.

Teucer pushed Joshua again, this time with enough force to knock him to the ground. Hector was laughing his usual jackal laugh, as if this were the funniest thing he had ever seen. Both of them had such leering jackal faces that I think I would have wanted to hit them even if they weren’t doing anything. I was close enough to hear most of what they were saying now. “…yeah? Well what are you going to do about it Joshua? If you think so, why don’t you fight us? Just hit me one time. Or are you going to run away like your father?”

I suddenly had the thought that at my present pace I might not get there in time. Things might either reach a climax, or, perhaps more likely, blow over before I even got there. If Joshua didn’t fight back, they would probably just get bored and leave. There wasn’t much more they could do to him. He was already on the ground.

In spite of this, I kept my discipline. Image was important in these situations. It would never have done to run up all flustered and out of breath.

Would it be okay to hit Teucer if they had stopped picking on Joshua by the time I arrived? Probably. He had something coming to him anyway. Or maybe I’d hit Hector instead. I couldn’t stand that laugh of his. It was the most annoying sound imaginable. I would love to stop his mouth with my fist.

And then, unexpectedly, another factor entered the equation.

“Leave him alone!” It was Emma, walking right up to Teucer and Hector. “You sons of bitches! You leave him alone.”

Teucer looked uncomfortable, as if it was beneath his dignity to argue with a girl. Torment, yes, but argue with, no. He searched for a single dismissive put down toput her in her place. Again, his simple mind was easily revealed on his face. I could almost see the gears turning. “Go play with the rest of the girls,” he said at last. He must have thought that was pretty clever.

Emma, without even pausing to think, immediately shot back one better. “You’re pretty far away from daddy today,” she said, indicating Ajax with a jerk of her thumb.

Nothing cuts like the truth. This reference to Teucer’s dependence on Ajax was more than he could handle. His eyes narrowed. He looked like he wanted to hit her. If she wasn’t a girl, I’m sure he would have. Come to think of it, maybe Teucer would hit a girl. I wouldn’t put it past him.

But instead Teucer bent down, picked up a big handful of mud, and hurled it at Emma. It was a compromise with himself that allowed him to avoid hitting her, and still put her in her place. And yet his eyes were so sullen and hate-filled that he had the appearance of a child throwing a temper tantrum. In terms of dignity, Emma won that encounter even as the mud splattered all over her.

This was not, I should add, just a clump of dirt. Teucer had thrown as much mud as he could pick up. Because he was right handed, Emma’s whole left side was covered. Mud hit her square in the face, got in her hair, covered her left eye, and even entered her mouth. Her white shirt was also ruined. She immediately spat the mud out from her mouth, looking both miserable and surprised. I don’t think she expected Teucer to react as strongly as he did. She obviously didn’t know him well.

Hector was doubled over in laughter now. He was laughing so hard he could barely breath. All I could hear was his annoying jackal laugh mixed with an occasional wheezing intake of breath. I decided to hit him first. I sank my fist into his wide-open mouth. I cut my knuckles on his teeth, but it was still one of the most satisfying things I ever did.

Simon hit Teucer. Ajax came running (and I’m pleased to say he came at a full, undignified run) over to help his friends. Clodius and Ares joined in our side. And then there was the blowing of whistles, and the teachers came into the schoolyard to break up the fight. They had a way of always showing up a few minutes too late.


The rest of the afternoon was absolutely miserable. Nobody cared why we had been fighting. Nobody cared who had started the fight. All the combatants were to be punished equally.

The exact form of our punishment was a subject of some debate by the teachers. While further measures were being decided upon, we were split up into different groups to work for the rest of the afternoon. Ajax, Hector, and Teucer were sent outside to the school gardens to work with the groundskeeper. Simon, Clodius, and Ares were sent to clean the streets outside of the school. Emma and I were ordered to help the school cleaning lady as she scrubbed the floors.

The cleaning lady was someone we saw everyday as we passed her in the hallways. But we never bothered to talk to her. We just walked past her as she was busy scrubbing the floor. I always thought she reminded me of David’s mother. She always had a very tired look to her. There were lines all around her face and especially around her eyes. Her hair was frail and thin, and tied up behind her head. And she never seemed to smile. In fact she was always sighing with frustration. Whenever I walked passed her in the school hallways, she seemed to be in a perpetual state of shaking her head and sighing at the dirty floors.

But she was not unkind to us. When the headmaster turned us over to her, she received us with a friendly smile, but tired smile. The lips of her mouth only rose halfway as if she didn’t have the energy to make a full smile, but she gave us a sympathetic look with her eyes.

She didn’t seem to care what our offence had been, or look down on us because we were being punished. She simply welcomed the help, and set us to work at once scrubbing the floor.

The work was hard. A lot harder than I imagined. All three of us were on our hands and knees scrubbing the floor. We had to scrub hard to remove some of the dirt and stains.

I had never done anything like this before. My soft hands chafed against the wooden handle of the brush. After a couple of hours, my skin began to crack. The harsh soapy water that we used only further aggravated my skin.

But even worse was the mind numbing boredom. After school finished the hallways were completely deserted except for the three of us. We talked a little to pass the time, but in between conversation there was a depressing silence filled only by the rhythmic sound of the brushes going back and forth. The school hallways were dimly lit, and this added to the drab atmosphere. I thought about Ajax, Teucer, and Hector who were out in the sunshine enjoying the fresh air. They were probably joking and laughing with each other right now. Ajax was probably weeding the garden while laughing at something Teucer had said. Their hands were full with the dirt and vitality of the garden. The sunlight was falling softly all around them. And here I was.

It occurred to me suddenly that the cleaning lady, whatever her name was, did this job everyday. Except for when students were being punished, she didn’t even the company. Usually she labored for hours by herself in silence.

I was depressing myself just thinking about it. I noticed that we had been scrubbing in silence for a while, so I decided to restart the conversation just to break the monotony. “How long have you been doing this?” I asked.

Emma stopped scrubbing and leaned back on her heels as if she too was curious about the answer.

“14 years,” answered the cleaning lady without hesitation.

I felt like I had to ask the next question. “How can you stand it?”

She smiled with usual tired half smile. “You’re young. You don’t understand yet. I’m just happy to have work. There are times when there’s no work to be found. And, during a bad year the farm can’t support us. Especially with all the grain we owe to the landowner.”

“The landowner?” I asked, sounding out this new word.

“Yes. The land we farm isn’t ours. Every year the landowner takes most of the grain. During a good year there’s enough for everyone, but during a bad year we can’t feed our family after all the grain we have to give. We had to move into the town, but there was hardly any work to be found. My husband got a job in the factory, but the pay was so little that we still couldn’t feed all of our children. He asked the old landowner for a little grain at 100% credit so that we could make bread to feed our children, but the landowner refused. And so two of our children died that winter. My husband was furious. He was going to kill the landlord, but I stopped him. Even though he was red with rage, I talked him out of it.”

Despite her sad tale, the woman spoke with a very calm and emotionless voice. Instead it was Emma who, I noticed, was very upset. Emma’s hands were shaking uncontrollably, and she was fighting back tears. “Why did you stop your husband?” she asked. “He was right to want to kill the landowner.”

“Oh no, no he wasn’t” the cleaning lady said in a soft tone meant to calm Emma. “The land owner was within his rights. He was a good man. My two sons who survived now work for him. Not everyone can eat bread all the time. That’s just the way the world is. Sometimes we have to go without.”

“If the landowner was to walk into this room right now, I would kill him myself,” Emma blurted out. There was a bitterness to Emma’s voice that I had never heard before.

“Oh now. Oh no my child you mustn’t talk that way.” She reached out a hand to comfort Emma, but Emma jerked sharply away from it. “When you talk like that, it makes God cry.” Emma just glared back at her with contempt.

The cleaning lady stood up, slowly and with some obvious discomfort in her knees, which had been bent scrubbing for so long. “We’ve been working hard for a long time. Perhaps we need a break. I should probably get some fresh water anyway.” She picked up the bucket of water and walked down the hallway.

Emma remained silent until the cleaning lady had disappeared from sight, and then she spat out, “That cow! That stupid, stupid cow.” I realized that Emma was now angrier at the cleaning lady than she was at the landowner. “Imagine thinking that everyone can’t have bread all the time. Does the landowner and his family ever go without bread?”


At around 8 o’clock I sat in the headmaster’s office, waiting for my father to arrive. And suddenly the scrubbing that I had been doing all afternoon didn’t seem so bad. I wished I was still scrubbing right now. I’d gladly scrub for another two days to put off this encounter.

There was no doubt my father would be furious. That went without saying. He was always furious when I got into trouble at school. But especially after the speech he had given me last night, I couldn’t even imagine what he would do.

The headmaster sat quietly at his desk, scribbling on some papers. I sat in the corner of his office. He completely ignored me, which was just fine as far as I was concerned. I wasn’t in the mood to make conversation anyway.

I glanced at the clock. It was two after eight now. The headmaster had told me my father would be here at eight. Already I had been given a two-minute reprieve.

The headmaster continued calmly working away at his desk. I looked down at my chafed and cracked hands. I examined the blisters on the tips of my fingers. I noticed that my foot was nervously tapping on the ground, and with an effort I stilled it.

I glanced up at the clock again. It was now five past eight. It was unlike my father to be late. Maybe he wasn’t coming. Maybe the message had never gotten through to him, or maybe he was working really late, or maybe he was just too tired to deal with it.

It was deathly silent in the room. All I could hear was the scribbling of the headmaster’s pen, and, if I listened closely, I could hear the sound of the second hand on the clock ticking away. Tick. Tick. Tick.

I squirmed slightly in my seat, and the seat made a squeaking sound that momentarily covered the other noises. Then it was silent again, and the scribbling and the ticking remained. Tick. Tick. Tick. It was ten after eight now. It was very unlike my father to be this late. I now began seriously to entertain thoughts that he wasn’t coming, although the headmaster still seemed as unconcerned as ever, silently scribbling away on his paper.

I was the last student remaining. Simon, Emma, Ares, Ajax, and the others had already been picked up by their mothers. My father alone worked later than everyone else.

I looked at the clock again. Tick. Tick. Tick. Thud Thud Thud Thud Thud Thud.

The sound of the ticking clock was replaced by thudding footsteps coming from the outside hallway. They were heavy footsteps which came down on the floor with a smack, and yet moved with a quick step. My heart sank. There was no mistaking them. They were my father’s. All hope of a lost message, or any other reason for a reprieve, immediately vanished.

The headmaster perked up from his scribbling and cocked his head to one side to listen to the sound. And then he looked over and smiled at me. It was the first acknowledgement he had given of my presence since he told me to sit down. But it was not a friendly smile. “Well, you’re in trouble now,” his smile seemed to be saying.

The door flung open. My father walked in. I looked at him to try and gauge his face. He stared me down with furious eyes. I looked at the ground and did not look up again until he had walked up to the headmaster’s desk and his back was to me.

“I’m terribly sorry I couldn’t get here earlier,” he apologized. “It was an unusually busy day for me.”

“Yes, yes,” the headmaster replied. “I understand this time of year is always hectic for you. It’s quite all right. I was able to keep busy marking papers while we waited for you. You understand the situation?”

“Yes, I’ve been informed of what happened already.”

“Well, then I don’t have to tell you how serious this is. Not only is this just the second day of school, not only did your son start a fight that quickly escalated into 7 people, but, this is a continuation of his problem of aggressiveness and disrespect for authority.　　At this point we are moving beyond the usual punishments. Under normal circumstances I might recommend that he be expelled. Because of the special consideration we give to your family, I think he should be suspended for several days.”

“I don’t think my son’s the problem here.”

This caught the headmaster off guard. “What? Perhaps you don’t fully understand the situation.”

“No, I’ve been told all about it. I’ve also talked to the other parents of the children involved. Now if you can’t control Ajax and the rest of that gang, I don’t see why my son should be disciplined for standing up to them.”

The headmaster’s eyes seemed to be bulging out. I could hardly believe what I was hearing either. My father had never stood up for me before.

The headmaster tried to make a polite smile and spoke in a diplomatic tone. “I understand that it must be hard for you to raise your two sons on your own-”

That has nothing to do with it. I hire help at home.”

“Yes I know, but your boys don’t learn their morals from the servants. They need strong parental guidance. I’m concerned that if it is not clearly impressed on Jonathon that this kind of behavior is unacceptable, we’re going to have another repeat occurrence.”

“I taught Jonathon to stand up for what’s right. That’s what we fought for during the Restoration. Now you know as well as I do why those boys were picking on Joshua.”

The headmaster straightened up, indignant. “I hardly think the Gibbeon issue has anything to do with this.”

“I think it does. And we worked hard to stop that kind of thing during the Restoration. So don’t ask me to punish my son for standing up against it. It’s those other boys you should be dealing with.”

“The other students have been dealt with,” the headmaster answered defensively.

“Yes, that reminds me, I talked to Emma’s mother as well. After all that family has been through, do you really think it’s appropriate to threaten her with expulsion? All she did was tell them to leave Joshua alone?”

“I don’t make special exceptions,” the headmaster said in a flat emotionless voice. If he realized the contradiction between this statement and what he had said earlier about the special consideration for our family, he didn’t seem to care. He had moved from indignation, to defensiveness and now his voice simply seemed resigned to the fact that he had lost this argument.

My father dismissed this with a wave of his hand. He was used to people just obeying him. He didn’t like to negotiate things. “I understand you had my son clean the hallway. That’s good for him. He doesn’t usually do hard work like that. He can do the same thing for the rest of the week, not as punishment, but for the experience. But I don’t want Emma’s family bothered any more about this.”

The headmaster understood that it was not an offer, but a command. He nodded, and to save face added, “yes, I think that will be acceptable.”

They exchanged a few more pleasantries, and then my father left, pulling me out after him. Before we got in the carriage, my father said to me in a stern voice, “the next time Jonathon, you call a teacher to deal with the situation. I don’t ever want to hear about you starting fights at school again.” He started to get into the carriage, and then struck by a second thought turned around and added, “or anywhere else for that matter.”

The entire carriage ride home, he didn’t say a word to me, but simply looked angrily out the window. He seemed to be very angry with me. If I hadn’t have been in the headmaster’s office to hear him myself, I would never have known that he was on my side. In fact, the way he was acting, I was already starting to rapidly doubt that it had happened at all. Did I just imagine that whole scene? Was I so nervous that my mind had been playing tricks on me? I tried to replay it over and over again in my memory to convince myself that it had really happened, but each time it just seemed more and more unreal. By the time we arrived back at the house, I was almost convinced that it hadn’t happened. My father would never have stuck up for me like that. I must have imagined the whole thing.

Chapter 6

It’s funny how memory works. There are certain days when almost every detail of every moment sticks out sharply in my mind. And then there are large spaces in my memory that are just gray.

I don’t remember much about that whole winter. Little bits and pieces of it stick out, but most days run into the each other until the whole thing is one big blur.

The next day I remember clearly wasn’t until the spring. The weather was just beginning to turn nice again after a long dark winter.　　I was still 15 then, almost 16. David, who was a few months older than me, had already turned 16 over the winter.

The first class of the morning was “Fenestram”. David hadn’t finished his lesson, and was racing to memorize the passage before class. When I tried to talk to him, he looked at me with disgust, like he usually does in the morning. “Jon, give me 5 minutes will you? I’ve got to study this.” He glanced down at his homework, and then he looked up at me again. “Why aren’t your books out? Have you memorized this thing yet?”

“I went over it a couple times last night. Don’t worry, I’ve got this whole thing figured out. The trick is just not to get called on first, then listen carefully as other people do their recitation. You can pick it up as you go along.”

“But what if you get called on first?”

I shook my head dismissively. “I’m not going to get called on first. Look, we both know Varro is going to volunteer first…” both of us briefly looked over at Varro. He had his books closed and was already testing himself by silently mouthing the words, “…and then probably Christopher.” David’s head looked over towards Christopher, who had his books spread open across his desk and a worried, panicked look upon his face. “Okay, maybe not Christopher, but someone else will volunteer. It will work out. I think I only need to hear it two or three times and then I’ve got it.”

“Well, then at least give me 5 minutes of silence if you’re not going to study,” David pleaded. “Talk to Simon.”

But Simon had over heard David’s comment, so when I turned to face him he was already holding his palm out in my direction. He didn’t even look up from his books. “Don’t even think about it Jon,” he said. “I need to study this too.”

With neither David nor Simon willing to engage me in conversation, I gave up and reached into my bag to retrieve my own books. I looked over at David’s desk to remind myself what page the passage was on, and began reviewing the passage. I had already read over it a couple times the night before. I was nowhere close to memorizing it yet, but as I re-read it I could at least feel the familiar rhythm of the words. I had no idea what they meant. My Fenestram was so bad that it might just as well have been ancient Caletian for all it meant to me. But today was simply a recital. The meaning didn’t matter.

I had just barely time to read the passage through once before the teacher walked in. David and Simon promptly stood up. I tried to finish reading the sentence I was on, and then did likewise.

“Attention!” the teacher called out sharply, checking to make sure we were all standing. “Bow!” We bowed. “Alright, let’s begin.” Everyone sat down at once and for a moment the room was filled with the sound of chairs scrapping the floor.

The teacher glanced briefly at his watch, then announced, “Alright, put away your books. We’re going to get started promptly today.” He opened his grading book. “Would anyone like to volunteer to go first, or shall we just go in order today?” At first no one raised their hand, and I panicked briefly. Perhaps my plan was going to fall apart after all.

Then, after a moment’s delay, Varro’s hand shot up. Good old Varro. You could always count on Varro. The teacher acknowledged him without surprise, and Varro stood up and began his recital. His voice was steady and clear, and I could easily pick out his words.

I tried to test myself alongside Varro by thinking of the next word before he said it. I did pretty well at first but I soon found myself day dreaming and unable to focus.

If there was any problem with Varro’s recital, it was that it was too steady and clear. It had a lulling effect, and after a while it became difficult to focus in on.

It wasn’t just the fact that he drained the words of emotion. We all did that. After all this was a 10th grade classroom, not the theatrical actor’s guild. As long as the words were in the right order no one cared what they sounded like.

No, the problem with Varro’s speech was not the lack of emotion, but the constant steadiness. Some people raced through the recitation confidently. Others squeaked it out in a high, nervous voice. Some spoke in starts and stutters. Some started out slow, then picked up speed along the way. Others started out fast, and then in the middle started to stumble. But Varro’s voice was always steady and calm. It was flavored neither with nervousness nor with confidence. His speed was neither fast nor slow. Even at the ending, where most people picked up speed and rattled off the last paragraph, his voice didn’t change.

I think even the teacher sometimes had trouble concentrating on what Varro was saying. Not that it really mattered. Varro had the full marks before he even opened his mouth. The teacher didn’t even need to listen. Varro was that dependable. I once encouraged him to do a whole recitation in Fabulaese, our native language, instead of Fenestram, the language we were supposed to be studying, just to see if the teacher would notice. Varro refused of course. He would never have done anything to mess with his grades.

“Excellent as always Varro, thank you very much,” the teacher said, marking down what I’m sure were the full marks for Varro. “Next!”

LJ raised his hand. The teacher’s face briefly registered surprise, and then with a movement of his hand beckoned LJ to stand. “Alright Lucius, let’s hear it.”

LJ was very good at Fenestram. The passage wasn’t memorized as perfectly as Varro, but LJ had a way of making the words sing when he spoke. He stumbled here and there on the wording, but because his voice imitated the Fenestram accent so perfectly he sounded like a native Fenestram when he spoke. At least that’s what we all thought anyway. Not that any of us had at that time much exposure to what a native speaker of Fenestram sounded like. This was years before my trip to Fenestra.

LJ finished his recitation and the teacher marked down what I’m sure must have been the full marks or close to it. I realized that two recitations had gone past, and yet I was no closer to memorizing the passage. Varro’s had been so boring that I couldn’t concentrate, and LJ’s had been so fluent I had gotten distracted. The number of volunteers was never more than 3 or 4 students and then the teacher would have to start calling on people and I would be vulnerable. I resolved to myself that no matter what I would focus in on the next recitation.

Christopher volunteered to go 3rd. He gave a decent presentation; started off strong, got nervous and stuttered through the middle, but then finished on a strong note. I tried to silently recite the passage alongside Christopher as he spoke, and felt like I was getting the hang of it.

No one volunteered for the 4th time. The teacher asked one more time for volunteers, and hearing none, he barked out, “Okay then, Rosa, let’s start with you.”

Rosa was the most beautiful girl in school and she knew it. She regarded everyone, including the teacher, as somehow below her. When she rose to speak she had a resentful look on her face as if being called on to do this was somehow beneath her dignity. She rattled it off well enough, but even when the teacher thanked her and told her she could sit down she still flashed angry eyes at him.

Rosa’s power seemed to work even on the teacher. I don’t think that he ever called on her first again after that day.

“Next,” the teacher called out, “Icarus”. Icarus flew to his feet. This was back in the days before Icarus had started cutting his hair short. In those days his hair was scattered all over his head. His blond hair had a way of growing into curls when it got longer, almost like a girl. That may have been why he decided to start cutting it short when he grew older. At the moment however, the hair fell across his forehead, curving up at the ends, and every once and a while a curl would fall down in front of his eyes and his hand would sweep it back into place again.

The teacher walked up and down the room while Icarus gave his speech. Icarus was a classic example of someone who started off strong, and then floundered in the middle. So I was surprised that he reached the middle and still seemed to be doing fairly well. Because I had been trying to concentrate on this passage, I had been keeping my eyes focused down on my desk. But now I looked over at Icarus and I noticed something interesting. He was cheating.

He had a piece of paper taped to the back of the chair in front of him. His timing was quite good. As the teacher walked through the room, whenever the teacher was looking away, Icarus glanced down at the chair. When the teacher was looking at Icarus, Icarus kept his eyes fixed straight ahead and stumbled through his speech.

Alas, this plan had one fatal flaw in it. I think the teacher began noticing that there was a remarkable difference in quality between when he was looking at Icarus and when he wasn’t. Whatever word Icarus was struggling on, he seemed remarkably to recover it when the teacher turned his back.

Suddenly the teacher whirled around without warning and caught Icarus looking at the chair in front of him. “Icarus, you’re cheating!”

Icarus’s face went pale. “Me sir? No sir. Why would you think that sir?” His panicky denials only confirmed his guilt.

The teacher marched over to where Icarus was standing. Matthew, who was actually sitting in the guilty seat, leapt up and got out of the way once he saw what the teacher was heading for. The teacher roughly over turned the seat, saw the paper, ripped it off, and then held it in front of Icarus’s face. Icarus swallowed, and then spoke in a nervous tone. “What’s that sir?”

“You know what it is,” answered the teacher impatiently.

The curls fell in front of Icarus’s eyes again, and he brushed them up with his hand. “Sir?”

“You were using this to cheat with.”

“That?”

And now for the first time the teacher looked what was written on the paper. It was not what he expected to see. Instead of being a transcription of the passage, it was a string of random numbers. The teacher was silenced for a minute. His mouth opened and closed in anger, yet he could not think of anything to say. Finally he sputtered out, “This is a code.”

“I wouldn’t know sir,” Icarus responded. “I didn’t write it.” With that remark Icarus brought to attention the fact that the paper was not in his handwriting.

The teacher again looked at the paper and realized that indeed it was not in Icarus’s handwriting. As the teacher in charge of marking our translations, he knew very well what Icarus’s handwriting usually looks like. He began to sputter even more. “You got someone else to write it for you.” The teacher turned on Matthew, who was still standing at attention besides his desk. “Do you know anything about this?”

“No I don’t sir.”

“What do you mean? It was on your seat. One of you two put it here.”

“I assure you I had nothing to do with it sir,” Icarus said, the confidence creeping back into his voice as he realized he now had the advantage. “But I suppose you’ll probably want me to report to the headmaster anyway.” Icarus had phrased the offer so politely that it took the teacher a while to realize that it was actually a disguised threat. The teacher paused for a moment looking at Icarus, and then a dawning realization came into his eyes. He turned around. “No Icarus, that won’t be necessary,” the teacher said, crumpling up the paper as he walked away. “I’m giving you a zero. You won’t receive any marks for the recitation, and your final grade will suffer accordingly, and…” at this point the teacher turned around to make eye contact with Icarus. “And I’ll be watching you closely in the future.”

Icarus nodded and spoke while sitting. “Yes sir. I understand completely sir.”

Indeed they had both understood each other perfectly. It had been an interesting interaction. The teacher understood that, even though he knew perfectly well Icarus was guilty, the whole case would look a little ridiculous if it came before the head master. The headmaster most likely would have taken his side, but it would look funny and there was job security to think of. It had been a gamble on Icarus’ part, but he had won.

If Icarus had been convicted of cheating, he would probably have been suspended or expelled. So he had actually gotten off pretty easily by simply failing on the recital. And yet by accepting that failing grade with out further protest, Icarus was admitting guilt even as he professed innocence.

This incident, now years ago, sticks out well in my memory because it captures Icarus’s personality in a nutshell. On one hand there was the clever part of him that had schemed the whole thing out. On the other hand it illustrated his insanity. Imagine all the trouble he had gone through. He had created a whole code just for this passage, translated the passage into this code, and then gotten someone else to write it for him. It would have been much easier just to memorize the passage instead. 　And so there were the two sides of Icarus, the genius mixed with the insanity. Although this particular incident was before he became a close friend, in the following years I would experience both sides of Icarus many times.

“Next, Jonathon!” I rose to my feet and began. But as I spoke I realized that I had forgotten most of the passage. During the excitement with Icarus I had allowed it to drop out of my head completely. I stuttered through some words, came to a blank, and only by closing my eyes and hard concentration was I able to remember enough to go on. However, a few lines later, I soon found myself stuck again.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw David. Another person might have had a smug, “See Jon, I told you that you so,” look on his face, but not David. He always wished the best for me. There was nothing but sympathy in his eyes.

And then across the room I saw Christopher trying to get my attention. I looked over at him and saw that he was mouthing the words for me.

The teacher, still pacing the room, had turned around and was facing us now. Christopher abruptly stopped, and I quickly looked away and tried to act like I had just been looking around the room the way people sometimes do when they’re thinking really hard. “Well Jonathon, do you know it or not,” the teacher asked. “If you don’t know it why don’t you just sit down, take your zero marks, and quit wasting everyone’s time.”

“Sir, could I have just a second to think,” I pleaded.

“You’ve already been thinking for a long time,” the teacher replied, but as he said this he turned his head down to look at his grade book, probably getting ready to mark me a zero. My eyes darted over to Christopher, who was already making exaggerated motions with his mouth to show me the words. I started up again.

The teacher, hearing me speak, decided not to give me a zero just yet. He raised his eyebrows, but said nothing, and looked away from his grade book. As he continued to pace the room I was able to complete the recitation with Christopher’s assistance. Whenever the teacher wasn’t looking, Christopher would mouth me more words.

We were sly about it, or at least we thought we were sly about it, but it was a risk. And one that offered absolutely no benefit on the part of Christopher. Had it been anyone else, I might have been touched by the gesture of friendship, but I don’t think Christopher even liked me. He just had a very strong sense of class loyalty. Whenever anyone in the class was in trouble, Christopher thought it was his duty to help them.

You can do better than that Jonathon,” the teacher said as I finished. “I don’t want to hear you flail around like that next time.” He scribbled something in his notebook. I knew the way I had stumbled my way through the piece had cost me the full marks, but I had passed. It seemed like an unnecessary risk to flash Christopher a look of gratitude, so I didn’t. But I felt grateful for his help nonetheless.

The teacher proceeded to call on several more students. Because the passage was long, and the class period was short, he was barely able to get through half the class. In fact before the period was even over the teacher decided to stop the recitations because he had decided to go off on one of his lectures. The second half of the class sighed with relief at another day’s reprieve.

“I want to talk to all of you about something very important,” he said. He pushed his eyeglasses back up to the top of his nose. He had a tall imposing figure. It was imposing even later in my life, but it was especially imposing to look at when I was 14. His suit and tie failed to hide his massive frame. He was bald at the top of his head, but he was tall enough that we couldn’t often see the top of his head. Even his eyeglasses, which should have softened his image, had a way of reflecting the light so that his eyes were obscured and his face seemed always impersonal and cold.

“Recently the etiquette of this class during chapel has been completely unacceptable.” There was a pause in which the teacher looked over us to make sure we were all receiving this news with the appropriate amount of guilt. “When we enter the chapel, we are entering the house of God. We are in the very presence of God himself. And how should we conduct ourselves when we’re in God’s presence? Do we yawn in the face of God? Do we look bored when God is talking to us?” Christopher shook his head “no” in answer to these rhetorical questions. The rest of the class simply remained silent.

The teacher slammed his hand suddenly on the podium, making a large booming sound. It gave us all quite a jolt. At the same time he abruptly changed his speaking style to shouting. “Sleeping in chapel is unacceptable,” he yelled out. We were all still startled form this sudden outburst, and so the room remained deathly silent as the teacher’s eyes rested on all the offenders, Sophia, Julius, Clodius, Matthew, and myself. I squirmed, slightly uncomfortable under the fierce gaze, but there was a certain safety in numbers on this offense.

“Studying during chapel is unacceptable,” continued the teacher, leveling a look solely at poor Varro. He had dropped his voice slightly on this second point, but then he continued and with the next remark his voice rose back up to its previous volume. “And talking in chapel will absolutely not be tolerated.” This time the teacher’s eyes focused solely on me.

I made an effort not to give in so easily. To blatantly stare back defiantly would have been pure folly and likely get me sent to the headmaster’s office again. But I determined I could try to look back for perhaps three or four seconds before I gave in and looked submissively downward.

In the end I only made it for two seconds. When he saw I was returning his gaze, the teacher started walking towards me. I immediately conceded and looked down apologetically. The teacher than stopped coming, and the disaster was averted. It was a solid loss on my part, but I thought it was important to at least have made the attempt.

I didn’t mind chapel so much. I hated church, but that was different. Church took what would otherwise have been a free day, made you get up early, made you dress in funny clothes, and made you sit through two hours of the most boring dribble imaginable, and all for no apparent reason.

But with chapel, it was time that was taken out of the school day. Maybe if there had been no chapel, we would all have finished school an hour earlier. I don’t know. But I viewed it as their time, not mine. It was time when I could just switch off my brain and not think. Maybe even sleep if I could get away with it. Or, if I had homework that was due for the next class, I could try and get it done. Again, assuming I could get away with it.

But what I could never understand is why they were so strict with this “no talking” rule. If I had been talking loudly or disturbing the people around me, that would have been one thing. But if I just whispered to the person next to me, then the teacher, who had seen, not heard the transgression, would come marching across the room, pull me out of my seat, and send me to the head master’s office. Why did it matter? If they wanted to listen to this garbage, I didn’t mind. But why did they have to force me to listen to it in total silence? And besides, aside from the two seconds it took me to make a comment to a friend, I still heard most of the sermon. And even if I didn’t, it was still the same old sermon anyway. It was always the same sermon.

The teacher continued. “When we enter God’s house, we show respect for God. We don’t wear our hats inside God’s house. We don’t sleep inside God’s house. And I don’t want you talking inside God’s house.” He looked at me again as if to reinforce his previous victory. This time I kept my head down.

“I’ve been meeting with the other teachers, and we are all going to be watching you very closely over the next few weeks. Anyone who does not respect God’s house will be dealt with promptly.” The teacher, who been hunched over his podium, now straightened himself to indicate he was finished. “Now, I want you to all walk silently into the chapel. Any talking along the way, or in the chapel itself, will be immediately dealt with.” I didn’t even need to look up to know he was looking at me again.

We stood and silently filed out of the room. I debated making some comment to David about how stupid this all was, but then I thought he probably wouldn’t appreciate me getting him into trouble. So we all filed silently into the chapel.

The chapel was a separate building, but on the same grounds as the school. It had much of the grandeur of a church, while managing at the same time to maintain a lot of the boringness of a school. There were stain-glassed windows, but also ordered and numbered pews where we each had an assigned seat.

True to his word, the teacher had determined to keep a close eye on us that day. He stood next to our class and kept his eyes roaming for any offenders. The other teachers were just as vigilant with their classes. This was indeed a coordinated effort. So we sat silently in our seats while the rest of the classes filed in.

At last all the classes had entered, and an old man ascended the speaker’s platform. The old man was a familiar face. He was the school chaplain. Occasionally there were guest speakers at chapel, but most days it was the school chaplain. He looked old and frail as he ascended the speaker’s platform, but he always became animated and energetic once he started to speak.

He lifted his hands up toward the ceiling like he did everyday. “Praise God!” he said.

“Praise God!” we all repeated. The teachers kept a close eye to make sure everyone said the words.

The chaplain began. “I’m glad to see all of your young beautiful faces today. You have so much youth and energy. There’s a real vibrancy in this room. I hope you can hold onto that.

“But at the same time my heart is heavy because your generation faces so much temptation. The devil is trying very hard to snatch you up with all the tricks he knows. Every possible temptation has been laid out for you. And many of you young people will blindly fall into them. So you must be careful.

“Many of you already use foul or dirty language. Your mouth is an instrument of God. Do not profane it by using coarse language. Rather, always let your mouths say things that will glorify God and offend no one. God created your mouths to sing his praises, not to use the coarse, dirty language of the streets. I am always deeply saddened when I hear students use language that belongs in the gutter.

“But the wrong doing does not stop there. Indeed what wicked times we live in. The filth of evil is everywhere. The books sold in the public markets, and the plays performed in the public square, all contain messages contrary to the will of God. How often have I stood here and told you not to see those plays that corrupt your soul? How often have I told you not to read those books with their messages of Godlessness? And yet I know that young people, sometimes students from this school, read those books, watch those plays, and learn not the righteous morals of God, but the foul morals of this wicked world.

“And most seriously, indeed it is with a aching heart that I even mention it, some young people profane their very bodies with the act of sex. How awful it is to disgrace your bodies, the bodies that God made for you, in such an awful way. There is no greater sin that you can commit than to pollute your bodies in such a way.

“I know this is a wicked time we live in. I know the plays you watch and books you read seek to glorify the act of sex. But it is despicable in the eyes of God. Remember your bodies belong to God. And your hearts belong to God. Your mind belongs to God. Your all belongs to God.

“So honor God not just with your bodies, but with your hearts and your minds as well. Purge your mind of all evil and impure thought, and think only thoughts that glorify God. Some of you young people sitting here before me have thought impure thoughts. You’ve allowed your mind, which should be a sanctuary for God, to become corrupted with lustful thoughts. And with these impure thoughts, you make it impossible for God to come into your hearts because God cannot co-exist with such filth.

“Some of you have even disgraced your bodies with the sin of masturbation. And what a horrible sin it is. To defile both your mind and your body at the same time, you’ve sinned just as greatly as those who have committed the sin of sex.

“Such is the wickedness of the world we now live in. But I am here today to offer you words of hope. I am here to save you from the wickedness that surrounds you. Even in today’s evil world, it is still possible to live a life of Godly virtue.

“I tell you there is nothing greater than a union blessed by God. When a man and a woman love each other, and when they do not give into carnal temptations, but resist until they are married, how blessed that union will be. Truly there can be no happier marriage than a man and a wife who unite only after their marriage vows.

“And if you keep your minds and hearts holy, if you banish all impure thoughts from your mind and if you invite God’s spirit to live inside you, than that spirit will radiate out, and all will see how blessed you are.

“But I also have a message for the sinners here among you. You will not be able to enter the Kingdom of God. You must make a choice today which road you will take, whether it is the path that leads to God, or the path that leads to destruction.”

His voiced crescendoed to its loudest oratorical peak. Because he had the habit of ending his sermons on a high note like that, the organist took her cue and began playing soft holy chords in the background. We instinctively bowed our heads. The chaplain raised his hands for the benediction. “God bless you and keep you from sin,” he said. “And may God bless the Duke help him to serve our country.”

“May God bless the Duke,” we all repeated.
****************************************************************

The next class we had was PE. After the teachers made sure we returned to our classrooms in absolute silence, we took our PE clothes and headed into the changing rooms.

As soon as the door closed behind us, I hit the wall with the side of my hand. “Damn it, I’m sick of all these rules,” I said to David.

David sat on the bench, undoing the shoelaces of one shoe. “Those chapel rules have always been there Jon,” he said. “They’re just making a big deal about them right now. In a couple weeks, a month maybe, they’ll have forgotten about this and they’ll be on some different kick.” David looked up from his shoes. “In fact Jon, the only reason they’re making such a big deal about it right now is because some people, such as yourself, have been trying to get away with as much as possible.”

“I’m not hurting anyone by sleeping in chapel,” I said angrily. “If people want to listen to that crap, fine, but I don’t see why I have to stay awake.”

David shrugged. “Well, tell it to them Jon.

Simon echoed him. “We’re all with you Jon, but what can you do about it? Dave’s right. This will all blow over in a couple weeks.” The two of them were always so practical; they were ignoring the fact that a real injustice was being done.

“It’s just ridiculous. The whole thing is ridiculous. Why do they care if I sleep or not? It’s the same damn chapel every time anyway.”

As always, David flinched slightly whenever I swore about chapel. I think he half expected to see a lightening bolt come out of the sky and smite me one of these times.

Christopher had also overheard my comment. “You better watch what you say Jon,” he said sharply. “Remember God hears everything.”

I opened my mouth to yell at Christopher, but it was LJ who spoke up in my defense. “It is always the same chapel, isn’t it? The range of things they feel comfortable talking about is surprisingly limited.”

That was LJ. He always had to sound like a book whenever he spoke. And if there was on thing I couldn’t stand, it was pretension. “What the hell does that mean?” I yelled out.

I had spoken loudly, and there was laughter from the rest of the room. It was not a pleasant sort of laughter, but that ugly sort of laughter perhaps common to a boy’s locker room; the kind of laughter that indicates someone has just been put in their place. I was immediately sorry I had said it. LJ wasn’t very popular at school, and I had just provided an excuse for them to mock him more.

Before the laughter died out, Ajax stood up and walked towards the door. As he walked past LJ, he gave him a rough shove. Because LJ was standing directly in front of the bench, he fell backwards over it and landed in half in an open locker, half sprawled out on the floor. There was more laughter now, especially from Ajax Hector and Teucer.

Ajax thought since he was bigger and stronger than everyone, he could just push everyone around. If I had known he would use my comment as an excuse to flex his muscle, I would never have said anything. I moved so I was standing in front of him. My brain searched for something clever to say, but, alas, I can never think of anything clever to say. “Are you looking for a fight?” I asked.

Fortunately for me, Ajax’s wit was no better. He just made a grunt for a reply.

“If you go around pushing people over, you must be looking for a fight,” I said. “Now he’s not going to fight you.” I pointed at LJ. “But if you’re looking for a fight, I’ll give you one.”

Ajax looked me over with his eyes. I knew he was stronger than me, and could probably take me in a fight. He must have reached the same conclusion because he started to grin and was flexing his muscles underneath his shirt.

Although I kept my gaze fixed on Ajax, out of the corners of my eyes I could see Simon and David taking their places beside me. Straight ahead I could see Ajax’s friends, Hector and Teucer, flank him on either side. Hector and Teucer weren’t as strong as Ajax, but I knew David would be absolutely useless in a fight. The advantage was still on their side. But with six people involved, things had escalated now. Any actual fight of this size would be hard to contain, and would undoubtedly result in teachers’ intervention, and probably get us all expelled, and no one wanted that.

“What do you want?” Ajax sneered.

“I want you to stop being such a jackass,” I answered.

“But we’ll settle for an apology,” David added quickly.

Ajax tried to diffuse the situation by pushing me aside as he attempted to walk past. It was a calculated move on his part, the idea being that he would win a symbolic victory by pushing me aside, and he would also be able to continue on his way. It was based on the premise that I would allow myself to be humiliated because I was smart enough not to escalate. But when his big ugly hands touched my chest, I was so angry about being pushed that I didn’t even think. I shoved Ajax back as hard as I could.

He stumbled a few feet back, barely kept his balance, and then came back at me with his fists raised. And before I even knew what was happening, I had been roughly shoved out of the way and there was someone standing between Ajax and me. It was Ares. His eyes gleamed, and his fists stood ready.

I was just as surprised by Ajax at this. Ares was not a close friend of mine, but he seemed drawn to conflict. Whenever there was a fight of any kind, Ares had to involve himself in some way. No one knew what Ares would do. He had an element of unpredictability to him. Even though Ajax was bigger, Ares had a tenacious quality which made most people avoid fights him. And I didn’t doubt he would be crazy enough to start a huge fight.

Ajax immediately backed off. He lowered his hands and walked quietly away. I stood aside to let him pass. We never did get our apology, but we hadn’t seriously expected it either.

Ares quickly slipped away also. I didn’t even thank him. I was grateful he had been on my side, but with Ares one always gets the sense that he is always looking for a fight of any kind, and if I had been the one with my fist raised, Ares might have been pushing Ajax aside to get to me.

Ajax’s friends were following his lead out the door. LJ as well had long ago stood up, dusted himself off, and left. It was soon getting to the point where David, Simon, and I were the only ones left.

David looked at me as if he were unsure whether to smile or frown. He opened his mouth to say something, seemed to think better of it, closed his mouth, looked at the ground, and shook his head, and then looked up at me again. “Well, nice going Jon. Once again you almost got us kicked out of school.” He was trying to be serious but a smile seemed to be tugging at the corners of his mouth.

I responded with a full-blown smile. “Hey, we won, didn’t we?” And I flew out the door before David could argue.
****************************************************************

It was spring and the weather was beginning to warm slightly. It was no longer the frigidly cold weather it had been in the winter. It was warm to the point where it was pleasant to be outside, but we could still be active without getting too hot.

I sprinted out of the locker room and into the sunlight, leaving Simon and David behind me. The sun shone down on my face. I looked around. Ajax was standing with his friends in a closed circle, probably talking about me. I looked around to see if I could see Ares, and if he was planning on re-igniting any more trouble. I couldn’t find him.

Rosa was off in the corner of the field, surrounded by most of the other girls in the class, who were listening to her talk about something. Emma, one of the few girls who wasn’t in Rosa’s circle, came up to me. “Hello Jon,” she said smiling. “Have you seen the schedule? It looks like we’re racing each other today.”

I groaned. “What? Are we doing co-ed racing again today?” During track the races were sometimes co-ed, sometimes separated. Since we had done co-ed races all last week, I was sure we would be doing segregated races this week.

“Don’t you want to race me?” she asked, not with a hurt voice, in a playful voice, as if she were trying to set me up for something.

“I hate racing girls,” I moaned.

And she smiled even more at this. “Just you wait Jon! Here’s one girl that’s going to beat you.” She gave me a friendly shove, and then bounced off. She was always so full of energy. And she probably would beat me. That was why I hated racing girls. If you won against them, there was no glory. It was just expected that you would win. But if you lost, there was all sorts of humiliation. I think all of us guys hated being matched up against girls.

David and Simon joined me on the field. “Who are you racing today?” Simon asked. “Did you look at the schedule?”

I grimaced. “I’m racing Emma for one. I don’t even know about the other races.”

“What!” Simon groaned. “Oh no, don’t tell me we’re doing co-ed races again.”

The PE teacher entered the field. “Attention,” he called out, never breaking his stride. We started to move into our rows, but apparently not fast enough for him because he yelled out “Attention!” a second time. All conversation ceased and we ran into our rows. We formed up in our usually rows, kept our arms straight at our sides, and stood at attention. “Bow,” the teacher commanded. We all obeyed.

The teacher stretched his neck slightly. Like all PE teachers he had a thick neck. In fact his whole body was thick. “We’re doing races again today. I will be taking down your results, and they will be published in the school paper at the end of the month, so do your best.” I rolled my eyes and looked at the sky. Could this possibly be the worst day ever?

“So, let’s get started then. The first race is between Icarus and Emma.” Icarus was at the starting line before Emma even left her place in line. If there was one thing Icarus loved to do, it was run.

The rest of us gathered around the track to watch. Icarus had a lean, skinny body, well suited to running. He never trained at all as far as I knew, but he was still the fastest person in the class. His curls fell in front of his eyes again and he brushed them away in a distracted manner. I could almost see the energy pulsing through his body. He was like a hunting dog standing ready, every muscle straining forward, whining with eagerness, and waiting only for the master’s command to attack.

Emma dug her feet into the ground as she assumed a runner’s stance. Her hands tightened into fists. Icarus’s hands were loose, but moving with a nervous energy. Emma’s face looked determined. She was not going to lose. Icarus’ face was temporarily obscured as the curls fell over his eyes again.

“Go!” the teacher yelled out. Poor Emma never stood a chance. Icarus launched himself off the ground, flew through the air, and was almost halfway done with the race before she even started. Still she made a decent effort, throwing herself forward and pumping her legs and her arms back and forth as fast as she could. She even started to gain back some ground near the end, but by then Icarus was crossing the finish line.

Icarus wasn’t sweating. He wasn’t even breathing hard. He glided back to his row with the same speed at which he had left. He seemed oblivious to the fact that he had just won. Emma, by contrast, walked angrily back to her row. Furthermore she was showing the effort of her exertion. Her face was red, her breathing was hard, and her hair was matted down on her forehead with sweat.

“Next race, Rosa and Sophia.” Sophia and Rosa walked to the starting line. Rosa’s hair, which usually fell loosely around her shoulders, was tied back for PE. Sophia’s hair was short enough that she didn’t have to worry about it.

Both girls were athletic and involved in after school sports. I thought it would be a close race, but once the race actually started, Rosa took the lead and finished first by a comfortable margin.

From Sophia’s easy breathing and calm face, she seemed neither to have exerted herself, nor to be upset at her loss. It was almost as if there was some unspoken understanding between the two that Rosa would win. I doubt Rosa had actually ordered Sophia to lose, but Rosa was unquestionably the leader of that group of girls, and Sophia could have jeopardized her social standing by winning against Rosa.

Perhaps the teacher was thinking the same thing, because he yelled out, “Come on Sophia! You can do better than that!” Sophia simply bowed her head slightly to acknowledge having heard the comment, and then returned to her place in line. “Okay, next Joshua and Hector.” There was some chuckling by Ajax and Teucer, but Hector did not seem pleased by the pairing. Joshua was the butt of a lot of jokes, but he was in better shape than he looked. He might be able to beat Hector, and if he did Ajax and Teucer would never let Hector live it down. That’s probably why Hector pushed Joshua.

Joshua and Hector were lined up at the starting line. The word, “Go” was scarcely out of the teacher’s mouth when Hector turned and shoved Joshua aside before turning to run down the track. The teacher’s face flashed red with furry at seeing this flagrant disregard for the rules. He opened his mouth to yell, but then closed it again upon seeing what happened next.

Hector’s body apparently couldn’t handle doing two things at once. He was pushing Joshua with his hands at the same time his legs were launching into the race. Perhaps he was distracted by the two simultaneous actions, and perhaps pushing against Joshua had thrown him slightly off balance, but the next thing we saw he was tripping over his own feet and falling flat on the ground.

A guy like Hector really makes a crash when he falls to the ground. Plus his hands had been used to push Joshua, and so were still off to his side and not in place to catch his fall the way most people’s hands automatically spring up. He landed flat on his face with a thud. I grimaced slightly to see it. “Serves him right,” I heard the teacher mutter.

Joshua stopped to offer Hector a hand up, and the teacher yelled out, “Don’t worry about him. Finish the race!” Joshua ignored this comment and persisted with helping Hector to his feet. Hector was at first dazed from the fall, but as he recovered himself he quickly shook off Joshua’s help. Losing to Joshua would have been bad enough. Having Joshua help him up in front of the whole class would have been the ultimate humiliation. Hector knocked Joshua’s hand away. “What are you doing? Finish the race!” he yelled. Now back on his feet, he started running again. At this point though it was obvious to everyone that even if he won he still lost. The rest of the race didn’t seem to matter anymore.

Hector had regained his head start because he had started running again while Joshua was still trying to help him. Joshua almost caught up with him near the end, but Hector drew on all his reserve strength for the last dash.

The victory was bitter for Hector, and he returned to his row with his face read and his head hung low. His eyes, to the extent I could see them, were blazing with anger even though the only one he had any right to be angry at was himself.

The teacher had harsh words for both of them. “Hector, you do that again and you can talk to the headmaster about it.” Hector lifted his sullen face for just long enough to nod, and then went back to staring at the ground. “Joshua, don’t you ever ignore me again. When I tell you to finish the race, you finish the race. Don’t worry about Hector. He wouldn’t help you if you fell down.” Joshua nodded. “Okay then, next race. Icarus…”

Icarus again? Maybe the teacher was trying to tire him out. Still, pity the poor guy who had to run against him. “…and Jonathon.” This day just kept getting worse and worse. Here comes my first loss for the school papers.

And what can I say about my race against Icarus? He beat me, of course. I arrived at the starting line and he was already there, looking straight ahead and waiting eagerly for the command. He was so distracted I don’t think he even noticed me or knew whom he was racing against. And when the race started, he finished before I had barely left the starting line. But at least there was no shame in losing to Icarus. Everyone expected it.

And I lost to Emma as well when the time for that race came. It was my second race, Emma’s third. Emma had also had one race against Rosa.

I think the teacher must have intentionally put them together. Emma was outside of Rosa’s group, so she would be one of the few girls who wouldn’t lose to Rosa on purpose. There was a tension between the two of them from the moment they met at the starting line. When the race began they were neck and neck the whole way, now one briefly getting ahead, now the other. Each time one girl would get ahead the other seemed to discover some hidden energy and would burst forward to keep even. Both pushed their bodies as hard as they could. Emma hated to lose and Rosa… Well Rosa never lost.

Rosa made a final burst near the end. Emma ran just as fast to keep up with her. It was hard for any of us to tell who won. The teacher was loath to call it a tie because he was reporting the scores in the school newspaper. He stood for a moment with his lips pursed as if he was about to say something but he couldn’t think of what. He looked at the girls, who were exhausted, and barely standing from their run, and yet still looking back at him expectedly.

“Tie,” he said at last. Both girls protested that they had won, but he just shook his head. “It’s a tie,” he said. “I’m sorry.” Both girls returned angrily to their places.

But by the time Emma’s third race came, her race against me, she appeared to have calmed down. She even smiled at me as we came out to the track. For some reason my mind drifted off, and I suddenly remembered my father telling me over the summer that I should always be kind to Emma, because her family didn’t have a lot of money. It had seemed like an odd thing for him to say, because he usually wasn’t concerned about that sort of thing.

As we took the starting line, I tried to snap my mind back into focus. Right. Emma is a girl. I can’t lose to a girl. Losing to Icarus was one thing, but…

“Go,” the teacher yelled. We raced and Emma beat me. I put up a good show, but she was faster, and she wanted it more. After exhausting herself in her races with Icarus and Rosa, it was amazing she still had the energy, but she did. And she had the energy to be gracious about it afterwards as well. Perhaps after two losses the win had put her in a good mood. But as we walked back to our positions she stuck out her hand for me to shake. With a broad smile she said, “You did good Jon.”

My third and final race was against Ajax. Obviously after the incident in the locker room, things were still a little tense between us, and this race took on added significance. But aside from all that, I also just wanted at least one win. I didn’t want my name in the school newspaper with three losses.

Ajax was actually in the same position. He had been lucky enough not to draw any girls, but unlucky enough to draw a match against Icarus. His second race was against Matthew. Matthew was tall, skinny, and naturally had a runner’s build. Ajax, on the other hand, was sometimes too muscular for his own good.

So there the two of us were, both determined to get at least one win in. Ajax was slightly subtler than Hector. He didn’t shove me with his hands, but he did use his weight to bump into me when the race began. I stumbled a bit, he gained a little ground, but in the end I was just faster than he was. I caught up with him and passed him near the finish line.

I breathed heavily with relief. Not only had I gotten my win, of all the people to run against I had beaten Ajax. Maybe this day wasn’t so bad after all. {Needs a better ending}

Chapter 7

I walked into class one day and saw a new face sitting in the seat next to mine. This was not a common thing at our school. We had all known each other since the first grade, and very rarely did new students come in. In fact, come to think of it, I don’t ever remember a new student ever entering our class before this.

I walked through the doorway with Simon and David, but they were busy talking about something else, and didn’t seem to notice her. No one seemed to notice her. Or at least no one bothered to talk to her. Everyone was talking with their usual friends, and although many people made curious glances at the new girl, no one said anything. Most of the girls were sitting around Rosa, but they did not invite the new girl over, and Rosa herself did not even so much as glance at her.

So she was sitting by herself, talking to no one, and looking miserable. I felt immediately sorry for her. It must be rough coming into a new school, especially when the rest of us had known each other for ten years.

I walked over to her desk and extended my hand. “Are you new here?” I asked, not because I needed the answer, but just as a way of opening up conversation.

Never underestimate the joy that a small act of kindness can give to people. Her whole face immediately lit up. “Yes, my name’s Helen,” she said as she shook my hand.

I sat down in my seat and repeated it once. “Helen?” She nodded. “Nice to meet you. I’m Jon. Where are you from?”

“All the way from the West Coast.” There was a note of pride in her voice, and she gave me a look meant to impress upon me the significance of this. I knew nothing about the West Coast, but I did my best to look impressed anyway.

“What about you? Where are you from?” she asked, and then she caught herself, and shook her head to dismiss what she had just said. “I mean, are you from somewhere? Besides here of course?”

“No, I’ve spent my whole life here?” I said, feeling slightly embarrassed at how boring my life sounded.

Thankfully she put a positive spin on it. “So you can answer any questions I have?”

“Yeah, no problem.”

“Great. I’m so confused about so many things. It’s different in the West you know.”

“Is it?”

“Oh yes, night and day difference. Nothing is the same over here.”

I began to notice that her eyes sparkled when she talked. She also leaned in towards me with what seemed to be instinctive friendliness when she talked. It was almost too much. I felt like I had to look away.

The rest of the class was still ignoring her. Simon and David were besides me, but busy talking with each other. Icarus was entertaining a small group of people with some wild story. Ajax and his friends were in a corner laughing about something.

I turned back to Helen. “Why did your family leave the West coast?”

“My dad got a new job here. A really good job.”

There was only one kind of good job in this city. “For the Duke, then?”

“Yes, for the Duke. My dad’s going to be supervising all of the police in the city.”

“The head of the police? Wow!”

“He was a governor in the West,” Helen explained. “The Duke was pleased with his work, so he gave my dad a job here in the capital.”

“Your dad will be working under my dad,” I said.

“Really? What does your dad do?”

“My Dad’s one of the Duke’s top men.” I noticed with surprise that now there was pride creeping into my own voice.

Our conversation got disrupted during the confusion as the last of the class, Joshua, Matthew, Leda and Emma, all ran in to take their seats before the bell rang. There was the usual shuffling of desks and chairs. And then the teacher walked in right as the bell sounded.

The teacher frowned slightly at the commotion in the room. He usually expected all of us to be sitting in our seats and waiting before the bell rang. “Stand up!” the teacher yelled.

Helen looked slightly confused as the rest of us bolted up. “This isn’t the way we do it in the West,” she whispered to me.

“Attention! Jonathon, no talking!” Actually it had been Helen who was talking, but I think the teacher was reluctant to yell at a new student. Besides, he was used to yelling at me.

“Sorry sir,” I answered crisply.

“Bow,” the teacher said. We all bowed. Helen remained looking confused, and bowed awkwardly a second later than the rest of us.

“Sit down. Now, some of you may have noticed, we have a new student here today. She’s going to come up here now and introduce herself.”

Helen flashed me a quick look of disgust, and whispered, “I hate this.” And then, as she stood up, her manner seemed to instantly change. She gave a shy smile to the other desks around her, and then proceeded to the front of the class.

“Hello,” she began. “My name is Helen. I’m from the West Coast.” Again, she couldn’t resist pausing her and looking over the class to emphasize this point. “My family just arrived in Urbae last week. Everything is so different here. I’m a little nervous about how I’ll fit in, but I hope to make friends with all of you real soon.”

She gave another nervous smile, and looked at the teacher to see if she should continue or not. The teacher had stood back by the door to give Helen the floor, but when he noticed she was looking at him, he quickly stepped forward. “Thank you Helen. Allow me to welcome to you to our school. If there’s anything you need, please don’t hesitate to ask either me or any of the class leaders.” He indicated with a gesture for Helen to go back to her seat.

“But speaking of your class leaders,” he continued, “it is already time to decide the leaders for next year.” Off to my side I could see Christopher straighten in his seat. “Anyone who has an application form filled out, now is the time to turn it in.”

We had elections every year for class leaders, but it was always a bit of a sham. Everyone knew the same people would be chosen every year. Christopher was always elected as our class leader. The upper classes were equally consistent. Orion, (I was beginning to realize who he was by now), was poised to become President of the senior class next year and by extension the whole school. [Possibly go back and make this clearer earlier on in the story. Also mention Christopher as class president at least once before now].

Christopher stood up and solemnly handed in his application packet to the teacher. Nobody else even bothered. “Anyone else want to try this year,” the teacher added in a mechanical voice. He was simply asking out of formality before we moved on to the next order of business.

But this year the words turned out to be no mere formality. Someone else did actually want to run against Christopher. Rosa stood up and walked forward with her application packet.

The teacher stood there dumbfounded. “Yes, what do you want Rosa?”

“This is my application packet. I’d like to run for class leader next year.”

“But you’re a girl.”

The teacher spoke as if the absurdity of the situation was evident to all, but Rosa simply stared back at him with cool unblinking eyes, and handed him the packet. “Yes and I’d like to run for class leader next year.”

There was something about the aura of Rosa that even teachers hated to cross her. He was fidgeting slightly, and seemed to be uncomfortable with the new situation. The whole class was watching this scene with interest. I looked over at Helen to see what the reaction of the new girl would be to all this, and she just looked back at me with a confused look. “What are class leaders?” she whispered.

“I’ll explain later,” I said. I didn’t want to have to explain our whole school system to her now. Besides, I wanted to see how this would resolve itself.

“We can’t have girls as class leaders,” the teacher was again speaking in his “isn’t this obvious to everyone” voice, but he was at the same time looking around the room as if to appeal for help. The entire class remained silent and simply stared back.

“There’s nothing in the rulebook against it,” Rosa said. “I checked.”

He seemed almost on the point of giving into her, but then he suddenly became firm again, as if he had remembered who was the student and who was the teacher. He steeled himself, and Rosa’s moment of influence was past. “We are not going to have a girl for a class leader,” he said. “I don’t care what the rulebook says or doesn’t say. Everyone knows it’s ridiculous.”

Rosa was so used to getting what she wanted, that she didn’t handle rejection well. “I’d be just as good a class leader as Christopher, and you know that,” she shouted.

But her spell was now completely broken, and this had no effect on the teacher. “Rosa, sit down now. This discussion is over.” With burning eyes Rosa whirled around and went back to her desk.

“Are there any other application packets?” The teachers voice still retained its hard edge, as if he were almost daring someone else to try and submit an application. He searched the room with his eyes for challengers. And then he softened his tone somewhat. “The official election will be in two weeks of course, but seeing no other applications, I think we can probably already congratulate Christopher. Christopher, you’ve done an excellent job this year, and I’m confident next year will be just as good.”

Christopher was beaming at this praise, and the unpleasant incident with Rosa seemed to be already forgotten. Although, I noticed the teacher avoided eye contact with Rosa for the rest of the class period.

The rest of the day proceeded with the usual events. Helen remained seated next to me throughout the day, and I tried to help her understand the school events as best I could. By lunch, the rest of the class had warmed up to Helen at last. During noon break Helen became the subject of attention. The rest of the girls, who had ignored her in the morning, now crowded around her eagerly and jostled each other to meet the new student. First in line was Emma, who bounced up and gave Helen her usual warm greeting. Emma was one of the few girls not guilty of ignoring Helen in the morning, or at least not intentionally ignoring her, because Emma had run into the classroom just under the bell.

Emma would have liked to talk with Helen longer, but she was eventually edged out by Sophia and Vera, who had both decided they were eager to meet the new girl. The four of them all chatted like old friends. I could only hear the high tones of their excited voices from where I was standing, but they were all talking very animatedly about something. And then finally Rosa made her way over, and as soon as Rosa began talking to Helen, Helen had been officially welcomed to the class.

I kept my distance from the swarm of girls, and talked with David and Simon instead, glancing over at Helen only occasionally.

“Is Icarus climbing that damn tree again?” I asked.

“Still at it,” David affirmed, even though we could all see for ourselves.

“That kid is something else, isn’t he?” I said. “I don’t think he’s quite all there.”

“I don’t know,” David said. “You’ve got to admire his determination. Everyday he falls off, and everyday he tries again.”

“He’s going to break his neck one of these days,” I said.

“It’s Clodius and Ares,” Simon said. “They egg him on to it. Somebody ought to tell the teacher.”

I could not believe this breach of schoolyard etiquette. “What?” I yelled. “Tell the teacher?”

Simon realized what he had said. His face reddened and he tried to cover for himself. “I didn’t mean that really,” he said. “But somebody ought to do something about it.”

“He won’t break his neck,” David said. “He’ll get to the top one of these days. Wait and see.”

I had a feeling that if it were me climbing that tree, David would have been a lot more critical. But David seemed to almost admire Icarus, as strange as that sounds. But then David saw the best parts in everyone.

The bell rang and everyone returned to class. Helen sat next to me again. Despite her acceptance by the rest of the girls, Helen still relied on me to explain most of the workings of the school. She even stayed close to me as we were leaving the school at the end of the day. “I give up Jon,” she said exasperated. “Everything’s so different in this school I’ll never get used to it.”

“Different in the West,” I suggested, sensing a pattern.

Her eyes flashed a smile. “Yes, exactly.”

“Don’t worry,” I explained. “Most of the people are pretty friendly once you get to know them. And as for the rest…Well you’ll figure out who they are soon enough, and then you can just avoid them.”

She thought about this, and then answered, “Most people seemed pretty friendly.” There was a note of caution in her voice that indicated she was still reserving final judgement.

“Where are you going now?” I asked.

“Home I suppose. Why?”

“Because if your father works for the Duke, then your house is probably out in the suburbs like mine. We probably have the same walk back home.”

“No, my father wanted to live in the city. He said that if he was going to be in charge of the police, he should live in the same city they did.”

“I guess that sounds like a good idea.”

“Yeah, I guess.” She shrugged her shoulders slightly dismissing the topic, and then looked at me with a smile that seemed to say, “Isn’t it silly that we’re even talking about this.” I smiled back.

I got the sense that she was waiting for me to initiate further conversation, but I was in a hurry to go catch up with David and Simon, who had left ahead of us. “Listen, I’ve got to go,” I said apologetically. “Anything else you need help with?”

“No, I’m okay. Thank you for everything today Jon. You’ve really been a help. I would have been lost without you.”

“No problem. See you tomorrow.”

Chapter 8

“So what’s the deal between you and Helen,” Simon asked me one day.

“Who?”

“Who?” Simon repeated mockingly. He turned to David, “Look at that! He acts like he doesn’t even know her. Now I know for sure something’s up.”

David wasn’t a jerk like Simon, but he did look over at me and add, “You are always talking to her Jon.”

“She sits right next to me. What am I supposed to do? Just ignore her all the time?”

Simon was ready for this. “Well, you sit right next to Christopher also. How come I don’t see you talking to him all the time?” [Go back and make seating chart clearer].

“Christopher? Come on Christopher? He’s the most boring guy alive. Besides, Helen’s new here. She doesn’t have a lot of friends.”

“Yeah, right, so the fact that she’s a beautiful girl has absolutely nothing to do with it?” Simon pressed.

“You think she’s beautiful?” Helen was beautiful, but not in the way most people usually think. She had kind of a hidden beauty, that only appears gradually to you after you’ve been talking to her for a while. I thought I was the only one who had noticed it.

Simon and David exchanged glances, and I knew I had given the wrong response. “So you’re going to deny this as well, Jon?” Simon said. “You’re the only guy in class who doesn’t think she’s beautiful, and yet you spend all your time talking to her.”

I had just about had my fill of Simon. I turned to David to see what he would say. “You must have heard other people talk about her,” David said. “Everyone thinks she’s pretty.”

“I thought it was just me.”

“Aha,” Simon said triumphantly. “Now it’s out at last.”

“No, really, I thought I was the only one who thought she was pretty.” I spoke mostly to David. I was doing my best to ignore Simon. “I mean, she’s not nearly as beautiful as Rosa.”

Simon scoffed at this comparison. “I don’t like Rosa very much. She seems too, I don’t know, she seems too cold. But Helen has a lot of warmth to her. Helen seems like someone you can talk to.”

I seized on this. “Yeah, see? She’s someone you can talk to. She’s an easy person to talk to, so no one should think it’s strange that I’ve been talking to her a lot.” Too late, I realized that the rapid way in which the words spilled out of my mouth made me sound like someone too eager to defend his innocence. In the silence that followed, I could see that there was now no doubt in either of their minds.

“You should just ask her out,” Simon said.

He was enjoying watching me squirm a little bit too much, so I decided to cut him down to size. “Simon, I’ve only known her for two weeks. Now you’ve been talking about Leda for almost a year now, and you’ve known her ever since the first grade. When you ask Leda out, I’ll ask Helen out.”

“I asked Leda out as my date for the end of the year banquet.”

Well, that shut me up. I simply stared back in silence.

“You should ask Helen to the banquet.” David said. “Besides, did you hear where the banquet is being held this year? It’s in the University. You remember we always wanted to see what was behind those walls. This could be our chance.”

*********************************************************

Spring was in full bloom at the time, and summer was fast approaching. The election had come and went, and Christopher had been elected class president. Orion was president of the senior class and the head of the student body.

I was walking with Helen after school one day when I brought up the subject. “I really appreciate you showing me around everywhere Jon,” she said. “I would have been lost with out you.”

“You have a lot of friends,” I said. “I’m sure anyone would be glad to show you around.”

“Well, you’re the only one who’s been kind enough to do it so far,” she said.

I pointed at the chapel tower off in the distance. “Do you see that,” I asked.

“What?”

“The big tower with the cross on top of it.”

“Oh, yes, what is that? I’ve been meaning to ask. I see it everyday when I’m walking home from school.”

“That’s the steeple for the University chapel.”

“Wow. That’s a University chapel? It’s a lot nicer than our school chapel.”

“Yeah, well, this is the best University in the country, so they really went all out on the buildings.”

“Amazing,” she said. “It completely towers over the whole city, doesn’t it? No matter where I am I can always look over and see it.” She paused. There was a breathless quality in her words, as if she were seeing the chapel tower for the first time. Then she turned to face me with eyes full of excitement. “You know, we don’t have anything like that in the West.”

“The other buildings inside the University are supposed to be even more impressive. Most of them were built hundreds of years ago, but they’re still used today.”

“I want to go see them.”

“I’d like to too, but there very strict. Only students can enter the University gates. No one else.”

“No one?”

“Well the teachers and the professors of course. And the police if they need to, although mostly the Cadets handle any problems on campus. But ordinary people like you or me can’t just walk on up and go in. David and I have tried loads of times. They have guards at the door, and a huge wall that goes all around the outside of the campus.”

“Why are they so strict? It’s a University, right? Not a fortress. The Universities in the West we can visit anytime we want to.”

I was somewhat at a loss to answer this. Having grown up in this city, I had just assumed it was perfectly normal for Universities to be shut up and guarded. I never thought that there might be a different way to run them. “I don’t know,” I said. “It’s just the way things are here. But, I have some good news. I know a way we can get in.”

“Buy tickets?”

“No. You know about our class banquet, right?” She shook her head. “Well, every year our school has a banquet for the upperclassman to celebrate the end of the year. This is the first year our class is old enough to go, so it will be the first time for all of us. And, the banquet is going to be held in the University this year.”

“So if we go to the banquet, we get to see the inside of the University?” she concluded. “Where do I sign up?”

“Most people go with dates.”

“Oh,” she said, slightly disappointed.

“Which is why I wanted to talk to you about this,” I said hurriedly. I then paused to check the reaction on her face. She seemed to know what I was going to say next, and her face had a look of eager expectation. This encouraged me enough to go on. “You see, I don’t have a date for the banquet, and I figure you are new here and you maybe don’t know a lot of people yet. I mean, you know people, but you don’t know them well. So I was thinking you might be interested in going to the banquet with me.” I was trying to keep a calm face on the outside, but inwardly I was cringing at my own words. Why did I always sound so stupid at important times?

Fortunately she responded quickly, saving me from a prolonged embarrassment. “Yes, of course Jon, I would love to go with you.”

Immediately the nervousness inside me was replaced by excitement. “Really?”

“Of course. You’ve been so kind to me the past couple weeks.”

“Well then it’s settled. I’ll take care of signing us up and everything, if you’re sure about it.”

“Yes Jon, absolutely, I’d really love to go with you.” She glanced at the clock tower. “I’ve got to go Jon. My dad always gets worried if I’m not home right after school. But I’ll see you tomorrow at school, okay? We’ll talk more about the banquet later.”

She hurried off, stopping once in the middle of the street to wave good-bye to me, and then disappearing into the crowd.

*******************************************************************************

She wanted to go with me. She would love to go with me. She would really love to go with me. She would absolutely really love to go with me.

I turned the words over and over again in my head, hardly believing my good luck. The words soared through my brain. Love to go with me. Really love to go with me.

I couldn’t wait for the next day of school. Simon would be looking at me with his sneering smile, and he would ask if I was going to ever get the courage to ask Helen out. And I would reply, yes, as a matter of fact Simon, I did, and she said she would absolutely really love to come with me. Absolutely. And then the expression on Simon’s face would fall.

I arrived the next day at school to see Simon’s face already fallen, but I was too excited by what I had to tell that I barely noticed it. I was sure he would ask me about the banquet first thing when he saw me. Simon probably couldn’t wait to continue gloating about how he had a date and I didn’t. But he was going to get a surprise when he tried to bring that line on today. And of course David would be surprised as well.

David! I hadn’t even thought about him. Who was David bringing to the banquet? What girl did David like? For the first time I felt guilty for not having considered David’s feeling at all. I never thought of him having any independent hopes or desires of his own. I just considered David an extension of myself. He was there to support me. He wanted whatever would make me happy.

But this moment of guilt passed just as quickly as it had come on. I was too focused on my own happiness. She would love to come with me. Absolutely really love to come with me.

To my annoyance, Simon and David avoided the subject of the banquet from the moment I first met up with them. They talked about everything else but the banquet. I restrained myself from bringing up the subject. I wanted things to go just how I had imagined them. Simon would bring it up in his sneering tone, and then I would, casually, mention that yes I had asked Helen, and she would absolutely really love to come with me, and that would knock Simon right off his arrogant platform.

But eventually, seeing that the subject of the banquet couldn’t be further from their minds that day, I gave in to my temptation and brought it up myself. “You remember that banquet we were talking about yesterday?” I said in my best casual voice.

“It’s been cancelled,” Simon answered flatly. I already had my mouth open ready to go on with my next line, but I stopped. And it was at that point that I started to notice the depressed look that had been on Simon’s face all morning.

“Cancelled?”

“Yeah, cancelled.”

This may have been the first year that our class was eligible, but the banquet was a proud old school tradition. I couldn’t imagine it had been cancelled. “Why?”

“I don’t know. Something about trouble at the University.”

“Did you ask Helen?” David asked me. I nodded, still absorbing the new information. “And did she say yes.”

“Yeah.”

“Well there you go then. Congratulations. The banquet itself is just some boring school ceremony anyway. The important thing is that she said yes.”

I appreciated him trying to cheer me up, but my thoughts were wandering elsewhere. “You know,” I said, “for a little while there, it almost seemed like we were actually going to get inside the University and see what it’s like.”
\
Simon laughed at this. “Jon, the point wasn’t the University itself. That was just the venue. The point is our school banquet.”

“Still, it would have been nice to see what the University is actually like,” I persisted. “After all those years of just staring at the outer wall.”

“Who cares? In a few years we’ll be students there, and then we’ll see it everyday, until the mere sight of it will make us want to throw up, just like our school now. The University isn’t a fun place. It’s where people go to study. I don’t know why you’re so obsessed with getting in there. You’ve let your imagination run wild with all the things you imagine are inside. I bet its boring and drab and awful just like the school we go to everyday now.”

David took my side. “Still Simon, aren’t you the least bit curious to see what’s inside?”

“I’ve been inside loads of times,” a new voice called out. Icarus had overheard what we were talking about, and was walking up to join us.

“You have not,” I said firmly. I had little patience for Icarus’s nonsense, and it was important t stop him early on before he got started on another ridiculous story.

“Sure I have,” he insisted.

I groaned inwardly. He wasn’t going to make this easy. He was going to persist in telling his story. “No, you haven’t Icarus, so knock it off. Nobody gets inside except the University Students.”

“It’s easy if you know how,” Icarus said.

“And why do you know how?” David asked in an amused voice. David took an entirely different attitude towards Icarus than I did. David liked Icarus. Well, David liked everybody. He didn’t have a single enemy. But he seemed to find Icarus especially entertaining, and liked having him around.

“Because my father designed it.”

I liked at Simon, and I could tell Simon shared my annoyance. “Icarus that University is hundreds of years old,” Simon blurted out. “It’s almost as old as Fabulae itself. What do you mean telling us your father designed it?”

“Well, he redesigned it. After the Restoration. They redid the whole place after the Restoration you know. Widened the streets inside, got ride of some of the old troublesome buildings near the student center, and added all sorts of secret entrances all along the wall.”

“Secret entrances?” I couldn’t believe that I was wasting time listening to this.

“All sorts of them. Most people don’t know about them, but I know about them.”

“Wait, let me get this straight,” I said. “All around the campus wall there are all sorts of secret entrances, which somehow no one has realized all these years, except for you.”

“I know about them because my father designed them,” Icarus responded.

“Well, I think I’ve heard enough of this for one day,” Simon said with his usual abruptness. With a look of disgust, Simon bowed out of our circle and went across the schoolyard to talk to Matthew, shaking his head in disbelief as he walked away.

“So is that how you get in the University?” David asked. “Through the secret entrances hidden in the wall.” David spoke in a friendly tone, but there was a slight gleam in his eye which suggested he found the whole thing quite funny. Still, I wouldn’t say he was making fun of Icarus. David was more inviting Icarus to take part in the joke with him.

“Oh no, those are only for emergencies. Usually I just walk through the front gates.”

“We’ve already tried that. They stop you right at the front gate as soon as they realize you’re still in school.” Perhaps I was more similar to Simon than I liked to admit. There was something inside me, an impatience perhaps or a hidden aggressiveness, that wouldn’t allow me to treat the whole thing as a joke the way David did.

“But if you act like you belong, they’ll never notice. They have thousands of students in that University. Do you think the guards can keep track of them all? If you have your head down and you look nervous or apologetic, they’ll send you right back. But if you keep your back straight, look the guards right in the eye and say ‘good afternoon’ in a nice clear voice, like you know what you’re doing, they’ll let you right through. I’ve done it so many times they think I’m a student there.”

“Why so many times?” David asked. “Is the University that interesting?”

“The art department is. It’s absolutely amazing. And the view from the chapel steeple would blow your mind.”

“They don’t let you climb the chapel steeple,” I snapped.

“Well, you’re not supposed to, no. But it’s not like they have people guarding the steeple. Once you make through the University gates, you can pretty much do what you want.”

“Would you take us with you sometime?” David asked. I looked at David’s face to see if he was still having fun with Icarus, or if he was actually serious.

Icarus appeared to mull the matter over. “I don’t know,” he said slowly. “I’ve got a nice thing going. I come and go now just like a student. I don’t want you two to screw things up. If we mess this up even once, it will be hard for me to get back in.”

“How would we mess it up?” David asked.

“I think you’d be fine, but Jon has a troublesome look about him that the guards are sure to notice.” Icarus was now talking directly to David as if I wasn’t even there.

David couldn’t help but laugh a little at this point. Then he pretended to examine me. “Yes. Yes I see what you mean. He does look like trouble. The guards would never let him in. I know I’d never let someone who looked like that into my house.”

“This whole thing is ridiculous,” I blurted out. “First of all, Icarus, nobody has ever said I look troublesome until now.”

“They were probably just being polite,” he rejoined quickly. I ignored this and continued.

“Secondly, I don’t know what you’re worried about because if you can’t get through at the main gate, then you can just use one of those secret entrances you were just telling us about. And thirdly, this whole conversation has been nothing but a huge waste of time. I’ll be damned if you’ve ever seen the inside of the University even once.”

None of this seemed to bother Icarus. He just shrugged his shoulders. “Okay fine, don’t come. It’s all the same to me. You guys would just slow me down anyway.”

Icarus was on the point of walking away when David reached out his hand to stop him. “No, hang on a minute,” he said. “We’ll come with you. If you’re willing to take us that is.”

“If you think you can keep up with me.”

“We’ll do our best. And I’ll try and make sure Jon doesn’t look too troublesome.”

In spite of himself, Icarus almost seemed pleased at having acquired some followers. “Okay, we meet in front of the schoolyard on Saturday at 9 AM sharp. Don’t be late.”

********************************************************************

It was unlike David, who was usually so cautious, to be so enthusiastic about a plan like this. But he explained himself very reasonably to me. “Look, I know Icarus is a bit over the top,” he said. “But that’s what makes him so interesting. He’s probably making it all up and he’s probably never been inside the University before. But if we don’t go with him, than we’ll never know for sure. Besides, what’s the worst that could happen? We tried to get inside the University lots of times before. If Icarus’s plan doesn’t work, than they’ll just turn us away at the gates like they always do, and we’ll go home.”

Simon, however, showing his usual bull-headedness, refused to be talked into it. “For one thing I couldn’t care less about the University,” he said. “It’s just another school as far as I’m concerned. And besides I don’t believe Icarus’s stories for a second. He’s always telling ridiculous stories.”

Simon was certainly right on the last point, and yet I found myself agreeing with David. It was probably all lies, but if I didn’t go and find out for myself, then I would always be wondering about it.

On Saturday David and I met at the school a few minutes before 9. David had not forgotten his promise to make me look “less troublesome” and he had brought along a comb.

“Oh come on!” I objected. But I ended up combing my hair over to the side anyway, with David offering suggestions on my combing technique. When my hair refused to stay in place, David even went over to the stream to wet the comb, and I tried again.

“Well, I don’t know about less troublesome, but at least you look different than usual,” David commented. “Hopefully Icarus will approve.”

“You’d think I was dating Icarus,” I said, handing back the comb.

But when Icarus arrived, he didn’t comment on my appearance one way or the other. I don’t think he even noticed. “Are you ready?” he asked us. His voice seemed a bit put on, as if he were trying to establish some sort of authority over us just because we had agreed to follow him on this trip. But David just went along with it, and I forced myself to do the same.

Icarus had a green book bag resting on his shoulders. I assumed this was intended to give him the look of a University student, although in actuality made him look more like a schoolboy. The University students rarely carried book bags like that.

We followed his lead towards the University. Just before we came into view of the main gate, Icarus stopped us to review the plan. “Okay, remember keep your back straight and look confident. Act like you walk in and out all the time. Don’t avoid eye contact with the guards. Look them right in the eye. And smile. Smiles are important. Jon, let me see your smile.”

He seemed to take it for granted that I would be the one who would screw things up. He never asked to see David’s smile. I was so exasperated by Icarus’s behavior that I had a difficult time making a smile. I forced a grin in an attempt to humor him, but it wasn’t up to his standards.

“Mmmm,” Icarus muttered in a disapproving way while tapping the ground with his foot.

David quickly intervened. “Even the University students don’t go around smiling all the time, right? Suppose Jon’s just having a bad day. What if just you and I smile?”

Icarus pondered this briefly, and then accepted it. We approached the gate. I made eye contact with one of the guards, and he looked right back at me. Although it had been two years, I recognized him as one of the guards who had turned me away on a previous attempt. Would he recognize me? His eyes did seem to narrow, and they followed me as I walked up to the gate.

“Good morning,” Icarus called out. Once again, his voice seemed put on, as if he were trying to establish some sort of relationship with the guards where none had previously existed. They ignored his salutation and watched us approach in stony silence.

Right as we were about to enter, one of the guards stepped in front of us. “Just a minute boys. May I ask your business?”

I’m not sure what was going through Icarus’s head, but personally I knew it was all over the moment they stopped us. If our plan was to just smile our way through the gates to avoid suspicion, then that plan was already over. And once they began asking questions, they were bound to ask for our University papers eventually, which we didn’t have.

Icarus made the attempt anyway. “We’re students here,” he answered. “We’re just going back to our dorm rooms.”

To my surprise the guard didn’t even ask about our papers. Whether we were University students seemed irrelevant to him. He simply answered, “There’s trouble on campus. No ones allowed in or out today.”

“What sort of trouble?” Icarus asked.

“The usual. A few troublemakers. They’ll have it call cleaned up soon enough. Why don’t you come back and try again in a couple days.”

And so we left. Icarus looked at me very suspiciously, no doubt thinking I had been the reason we were refused entrance. For my part, I wondered what kind of trouble would mean no one was allowed in or out. Why couldn’t people get out?

“So do you try out the secret entrance now?” David asked hopefully. “I’m very curious to find out where those are anyway.”

Icarus looked uncomfortable. “Yes, if only I could remember where the secret entrances are.” He looked out into space as if trying to remember.

So the secret entrances had been a lie as well. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by that. It had been stupid to get my hopes up in the first place.

“There is one more way inside,” Icarus said, sliding his book bag off over his shoulders, and motioning for us to come close. He undid the straps and lifted up the top very slightly, just slightly enough for David and I to peer inside.

He had a grappling hook inside. A long rope attached to a three-pronged metal hook. It was the kind of think I had seen pictures of before many times in adventure books, but never saw in real life.

Icarus quickly closed the bag back up again. “Of course, we can’t do it here,” he said. “But if we go around towards the back, there’s some parts of the wall that no one watches.”

Scale the walls? David and I looked at each other. Was Icarus serious about this, or was this another imaginary undertaking, like the secret entrances? Was he going to lead us around to the back of the campus, make a big production of things, and in the end not actually do it?

But then I remembered Icarus’ love of climbing the trees in the schoolyard, and I realized that this was for real. David had the same realization, and his manner began to change. He enjoyed this when he thought it was one big joke, but now that he realized we were actually going to scale the walls and illegally enter the campus, his cautious manner caused him to become nervous. “Icarus, you’re not going to use that thing, are you? I don’t think it’s safe.”

“Of course it’s safe. My dad made it. I use it all the time.” And with that Icarus turned and began walking along the wall. He assumed we would follow him, and didn’t even look back.

And so we followed. I was now beginning to feel excited about where this morning might lead us, and David had assumed the role of the detractor. “Icarus, are you sure about this?” he called out. “How many times have you used that thing?”

After about a half hour, we came to the back of the University, where the wall bordered the forest. The trees had been cut back just enough to prevent someone from getting over the wall by climbing the tree branches. But the wall was only about two stories high, so I imagine from some of the taller trees it would be possible to at least see over the wall.

Icarus took out his grappling hook, and discarded his book bag on the ground. He shook his limbs loose, and then began swinging the hook in a circle. He swung it faster and faster and then he threw it up towards the top of the wall.

The hook hit the wall about three quarters up, and then fell back down to the ground. Icarus swore and retrieved it. He brushed away some of the locks of hair that had fallen into his eyes, and started swinging the hook around again. Again he threw it and again it simply bounced off the wall. He didn’t look like he knew what he was doing, and David asked, “Are you sure you use that all the time Icarus?”

Icarus didn’t answer. He just brushed the hair out of his eyes again and started twirling the rope once again. This time the hook cleared the wall. He grabbed the end of the rope and pulled tight. The hook stayed. He pulled on it several more times just to make sure. He tested his weight by hanging off the rope and bouncing up and down. The hook stayed firm.

Then he turned to us. “Well, no sense in standing around here wasting time, huh? I’ll see you two at the top.” Half using the rope and half digging his feet into the crevices between the blocks, he scrambled to the top. In now time at all he was swinging his legs over the crest of the wall, and was standing on the other side. There must have been some sort of ledge at the other side of the wall that he could stand up on. He started motioning for the next one of us to climb up.

Icarus had made the climb look so easy that even David was feeling relieved, and all traces of nervousness I had were replaced by eager anticipation. I couldn’t wait to get to the other side. I eagerly grabbed the rope and tried to follow Icarus up.

I soon discovered that climbing the wall wasn’t as easy as Icarus had made it look. I didn’t have the balance, the arm strength, or the traction on my shoes to simply lean back and walk up the wall sideways the way people in books used these grappling hooks.

Fortunately there were some foot holes. The wall was ancient, just like the rest of the University, and it wasn’t made in the modern style of small bricks mortared together. Rather it was large almost bolder sized blocks placed on top of each other. They fitted loosely, and there was often room to stick in the tips of my shoes and get a small foothold, while I held onto the rope for balance. After some struggling, I made my way slowly up the wall like this.

Although it must have been close to ten by now, the air still had a quiet early morning feel. Perhaps that’s because we had moved away from the main streets and were now near the forest, but even the sound of birds or chirping insects seemed absent. It was silent as I struggled up. All I could hear was the sound of my own breathing, my feet scrapping against the wall, and the occasional sound of the rope creaking.

“Hey, Come on Jon! Let’s go.” Icarus’ yell startled me and my feet slipped. I kept a tight hold on the rope, but my knees banged up against the wall as the rope swung in. The pain shot through the rest of my legs. I began cursing Icarus under my breath.

I squeezed my legs around the rope and shimmied up a little like we climbed ropes in gym class. But this soon tired my arms, and I began to look again for a foothold on the wall to redistribute my weight.

I climbed up a couple more blocks, and then I saw an outstretched hand ready to pull me up. I grabbed onto it with one hand, while keeping hold of the rope with the other. Icarus didn’t have the strength to pull me up by himself, and I had to squirm over the top mostly on my own strength. Nevertheless his outstretched hand and beaming smile felt welcoming. I saw how eager Icarus was to help me over, and I couldn’t help but feel that he wasn’t so bad after all. He may have an active imagination, and he may be a bit obnoxious at times, but he deep down was really just a friendly guy.

I took in a brief look at the University campus which had so long played in my imagination, but I didn’t have time to take it in properly. David was starting his ascent, and Icarus and I yelled down encouragement at him.

David also had a hard time getting to the top. Like me he floundered around on the rope for a while, had trouble finding good footholds, and lost his footing twice. But he made it. And when he got to the top he had two pairs of arms reaching down to pull him up.

Now with David at the top, I could at last look out over the campus. It was a disappointment. I suppose, after having built it up in my mind for so many years, it couldn’t be anything but disappointing.

“Wow, it’s absolutely amazing,” David said. “It’s even better than I thought it would be.”

Icarus had no reaction. I guess he was trying to keep up his charade of having seen it before.

From where we had climbed up, at the back of the campus, we could see the buildings only as tiny miniatures in the distance. The chapel steeple was of course immediately recognizable. The rest of the buildings were all arranged around it in a circle, like planets orbiting the sun. But we could make out their outline only. We were at the edge of the campus by the nature preserve. And that was exceedingly ordinary. The pine trees and small bushes were an almost exact mirror of the scenery we had left behind on the other side.

We reversed the hook, and used the rope to lower ourselves down. Icarus went first again, followed by me and then David. Going down was a lot easier than going up. Once I had gotten about halfway down, I just let go of the rope and dropped down the rest of the way until I hit the soft ground. David kept a tight grip on the rope until his feet were touching the dirt.

Once we were all on the ground, Icarus grabbed the rope and tried to pull the hook down. It remained stuck in its spot. Icarus then shook the rope back and forth to try and dislodge the hook. Still no effect. “Well, at least we know the rope is secure,” David remarked.

Icarus started swearing and kicked the wall. “The hook must have gotten stuck in between the rocks,” he said.

“It’s no big deal,” I said. “We’ll just have to remember where we left the rope. Then we use it for our way out, and we can dislodge the hook when we’re back at the top.”

“Well, which way do we go first?” David asked, as he turned his attention to the campus.

“There’s a lake over this way,” Icarus exclaimed. And without waiting, he started walking through the trees. David and I automatically started following him. I didn’t think there was a lake anymore than I thought there were secret entrances, but the whole campus was new to us, and one direction was as good as the other. Besides, Icarus had gotten us this far, and I was beginning to trust him in spite of myself.

Weaving in and out of trees, we walked up over a hill and down to the other side of it. At the bottom was a small pond.

It wasn’t a lake like Icarus claimed, but it was unmistakably a body of water. And he had headed towards it in a straight line and with such confidence that it didn’t seem to be a coincidence. I began to wonder if he actually had been here sometime before.

“This is a great place for a swim,” Icarus declared. He was already taking off his shoes and socks.

Although it was now close to mid-day now, it was still spring weather. It was warm enough so that it wouldn’t be painful to swim, but not quite hot enough that we felt the desire. But in the time it took me to think about this, Icarus had already stripped down to the nude and had jumped in.

Obviously none of us had the foresight to have brought swimming suits. David was especially uncomfortable about swimming nude. “Icarus, this is a University campus. There are bound to be all sorts of people around. What if someone comes here?”

“Naked University girls go swimming here all the time,” Icarus called out from the pond. “They’re not shy at all.” And what could we do but laugh at this? David and I looked at each other. I shrugged my shoulders and we started taking off our clothes and jumped in the water.

The water was a bit murky and stale as water in small ponds always is. Icarus claimed it was clean enough to drink, and drank a little bit just to prove it, but David and I declined to follow his example.

Next Icarus wanted to show us how long he could hold his breath. He closed his eyes and plunged into the water. We saw his shape go deeper and deeper under the water until we lost sight of him.

I went down under the water as well, just briefly. The water below the surface was a lot colder than the water warmed by the sun, so I didn’t stay under long.

When I came up, Icarus was still under. David and I were just on the point of wondering if he was all right, when he shot up to the surface and breathed in the air with a loud gasp. His usually curly hair was now wet and plastered against his forehead. A huge grin was across his face. “How about that?” he said between pants of air. “Wasn’t that a long time?”

We swam back to the shore. No one had a towel so we just shook some of the water off of our limbs, and then put our clothes on over our wet skin. The clothes stuck uncomfortably to our damp bodies, but the sun was out and we knew we would dry up soon.

It had been a refreshing swim, but in the end it was nothing noteworthy. We could go swimming or hiking through the woods anywhere. Now we were eager to see some of the actual campus buildings.

Because of the view we had seen from the top of the wall, we all had a general idea of where to go, but once again Icarus led the way, and David and I simply followed. The trees soon came to an abrupt end, and we walked out of the nature preserve. We walked across a long green field with well trimmed grass that must have been used for sporting events. Up ahead we could see a long building that looked like a gymnasium.

“This is one of the buildings my dad designed,” Icarus said proudly. “You can see it looks a lot newer than the other buildings. Of course they made an effort to make it fit in with the rest of the campus as much as possible. It imitates the old style. But if you look closely, you can tell.”

David and I looked over it briefly. This was the first building we had seen so far, so we had no way to compare, but it didn’t look like a new building to me. On the other hand, did people a thousand years ago really use gymnasiums? Maybe this was a more recent building.

“Come on, there’s something on the other side I want to show you,” said Icarus running excitedly. David and I broke into a jog to keep up with him. By the front entrance to the gym there was a statue of a soldier on a horse. The horse was running, and the rider had his sword drawn and pointed forward as if leading a charge.

“My Dad designed that as well. Flash wanted some sort of statue in front of the gymnasium, so my dad designed that statue to commemorate Flash’s victory in Canaan.”

The statue was absolutely huge. The round base of it alone was about as big as a classroom, and taller than any of us. The horse and rider must have been two or three times larger than life. We walked around the base of it in amazement.

“To commemorate the victory by our brave soldiers in the Canaan War,” David read aloud from the plaque. “Hey Jon, come look at this!”

I came around to the side David was on. Sure enough, there was a plaque confirming what Icarus had just said. Now how in the world would he have known that? How had he known this whole statue was here in the first place? For a second I almost believed it was all true; there really were secret entrances, and Icarus really did usually come and go as he pleased through the main gate. How else would you explain this?

And then suddenly the scales dropped from my eyes, and I suddenly realized what had been so obvious the whole time. Icarus had come here before using the grappling hook. That was why he had made it so look so easy when he climbed up the wall. He had lots of practice.

In spite of my irritation at Icarus for not being honest with us, I found myself respecting him even more once I realized this. He had wanted to get into the University, and so he had found a way to get around their wall. He hadn’t let their rules stop him. He was a little bit insane no doubt, but resourceful and clever.

David and I now fully accepted Icarus’s position as the expedition leader. “So Icarus, what’s the most interesting place to see first?” David asked.

“The art department,” Icarus answered immediately. “That’s where I always spend all my time when I come here.”

The art department didn’t sound very interesting to me, so I made another suggestion. “What about the chapel steeple? Can we really climb up there?”

“Of course we can. If you’re up to it that is.”

“I’m up for it.”

There were brick paths connecting the various campus buildings to each other, but Icarus cut diagonally across the lawn. David and I followed him, slowing down occasionally to admire the majestic old buildings on all sides of us. The old stone buildings were now covered with moss and ivy so that they looked more green than gray.

“Why isn’t there anyone else around?” David asked. “I would have thought the campus would be full of students.”

“It’s Saturday,” Icarus said in an authoritative voice. “There’s no classes on Saturday. Most everybody’s probably still sleeping or in their dorm rooms studying.”

“What about the trouble the guard was telling us about?” I asked. “Why don’t we see anything?”

“He was probably exaggerating,” Icarus said. “There’s never any trouble at this place.”

The university chapel was a lot more majestic than our school chapel. It was absolutely huge for one thing. Of course I was used to seeing the steeple from the town, but now I realized that the chapel beneath it was very impressive as well. It was even bigger than the church I went to, and much bigger than the church David and Icarus went to. The stained glassed windows were all done in the old style, and seeing them was the first time I remember feeling a connection to Fabulae’s history. I felt that if I touched them right now, they might open up a time portal and whisk me back into the ancient past.

We went to the front door, but it was locked. “Of course,” Icarus said. “It’s always locked between services. I should have remembered that.”

“So how do you get in?” I asked.

“Well there are lots of ways. Probably the easiest way is just to break one of these windows.” Icarus picked up a rock from the ground and tossed it up and down to indicate his readiness.

David and I were horrified at even the thought. Break one of these windows? They must have been at least a thousand years old. Just looking at them made you realize the rich history of this place.

But when we mentioned this objection, Icarus just shook his head. “Don’t be silly. Do you think people a thousand years ago even knew how to make glass? My Dad added these windows after the Restoration. He just tried to make them look as old as possible, that’s all.”

By now I was having a hard time sorting out what was true and what was false, but I felt that if we broke one of these beautiful windows I would have a hard time forgiving myself. David felt the same way.

“Okay, well, there is another way in,” Icarus said. “We can go through the back way.” He led us around to the basement doors at the back. Just like any other basement doors in any other building, these were sticking out of the ground at a diagonal angle. Two old wooden doors were kept shut with a wooden bar stuck between the handles, and an old padlock kept the bar in place. But the doors seemed to be long past replacing, and the wood was rotting away. The joints were rusty, and the whole thing looked like it would give way with just one solid tug.

Which apparently was what Icarus had in mind. He tugged fiercely at the handle. The door rattled, and the joints shook. The door didn’t give way the first time, but David and I joined in for the second pull. “It would have been a lot easier just to break the window,” Icarus grunted between pulls. And then, with one final pull, the whole thing broke loose suddenly, and we all fell back on the ground with the door in our hands.

Icarus stood up and dusted himself off. I did the same. My hands were reddish gray now with the rust from the door handle. I wiped most of it off on my pants.

“There’s no light down there so keep close to me,” Icarus said. “I know the way.”

Naturally when we first entered, the room was half illuminated by the daylight that came in through the doorway. But Icarus led us through what seemed like a maze of winding hallways. Soon it became pitch black and I couldn’t have seen my hand in front of my face. I had no idea where I was going, and David and I tried to stay as close to Icarus as we could. Fortunately Icarus kept up a steady stream of conversation, so I was always assured he was right in front of me, but he walked a lot faster than I wanted to go in the dark. It’s a bit scary to be walking quickly through a room when you can’t see anything.

At last we emerged from the basement and into the main part of the chapel. Sunlight here shone through the windows. The light was tainted by the stained glass, bathing the room in the sort of colored light peculiar to churches, but we could at last see again.

Icarus didn’t waste any time. “Did you want to climb up the steeple?” He walked over to the front of the chapel and pointed upwards where, directly above the minister’s pulpit, the ceiling seemed to have been sucked upwards into a vertical point, as if the heavens had suddenly opened up. A couple ropes used for ringing the church bell hung in the back.

“How do we get up there?” David asked.

“They have a bell up at the top, and sometimes they need to clean it, so there is a ladder going up,” Icarus said. He pointed to a ladder that was built into the wall at the far corner. I was glad to see that. For a second I thought Icarus was going to suggest we climb up the ropes for the bell.

Icarus climbed up first and we followed him. The ladder went straight up to the ceiling, at which point Icarus opened a little hatch and we climbed up unto the roof. Then, leading all the way up the steeple there were several planks of wood nailed down into the building, which acted as a ladder of sorts. Again, Icarus climbed first and David and I followed.

I had never really climbed any high heights before, but I remembered something my father had said once about not looking down. I kept that advice in my head throughout the whole climb. I looked only at the bars of wood in front of me, and occasionally at the bottom of Icarus’ feet above me. I could hear David climbing below me, but I never once looked down at him.

Icarus climbed swiftly up, but I didn’t even try to follow his pace. I didn’t advance to the next rung until I was sure I had a strong grip on where I was. I was too concentrated on what I was doing to feel nervous, but I did notice a lot of sweat on the palms of my hands, and I began to worry that my grip might slip. I tried to lean in towards the steeple so that if I did slip I would fall forward into the wall instead of backwards into the air.

Once we got up to the bell, there was a bit of a ledge we could stand on. We could also hold onto the four thin pillars, which supported the very top of the steeple. There were ropes from the bell leading down into the steeple shaft so that the bell could be rung from the ground floor, and for a long time my only thought was, “If someone were to ring this bell right now, the sound might knock me right off.”

When David arrived at the top, his face was completely white. I imagined I looked the same. Icarus couldn’t have been more at ease. “Isn’t it great up here?” he asked. “They say that when the chapel choir sings, the angels gather up near the steeple to listen.” I believed it. Clearly where we were was not where men were supposed to be. This was the realm of birds and the angels. Icarus was starring off into space as if he could actually see the angels up here, and for a second I thought I could see them also.

“You can get even higher if you want to,” Icarus said, turning around so he was facing the bell.

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” I said.

“Icarus, no!” David practically shouted. “Don’t even think about it.”

Icarus placed his hands on the top of the covering. He pulled himself up while pushing off the bell with his legs. His body wriggled around for a while, but eventually he pulled himself up. Again, I was amazed at the natural ease with which he did it.

Standing at the very top, Icarus simply grabbed onto the cross for support. Since David and I were still the roof, I had to crane my head out to see him, but he seemed the picture of perfect calm even from up there. He was even leaning out to get a better view, keeping only one hand on the cross. “Hey, check that out,” he yelled.

Least I forget to mention it, the view from the steeple was magnificent. I was a bit too nervous to notice it at the time, but I could not only see the whole University. I could see the whole city. I could even see the hills over by where my house was. And, if I had been in a slightly calmer and more observant mood, I think I could probably have pinpointed my house.

But what Icarus was referring to was a lot closer. I followed his finger almost straight down, and saw that he was looking at the main gate to the university that we had been refused entry to a few hours before. It was now a beehive of activity, but from the inside of the campus, not from the outside. Hundreds of people were rushing back and forth bringing what looked like furniture, tables, chairs, and bed frames, and stacking them in front of the entrance.

“I don’t remember seeing that,” I said.

“They must have started after we left,” David answered.

“I wonder if I could get even higher,” Icarus wondered.

I was initially puzzled by this non sequitar, but then looking up at him I saw what he meant. He was now climbing onto the cross itself. His two feet were perched on each of the outstretched arms. He kept himself in a crouched position so he could still hang onto the top of the cross, but it still struck me as the height of foolishness and I thought that if we didn’t leave the steeple soon Icarus was likely to kill himself.

“Let’s get down from here and see what’s going on by the gate,” I suggested. David, who had never once looked at ease from the moment we climbed up, readily agreed. Icarus began to follow us when he saw we were going down.

The way down was almost more frightening than the way up, because I couldn’t see the steps below me. But we slowly made our way down to the roof of the church, and from there we opened the hatch and went all the way down to the floor. I didn’t think I would be, but I was very relieved to be back on the ground again.

Icarus was the last to come down, but then he insisted on taking the lead again and we followed him towards the gate. The closer we got to the gate the more activity we could see. People, University students, were running back and forth. We passed two of them carrying a sofa. “Hey, how about a little help here?” one of them called out.

The three of us stopped and just looked at each other. We didn’t even know the people who were calling us. “Well, are you part of this or not?” the student carrying the sofa asked.

“We’re part of it,” Icarus said eagerly, running forward to help carry the sofa. David and I soon found ourselves helping as well.

With five people carrying the sofa, the load was light and we soon carried it all the way to the gate, where it was thrown on the pile with the other furniture. “Alright Stephen, what do you need next?” yelled out one of the sofa carriers.

Stephen, a student on the top of the pile was giving orders to people down beneath him. “We need more mattresses,” he said. “If they start firing, we’ll need the mattresses for padding. Go through the dorms. Pull out every mattress you can find.”

He pointed directly at us. I tried to speak up to tell him that we weren’t really students here, but Icarus opened his mouth before I could. “It will take too much time to go to every bed room. What about just going to the storage closet? They have tons of mattresses just laying around, and it’s a lot closer to here than the dormitories.”

“Great, go there,” he yelled at us.

“There’s just one problem,” Icarus spoke up again. “The door to the storage room is locked. It’s a new door as well; we wouldn’t be able to break it down very easily. We’ll need the key.”

“Give him the key,” shouted Stephen.

The command about the key was echoed down the line for a while before someone stepped up and handed a set to Icarus. “These are the master keys,” he said. “We were able to liberate them from the President’s office. This will get you into any room on campus.”

“How many mattresses do you want?” Icarus asked.

“All of them,” Stephen answered. “Get everyone that you can. Make as many trips as you have to.”

And so Icarus was off running. David and I followed behind. Icarus started off at his full speed run, and would have left David and I behind but I shouted at him to slow down.

“Icarus, what are we doing?” I asked. “Why are we getting mattresses?”

“Because they asked us to,” he answered with an empty face.

“But we don’t even know who they are,” I said. “We didn’t sneak into here so we could spend all day dragging mattresses back and forth. Why are we letting them order us around?”

Icarus stared back at me blankly as if he was only now considering this question. Then he opened his hand and held up the key, and his eyes lit up. “But look what they gave us.” He held the key directly up to my face. “We can get into any room on campus we want with this. We could even go into Flash’s office. Do you know he keeps an office on campus?”

“Well, let’s do that instead then. Forget about the mattresses.”

I could see David shift uncomfortably. “Jon, if you don’t want to get the mattresses, we don’t have to. But we should at least tell them we’re not going to. What if it is important and they’re waiting for us?”

“Then we’d have to give the key back,” I said.

“Fine. It’s their key anyway.”

“No its not. They stole it from the president’s office. They just said so themselves.”

David sighed angrily. Icarus spoke up. “We’ll go into Flash’s office after we go into the storage room. Besides, there’s all sorts of cool stuff in the storage room. They have sports equipment, balls and play fencing swords and stuff. And they have treasures. There are antiques that are hundreds of years old. After we get all the mattresses out, we could take whatever we wanted.”

We followed Icarus to a large gray building and he used the keys to open the doors. We followed him inside the hallway, and then he used the keys to open another door. Just like Icarus said, the room was huge and filled with all sorts of treasures. “After the Restoration they took all the really old artwork down from the walls,” Icarus said.

“Why would they do that?” David asked.

“I don’t know. Flash didn’t want all that old stuff lying around anymore maybe. I really don’t know. But afterwards they didn’t know what to with it, so they just put everything in here. The art in this room is hundreds of years old. Most of it is priceless.” He paused to survey the room. “And just think, we could take whatever we want.”

“I don’t think we can just take it,” David said. “It doesn’t belong to us, even if we do have the key.”

“Look at this though,” Icarus said, not really hearing David. “You never see designs like this anymore. People in the old days could really paint.”

Just about that time there was a large crashing sound. It was very loud, but it echoed through the air as though it had come from a distance. “What was that?” David asked.

“Probably nothing,” Icarus replied. “Maybe that pile they were building finally collapsed on them. Do you guys see anything here you want?”

“What am I going to do with a bunch of old pictures?” I said. “Leave them here.”

“We should at least bring over some mattresses,” David said. “We told them we would.”

The mattresses were bigger than we were. They weren’t heavy, but we had a hard time balancing one as we tried to carry it. Icarus especially with his skinny arms could barely lift one of them up. David suggested we drag the mattresses instead of carrying them, and we tried that for a while. I put the mattress on the side, and tried to pull it out of the room, but the mattresses was old and flimsy and it kept falling over or folding in on itself. After the third time it fell down, I kicked it several times in frustration.

“The hell with this. They can carry their own damn mattresses.”

“They’ve been waiting for us for a long time Jon. Let’s at least bring them one mattress.” That was David. He was always trying to please other people. He didn’t even know these students, and yet he didn’t want them to be upset at us.

We agreed to take one mattress between the three of us. With three pairs of arms, it was a lot easier and we were able to get it out of the room with very little effort. We were just about to leave the building, when we heard several cracking exploding sounds, like fireworks. Again, the sound seemed to be coming from a distance. We all looked at each other in silence, trying to decipher the sound. I spoke first. “What’s that?”

“They’re probably just setting of a bunch of firecrackers,” Icarus said. “To celebrate that big pile of junk they built.”

I could tell by David’s face that he was thinking the same thing I was. “At noon?” David asked. “They wouldn’t be able to see anything when it’s this bright out.”

“Didn’t Stephen say something about firing,” I said. “That’s why he wanted the mattresses, right? To block some sort of fire.”

As of one mind, the three of us immediately dropped the mattress and started running towards the gate. As we neared the gate, I shivered slightly when I noticed that no students were around this time. The beehive of activity had vanished into the wind.

And when we got to the main gate, the pile of furniture was lying scattered, and the gate was wide open. Soldiers were now running in through the open gate.

My first instinct was just to watch the scene with an open mouth, trying to figure out what was going on. But then the some of the soldiers started running towards us.

“Let’s get out of here,” I yelled. It was what all three of us were all thinking, but for some reason I was the one who felt the need to vocalize it. We all turned and ran.

We ran across the campus. Icarus was leaps and bounds ahead of David and I as we struggled to keep up with him. I wasn’t sure if the soldiers were still behind us or not. I didn’t dare turn around to find out. We were just running blindly forward.

I soon lost track of which way I was going. “Icarus,” I yelled out. “Which way is it?” I meant the rope that we had left behind.

“I don’t know,” Icarus yelled back. “Just run.”

We were blindly following Icarus, who was blindly following his impulses. We ran around another building, turned a corner, and almost ran into another group of soldiers coming the other way.

Icarus abruptly turned and began running across the field. Soldiers were coming at us from both sides now. David and I were running side-by-side. I think he got tackled first, but I was soon after. Icarus, as if he had wings on his feet, suddenly burst into a great speed. The soldiers leaped at him, but he escaped them all and ran on. As the soldiers held me down, I watched Icarus’s feet disappear in the distance.

“Blast, that one got away.”

“No matter. We’ve still got these two.”

“Scum. I should break his nose in with my rifle.”

The soldiers spoke in a strange accent I couldn’t place. It didn’t sound foreign, but they were definitely not from around this area.

I was yanked to my feet, and one of them pulled my head back by the hair. Another one bent his arms and held his rifle butt ready to smash into my face. I didn’t have time to be frightened; it was all happening so quickly. “This is for your friend who got away,” he said. I closed my eyes and waited for the blow.

“You dumb hicks, get your hands off of him,” a voice called from the distance. It was a booming voice filled with the authority of a man who was used to being obeyed. It did not have the same strange accent as the other soldiers. “Don’t you realize whose son that is?”

The soldiers sprang back and dropped me as if my skin was on fire. I looked over and saw a huge hulking specimen of a man striding angrily towards us. He almost reminded me of the old mythical giant stories. Not only was he was tall, but he had an incredibly thick set build as well. He had on a soldier’s uniform, but his sleeves could hardly contain his hairy arms.

He grabbed me by the arm and jerked me roughly away from the group of soldiers. As he tugged on my arm, my whole body followed like a paper doll. “You can smash all the other students to your heart’s delight, but if anyone lays a hand on this boy they’ll be answering to the Duke himself.” After a moment’s hesitation, he added, “Better give me his friend as well, just in case.” David was pushed over next to me.

“Bring me a messenger,” the giant added. “We’re going to need to tell his father about this.” He looked at me, and he almost grinned. “And I don’t think he’s going to be happy to hear about it.”

Chapter 9

I heard a clicking sound, and I knew the door was opening. David jumped off the bench and sprang to his feet. I also got up and walked to the edge of the jail cell.

My father came through the door, followed by a policeman. They looked through the bars at us. “Yes, that’s them officer.” He then turned his back on us. “Thank you very much for bring this matter to my attention.” It was exactly the same way he had acted in the headmaster’s office. He was deliberately ignoring me and talking only to the policeman.

“Now as I’ve told you before sir, we’ve examined them and their story checks out. We don’t think they were part of the uprising. We don’t think they even knew about the uprising. They were just sneaking into the campus to go exploring, and happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

The lips on my father’s face drew into a tired smile that was not reflected in his eyes. “Of course. I’ll handle things from here officer. Thank you again.” The officer nodded in acknowledgment, turned the keys to open our cell door, and then left the room, bowing slightly as he shut the door. During this time my father kept his eyes on the officer instead of looking at me.

My father opened the door and looked at David. “You’d better go straight home. If your family has heard anything, they will be worried about you.” David cast a parting glance at me, and then quickly ran out of the room. My father stayed still until he was gone. Then, once David had shut the door behind him, my father turned without saying anything and began to walk out of the room as well. I guessed that I was supposed to follow him.

There was nothing I hated more than his silence. I wished he would just yell at me and get it over with. I could have handled that. But his deliberate silence was unbearable. We walked out of the police station and into the sunshine. As we stood on the front steps, I decided to try and pre-empt his anger by trying to offer my explanation first. “Dad, all we wanted to do was see the campus.”

“You know school children aren’t allowed on the University campus.” I opened my mouth to ask why they even had this stupid rule in the first place, but he kept talking, “And when the guards at the gate told you there was trouble, why did you still enter? You picked the worst possible day to do your little adventure.” His face, which he had kept under control until now, was becoming red with anger.

He broke himself off suddenly. “I don’t have time to talk about this now. I’m very busy today. I want you to go straight home. Do not leave the house until I come home. We’ll discuss this more then.” And with that he turned and walked quickly away. He didn’t even wait to make sure I began walking in the right direction.

I suppose I could have gone in any direction I wanted to. I could have gone to David’s house, or gone to Icarus’ house to try and see if he had made it out all right. I could even have gone back to the campus if I wanted to.

But I went home. The servants would probably have already received a message from my father, and they would know if I was late.

I trudged home with my hands in my pockets and my eyes fixed on the ground. I wondered what it would be like when my father comes home in the evening. He’ll probably yell a lot. Actually he’ll definitely yell a lot; no probably needed in that sentence. After that he was difficult to predict. I was always getting into trouble at school, but he never had to come and get me out of jail before. He’ll probably ground me for a month. Or maybe make me spend another week scrubbing floors with the cleaning lady.

I arrived home and opened the door. The butler was there waiting for me. “Good afternoon sir. Welcome home. Your father sent a message back here about an hour ago. He wanted to make sure you saw this.” He handed me a note, unmistakably in my father’s handwriting.

“Jonathon, Don’t you dare leave this house until I get home.”

“Yeah, I know, he told me already,” I replied. “I’ll just go out back and play with the dogs I guess.”

“Actually your father was quite explicit that you not even go into the garden,” the butler said in his matter of fact tone, as if he were telling me what was for dinner. “You are to stay in the actual house itself, and not leave even to go into the garden.”

“Oh, well I just stay in here I guess.” I suddenly remembered how hungry I was. I hadn’t eaten anything since I left the house in the morning. “I’ll just go into the kitchen and make a sandwich then,” I said. I was worried that even this might be forbidden to me, but the butler simply nodded. Apparently he had received no instructions to deny me food.

When I walked into the kitchen, Abel was already sitting at the kitchen table. He wasn’t doing anything, just sitting with an expectant look on his face. He must have heard me come in the door.

Abel was the last person I wanted to talk to right now. I simply did not have the patience to deal with him. I walked across the kitchen without saying anything to him and opened the cupboard door.

When he saw I was not going to begin a conversation, Abel blurted out excitedly. “A messenger came an hour ago from Dad’s office. He says you’re in big trouble.”

I took my head out of the cupboard long enough to glare at Abel and say in an acid tone, “Yes, I know.”

Anyone else would have known from my tone of voice that I didn’t want to pursue this conversation. Abel didn’t always pick up on these things though. “What did you do?” he asked.

“Nothing.” I picked out two slices of bread from the cupboard, and got some of the Cheese out from one of the drawers. I began looking around for a knife to slice the cheese.

“You must have done something. The messenger said Dad was really mad.”

I turned on him sharply. “Abel I don’t want to hear it,” I yelled. I opened a drawer and took out a knife.

“Where did you go today? Why don’t you ever take me with you? Why won’t you tell me what happened?” The words all blurted out of Abel’s mouth as if he had been holding them in, but now could contain them no longer.

I picked up the cheese and threw it at Abel. I was so angry I didn’t take time to aim and the cheese sailed right by him. He turned and ran out of the kitchen.

I picked up the cheese and dusted it off. I had acted in a fit of rage but immediately I felt remorse for it. First and foremost I wished that in my anger I could have had the presence of mind to throw something other than my lunch. I brushed the dirt off of the cheese. It should still be all right, I thought

Secondly I felt bad for snapping at Abel. It wasn’t his fault he was an annoying little kid. I was probably like that when I was his age as well. If I was trapped in this house all day I would be just as eager to hear about any bit of exciting news.

Abel avoided me for the rest of the afternoon. After I had eaten, I went up to my room and lied down on the bed. I didn’t feel like sleeping, but since I couldn’t even go into the garden there was nothing else to do in this house. I just stared at the ceiling.

My father came home about three hours later. I heard him enter the house. Although my bedroom door was closed, I strained my ears to hear what was going on downstairs. I heard the muffled deep voice of my father, and the muffled high voice of Abel answering him, but I couldn’t make out what either was saying. I sat in bed and waited for him to come up.

I waited for a long time. I wondered if he was deliberately postponing the confrontation just to make me more nervous. Finally, close to an hour after he had first entered the house, he came up to my room. The door opened slowly, and he walked in. I sat down on my bed as he came in.

He had a certain presence to him that prevented him from doing anything gently, but he didn’t seem angry. He walked in slowly. His face was not flushed red as it had been earlier. He was surprisingly calm, in a way that almost made me more yet.

“Jonathon, I-,” He stopped suddenly, as if he wasn’t sure how to begin. He held his lips tightly together for a moment, and then started again. “I’m worried that I gave the wrong impression earlier this year when I met your headmaster. I’m afraid I let you think that you can get away with breaking the rules sometimes. That is my fault, and I take full responsibility for it.”

He wasn’t a lot more subdued than I thought he would be. And yet there was something in his tone that made me worried about what was coming next. I looked up at him and nodded blankly.

“I’m not angry with you, because it was my fault. But I’m going to make sure that the message is very clear this time. You’re a good kid inside. I know you are. I think the problem is that you have too much free time on your hands. I’m going to fix that.” My heart began beating rapidly. “I’ve made arrangements with the Fabulae Junior Cadets. You’re too young to enlist, but they’ve created a special position for you as an assistant. Every day after school you’ll go straight to the Cadet center. You’ll stay there until 8 or 9, and then you’ll come home, and the servants will supervise you as you do your studies. On weekends and during summer break you will spend 8 hours working at the Cadet center, and then you’ll come straight home and do your studies. You can see your friends at school, but I don’t want you getting into any more trouble outside of class. You understand why this is so important, don’t you?”

In my view this was almost the equivalent of a death sentence. It was the end of life as I knew it. But it would be sheer folly to argue with him now while the incident was still fresh in his mind. My best way out of this would be to put in a good effort at the Cadet center for a week or two, or however long it took for this whole thing to blow over, and then try and renegotiate terms then. I nodded, and with my dry throat managed to say, “Yes, I understand.”

His eyes narrowed and he looked at me carefully. “I don’t think you do. Not yet anyway. You’re not like your friends. David can get in trouble at school, and run around on the streets, and even got it jail. It doesn’t matter for David, because David is going to end up just like his father anyway. A nobody. A man who can barely make enough money each week to keep his house. All your friends are going to end up like that. But I’ve given you a chance for something more. When you grow up, you’re going to be somebody. You want to be somebody, don’t you?”

I guess I did. “Yes, I do,” I answered.

The answer seemed to satisfy him. “Good. You’ll spend all day tomorrow at the house. On Monday you can go to school, but straight afterwards go to the Cadet center. They’ll be expecting you and they’ll know if you are late.”

********************************************

Sunday was absolute hell being kept inside all day. And with the incident of the previous day still fresh in everyone’s minds, I didn’t dare to cause any trouble. I was allowed out into the garden to play with the dogs a little. Otherwise I kept myself occupied playing games with Abel.

Poor Abel. Now I could see why he always whined about being home all alone. If I had to stay home everyday, I would complain just as much.

I never thought I would look forward to school, but when Monday came I couldn’t wait to get to the school building. I even woke up early and left the house long before I usually do.

The whole walk to school I wondered if Icarus would be there or not. Perhaps Icarus had been caught by the soldiers in the end, and was now sitting in some jail cell somewhere just like David and I had been earlier. Or maybe Icarus had escaped the soldiers, but had decided to stay with the University students.

I saw several soldiers in the street when I arrived in town. They paid no attention to me, but I overheard a couple of them speak in the same strange accent I had heard two days before. I didn’t even need to look to know that the majority of them were concentrated at the University. Whatever trouble we had stumbled onto on Saturday was obviously still going on.

I saw David just outside of the school grounds. He gave me a grim smile and said, “Well, you look healthy. I see your father decided not to skin you alive after all.”

“No, it’s going to be much worse than that,” I answered. Before he could ask me what that meant, I added, “Where is Icarus? Did he make it out safely or what?”

David pointed to where Icarus was entertaining a large group with his story about Saturday. I couldn’t help but laugh. It was the kind of wild story Icarus was famous for. If I hadn’t been there myself, I wouldn’t have believed a word of it. But aside from the occasional exaggeration, Icarus was more or less telling the story faithfully to what had happened.

“…They were building this huge castle in the middle of the campus. But they needed mattresses.”

“Why did they need mattresses?” asked Ares suddenly.

“Because they needed something to sleep on at night,” Icarus answered. “Anyway, no one knew where the mattresses could be found, except for me. ‘It’s lucky for you gentlemen I happened to be passing by’ I said. ‘I couldn’t help but overhear your problem. I know where the mattresses are kept.’ ”

“How do you know?” Matthew interrupted.

“Because my father designed the campus. So I said, ‘The mattresses are kept in the storage room, and it just so happens I hold the special key.’ ” Icarus stopped his narrative briefly to dig a key out of his pockets, and held it for everyone to see. “ ‘This key will open any door on the University Campus,’ I told them.”

“How did you get that key?” Clodius asked.

“I liberated it from the office of the University President himself. So anyway, Jonny and David and I go to the storage room. Now they have the mattresses there, but the mattresses are very old, all the way from the olden days of heroes. In those days people were a lot bigger. These mattresses are so big that today two men of modern times could hardly carry them…”

When I turned back to look at David, a smile was on both of our faces. I could have listened to Icarus all day. I completely forgot all the things I was upset about.

We walked away a little bit, and Icarus’ voice faded into the background. “What about your parents?” I asked.

David shook his head. “I’ve never seen them so upset. You would have thought I killed somebody. You wouldn’t believe my mom. I didn’t think she had that many tears in her.”

“But they didn’t skin you either?”

David returned my smile. “My dad said spending the afternoon in jail was punishment enough.”

The bell rang, and we all lined up and filed into school. There seemed to be a nervous energy not just between David and I, but among the whole class. There was an unusual amount of chatter as we took our seats. “Is it true what people are saying?” Helen asked me.

I could only assume this was a reference to my adventures. I immediately thought of Icarus’s stories of course. “Parts of it are,” I said. “Don’t believe everything you here though.” The teacher entered the classroom, and I whispered that I would tell her more later.

The bald teacher with the eyeglasses strode in. We all stood to attention and bowed but the nervous chatter remained in scattered pockets. He frowned and the room quickly became quiet. He wasn’t the kind of teacher that you could fool around with.

“Please open your textbooks to page 48. You’ll see a list of all the irregular Fenestram verbs.” LJ had his hand raised, and the teacher paused to acknowledge it. “Yes, Lucius? This had better be about irregular verbs.”

This unusual qualification startled LJ, and he started out hesitantly. “Well, no sir, not exactly but I was wondering if you could tell us about all the soldiers in the street. There have been several different rumors floating around and I was wondering--.”

The teacher cut him off with wave of his hand. “That has nothing to do with Fenestram, Lucius.”

“Yes, but,” LJ paused briefly, and then decided to burst out with the rest, “But sir, how can we talk about irregular verbs at a time like this? The soldiers have already entered the University and there are rumors that they are shooting the students.”

“Just so there is no misunderstanding,” the teacher began in his usual deep booming voice, “I want it clear that we will continue our studies today as we do everyday. Whatever is happening on the outside has no bearing on the inside of this classroom.”

“You mean we’re not going to talk about it?” LJ asked incredulously. “We’re going to sit here and pretend that it’s not even going on?”

“Lucius, that is enough. One more word and you can discuss this matter with the headmaster. Besides, I understand some in this class are very well informed about the situation already.” I barely had time to wonder if this was a reference to me or not, when the teacher looked me straight in the face and said in his iciest voice, “Having an influential father must be very useful. If you had been anyone else’s child, you wouldn’t be coming back to this school.”

Well, I guess he knows about it then. The way Icarus had been blabbing about it, it was hardly a secret, although I doubted the teacher pays much attention to Icarus’s stories. He probably got his information directly from the police.

“Now,” the teacher said, shifting his focus from me to the rest of the classroom, “the next comment I hear better be about Fenestram verbs. If there are no questions, please take out your notebooks and copy down what I write on the board.”

And so the discussion ended there. We continued the rest of the class studying verb declensions as usual. And after that class, the other classes continued the same as usual.

In the brief break between classes, Helen turned to me wide eyed. “What happened to you this weekend?” she asked. “What was the teacher talking about?”

“Didn’t you hear Icarus talking?” I asked. She shook her head no. I explained everything briefly to her.

Few other people asked me what happened. Icarus had made such a production out of the story that there wasn’t too much more to tell. I could have contradicted Icarus in small places if I wanted to, but I felt no need. I enjoyed his version more than the reality anyway.

It wasn’t until after school that Icarus came up to talk to David and I. “I’m glad to see you guys are alright,” he said. “I was really worried about you.”

I didn’t mind Icarus running off and leaving us. There was nothing he could have done against all those soldiers anyway. And I didn’t even expect him to be all that concerned about us. It wasn’t like he was my best friend or anything. Before last week we hardly ever talked to each other at school.

What I minded was the phony sentiment. After I saw Icarus telling stories this morning as if he didn’t have a care in the world, the last thing I wanted to hear was this garbage about how worried he was about my well being. I brought this point up politely. “You didn’t seem concerned this morning,” I said.

“Yeah, that’s because I knew you were alright by then. David told me Saturday night what had happened.”

“He came by my house Saturday evening to make sure we were okay,” David explained. “He asked about you also, but I told him it probably wasn’t a good idea to go visit your house.”

David was right of course; it wouldn’t have been a good idea. It’s a good thing he knows my family so well. And here I was thinking Icarus hadn’t been genuinely concerned. I was reminded of the way I had felt when Icarus had helped pull me up to the wall two days before. Icarus was really all right after all.

Simon also came over to talk to us. He had known absolutely nothing about what had happened until this morning at school, and he didn’t believe Icarus’ stories. I left David to deal with Simon. I didn’t feel like talking to him, and I had to leave for the Cadet center anyway.

I ran into Helen as I was leaving the school grounds. “Where are you going, Jon?” she asked.

I grimaced. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Oh.”

I smiled and shrugged my shoulders to try and take the edge off of what I had just said. “I’ll tell you about it later. I promise.”

“Okay. Actually I was wondering if I could talk to you about something else. Do you have a minute?”

I was reluctant to say no to her, but I didn’t really have a choice. I had overstayed my time already talking to David and Icarus. “No, listen, I’m really sorry, but I’m late already. I was supposed to be at the Cadet Center 5 minutes ago. If I don’t get over there now, my Dad’s going to kill me.”

“Oh. I see.” She looked slightly disappointed.

“I am really sorry. I’ll tell you about it tomorrow, okay. And we can talk at school then.”

She nodded, and gave me a small, but beautiful smile. I waved good-bye and then ran off towards the Cadet Center.

**************************************

The Cadet Center was pretty horrible, but I suppose it was no worse than I expected it would be. I was all office work, and I didn’t know the first thing about offices, or filing, or typing, or any of the stuff they were doing in there.

Not that any of that mattered. They would never have given me anything with any real responsibility. I was just a 15-year-old kid, and they had only given me this job as a favor to my father so that I would stay out of trouble. They would create work for me that didn’t need to be done: alphabetizing out-dated files, re-sorting papers that had already been sorted. After the second day they taught me how to make coffee, and then at least I had the feeling that I was doing something useful, but it was still boring as hell.

The next few days the streets were filled with soldiers. It seemed like there were more of them everyday. And they were all concentrated along the roads leading to the University.

I was so busy going to the Cadet Center I didn’t really have time to take too much notice of what they were doing, but I was told later that David and Icarus went along the road one day to try and see what was going on. I think Clodius and Ares might have gone as well. Anyway, they didn’t get far. They got turned away before they even got close to the University.

One day, as I was walking to the Cadet Center, I noticed the soldiers were a lot more active than usual. Instead of standing in the streets, or crowding into the cafes, like they usually did, they were running around everywhere like it was the end of the world. I could even see smoke coming from the University building.

And when I came to school the next Monday, all the soldiers had vanished. There were a lot of police in the streets, but not a single soldier. I almost missed them a little. I was enjoying hearing their funny accent on the way into school.

Of course I wasn’t the only one who noticed. “Where did all the soldiers go?” David asked me.

“I don’t know what the hell you’re asking me for,” I answered. “You know I’m stuck at the Cadet Center everyday.” I had, by this time, finally told everyone what I was doing with my afternoons. “Why don’t you tell me? You and Icarus are always trying to get a look at what they’re doing.”

“We couldn’t see anything yesterday. They had the roads shut down as usual.” He paused, and added in a more somber tone, “But Clodius says they shot all the students in the University.”

Clodius could be almost as bad as Icarus with his story telling sometimes. I was surprised David was taken in by this. “How would he know? If the roads were shut down, how did he find out? Clodius doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about. Nobody would shoot all the students. That’s just ridiculous.”

“Yeah, I guess it is,” David answered.

At any rate, it was impossible to get accurate information on what was going on because our teacher refused to talk about it. In fact he came in the room looking even meaner than usual, and shot glances around the classroom as if he were daring someone to bring it up. Not even LJ mentioned anything.

None of the real drama came until chapel that afternoon. We all filed in as usual and the chaplain gave his usual sermon. Something about the importance of keeping our minds pure from sexual thoughts, or something like that. It’s always the same chapel.

We all stood up at the end of it for the usual benediction. “God bless you, and God bless the Duke,” the chaplain said.

“God bless the Duke,” we answered.

Only Emma didn’t say, “God bless the Duke.” In fact she didn’t even stand up.

She was right in the middle of the pew, so there wasn’t too much our teacher could do about it, although during the walk back to class he glared at her the whole way. As soon as we were all back in our desks, he asked, “Emma, is there anything you want to say?” He was making a bit of a theatrical presentation, addressing Emma by name but really speaking to the whole class. He could be like that sometimes. Emma stayed silent, so he added, in the same theatrical manner, “something you forgot to say at Chapel, maybe?”

“No,” Emma answered. I couldn’t believe it. It was like she was trying to get in trouble. You were never supposed to try and get in trouble. Sure, you might court danger, and if you got in trouble you had to accept the consequences. But to stare a teacher in the face and dare them to punish you was…

My thoughts were cut off as the teacher strode across the room. He grabbed Emma by the arm and yanked Emma to her feet. There was something very unsettling about this scene. He was a huge hulk of a man, and she was only a 15-year-old girl.

“Say ‘God Bless the Duke’” he demanded.

“No!” Emma screamed it out this time. She had red eyes, and I realized she was crying.

He threw her onto the ground. She screamed again. This wasn’t right, I thought. Someone has to do something. The whole class was watching this with disbelief. I looked around the room and saw faces just as shocked as mine.

It was LJ who stood up first. “Sir, I have a question.”

The teacher straightened himself and turned his attention away from Emma to look at LJ. “You always have a question,” he said through clenched teeth.

“Yes sir, I know, but this is just a short one.”

The teacher didn’t respond to this. He didn’t tell LJ to go ahead, but he didn’t tell him to sit down and shut up either. He was probably too shocked that LJ had dared to speak up. LJ took this silence as license to proceed.

“During the Restoration, the Duke was officially excommunicated from the Church, isn’t that right?”

“That was a long time ago,” the teacher growled. “People saw things differently back then.”

“Yes of course sir, I know. So my question is: in another 20 years do you think we might be seeing things differently again?”

The teacher said nothing at first, but just stared silently at LJ. LJ was always confident when he was speaking, but he did less well at the staring. He swallowed, and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down.

The teacher left Emma alone and walked back to the front of the classroom. He kept his eyes fixed on LJ the whole time. “You better watch what you say Lucius,” he said. “Someday you’re going to run into someone who won’t be as forgiving as me.” There was something about the way he bit the words off that gave them an added viciousness, but he let the matter drop. LJ simply nodded and sat back down again, looking relieved to have the confrontation ended.

Emma’s sobs had quieted now, but here eyes were still wet. She crawled back into her chair and sat up straight in an effort to recover what little dignity she had left after this whole incident.

And the teacher proceeded with the lesson as if nothing had happened.

Looking back, I think this incident was a major turning point for our class, but there are also two minor things that I remember as a result.

One is that Emma was never again made to say, "God Bless the Duke." In all the chapels that followed she never stood up again for benediction, and no one made her.

The second was that during break Rosa, the prettiest girl in school, walk right over to LJ, easily the biggest nerd, and actually talked to him. 　I overheard just a little bit on my way out the door.

"How did you know that? The thing about the Canaanite Wars. It’s not in our textbook."

"Of course its not. None of the real stuff is in our textbooks. But you can find it out if you’re interested in the right books." That was all I heard. I was eager to get outside and I certainly had no desire to stick around and listen to LJ talk about his books.

Chapter 10

[Time is a problem. Think about changing time scheme so we don’t have big gap. Move everything up a year and make appropriate changes later.]

The spring quickly turned into summer. But this summer was not the carefree vacation it should have been. This summer I worked at the Cadet Center. I hardly ever saw my friends. My father made go straight home after work everyday. Since I had no schoolwork to study, he occasionally let me go into town on Sundays, but I hardly saw anybody I knew.

I wouldn’t say it was hard work, but it was certainly mind numbingly boring. Every day I made the coffee, and helped with the filing. I really became pretty good at filing near the end of the summer.

The office was immaculately clean. Nobody ever cleaned it as far as I could tell, it just somehow stayed clean. There was never any dust anywhere. It was incredible.

There were two windows in the back through which a lot of light shone through on sunny days. Near the front a couple of lamps burned to give extra light to the clerks in the front. In the summer it stayed light till 8, sometimes 9, and usually the light from the windows was sufficient for most of the office.

In the winter the lamps were light around 5. (I’m getting slightly ahead of myself here because it’s still the summer, but I want to give you a flavor.)

There were 16 desks in the room, divided into four sections of four, with a walkway in between. I never could tell whose desk was whose. Everyone was always running back and forth between different desks, and it seemed that everyday would find the order of the previous day completely altered, and new people at each desk.

At the front there was a counter which was the window into the rest of the city hall. I never really understood what this was for until the end of the summer when the new Cadets came in to get their applications.

I was just coming back from the kitchen with a new pot of coffee when the supervisor yelled at me, "Jonathon, this Cadet needs his paper work." I set down the coffee pot and dashed to the counter. I ran my fingers through the files to find an application form, and handed it to the Cadet. I looked up at him, and realized he was staring right back at me, with an intense gaze, as if he was studying me. Our eyes locked for a moment. It was Orion. And then, he smiled at me. He didn’t seem surprised to see me here. He just gave a knowing type of smile, and then he left.

“Are you old enough to join the Cadets yet?” the supervisor asked me.

“I’m only sixteen.”

“A couple more years then, huh? Don’t worry, it will go faster than you think.” He chuckled quietly as he poured himself a cup of coffee. “I had a great time when I was a Cadet. Made some of my best friends in the corp. Don’t worry, you’ll be eighteen soon enough. No rush to grow up, right?”

*****************************************************************

I never thought I’d be eager for school to start [too much of a repeat from the previous chapter, change one or the other], but this year I couldn’t wait. Anything was better than that awful Cadet Center.

The start of the new school year was always the same. I had been kept a prisoner all summer, so I was very eager to see everyone, but other than that it was always the same.

Simon, David, and Icarus were there. They were the few people I had managed to see during my summer Sundays.

The only other familiar face from summer was Rosa. I had seen her every week in Church, although not spoken to her once. She was talking to LJ, or rather he was talking to her. He was going on about something boring, and she was hanging on his every word.

Ajax, Hector, and Teucer were there as well. I hadn’t seen them all summer and I was glad of it.
The rest, Matthew, Clodius, Vera, Ares, Sophia, Varro, and the others were largely indifferent to me.

And then there was Helen. I hadn’t seen her all summer, but I had thought about her everyday.

I never used to be nervous about talking to her, but when I saw her standing in front of the school, I didn’t know what to say. I had thought about her too much over the summer. She had grown to the size of a Queen or a goddess. I couldn’t talk with her now as if she were just an ordinary girl. I froze up. I looked over and smiled at her, and she smiled back at me, but I stayed talking with David and Simon, and lost the nerve to go over to her.

Only when we all filed into the classroom did I exchange words with her briefly. "Hey!" she said warmly. "Long time." She had her usual welcoming smile. "How was your summer?"

"Good," I said without thinking. "I mean terrible. How was yours?"

She laughed. "Great." We filed into the classroom, and that was all we had time to say before class started.

At the end of the day I talked to her again, just as I was leaving to go to the center. She ran up and caught me at the school gate. "Jon, wait," she called out. I stopped and waited until she had run up to me.

“Yes?”

“Jon, are you busy?”

“I’ve got to go to the Cadet Center.” I grimaced as I said it.

“I was just wondering when the next banquet will be. We never did get to go to one since it was cancelled.”

“Not until next Spring,” I answered. “It’s only once a year.”

“Oh.” She looked down, and then back up at me. “It just seems like a shame since we never got to go.”

My heart started beating faster. Was this going where I thought it was? Should I say something? She was looking at me, but I stayed silent. At last, she continued again. “Would you like to go out some other time instead?”

My instant euphoria was cut short by the remembrance of reality. “I can’t,” I said. “I don’t have any free nights anymore. I’m volunteering at the Cadet Center every night.” She stayed silent, so I continued on. “But what about Saturday night after I finish volunteering? Is that okay?”

“Yes, that sounds great.”

“Good. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I was overjoyed the whole way to the Cadet Center. I didn’t know how I was going to work this out with my father yet, but I would worry about that later. For now I couldn’t be happier.

********************************************************

David was the perfect person to ask about this problem. He could be very clever about solving these kinds of things if he wanted to be. The next day at break I was able to get him away from Simon for a little bit and talk to him alone.

“What about the play in town?” David suggested.

“What play?”

“The old classic by Prometheus. It’s perfect. Your dad will let you go because it’s a classic play and it will help you with your literature class.

That was actually a really good idea. There was just one problem. “But I don’t want to bore Helen.”

“Are you kidding Jon? She loves that stuff. Haven’t you ever noticed how she’s always talking in literature class? It will be perfect.”

**********************************************

And so I arranged it. Without mentioning that there was a girl involved, I causally asked my father if he thought this play would help me with my studies. My father loved the idea. He even suggested I take Abel along with me, but both Abel and I objected so strongly to this plan that he eventually dropped it.

He did add, rather pointedly, “I know people at the theater Jonathon. I’ll know if you don’t show up.”

Helen loved the idea as well. “Prometheus? This Saturday? Yes I’d love to go. I’ve read all of his plays.”

And so we were on. Of course I had to spend all Saturday afternoon at the Cadet Center. Since I wouldn’t have time to go home and change, I wore some of my sharpest clothes into work at the Center, but fortunately no one noticed. I was just the boy who got coffee and helped with the filing, and no one ever really noticed me.

In the evening I followed Helen’s directions to her house. I knocked at the door, and her father answered. “You must be Jonathon,” he said. “Come in. Helen’s told us so much about you.”

He was middle-aged, and had a bushy, slightly graying mustache. He looked like a father, there was no doubt about that. In his eyes was a certain authoritative look common to all fathers. And yet at the same time he seemed a lot more relaxed than my father. There was a friendliness in his eyes. He had a slight gut, which gave him a bit of a jolly look, and was different then the thin build of my own father.

As he ushered me in, he turned his head and shouted up the stairs, “Helen, Jonathon’s here.”

“Tell him I’ll be right down,” her voice shouted back.

He turned to me. “She’ll be right down.”

“Okay.”

“Would you like a drink? Coffee or something?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“Helen tells me that your father works for the Duke as well.”

“Yes.” I was nervous about making a good impression, so I kept my answers short.

“Well, what is his name? I probably know him.”

“Paul.”

This answer knocked off the old man’s rhythm slightly, but he recovered from it quickly. He raised his eyebrows, and whistled. “Wow.” He called upstairs in a theatrical voice, “Helen, be careful with boy. We’ve got a very important kid in this house right now. If he gets damaged here, we’re all in trouble.”

I did my best to laugh at this.

From the top of the stairs, Helen’s voice flowed down in a strained tone, “Dad, you promised not to say anything weird.”

He just chuckled at this, mostly to himself. Then he turned and added to me, in a more serious tone, “You know I really enjoy working with your father. He seems like a man of real integrity.”

“I suppose.”

We both heard Helen coming down the stairs and turned to look. She looked stunning, dressed in a black skirt with a dress shirt on.

“Helen, you look lovely,” her dad said.

Helen blushed visibly at this, but she still came down the stairs gracefully. She stepped onto the ground floor, and took my hand. “We better get going,” she said, as she nudged me towards the door.

“What’s the hurry?” her father asked. “The play doesn’t start for another couple of hours. Let’s show Jonathon around the house.”

And so we stayed a while longer. Helen showed me around the main floor of the house. In the kitchen we met Helen’s mother and little sister, Cressida. Her mother was busy cooking over the fire. Cressida was helping to cut the vegetables, but also was talking about something that had happened that day at school, and was so excited about her story that she was bouncing up and down in her chair.

Cressida was eleven, the same age as Abel. Her hair was curly, not straight like Helen’s, but it was the same shade of blonde. And in their faces was also an unmistakable similarity.

Helen’s mother was so busy cooking that she barely had time to talk to us, and Helen seemed anxious to avoid prolonged contact with her family, so she showed me her room upstairs next, “Now I’m a little embarrassed,” she said as she opened the door, “because I’ve been here since April, and I still haven’t finished unpacking everything yet. I guess it just takes me a while to get settled.”

The door opened, and I looked in the room. It was mostly neat and orderly, except for several boxes lined up against the wall. “You can come in if you want,” she said, walking inside herself. I followed her in. Several paintings, presumably done by Helen herself, hung on the wall. Mostly they were of flowers and kittens, although there was one painting of a dog.

The boxes made me curious. I went over and lifted up the flaps of one. “You don’t mind if I look at your stuff, do you?”

She laughed. “No, not at all. Knock yourself out.”

I peered in. The box was full of books. I looked over in another one. Also books. “Are all of these books?”

“Mmm hmm,” she nodded proudly. “My prize possessions.” She gave an apologetic smile, and gestured towards the boxes. “As soon as my dad gets me some bookcases, I’ll unpack everything. I know it looks pretty cluttered now.”

“You like to read then?”

“I love to.” She walked across the room to one box, and pulled out a book. “See, here’s one by Prometheus. You can see why I’m so glad you asked me to the play.” I nodded. “What about you Jon? What do you like to do?”

“Me? Nothing really.”

“Do you like to read?”

“A little I guess. My friend David’s a lot more into reading than I am, but I like adventure stories sometimes.”

“Adventure stories? Which ones?”

“The kind they sell in the sweet stores downtown. Nothing you would have heard of I’m sure.”

“I might surprise you Jon, I read a lot.” She looked at the clock on the wall. “We should probably get going. We’ll be late.”

We arrived at the theater slightly before eight. The only seats left were up high near the back, but we could still tell what was going on.

The play was only a couple hours long, and I was loath to end the night so soon. As we left the theater house, most of the adults were talking excitedly about which salon they would go to, but Helen and I were too young to go there.

I suggested we go to a coffee house, but we couldn’t find any that were still open. All the coffee houses usually closed around the same time salons opened up.

As we walked along my ears began to focus in on the soft clicking of Helen’s shoes against the brick road. My shoes were making a sound as well of course, but my heavy feet seemed to only slam against the road in a heavy clomp. The gracefulness of Helen’s steps seemed to symbolize all I liked about her. In that moment I fell in love with her footsteps.

I was a few steps ahead of Helen, and I stopped to wait under one of the street lanterns. It was a cool fall night [change time to make this more clearly in fall] and Helen had her hands thrust deep into her coat pockets. She took in a deep breath of air, tilted her head back, and let it out, and watched the mist from her breath rise slowly up as she exhaled under the light of the lantern. Then she smiled at me, and the soft clicking ended as her footsteps slowed to a stop.

“I don’t think there’s anything open,” I said apologetically.

“That’s okay. I don’t like the taste of coffee anyway.”

“Neither do I. It was just something to do.”

“It’s a nice night. We can just walk in the park.

It was a nice night. The air was cool, but not cold. The streets were very quiet at night. The shops were all closed, and most of the salons were in a different part of town. It was a new moon, but thousands of little stars were shining down on us. Even under the lights of the street lamp we could see all of them clearly.

There were a few benches in the park, but I sat down on the grassy field instead. She gave a short laugh at my choice, but then did the same.

“It’s nicer being outside anyway, isn’t it?” I said. I felt the softness of the ground with my hand. “Feel the ground. Isn’t it soft?”

She had her head tilted back and was watching her breath again. “Jon, look at the stars. They’re so beautiful, aren’t they?”

I had the feeling that this was the kind of magical moment where I should say something profound. I couldn’t think of anything profound, so I just said, “What do you want to do Helen?” She turned her head from the stars to look at me blankly. “I mean with your life. What do you want do with your life?”

“Oh, I don’t know. We’re a little young to start thinking about that already, aren’t we?”

“I guess, yeah.”

But then her head rolled back slowly, and she started out thoughtfully. Having made her objection, she was now content to play my game. “Well, I like to read.” She laughed at her own words. “But you can’t do that for a living, right?” She seemed on the point of saying something else, so I waited until she added, “I like writing also.”

“So you could write then?”

“Yeah, maybe.” She stared out into space as if she were intrigued by this thought, but then shook it off. “I don’t know if I’m good enough. But I’d like to.”

I edged closer to her until my side was touching hers. She didn’t appear to react to this, but I noticed she had subtly shifted her balance so that she was leaning against me. “I like your family. They seem really interesting.”

“Oh yeah. They’re characters all right.”

“Not only that. I like the way you all interact. You’re family seems really close.” [Possibly go back and strengthen Helen’s family relations]

“I think we are. But most families are close.” She laughed again, but this time in a nervous way. [overkill?] “At least most families seem close.”

I stretched out my arm and wrapped it around her shoulders. I was attempting to act casual but my heart was pounding. I tried to pick up on her reactions without looking right at her. I felt her shift and move into me even more. I felt her body against mine, and the pleasant sensation of her body heat helping to warm me on this cold night. I tightened my grip.

I looked over at her, and she was looking back at me. “Helen, I-,” I faltered, temporarily overcome by nervousness. I swallowed. “Helen I think you’re a really cool person.”

She looked away temporarily. I thought I felt her body tense up as well, but maybe that was just my imagination. My heartbeat quickened. I was worried I had ruined everything. “Was that the wrong thing to say?” I asked.

She looked at me. I tried to decipher her expression. The smile was gone, and her eyes had lost the usual gleam. But she didn’t seem upset. Instead she just had a soft but serious expression. “No, it wasn’t,” she said at last.

I leaned towards her. When my lips fist met hers, her eyes widened with surprise. But she didn’t back away. Then she began to return my kiss. Even her lips had a softness and tenderness in them that reminded me of the soft sound of her shoes.

We pulled away at the same time. I scanned her face again. She still looked so serious. I wasn’t used to seeing her without the smile. “Are you okay?” she nodded, keeping her eyes locked with mine. “Nothing’s wrong?”

And then the familiar smile flashed across her lips. “Nothing. Nothing Jon, I’m okay.”

In my nervousness my hand felt the ground for some sort of reassurance. I grabbed a handful of dirt. My eyes remained focused on her face. “May I kiss you again?”

She answered by putting her lips against mine.

Chapter 11

My father must have noticed that I came home several hours later than the play actually ended, but he didn’t mention anything. I’m sure his mystical contacts he alluded to at the theater told him I had taken a girl with me, but he didn’t mention that either.

Monday found me back at school. After Saturday night, I was nervous about how I should act in front of Helen, but her natural friendliness immediately put me at ease as always. We chatted briefly before class. She said that she had really enjoyed the play, and asked me how I had spent the rest of the weekend. I told her that my father had made me stay home and study. I made a face. She laughed. Then the teacher entered the classroom, and all conversation ceased.

The evening found me working in the Cadet Center as always. I was doing some filing, pretending to look busy, when Orion walked into the Center again. But he was different. No longer an applicant, he was now a full cadet, with his own blue uniform. [Flash blue?]. Although he was only a first year student, he walked proudly. His confident swagger made him look older than he really was.

The legs of his uniform were stained with dirt, and the shirt was damp with sweat. It was 7 O’clock, so he must have just been returning from the afternoon Cadet drills. He handed in his acceptance papers. I rushed to the counter to take them, and started to file them with the rest of the Cadets who had been accepted.

Once again, I got the sense he was studying me, but I avoided his gaze. “What time do you finish he asked me abruptly.

Startled, I looked back at him. “In another hour [consistent?],” I answered.

“There’s something I want to show you,” he replied.

Orion had spoken in a clear booming voice that was easily overheard by the rest of the office, and my supervisor picked up on this, and nodded approvingly. “You’re not doing anything important here Jonathon,” he said. “If you wanted to spend some time with a Cadet, I’m sure your father would approve.”

I nodded slowly, a bit dazed by the sudden turn of events. I was at once delighted to get out of the Center an hour early, and at the same time greatly confused by Orion. Why did he take such an interest in me? What did he want to show me?

Orion turned and left the room. I ran after him. He didn’t speak to me again until we were outside, and I stayed respectfully silent. Then, once we had stepped outside of the City Hall, he set his Cadet bag on the ground and reverently, removed a long black cylindrical looking object. Although I had never seen one before, I knew at once it was a rifle. [Does Jon see when soldiers are in town?]

“They gave you a rifle?” I said in awe. “But you’re only a first year Cadet.”

“I’m in the leadership training course,” Orion responded. “We start weapons practice early.” {Think about better explanation?} He held the rifle out to me. “Here, take a closer look.”

I picked it up and ran my fingers along the cool steel barrel. I felt the hard wood butt, and even lifted it up to look down the sites on the end. And then, my boyish wonder at this new toy faded, and I remembered the original question that had been perplexing me. “Why are you showing this to me? You don’t even know me.”

“I know about you,” Orion answered, taking the rifle back. “Do you want to try it out with me?”

I answered that I did, and we left to walk to the Cadet shooting range. His natural walking pace was about the equivalent of a fast walk for me, so I was almost jogging just to keep up with him, but I tried to continue the conversation. “How do you know about me?”

“I’ve been watching you,” he said, “ever since that day when you ran into me in the market. I could see that you’re a lot like me.” We turned a corner. He was still walking fast, although somehow managing to not look like he was walking fast. Not only did he not seem exerted from the effort, but his legs didn’t even look like they were moving that fast. Because of his tall stature, he got most of his speed from his large steps. I broke into a trot to catch up with him again. Suddenly he stopped, and looked me straight in the eyes. “Both of us are destined for great things. We’re not like the other people around us.”

And then he started walking again, and I was once again trying to keep up, but I thought about his words as we walked through the town. The more I thought about them, the more they seemed to feel true. I was different than the people around me. There was some sort of drive inside me that separated me from all of my classmates. There was some sort of inner greatness I could almost feel bursting to get out.

We arrived at the shooting range. It was smaller than I expected, and surprisingly shabby looking. There were small bullet ridden targets on one end of the field. The targets were traditional; a bull’s eye in the center, and then rings of expanding circles. The outer circles had much more bullet holes than the center bull’s eye.

On the other end of the field was a small patch of sand, about the length of man lying down. Orion went over to this end of the field. He set his bag down on the ground and removed a leather pouch full of bullets. Then he lay down in the sand, and viewed the targets once through his sights. He slid open the chamber of his gun, took out a bullet, examined it, and placed it inside the chamber. He slid the bolt back in place, shutting the chamber, and calmly took aim at the farthest target. He fired a shot, and the target rocket backwards in response. Some of the wood splintered out from the center, indicating he had hit the bull’s-eye.

Orion appeared not to take any notice of his mark. He simply opened open the chamber of the rifle again in a calm steady manner. The hot shell popped out, and Orion blew slowly into the chamber to clear it of dust before taking another bullet from his pouch and inserting it into the chamber. I wouldn’t have called his movements slow, but there was a careful deliberateness to them. He took aim and fired at the next target. Another bull’s-eye.

I watched with awe as he repeated this pattern five more times, carefully nailing each target dead center. Each time the target rocked backwards and the splinters flew out from the bull’s-eye mark, he simply reloaded the gun and went on to the next target. There was no sense that he took pleasure in his complete accuracy. It simply seemed to be what he expected, and nothing more or less.

Not until the seventh target had been blown backwards did he acknowledge me again. He turned around and walked behind him to where I had been standing a few feet back. The gun dangled loosely from his right hand.

“Take it,” he said, stretching out his arm towards me. I took the gun from his outstretched hand. I could immediately feel the difference. Gone was the cold feeling of the steel {Iron?}. Instead the gun now felt hot and alive. I felt that the gun was surging with energy, as if it were something alive. I could feel the power radiating from it.

“You feel it, don’t you?” Orion said. His words broke me out of my trance, and I looked, startled, into his eyes. And I could see he knew what I was thinking. I nodded slowly. “Good,” he said. “Now you try.”

I walked over to the pouch of bullets, and lay down in the sand. Orion stayed where he was, but even from the distance I could feel his eyes on me, and it made me self-conscious. My hand fumbled nervously as I tried to load the first bullet. “Slowly,” Orion called out. “Don’t try and hurry.”

Taking a breath, I put the front tip of the bullet into round opening, and then slide the rest after it. The sound of the metals gently sliding against each other made a pleasant sound to my ear. I shut the chamber, and attempted to pull the latch back. I couldn’t do it with the same smoothness as Orion, and I had to jiggle the handle back and forth for a while before it finally slid back into place. I pointed the gun at the closest target and took aim through the sights. I pressed the trigger. The loud explosion didn’t surprise me as much as the violent reverse thrust of the gun. It jerked backward, bruising my shoulder. I didn’t see where the bullet went, but I knew it didn’t hit the target.

“Good,” Orion called out. “Now that you know the feel, you can try again.”

Carelessly I popped open the chamber, and the hot bullet shell fell out onto my hand. I jerked my hand back like a startled animal, but I could already see the burn mark. In a couple days that would swell up and blister, but it was okay for now. I ignored it as I loaded another bullet in. Again, I jiggled the latch to try and shut the chamber. I suddenly remembered that I had forgotten to blow into the chamber, as I had seen Orion do between shots, and wondered if that was important. But, since I knew he was watching me, I didn’t want to make the mistake noticeable by trying to start over again.

I took the second shot, and missed again. I still had no idea where my bullets were ending up, but they weren’t hitting the target. “Try again,” Orion called out, and I repeated the process. In all I fired seven times, the same number as Orion, and failed to hit the target even once. I failed to hit anything even once. I had no idea where my bullets went. They must have vanished in the air as they were flying.

At last I came back and returned the gun to Orion. I didn’t dare to look him in the eyes as I handed it back to him. “Everyone’s like that the first time,” he said, taking the gun. “We’ll try it again tomorrow.”

Tomorrow? I couldn’t resist asking. “Why? Why are you doing this with me?”

He called over his shoulder as he walked to pick up the bullets. “I told you. Because you and me are destined for greatness.”

*******************************************************************

“So when are you going to go out with her again?” David asked me.

I tried to avoid the question at first, looking around the room and pointing to a corner in the back where Christopher and Varro were debating LJ in excited tones. “What the hell is that? A damn scholar’s conference?”

David rolled his eyes. “If it bothers you Jon just ignore it.”

“Yeah but when did LJ become so popular?”

David glanced back at the trio himself. “Ever since Rosa started paying attention to LJ, everyone wants to talk to him now. I hardly ever see him alone with a book anymore. But quit changing the subject Jon. I’m trying to talk to you about Helen. You’ve got to be careful with a girl like that. She may have asked you for a date last time, but you can’t expect her to do that every time. Do you have a plan for next time?”

In site of myself, my mind kept drifting to the conversation in the corner. It was noon break, and the five of us were the only ones still in the room. Everyone else was outside. David and I had lingered behind because he wanted to grill me on Helen. I didn’t know what those three were up to.

“You can’t be serious,” I heard Christopher say. There was a furious tone in Christopher’s voice, as if he were just barely restraining himself from doing LJ physical harm.

Varro’s voice was a lot calmer. “But the Restoration helped the poor,” he said in his usual analytical tone. “Everyone knows that. Before the Restoration no one had enough to eat.”

“People don’t have enough to eat now,” LJ replied. “Have you ever been to the slums? [Give slums prominence earlier in the story?] The Restoration was done in the name of the poor. And it enlisted the help of the poor by telling them it was on their behalf. But what changed after the Restoration? We simply traded a foreign king for a native one. Nothing changed. The poor are still being murdered, only now Flash is doing it.”

“Murdered?” Christopher cried out. “Now I know you’ve lost it.”

“Have I? Well consider this, then: when someone kills accidentally, we call it manslaughter. And when it is premeditated, we call it murder. Now consider the conditions of the poor. They slave all day in the factory, for which they are often given as wages only a fraction of the wealth they generate. And then they must pay almost all of it to the landlords, who are often the same people who own the factories. And their children starve as a result, while the owners simply pocket the profits to pay for their extravagant lifestyles in the clubs and salons. They have mountains of money just laying away, and yet the still squeeze the poor for every little bit. And yet, whenever there is a worker’s demonstration, Flash crushes it at once. Tell me Chris, is that not murder?”

“You think just because your dad is a lawyer you can outsmart me with that kind of talk?” Christopher cried out. “Because the factory owners are generous enough to give people jobs, you call it murder? Well it’s not, and I don’t care what legal tricks you use.”

All the time while this drivel from the scholars conference poured into my ears, I kept my eyes fixed on David, but he could tell the lights had left my eyes, and he knew I was distracted by something else. “Jon, pay attention. I’m trying to help you here. Now what’s your plan?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. The play worked great. Do you have any more ideas like that?”

David assumed his thoughtful look, and seemed almost to enjoy the fact that I had deferred to him. In fact I think that’s why he wanted to grill me on all of this in the first place. He was just waiting for me to defer to his expertise again. “Well, unfortunately, there’s not a play every week. And even if there were, you don’t want to ask her to the same thing twice in a row. Girls, especially girls like Helen, like variety. Is there anything else your dad will let you get away with?”

“Not much.”

“It’s been four months since we got in trouble. Hasn’t he begun to loosen up at all?”

“No, he’s just as strict as when he started this program. Every day after I finish at the Center I have to come straight home. And on Sundays he practically stands over me as I do my homework. The only time I ever get any slack is when…” I trailed off as I suddenly realized what the solution was.

“Is when what Jon?”

“David, you remember Orion, right?”

“Yeah,” David responded in a tone that seemed to add, “Of course I remember Orion.”

“And you know he’s joined the Cadets now, right?”

“Yeah, why? Do you see him around the center or something?”

“Well it’s the oddest thing but recently he’s been dropping by the Cadet Center after he finishes his drills, and he’s been teaching me stuff. And no one at the Center seems to mind.”

“You’ve been hanging out with Orion?” David’s eyes just about popped out of his head. “You? You guys are complete opposites.”

There was something about the way he said it that indicated it wasn’t a complement to me. I took mild offense. “What the hell does that mean?”

“Oh come on Jon. How many school clubs have you ever joined? In all the time I’ve known you, I don’t think you’ve ever joined a single club, let alone become a club captain. But Orion was captain of soccer, of Lacrosse, of track and field…” David’s voice trailed off to indicate this was only a portion of the examples he could list. “And not just sports, but he was head of the chess club and the debate club as well. And his grades were the top of his class. When he was a student here, he was easily the best known person in this school. Now, Jon, as for you…” A smile tugged at his lips, and I could tell he was setting up for the punch line.

I didn’t give him the pleasure of finishing that sentence. “All right, all right, I don’t understand it either. But he’s been taking me out everyday, and no one at the Cadet Center questions it. So if I could just get him to cover for me once, I could go out with Helen while everyone thinks I’m out with him.”

“You think he’ll do it?”

“I don’t see why he wouldn’t. It’s no skin off of him. He wouldn’t even have to say or do anything. If he doesn’t say anything, everyone at the Center will just assume I’m out with him as always.”

David cocked his head, smiled in a “Well there you go then,” manner, and leaned back in his chair. But I think some part of him was disappointed at not having found the solution himself.

********************************************************

“Where’s the rifle?” I asked. It was the first time that Orion had showed up without his bag.

“I’ve decided we’re going to give that a rest for a while,” he said, stretching his arms out as if getting ready for something. “You’re making good progress on that, but we’ve got to put first things first. Weapons training isn’t until the third year. Of course we’re grooming you for leadership, but even then they still start off from the very beginning. And you’ve got much bigger problems than your marksmanship.”

He looked directly at me when he said this last part, so I looked down at my body to see if I could find the problem he was referring to.

“I mean your running,” he continued. “That’s why they could catch you at the University, wasn’t it?”

“You heard about that?” I was more ashamed than surprised.

“That’s why you’re ‘volunteering’ at the Cadet Center, isn’t it? I ask around about these things. I don’t take the trouble of teaching someone without finding out about him.” He paused to let that sink in. I wondered how much else he knew about me.

“And don’t forget about the time you ran into me in the market. The police would have caught you for sure if I hadn’t hid you.” I opened my mouth to say that it had been mostly David’s fault, but I stopped. Orion didn’t seem like the kind of person you could make excuses to.

Instead I meekly added, “I did get away with the hat.”

He paused to consider this point, and then nodded his approval. “Yes, you did get away with the hat. I understand that was more due to your climbing skills than your running, but you got away with it.” Now how in the world did he know that? I looked up at him and waited for him to reveal how he had found out, but he just continued. “That’s not good enough though. The Cadets Corp consists of running every day. Hard Running. Especially for the first years. Almost all of the Cadets who wash out, [make sure consistent] wash out because they can’t handle the running. You have to run long distances, and you have to run them fast. And if you can’t handle the running, you’ll never even get to the rifle. So, first things first. From now on we’re going to run everyday, and we’re going to run hard.”

I could have done without the everyday or the hard part. This had been an interesting little excursion when Orion let me shoot his rifle, and I appreciated getting out of the Center a couple hours early. But if this was going to turn into a lot of grueling physical activity like we had in gym class [check name to be consist with earlier chapter], then maybe I would rather be in the Center after all. Filing was boring, but not so bad that I wanted to trade it for physical pain. Besides, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to join the Cadets anyway. “I’d rather practice with the rifle instead,” I said. He looked disapprovingly, so I added, “I could run on my own.”

And then he smiled. It was the first time he had smiled at me that day. “You’ll only run if there’s someone chasing you,” he said. “I know your type. I’m going to teach you how to run when there’s no one behind you.”

************************************************************************

Orion took me to the Cadet track. It was a long oval, about a quarter of a kilometer in length. As afternoon turned into evening, the sun was setting, but darkness had not yet taken over and the air was a kind of gray. The area was completely deserted except for the two of us, since the Cadets did not linger around after finishing their practice. And yet there was something lingering in the air here, as if the feeling of collective exhaustion had stayed long after the Cadets had left. The mere act of walking onto the track seemed to tire me out.

Orion was bending down to tighten the laces on his shoes, and I mechanically did likewise on mine. “I’ll run alongside you,” Orion said. “Make sure you keep up with me.”

He looked me in the eye, and I nodded, and there were no more preliminaries than that. Suddenly he was off, and I was running to keep up.

He was running at a fast pace. I could keep up with him for the moment, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep up for long. I was already beginning to tire around the first turn, and at the half way mark I felt completely beat. But I didn’t want to give up when I was halfway done, so I kept running.

We returned to the start of the track, but Orion kept running. And I forced myself to keep up with him. “How…many…times…around?” I managed to gasp out between breaths.

“Eight,” Orion answered.

I knew as soon as he said it that I would never make it to eight. Not at this pace. But I wanted to make as good a show as possible before I collapsed, so I continued running with him. Maybe I could make it to four laps.

By the third lap everything was burning, and I felt like I was continuing only through sheer force of will. At this point my breathing was so heavy and so labored that Orion must have known how much agony I was in. I noted with embarrassment that while I gasped for each breath, Orion had not even started breathing hard.

By the fourth lap I was beginning to fall behind him despite my best efforts. Now my mind, as well as my body, were telling me it was time to quit. If I couldn’t keep up with him, then what was the point of putting myself through this agony? I had already failed the task. I had barely started the fifth lap when I felt like I could not run another step if it killed me. I abruptly stopped running.

“We’re only half way done,” Orion said.

“…can’tdoit…” I breathed out. I made it all one word, because I didn’t have the breath to say them separately.

“Yes you can,” he said. “If you have to craw on the last lap, you’ll finish them all.”

I remembered something our gym teacher had said about the importance of starting out with light training and gradually working up to more challenging stuff. “Shouldn’t we…take it easy…first day?”

“Tomorrow we’ll take it easy. Today you have to learn to push through your pain. That’s the most important step.” He still wasn’t even winded yet. It was amazing. “We’ll slow down a little bit, but you will finish.”

Some how, for a reason I can’t fully explain, I did it. I kept running with Orion. There was just something about him; an aura that seemed to command respect and obedience. And so when he said we were going to finish all eight laps, I gave into him. At that moment Orion had more power over me than any other human being. If Flash himself had commanded me to keep running, it wouldn’t have been any different.

Orion seemed to know exactly what my breaking point was, and push me just right under it. He would slow down occasionally when he knew I couldn’t stand anymore, but never let me rest. By the time we finished that eighth lap my legs were so wobbly that it seemed like I was crawling. As soon as we came to the end, I collapsed on the ground. My legs couldn’t have held me up any more if I tried.

As I was lying on the dirt, gasping for breath, Orion stood over me smiling. “You didn’t think you could do it, did you?” He must have known from my breathing that I couldn’t have answered, but he let the question hang in the air a while before continuing. “You did it though. It took everything you have, but you did it.” My cheek was lying in the mud, but I lifted my face up to look at him. “Tomorrow we’ll take it easy,” he said somewhat reassuringly. “You did good for today.” And then he walked away and left me still panting in the dirt.

***************************************************************

It was only after I returned home that I realized I had forgotten to ask Orion to cover for me. The running had pounded my mind clear, and at the time all I could think of was how much I hurt.

Once I caught my breath, the walk home wasn’t too bad. My legs moved in a heavy mechanical way, as if they were not part of my body but some external object I was dragging along with me. But at the same time, they were numb to any pain.

It wasn’t until the next day that my legs burned with fire. Every step to school was agony. If I thought my father would let me be sick from school, I would have stayed home in bed.

David immediately asked how things had gone with Orion and of course I had to tell him to wait another day. “I’ll ask him tonight, this time for sure.”

And so when Orion came to the Cadet Center, I wanted to make sure it was the first words out of my mouth. The first words out of my mouth, that is, after we left the building. I didn’t want to say anything in front of the other office workers.

Orion walked up to the center at the same time as usual with his usual confident stroll. But this time he smiled at me from the moment we made eye contact across the hall. And this time it was a comradely smile. It seemed to say that the two of us were part of the same thing, whatever that thing was. I suddenly got the sense that I had been tested yesterday and that I had passed.

“How are you today?” he asked in a warm tone. And then before I could answer, “I bet you can hardly walk.”

My only reply was to nod. I usually felt a little nervous talking to Orion in general, but I especially hated having our conversations on display before the whole Cadet Center.

Orion turned to my supervisor. “I’ll take him out for the usual work out.”

My supervisor was buried in paper work at his desk, and didn’t even look up. He simply brought his hand up to his forehead in a lazy salute to acknowledge he had heard. The whole office was so used to Orion taking me out that they barely even noticed anymore.

As soon as the doors swung closed behind us I began my appeal. “Listen, Orion….” I didn’t usually address him by his name like that, but after the comrade smile he had just given me in the office, I figured it would be all right. “I’ve got a favor I need to ask you.”

His expression changed to one of annoyance. It was slight, but I caught it. This threw me briefly, but then I remembered all the time he was spending on me already. “It won’t be any more trouble,” I added quickly. “In fact it will be less. I want to go out on a date with this girl, so I just need to cancel our training for just one day. You could come get me just like you do everyday, but then you could take the evening off.”

“Take the evening off?” he exploded. “Are you paying me to come down here?”

Damn it, bad choice of words. “No, that’s not what I meant. It’s just I know I must be taking up a lot of your time, and so I figured you wouldn’t mind having an evening to yourself. Besides, I really like this girl, so it would mean a lot to me.”

“Do you think I’m just playing games with you?” There was a bit of a hard edge to this question, but he wasn’t angry with me. He seemed now like a teacher taking pains with a promising student. I paused to consider which answer would get me the result I wanted, and he filled up the silence with another question. “Why do you think I’m spending all my time with you?”

I remembered what he had told me earlier. “Because the two of us are destined for greatness?” I said it as a question. The confidence was drained from my voice.

“Not if you don’t work at it you’re not. Now if you think I’m just playing games, you can go back to the Center. You need to be as serious as I am. You did good yesterday. You’re making good progress. But this isn’t a game to me, and it shouldn’t be to you.” He paused to let his words sink in, and then changed his tone to a friendlier one to let me know the rebuke was finished. “Do you think you can run again?”

“I can barely walk.”

He smiled. “You can run. You just need someone chasing you again. But we’ll rest for one day. Today we’ll practice with the rifle again. Starting tomorrow, we’ll run everyday. We’ll start slow, but we’ll train seriously. The girls can wait for another time.”

I was disappointed, but not devastated. At the time this just seemed like another obstacle I had to get around. I didn’t know how, but I would find a way somehow.

*************************************************************************

My father had been trying to accommodate my new schedule by holding dinner later in the evening. It was the least he could do since he had been the one who had re-arranged my schedule. And he always felt it was important for us to eat dinner as a family.

Abel of course complained about how hungry he was, and so my father had the servants feed Abel a snack when he came home from school. He’s a lot softer on Abel than he is on me. If it were me, he would have told me just to tough it out and wait for dinner. Because it’s Abel, Abel gets a snack. The image of Abel sitting at home with a big after school snack makes those afternoons at the Center even harder to bear. {Tense?}

That evening we were sitting to dinner as usual. Abel was helping himself to another portion despite this being his second meal of the evening. I was also eating heartily, and in fact in those days was never without a good appetite. At sixteen my body was in a constant stage of hunger.

My father ate sparingly as always. He always finished the meat and bread on his plate, but he never took anymore. He sometimes looked disapprovingly at the large portions Abel and I were taking, but he never said anything. He made up for what little he ate by drinking plenty of coffee after dinner.

During the dinner he and Abel chatted idly about Abel’s school friends and all sorts of other stupid things. It was during his cup of coffee that he suddenly turned to me and said, “Jonathon, I’ve been hearing reports about dangerous talk at your school.” I just blinked at him blankly. Dangerous talk? What does that even mean? How can talk be dangerous. “Some people have been saying untrue things about the Duke, and the Restoration.”

There was a hesitant sound to his voice, and I realized why he had waited until after dinner to bring this up. He must have been wondering how to approach the topic all through dinner. He was afraid that even mentioning it would put ideas into my head.

“You mean LJ?” I asked after a pause. “LJ is the only one I can think of. But no one listens to LJ.”

“What kind of things does he say?” asked my father, again somewhat hesitantly, as if part of him still didn’t want to get into this conversation.

I found this line of questioning annoying. It wasn’t that I cared what my father thought about LJ. It was that he was asking about my school life. My father made me go to the Cadet Center, he watched me do my homework, and he got reports when I went to plays. The only life I had of my own at all was at school, and now he was trying to crowd in on that too.

I shot off a rapid response in an irritated voice. “I don’t know, I never listen to him. Something about how Fla-the Duke goes around killing the workers or something. I don’t really pay attention.” Even though my father himself calls the Duke by his nickname, there was something about the tone of this conversation that make me think it would be better for me at least to refer to Flash in a respectful way.

My father took in a deep angry breath and then turned his head to the side to let it out. It was as if he were so angry he momentarily couldn’t speak. Then he turned back to me. He spoke in a level voice despite his face being flushed red with anger. “You know, LJ wouldn’t even be in that school if it weren’t for Flash.”

This picked up my curiosity a little. “What do you mean?”

“He’s a Gibeonite [sp?]. LJ and Joshua both. Before the restoration they couldn’t even attend the schools. It was Flash’s idea to make everyone equal.”

I suspected my father was wrong about this, but when he was angry correcting him was dangerous. I started out slowly. “I know Joshua is a Gibeonite, but…”

He cut me off. “LJ’s family converted so his father could practice law, but he still has Gibeonite blood running through his veins. His real Gibeonite name is Brutus. Under the old laws, even converted Gibeonites couldn’t become lawyers or attend schools. His family owes absolutely everything to Flash and the Restoration. And he’s telling everyone at school that Flash is a murderer?” His face flushed bright red again at this last thought, and then it faded slightly. “You don’t spend a lot of time with LJ, do you?”

Now this was too much. First of all it was none of his business who I spent time with at school. Secondly I had just told him twice that I never listen to LJ, and if he’s not going to pay attention to what I say why does he even bother talking to me? I wanted to tell him to go to hell, but what came out of my mouth was simply, “Oh come on!” I spoke angrily and stressed each word louder than the one before.

He hit the table with his open palm, and all of the dishes and silverware jumped slightly in the air from the impact. “Don’t forget who you’re talking to,” he said. “Don’t you ever use that tone with me again.”

With my father everything depended on his mood. On another day I could have gotten away with that tone. Today he was already angry about LJ, so I should have known better than to speak sullenly [better adverb?]. But he did at least drop the topic and not pursue the question anymore. He finished his coffee in a tense silence, and then he left the table.

*************************************************************************

One day, a couple weeks later, now deep into the fall, I saw Helen walking side by side with Ajax through the school halls. With Ajax!

It was right after class got out. I was walking behind them, so they couldn’t see me, but I had a clear view of them. Ajax was obviously putting it on a bit for her. He had a nice smile on his face as opposed to that sneer he usually had. And he was looking into her face with an expression of kindness that I had never seen on him before. It made me sick to see that look on him, because I knew there wasn’t a kind spot in his entire body. He was obviously just wearing that expression as a mask, but I could see through him. And she could too, right? She’s been going to this school for several months, she must know what his character is like.

Ajax must have told some sort of a joke, because she tilted her head back and laughed. And then she touched his arm affectionately. It was a light touch, but it was there. Was she flirting with him? Did Ajax honestly say something funny? He wasn’t witty. She must have been laughing just to please him.

What was a girl like Helen even doing near Ajax? He was the complete opposite of everything she was. She was pure and innocent, and she had some sort of goodness you could just feel when you sat next to her. He was spiteful and mean, and he and his friends loved to bully other people.

There was a part of me that wanted to go up and pick a fight with Ajax right then, but it wouldn’t have been a good idea. It would have gotten me suspended from school and in even more trouble with my father, but even more importantly it would have indicated to Ajax what my weakness was. The last thing I needed was for him to find out what my pressure points were.

As we all walked out of the school, and everyone was running this way and that to find their friends or go home, Helen and Ajax continued talking to each other right in the middle of it. They were standing in front of the school, not even appearing to notice all the people running around them. Helen was starring into Ajax’s eyes, and he was looking back at her, and no one else even existed.

“Don’t look too hard,” a voice said beside me. “You’re being obvious.”

I knew it was David even before I turned to look at him. “What is she doing?” I asked. “She can’t possibly like him?” The words turned up at the end like a question.

“They’re just talking.”

“But why is she even talking to him? You know what he’s like.”

“Listen to me Jon,” David said in his stern voice. “You do not want to make a big deal out of this. She’s just talking to Ajax. It doesn’t mean she likes him. I even talk to Ajax sometimes. It doesn’t mean anything. Just because you and Ajax don’t get along doesn’t mean everyone has to carry on your fight.”

I could hear what David was saying, but I wasn’t really paying attention to it. His words seemed to wash over me like waves, but not leave any lasting impressing. “I should go over there and say something,” I decided. I still didn’t want to let Ajax know I was upset, but perhaps I could do it smoothly. I could walk up calmly and ask Helen something about the homework assignment or something. It would still allow me to break up their conversation.

David pressed his hand down firmly on my shoulder. “That’s a bad idea. Let them talk, that’s all it is. Besides, you should probably be heading to the Cadet Center anyway, right? You’ll see her tomorrow.”

But I couldn’t just go to the Cadet Center. I knew this thing would be torturing me all afternoon if I didn’t find out what was going on. I would be doing my filing in the center, and still not be able to get Helen and Ajax out of my mind. And how could I train with Orion when that sort of thing was pressing down on my mind.

I decided to risk being late to the Cadet Center. No one there cared anyway. The only one who would care was my father. He was, as far I knew, still receiving reports on me, but I was willing to risk his wrath for this.

Outwardly, I agreed with David. I nodded, said good-bye to him, and headed in the direction of the Center. Then, once David was gone, I changed directions and went on the road to Helen’s house. I walked up and down that road, waiting to run into her on her way home. After about 10 minutes, I did.

She was walking down the road with the usual smile on her face. She even seemed to have a little extra bounce in her step. Her blonde hair, cut now slightly below the ears, bounced up and down with her step. She held her book bag in her left arm, and swung it back and forth as she walked.

She was in a distracted mood, and didn’t even notice me until I almost walked right into her. “Jon!” she exclaimed. “I didn’t even see you there.” And then a split second after the surprise faded away, “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at the Cadet Center?”

“What were you doing talking to Ajax?” I demanded.

She seemed too stunned for words at first. And then simply, “What?”

“I saw you talking with Ajax.”

“Well of course you saw me. We were right in front of the school.” She held her head back slightly and tilted it to the side. Her eyes narrowed, but the corners of her mouth were smiling. She assumed the manner of someone waiting for me to complete the joke. She thought the whole thing was a joke.

“Why were you talking to him?”

“I really don’t think that’s any of your business Jon,” she spoke slowly and cautiously, still expecting that this whole thing might be a joke. “The conversation had nothing to do with you.”

“I don’t care about the conversation. I mean why were you even talking to him. Don’t you know what he’s like?”

With that, the last traces of the smile were wiped off her face. “He’s nice to me.”

How could she be so stupid? “Of course he’s nice to you. You’re a girl. But you must know what he’s really like.”

“Jon, whatever juvenile argument you and Ajax have between the two of you, I don’t want to be pulled into it. He’s nice to me.”

“He’s a bully. Is that the kind of friend you want?”

“I can take care of myself. It’s none of your business who my friends are. I can talk to whoever I want.” Her voice was steadily rising, as if the more she talked the more she worked herself up. “You’re always telling me not to talk to people. Varro is boring. Simon is a jerk. Icarus is crazy. LJ reads too many books.” She paused to take a breath. “Is there anybody in the school I can talk to? I don’t have any problem with Ajax.”

If I had any sense at all, this was probably the moment where I should have backed off. But I had spent too much time working myself up about Ajax. “Don’t be stupid,” I said.

And I saw her eyes, the eyes which always seemed to glow with happiness, go dead. “What did you just call me?”

Now this was slightly unfair, because I hadn’t called her stupid; I had told her not to be stupid. But before I even had time to explain this distinction to her, she was pushing me aside and continuing down the road. “I’ll see you tomorrow Jon,” she said without looking at me. This time at least I had enough sense to let her go before I made things even worse. She walked away quickly, and the carefree swing was now gone from her arms. The book bag hung limply by her side, and only moved so much as it was jilted by her stride.

Idiot! Idiot! Idiot! In my mind I called myself every name I could think of as I went to the Cadet Center.

************************************************************************

Orion ran me as usually. After having pushed me to my limits on the first day, he now took seriously the philosophy of building up endurance slowly. We only ran two laps around the track. We ran them fast, but he let me stop after two.

“We’ll do more tomorrow,” he said as we slowed to a stop. As usual he was not even breathing hard, while I was still heaving to catch my breath. “Listen, I know I was hard on you a couple days ago,” he continued. “I hope you’re not still upset.”

“No, I’m not.” That was true actually. I wasn’t upset at him. I didn’t really understand why he had turned me down for the favor, but I knew he didn’t owe me anything. Of course if I thought I could have gained anything by saying I was upset, I would have. But I knew he wouldn’t have budged.

“Training for the Cadets is hard work,” Orion said. “It’s not enough just to have me pushing you. You need to have your heart in it as well.”

I simply nodded in response to this. I think he would have known I was lying if I had said my heart was in it.

He walked over to his bag and opened it. He had two rifles inside instead of one. “I requisitioned another arm from the Cadet storehouse for today,” he said. “Today we’re going to practice shooting together.” I didn’t even think to ask how he as a first year had enough influence to requisition extra firearms. Orion seemed liked the kind of person who somehow always ended up getting his way.

“You’ve been getting a lot better at your marksmanship recently,” Orion said. “But shooting on the range isn’t enough. If you can learn to hit moving targets, then you’ll have more of an edge over the other Cadets.”

He started walking and I followed him. Naturally I assumed this meant we were going hunting, but instead of heading towards the hills he walked towards the center of town. I wondered what sort of “moving targets” we would find in the center of town.

We had been walking in silence for a while when he began talking. “Do you remember the first time we met?” he asked me.

“In the market place?”

“Yes, in the market place. I had noticed you before then of course. I had seen you around the school. And I knew who your father is. But at that moment in the market place I was certain. I could see you were just like me.”

We turned down a road, and I realized we were heading toward the slums. Orion kept the bag with the rifles swung over his massive shoulders, and he scarcely seemed to notice the weight of it as he walked. “You’re friend was with you,” Orion continued, “but he wasn’t like you, was he? He was scared. I could see it in his eyes. He was scared of me, he was scared of the police, he was scared of getting caught, he was scared of life. But you were living at that moment, weren’t you? You had never felt more alive before in your life.”

He turned to look at me, and my face must have shown amazement on it. I could not believe how well he had read me. Just from the brief encounter in the market place, just from me running into him and him looking at me, he could tell so much. And it was all true. He understood me much better than my father, who had lived with me my whole life. He even understood me better than David, who had been my best friend for as long as I could remember.

“I know because I’m the same way. Most people live their lives like your friend David, too afraid to take what they want. But people like us see what we want and we take. We don’t care about conflict. We live for the conflict. Like the time you took the police hat. You saw what you wanted, and you took it. You’re friend could never have done that, could he?”

We arrived at the edge of the slums. The slums were in a lower part of the city, and the ground descended rapidly at the edges, so that by standing on the edge it was like looking over a hill at the whole area. The whole area was filled with smoke, which somehow seemed to remain clustered over the slums. I think some of the smoke did occasionally escape to other parts of the city, but by that time it was always so diffused as to become unnoticeable.

The road itself quickly deteriorated as well. All the way up to the slums it was the same as all the other brick roads which winded their way through the city. At the edge of the slums, it turned almost immediately into a dirt road as it descended down the hill and then was swallowed up by the masses of houses and apartments all scrunched together.

Orion led me a little way off the road to a grass embankment overlooking the slums. He lay down on the grass and started unpacking the gun. Suddenly the words “moving targets” took on a frightening new meaning for me. “We’re not going to shoot at the people are we?”

Orion shot me a disgusted look, and then returned to unpacking the rifles, as if the question was not even worth addressing. “Don’t be thick.”

I immediately blushed. That was a stupid question. Almost as soon as it was out of my mouth I felt like an idiot for even thinking it. Orion didn’t appear to remember it very long though. “Give me a hand with these,” he said. “You remember what to do, right?”

I knelt down beside him and carefully took out the second rifle. Orion always treated the rifles with a large degree of respect. He handled them carefully and lovingly. I think imitated that almost unconsciously. It was just one of his many actions that seemed to seep into me without me even thinking about it.

Orion took out one of the bullets out of the bag and loaded it into the gun. He motioned for me to lay down a little way away from him, as he shut the chamber door and pulled the bolt into a locked position.

As worried as I was about saying something stupid again, my curiosity couldn’t contain itself. “What are we going to shoot?” I ask.

“Cats,” Orion answered, closing one eye and looking down the barrel of the gun.

I followed Orion’s gaze down the barrel of the gun, and down the hill to the slums. There was a wooden fence right in front of an old house, in front of which several cats were walking around. He pulled the trigger, and the head of one of the cats exploded into a bloody mess. The cat dropped to the ground immediately. The other cats around all darted every which way for cover. In a flash all of the cats had vanished except the one lying dead on the ground.

I was made sick by the sight of the blood, although I tried not to show it. Orion had a look of serene calm on his face as he slowly pulled the chamber back and popped out the bullet shell. “Won’t anyone complain about this?” I asked.

“Not when I’m wearing this uniform.” Orion pointed to the Blue Cadet Uniform he was wearing.

Orion blew at the smoke in the chamber, and began reaching for another bullet. “Yeah, but, but don’t these cats belong to somebody? Won’t people get upset?”

“There are tons of stray cats crawling the slums. Nobody owns them. They’re a nuisance. We’re doing a public service by eliminating a few of them.”

A few of the cats, initially frightened away by the loud explosion, were now returning slowly to the area. Some of them were even cautiously approaching their dead comrade, trying to figure out what was going on.

Boom! Off went Orion’s gun. Another cat’s head exploded. A second time the cats scattered for shelter.

“You try,” Orion directed me.

“The cats are now hiding now.”

“Over there.” Orion pointed to a point on the fence farther down to the left. “Don’t worry, the gun has enough range to get there. If you’ve got the skill to aim at this distance, that is.”

I loaded a bullet, and leaned forward at the sights. Squinting up against the sights, the cats seemed like only small black spots. I drew back my face, and the cats came back into focus again. When I tried to line up the sights, everything got all blurry.

“Take your best shot,” Orion said. “I think you’ll do better than you think you will.”

I pressed the trigger. I heard, rather than saw, that the bullet had made its mark. The cat let out a piercing scream.

“Excellent,” Orion said patting me on the back. “Just like I told you.”

But my marksmanship was not as good as Orion’s. I hadn’t hit the cat clean in the head like Orion, but rather wounded it somewhere. The cat was lying on the ground screeching out the most terrible sounds. “I should put it out of its misery,” I said reaching into the bag.

“Don’t waste the bullet,” Orion answered. “You got him. He’ll be dead soon enough.” Orion had already loaded another bullet into his gun, and was searching the length of the fence, looking for something else to shoot at. “Do you ever read the old stories?” he asked suddenly.

“Like in literature class.”

“No, the old stories from the beginning of time. The mythology. The stories of heroes, warriors and the great giants and monsters that they defeated.”

“A little bit I guess. I don’t really read too much.”

“I read the stories,” Orion fired a shot off. I’m not sure what he hit, but he seemed satisfied. “If I had been alive back then, I would have been a hero too. People would have written epic poems about me. But these days, there are no monsters left to fight. So we struggle against other men, and make our own legends. Like your father and Flash during the restoration. They were the heroes of their time. And we will be the heroes of ours. I will do glorious things on the battlefield.”

“But there aren’t any wars anymore,” I objected. “Fabulae has been at peace ever since I was born.”

“There are always more wars. Since the beginning of time, there’s never been a generation that didn’t have its own war. Ours will come. The question is, will you be ready when it does?”

While he was talking to me, Orion’s hand was reaching into the bullet bag again. “I don’t want to fight in a war,” I answered automatically.

“Why not?”

I had never thought about this before. “I don’t know. Because tt sounds like hard work I guess.”

“What do you want to do with your life?”

“I don’t know.”

Orion leaned forward into the gun’s sights. “Are you going to practice shooting, or just talk?” I realized that I had completely forgotten about the rifle at my side, and I had even been using it to lean up against it. I started to load the next bullet.

Orion fired again. Another hit. “You’ve got a lot of courage,” he said. “But you don’t have any focus. Are you going to go through your life just running from police? Or are you going to be a hero?” He looked straight at me. “I’m giving you a chance to be a hero.”

The gun suddenly felt cold in my hands.

Orion loaded another bullet. The sound of him opening and closing the chamber was becoming almost rhythmic. Click-Clack-Cluck. Click-Clack-Cluck. Another shot fired off. “The day will come someday soon when we will be shooting men instead of cats.”

*********************************************************************

David leaned against the school wall as I told him the story. “Jon, I told you to leave it alone.”

“Yeah, I know.”

The nice thing about David was that he wasn’t much for rubbing these things in. He just nodded his head thoughtfully. “Well, how bad is it?”

“She was really upset yesterday. And she wouldn’t talk to me all morning today.”

“Probably the best thing to do is just give her a couple days to calm down. And say you’re sorry of course. Did you say you’re sorry?”

“How can I say I’m sorry if she won’t talk to me?”

David tucked his head down in thought. “Well, I could talk to her if you want. I could tell her you’re really sorry for what happened, and that you feel terrible.”

“And let her know what a jerk Ajax is too, so she understands why I overreacted in the first place.”

David twisted his mouth slightly. “Let’s just stick to the apology for now Jon. I don’t think it’s a good idea to press that other point right now.”

He was probably right. “Well make me look good anyway, you know? Apologize, but kind of hint that you could understand my reasons.”

“Jon, do you want me to do this or not?”

“Yeah, fine, just say whatever you think is best.”

Simon came up to talk to us, and David automatically dropped the subject. He had good sense like that. He knew I didn’t want Simon in on this conversation without me even having to say anything.

We had been seeing less and less of Simon these days. I saw him in class of course, and I assume he still hung out with David some in the afternoons while I was stuck at the center. But during school breaks Simon had been spending more and more of his time with Leda and Joshua.

I didn’t mind of course. I was more than happy to spend less time with Simon. But it was odd that he was spending all his time with Leda and Joshua. Joshua had got to be the most boring person in the whole school. And Simon didn’t seem to be making any progress with Leda. After all this time they were still only acting like friends.

“Jon, what’s up?” Simon asked, punching me in the shoulder in a mock friendly way.

“What’s up yourself,” I answered, hitting Simon back a little bit harder. He took it in good stride though and didn’t even flinch. He turned smoothly to greet David with a handshake.

“Simon, are we still on for tonight?” David asked.

“Sure thing. I’ll stop by your place around six or so.” Simon turned to me. “You want to come too Jon? We’re going to play cards, and maybe throw the ball around a little, or something.” I didn’t answer. I just glared at Simon. He must have noticed my look, because he added, “that is if you can get out of your volunteer work at the Center.”

I just walked away. As I left, I could hear David apologizing to Simon on my behalf.

******************************************************************

That damn Simon! He knew full well I couldn’t get out of the Cadet Center. I bet he had just said that to rub it in. And David didn’t need to apologize for me all the time. At least he was getting some practice for when he talked to Helen.

The Cadet Center was as boring as always. I tried not to think of Simon and David playing cards and catch ball. Or, for that matter, of Abel enjoying an after school snack.

Orion came by the same time as always and we went running on the track. He had been gradually increasing the distance a little bit everyday. But my lungs were becoming used to it now. The air no longer hurt so much as it went in and out. My legs were still sore, but I was learning to push past the pain.

Afterwards Orion wanted to practice wrestling with me. I didn’t think this was very fair because he was so much bigger and stronger than I was. I was pretty sure that in real wrestling they only matched you up against guys the same weight as you.

“That’s only in the gymnasium,” Orion answered. “In a war they don’t care if the other guy weighs the same as you or not.”

“Do Cadets fight in wars?” It was a silly question, but it seemed like the next natural thing to ask. Orion seemed so obsessed with war, and the Cadets, but I had never heard of the Cadets going to war. It wasn’t because they were too young. They were eighteen, nineteen, all the way up to 22. There were men younger than that in the regular army.

“Cadets are the elite,” Orion said. “They don’t join the war until they graduate. Then they automatically become officers. Unless they’re one of the lucky ones selected for a special assignment. But until they graduate, they only train. And they maintain security on the University Campus.”

“Like this summer?”

“No, no, when it gets serious like that, they call in the regular soldiers from the countryside. They know the Cadets don’t want to shoot their fellow students. But those country boys absolutely hate the University. They hate all of the city, but they especially hate the University. They’re bitter because they never got a chance to go themselves. They show absolutely no mercy. It’s a good thing Zeus recognized you when he did. You wouldn’t have wanted them to hang onto you.”

This was the first time I had heard the name Zeus. He must have been the big man who had intervened when we were caught. I had never mentioned that to Orion, but Orion seemed to know everything.

*******************************************************************

“Well I talked to her Jon.”

David broke off there, and I just starred at him. Was he really going to make me prompt him? “And?”

“She accepted your apology, and she feels bad that she lost her temper. But she’s still a little bit upset. You really didn’t do yourself any favors Jon.”

“Yeah, I know already. But did you tell her about Ajax?”

David rolled his eyes. “I mentioned it a little. But she says it’s more than just Ajax. She thinks you’re so negative about everybody and she feels like you’re trying to drag her down into the same cynicism.” [Demonstrate this more clearly in earlier chapter?]

Helen always talked in glowing terms about everyone. She loved everyone, and that was what made her so beautiful. But she was naïve. I, on the other hand, could see people for who they really were. I briefly resented her for this naivety and then in another second it was forgotten. If she would become less loving, she would be that much less lovely.

“But doesn’t she know enough to stay away from Ajax?”

“Jon, they were just talking. It was completely harmless. It wasn’t like she was on a date with him or anything like that. Anyway you can’t control who she talks to.”

“Yeah I know, it’s just that…Ajax? The very thought of a nice girl like that with a guy like Ajax drives me crazy. I’d rather see her with any other guy even…” My mind searched for a name. Hector and Tuecer were the first names that came to mind, but they were just as bad as Ajax. “…Simon.”

Actually Simon wasn’t that bad. He got on my nerves sometimes, but that was probably just as much my fault as his. In a real fight, I knew Simon would have my back. It was just that Simon was the only other name that would come into my head just then.

David started laughing. “Great. I’m glad to hear you don’t hate Simon quite as much as you hate Ajax.” Since I knew I had said something stupid, there was nothing for me to do but stand there red face and sheepishly smile until David finished his laugh.

“Just don’t do anything stupid like that again. If you see him talking to her, just let it go. He maybe a jerk, but there’s no harm in her talking to him.”

I just nodded. Somewhere inside I knew he was right. And yet I couldn’t stand the thought of him talking to Helen. I think deep inside, I couldn’t stand the idea of anyone but me talking to Helen.

Chapter 12

The weeks pass quickly when you are busy. I went to school. I worked at the center. I trained hard with Orion every night. I studied under the ever-watchful eye of my father. I barely had time to think of anything else.

Orion refused to let me have any of the nights off. I tried to meet Helen on Sunday. Usually my father was very strict about Sunday being only for church and homework, but he let me go a couple times. I met Helen in coffee shops. Neither of us had a taste for coffee, so we would just order the soda instead. It took me an hour to walk into the city, so usually I could only see Helen for a couple of hours before I had to head back. That was just as well because her family didn’t approve of spending a lot of time in Cafes on Sunday either. Sunday was God’s day.

I met Helen a couple of times, and then she started making excuses why she couldn’t come, and I only saw her at school. I started to get nervous, but David calmly reassured me. “Don’t do anything stupid Jon. Just give her a little space. You still talk to her at school, right?” The snow was falling lightly outside as we talked. I could hear the sound of Emma laughing outside. Despite the snow, some of the daylight still shone in through the windows and lit up David’s face in the school hallway.

“Everybody talks to her at school. That doesn’t mean anything.”

And then, one day after school, when I asked Helen for the fourth time that month to meet for soda that Sunday, she reached out and grabbed my hand and squeezed it. I squeezed her hand in return. “You’re a very nice boy Jon,” she said softly. Her face was anxious. “But I can’t meet you for soda. It’s still my first year at this school. I don’t want to get a boyfriend just yet. And you don’t have time for a girlfriend.”

That afternoon I couldn’t focus, and Orion noticed it. He didn’t ask me what was wrong. He just pushed me harder instead. And I even bother to tell him. I didn’t have it in me, and I knew what his response would be. In a war, no one cares if you’re heartbroken or not. So I sucked it up and found the energy.

That Sunday I managed to get away from my father for a little while, and went to David’s house. I sprawled out on his bed, while he sat in his usual spot against the wall. The weather was almost mockingly cheerful outside, but David’s room, because it was below ground level, always seemed gloomy.

“Well, these things happen Jon,” David was saying. “She was just one girl. You’ll get over her eventually.”

“All this time I thought she liked me. But she was probably just being friendly.”

“Yeah, you’ve got to be careful with girls like her.”

A terrible thought struck me. “Do you think I messed up somewhere along the line? Maybe she liked me at first and I blew it.”

David stood up, temporarily blocking even what little light came in through the window. “Now come on Jon, don’t start thinking like that. What did you do wrong?”

A flood of potential mistakes entered my brain. I put my hand to my head and groaned.

“Jon, you’re thinking about this too much. What good is second guessing yourself going to do?”

“The thing with Ajax last month,” I said weakly. “That’s where I blew it.”

“No that’s not it at all Jon. In fact she told me she feels really bad about the way she got so mad at you.” He paused slightly before continuing. “You know Jon, I don’t know if this is going to be any comfort or not, but she feels really bad about the whole thing.”

I took my hand off my forehead and sat up suddenly. “What? How do you know?”

David shrugged. “Well I hang out with her sometimes after school. She told me.”

Never in my life had I been more attentive to what David was talking about. “What did she say?”

“She came to me last week and told me how she felt about things. She really liked you, but she wanted you as a friend. She though that would work best, and besides you don’t have time for a girlfriend anyway. She didn’t think it was a good idea to meet you for coffee and soda on Sundays. She was worried it would give you the wrong idea. But she didn’t know how to tell you without hurting your feelings. You should have seen how worried she was about you Jon. She really didn’t want to hurt you.”

“Wait, wait,” I held my hand out to stop David from continuing. “Wait. You knew about this before she told me.” I felt a sharp pain, as if I’d been stabbed in the back. The two of them had been conspiring together against me.

“Well what was I supposed to do? You wouldn’t have wanted to hear it from me. Besides I promised Helen I wouldn’t say anything.”

That was true. I’m glad she told me face to face at least. But still the whole idea of them discussing this made me uncomfortable. “Well what did you tell her then?”

“What do you think? I told her that you really liked her, and that you were my friend and that I didn’t want to see you hurt. I said if she didn’t want to date you then she should just tell you straight off rather than stringing you along by making excuses every week. She felt really bad because of the fight you guys had about Ajax. And she felt even worse that she had gotten confused and kissed you that night. But I told her…”

Gotten confused? I stopped listening to David. Was that all it was to her? A moment of confusion? My head hurt and I felt like I couldn’t continue this conversation. I leaned backwards onto the bed. I closed my eyes. David abruptly stopped talking. Although my eyes were closed, I could feel his shadow and I knew he was standing over me. “Are you okay Jon?”

I just wanted to say whatever I could to stop the conversation. “Yeah, you’re right David. I’m glad I heard it from her first.” I opened my eyes and forced a smile to let him know I was all right.

His face seemed large as it peered over me. His head was in front of the sunlight, so that the sunlight shown all around him giving his face a fuzzy glow. He returned the smile. “You’ll be okay Jon.”

I closed my eyes again. This wouldn’t kill me, but it would be hard just the same.
{Possible problem: not just kiss, but Helen appears very eager to date Jon in previous chapters}
**************************************************
At first I felt awkward sitting next to Helen, but her friendliness put me at ease. I was even able to talk to her between classes and school breaks without feeling too out of place. Things weren’t exactly the same, but she was interested in staying friends and I absolutely adored her, so we talked to each other just as much as before.

Ajax also talked to her just as much as before. This disturbed me to no end, but there was nothing I could do about it. After the fight Helen and I had last time, I could hardly say anything to her. And I didn’t want Ajax to know it bugged me.

Ajax, however, already seemed to know it bugged me. Perhaps somehow he had heard about the argument. Or maybe he had even heard about Helen rejecting me. These things never stay secret for too long. I knew David wouldn’t tell anyone, but Helen might. Not maliciously, but that’s just how girls are. They like to talk about these things. Hell, she had even told one person before she even did it. I could easily imagine her saying some small remark to another girl friend, and at our school, all it took was one remark before everyone knew it.

Maybe it was just my imagination, but I often thought Ajax was being overly friendly to Helen when he knew I was around. He would start talking to her in a sweeter tone, or smile more than usual, or even put his arm around her shoulders in a friendly way. Helen didn’t reciprocate this last act, but neither did she pull away from it, and I was torn up with jealousy just seeing it. The image would sink itself into my brain, and I would be able to think of nothing else all afternoon at the Cadet Center.

One day after school I saw Hector and Tuecer tormenting Joshua as usual. I was just walking out of the school building, and about to head to the Center, when I saw the three of them in the schoolyard. Hector and Tuecer were trying to pick a fight, pushing Joshua around and shouting at him. Joshua was as usual not responding. He simply allowed himself to be pushed around.

Already most of the teachers had left or were leaving the building. If a fight happened now, there would be no one to break it up. I remember it was a windy day, and the wind was blowing behind me as I walked towards them. It seemed to push me forward towards a collision with them, as if nature itself willed this conflict. The wind also took away their words, but I knew what they were. They were yelling at Joshua, calling him a Gibeonite without actually saying the word Gibeonite. They were teasing him about how poor his family was, or the fact that he and his mother lived in the slums, or the fact that Joshua’s father had been gone for several years, and not even Joshua and his mother knew where he was.

There were several ways I could have handled this I suppose. I could have just told Joshua to get the hell out of there. Why Joshua just stood around and took this abuse was beyond me. He could easily have just run away.

Or I could have let Joshua deal with it in his usual way: namely just do nothing until they got tired of their game and moved onto a new victim. It wasn’t the way I would do things, but it seemed to work for Joshua, and he put up with abuse on a daily basis.

But I wanted a fight. I was dying for a fight. I even thought this might be a gift from God. It had occurred at the perfect time when there were no teachers around. And even the wind itself drove me forward into the fight.

Teucer saw me coming first and nudged Hector. Hector was laughing at some witticism Teucer had just said, and didn’t see me until Tuecer elbowed him in the ribs. Then he straightened up and the two of them stood stiffly as they watched me approach.

The wind was blowing everyone’s hair. Hector and Teucer had their hair blown backwards. Although I couldn’t see my own hair, I could feel it being blown forward.

“Why don’t you go home now?” I spoke to Joshua, but didn’t bother to look at him. Instead I kept my eyes focused straight on Hector and Teucer. I guess I thought it was cooler this way.

“Jon, don’t make this any worse.”

“I won’t.” I kept my eyes fixed on Hector and Teucer, wishing Joshua would hurry up and get out of here so I could begin my famous showdown.

He actually stepped between the three of us. “What are you going to do Jon? You can’t fight both of them at once.”

And then the wind brought the sound HeHeＨｅＨＨＨＨｅof laughter to our ears. I turned around slowly, coolly, because I already knew it was Ajax. I knew he wouldn’t be far away from Hector and Teucer, which is why I had wanted the fight. And he knew that I knew he would be around. He was laughing in a deep voice, not the high-pitched laugh of Hector. “Are you going to fight all of us Jon?” he asked. He made a show of looking around him. “I don’t see David or Simon. Are you going to take all three of us on all by yourself?”

I smiled back at him. “If I have to. If you think it will take all three of you. Or if you’re not afraid of me you could send your boys home and the two of us could-,”

He cut me off with a laugh. “Very clever Jon. But this isn’t about you and me. This is about you and Helen, isn’t it?”

I guess I should have been prepared for this, but I was not. I figured if I made the pretext of the fight about something else, like Joshua, than Ajax wouldn’t sink low enough to bring up Helen. We might both know the fight was really about Helen, but there would be a certain code of honor about not bringing it up. I had forgotten that Ajax lives by his own code: find the weakest point and hit it hard, no matter what.

“I understand you’ve had a rough time of it lately Jon.”

I clenched my fists. “What do you want Ajax?”

“We just want to talk to you,” he said, including his two friends with a sweep of his hand. “Just think of the three of us as your therapists Jon.” Hector began laughing at this already. Hector would laugh at anything, but Ajax seemed to take this as confirmation of his wit, and smiled proudly. “Now, we understand you had your heart broken earlier. Is that true?” I remained silent, so Ajax continued. “Well, the boys and I just want to let you know how sorry we are to hear that.”

I heard the voices of Hector and Teucer behind my back. “Yeah, cheer up Jon,” Hector called out.

“Don’t be down Jon, it happens to all of us,” Teucer said.

The tones of their voices, if isolated by themselves, would have seemed sincere enough. In this situation there was no need to over due it with dripping sarcasm. They knew they were mocking me, and I knew they were mocking me.

“Helen’s a nice girl Jon, a real nice girl. A real intelligent girl too. She’s a real catch all around, huh?” Ajax circled me as he talked. “It’s really too bad you let her get away. You won’t come across another girl like her in a thousand years, you know.”

The boys echoed him. “What were you thinking Jon?” asked Hector.

“How could you let her get away?” from Teucer.

“Now, there’s a rumor going around school Jon, and I’ve been wanting to ask you about it for some time.” Ajax was still walking in slow circles as he talked, but he occasionally glanced down at his hands as he talked. He used his hands in pointless gestures, which was not usually his style. I think he may have been trying to act smart by imitating our teacher, who always gestured as he spoke. “The rumor is, and stop me if this is false, is that you and Helen shared a few kisses earlier this fall. Is that true Jon?” I was already imagining myself hitting him at this point. “I think we deserve an answer Jon. After all, we can’t help you if you don’t talk to us.” Hector laughed at this again.

I couldn’t think of a clever response. All I could think about was how much I wanted to hit him. The rest of the thought processes in my brain were already shutting down. “I’m not answering that Ajax.”

Ajax exchanged smirks with the boys me. “Well that sounds like a yes to me. What do you think?”

“I think that’s a yes,” Teucer answered. Hector just laughed.

“Well then Jon, would you like to deny that you kissed her?” I remained silent. Ajax briefly assumed the deep important voice of a court judge. “Then let your silence condemn you sir. We find you guilty.”

Ajax stopped circling and stood right in front of me. “Not bad Jon. Not bad at all. You’ve got fire in your blood, stealing her kisses like that. Of course Helen and I, we’ve gone much farther than just kissing.”

My arm flew out to hit him. But he was ready for me. He had spent that whole time baiting me just so he could be ready for me. And when I flew out with blind rage, he blocked me with calm coolness. His left arm flashed up to deflect my punch, and almost simultaneously his left hand hit me in the face. I fell backwards.

As Hector and Teucer piled in on me, I realized I had played into their hands perfectly. Not only had I lashed out in a wild punch that Ajax had easily blocked, I had hit first before I had negotiated any sort of man on man duel. The others felt they were perfectly justified in joining in.

I was pulled up again. Someone hit me on the back of the head, but I couldn’t tell which one of them did it. Then a blow across the forehead. I swung out wildly in all directions, and they backed up a little bit and gave me some space. Then Hector and Teucer lunged forward and grabbed my arms. I struggled, but they each had an arm and were twisting them behind my back.

Ajax was in front of me now again, approaching with his fists ready. I squirmed to free myself, but Hector and Tuecer held on tightly to my arms. I kicked my feet up instead.

I visualized my right foot going up in a spectacular kick and breaking Ajax’s nose. I couldn’t kick that high though, so I settled for a good kick between the legs instead. It was cheap, but then so was three against one. I felt only minimal guilt.

My foot must have hit the mark square on because Ajax was doubled up in pain for what seemed like minutes. He didn’t fall to the ground but he had his hands on his knees and was doing a lot of groaning and some occasional coughing. Hector and Teucer both seemed unhappy about this turn of events, but didn’t do anything other than tighten their grip on my arms, and make sure they weren’t within range of my legs. They didn’t dare to take any initiative on their own without Ajax’s approval.

Ajax at last straightened himself and stopped groaning, although his face was still a little pink. “You’re going to pay for that Jon,” he wheezed. “When we get through with you, you’re going to be…” his brain paused searching for a clever metaphor “…You’re going to be in twice as much pain as me.”

I kicked out my leg again. Ajax had backed out of range now, but I just wanted to scare him. “Damn it, hold him!” Ajax yelled at Hector and Teucer, seeming to recover his full voice. There was a struggle as they tried to restrain my legs as well as my arms. When I failed to be cooperative, eventually they just settled for knocking me off my feet and forcing me to kneel on the ground. Teucer stepped on my legs while Hector pressed his knee into my back as he held my head.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Joshua watching the whole thing, petrified with fear. I had almost forgotten he was even there. I didn’t really expect Joshua to join in the fight, but I wondered why he just stood there and didn’t say anything. At the very least he could have yelled or something.

Ajax approached. I couldn’t get any part of my body free, so I just spit at him. The wind blew most of that back in my own face, but I think he understood the gesture. He drew back his fist. And then I heard a familiar voice say, “Isn’t this a little unfair? Do you really need all three of you?” Because Hector was still holding my head I couldn’t turn to look, but I saw something blue approaching from the side of the schoolyard.

The voice was calm. It wasn’t shouting, but it had a natural loudness to it that carried over the wind. Ajax recognized the sound at once and immediately lowered his fists and turned around. Hector and Teucer took their hands off me and took a step back. I stood up as Orion approached us.

Orion walked steadily forward, right up to Ajax. Ajax instinctively stepped back a couple steps to put some space between himself and the giant. “You know who I am, right?” Ajax only nodded. “And you know what this uniform means, right?” Again, Ajax nodded. “Good. Then listen carefully because I’m only going to say this once. Jon works at the Cadet Center, and I consider him a Cadet in training. And Cadets look out for each other. So the next time you have a quarrel with Jon, I want you to think very carefully about what is going to happen to you if I have to get involved. And I want you to think about something else too. As long as I am wearing this blue uniform,” Orion grabbed the cloth at the front of the uniform and pulled it out from his chest slightly to demonstrate, “no one is going to complain about what I do to you.” Ajax stared silently up at Orion. He was trying to keep his cool, but I think I saw his Adam’s apple bob up and down. “You can go now.”

Ajax and his friends made a point of not running, but they walked away quickly and never once turned back to look.

I stood up from my kneeling position, while I looked at Orion in amazement. It wasn’t the way he had sent those three bullies running so quickly. That was what anyone expected of Orion. But Orion’s habit of turning up whenever I was in trouble was uncanny. “What are you doing here?” I asked.

“I drop by every now and then to visit my old alma mater. It brings back pleasant memories for me.”

There was a light note in his voice and a smirk on his face which indicated he wasn’t being serious. And then there was a clunk in my brain as everything dropped into place. “You’ve been coming here everyday? To watch me?”

His face looked pleased that I had caught on so fast, but all he said was, “Don’t be silly. I don’t have time to come here everyday. Maybe twice in a week at most.”

“But why?”

“You’re late for the Cadet Center. I’ll walk with you there.”

We said good-bye to Joshua, who was still standing there with his mouth hanging open, but astonished and made dumb by events.

“Most people go through life simply reacting,” Orion said to me as we walked away. “Those people are normal and lead very dull and normal lives. And then there are people who don’t merely react, but create their own destinies. People like your father, and you, and me. And then there are people who can’t even react to life. Like Joshua. They just lie down and let life roll over them. People like that aren’t even alive. And they can’t be considered fully human. You’re wasting your time sticking up for them.”

“That fight wasn’t really about Joshua,” I mumbled.

“I know. But I’m telling you this anyway.”

I felt what Orion was saying about Joshua was true, but I couldn’t concentrate on it right now. He still hadn’t answered my question. “Why do you come back to the school?”

He smiled. “I told you I don’t go through the trouble of training someone without finding out about them.”

“You don’t need to spy on me. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

“I’m not spying. I’m just watching you. I’m making sure you stay out of trouble.”

“I am staying out of trouble.”

“Like just now?” I was silent. “Right in the school yard, right after school got out, when there were all sorts of people still around. Do you think that’s smart? What would have happened if I hadn’t come by? After you kicked Ajax like that, he was angry enough to have really worked you over. And then how would you have explained your face to the Cadet Center? Or to your father? Or to your school and your headmaster? Ajax is a brute with no brains. He doesn’t care if he gets thrown out of school. But if you don’t finish school, you can’t expect to join the Cadets. The Cadets are the elite, the educated. If you want to be just a common brawler, then that is what the regular army is for. And in the army, there’s no chance for bravery or heroism. You’re simply cannon fodder. They order you to charge, and the enemy cuts you down, and that is that.”

We walked along in silence for a while longer, until Orion added, “And you would have thrown your future away for what? For a Gibeonite, and a girl who doesn’t even care about you.”

My head jerked sharply and I stared at him after this last statement. He kept staring straight ahead, and only added, “I know all about it. When you’re distracted at training, I know why. You’ve got to be careful Jon, because you’re the kind of person who makes enemies left and right, but you’re surrounded by people who aren’t you’re real friends.”

“David’s been my best friend for as long as I can remember.” I answered defensively before I even thought about whether this was a reference to David or not. “He’s the best friend I could ask for. He’s always looking out for me.”

“Is he?” Orion asked. “I’m your friend Jon. Remember that. And I might be the only real friend you have.”

We arrived at the door to the Cadet Center, but Orion walked around the side to the water pump. “You’d better clean the blood off your face before you go in there,” he said. “And your eye’s a little swollen as well. If anyone asks, just say you got hurt practicing wrestling with me.” He gave a short laugh at the thought. “They should believe that.”

*************************************************

I never told David about Orion’s comments. But when he asked about my face, I told him about the encounter with Ajax. In fact David was the only one I told the truth to. Everyone else I just fed the line about wrestling practice with Orion.

The next morning, David ran up to me as I was walking to school. “Hey Jon, I’ve got some great news.” It was a couple blocks away from school still, and none of the rest of our classmates were around. It was a cold fall morning, almost winter now, and the frost was on the ground. The steam from our breath hung in the air as we walked. “I went over to Helen’s house yesterday after you left for the Cadet Center. I told her everything you told me.”

Oh great! She would talk to Ajax about it, and Ajax would think I had gone crying and squealing to Helen after what had happened. The next time we met he would really hold that over my head.

David must have read what I was thinking on my face. “No, don’t worry Jon, it’s okay. Helen was so disgusted by Ajax that she said she wanted nothing else to do with him, ever again. She never really had much to do with him in the first place. Ajax was lying through his teeth when he said they had a physical relationship. They had never even kissed.”

That was good news. I took a deep breath of relief.

***************************************************************************

It was several weeks later that David told me he was dating Helen himself. He met me after school, and he had a nervous look on his face that was unlike him. “Jon, listen.” Every word was hesitant as if it had to be forcibly pulled out of him. He started again. “Listen, Jon, I need to talk to you.”

“Okay.”

“Not here. Is there somewhere we could go? A coffee house maybe?”

“I’ve got to get to the Cadet Center. Besides neither of us drink coffee and-.”

“I just don’t want to talk about it here.”

“Talk about what here.”

He took a deep breath, and then plunged into it. “Jon, you know I’ve been hanging out with Helen a lot recently, right? After school and stuff.”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t know how you’re going to feel about this, but I think Helen might be interested in me.”

“And you?”

“Well of course I think she’s a great girl Jon. Everyone does. So I guess what I came here to ask you was…” His voice faded out briefly. “Would you be okay with…I mean if we ever…”

I had the feeling almost of being in a dream. I could hear David talking and see his lips moving, but nothing he said seemed real. I said something in reply but it wasn’t really me talking. It was just the sounds that seemed appropriate to say at the time. Sure. Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be okay with it? If I can’t date her, I could think of no one better than you. Better you than Ajax, right?

Mercifully David left the conversation alone after that. He didn’t drag things out any more than he had to. I could sense he was also feeling awkward and probably just as eager to end the conversation as I was. “Well, I don’t want to make you late for the Cadet Center Jon. Maybe we can talk about this more later.”

I was miserable all afternoon at the office. Orion noticed there was something wrong with me the moment he saw me. I saw no reason to keep it from him, so I spilled out the whole tale as soon as he asked.

Orion didn’t say anymore than he had to. That was the good thing about him. He never said more than he had to. He simply listened to my story, and then nodded as if he had been expecting it the whole time. “So now you know,” he said at the end.

I wanted to defend David. I wanted to say that it wasn’t his fault; that simply that this was simply how the world works. Some people find love, others get their hearts broken. Even at a young age I knew this. If David and Helen like each other, why shouldn’t they be together? It would be wrong of them to be apart because of me.

But the words never came. I just looked at Orion and nodded silently. “You’ve been focusing all your energy in the wrong places,” Orion continued. “Haven’t you?” I nodded again. “From now on, focus on what matters. Concentrate on your future. Throw yourself into it with all the strength you have. Train harder, run longer, fight stronger. Don’t worry about your friends. The future belongs to men like us.”

Part 2: Chapter 13

Just as I was leaning over another box, there was a knock at the door. I stood up and went over to the door to answer it. Icarus was standing in the doorway. “Oh, hello Icarus.” I opened the door for him, and then I went back to the boxes.

“Hello Jonny,” Icarus said. He stuck his head in tentatively through the doorway. “Um, I’ll just invite myself in I guess, okay Jonny?”

I opened another box. “What? Oh, yeah, come in Icarus. I’m sorry, I’m not trying to be rude. I’ve just got a lot of unpacking to do.”

“Still?” Icarus walked in and looked around. “Jonny, we’ve been here for a week, and you still haven’t unpacked yet?”

I threw some clothes on a shelf. “I’ve been busy.”

“You didn’t even have time to unpack? What in the world have you been doing? Classes don’t even start for another couple of days.”

I had spent most of that time out on the Cadet fields, training either with Orion or by myself. Registration for the first year Cadets was only a few days away, and Orion wanted to make sure I made the leadership cut.

“You know, having fun,” I answered.

Icarus collapsed into one of my chairs. That was one thing about Icarus. Everything always had to be so dramatic. He couldn’t sit down normally. He had to almost fall backwards into my chair. “Hey, I stopped by David’s dorm room earlier,” he said. “No one was there. Do you know where he went?”

“Yeah, he’s out with Helen.”

Icarus leaned back in my chair and drummed his fingers on my desk. Icarus could never sit still for long. “That figures. Those two are always together, aren’t they?”

“Yeah, they are.”

“You’d think they were married or something. How long have they been going out now anyway?”

“Oh, about a couple years now.”

“That long already?” Icarus rocked the chair back and forth. He looked out the window as he continued drumming his fingers on the table. “Do you see David much these days?”

“A little bit,” I answered, folding some shirts. “It’s not like it used to be.”

Icarus stood up and opened the window. “Lots of things aren’t like they used to be.” He spit out the window. “Hey, check it out Jonny, I made it all the way to the sidewalk.”

I made a point of not looking at Icarus as I continued unpacking. “Nice Icarus.”

The brief distraction had broken Icarus’s train of thought. “Now what was I saying? Oh yeah. Things are really changing. I mean, we’re at the University now. The University Jonny. Think about it. We’re not kids anymore. Did you ever think we’d really end up here?”

“I knew I had to go somewhere.”

“You know what I mean. Did you ever think we’d be this old? Didn’t you think we’d be kids forever?”

I stopped what I was doing and looked over at Icarus. “There was a part of me that thought that, yeah.”

Icarus walked away from the window to come over and look at my boxes. “Need any help unpacking?”

“Nah, I got it.”

“Hey, how come you didn’t get stuck with a roommate like the rest of us?” I shrugged the question off as if to say I didn’t know and it wasn’t important. Icarus looked over at me, and then his face melted from a quizzical expression into a knowing one. “Because of your father, huh? Old Flash made sure you got your own room.”

I decided to change the subject. “How is your roommate?”

Icarus scowled. “He’s an absolute moron, Jonny. I hate him already.” Icarus looked around the room as if searching for something, and then added, “Hey, Jonny, do you have anything to eat? I’m starving over here.”

Lately this had become a common theme. Every time Icarus dropped by to see he asked for food. “You’re not scrounging my food again Icarus.”

“Ah come on. You’re dad can afford it.”

I opened a desk drawer and took out half a loaf of bread. “Here, take it,” I said, throwing it at Icarus.

The strength with which I threw it at him caught him off guard, but he recovered quickly. “Thanks a lot.” He bit into it hungrily. Then with a full mouth he continued, “Well, I suppose you’re wondering what you’re doing tonight.”

I took out my socks and started putting them in the dresser. “I know what I’m doing tonight. I’m unpacking.”

“Not tonight you’re not. Tonight you’re going to the University art show.” Icarus took a crumpled flier out of his back pocket, and began unfolded it. “Check this out Jonny,” he said, holding the flier up in my face. “All art by University students on display. Sounds cool, doesn’t it?” He stopped shaking the flying in front of my face and took it back to read from it. “See art on display by your fellow students, interact with fellow art lovers…” Icarus stopped to take another bit of bread, and for a while his words were muffled by the sound of his chewing “…mmm hmm learmmm mmmm other cultural events that the University offers, and find out how you can contribute to the art community. Icarus finished reading and looked at me expectantly.

“I’m not going.”

Icarus refolded the flier and returned it to his pocket. “What? Give me one good reason why not?”

“I don’t like art and I have to unpack tonight.”

I opened another box, but Icarus walked over and promptly closed it again. “Jonny, this stuff has been in boxes all week. It can wait another night.”

“I have to unpack sometime.”

“Tomorrow is sometime.”

“Icarus, I don’t even like art.”

Icarus attempted to give me a disgusted look, but he the effect of this was ruined when he stopped to take another bite of my bread. “Don’t like art? Well then Jonny, I absolutely insist that you come. Besides I’m sure we’ll meet all sorts of new people there.”

“But I don’t-.”

“Come on,” Icarus said as he opened the door. “We’re going to be late.” I just stared blankly at him, so he added, “Come on Jonny, just spend two hours with me at this art show, and I promise I’ll leave you alone for the rest of the night.”

I looked from my boxes and then back to Icarus. Briefly at my boxes, and then Icarus again. “Two hours?”

“That’s all I ask of you.”

I took a deep breath. “Okay. Two hours. Only.”

**********************************************************

I don’t know what I expected. The University had a lot of grand old beautiful buildings that would have been great for this event. I guess I expected the art show to be in one of those buildings with tall magnificent dome ceilings painted with beautiful frescos and long glass windows stretching all the way to the ceiling.

Instead the art show was in a basement. It was lit by torches so that the art work could be seen well enough, but it had the dim feeling of a dungeon.

Icarus is the kind of person who always has to make a fantastic entrance whenever he goes anywhere. He grabbed the handles of both doors, and pulled them both open at once, and then entered the art show walking proud and erect as if he were some visiting foreign dignity. A few heads turned towards him. I sneaked in quietly afterwards trying to look as if I was here by myself.

There were a few portraits on the wall where we first entered. Icarus stood looking at them for some time. I stood a comfortable distance away from Icarus and just tried to take in the different people who were there. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but everyone struck me as just looking very normal. There didn’t appear to be any wild-eyed artist types. In fact probably the nuttiest person in the room was the one I had come with.

“Hey, Jonny, pay attention to the paintings. You’re embarrassing me. I brought you to an art show, so quit staring at the people.” Icarus thought about what he had just said, and added in a quieter tone, “Do you see any pretty girls.”

“No.”

“Oh. Well quit staring at the people then. Look at the art. Why do you think I brought you here?”

I looked at the art for a while to make Icarus happy. He was really intently studying the paintings, and I pretended I was doing the same. In reality my brain was drifting to all sorts of different things. A first year student always has a lot on his mind. I was thinking about the upcoming first day of classes, and registration for Cadets. I was wondering what David and Helen were doing right now, and probably above all my mind kept wandering back to the unpacked boxes in my dorm room.

I don’t know how long we were standing there in silence. Probably a couple minutes. Icarus turned and lightly hit me on the shoulder. “Alright Jonny, which one’s your favorite?”

“Um, that one I guess.”

“Which one?”

“The one on the right.”

“Really?” Icarus scrunched up his face and scrutinized my choice with a critical look. “Why?”

“I don’t know. It looks the most realistic.”

Icarus simply took a deep breath and said, “Hmmm.” I could tell by the way he “hmmm-ed” that he didn’t approve, but I didn’t want to give him an opening by asking him about his own choice, even though I knew he was waiting for me to do it.

We walked a little bit down the hall. Icarus stopped me suddenly. “Now look at that Jonny. That is art. Do you see that painting? Absolutely beautiful. That really speaks to me. Look at the way the colors play with each other; the message of conflict inherit in the piece. I must meet this artist.”

Icarus spoke in his usual loud conversational tone, and I began to wonder if I was the only one who thought he was acting strange, or if this was the way one was supposed to talk at art shows. I looked around, and saw several pairs of eyes staring at us strangely. It wouldn’t have been such a big deal, except this was the first week of University. I didn’t even know any of the other students at this art show. I put my hand up to my face with my index and middle finger against my temple in order to look like I was concentrating on the picture. This also had the effect of shielding my face from the side.

Quietly resolving never to go anywhere with Icarus again, I looked at the painting. It was simply a swirl of colors; nothing that made sense. Icarus remained fascinated by it, and it was some time before we moved on.

We saw many more sculptures and paintings. Icarus was invariably attracted to the ones that didn’t make sense. He raved about a sculpture that appeared to be just a bunch of random stones thrown together. He talked for a full five minutes about a painting that was just different colored dots.

One painting in particular excited Icarus. He was fascinated by a lot at the art show, but this painting got him even more excited than usual. “Look at this Jonny. This painting is absolutely magnificent. I must meet the artist.”

It was a picture of two different men, one imposed over the other. Both were drawn from the back so that their faces were not visible. Both men had their arms raised, although since their figures overlapped it created a muddled picture and I couldn’t quite tell what either was doing with his hands.

At the center of the painting the men were drawn against a plain white background. At the edges of the painting the artist had drawn a boarder using red, yellow, and black, but only at the fringes. The center of the painting was mostly white.

“Now tell me Jonny, what do you see when you look at this painting?”

The answer seemed obvious. “Two separate men overlapping?”

“No. No, no, no Jonny, what does it mean to you?” Icarus leaned back and contemplated the painting. His eyes narrowed and his hand rested under his chin. He had assumed the posture of an art critic. “Now see Jonny, when I look at this painting, I see the sun?”

“What?”

“No, look. You’ve got pure hot brilliant white in the center, and then it moves out into different colors. You know all color comes from the sun, right Jonny?”

“What about the two men in the middle?”

“They symbolize life. All life is dependent on the sun. And they both have their arms raised, welcoming the sun.”

“But they’re in the sun.”

“No, that’s just symbolic. You need to imagine that they’re on Earth, reaching towards the sun, and yet inside the sun at the same time.” Icarus snapped his fingers, delighted at his own explanation. “This painting is absolutely brilliant. I would love to meet the artist.”

“I know him,” said a voice. Both Icarus and I turned our heads to look at a third boy watching the painting with us. He blushed slightly. “I’m sorry I couldn’t help overhearing,” he said. He gave us an apologetic smile. He spoke softly, and had dark brown hair which covered his forehead, but was brushed back slightly at the eyebrows, in a manner that would have perhaps been fashionable ten years ago. “You two must be first year students?”

We nodded. “Yeah, I was thinking you had to be first years,” he said, his black eyes looking over us coolly. “I haven’t seen you around at any of the art shows before. My name’s Adonis.”

We both gave our names, and exchanged casual handshakes. “Hermes is over this way,” Adonis said, stepping down the hall in the direction he indicated. “Hermes is the one who drew that picture.”

Adonis led the way, with the two of us following behind him as if he were a schoolmaster. Icarus flashed me an excited look with his eyebrows raised. “Look at our luck,” it seemed to say.

We walked into the refreshment room at the end of the hall. Adonis lost his shy mannerisms the moment he stepped into the room. He obviously felt more comfortable among this crowd. “Hermes, I have some fans of yours,” he called out to the whole room.

All eyes turned towards the person who must have been Hermes. He was in the middle of eating a piece of cake that he held in his fingers. He hurriedly shoved the rest into his mouth, and then wiped the frosting off on his pant legs as he walked over to Adonis. “Fans of mine?” he asked. He didn’t seem to believe he had heard Adonis correctly.

Adonis looked at Hermes, and then quietly touched his own upper lip. Hermes took the hint and then wiped his sleeve across his mouth to remove the frosting. “The great Hermes,” Adonis said with an elaborate gesture in Hermes’s direction.

Hermes was not a short person, but neither was he particularly tall. The top of his head was about level with my chin. He was dressed differently than what I expected of an artist. In contrast to a lot of the avant-garde styles we saw around us, Hermes had on only a plain white shirt and plain brown pants. His hair was about the same length of Adonis’s, but was colored sandy blonde instead of Adonis’s brown. And instead of being combed back above the eyebrows it was tussled and scattered looking.

Hermes had strong arms. I could see this right away. I had an eye for those kinds of things at the time. When you work out or train a lot, like I was doing at the time, you tend to develop an eye for other people’s muscles that have been defined by exercise.

I could tell Hermes worked out, but apparently only his biceps. His chest looked flat and undefined, which made a funny contrast to his bulking arms. I figured he most do a lot of arm curls with dumbbells, but not much of anything else. He also had a slight belly protruding, which I was guessing might have some relation to the cake he was eating.

Hermes turned from Adonis to us. “Really? You guys liked my work?”

“We loved it,” Icarus responded.

“Really?” It would appear Hermes did not get a lot of regular compliments on his artwork. He didn’t look like he knew what to say. He looked from Icarus to me to make sure this wasn’t some sort of joke. I nodded along with Icarus and tried to look sincere about my love of the painting. “Can I get you guys a drink? Have you tried the punch yet? It’s pretty good, for free punch anyway.”

Hermes turned to the punch bowl. As he was filling up our drinks, Icarus continued, “You sir, are a genius. I found your painting absolutely astounding.”

Hermes handed the drinks back to us. “Which one?”

It hadn’t occurred to Icarus that there might be more than one of Hermes’s paintings on display, and this question threw off his rhythm. “Oh, um, I don’t know actually. Jonny, did you see the name of it?”

“No.”

“Well anyway, it was the big one about the sun.”

“The what?”

“The two people superimposed over each other.”

Hermes snapped his fingers excitedly in recognition. “Ah, yes. That was one of my favorites as well. The colors on that piece turned out really nice.” The pleasure of talking about his painting had made Hermes forget his surprise, and he started to take us in with new eyes, as if suddenly seeing us for the first time. “I didn’t catch either of your names,” he said, extending his hand for us to shake.

We both gave our names, and Hermes added, “Are you guys first year students here?” We answered yes. “That’s cool. I’m a second year student myself. So is Adonis.” Adonis was actually only half in the conversation at this point. He was still standing in our circle, but his gaze was following a girl across the room. He turned quickly back to us when he heard his name mentioned, and affirmed that he was in fact a second year. And then his gaze returned to the girl.

“So where are you from?” Icarus and I both answered we were from Urbae. “Ah, local boys,” Hermes said, draining his punch glass. “In that case you probably know more about the University than I do. I’m from all the way out in Alba.”

I could tell by the confused look on Icarus’s face that he didn’t have a clue where Alba was, so I took over the conversation. “Alba huh? You’ve come a long way to go to school.”

“That’s what everybody says. I’m the only one from my prefecture to come out to Urbae. My parents wanted me to go to school closer to home. But I just had to come out to where the action is. I mean, this is it, isn’t it? Urbae, the capital city. The one you always read about in books.”

Icarus and I exchanged looks. “Listen, Hermes, let me save you the anticipation,” I said. “There’s no action in Urbae.”

“A sleeping city,” Icarus chimed in. “Nothing ever happens here.”

“Oh come on,” Hermes said almost irritably. “What do you mean nothing ever happens here? This was where the Restoration took place, right? The stuff we always read about in history books, it all happened right here.”

“Jonny’s dad would know about that,” Icarus said. I deliberately ignored the comment, and Hermes didn’t seem to pick up on it. He was too excited to get thrown off track of what he was saying.

“I know the Restoration is old news, but what about the uprising two years ago? It happened in this very University. That was all over the country of course. We even had demonstrations in Alba. But it started and finished in this University. {Enthusiasm here possible problem with Hermes later apathy}

“And besides,” Hermes added, his voice going down as he came to the end of his rhetorical flourish, “if things are so boring in Urbae, why did you two stay here?”

“That’s a good question. Why are we still here Jonny?” Icarus asked.

I knew why I was here. It was what my destiny demanded of me. I had to stay in Urbae if I wanted to join the Cadets. As to why Icarus, and for that matter the rest of our class, all went to the same University, I couldn’t really say. I suppose it was like Hermes said: however boring this city seemed, it was still the capital city. Things didn’t become any more exciting in the provincial towns. Many people from the provinces came into Urbae to go to the University. No one from Urbae ever went out to the provinces to attend a University.

But I doubt Icarus, or any of the rest of them, put much conscious thought into this. We all went to the Urbae University because everyone in the class before us had gone to the University. And everyone in the class before them. And the class before that. And all the classes all the way back to the time of the Restoration, to the time of our parents, and before.

Icarus’s single comment had set off a whole train of thought in my mind, and I was now standing like Adonis, in the conversation but not longer part of it. Hermes and Icarus had continued on with the conversation, and I listened to try and pick up the thread.

“Now that was a painting I had fun with. It started out as a simple outline sketch. I had a friend of mine pose, and I drew him from the back.”

“And?”

“Well, like I said it was supposed to be just a simple sketch. I just drew the outline of his body, and then I colored inside the lines with black. Nothing special. I didn’t like the way it looked though, so I finally I just used white to paint over the whole thing.”

Hermes eyes glowed, and he was now completely at ease with Icarus, as if Icarus had been an old friend. The mutual fascination with the painting had turned the two of them into intimates already.

“The interesting thing was that even after painting over the whole thing, I could still see where it had been, so I just traced the outline and put it back on the picture. It looked pretty cool, because now it just had a dark outline, and the rest of it looked faded. But it still needed something, so I got another friend of mine to do a different pose, and I drew that as well, also from the back. I painted his figure over the one I already had. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I thought maybe it would turn out cool. After that I added a lot of color to the edges so it wouldn’t look so plain.”

“But it’s more than just that,” Icarus insisted. “It symbolizes the sun, and life.”

“It’s taken on those meanings as well,” Hermes said diplomatically.

Adonis was gone from our circle now, in body as well as mind. He had at last slipped away unnoticed during this exchange, and was now talking to the girl who had captivated his gaze all this time. Hermes realized Adonis was gone about the same time that I did, and he gave a smile to apologize for Adonis’s rudeness. “Hey, what are you guys doing after the show?” he asked. “Do you want to grab a cup of coffee?”

“All the coffee shops are closed at night,” I answered.

“That’s in the city. Inside the University walls, we keep different hours. I can show you a cool place.”

Icarus volunteered us both. “We’ll come.”

I was annoyed at not being consulted, and Hermes must have seen it on my face. “Jon, is that okay with you?”

I didn’t want to appear rude. “I can’t stay out too late,” I said. “But I can come out for a little while.”

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Although the University was in the middle of the city, in some ways it acted like a city unto itself behind the high walls. There were many cafeterias for the students to eat at during the daytime, and in the evening there were a few privately run shops