Learning to love you. Prologue
"…five times four is twenty, five times five is twenty-five, five times six is thirty…"
Everyday after lunch we recite the times table. Day after day it becomes more like a memory game than a math skill. Today I decided not to join in. Not because I didn't understand, I had memorized it long before entering the 3rd grade at Maplecreast Academy, but because I was too busy examining my new toy. She gave it to me the last time I saw her, four days ago. She brought me the hand made elephant from her brief visit to Bangladesh. She was always taking trips like that and every time she returned she gives me something new.
Irina Derevko is important. I learned that early on. Some people were afraid of her; some respected her. But only I love her.
I don't remember my real mother; Irina took me when I was a toddler. I wasn't mad at her for it, she told me she did it because she loved me. She said I was her world and she was mine. She was right. I will not and cannot love anyone like I love her.
I missed her, though. I hardly ever got to see her anymore. She left me here in this hell-like boarding school eight months of the year. She can only visit once a month. The headmaster has strict rules and won't bend them for even the most powerful terrorists. I know if she weren't so adamant about me having the best education, she would have me with her every minute of the day.
"What is that?" Someone behind me whispers.
I turned around and see Liam looking at me out of the corner of his eye. Liam was the only good friend I had here. We didn't get along with the other children, mainly because we were different. Our eyes were different colored and our skin was a little lighter. We were also taller and thinner than the others. He sat kitty-corner to me on my left. He reached a hand under his desk and I quickly tossed the elephant into it.
I turned back around to let Liam examine it.
"Did Irina give this to you?" he whispered, trying to keep the teacher from noticing.
"Yeah. Bangladesh." I replied.
"Huh. Where is she now?" he asked.
"I dunno." I answered. When the teacher looked my way, I began to join back in on the recitation.
"Here." he said. Just as I turned around to grab it back, a booming voice from the door at the front door called my name. I thought I was going to get in trouble for talking, but the look on the headmasters face said I wasn't.
I got up and walked to the front of the class with by book and my elephant. Everyone stared. It was very rear the headmaster made an appearance outside of his office.
"Come with me right now. Your guardian is waiting." he spat. I left the room with him and we walked unusually fast down the long corridor. I began to worry. I was not supposed to see Irina for a few more weeks, what could be so important?
I followed the headmaster into his office and saw her pacing around it. She saw me and rushed over. Grabbing my left wrist she lead me out of the office.
"Sweetheart, we have to leave. It's extremely urgent." she pleaded.
"But I haven't packed…" I protested.
"I'll buy you everything new again, …come on!"
And we were off. Racing down the stone steps in front of the school and into a waiting limousine. Irina and the driver began talking frantically in a foreign tongue I didn't recognize. We sped down the highway and down a few side roads for about half an hour until we reached what I recognized as Irena's airfield. I saw that the jet was all ready to take off.
We got on and the whole flight we remained quite. I wanted to ask her what was going on, but the look in her eyes told me not to. So, I just sat by her; resting my head on her shoulder and letting her stroke my dark brown hair.
We landed after four or five hours. It should have been early evening back home, but in this place it looked like mid-afternoon. Irina looked out the little window and tensed up.
"Damnit." she swore. She reached up into the overhead bin and grabbed a handgun.
She bent town and kissed my cheek and I could see tears welling in her brown eyes. I started to get sacred. She never cried. Something was definitely wrong.
"I love you, stay here," she said as she exited the plane.
If I had known what was going to happen next, I would never have let her leave the plane.