Cordyceps Twelve
Cordyceps Twelve
The others had taken the bread we smuggled to them with clear misgivings. Apparently one of the prefects had stayed behind during our lunch hour and made sure to go over the entire ruleset in detail for those left behind.
They were allowed to eat their beans while listening.
So the rest of us sneaking over some loaves of bread was... welcome, even if I think they didn’t appreciate it all that much.
Well, I didn’t care too much either. I wasn’t going to win these kids over with a loaf of bread, no matter how good it was. Maybe that would work with some of the street urchins I passed in the gutters I lived in, but these kids didn’t look like they’d ever known hunger, and the whole thing with the beans was mostly an insult.
They still got to eat with the rest of us that evening.
Mister Drake gave us a tour of the school, pointing out where each classroom we’d have to attend was, and gave us a grand walk around the Academy grounds. It was interesting just how different the air tasted here compared to in the city below. Then again, we were upwind of the factories and at a decent elevation compared to the rest of the city. I made a conscious effort to keep up with the others without panting. I didn’t want to start coughing.
The tour ended at the cafeteria where we had our last meal for the day, then it was back to the dorms.
I managed to sneak more food back, this time for Sir Nibbles who did appreciate the still-warm bread and the chicken leg I got for him.
Some of the others decided to chat in the main dorm area, and I joined them, but mostly I talked to Montgomery, who, it seemed, had decided that I was a friend. Milo spoke to us a bit as well, and he introduced us to his own friend, Cedric Fairweather, who just went by the name ‘Fairweather.’
Fairweather was a nice enough guy once I looked past his stuffiness. He walked with a straight back and his nose in the air, and carried himself the same way Mister Drake did, but without that same effortlessness.
The four of us chatted for a while, though I mostly constrained myself to asking pertinent questions to keep the conversation going between the other three.
Eventually though, it was time for sleep.
I rummaged through my things before sleeping and found a very weak, older Dead Man’s Cough which I squeezed next to my doorway. It would fill the air of my room with a very light, thin dusting of spores which would set off the average person’s cough reflexes... probably without killing them.
That would have to do, as far as security went. I couldn’t justify using lethal measures against kids. Not only would it give me away, but I did have some personal reservations against it as well.
I changed in my rooms, then laid down to rest with Sir Nibbles curled up on my feet under the blankets.
The mattress was fantastic.
I woke up early the next morning, picked out some clothes, then rushed to the washrooms before anyone else awoke. I showered in one of the stalls and was dressed and ready to go before anyone else woke up.
That was going to be tricky to deal with in the future, but fortunately the washrooms had lockable doors here.
Those in the gymnasium, however, didn’t. We didn’t have PE on our weekly agenda, but it seemed as if the school still wanted us to keep active.
I suspected that they’d have organised games or something. I’d have to be careful with those.
Mister Drake slipped into the dorm and found me sitting on one of the plush couches, reading one of the books I’d nicked from the first year dorm’s mini-library. Just a simple biology textbook, probably for one of the electives. It was still a nice refresher.
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“Good morning, sir,” I said.
“Good morning, Mister Kilue,” he replied with an easy nod. Then he casually pulled out a small metal device painted a dull green and grabbed onto a rotating handle on its back. “Do cover your ears,” he said.
I slapped my palms over my ears just as he started to spin the device. It made an impossibly loud wail. A siren?
Several doors slammed open and disgorged young boys in various states of undress. Almost all of them were bleary-eyed and confused. “At attention!” Mister Drake snapped.
I ditched my book and sprinted to stand next to my door. I didn’t think we had to be in any sort of parade rest, necessarily, but I tried to stand tall and straight for inspection.
More students stumbled out of their rooms, and I noticed Milo walk out of his room at a slow, lethargic pace, muffling a yawn as he did so.
“Breakfast is in twenty minutes,” Mister Drake said. “Shower and get dressed. I will not have my first years disgrace the house of the Dragon. This is your last wake-up call. I expect all of you to be up by this time tomorrow and ready to face the day.”
And with that, he spun on his heel and left.
I waited until Montgomery was dressed and ready to head out, and discovered that my new friend was on the slower side. A few of the others were already leaving by the time he was ready. “You took your time,” I said.
He yawned. “I couldn’t sleep,” he said. “And I’m used to waking a little later.”
“I know what you mean,” Milo said as he joined us. His friend, Fairweather, was a step behind him. “The beds here are awful.”
“I should have brought my own pillow,” Cedric said.
I was almost surprised he hadn’t. Some of these kids had come with enough luggage that I wouldn’t have been surprised to discover that they brought entire furniture sets. It looked like some of them were going to use the crap they brought from home to one-up each other, but I stayed out of it.
Our first class of the morning was Geography. The classroom was on the top floor of the main Academy building, on the far west end of the building of where our dorms were, but they weren’t too far from the cafeteria.
We found the cafeteria half full. The Dragon side had most of the students I’d seen there yesterday at lunch already either filling their trays with food, or sitting down to eat. The Troll side was... less full. It looked like only a quarter of them had showed up, but more were arriving in varying levels of dishevelment.
“They’re quite... laid back,” Montgomery said while looking at a group of Troll first years who rushed into the room and joined the end of the food queue. One of them was still in his pyjamas.
“I guess so. Well, as long as they show up to classes on time, I guess it doesn’t matter,” I said.
Breakfast was eggs, thin slabs of ham, beans, and buttered toast, all in decent enough quantities that I was positive I wouldn’t be hungry later. Which was wild. I filled up on extra ham and ate with the others.
They didn’t notice me wrapping up some ham in a napkin and hiding it away in my uniform. Sir Nibbles was going to love it.
“Anyone know what Geography is like?” I asked.
“Wash your face off,” Milo said. “If my mother saw the way you ate she’d get the butler to pull out the strap.”
I cleared my throat and sat up straighter. Right, I needed to pretend to have some degree of decorum here. I’d practised, of course, but a few hours of practice here and there didn’t overrule a lifetime of starvation.
At least the Trolls on the next table over were eating about as well as I expected them to, so in contrast I wasn’t so bad. I cleared my throat again and made sure to check my accent. I didn’t need to slip back into a more gutter-y speech either.
Maybe I could pick up some sort of disguise skill at some point that would help with that? In the meantime, I just let the others take over and ate quietly.
We finished up soon enough, then with nothing better to do, headed out towards the Geography class.
Classes here lasted for an hour and a half apiece. With two classes in the morning taking about three and a half hours (accounting for a short break period used to navigate from one class to the next) and lunch giving us an hour.
It meant that we’d be freed from classes a bit before four in the afternoon, with the rest of the day used for physical activities and homework.
I was looking forward to it. It had been a long time since I had a fixed, reasonable schedule to work with.
***