TWO
DABUEK KUECGTT
Rufus heard the two boys run down the stairs. He also heard a bell ring and doors opening up all down the hall. The sound of shoes started walking towards Rufus, who was still upside-down in the large plastic garbage can.
He knew it would be the end of any respect he might’ve had if he was seen there, so he started rocking back and forth trying to get out. His movement became frantic as the sound of the people walking came closer. As he was rocking back and forth he started to hear another sound—snickering, the people had stopped and were snickering at him! That made him squirm even more.
Right when he felt the garbage can begin to topple he heard Meme’s voice. “Don’t just stand there, children! Help him out of the garbage can!” she screeched. It was too late, the can fell to its side and its momentum carried it down the stairs with him inside. Rufus didn’t realize that he was bouncing until he had actual come to a rest on a landing. He scrambled his torso out of the can and dazedly looked around him—catching himself on the handrail.
Meme was rushing down the steps—picking her way around the strewn garbage. Behind her was a pack of children, at the top of the stairs, gawking at what had just happen to Rufus. Some were snickering behind their hands.
Meme finally reached Rufus “Are you alright?” Rufus almost thought that she was mad at him.
Rufus definitely wanted to get back at the two boys. “You know who they were?” He asked her, picking at some smeared banana peel that had pressed itself into his hair.
Meme took out a handkerchief and handed it to Rufus. “Yes, I believe I do, and you shouldn’t worry about it. They will be dealt with.”
Not likely, he thought. One thing Rufus had learned the hard way was to watch his back and only worry about himself. Respect was all he had and he was going to get it back, one way or another. If someone gets you, you get them worse.
“The same two boys always watch the main hall for gawkers. Once people are entranced, the boys grab them and put them in the garbage can or pants them, or some other mischief not worth mentioning.” She paused and brushed some garbage off of his shirt.
“You learned it the hard way, but those paintings can be very detrimental. The principal makes them as remembrances of previous students, but they have turned more into a game for some of the bullies here,” she explained. “I don’t even know why we keep them around. Honestly.” A slight British accent came out at the tail end of the last sentence.
“Come on lets get you cleaned up and then we can finish the registration process. Jehos can clean this up.” Meme pointed to the garbage on the stairs. “Students go back the other way” She waved the group of gawkers back down the hall.
“Oh, Jehos, if you would be so kind as to clean the stairs up.” Meme said to a gangly older man as they walked down the hall. “We had an accident. Thank you very much.”
Jehos only blankly stared at Meme as the two walked past him. Not registering what she said, but slightly slack jawed. From the end of the hall, Rufus could hear him.
“Yeah, yeah I’ll clean the brats up. I’ll clean them up real good. Don’t need them around anymore, just make more messes for me and me crew. Right Ginger?”
Rufus looked back at the man and saw him stroking the air above his shoulder as if there was an animal there.
…
After Rufus had showered and dressed in his new school uniform—a brown jacket with a pink-outlined, blue dragon’s head on the chest, blue pants, new shoes, socks, etc.—Meme brought Rufus back to the Front Office, where she sat him down and started going through all of the classes and lectures that he would be attending. His attention started wandering while she told him his schedule.
Coming to, he heard her say “You’re lucky to have Mister Sineter as your math teacher; I understand that he is very good. Now, after math, you will have an hour lunch. I will show you the cafeteria as soon as we’re done here.” She paused looking at her schedule and then to Rufus.
“Ok, so after lunch you are to report to the Vault for your Odyssey lessons. That will take an hour and a half. Once you are done there, you will be done for the day. This will be your schedule until next semester. Do you have any questions for me?”
Rufus had a lot of questions. Why did that painting on the ceiling feel so real? What was the outcome of the dual? Did the ’41 mean 1941? How old was this mansion? “What are Odyssey lessons?” was what popped out of his mouth.
“Odyssey is a very unique class taught only at our school. You will not find it anywhere else in any other curriculum. It is the study of the imagination. I believe you will enjoy it. You have much promise. Mr. Fenuch” She smiled.
With that she stood up, handed Rufus a piece of paper, and shuffled him out of the office—closing and locking the door behind her. They walked back down the stairs and made a couple of turns that lead them to what Rufus could only guess was the cafeteria. A long stretch of slanted sneeze proof food covers with trays and plates on one side indicated a buffet style cafeteria. Meme and Rufus each grabbed a tray and a plate and slid down the buffet line. The cafeteria was about to close and prepare for dinner, so they took their food outside and sat at a table with a large canopy. The weather was turning less humid as the cicadas’ song filled the breeze.
“You know this part of the world we hear their song each summer, but they only come out of the ground for a few days and then die.” Meme was trying to be conversational.
“Interesting,” Rufus felt less so and didn’t say anything but just stuffed more fried chicken into his mouth.
Much to Rufus’ chagrin, Meme was undeterred and proceeded to carry on a one-sided conversation. Rufus added his two cents by producing a few grunts and head nods.
After their meal they both took their trays back to the cafeteria and dropped them off to be washed.
The lady behind the tray drop off said, “Thank you kindly, my deary. Did you enjoy the chicken?”
“Yes. It was very good.” Rufus looked past the faint mustache and chubby, ruddy cheeks and into the woman’s eyes. Once his eyes met hers, he immediately saw through the exterior of the cook and felt a loving motherly connection. She actually did care, and she really did want to know. Rufus was surprised, but said nothing.
“Well, let’s take you to your room. Thank you for the dinner, Griselda.” Meme turned towards the cafeteria exit. “I have already shown Miss Whimsic hers.”
Rufus looked at her, uncomprehending.
Meme noticed and clarified. “You know, Imogen Whimsic, the young girl that rode with us from the bus station.”
She continued as if she were going through a list of things she needed to check off and not speaking directly to Rufus. They left the cafeteria and walked out of the main hall to one of the wings of the mansion. Meme stopped in front of a door labeled “s25.”
“Let’s see,” she tapped her notebook open into her left hand. “Your first class is across from the Font Office. I gave you your schedule…if you have any questions about where any of your classes are, just ask your teacher. Also the cafeteria starts serving dinner at 5pm and is only open for a couple of hours, so if you plan on eating, you should do it then. We’ll have a meeting for the whole school, staff, children and you at six. We’re having a celebration for you and Ms. Whimsic, so even if you aren’t hungry make sure you are there on time…” Meme left the word hanging like she expected Rufus to comply.
…
Rufus settled into his small room. Most of the orphanages he had been to separated the school from the living quarters. This one was more of a boarding school. He walked through the dorm’s door and into a small hallway.
To his left, hidden in the hallway wall, was a small coat closet. He continued down the hall and it opened up into a room just big enough to hold two bunk beds, situated length-wise against an opposite wall with an aisle between them and two desks pushed up against the ends of the beds.
There was a small window at the end of the room that allowed in the waning afternoon light, giving a slight illumination to everything. The top two beds were unmade and striped to their mattresses. The bottom one to the right of Rufus had a kid reading what looked like a comic book.
As soon as the door shut behind Rufus, the kid on the bed jumped up from his prone position. “Hey, Jimmy! Look it’s the new kid! I told you they’d put him with us! Didn’t I?” The boy was about Rufus’ height, but he was what one might call a ‘Butterball’.
“Hey, Jimmy, come on man! Get out here!” The Butterball waddled over to the closet. “Sorry, he doesn’t like the light all that much.” He said to Rufus. “Come on, man, at least say hello!”
A closet door to Rufus’ left slid open a crack and a quite voice whispered “Hello”.
“A…hi?” Rufus responded, perplexed.
“Don’t worry about him. You can have either of the top bunks. Our last roommate got moved. Rooms are assigned based on age and stuff.” Butterball was burbling. The more he said the faster he spoke.
Rufus moved past the chattering boy and selected the bunk that was above where Butterball had been laying. He could handle a chatty kid, but a kid that liked the dark, that creeped him out a bit more than he wanted to admit.
He dropped his backpack and dirty clothes to the ground and spotted a dresser crammed on the other side of the bed right below the window. He started opening drawers until Butterball said “I took the top three, you can have the bottom ones. Don’t you think Ms. Meme is hot? That’s what Frank and Jared were saying the other day. They’re sixteen and they know what they’re talking about…”
Rufus’s jaw dropped at the Meme comment. He looked away and shrugged his shoulders as if to say “maybe”.
Rufus upended his backpack into the first empty drawer, grabbed a strip of tape from the dispenser on one of the desks and taped a small poster of some running back from the San Diego Chargers onto the wall.
“Wow, who is that? I touched a football once. It was so cool! But then Bob from downstairs—such a jerk—took it from me and said I couldn’t play. Uh! Like I’d want to play with those jerkheads anyway.” Butterball finished sadly.
“Hey, uh, do you have a name?” Rufus didn’t think he would appreciate being called Butterball.
“Yeah, its Sam Worthrite, but people around here, just call me Biggie,” he replied.
“Really, why’s that?” Rufus was caught off guard.
Biggie caught the mirth in Rufus’ response and replied, “Yeah, you’re thinking it’s because of how chubby I am? Nah, it’s because of Odyssey. We get nicknames and stuff in that class. You’ll see why later. You want me to show you around the mansion? I think we have an hour before we have to be down in the cafeteria.”
“Actually, I’ve been cooped up inside a bus all day. You feel like showing me outside instead? I’ll bring my Frisbee,” asked Rufus.
“No problemo! You coming, Jimmy?”
After a short pause and no response he said “Ok, your loss! See you later!”
Biggie smiled and he and Rufus made their way out into the main dorm hall.
They went down a staircase, through a meticulously carved and polished hall, and out a door that lead onto a cement path. The path looked to curve and wind around most of the Mansion.
“So…” Biggie was smirking to himself and uncharacteristically quiet.
“What?” asked Rufus. “What are you smirking about?”
“Well, I was just wondering what actually happened with you and the garbage can today. It’s all over the school.”
“Uh, nothing…”
Biggie just looked at him and waited.
“Ok. So I was looking at a picture on the ceiling, waiting for my turn to register with Ms. Meme, and some kids caught me off guard and dumped me upside down into a garbage can.”
Biggie smiled, “No worries man. I got caught there too, but they pantsed me, and I was wearing my Sponge Bob Square Pants bum-huggers. They got me right before the bell rang, and so a couple of classes of kids saw me standing there with my head craned and my pants around my ankles. I didn’t realize anything was wrong until after the crowd walked past me. It was really embarrassing.”
“Was it the same kids that put me in the garbage?”
“Yeah… The Briston twins. Tall, dumb, a bit pointy-nosed?”
They turned a corner of the mansion as Biggie replied, continued down the path, and ran into a group of girls that were showing Imogen around the grounds. She was leading them as if she were the one giving the tour.
“Hey, garbage boy, watch out for the stairs,” Imogen sing-songed. The girls all giggled.
Rufus blew the comment off, “Hey chicken-legs, Where’s my twenty bucks?”
Imogen was caught off guard. She wasn’t use to others calling her names, and she had forgotten about the deal they had made earlier that day.
“Uh…” she paused, “I’ll give your twenty bucks”- she said the word ‘bucks’ like she just put her foot in a mud puddle -”when you finish your job. Oh, wait! You can’t, because I had to get the gardener to finish it for you. I know, maybe you can come clean out my garbage can. Stick your head in it and I guess you could use your nose to get the grime off.”
“I’ll think about it. Still got to have someone else do the hard stuff for you?”
Before she could respond, he said, “Hey, Biggie let’s go play some Frisbee,” and stomped away from the gaggle of girls.
Rufus and Biggie moved off the path and onto the lawn.
“Girls are so mean,” Biggie practically shouted.
“Yeah,” Rufus mumbled. He separated from Biggie enough to toss the disc to him. He threw it and Biggie, not knowing anything about the sport, crossed his hands over his face. The disc nailed him in his gut, and he fell to the ground with an “oomph!”
Imogen and her friends were still watching and laughed again at the boys’ expense.
“Come on, Biggie. Those girls are bugging me.” Rufus said under his breath.
“Yeah.” Biggie turned around and stuck his tongue out at the group of girls. He turned back to see that Rufus had stomped off again. Biggie trotted after him.
They moved off to a different part of the lawn, away from any real spectators, and Rufus took some time to help Biggie learn how to throw and catch the Frisbee. They started short and, eventually, Biggie was able to throw it without Rufus having to move too much to catch it.
“So, what’s this celebration that’s going on tonight?” Asked Rufus trying to get his mind off of Chicken-legs and her comments.
“Celebration? Oh, well I guess it can be called that. The big man and his staff like to give an official welcome to any new kids that come to the Mansion.”
“Who’s the big man? You mean the principal?”
“Yeah, he’s in charge of the school. He, Ms. Meme and the caretakers, drivers and teachers are the adults here. Some of the kids think they are all related, but I think that’s silly. That’d be weird, right?”
“Right. What’s his name—the principal’s?” asked Rufus.
“Uh…I think this year he calls himself Robert Johansen. He changes every once in a while. It’s a bit strange, but so is he. I don’t know if that is his real name. He doesn’t make us use it. Anyway, he does some really cool stuff in Odyssey, so we nicknamed him Merlin. He’s like a wizard in class. Actually, I think he can do stuff outside of Odyssey, but most of the kids think I’m wrong. I’m just saying.”
“What? I don’t get it. A wizard? What kind of class is that? How to play World of Warcraft?…Sounds like my kind of class.”
“No. It isn’t like World of Warcraft, it’s a bit more involved than a video game. But I think it is a video game. You use your imagination to create a character and then you can walk through the Arena. Fighting other characters and monsters…um…I don’t think I’m explaining it very well. You’ll find out tomorrow.”
“Yeah, you’ll have to do a better job, because what you just said sounds just like World of Warcraft.”
They walked along the path and saw the gardens, lawns, and some playing fields. In the distance Rufus could see the edge of a lake with paddle-boats, canoes, and a dock.
They threw the Frisbee a bit more as they walked around the other side of the Mansion and ended up at the cafeteria. It was a bit after five o’clock, so they went in and got some food from the buffet. The cafeteria was full of kids. Rufus noticed some of the kids were looking his way. He ignored them and found an empty table.
Rufus was hungry and tired and wanted to get whatever was planned for tonight over with.
Half an hour later, a man in a dark suit came out of the buffet area with a tray of food and looked around. He was obviously looking for somewhere to sit and, since most of the tables were taken, he made his way over to where Rufus and Biggie were sitting.
“You guys don’t mind if I sit here, do you?” asked the man in a southern drawl. He sat down without waiting for a response. His metal chair screeched as he drug it with his free hand across the hardwood floor. “Name’s Nathan Barber. Friends call me Nate.” Nate was a tall man. More so on the lanky side and had an open, salesman-like manner about him. His hair was dark and styled with gel or hairspray. His pupils however looked as if they were misshapen. Diamond or square. Rufus had a short glance, but didn’t think much about it.
“Hi. I’m Biggie, and this is Rufus,” offered Biggie.
“What are you guys in for?” Asked the man.
“Ah…I’m an orphan,” replied Rufus.
“Me, too,” squeaked out Biggie.
“Yeah? So am I. I grew up in these halls, best time of my life. You guys enrolled in Odyssey yet?” Asked Barber. He absentmindedly put down his fork and played with a ring on his right index finger. The ring was gold and slightly elongated stretching from the top of his hand to his first knuckle. There were designs etched into the gold. Distinct patterns that meant nothing to Rufus, but seemed to tease his brain.
Neither of the boys answered the question. After a short pause the man continued around a large bite of his Caesar salad. “I’m here to talk to Merlin about doing a TV deal about the class. I work in television; a producer.” He pulled out two cards from his suit jacket and slid one to each boy. Both of the boys left them on the table.
Rufus glanced at the card and continued with his meal. This guy is starting to bug, thought Rufus.
The school’s staff all lined up onto the stage at the end of the room. Rufus did see some type of resemblance, like they all were Merlin’s siblings. All of them except for Meme, she stood out.
Meme stood up at the front of the room and said, “Good evening, everyone. Thank you for coming tonight. As you all know, we have two new children that joined us today. Please welcome, Rufus Fenuch from New York City and Imogen Whimsic from Rhode Island. If you two wouldn’t mind standing.”
Both of the named students slowly stood up. Rufus slightly raised his hand in a wave.
“Thank you, Rufus and Imogen. We have an extra treat for everyone; the principal has had the Cook make her famous chocolate cake in celebration of our two new students.”
Nate looked as the Cook wheeled out a chocolate cake. The frosting was sliding over the sides and dripping on the floor as she pushed it along. He smiled and said. “Grissy sure can make a cake. It doesn’t look like much but they sure taste great!”
The Principal stepped forward to the edge of the stage and cleared his throat. “Imogen, my girl, and Rufus, my boy, please come up here.”
The two of them walked up slowly.
“Don’t be shy, don’t be shy.” His expression was playful and slightly over the top.
The two stopped in front of the stage near the Principal. Rufus gave Imogen a tense glance.
”Now, cake or no. We are very lucky to have these two here.” He paused as if he were trying to remember a speech he had written and then continued. “I remember when I was a wee chap, I had no cake. Matter of fact, I ate haggis and I loved it. But only when we had it, and it was delightful. We would take the leftover pig guts from the Thane’s table, and we would mush it all together into a sheep’s stomach. Now that was a real pudding! And when we couldn’t find suet, we would use cabbage. And when we couldn’t find cabbage, we would use our imaginations. Meme?” He stopped absentmindedly. “Do we have any suet? Do you think we should have haggis one of these days?” His eyes were searching for something that seemed out of his mind’s grasp.
Meme stepped up next to the Principal and put her hand on his forearm. “No, I don’t believe the children would enjoy eating haggis. Let’s leave that to the Scots, dear.”