Mhsofps has hit double figure chapters! And is longer than every single other story I have on my computer! Hurrah! I'm so proud of myself. This is the moment that will be ruined when chapter eleven takes three months to complete, or is never completed at all...
Since my two faithful readers (my only readers...) were so keen on Theo's sister when she turned up for a brief cameo earlier on, here's a chapter for her. If you think 'Jane' near the end is stupid, that's because it is. It's placefiller until I can either think up something better or at least integrate Jane into the narrative better.
If anyone greatly objects to the skipping at the beginning of this chapter, I can always write another one of the 'Theo learns stuff that the author knows nothing about' chapters...
***
Over the next four weeks, Theo learned a lot, and found he could fit more into a day than seemed possible. His instruction in horse riding proceeded apace; by the end of the second week he was piloting Susie by himself, without the lead rein, and beginning to learn how to deal with some of her more…irritating behaviours, although she still beat him regularly. He found out just as soon as other horses started sharing the school with him that she was an inveterate follower; she seemed to regard her place in life to be behind whatever other rider was around, and was not above dirty tricks to get herself there. His first introduction to canter was when the horse in front began to canter away and Susie decided to follow, suddenly. Theo fell off. But despite this he got fonder and fonder of the stocky bay mare, and she in turn didn’t lay her ears back at him quite so much as she used to. Mr Aldobrandino had allowed him to handle more swords than just the rapier and sabre, and although he found the broadswords gleefully exciting if only for their length and sharp edges, he was forced to admit that he still preferred the sabre. Rowena grudgingly admitted he was ‘getting a bit better’ at throwing spears, and taught him how to use an atlatl, which was basically a length of wood used to give the spear more oomph. It turned out she was supposed to teach him how to use bows and arrows as well, which she dutifully did although it was obvious she far preferred the spears; Theo himself, on the other hand, liked the bow a lot better and had a lot more natural skill at it, although crossbows confounded him a little at first. He also began his instruction in such exotic weaponry as throwing stars, battleaxes and throwing axes, daggers, maces, clubs, slings and war hammers; the majority of these were taught by the same two instructors called Mr Mace and Miss Aella, who while they were generally friendly and had quite the sense of humour, also possessed an almost unholy enthusiasm for this varied and sharp arsenal of the medieval. Theo enjoyed his lessons, especially as he began to get fitter and actually develop muscles (he was very pleased with them; Sashi laughed at him for that); but he also enjoyed the sessions in the library, where he devoured books on the mythical and revelled in the fact that almost everything he had previously longed to be real actually was. Although he still hadn’t found anything to explain the manifest impossibility of a huge secret complex located underneath Paddington Station.
At the same time, quite a long way away from the secret complex underneath Paddington Station and even further removed from what Theo was studying, a fifteen-year-old girl named Kimi Hunt was on the internet.
Ever since her brother had left home to take this mysterious job with the ‘MyHunt Society’, Kimi had been absolutely certain that there was something odd about it. Of course, Kimi was also certain that there was a terrible ancient conspiracy behind the Burger King fast-food chain, but that was mainly to keep herself amused. This time, her certainty was rock-solid. Her mother had looked up the Society’s website and been satisfied; Kimi, who had followed her onto it, spotted every single instance of unnecessarily vague terminology and then started cross-referencing every single company or organisation that it claimed to be affiliated to. This yielded nothing; to all intents and purposes the Society was exactly what it claimed to be in the eyes of its connections; so she resorted to Google, and hit gold.
There was a conspiracy theory website about it.
Kimi, experienced in such things, swiftly discarded all the generic ‘death cult’ and ‘secret ancient conspiracy ruling the world’ stories, and focussed on the more unusual ones. One poster, who went by the name of ‘mythicalreality76’, was particularly intriguing, as he claimed to have proof that the Society was actually dedicated to hiding the existence of mythical creatures. This was definitely interesting, although even Kimi found it a little far-fetched. It was, however, something her brother would have been interested in, considering his large collection of all things fantasy and that silly toy dragon he slept with. Perhaps it was actually a cult which lured impressionable young fantasy enthusiasts in with promises of meeting real mythical creatures and then performed terrible experiments on them…
Unfortunately, her attempts to discover the possible whereabouts of the Society’s HQ turned up so many wildly varying locations that narrowing them down to any one possibility was impossible. Scuppered; she slumped back in her chair and scowled-and had an idea. Sloping into the kitchen, she found her mother washing up tin cans for recycling.
“Mum?”
“Yes?”
“Is Theo coming back home for my birthday?”
Her mother paused in her washing and smiled.
“I should think so, Kim. Why don’t you phone him up and remind him? The number he gave us is in the phone diary.”
“Okay!” Kimi said chirpily, and dashed off to locate it.
Rather to her surprise, a female voice answered.
“Hello?”
“Um, hi. Is Theodore Hunt there?”
“He’s just come in. Who shall I say it is?”
“His sister. Kimi.”
“All right. Hold on.”
Kimi held on, listening to the faint voices on the other end, and then her brother’s familiar voice came on.
“Kimi?”
“Still here, bro.”
“Nice to hear from you and all, but is there any particular reason you’ve rung?”
He sounded…older, somehow, and also rather tired. She wondered what he’d been doing.
“Just to give you a reminder, brother dearest. It’s my birthday next week. Mum wants you to come back so we can do stuff ‘as a family’. You know how keen she is on that.”
She felt him wince. “Damn. I’d forgotten. No offence, Kim, but do I have to come?”
“I’m pretty sure mum would never forgive you if you didn’t,” Kimi purred, winding the phone cord around her finger. Theo sighed.
“Okay. If I can, I promise I will. And I’ll remember to bring you a present as well.”
“Gee, thanks,” she gushed, with sarcastic enthusiasm. “Try not to make it another t-shirt.”
“I thought you liked that one,” he said, sounding a little hurt. She grinned at the phone.
“It’s nice enough, bro, but not one I’d ever wear in public. Unlike you, I’m not proud of playing Guild Wars.”
“Message received,” he sighed. “Okay, Kim. Nice to hear from you. I’ll try and get there for your birthday. I’ve gotta hop off now though-I’m already late for something. Bye!”
There was a click as he rang off. Kimi replaced the handset and grinned wickedly. He’d turn up…and then she’d follow him. She should be able to get some sort of an idea about where he went from that.
The following Wednesday, Kimi officially turned sixteen at half-past eight in the morning. As promised Theo remembered to turn up, although not until half-past ten; and he brought a friend, a slender tawny-skinned girl who looked rather shy.
“Theo! You look so well!” his mother burbled enthusiastically. “And who’s this?”
“Sashi,” the girl murmured politely, extending a hand. “Nice to meet you, Mrs Hunt.”
“Very nice to meet you too, Sashi. Do call me Alexandra. This is my husband, Howard, and my daughter Kimi, whose birthday it is today.”
As Sashi introduced herself respectfully to Mr Hunt, evidently very embarrassed by his jovial questions about whether she was Theo’s girlfriend (Theo looked pretty uncomfortable as well, come to that), Kimi examined her carefully for any evidence she was a member of a cult going to experiment on Theo. Either she was a very good actor or entirely innocent, however, because all she saw was a diffident young woman, who smiled at her quietly but with warmth.
“Hello Kimi. Happy birthday.”
“Thank you. Uh. Nice to meet you,” Kimi said, in obedience to her mother’s sharp look over the girl’s shoulder. Sashi smiled again, and briefly fluttered one eyelid down in an unmistakable wink before obeying Alexandra Hunt’s effusive invitations to come through to the living room. Kimi grinned despite herself, and turned her attention to her brother.
Unusually for him, he met her eyes directly and smirked a little.
“What’re you plotting, Kim?”
“Just thinking how well you look,” she replied wickedly, mimicking their mother’s tone. “Are those muscles I see? You been working out?”
He stuck his tongue out at her and flexed his bicep. “I admit they do look pretty good, don’t they?”
“I’ve seen better,” she answered cheekily. He feigned shock, and then grinned.
“Well, happy birthday, sis.”
“Thanks very much, bro. Shall we go and rescue your girlfriend from Dad?”
“I think she’ll need it. Come on.”
Following him into the living room, Kimi noted that he hadn’t said Sashi wasn’t his girlfriend.
Her birthday was duly celebrated with cake, candles and a trip to the cinema, although the presence of parents scuppered their chances of seeing any really interesting films. Kimi and Sashi turned out to get on famously, despite Kimi’s continuing determination to unravel the mystery of the Society; however any attempts to steer the conversation in that direction were met with polite blankness and noncommittal replies. They went out for a meal in the evening, and Theo took the opportunity to present his gift.
“Here. It’s nothing to do with Guild Wars,” he said, passing a floppy package over with a grin. Kimi rolled her eyes at him.
“But it is a t-shirt,” she stated, fingering it. Theo nodded, evidently less than repentant about this.
“Not store-bought, though. I got it off one of those design-your-own t-shirt website things.”
Intrigued despite herself, Kimi shredded the wrapping and drew out the garment.
“Theodore,” she breathed. “It’s great.”
He had evidently had a good memory for her various conspiracy theories, as humorous references to them covered the shirt. The Burger King Conspiracy, the Badger Plot from when she was much younger, the Bayeux Tapestry from the time she was convinced it actually showed evidence of an invasion of aliens who had disguised themselves as knights…on the back was a photograph of Theo in riding clothes sitting atop a stocky brown pony, grinning like a loon, which the words ‘Indisputable Evidence of Conspiracy. What, You Can’t See It?’ printed underneath.
“So, do you like it?”
“I love it,” Kimi said happily. She carefully folded it up and put it in her bag, and then looked across at her brother. “It’s still not something I’d wear in public though!”
Everyone laughed at that.
That night, as Kimi was going to bed, she heard faint voices coming from the wall that adjoined Theo’s bedroom. Scrabbling for the glass she kept for eavesdropping purposes, she pressed her ear against it and listened intently.
“-sister look at everyone like that?”
That was Sashi’s voice. Theo replied, sounding offhand.
“Yeah, it’s nothing personal. I did tell you she sees conspiracies in everything. Don’t take it personally.”
“Do you think she suspects anything about the Society?”
“She certainly thinks it’s more than it seems, but then she thinks Burger King is more than it seems.”
“But what if-”
“Shush,” Theo interrupted suddenly. There was a pause, and then someone knocked on the wall.
“I know you’re listening, Kimi,” Theo said loudly. “Quit it this instant.”
There was the sound of footsteps in the other room, and a door opening. Immediately Kimi shot into bed, thankful she was already in her pyjamas, and feigned sleep. The door to her room creaked open, and then shut again, and footsteps returned to the other room. The minute Theo’s door had opened and shut Kimi was back at the wall with her glass, but Theo and Sashi’s conversation had apparently turned to Monty Python, and nothing more interesting was said.
The next morning, after breakfast, their visitors announced that they had to leave.
“Sorry mum, but we really need to get back early,” Theo apologised. “We’ve got some stuff to do.”
“I understand, sweetheart,” Alexandra said, patting her son’s hand. “It’s been very nice to see you. Come back and visit again soon. And you too, Sashi, it’s been a pleasure to have you around.”
“I will,” Theo promised. Sashi smiled and nodded.
“I will too.”
Kimi, seeing her opportunity, leapt in.
“Hey, Theo, could you take me to the station with you? Jane wants to go shopping and you know how she lives close to the station…”
Jane, her best friend and fellow conspiracy theorist, had been a great help. She did indeed live quite close to Paddington Station, and had agreed to request shopping so Kimi could go theory hunting as long as all subsequent results were shared. The only thing she regretted was that she couldn’t theory hunt too, due to an unfortunate family engagement.
Theo and Sashi glanced at each other. Alexandra clapped her hands.
“What a good idea, Kim! It’ll save me having to run you down there and it means you don’t have to get the bus by yourself.”
“Uh…sure. Okay,” Theo said, with a sigh. “Come on then. You’re paying your own bus fare.”
“Thanks, bro. You know how awfully scary it is for me to go on the bus by myself.”
Theo looked unconvinced.
They arrived at the station without incident, and wandered inside. Kimi made a pretence of looking around.
“I don’t see Jane. I’ll wait out here for her. See ya, big bro. Nice to meet you, Sashi.”
“’Bye, kid. I’ll come back and visit later on,” Theo reassured her, giving her a quick hug. Sashi raised a hand in a brief wave and smiled, and then they walked off into the crowd. Kimi waited until they were nearly out of view before darting after them.
To her surprise they didn’t head towards one of the platforms, but instead paused outside a door with a ‘private’ sign on it, looked around, unlocked it, and went in. From what Kimi could see, hiding behind a corner, it was a broom cupboard.
“…That’s the weirdest thing,” she breathed. “There has got to be something going on with this…”
Monday, 2 March 2009
Wednesday, 25 February 2009
Chapter Nine: An Education
If anyone's interested in finding out what the names in this story mean, go to 20000-names.com. That's where I get them from. With the exception of Theodore and Susie...
***
The next morning, every muscle in Theo’s body had turned to marshmallow, and it hurt. He managed to bait Sashi into physically pulling him out of bed, which brought on quite a lot of giggling and the threat of yet more beans on toast. Theo countered by offering to make breakfast; Sashi accepted with caution, evidently wondering what he was planning. She submitted awkwardly when he cheerfully positioned her at the head of the table and arranged a napkin and a wilting flower in a jamjar in front of her, and watched with apprehension verging on amusement as he bustled about.
The balance finally tilted in favour of amusement when he served up slightly burnt toast topped with raspberry jam and peanut butter with all the flair of a French chef. She hit him with the napkin and laughed.
“I don’t know what I was expecting but it wasn’t this.”
“Just call me the connoisseur of the unexpected,” he smiled, sitting next to her. They ate in silence that was verging on companionable, but was awkward enough for Theo to seek conversation.
“So…how did you come to join the Society?”
Sashi raised one shoulder in a half-shrug, toying with a crust.
“Automatically. My parents were both members. My brother’s an automatic member as well, although he’s gone off to work for the French Society…”
“So it’s automatic membership for member’s kids?”
“Well, not really…if it’s possible to keep up the pretence about the Society that’s preferred, but my parents basically lived down here all the time and I was born down here. Got given a Jackalope when I was six, to make up for my brother being born…it just wasn’t convenient for me to leave.”
“Oh. Makes sense, I guess. So if you’re basically a second-gen member how come you’re stuck cleaning out the Hellhounds?”
She gave a flicker of a smile. “I don’t like killing things and Mr Adfair was kind enough to let me keep things alive instead. Aren’t you supposed to be learning something around now?”
“Oh hell, yes I am…hang on…”
Consulting the timetable, it was duly discovered that he should be going out to learn how to use spears, as would be taught to him by…
“Rowena?”
“Oh, yes. Rowena’s our resident spear expert. You’ll never see her without one if you go with her on a mission…she refuses to use anything else.”
“Even close up?”
“Oh yes. There are spears for use up close too. Some of them have spikes on.” Sashi shuddered. “Rowena has a large and rather nasty collection…”
Theo left for his lesson feeling as though he’d just been sent on a suicide mission.
Rowena was waiting impatiently in the archery fields, playing with her ponytail in boredom. Her arms were bare, and for the first time Theo noticed that they were heavily muscled; she was certainly much stronger than he was. Next to her were three of her favourite weapons; one javelin, one stone-tipped spear and one iron-tipped spear.
“There you are,” she said, immediately upon spotting him. “You’re thirty-four seconds late you know.”
“I am? Sorry,” Theo apologised, wondering why a delay of just over half a minute had engendered so much impatience in the girl. “But, uh, I’m here now.”
“Yes. Come on, we’ll start straight away.”
She turned and trotted off, leading him away from the people practising with bows and arrows, towards a deserted section of field. The instant they arrived she thrust the javelin at him.
“Have you ever thrown one of these before?”
“Uh, yes…we used to do it at school,” he answered, deciding to omit the fact that he’d never been very good and hadn’t so much as touched one in three years. This seemed to satisfy Rowena, at least for the time being.
“Show me,” she demanded. “Show me your throwing stance.”
Rummaging through his memory for the correct way to stand, Theo managed to arrange himself side on to the distant target, holding the javelin in his right hand, drawn back to throw. He felt amazingly awkward, especially while Rowena assessed his stance through narrowed eyes.
“Keep your arm straighter,” she told him, physically pulling his throwing arm back so it was to her liking. “Don’t grip it so hard! Along the palm…put the shaft between your index and middle fingers…that’s it. Okay, run and throw.”
Theo did his best. The javelin managed to land point-down in the grass a couple of metres away, paused, and then fell over.
Rowena shook her head.
“We got a long way to go,” she stated, retrieving the javelin. “Do it again.”
Theo did it again. And again and again, until his rather demanding instructor decided they’d done all they could with the javelin and she would allow him to actually lay hands on a proper spear.
She gave him the iron-tipped one first. It felt sleek and wicked in his hands, something designed to rain down death from a distance. It was exciting and it practically begged to be thrown, but it also felt more impersonal; you could hurt anyone with it. It wasn’t anything like a sword, which was up close and personal.
“There’s not all that much difference between the stone and iron tips but it’s up to you which you prefer,” Rowena said briskly. “I like the stone-tipped ones better as they don’t break as easily, but when they do it’s really nasty and can do even more damage to your target. All right…throwing a spear’s much like throwing a javelin, except it’s a little heavier. Look, I’ll demonstrate.”
She picked up the stone-tipped one with her left hand and held it with the ease of long practice. She took up position, aimed carefully, took a couple of skipping steps, and threw; muscles bunched and released in her arm, and the spear arced through the air and impaled the far-off target straight through the bull’s-eye. It was most impressive and the mark of a true master, unlike Theo’s first effort.
“Do it again.”
He did it again.
“You’re getting a bit better,” Rowena eventually conceded, after the twelfth or so effort. “You could do well, if you practice a lot.”
“Uh…thanks,” Theo said, rubbing his upper arms, which were protesting again. He suspected this was high praise. Rowena gave him a brief thumbs-up and grin, returning to cheerfulness now her teaching job was done
“Next time we’ll use an atlatl!” she exclaimed, gathered up the spears and the javelin and skipped away. Gathering that he was now dismissed, Theo wandered off himself, entirely in the dark about what an atlatl actually was.
There was another riding lesson afterwards. Susie greeted him with pricked ears, investigated him for food, found none, and put her ears back instead. Theo stuck his tongue out at her, and was startled by Hector’s booming laugh from behind him. The Horsemaster evidently found his relationship with the bay mare to be amusing.
After a couple of false starts he managed to tack her up and lead her out, and he only failed to mount properly once. This was encouraging, and Hector seemed pleased. And then he decreed that most of the lesson would be spent in trot, with Theo singing ‘The Grand Old Duke of York’ over and over again in order to help with the rhythm of his rising. This was not encouraging. But at least he didn’t fall off this time.
And so it was that when Theo, smelling strongly of horse and with watery horse drool wiped down his front (after the lesson Susie had had a drink, and then decided to check his pockets for carrots again, leading to a rather damp t-shirt), headed towards the library for his third lesson of the day, he was still humming a nursery rhyme. It had been engraved permanently in his brain.
“…The grand old Duke of York, he had ten thousand men…” he mumbled, pushing open the door of the library building. The curator of the museum gave him a cheerful nod.
“Looking for the library?”
“Yup. Through the door and round the corner, right?”
“Got it in one, son. First door on your right. Easy as anything to find.”
And so it proved. It would have been hard to miss the huge double doors with the massive sign reading ‘Library’ above them even without the directions.
The minute he entered a short, skinny woman wearing horn-rimmed glasses hurried over.
“Mr Theodore Hunt?”
Theo replied in the positive, and was promptly handed a fairly thick booklet.
“These are the books recommended for those entering the Society. Mythological bestiaries, books on ancient weapons for the most part. You are not expected to read all of them. The best ones to start with are highlighted.”
“Uhm, thanks.”
She gave him a bright-eyed smile and scurried away back to her desk. Slightly overwhelmed, Theo opened the booklet and searched for the first highlighted title, which turned out to be ‘The Complete Encyclopaedia of Mythical Beasts and Their Habits’. He duly went looking for it, and only then realised just how big the library actually was.
The main room was bigger even than Mr Adfair’s study, with a high vaulted roof and shelves reaching up to a balcony that ran completely around the room about halfway up the walls. On that balcony were yet more shelves, all filled with books. Through a door in the back Theo could see another huge room, also full of shelves which were full of books, and yet another after that.
It left him with a very odd feeling that the library was somehow bigger than the building that contained it, especially since the building had to contain the museum as well.
“Don’t be stupid,” he muttered to himself. “It’s probably just some weird quirk of architecture…”
Rolling his shoulders in an effort to shake off the feeling, he went off in search of the encyclopaedia.
Eventually, with the help of the librarian Miss Terrwyn, it was located and heaved over to one of the reading tables, which groaned audibly as it was set down. It was a big book.
“That should keep you going,” Miss Terrwyn said cheerfully, and scurried off again. Theo looked at the book, which did not look back. It had a picture of a lion and a unicorn on the cover, probably out of some vague sense of patriotism, seeing as lions weren’t exactly a myth.
With a sigh, he sat down and opened it.
First thing first, he considered, was to look up some of those odd creatures he’d seen in Mr Adfair’s stuffed animal gallery, namely the Cat Sidhe and the Brag. The contents was beautifully illustrated and full of peculiar names; he ran his finger down the page and muttered to himself before locating the word ‘brag’.
Brags, it transpired, were more or less Kelpie Lite. They transformed into donkeys and lured people into riding on their backs, but they didn’t go in for the drowning and the eating, at least not directly; all they did was buck their rider off into bogs and run away laughing. Theo smiled at that; very childish behaviour for a mythical beast.
The next page detailed how to kill them. He skipped over that, vaguely disquieted by the talk of beheading and impaling, and looked up Cat Sidhe.
The first thing he discovered was that he’d been pronouncing it wrong; it was ‘Kett Shee’. They were fairy black cats with white spots on their breasts that haunted Scotland and apparently did little more than scare the pants off people; the book recommended killing them anyway, because there was also proof that they randomly attacked and savaged lonely walkers.
Theo skipped the killing talk there as well, and went to pick something else to look up. He chose kelpies, out of a vague feeling he ought to know a bit more about Susie’s ancestors, and turned to the relevant page. Turned out they came in several varieties; black, white, those that turned into women, those with dripping manes, those with bulrush manes; many also sported adhesive skin to trap their riders on their back. Included were several rather nasty stories, most of which involved children and some almost gleeful and decidedly lurid descriptions of them being eaten. Susie’s cheeky face floated into Theo’s mind, and he thanked his lucky stars that the mare was only half Kelpie.
He spent several more hours absorbed in the book, looking up the most outlandish creatures he could find and also some of the ones he already knew of, in case any of his ideas about them turned out to be very wrong. In the majority of cases, however, the old legends and stories were pretty accurate; only occasionally did the book point out, in a mildly patronising tone, a mistake that had been made or a misconception that had crept in over the years.
For the most part he overlooked the invariably detailed descriptions of how to kill them. A few instead were recommended for taming, which was more reassuring; but for the most part the information was informative and fascinating. He left the book only with reluctance, after being informed by the librarian that he should have gone to lunch an hour and a half ago. It was only luck, she said, that he had had another session in the library scheduled for after lunch; by the time he’d finished, though, it would be time for his next sword fighting lesson. Rather abashed, he nodded, thanked her and hurried out.
Sashi wasn’t in when he got back to the flat, but had left him a note in small, neat handwriting indicating the presence of sandwich-making materials and warning against attempting to cook anything. After bolting down a hastily-made cheese and salad sandwich with mustard, he rushed to meet Mr Aldobrandino, who greeted him with a raised eyebrow but kindly omitted to mention that his pupil was ten minutes late. He did, however, make Theo go through the positions he’d learnt the last lesson three times in a kind of unspoken punishment, both for the rapier and the sabre. Theo was developing a decided fondness for the sabre already, a fact which made Mr Aldobrandino grin for no readily apparent reason.
This time, after they had finished the next set of positions, he let Theo have a short sparring session with him near the end of the lesson. It ended with Theo flat on his back, after his teacher had demonstrated a cunning trick with his sabre and also his ready willingness to teach the hard way.
“This is not fencing, Mr Hunt!” he said cheerfully, offering a hand to help his winded student back to his feet. “I am teaching you to fight for your life! Now, again!”
This time, Theo ended up flat on his back even faster.
“We will have you fighting like a master in no time!” declared Mr Aldobrandino, grinning in a way Theo felt was decidedly unnecessary. “Again!”
***
The next morning, every muscle in Theo’s body had turned to marshmallow, and it hurt. He managed to bait Sashi into physically pulling him out of bed, which brought on quite a lot of giggling and the threat of yet more beans on toast. Theo countered by offering to make breakfast; Sashi accepted with caution, evidently wondering what he was planning. She submitted awkwardly when he cheerfully positioned her at the head of the table and arranged a napkin and a wilting flower in a jamjar in front of her, and watched with apprehension verging on amusement as he bustled about.
The balance finally tilted in favour of amusement when he served up slightly burnt toast topped with raspberry jam and peanut butter with all the flair of a French chef. She hit him with the napkin and laughed.
“I don’t know what I was expecting but it wasn’t this.”
“Just call me the connoisseur of the unexpected,” he smiled, sitting next to her. They ate in silence that was verging on companionable, but was awkward enough for Theo to seek conversation.
“So…how did you come to join the Society?”
Sashi raised one shoulder in a half-shrug, toying with a crust.
“Automatically. My parents were both members. My brother’s an automatic member as well, although he’s gone off to work for the French Society…”
“So it’s automatic membership for member’s kids?”
“Well, not really…if it’s possible to keep up the pretence about the Society that’s preferred, but my parents basically lived down here all the time and I was born down here. Got given a Jackalope when I was six, to make up for my brother being born…it just wasn’t convenient for me to leave.”
“Oh. Makes sense, I guess. So if you’re basically a second-gen member how come you’re stuck cleaning out the Hellhounds?”
She gave a flicker of a smile. “I don’t like killing things and Mr Adfair was kind enough to let me keep things alive instead. Aren’t you supposed to be learning something around now?”
“Oh hell, yes I am…hang on…”
Consulting the timetable, it was duly discovered that he should be going out to learn how to use spears, as would be taught to him by…
“Rowena?”
“Oh, yes. Rowena’s our resident spear expert. You’ll never see her without one if you go with her on a mission…she refuses to use anything else.”
“Even close up?”
“Oh yes. There are spears for use up close too. Some of them have spikes on.” Sashi shuddered. “Rowena has a large and rather nasty collection…”
Theo left for his lesson feeling as though he’d just been sent on a suicide mission.
Rowena was waiting impatiently in the archery fields, playing with her ponytail in boredom. Her arms were bare, and for the first time Theo noticed that they were heavily muscled; she was certainly much stronger than he was. Next to her were three of her favourite weapons; one javelin, one stone-tipped spear and one iron-tipped spear.
“There you are,” she said, immediately upon spotting him. “You’re thirty-four seconds late you know.”
“I am? Sorry,” Theo apologised, wondering why a delay of just over half a minute had engendered so much impatience in the girl. “But, uh, I’m here now.”
“Yes. Come on, we’ll start straight away.”
She turned and trotted off, leading him away from the people practising with bows and arrows, towards a deserted section of field. The instant they arrived she thrust the javelin at him.
“Have you ever thrown one of these before?”
“Uh, yes…we used to do it at school,” he answered, deciding to omit the fact that he’d never been very good and hadn’t so much as touched one in three years. This seemed to satisfy Rowena, at least for the time being.
“Show me,” she demanded. “Show me your throwing stance.”
Rummaging through his memory for the correct way to stand, Theo managed to arrange himself side on to the distant target, holding the javelin in his right hand, drawn back to throw. He felt amazingly awkward, especially while Rowena assessed his stance through narrowed eyes.
“Keep your arm straighter,” she told him, physically pulling his throwing arm back so it was to her liking. “Don’t grip it so hard! Along the palm…put the shaft between your index and middle fingers…that’s it. Okay, run and throw.”
Theo did his best. The javelin managed to land point-down in the grass a couple of metres away, paused, and then fell over.
Rowena shook her head.
“We got a long way to go,” she stated, retrieving the javelin. “Do it again.”
Theo did it again. And again and again, until his rather demanding instructor decided they’d done all they could with the javelin and she would allow him to actually lay hands on a proper spear.
She gave him the iron-tipped one first. It felt sleek and wicked in his hands, something designed to rain down death from a distance. It was exciting and it practically begged to be thrown, but it also felt more impersonal; you could hurt anyone with it. It wasn’t anything like a sword, which was up close and personal.
“There’s not all that much difference between the stone and iron tips but it’s up to you which you prefer,” Rowena said briskly. “I like the stone-tipped ones better as they don’t break as easily, but when they do it’s really nasty and can do even more damage to your target. All right…throwing a spear’s much like throwing a javelin, except it’s a little heavier. Look, I’ll demonstrate.”
She picked up the stone-tipped one with her left hand and held it with the ease of long practice. She took up position, aimed carefully, took a couple of skipping steps, and threw; muscles bunched and released in her arm, and the spear arced through the air and impaled the far-off target straight through the bull’s-eye. It was most impressive and the mark of a true master, unlike Theo’s first effort.
“Do it again.”
He did it again.
“You’re getting a bit better,” Rowena eventually conceded, after the twelfth or so effort. “You could do well, if you practice a lot.”
“Uh…thanks,” Theo said, rubbing his upper arms, which were protesting again. He suspected this was high praise. Rowena gave him a brief thumbs-up and grin, returning to cheerfulness now her teaching job was done
“Next time we’ll use an atlatl!” she exclaimed, gathered up the spears and the javelin and skipped away. Gathering that he was now dismissed, Theo wandered off himself, entirely in the dark about what an atlatl actually was.
There was another riding lesson afterwards. Susie greeted him with pricked ears, investigated him for food, found none, and put her ears back instead. Theo stuck his tongue out at her, and was startled by Hector’s booming laugh from behind him. The Horsemaster evidently found his relationship with the bay mare to be amusing.
After a couple of false starts he managed to tack her up and lead her out, and he only failed to mount properly once. This was encouraging, and Hector seemed pleased. And then he decreed that most of the lesson would be spent in trot, with Theo singing ‘The Grand Old Duke of York’ over and over again in order to help with the rhythm of his rising. This was not encouraging. But at least he didn’t fall off this time.
And so it was that when Theo, smelling strongly of horse and with watery horse drool wiped down his front (after the lesson Susie had had a drink, and then decided to check his pockets for carrots again, leading to a rather damp t-shirt), headed towards the library for his third lesson of the day, he was still humming a nursery rhyme. It had been engraved permanently in his brain.
“…The grand old Duke of York, he had ten thousand men…” he mumbled, pushing open the door of the library building. The curator of the museum gave him a cheerful nod.
“Looking for the library?”
“Yup. Through the door and round the corner, right?”
“Got it in one, son. First door on your right. Easy as anything to find.”
And so it proved. It would have been hard to miss the huge double doors with the massive sign reading ‘Library’ above them even without the directions.
The minute he entered a short, skinny woman wearing horn-rimmed glasses hurried over.
“Mr Theodore Hunt?”
Theo replied in the positive, and was promptly handed a fairly thick booklet.
“These are the books recommended for those entering the Society. Mythological bestiaries, books on ancient weapons for the most part. You are not expected to read all of them. The best ones to start with are highlighted.”
“Uhm, thanks.”
She gave him a bright-eyed smile and scurried away back to her desk. Slightly overwhelmed, Theo opened the booklet and searched for the first highlighted title, which turned out to be ‘The Complete Encyclopaedia of Mythical Beasts and Their Habits’. He duly went looking for it, and only then realised just how big the library actually was.
The main room was bigger even than Mr Adfair’s study, with a high vaulted roof and shelves reaching up to a balcony that ran completely around the room about halfway up the walls. On that balcony were yet more shelves, all filled with books. Through a door in the back Theo could see another huge room, also full of shelves which were full of books, and yet another after that.
It left him with a very odd feeling that the library was somehow bigger than the building that contained it, especially since the building had to contain the museum as well.
“Don’t be stupid,” he muttered to himself. “It’s probably just some weird quirk of architecture…”
Rolling his shoulders in an effort to shake off the feeling, he went off in search of the encyclopaedia.
Eventually, with the help of the librarian Miss Terrwyn, it was located and heaved over to one of the reading tables, which groaned audibly as it was set down. It was a big book.
“That should keep you going,” Miss Terrwyn said cheerfully, and scurried off again. Theo looked at the book, which did not look back. It had a picture of a lion and a unicorn on the cover, probably out of some vague sense of patriotism, seeing as lions weren’t exactly a myth.
With a sigh, he sat down and opened it.
First thing first, he considered, was to look up some of those odd creatures he’d seen in Mr Adfair’s stuffed animal gallery, namely the Cat Sidhe and the Brag. The contents was beautifully illustrated and full of peculiar names; he ran his finger down the page and muttered to himself before locating the word ‘brag’.
Brags, it transpired, were more or less Kelpie Lite. They transformed into donkeys and lured people into riding on their backs, but they didn’t go in for the drowning and the eating, at least not directly; all they did was buck their rider off into bogs and run away laughing. Theo smiled at that; very childish behaviour for a mythical beast.
The next page detailed how to kill them. He skipped over that, vaguely disquieted by the talk of beheading and impaling, and looked up Cat Sidhe.
The first thing he discovered was that he’d been pronouncing it wrong; it was ‘Kett Shee’. They were fairy black cats with white spots on their breasts that haunted Scotland and apparently did little more than scare the pants off people; the book recommended killing them anyway, because there was also proof that they randomly attacked and savaged lonely walkers.
Theo skipped the killing talk there as well, and went to pick something else to look up. He chose kelpies, out of a vague feeling he ought to know a bit more about Susie’s ancestors, and turned to the relevant page. Turned out they came in several varieties; black, white, those that turned into women, those with dripping manes, those with bulrush manes; many also sported adhesive skin to trap their riders on their back. Included were several rather nasty stories, most of which involved children and some almost gleeful and decidedly lurid descriptions of them being eaten. Susie’s cheeky face floated into Theo’s mind, and he thanked his lucky stars that the mare was only half Kelpie.
He spent several more hours absorbed in the book, looking up the most outlandish creatures he could find and also some of the ones he already knew of, in case any of his ideas about them turned out to be very wrong. In the majority of cases, however, the old legends and stories were pretty accurate; only occasionally did the book point out, in a mildly patronising tone, a mistake that had been made or a misconception that had crept in over the years.
For the most part he overlooked the invariably detailed descriptions of how to kill them. A few instead were recommended for taming, which was more reassuring; but for the most part the information was informative and fascinating. He left the book only with reluctance, after being informed by the librarian that he should have gone to lunch an hour and a half ago. It was only luck, she said, that he had had another session in the library scheduled for after lunch; by the time he’d finished, though, it would be time for his next sword fighting lesson. Rather abashed, he nodded, thanked her and hurried out.
Sashi wasn’t in when he got back to the flat, but had left him a note in small, neat handwriting indicating the presence of sandwich-making materials and warning against attempting to cook anything. After bolting down a hastily-made cheese and salad sandwich with mustard, he rushed to meet Mr Aldobrandino, who greeted him with a raised eyebrow but kindly omitted to mention that his pupil was ten minutes late. He did, however, make Theo go through the positions he’d learnt the last lesson three times in a kind of unspoken punishment, both for the rapier and the sabre. Theo was developing a decided fondness for the sabre already, a fact which made Mr Aldobrandino grin for no readily apparent reason.
This time, after they had finished the next set of positions, he let Theo have a short sparring session with him near the end of the lesson. It ended with Theo flat on his back, after his teacher had demonstrated a cunning trick with his sabre and also his ready willingness to teach the hard way.
“This is not fencing, Mr Hunt!” he said cheerfully, offering a hand to help his winded student back to his feet. “I am teaching you to fight for your life! Now, again!”
This time, Theo ended up flat on his back even faster.
“We will have you fighting like a master in no time!” declared Mr Aldobrandino, grinning in a way Theo felt was decidedly unnecessary. “Again!”
Tuesday, 10 February 2009
Chapter Eight: Mounted Cavalry
Author's Note: I apologise that this chapter is shorter than some of the previous ones. It's mainly because I ran out of things to put in the sword lesson fairly quickly; unlike with horses, I've never even touched a sword before. So yeah. x3 I apologise if anyone who actually knows about swords reads this. I got everything off the internet. Google is a marvellous thing.
---
Susie managed to tolerate being tacked up and untacked three times, although she did contrive to make life difficult by jerking her head out of reach as soon as Theo came anywhere near with the bridle. But she did at least have the good grace not to bite him when he clumsily put the bit in her mouth, which was something. A little to Theo’s surprise the bridle, with its many leather straps and buckles to do up, was actually easier to put on than the saddle, which had to be placed correctly to avoid rubbing and not bunch up the padded cloth put underneath. This padding was apparently known as a numnah, for no reason Theo could see.
Eventually he managed to get everything on to Hector’s satisfaction, and Susie was led, with great reluctance on her part, out to the school at the back of the stables. Also at the back of the stables were a large spread of grassy fields upon which yet more horses, presumably the occupants of the empty stables he had seen, grazed peacefully. It was yet another minor impossibility, but by now Theo had given up asking how it all worked.
He was made to mount and dismount six times before he did it properly. Eventually he was allowed to remain up on Susie’s back, clutching the front of the saddle with one hand and the reins in the other and feeling incredibly unstable. There didn’t seem to be anything stopping him from simply falling off sideways except the stirrups, which merely seemed to be things to get his feet tangled in.
Hector clipped a lead rein to the bridle and regarded his pupil critically.
“Awright. First off, push your legs down far as they’ll go. That’s it. Stirrup needs to be on the ball of your foot, an’ put your heels down. As me old riding teacher used ta say, toes t’heaven and heels t’hell. There, good. We wanna have a straight line from your shoulder to your hip to your heel; it’s gonna be uncomfortable at first but you’ll get used ta it. And you don’t hold the reins inna fist! Go on, let go of the pommel-that’s the front o’the saddle to you. Thumbs on top and little fingers underneath. No…underneath the rein. There we go. Okay, to make her walk on, give her a nudge with your legs.”
With caution, in case she took it into her head to leap forwards and violently unseat him, Theo nudged Susie’s sides. Hector snorted.
“Harder’n that, laddie. Susie c’n be an awkward cuss.”
Theo obediently nudged harder, and his mount deigned to begin ambling forwards. They did several circuits at a slow walk, with Hector cheerfully picking fault with his position, and then risked a short trot. Trot turned out to be a lot bouncier than Theo had expected. He fell off.
“You okay lad? Anything broken? No? Up you get again then.”
They tried trot again. This time Theo didn’t fall off. He felt this was a minor breakthrough, until he was informed that for the most part when trotting he was expected to do rising trot rather than sit there like a lemon.
He managed not to fall off during his first instruction in rising trot, although he felt like he was going to and consequently attempted most of it bent almost double.
This was incorrect, according to Hector’s patient tutoring, and he was forced to remain upright. Susie spent the whole lesson with her ears laid back.
It was going swimmingly until someone with a broom walked unexpectedly out from behind the stables and caused Susie to dance sideways in paranoid shock.
Theo fell off again.
Once again, he was not allowed to feel sorry for himself.
“Haveta get back on the horse!” Hector boomed happily, pulling him up and boosting him up onto Susie’s back once again. “You ain’t hurt!”
Susie sighed. Theo knew exactly how she felt.
By the end of the lesson, though, he was feeling rather proud of himself. He could ride a horse! Kind of. The Horsemaster had expressed approval in him and said that if all went well he’d soon be off the lead rein. He led Susie back to her stable by herself and managed to untack her by himself as well, under Hector’s watchful eye.
He was then informed that now Susie was his pony, he would be expected to take care of her.
“’Course, most of ‘em don’t,” Mr Ahern said with disapproval, demonstrating how to pick out a horse’s feet. “But you’re supposed to and I hope you will.”
“Sure,” Theo said obediently. “If you teach me how, of course…”
“No problem!” Hector boomed, evidently enthused by the idea of a new willing pupil and effortlessly subduing Susie’s attempts to get her back leg away from his grip. “’Seasy when you get used to it!”
The next thing on Theo’s timetable that afternoon was basic sword fighting taught by someone called Mr Aldobrandino, who turned out to be a little old man with a light Italian accent. The first thing Theo saw when he walked into the room was a table with more types of sword laid out on it than he’d ever seen before in his life.
“Mr Hunt?” Mr Aldobrandino enquired, materialising beside him. “Yes? Good. First we pick out the best sword for you.”
Without further preamble Theo was ushered to the table and required to listen to his new instructor’s passionate spiel about all the different types of what was essentially still a length of metal designed to maim people. It was actually rather interesting; Theo had had no idea there was such variety.
“-Claymores, both two-handed and basket-hilted. Very good swords, Scottish you know. Mortuary swords, basket-hilted…sabres, lovely example here with the curved blade but here also we have straight-bladed sabres with a double edge. Rapiers of course, lovely hilt isn’t it? Also we have here an epee, though it is not a good offensive sword, more for fencing. Hunting sword, for finishing off prey…cutlass, my favourite! Broadsword of course, longswords of many types, bastard sword…”
There were many others, often with complicated foreign names that Theo found very hard to pronounce, and his attention was beginning to wander a bit by the end. His muscles were starting to register complaints about their treatment in the riding lesson and the innumerable lengths of sharp, shining steel laid out before him were becoming almost hypnotising.
“-For you, Mr Hunt, I believe we start with a rapier. You have a good rapier body, I believe. Maybe then the sabre. Mr Hunt?”
“Oh! Yes. Rapier, then sabre,” Theo repeated obediently. Mr Aldobrandino nodded with satisfaction and trotted to a cupboard from which he produced, much to Theo’s relief, a blunted rapier and a wooden curved-blade sabre.
“First you will learn how to hold this sword properly,” his instructor informed him, passing him the rapier. It was much heavier than he expected, and his muscles immediately howled at him. “Now…the flat blade stays parallel to ground at all times; this sword is designed for thrusting, you see. There are many ways to hold rapiers; we will try all of them and see which is best for you.”
Eventually, after Theo’s fingers had been manoeuvred into several different positions on the hilt, each of them uncomfortable in their own fashion, they decided to stick with the one where his thumb rested on the blade.
Then they actually started practising positions, and Theo quickly found that this was even harder work than learning to ride. By the time Mr Aldobrandino expressed the opinion that they were finished with his introduction to the rapier his arms felt about ready to drop off. He’d been using muscles he’d never even realised he had and they hurt.
Mr Aldobrandino grinned at him.
“Sore?”
“Very,” Theo admitted ruefully. The old man’s grin became positively gleeful.
“It’ll get you fit,” he announced. “Now I shall introduce you to the sabre.”
The sabre, it turned out, was held in an entirely different way, more or less between the thumb and forefinger. Naturally this caused different muscles to start complaining.
Eventually Mr Aldobrandino allowed that they might be finished with sabre positions as well.
“Next time we will begin sparring,” he said cheerfully. “You are a good student, you will do well.”
“Thanks,” Theo said in surprise, passing back the sabre. “I quite enjoyed it, thank you.”
“Sword fighting is good fun,” the old man nodded, grinning again. “Very enjoyable. Goodbye Mr Hunt.”
To Theo’s great relief there was nothing more on his timetable for that day. He staggered back to his accommodation, this time only getting slightly lost, and just about managed to climb the stairs, unlock the door and fall onto the sofa.
He was still there when Sashi returned from the zoo. She gave him a startled look.
“Are you all right?”
He raised his head with a rueful smile.
“Yeah, I’m fine, don’t worry. My arms are just going to fall off, that’s all.”
For a moment Sashi looked worried, then she tentatively smiled.
“Did Mr Aldobrandino work you hard?” she asked sympathetically, kicking off her shoes. Theo nodded and put on a pout, closing his eyes.
“And your Hector too. Oooh, I’m going to die.”
Sashi’s smile widened a little. Theo peeped at her under one eyelid.
“Go on, say it.”
“Say what?” she protested, a little alarmed.
“Tell me I’m a melodramatic idiot who ought to be put down at once,” Theo purred. “Go on, I know you want to.”
She took a second to realise he was joking, but then her smile returned.
“All right. You’re a melodramatic idiot who ought to be put down at once. And you’re only getting beans on toast for dinner.”
“Hey!” he protested. “I’m suffering here. Beans on toast?!”
“Beans on toast are good for invalids,” Sashi informed him. “You’ll get them ‘till you’re well again.”
She looked so serious Theo’s mouth dropped open.
“…Really?”
There was a pause, and then Sashi grinned wickedly.
“Of course not. Just until you stop being a melodramatic idiot. Savvy?”
---
Susie managed to tolerate being tacked up and untacked three times, although she did contrive to make life difficult by jerking her head out of reach as soon as Theo came anywhere near with the bridle. But she did at least have the good grace not to bite him when he clumsily put the bit in her mouth, which was something. A little to Theo’s surprise the bridle, with its many leather straps and buckles to do up, was actually easier to put on than the saddle, which had to be placed correctly to avoid rubbing and not bunch up the padded cloth put underneath. This padding was apparently known as a numnah, for no reason Theo could see.
Eventually he managed to get everything on to Hector’s satisfaction, and Susie was led, with great reluctance on her part, out to the school at the back of the stables. Also at the back of the stables were a large spread of grassy fields upon which yet more horses, presumably the occupants of the empty stables he had seen, grazed peacefully. It was yet another minor impossibility, but by now Theo had given up asking how it all worked.
He was made to mount and dismount six times before he did it properly. Eventually he was allowed to remain up on Susie’s back, clutching the front of the saddle with one hand and the reins in the other and feeling incredibly unstable. There didn’t seem to be anything stopping him from simply falling off sideways except the stirrups, which merely seemed to be things to get his feet tangled in.
Hector clipped a lead rein to the bridle and regarded his pupil critically.
“Awright. First off, push your legs down far as they’ll go. That’s it. Stirrup needs to be on the ball of your foot, an’ put your heels down. As me old riding teacher used ta say, toes t’heaven and heels t’hell. There, good. We wanna have a straight line from your shoulder to your hip to your heel; it’s gonna be uncomfortable at first but you’ll get used ta it. And you don’t hold the reins inna fist! Go on, let go of the pommel-that’s the front o’the saddle to you. Thumbs on top and little fingers underneath. No…underneath the rein. There we go. Okay, to make her walk on, give her a nudge with your legs.”
With caution, in case she took it into her head to leap forwards and violently unseat him, Theo nudged Susie’s sides. Hector snorted.
“Harder’n that, laddie. Susie c’n be an awkward cuss.”
Theo obediently nudged harder, and his mount deigned to begin ambling forwards. They did several circuits at a slow walk, with Hector cheerfully picking fault with his position, and then risked a short trot. Trot turned out to be a lot bouncier than Theo had expected. He fell off.
“You okay lad? Anything broken? No? Up you get again then.”
They tried trot again. This time Theo didn’t fall off. He felt this was a minor breakthrough, until he was informed that for the most part when trotting he was expected to do rising trot rather than sit there like a lemon.
He managed not to fall off during his first instruction in rising trot, although he felt like he was going to and consequently attempted most of it bent almost double.
This was incorrect, according to Hector’s patient tutoring, and he was forced to remain upright. Susie spent the whole lesson with her ears laid back.
It was going swimmingly until someone with a broom walked unexpectedly out from behind the stables and caused Susie to dance sideways in paranoid shock.
Theo fell off again.
Once again, he was not allowed to feel sorry for himself.
“Haveta get back on the horse!” Hector boomed happily, pulling him up and boosting him up onto Susie’s back once again. “You ain’t hurt!”
Susie sighed. Theo knew exactly how she felt.
By the end of the lesson, though, he was feeling rather proud of himself. He could ride a horse! Kind of. The Horsemaster had expressed approval in him and said that if all went well he’d soon be off the lead rein. He led Susie back to her stable by herself and managed to untack her by himself as well, under Hector’s watchful eye.
He was then informed that now Susie was his pony, he would be expected to take care of her.
“’Course, most of ‘em don’t,” Mr Ahern said with disapproval, demonstrating how to pick out a horse’s feet. “But you’re supposed to and I hope you will.”
“Sure,” Theo said obediently. “If you teach me how, of course…”
“No problem!” Hector boomed, evidently enthused by the idea of a new willing pupil and effortlessly subduing Susie’s attempts to get her back leg away from his grip. “’Seasy when you get used to it!”
The next thing on Theo’s timetable that afternoon was basic sword fighting taught by someone called Mr Aldobrandino, who turned out to be a little old man with a light Italian accent. The first thing Theo saw when he walked into the room was a table with more types of sword laid out on it than he’d ever seen before in his life.
“Mr Hunt?” Mr Aldobrandino enquired, materialising beside him. “Yes? Good. First we pick out the best sword for you.”
Without further preamble Theo was ushered to the table and required to listen to his new instructor’s passionate spiel about all the different types of what was essentially still a length of metal designed to maim people. It was actually rather interesting; Theo had had no idea there was such variety.
“-Claymores, both two-handed and basket-hilted. Very good swords, Scottish you know. Mortuary swords, basket-hilted…sabres, lovely example here with the curved blade but here also we have straight-bladed sabres with a double edge. Rapiers of course, lovely hilt isn’t it? Also we have here an epee, though it is not a good offensive sword, more for fencing. Hunting sword, for finishing off prey…cutlass, my favourite! Broadsword of course, longswords of many types, bastard sword…”
There were many others, often with complicated foreign names that Theo found very hard to pronounce, and his attention was beginning to wander a bit by the end. His muscles were starting to register complaints about their treatment in the riding lesson and the innumerable lengths of sharp, shining steel laid out before him were becoming almost hypnotising.
“-For you, Mr Hunt, I believe we start with a rapier. You have a good rapier body, I believe. Maybe then the sabre. Mr Hunt?”
“Oh! Yes. Rapier, then sabre,” Theo repeated obediently. Mr Aldobrandino nodded with satisfaction and trotted to a cupboard from which he produced, much to Theo’s relief, a blunted rapier and a wooden curved-blade sabre.
“First you will learn how to hold this sword properly,” his instructor informed him, passing him the rapier. It was much heavier than he expected, and his muscles immediately howled at him. “Now…the flat blade stays parallel to ground at all times; this sword is designed for thrusting, you see. There are many ways to hold rapiers; we will try all of them and see which is best for you.”
Eventually, after Theo’s fingers had been manoeuvred into several different positions on the hilt, each of them uncomfortable in their own fashion, they decided to stick with the one where his thumb rested on the blade.
Then they actually started practising positions, and Theo quickly found that this was even harder work than learning to ride. By the time Mr Aldobrandino expressed the opinion that they were finished with his introduction to the rapier his arms felt about ready to drop off. He’d been using muscles he’d never even realised he had and they hurt.
Mr Aldobrandino grinned at him.
“Sore?”
“Very,” Theo admitted ruefully. The old man’s grin became positively gleeful.
“It’ll get you fit,” he announced. “Now I shall introduce you to the sabre.”
The sabre, it turned out, was held in an entirely different way, more or less between the thumb and forefinger. Naturally this caused different muscles to start complaining.
Eventually Mr Aldobrandino allowed that they might be finished with sabre positions as well.
“Next time we will begin sparring,” he said cheerfully. “You are a good student, you will do well.”
“Thanks,” Theo said in surprise, passing back the sabre. “I quite enjoyed it, thank you.”
“Sword fighting is good fun,” the old man nodded, grinning again. “Very enjoyable. Goodbye Mr Hunt.”
To Theo’s great relief there was nothing more on his timetable for that day. He staggered back to his accommodation, this time only getting slightly lost, and just about managed to climb the stairs, unlock the door and fall onto the sofa.
He was still there when Sashi returned from the zoo. She gave him a startled look.
“Are you all right?”
He raised his head with a rueful smile.
“Yeah, I’m fine, don’t worry. My arms are just going to fall off, that’s all.”
For a moment Sashi looked worried, then she tentatively smiled.
“Did Mr Aldobrandino work you hard?” she asked sympathetically, kicking off her shoes. Theo nodded and put on a pout, closing his eyes.
“And your Hector too. Oooh, I’m going to die.”
Sashi’s smile widened a little. Theo peeped at her under one eyelid.
“Go on, say it.”
“Say what?” she protested, a little alarmed.
“Tell me I’m a melodramatic idiot who ought to be put down at once,” Theo purred. “Go on, I know you want to.”
She took a second to realise he was joking, but then her smile returned.
“All right. You’re a melodramatic idiot who ought to be put down at once. And you’re only getting beans on toast for dinner.”
“Hey!” he protested. “I’m suffering here. Beans on toast?!”
“Beans on toast are good for invalids,” Sashi informed him. “You’ll get them ‘till you’re well again.”
She looked so serious Theo’s mouth dropped open.
“…Really?”
There was a pause, and then Sashi grinned wickedly.
“Of course not. Just until you stop being a melodramatic idiot. Savvy?”
Wednesday, 4 February 2009
Finally Chapter Seven: Horse Sense
Sashi cooked the next day’s lunch.
She had been very polite about Theo’s efforts, but he was man enough to admit that, with pasta, crunchy was not the way to go.
After a beautifully prepared and not at all crunchy bean and couscous salad had been devoured, Sashi enquired as to what he was supposed to do now.
“Says here I’ve got a riding lesson,” Theo informed her, perusing his timetable. Sashi smiled.
“Then I’ll take you to meet the Horsemaster. Mr Ahern. He’s very nice, you’ll like him.”
“Uhuh,” Theo said, a little unconvinced. He was sure the Horsemaster was indeed a very nice man, but he’d always been a bit wary of horses. He’d never met one face-to-face, admittedly, but they were big animals and often on television they ran away with people, when they weren’t being treated as some kind of automaton.
But he obediently followed Sashi down to the stables, there to be left in the care of Horsemaster ‘Call me Hector’ Ahern who took to him immediately.
“Lookin’ forwards to meetin’ all the horses?” he boomed cheerfully, patting Theo on the shoulder with one huge hand. He was a big man with a broad and enthusiastic face who radiated goodwill to all men and especially those who liked horses. From what Sashi had told Theo on the way down he was also the Society’s undisputed expert on horses, donkeys, zebras, pegasi, unicorns and anything else even vaguely equine.
“Thanks for bringin’ him along, Sash,” he told Theo’s companion. “You gonna hang around?”
Shyly Sashi shook her head. “I’ve got to clean out the Hellhound pens. That’s a big job and I better start it now.”
Before anyone could object she had slipped away, leaving Theo alone with the Horsemaster and a lot of long faces regarding him with mild interest over loosebox doors.
“Ever met a horse before?” Hector enquired. Theo shook his head, and the man grinned.
“Didn’t think so. I better start your education now, then, huh? C’mon.”
He led Theo through rows of looseboxes until they fetched up outside a corner box whose grey occupant immediately stuck their nose into Hector’s hands, demanding a treat. He laughed and rubbed the white nose.
“This here’s Alyssa and the nicest mare we got in the whole stable. Sweet as a little lamb, she is, not like some. Wouldn’t hurt a fly, which would be why I’m startin’ you off on her. Right. Now, you must never offer a horse you don’t know a flat hand, yeah? They think there’s a snack there and bang goes one of your fingers ‘cause they ain’t always so observant when it comes to things what feel like carrots. Offer a closed fist, so they can smell. Go on. No sharp movements, remember that they’re prey.”
Obediently but rather nervously Theo proffered his fist to the mare. She sniffed it politely; it appeared to meet with her approval, because she regarded him hopefully with her brown eyes and gently butted her nose into his shoulder.
“She wants you to give her a scratch,” Hector informed him as he looked helplessly at the man. “Loves her scratches, does Alyssa. Reach round and rub her neck, just there under the mane. No, harder than that; she ain’t made of china. Ah, you hit the spot just there, look at her!”
Alyssa’s eyes had drooped down to almost closed and her ears began to splay slowly sideways. Hector Ahern beamed his approval.
“She’ll have you standin’ there for hours if she gets her way,” he said affectionately. “But you gotta remember, Alyssa’s a good girl who likes people but they ain’t all like that. Some of the ones we keep here, if you ain’t the right person or you don’t approach ‘em right they’ll take a lump outta your arm before you c’n say Jack Robinson, though most of ‘em are just plain scared of people. It’s the ears you gotta watch, at first; after a while you’ll get the littler clues but the ears are a good place t’start. Alyssa’s ears, right, sideways like that, that’s a relaxed beastie what doesn’t give a damn. Pricked right up, they’re curious, they wanna know what’s going on; that or they’ve seen somethin’ interestin’, like a food bowl or a friend o’theirs. But you gotta watch if they put their ears back because they ain’t happy, and if they’re flattened right back on their neck you better leave ‘em alone sharpish. Once you get t’know ‘em better you can tell when they’re just feelin’ a bit snappish and when they’re really upset, but when you’re jus’ learnin’ it’s best to be wary.”
Theo absorbed this as good sense, still scratching at Alyssa’s neck. His fingers were getting tired and he wondered if the mare would object to his stopping; but when he cautiously withdrew his hand she did nothing but sigh in a resigned manner. Mr Ahern had wandered away down the row of boxes, and now he beckoned his pupil over to meet a delicate chestnut mare.
“Now this ‘un, she’s more nervous, but go on, introduce yourself, she won’t hurt you…”
Over the course of about three-quarters of an hour Theo learnt more about horses than he had ever learnt in the whole of the rest of his life. He learned not to creep up behind them, not to let his fingers get in the way of feeding them things and his feet get in the way of their hooves, a lot of horsey vocabulary (white horses were not white, they were grey. Except when they were white…apparently, the decider was pink skin), and more than he really wanted to know about the fates of those who had underestimated these creatures. The Horsemaster seemed to have an endless stock of these rather horrible stories.
And yet, his undoubted enthusiasm and love for the animals was infectious, as was his good humour, and Theo found himself enjoying it all immensely. The horses were still a little worrying; they seemed to decide whether they liked him or not arbitrarily on the spot, and react accordingly without any warning he could see; but they certainly weren’t as scary as he’d vaguely expected them to be and one or two actually really seemed to like him.
He’d got rather a shock the first time one of his companionable scratches had led to the horse returning the gesture with her lips on his shoulder, but apparently this was perfectly natural and indeed very friendly and called mutual grooming.
One or two of the horses also tried to bite him for not much reason, but this apparently wasn’t to be taken personally.
It was while he was carefully introducing himself to a rather nervy piebald gelding that Hector glanced at his watch and said,
“Do you want to pick out your own beastie now?”
Theo’s startled reaction made the piebald toss his black-and-white blotched head in sudden alarm and retreat to the back of his stable.
“You mean a horse of my own?”
“Yeah, sure! A horse is a hunter’s best pal. Get you places a car never could, and c’n be yer best friend to boot. Well, some people think cars is better but they’re talking outta something that ain’t their mouth.” The Horsemaster made a dismissive gesture, and grinned at Theo. “We got a bunch of new ponies only a few days ago, you c’n pick from them, there’s only a few that ain’t suitable for newbies. Over here.”
He led Theo over to a row of slightly separate looseboxes, six in all, but before he could introduce the first grey head that poked inquisitively out a stable hand ran up.
“Hector? Hector, could you take a look at Brianna’s leg? That idiot Itzal took her out again this morning even though I told him he shouldn’t and now it’s swollen up like a balloon again.”
Hector Ahern’s face darkened and he glanced at Theo.
“Stick to these guys, none of ‘em’ll bite you. You’ll be fine, you’re already good with ‘em. I’m coming, Mark.”
He strode off after the stable hand with some purpose, leaving Theo alone with a curious equine nose snuffling at his shoulder and a sense that he had just been complimented.
The grey pony in the first box was friendly but ultimately uninterested, as was the chestnut in the second. The strawberry roan in the third was far too small for him to ride; it looked like a child’s pony. The fourth pony greeted him with laid-back ears and a horrible face, causing him to scurry onwards to the fifth box, which held another chestnut who appeared to be sleeping; it flicked an ear at his greeting and glanced at him briefly but apparently he wasn’t interesting enough to merit actually moving.
The fifth pony was a bay mare with her back to the door, munching peacefully on her straw bedding. Theo leaned over her door and cleared his throat politely. This had prompted most of the other ponies to saunter up and examine him for food; this mare’s reaction was a little more extreme. Her head shot up and her ears shot back and she spun round and glared horribly at him.
Theo took several steps back in surprise, and the pair of them eyeballed each other from a distance with varying degrees of suspicion.
Eventually Theo realised he was having a staring match with a horse, and coughed a little embarrassedly.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. “Really.”
The mare looked disbelieving, but deigned to inch one ear forwards. Theo advanced cautiously and held out a hand; she smelled it, and immediately flared her nostrils and put her ear straight back again. This was a little hurtful.
“Oh, come on, now you’re just being silly,” he accused. The mare looked down her nose at him; he leaned on her door and put out a hand to her again. After snorting huffily a couple of times, she deigned to smell it, and this time her ears crept forwards. Theo smiled.
“There. See?”
When Hector Ahern returned he found them in a wary truce, intermittently grooming each other and retreating in case either of them had some sort of betrayal in mind, like biting or putting on a bridle.
“Hello there,” he said, his unexpected voice causing the mare to speedily retreat to the back of the stable again. “Why’s Susie here?”
“Is that her name?” Theo enquired, leaning over the door and trying to entice her forwards again. “I like her. Is she available?”
“Eh, well, yes she is. But she shouldn’t be in with these guys. Susie’s…not a beginner’s pony.”
“Oh,” said Theo, rather disappointed. “Why not?”
“She’s half-Kelpie,” Hector said, eyeing the pony, who eyed him back. “She ain’t much for the drownin’ and eatin’ but she’s a hell of a one for the runnin’ away with you. Any of the others catch yer fancy?”
A little reluctantly Theo followed the Horsemaster down the other boxes while the older man waxed lyrical about their occupants, although he did admit that the roan was too small for him. They both agreed in the end that the grey, a comfortable gelding named Kimon, was the best one for him, at least to begin on. Hector cheerfully went off to get his tack, and Theo absently scratched at the gelding’s neck while Kimon opportunistically searched his pockets for food.
His thoughtful reverie was then broken by the sound of one of the horses kicking their door.
It turned out to be Susie, jerking her head up and down as she battered at the stable door for attention.
“Susie! Don’t be silly,” Theo said severely, approaching the mare, who stopped kicking the door and eyeballed him meaningfully. “You shouldn’t be kicking your door like that.”
The mare looked unrepentant, and a little smug.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
One ear went back, and she treated him to another meaningful stare, this time a warning.
“Oh, that’s nice! Can’t make up your mind if you want attention or not, can you?”
Susie kicked her door again, as though to show that she didn’t really need his attention, he was just convenient. Theo stuck his tongue out at her. She jerked her head and shook her mane at him.
They were still having a very similar dialogue when Hector returned with Kimon’s saddle and bridle. Pausing, the Horsemaster took a moment to watch them, and grinned to himself.
Then he apologised to Kimon and went away again, returning with a different saddle and bridle.
“All right, Theo m’lad, time for your first ridin’ lesson.”
“Okay.”
Theo gave Susie a last pat (she put her ears back at him, on principle), and began to move towards Kimon’s stable. But a clatter behind him made him turn back; Hector had opened the kickbolt on the bottom of Susie’s door. He gave the younger man a nod.
“Comin’ to see howta tack up, are you, or are you gonna go someplace else?”
Theo grinned, and hurried back.
“I’m coming.”
She had been very polite about Theo’s efforts, but he was man enough to admit that, with pasta, crunchy was not the way to go.
After a beautifully prepared and not at all crunchy bean and couscous salad had been devoured, Sashi enquired as to what he was supposed to do now.
“Says here I’ve got a riding lesson,” Theo informed her, perusing his timetable. Sashi smiled.
“Then I’ll take you to meet the Horsemaster. Mr Ahern. He’s very nice, you’ll like him.”
“Uhuh,” Theo said, a little unconvinced. He was sure the Horsemaster was indeed a very nice man, but he’d always been a bit wary of horses. He’d never met one face-to-face, admittedly, but they were big animals and often on television they ran away with people, when they weren’t being treated as some kind of automaton.
But he obediently followed Sashi down to the stables, there to be left in the care of Horsemaster ‘Call me Hector’ Ahern who took to him immediately.
“Lookin’ forwards to meetin’ all the horses?” he boomed cheerfully, patting Theo on the shoulder with one huge hand. He was a big man with a broad and enthusiastic face who radiated goodwill to all men and especially those who liked horses. From what Sashi had told Theo on the way down he was also the Society’s undisputed expert on horses, donkeys, zebras, pegasi, unicorns and anything else even vaguely equine.
“Thanks for bringin’ him along, Sash,” he told Theo’s companion. “You gonna hang around?”
Shyly Sashi shook her head. “I’ve got to clean out the Hellhound pens. That’s a big job and I better start it now.”
Before anyone could object she had slipped away, leaving Theo alone with the Horsemaster and a lot of long faces regarding him with mild interest over loosebox doors.
“Ever met a horse before?” Hector enquired. Theo shook his head, and the man grinned.
“Didn’t think so. I better start your education now, then, huh? C’mon.”
He led Theo through rows of looseboxes until they fetched up outside a corner box whose grey occupant immediately stuck their nose into Hector’s hands, demanding a treat. He laughed and rubbed the white nose.
“This here’s Alyssa and the nicest mare we got in the whole stable. Sweet as a little lamb, she is, not like some. Wouldn’t hurt a fly, which would be why I’m startin’ you off on her. Right. Now, you must never offer a horse you don’t know a flat hand, yeah? They think there’s a snack there and bang goes one of your fingers ‘cause they ain’t always so observant when it comes to things what feel like carrots. Offer a closed fist, so they can smell. Go on. No sharp movements, remember that they’re prey.”
Obediently but rather nervously Theo proffered his fist to the mare. She sniffed it politely; it appeared to meet with her approval, because she regarded him hopefully with her brown eyes and gently butted her nose into his shoulder.
“She wants you to give her a scratch,” Hector informed him as he looked helplessly at the man. “Loves her scratches, does Alyssa. Reach round and rub her neck, just there under the mane. No, harder than that; she ain’t made of china. Ah, you hit the spot just there, look at her!”
Alyssa’s eyes had drooped down to almost closed and her ears began to splay slowly sideways. Hector Ahern beamed his approval.
“She’ll have you standin’ there for hours if she gets her way,” he said affectionately. “But you gotta remember, Alyssa’s a good girl who likes people but they ain’t all like that. Some of the ones we keep here, if you ain’t the right person or you don’t approach ‘em right they’ll take a lump outta your arm before you c’n say Jack Robinson, though most of ‘em are just plain scared of people. It’s the ears you gotta watch, at first; after a while you’ll get the littler clues but the ears are a good place t’start. Alyssa’s ears, right, sideways like that, that’s a relaxed beastie what doesn’t give a damn. Pricked right up, they’re curious, they wanna know what’s going on; that or they’ve seen somethin’ interestin’, like a food bowl or a friend o’theirs. But you gotta watch if they put their ears back because they ain’t happy, and if they’re flattened right back on their neck you better leave ‘em alone sharpish. Once you get t’know ‘em better you can tell when they’re just feelin’ a bit snappish and when they’re really upset, but when you’re jus’ learnin’ it’s best to be wary.”
Theo absorbed this as good sense, still scratching at Alyssa’s neck. His fingers were getting tired and he wondered if the mare would object to his stopping; but when he cautiously withdrew his hand she did nothing but sigh in a resigned manner. Mr Ahern had wandered away down the row of boxes, and now he beckoned his pupil over to meet a delicate chestnut mare.
“Now this ‘un, she’s more nervous, but go on, introduce yourself, she won’t hurt you…”
Over the course of about three-quarters of an hour Theo learnt more about horses than he had ever learnt in the whole of the rest of his life. He learned not to creep up behind them, not to let his fingers get in the way of feeding them things and his feet get in the way of their hooves, a lot of horsey vocabulary (white horses were not white, they were grey. Except when they were white…apparently, the decider was pink skin), and more than he really wanted to know about the fates of those who had underestimated these creatures. The Horsemaster seemed to have an endless stock of these rather horrible stories.
And yet, his undoubted enthusiasm and love for the animals was infectious, as was his good humour, and Theo found himself enjoying it all immensely. The horses were still a little worrying; they seemed to decide whether they liked him or not arbitrarily on the spot, and react accordingly without any warning he could see; but they certainly weren’t as scary as he’d vaguely expected them to be and one or two actually really seemed to like him.
He’d got rather a shock the first time one of his companionable scratches had led to the horse returning the gesture with her lips on his shoulder, but apparently this was perfectly natural and indeed very friendly and called mutual grooming.
One or two of the horses also tried to bite him for not much reason, but this apparently wasn’t to be taken personally.
It was while he was carefully introducing himself to a rather nervy piebald gelding that Hector glanced at his watch and said,
“Do you want to pick out your own beastie now?”
Theo’s startled reaction made the piebald toss his black-and-white blotched head in sudden alarm and retreat to the back of his stable.
“You mean a horse of my own?”
“Yeah, sure! A horse is a hunter’s best pal. Get you places a car never could, and c’n be yer best friend to boot. Well, some people think cars is better but they’re talking outta something that ain’t their mouth.” The Horsemaster made a dismissive gesture, and grinned at Theo. “We got a bunch of new ponies only a few days ago, you c’n pick from them, there’s only a few that ain’t suitable for newbies. Over here.”
He led Theo over to a row of slightly separate looseboxes, six in all, but before he could introduce the first grey head that poked inquisitively out a stable hand ran up.
“Hector? Hector, could you take a look at Brianna’s leg? That idiot Itzal took her out again this morning even though I told him he shouldn’t and now it’s swollen up like a balloon again.”
Hector Ahern’s face darkened and he glanced at Theo.
“Stick to these guys, none of ‘em’ll bite you. You’ll be fine, you’re already good with ‘em. I’m coming, Mark.”
He strode off after the stable hand with some purpose, leaving Theo alone with a curious equine nose snuffling at his shoulder and a sense that he had just been complimented.
The grey pony in the first box was friendly but ultimately uninterested, as was the chestnut in the second. The strawberry roan in the third was far too small for him to ride; it looked like a child’s pony. The fourth pony greeted him with laid-back ears and a horrible face, causing him to scurry onwards to the fifth box, which held another chestnut who appeared to be sleeping; it flicked an ear at his greeting and glanced at him briefly but apparently he wasn’t interesting enough to merit actually moving.
The fifth pony was a bay mare with her back to the door, munching peacefully on her straw bedding. Theo leaned over her door and cleared his throat politely. This had prompted most of the other ponies to saunter up and examine him for food; this mare’s reaction was a little more extreme. Her head shot up and her ears shot back and she spun round and glared horribly at him.
Theo took several steps back in surprise, and the pair of them eyeballed each other from a distance with varying degrees of suspicion.
Eventually Theo realised he was having a staring match with a horse, and coughed a little embarrassedly.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. “Really.”
The mare looked disbelieving, but deigned to inch one ear forwards. Theo advanced cautiously and held out a hand; she smelled it, and immediately flared her nostrils and put her ear straight back again. This was a little hurtful.
“Oh, come on, now you’re just being silly,” he accused. The mare looked down her nose at him; he leaned on her door and put out a hand to her again. After snorting huffily a couple of times, she deigned to smell it, and this time her ears crept forwards. Theo smiled.
“There. See?”
When Hector Ahern returned he found them in a wary truce, intermittently grooming each other and retreating in case either of them had some sort of betrayal in mind, like biting or putting on a bridle.
“Hello there,” he said, his unexpected voice causing the mare to speedily retreat to the back of the stable again. “Why’s Susie here?”
“Is that her name?” Theo enquired, leaning over the door and trying to entice her forwards again. “I like her. Is she available?”
“Eh, well, yes she is. But she shouldn’t be in with these guys. Susie’s…not a beginner’s pony.”
“Oh,” said Theo, rather disappointed. “Why not?”
“She’s half-Kelpie,” Hector said, eyeing the pony, who eyed him back. “She ain’t much for the drownin’ and eatin’ but she’s a hell of a one for the runnin’ away with you. Any of the others catch yer fancy?”
A little reluctantly Theo followed the Horsemaster down the other boxes while the older man waxed lyrical about their occupants, although he did admit that the roan was too small for him. They both agreed in the end that the grey, a comfortable gelding named Kimon, was the best one for him, at least to begin on. Hector cheerfully went off to get his tack, and Theo absently scratched at the gelding’s neck while Kimon opportunistically searched his pockets for food.
His thoughtful reverie was then broken by the sound of one of the horses kicking their door.
It turned out to be Susie, jerking her head up and down as she battered at the stable door for attention.
“Susie! Don’t be silly,” Theo said severely, approaching the mare, who stopped kicking the door and eyeballed him meaningfully. “You shouldn’t be kicking your door like that.”
The mare looked unrepentant, and a little smug.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
One ear went back, and she treated him to another meaningful stare, this time a warning.
“Oh, that’s nice! Can’t make up your mind if you want attention or not, can you?”
Susie kicked her door again, as though to show that she didn’t really need his attention, he was just convenient. Theo stuck his tongue out at her. She jerked her head and shook her mane at him.
They were still having a very similar dialogue when Hector returned with Kimon’s saddle and bridle. Pausing, the Horsemaster took a moment to watch them, and grinned to himself.
Then he apologised to Kimon and went away again, returning with a different saddle and bridle.
“All right, Theo m’lad, time for your first ridin’ lesson.”
“Okay.”
Theo gave Susie a last pat (she put her ears back at him, on principle), and began to move towards Kimon’s stable. But a clatter behind him made him turn back; Hector had opened the kickbolt on the bottom of Susie’s door. He gave the younger man a nod.
“Comin’ to see howta tack up, are you, or are you gonna go someplace else?”
Theo grinned, and hurried back.
“I’m coming.”
Monday, 26 January 2009
I'm Afraid Not Chapter Seven
I'm afraid that this post is little more than a rant poorly disguised as the reason chapter 7 will not be turning up very soon.
I worked on it. I worked on it in my free period this afternoon at school and also this evening, accomplishing about a page and a half, if not more.
And then I tried to save it onto my memory stick as I usually do, quite normally, and it decided to mess me around and now the whole file on my memory stick has imploded and is gone and the file on my computer proper only goes up to chapter 2 (I really should backup more often). I was reduced to coming on here and copy-and-pasting chapters three, four, five and six onto Word (thank goodness I post as I finish a chapter, huh?).
So now I have to rewrite Chapter 7.
Once I have got over my intense, burning frustration (I have to write out how to introduce yourself to a horse AGAIN?), I will probably use this opportunity as a chance to make it BETTER! and more INTERESTING! and that sort of thing.
That or I'll throw things and you'll get a filler chapter of pretty awful quality because I'm just so damn frustrated. And it was going to be an important chapter and everything. Or at least a bit important.
...Many apologies. =3
--Kitty
ps. I loathe computers
I worked on it. I worked on it in my free period this afternoon at school and also this evening, accomplishing about a page and a half, if not more.
And then I tried to save it onto my memory stick as I usually do, quite normally, and it decided to mess me around and now the whole file on my memory stick has imploded and is gone and the file on my computer proper only goes up to chapter 2 (I really should backup more often). I was reduced to coming on here and copy-and-pasting chapters three, four, five and six onto Word (thank goodness I post as I finish a chapter, huh?).
So now I have to rewrite Chapter 7.
Once I have got over my intense, burning frustration (I have to write out how to introduce yourself to a horse AGAIN?), I will probably use this opportunity as a chance to make it BETTER! and more INTERESTING! and that sort of thing.
That or I'll throw things and you'll get a filler chapter of pretty awful quality because I'm just so damn frustrated. And it was going to be an important chapter and everything. Or at least a bit important.
...Many apologies. =3
--Kitty
ps. I loathe computers
Thursday, 22 January 2009
Chapter Six- Meetings and Discoveries
What was what turned out to be a lot of buildings in a mishmash of architectural styles that he didn’t dare try the doors to, for fear of getting shouted at by someone threatening with one of the weapons that seemed to be everywhere. Eventually, he managed to find his way back to the zoo; seizing upon something that was mildly familiar, he ducked inside with a feeling of immense relief.
The unicorn was still in its paddock, grazing quietly. It raised its head with suspicion when it heard Theo enter and subjected him to a long, assessing look; eventually its nostrils flared, it shook its mane and went back to grazing. Rather gratified that he was no longer viewed as a threat, Theo leaned on the fence and spent some time gazing at the beautiful creature. It was such a delicate, elegant, gorgeous thing it seemed almost impossible that it could exist without having world-wide fan clubs. But then, he mused, it essentially did have world-wide fan clubs; anyone who read fantasy stories was bound to meet unicorns eventually and develop a fondness. It was just a pity they believed the animals didn’t exist in reality.
After a while, aware that he’d just wasted a considerable amount of time, he reluctantly pushed himself away from the fence and wandered off again. He thought he might go and see Socrates; but when he got round to the Jackalope hutches there was already someone there, sitting inside the pen. Reluctant to intrude, Theo lurked uncomfortably a little way away and observed the figure, which was female and possessed black hair and an enviable slimness of figure. Theo, who was aware of having gained weight since he stopped regularly playing rugby, wrinkled his nose, shoved his hands in his pockets, decided to stop being so stupid, and sauntered with slightly exaggerated casualness over towards the pen.
The girl heard his approach and looked up, and for an instant in her eyes there was the same deep suspicion the unicorn had viewed him with. It was quickly eclipsed by empty politeness, and she looked away, back down to the Jackalope lying in her lap. Theo stood outside the fence and looked in, and there was a lengthy period of uncomfortable silence.
Eventually he said “Hello.”
“Hello,” the girl responded, looking back up. She had a nice face, in which European and Middle Eastern mixed; her skin was lightly tawny and her eyes dark brown with long soft lashes. But it was also a face that was closed and locked and did not want to open, and Theo found it rather intimidating.
The silence came back. Theo shifted, cleared his throat and scratched his nose, and then with some relief saw Socrates lope lazily towards him from inside the main hutch. He knelt and pushed his fingers through the mesh; the Jackalope sniffed at them, apparently approved, and rubbed his cheek against them. The girl watched them both silently; Theo offered a slightly embarrassed grin.
“I like rabbits,” he said, inadequately. “This one is called Socrates, right?”
“Yes.” There was a little surprise in her tone, as if not many people knew of the nickname. “Who told you that?”
“Uh, Mr Adfair.”
For a second there was a smile on the girl’s face. “He’d know. Mr Adfair is good about things like that.”
“Uh, yeah…Decent boss, huh?” Theo joked lamely. The girl looked at him.
“The best,” she answered, without a flicker of irony, and went back to stroking the Jackalope in her lap. There was a pause, and then she looked up again.
“I haven’t seen you around. Are you new?”
“Yeah,” Theo admitted ruefully. “Only joined a coupla days ago. My name’s Theodore Hunt…but most people call me Theo.”
“Welcome to the Society, then,” the girl said politely. “My name is Sashi Kasa.”
Blinking a little, Theo suddenly grinned.
“Uh, nice to meet you. I think we’re sharing a flat.”
Sashi looked at him with the tiniest flicker of alarm, then raised one shoulder in a half-shrug.
“They didn’t tell me I’d be sharing my room…”
“Oh no, they didn’t? I’m, uh, sorry…I don’t want to intrude.”
The other shoulder came up as well this time.
“It’s fine. Everyone else shares, I don’t know why I should be the exception.”
She looked down at Socrates, who had his eyes half-closed in ecstasy as Theo absently scratched him under the chin. This evidently counted for something, because she rubbed her cheek and said “You can come in the pen if you like. There’s a little door in the fence.”
Surprised, Theo stood up and located the door, stepping through. Immediately several Jackalope swarmed towards him and sniffed his shoes curiously; moving carefully to avoid treading on anyone, he picked his way across and cautiously sat beside Sashi. Socrates immediately came over and claimed his lap, demanding more attention. Theo obliged, and there was quiet again; this time, however, it was a slightly more companionable silence, thawing around the edges. Theo decided to see if he could thaw it a little more with conversation.
“So, uh, you look after these guys?”
“Mmhm.”
“That must be, uh, nice.”
“I enjoy it.”
“Do they all have names, or is it just Socrates?”
Glancing at him out of the corner of her eye as though surprised he would care, Sashi began pointing out notable Jackalope. There was a big old female called Mrs. Lenin, apparently because she had a moustache; a young female called Jezebel because she had all the morals of a radish; a male known as Bluebeard because he kept stealing things from the others, two males from the same litter called Bill and Ben because they were essentially identical, and many others. She seemed almost to view them as her children, and they evidently adored her; she petted and scratched them all while he was there, and became far more relaxed, almost to the point of laughter.
“So,” Theo asked a little later, making friends with a Jackalope dubbed Calypso for her habit of hiding her litters away in awkward places. “Do you look after anything else in the zoo here or is it just the Jackalope?”
She gave a twitch of a smile. “I’m basically sole keeper of almost everything here. Jackalope, the Basan, the Hellhounds…The people who use them for hunting are supposed to look after theirs, but most of them leave a lot of it to me. Mr Ahern-the horsemaster-he looks after the unicorn and the pegasi, but I do that too if he’s not around.”
“That must be an awful lot of work.”
“Oh, I enjoy it; better than some jobs I guess. I like the animals and I, uh, don’t much like the people…so it suits me fine.”
As though she had suddenly decided she was talking far too much, Sashi let her head drop so her hair covered her face, and did some serious fussing of Bluebeard’s ears. Theo, however, was not about to let her clam up. He liked her, and more to the point she was the only person in the Society aside from Rowena and Mr Adfair he actually knew the name of.
“So, will you show me around more of the zoo? I’d like to know more about all the…mythical creatures and stuff.”
She glanced across at him again and nearly smiled.
“All right then.”
Theo spent most of the rest of the morning getting an in-depth tour of the zoo. He learned that practically every single creature that resided in it had been given a name, and what those names were (although he knew he’d never be able to remember them as well as Sashi did; she seemed to have encyclopaedic memory when it came to her animal charges); the correct care of fire-breathing chickens and what was necessary wear for handling them (and also that they weren’t nearly as dignified as they pretended) and that many of the hellhounds could only be approached safely if you were wearing a full suit of plate armour.
It was while they were playing with the safe ones that she offered, rather shyly, to make him lunch.
“I mean, since we have to share a flat and everything,” she said with deep discomfort, looking anywhere but at him. “You can, um, cook for me tomorrow.”
“Uh, sure, cool,” Theo accepted, also rather uncomfortable. In an effort to lighten the mood, he added “But the last time I cooked I set the salad on fire!”
Sashi gave a little laugh, fondling all three sets of a hellhound’s ears at once, then cleared her throat and got to her feet.
“Come on then…”
The state of the kitchen proved to be a source of some embarrassment once they got back to the flat, prompting some awkward apologies from Sashi and some equally awkward offers to help clean up from Theo which were of course refused, she was acting as host for the moment, it was her mess, she’d clean up after she’d cooked…
Eventually they compromised, with Sashi beginning the cooking while Theo wiped up the surfaces and filled the saucepan with water in an attempt to soak off the tomato pasta sauce that had stuck to the inside like glue.
His new room-mate turned out to cook very fast and rather haphazardly. She was making, apparently, vegetable curry; Theo could only watch in wonder as she sliced peppers with such speed that her fingertips seemed in constant danger and, despite occasionally referring to a very battered recipe book, tossed in spices and curry powder with gay abandon, including adding Tabasco sauce to the rice.
The result, of course, was delicious.
“Where’d you learn to cook like this?” Theo asked, helping himself to thirds. Sashi blushed a bit.
“My mother hates cooking so we only used to get quick stuff like pizza and chips…but once she’d forgotten to get a birthday cake for my little brother so I decided to make one. Uh…turned out I had a talent.”
“It’s a great talent,” said Theo, with his mouth full. Smiling rather embarrassedly, Sashi shrugged.
“Maybe,” she said, and stood up abruptly with her plate, crossing to the sink and beginning to wash up with fierce concentration.
After lunch, she declined his hopeful request for her to show him around the museums, saying instead that she needed to muck out the pegasi. She did point out the buildings they were housed in, though, and told him that no-one would care if he accidentally trespassed somewhere because he was new.
Then she left him to his own devices, hurrying away in the direction of the zoo without looking back. It made Theo feel a little abandoned.
The main theme of the Society’s museums seemed to be myths, legends, stuffed mythical creatures and weapons. Theo learnt rather a lot about the beasts the Society was protecting humanity from in that afternoon, and also rather a lot about the Society’s history. It had been founded in the sixteenth century, as the explorers of that era discovered more and more new lands and new creatures. Not much, apparently, was known of the early days, save that the Society once formed did its best to convince the general populace that mythical creatures were fabrications and merely old stories and apparently succeeded. The Society spread over the world along with the explorers and by the end of the seventeenth century there were groups all over the planet, most of which had been maintained and still existed. But there were many gaps and vague inconsistencies in the accounts which left Theo more confused than enlightened; no-one seemed to know who exactly had created the Society in the first place, or who had led it before Mr Adfair took control.
The museum curator, when enquired of, was less than helpful.
“Everyone asks that stuff when they join,” he said, leaning on his desk. “But no-one knows. There’s a massive library-it’s just through that door and round the corner if you want to look-but there’s only a few fragments remaining of the Society’s historical records. It’s like someone went through and systematically destroyed them.”
“Did someone?”
The curator laughed. “How would we know? They destroyed the records!”
The museums proved to be far more absorbing than Theo had expected them to be, and a subsequent glance at his watch proved shocking. It was already half-past seven, and he’d promised to cook dinner for Sashi. It was even later by the time he’d actually got back to the flat, because in his hurry he’d taken quite a few inadvertent wrong turnings and had had to be pointed on his way eventually by a young woman carrying a bundle of Samurai swords.
Sashi was watching television, curled in a corner of the sofa. Her initial reaction to his entry was brief confusion, as though she’d forgotten he was now sharing her accommodation, and then something that got close to reproach when she recalled his identity and promise.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” he apologised. “I really am, I lost track of time and then I got lost…”
She sighed and shrugged, and the smiled a little.
“Doesn’t matter. Are you still cooking?”
“If I can,” he said cheerfully. “Any preferences?”
Propping her chin on her knees, she looked thoughtful, and then her smile widened, getting as close to a teasing grin as he’d ever seen on her normally sober face.
“I’ll get some ingredients out and we’ll see what you can make of them…mister burnt salad.”
Theo tossed off a quick salute.
“Whatever you say, mistress of the kitchen.”
The unicorn was still in its paddock, grazing quietly. It raised its head with suspicion when it heard Theo enter and subjected him to a long, assessing look; eventually its nostrils flared, it shook its mane and went back to grazing. Rather gratified that he was no longer viewed as a threat, Theo leaned on the fence and spent some time gazing at the beautiful creature. It was such a delicate, elegant, gorgeous thing it seemed almost impossible that it could exist without having world-wide fan clubs. But then, he mused, it essentially did have world-wide fan clubs; anyone who read fantasy stories was bound to meet unicorns eventually and develop a fondness. It was just a pity they believed the animals didn’t exist in reality.
After a while, aware that he’d just wasted a considerable amount of time, he reluctantly pushed himself away from the fence and wandered off again. He thought he might go and see Socrates; but when he got round to the Jackalope hutches there was already someone there, sitting inside the pen. Reluctant to intrude, Theo lurked uncomfortably a little way away and observed the figure, which was female and possessed black hair and an enviable slimness of figure. Theo, who was aware of having gained weight since he stopped regularly playing rugby, wrinkled his nose, shoved his hands in his pockets, decided to stop being so stupid, and sauntered with slightly exaggerated casualness over towards the pen.
The girl heard his approach and looked up, and for an instant in her eyes there was the same deep suspicion the unicorn had viewed him with. It was quickly eclipsed by empty politeness, and she looked away, back down to the Jackalope lying in her lap. Theo stood outside the fence and looked in, and there was a lengthy period of uncomfortable silence.
Eventually he said “Hello.”
“Hello,” the girl responded, looking back up. She had a nice face, in which European and Middle Eastern mixed; her skin was lightly tawny and her eyes dark brown with long soft lashes. But it was also a face that was closed and locked and did not want to open, and Theo found it rather intimidating.
The silence came back. Theo shifted, cleared his throat and scratched his nose, and then with some relief saw Socrates lope lazily towards him from inside the main hutch. He knelt and pushed his fingers through the mesh; the Jackalope sniffed at them, apparently approved, and rubbed his cheek against them. The girl watched them both silently; Theo offered a slightly embarrassed grin.
“I like rabbits,” he said, inadequately. “This one is called Socrates, right?”
“Yes.” There was a little surprise in her tone, as if not many people knew of the nickname. “Who told you that?”
“Uh, Mr Adfair.”
For a second there was a smile on the girl’s face. “He’d know. Mr Adfair is good about things like that.”
“Uh, yeah…Decent boss, huh?” Theo joked lamely. The girl looked at him.
“The best,” she answered, without a flicker of irony, and went back to stroking the Jackalope in her lap. There was a pause, and then she looked up again.
“I haven’t seen you around. Are you new?”
“Yeah,” Theo admitted ruefully. “Only joined a coupla days ago. My name’s Theodore Hunt…but most people call me Theo.”
“Welcome to the Society, then,” the girl said politely. “My name is Sashi Kasa.”
Blinking a little, Theo suddenly grinned.
“Uh, nice to meet you. I think we’re sharing a flat.”
Sashi looked at him with the tiniest flicker of alarm, then raised one shoulder in a half-shrug.
“They didn’t tell me I’d be sharing my room…”
“Oh no, they didn’t? I’m, uh, sorry…I don’t want to intrude.”
The other shoulder came up as well this time.
“It’s fine. Everyone else shares, I don’t know why I should be the exception.”
She looked down at Socrates, who had his eyes half-closed in ecstasy as Theo absently scratched him under the chin. This evidently counted for something, because she rubbed her cheek and said “You can come in the pen if you like. There’s a little door in the fence.”
Surprised, Theo stood up and located the door, stepping through. Immediately several Jackalope swarmed towards him and sniffed his shoes curiously; moving carefully to avoid treading on anyone, he picked his way across and cautiously sat beside Sashi. Socrates immediately came over and claimed his lap, demanding more attention. Theo obliged, and there was quiet again; this time, however, it was a slightly more companionable silence, thawing around the edges. Theo decided to see if he could thaw it a little more with conversation.
“So, uh, you look after these guys?”
“Mmhm.”
“That must be, uh, nice.”
“I enjoy it.”
“Do they all have names, or is it just Socrates?”
Glancing at him out of the corner of her eye as though surprised he would care, Sashi began pointing out notable Jackalope. There was a big old female called Mrs. Lenin, apparently because she had a moustache; a young female called Jezebel because she had all the morals of a radish; a male known as Bluebeard because he kept stealing things from the others, two males from the same litter called Bill and Ben because they were essentially identical, and many others. She seemed almost to view them as her children, and they evidently adored her; she petted and scratched them all while he was there, and became far more relaxed, almost to the point of laughter.
“So,” Theo asked a little later, making friends with a Jackalope dubbed Calypso for her habit of hiding her litters away in awkward places. “Do you look after anything else in the zoo here or is it just the Jackalope?”
She gave a twitch of a smile. “I’m basically sole keeper of almost everything here. Jackalope, the Basan, the Hellhounds…The people who use them for hunting are supposed to look after theirs, but most of them leave a lot of it to me. Mr Ahern-the horsemaster-he looks after the unicorn and the pegasi, but I do that too if he’s not around.”
“That must be an awful lot of work.”
“Oh, I enjoy it; better than some jobs I guess. I like the animals and I, uh, don’t much like the people…so it suits me fine.”
As though she had suddenly decided she was talking far too much, Sashi let her head drop so her hair covered her face, and did some serious fussing of Bluebeard’s ears. Theo, however, was not about to let her clam up. He liked her, and more to the point she was the only person in the Society aside from Rowena and Mr Adfair he actually knew the name of.
“So, will you show me around more of the zoo? I’d like to know more about all the…mythical creatures and stuff.”
She glanced across at him again and nearly smiled.
“All right then.”
Theo spent most of the rest of the morning getting an in-depth tour of the zoo. He learned that practically every single creature that resided in it had been given a name, and what those names were (although he knew he’d never be able to remember them as well as Sashi did; she seemed to have encyclopaedic memory when it came to her animal charges); the correct care of fire-breathing chickens and what was necessary wear for handling them (and also that they weren’t nearly as dignified as they pretended) and that many of the hellhounds could only be approached safely if you were wearing a full suit of plate armour.
It was while they were playing with the safe ones that she offered, rather shyly, to make him lunch.
“I mean, since we have to share a flat and everything,” she said with deep discomfort, looking anywhere but at him. “You can, um, cook for me tomorrow.”
“Uh, sure, cool,” Theo accepted, also rather uncomfortable. In an effort to lighten the mood, he added “But the last time I cooked I set the salad on fire!”
Sashi gave a little laugh, fondling all three sets of a hellhound’s ears at once, then cleared her throat and got to her feet.
“Come on then…”
The state of the kitchen proved to be a source of some embarrassment once they got back to the flat, prompting some awkward apologies from Sashi and some equally awkward offers to help clean up from Theo which were of course refused, she was acting as host for the moment, it was her mess, she’d clean up after she’d cooked…
Eventually they compromised, with Sashi beginning the cooking while Theo wiped up the surfaces and filled the saucepan with water in an attempt to soak off the tomato pasta sauce that had stuck to the inside like glue.
His new room-mate turned out to cook very fast and rather haphazardly. She was making, apparently, vegetable curry; Theo could only watch in wonder as she sliced peppers with such speed that her fingertips seemed in constant danger and, despite occasionally referring to a very battered recipe book, tossed in spices and curry powder with gay abandon, including adding Tabasco sauce to the rice.
The result, of course, was delicious.
“Where’d you learn to cook like this?” Theo asked, helping himself to thirds. Sashi blushed a bit.
“My mother hates cooking so we only used to get quick stuff like pizza and chips…but once she’d forgotten to get a birthday cake for my little brother so I decided to make one. Uh…turned out I had a talent.”
“It’s a great talent,” said Theo, with his mouth full. Smiling rather embarrassedly, Sashi shrugged.
“Maybe,” she said, and stood up abruptly with her plate, crossing to the sink and beginning to wash up with fierce concentration.
After lunch, she declined his hopeful request for her to show him around the museums, saying instead that she needed to muck out the pegasi. She did point out the buildings they were housed in, though, and told him that no-one would care if he accidentally trespassed somewhere because he was new.
Then she left him to his own devices, hurrying away in the direction of the zoo without looking back. It made Theo feel a little abandoned.
The main theme of the Society’s museums seemed to be myths, legends, stuffed mythical creatures and weapons. Theo learnt rather a lot about the beasts the Society was protecting humanity from in that afternoon, and also rather a lot about the Society’s history. It had been founded in the sixteenth century, as the explorers of that era discovered more and more new lands and new creatures. Not much, apparently, was known of the early days, save that the Society once formed did its best to convince the general populace that mythical creatures were fabrications and merely old stories and apparently succeeded. The Society spread over the world along with the explorers and by the end of the seventeenth century there were groups all over the planet, most of which had been maintained and still existed. But there were many gaps and vague inconsistencies in the accounts which left Theo more confused than enlightened; no-one seemed to know who exactly had created the Society in the first place, or who had led it before Mr Adfair took control.
The museum curator, when enquired of, was less than helpful.
“Everyone asks that stuff when they join,” he said, leaning on his desk. “But no-one knows. There’s a massive library-it’s just through that door and round the corner if you want to look-but there’s only a few fragments remaining of the Society’s historical records. It’s like someone went through and systematically destroyed them.”
“Did someone?”
The curator laughed. “How would we know? They destroyed the records!”
The museums proved to be far more absorbing than Theo had expected them to be, and a subsequent glance at his watch proved shocking. It was already half-past seven, and he’d promised to cook dinner for Sashi. It was even later by the time he’d actually got back to the flat, because in his hurry he’d taken quite a few inadvertent wrong turnings and had had to be pointed on his way eventually by a young woman carrying a bundle of Samurai swords.
Sashi was watching television, curled in a corner of the sofa. Her initial reaction to his entry was brief confusion, as though she’d forgotten he was now sharing her accommodation, and then something that got close to reproach when she recalled his identity and promise.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” he apologised. “I really am, I lost track of time and then I got lost…”
She sighed and shrugged, and the smiled a little.
“Doesn’t matter. Are you still cooking?”
“If I can,” he said cheerfully. “Any preferences?”
Propping her chin on her knees, she looked thoughtful, and then her smile widened, getting as close to a teasing grin as he’d ever seen on her normally sober face.
“I’ll get some ingredients out and we’ll see what you can make of them…mister burnt salad.”
Theo tossed off a quick salute.
“Whatever you say, mistress of the kitchen.”
Sunday, 18 January 2009
Chapter Five: Scene-setting
-Note...this chapter is shorter than it would have been, because otherwise you wouldn't get it for at least another week...if not longer.
---
His mother picked him up outside the station, and he was mildly surprised to find out that it had only been three or four hours since he had gone in.
“Well?” his mother said expectantly, glancing across at him. “How did it go?”
Theo, who had been staring out the window and turning his experiences over in his mind, jerked back to reality and grinned.
“Better than I thought. I have a position, and they’ve even offered me free accommodation.”
It was standard practice for new recruits, Mr Adfair had told him, so they could easily be trained and also weren’t likely to get overexcited and blurt things out that no-one outside the Society needed to know. He’d have a sizeable suite of rooms, apparently, although he’d have to share the living room, bathroom and kitchen with someone else.
Mrs Hunt looked a little startled at the news that her only son would be leaving the nest so suddenly after showing slightly less than no inclination to do so previously.
“So you’ll be moving out, huh? See, I told you this exercise was profitable! How soon will you be taking up your position?”
“As soon as I like, they said. Which I guess means as soon as I can pack up all my stuff and move.”
“Well! This is all very sudden, but I’m pleased for you, love. Your father will be pleased as well.”
“Hah,” was Theo’s only answer to that. His father had been telling him to pack up and leave for some time now, disguising it in jovial enquiries about when he’d be getting a girlfriend and setting up a home with her. Mr Hunt liked to think these things were amusing, but they’d been grating on his son since the second repetition.
A thought seemed to strike his mother.
“What does this ‘MyHunt Society’ do, anyway? I don’t believe I’ve heard of it.”
Theo stiffened and thanked his lucky stars he’d been briefed.
“Oh, um, it’s about environmental protection and stuff…you know…conservation,” he said as casually as he could manage. His mother blinked, then shrugged.
“Well, you always have been good at science,” she said happily. She liked to believe this, although it was evident to most other people that Theo’s scientific skills were quite solidly grounded in the ‘average’ compartment. “So what does your new job entail, exactly?”
“Uh, well, I’ll probably be doing quite a bit of travelling…to…collect samples and whatnot, and…yeah.”
His mother darted him an amused glance. “Okay, love, so you don’t want your mother poking around in your life. ‘Travelling to collect samples’ will do me.”
Smiling gratefully at her for the cessation in interrogation, Theo nevertheless entertained dark suspicions that she’d be doing some clandestine internet searches as soon as possible. Thank goodness the Society was prepared, with a whole network of expertly faked internet contacts and a whole website with as much solid scientific veracity as any inquisitive parent could possibly wish for.
These Society people were clever, he thought, and felt the first stirrings of pride at being a member of such a great organisation.
The news was broken that night at dinner. His father, as predicted, was immensely pleased and proud and did a lot of back-slapping and almost as much insinuation about new girlfriends. He did this so much Theo was half-tempted to believe his father thought he was gay. His little sister, who was approximately four years younger than him, gave him some grudging congratulations and a sharp stare in an effort to detect any falsehood in his story. She never believed anything he said; but then she never believed anything anyone said, and was an inveterate creator and propagator of conspiracy theories. It amused him that she was right about hidden secret societies, although she hadn’t yet claimed mythical beasts were real. Ah well; give her time and she’d probably bring it up in connection with something.
As soon as possible he escaped upstairs and began the arduous task of deciding what to pack. Reluctantly he decided against the videogames, reasoning that he’d be living it so he didn’t have to play it.
He did, however, manage to wedge in the Monty Python TV series box set. There was no guaranteeing that anyone else in the Society had the same sense of humour.
He ended up having to pillage his parent’s room for suitcases. He’d never realised that a sports bag, while perfectly capable of handling a two-week holiday in France, fell sadly short when asked to contain everything necessary for leaving home. They tended to split at the seams if so much as one excess fantasy novel was wedged inside.
Two days later (it would have been the next day, but his mother had insisted they do one last thing ‘as a family’, leading to Theo spending several hours trooping around some old manor house, listening to his parents banter about how much they’d like to live like this and his sister seeing ancient cults in every painting and secret passages in every vaguely misshapen wall panel or bit of plaster.), he was once again standing outside Paddington Station, this time carrying suitcases and knowing exactly what he was getting into.
He’d declined his mother’s invitation to drive him there again, because he just knew she’d want to hug and kiss him and he wasn’t overly keen on having that in public. Plus, she’d already gone overboard with the goodbyes at home. He’d got the bus instead.
Taking a deep breath, he walked into the station, nodded at the suspicious man in the station uniform, and sauntered with exaggerated nonchalance over to the broom cupboard that wasn’t a broom cupboard.
To his relief the key they’d given him fitted straight off and turned easily, and he didn’t have to make a fool of himself wandering about trying to unlock apparently private cupboards. The lift bore him steadily downwards with its barely-audible quiet hum, while he fidgeted nervously and picked at a loose bit of plastic on one of his suitcases. What was he doing? This could still turn out to be a huge mistake…
And then the lift door opened and let him out into the artificially illuminated cavern, revealing Rowena standing there, apparently waiting for him. She gave a flicker of a smile, when she saw him, but her foot had been tapping impatiently.
“I’m here to take you to your new quarters,” she said, turning and beginning to walk as she spoke. “You’ll be sharing with Sashi.”
“…Sashi?”
“One of our more junior members…you’ll meet her soon enough. This way.”
The accommodation was a sizeable block in an elegant almost Victorian style. Rowena jogged tirelessly ahead of him up three flights of stairs while he bumped breathlessly up behind her, awkwardly dragging his suitcases. She also generously offered to give him a quick tour around his new living quarters, and when he incautiously agreed gave him one that basically amounted to opening all the doors and pointing.
“Kitchen, bathroom, spare room for stuff, Sashi’s room, your room. We’re standing in the living room. Have fun. There’s a welcome pack thing next to your bed. See ya later.”
And then she left.
Vaguely bemused, Theo heaved his bags into his new room, dumped them at the end of the bed and picked up the welcome pack. It contained two pieces of paper and a complimentary biro with the MyHunt Society logo printed on it, which while nice wasn’t much of a welcome pack. He clicked it absently as he read the short covering letter.
‘Mr Hunt, Welcome to the Society. Included here is a timetable of your lessons, commencing tomorrow afternoon. You have today and tomorrow morning to explore the compound; feel free to wander anywhere you wish, although I ask you to please respect signs and locked doors. I hope you find your membership of this Society an exciting and rewarding experience.
Cairbre Adfair.’
“Lessons? Man. Lessons in what?” he wondered, picking up the other sheet of paper. Lessons in more types of weapons than he could shake a stick at, myths and legends and horse riding, it turned out. It certainly looked a lot more interesting than normal timetables.
And that was it.
Theo scratched his head and wondered what to do. In a sudden attack of responsibility he unpacked first, or at least threw his clothes into the chest of drawers and somewhat surreptitiously arranged Yorick on the bed, half-hidden in the bedclothes. Yorick was a stuffed dragon and necessary for Theo’s peace of mind, as he had been present since childhood and had warded off innumerable terrible nightmares with his flaming breath.
Or at least that’s what Theo said.
He then checked out the bathroom and kitchen. The former showed distinct signs of single female occupation; he left his toothbrush and toothpaste on the sink in a slightly apologetic manner. The kitchen yielded further clues; this Sashi appeared to be vegetarian, judging from the marked lack of anything resembling meat, and also a little bit of a messy cook. There was a half-eaten salad sandwich lying on the side and a dirty saucepan and plate in the sink.
Theo wondered if he should wash up, in order to make a good impression. In the end he decided that was probably a bit much.
He didn’t even peek into his new flatmate’s bedroom. She might be the type to wreak horrible revenge on him.
Once he had exhausted all the flat had to offer, Theo decided to strike out into the compound and see exactly what was what.
---
His mother picked him up outside the station, and he was mildly surprised to find out that it had only been three or four hours since he had gone in.
“Well?” his mother said expectantly, glancing across at him. “How did it go?”
Theo, who had been staring out the window and turning his experiences over in his mind, jerked back to reality and grinned.
“Better than I thought. I have a position, and they’ve even offered me free accommodation.”
It was standard practice for new recruits, Mr Adfair had told him, so they could easily be trained and also weren’t likely to get overexcited and blurt things out that no-one outside the Society needed to know. He’d have a sizeable suite of rooms, apparently, although he’d have to share the living room, bathroom and kitchen with someone else.
Mrs Hunt looked a little startled at the news that her only son would be leaving the nest so suddenly after showing slightly less than no inclination to do so previously.
“So you’ll be moving out, huh? See, I told you this exercise was profitable! How soon will you be taking up your position?”
“As soon as I like, they said. Which I guess means as soon as I can pack up all my stuff and move.”
“Well! This is all very sudden, but I’m pleased for you, love. Your father will be pleased as well.”
“Hah,” was Theo’s only answer to that. His father had been telling him to pack up and leave for some time now, disguising it in jovial enquiries about when he’d be getting a girlfriend and setting up a home with her. Mr Hunt liked to think these things were amusing, but they’d been grating on his son since the second repetition.
A thought seemed to strike his mother.
“What does this ‘MyHunt Society’ do, anyway? I don’t believe I’ve heard of it.”
Theo stiffened and thanked his lucky stars he’d been briefed.
“Oh, um, it’s about environmental protection and stuff…you know…conservation,” he said as casually as he could manage. His mother blinked, then shrugged.
“Well, you always have been good at science,” she said happily. She liked to believe this, although it was evident to most other people that Theo’s scientific skills were quite solidly grounded in the ‘average’ compartment. “So what does your new job entail, exactly?”
“Uh, well, I’ll probably be doing quite a bit of travelling…to…collect samples and whatnot, and…yeah.”
His mother darted him an amused glance. “Okay, love, so you don’t want your mother poking around in your life. ‘Travelling to collect samples’ will do me.”
Smiling gratefully at her for the cessation in interrogation, Theo nevertheless entertained dark suspicions that she’d be doing some clandestine internet searches as soon as possible. Thank goodness the Society was prepared, with a whole network of expertly faked internet contacts and a whole website with as much solid scientific veracity as any inquisitive parent could possibly wish for.
These Society people were clever, he thought, and felt the first stirrings of pride at being a member of such a great organisation.
The news was broken that night at dinner. His father, as predicted, was immensely pleased and proud and did a lot of back-slapping and almost as much insinuation about new girlfriends. He did this so much Theo was half-tempted to believe his father thought he was gay. His little sister, who was approximately four years younger than him, gave him some grudging congratulations and a sharp stare in an effort to detect any falsehood in his story. She never believed anything he said; but then she never believed anything anyone said, and was an inveterate creator and propagator of conspiracy theories. It amused him that she was right about hidden secret societies, although she hadn’t yet claimed mythical beasts were real. Ah well; give her time and she’d probably bring it up in connection with something.
As soon as possible he escaped upstairs and began the arduous task of deciding what to pack. Reluctantly he decided against the videogames, reasoning that he’d be living it so he didn’t have to play it.
He did, however, manage to wedge in the Monty Python TV series box set. There was no guaranteeing that anyone else in the Society had the same sense of humour.
He ended up having to pillage his parent’s room for suitcases. He’d never realised that a sports bag, while perfectly capable of handling a two-week holiday in France, fell sadly short when asked to contain everything necessary for leaving home. They tended to split at the seams if so much as one excess fantasy novel was wedged inside.
Two days later (it would have been the next day, but his mother had insisted they do one last thing ‘as a family’, leading to Theo spending several hours trooping around some old manor house, listening to his parents banter about how much they’d like to live like this and his sister seeing ancient cults in every painting and secret passages in every vaguely misshapen wall panel or bit of plaster.), he was once again standing outside Paddington Station, this time carrying suitcases and knowing exactly what he was getting into.
He’d declined his mother’s invitation to drive him there again, because he just knew she’d want to hug and kiss him and he wasn’t overly keen on having that in public. Plus, she’d already gone overboard with the goodbyes at home. He’d got the bus instead.
Taking a deep breath, he walked into the station, nodded at the suspicious man in the station uniform, and sauntered with exaggerated nonchalance over to the broom cupboard that wasn’t a broom cupboard.
To his relief the key they’d given him fitted straight off and turned easily, and he didn’t have to make a fool of himself wandering about trying to unlock apparently private cupboards. The lift bore him steadily downwards with its barely-audible quiet hum, while he fidgeted nervously and picked at a loose bit of plastic on one of his suitcases. What was he doing? This could still turn out to be a huge mistake…
And then the lift door opened and let him out into the artificially illuminated cavern, revealing Rowena standing there, apparently waiting for him. She gave a flicker of a smile, when she saw him, but her foot had been tapping impatiently.
“I’m here to take you to your new quarters,” she said, turning and beginning to walk as she spoke. “You’ll be sharing with Sashi.”
“…Sashi?”
“One of our more junior members…you’ll meet her soon enough. This way.”
The accommodation was a sizeable block in an elegant almost Victorian style. Rowena jogged tirelessly ahead of him up three flights of stairs while he bumped breathlessly up behind her, awkwardly dragging his suitcases. She also generously offered to give him a quick tour around his new living quarters, and when he incautiously agreed gave him one that basically amounted to opening all the doors and pointing.
“Kitchen, bathroom, spare room for stuff, Sashi’s room, your room. We’re standing in the living room. Have fun. There’s a welcome pack thing next to your bed. See ya later.”
And then she left.
Vaguely bemused, Theo heaved his bags into his new room, dumped them at the end of the bed and picked up the welcome pack. It contained two pieces of paper and a complimentary biro with the MyHunt Society logo printed on it, which while nice wasn’t much of a welcome pack. He clicked it absently as he read the short covering letter.
‘Mr Hunt, Welcome to the Society. Included here is a timetable of your lessons, commencing tomorrow afternoon. You have today and tomorrow morning to explore the compound; feel free to wander anywhere you wish, although I ask you to please respect signs and locked doors. I hope you find your membership of this Society an exciting and rewarding experience.
Cairbre Adfair.’
“Lessons? Man. Lessons in what?” he wondered, picking up the other sheet of paper. Lessons in more types of weapons than he could shake a stick at, myths and legends and horse riding, it turned out. It certainly looked a lot more interesting than normal timetables.
And that was it.
Theo scratched his head and wondered what to do. In a sudden attack of responsibility he unpacked first, or at least threw his clothes into the chest of drawers and somewhat surreptitiously arranged Yorick on the bed, half-hidden in the bedclothes. Yorick was a stuffed dragon and necessary for Theo’s peace of mind, as he had been present since childhood and had warded off innumerable terrible nightmares with his flaming breath.
Or at least that’s what Theo said.
He then checked out the bathroom and kitchen. The former showed distinct signs of single female occupation; he left his toothbrush and toothpaste on the sink in a slightly apologetic manner. The kitchen yielded further clues; this Sashi appeared to be vegetarian, judging from the marked lack of anything resembling meat, and also a little bit of a messy cook. There was a half-eaten salad sandwich lying on the side and a dirty saucepan and plate in the sink.
Theo wondered if he should wash up, in order to make a good impression. In the end he decided that was probably a bit much.
He didn’t even peek into his new flatmate’s bedroom. She might be the type to wreak horrible revenge on him.
Once he had exhausted all the flat had to offer, Theo decided to strike out into the compound and see exactly what was what.
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