Second Draft 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?”

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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.

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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.”

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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.