Richard Grayson looked sullenly up at the old Tudor mansion he was now expected to call home. 'Well', he thought ruefully, 'as boarding schools go this doesn't look so bad.'
He still couldn't believe that Bruce was forcing him to spend his senior year in this ritzy upstate New York boarding school. So he had taken a few too many women to his bed, was that any reason to send Rich to the other end of the country? The man sighed, readjusted the dark sunglasses he wore everywhere, ran a hand through is long black locks, and pushed through the largo oak front doors.
Whatever the sign above the door had said, this was not what he had thought the Summerset School for the Artistically Gifted would look like. He had expected a school full of snooty, preppy kids whose only prerogative was to pull you down. Just like his old school in Gotham.
But the room he found himself in was a huge, high-ceilinged one with a shiny marble floor in black and white tiles. Across the arching ceiling and white walls someone had painted the words love, passion, torture, despair, serenity, anguish, wings, all on bright greens and blues. No doubt done by one of the students. "Dear god Bruce, " he murmured, "what have you gotten me into now?"
Just then a short, stuffy looking man appeared at the top of the large wooden staircase at the other end of the entry hall. "Oh my! My dear boy, do come in" he called out in a nervous little voice. "I am Headmaster O'Flaherty and you must be Mr. Grayson. Do come in." He motioned again and Richard had soon joined him at the top of the stairs.
"Come come, follow me and we'll go down the main office to get you settled, find your classes. Your things arrived yesterday and have already been taken up to your new room."
As the headmaster lead Richard through a maze of sunny corridors, the new student took the time to closer examine his new teacher. O'Flaherty was a tiny, squat man, slightly balding and with a nervous habit of fluttering his hands when he spoke.
"I've heard so much about you from Mr. Wayne. He just raves about your art work."
That took Richard by surprise. "Bruce actually said something good about my work. That's a new one." He chuckled derisively as the pair walked through a door into the school's main office.
"Why yes, your guardian thought this would be the perfect place to nurture you artistic talents. And I must say I agree, after seeing the portfolio of you work."
The headmaster had stopped in front of a sectary's desk and was talking to her in low whispers. After a second she pounded a few keys on her computer and printed out a sheet covered in class assignments.
Richard, being a superb judge of character, could tell that the next thing he planned to say would really disturb the headmaster and his sectary in her neat little skirt suit and close cropped red hair.
"He sent me here because of the art? And all this time I thought it was because of the slipping grades and the women." And indeed, both headmaster and sectary seemed scandalized. 'My god, are all the people in this place so tightly wound?" he thought.
O'Flaherty was the first to recover. Muttering something about guardians and loose women, the tiny man ushered Richard into his office off the main room.
"Well Mr. Grayson, here is your new coarse schedule for the year. Please take a seat while I find someone to give you a tour of the school and grounds."
Richard slumped down into an antique leather chair covered in brass furniture tacks. The headmaster settled him self behind his large desk and scrolled around on his computer for a few minuets before exclaiming, "Ah ha! Here we go, Ms. Roth has a free afternoon. She will be able to give you a lovely tour of the grounds." He pressed a button on his intercom and said, "Mrs. Lewis, could you summon Ms. Roth to me office please? Thank you." O'Flaherty returned his attention to Richard.
"Now Mr. Grayson. We here at the Summerset School for the Artistically Gifted cherish all of the arts: Painting, sculpting, photography, ect. Also music, theater, dance, vocals. Our students are an unusual breed of people with an interesting outlook. I'm sure you will fit in just fine here." He chuckled softly before saying, "And I am more than sure that Ms. Roth can give you a better picture of a student's life here than I can. Ah, here she is now. Come in Raven."
Richard turned to see a girl garbed all in black framed in the doorway. She was a petit little thing with pale skin and clearly died violet hair. She also had a rather guarded look in her huge purple eyes. "You needed me for something Headmaster?" she dsaid in a board monotone of a voice.
"Yes, come in my dear." O'Flaherty turned back to Richard. Raven Roth is one of our top literary students. She will give you as best a tour as anyone could" With that said, O'Flaherty shoved Richard's coarse schedule into his hands, shuffled from the room, and left Richard under the scrutinizing gaze of Raven Roth.
Kori sighed in contentment as she tuned her violin against Garfield on the piano. A little tweaking here or there brought her to the perfect A. All around them the rest of the symphony warmed up. The cellists let Ava Maria float into the back of the theater, the four flutists were bickering about who was most out of tune, and their conductor, Gelfarius, was trying to pass out copies of the Brahms First Symphony to the rest of the strings and winds.
Kori loved her conductor. Since her and Gar's arrival three years prior, Gelfarius had been nothing short of a miracle worker. He had helped get Kori and Garfield on music scholarships and had even taken them in during the summers, when they had no place else to go.
He was also the closest thing she and Garfield had to a father.
As though summoned by her thoughts Gelfarius was suddenly kneeling at the front on the stage, looking down at his star pupils in the pit with the grand piano.
"All right you two, I have everything else ready. I need you Garfield to run them through a few scales to properly warm them up and if anyone is drastically out of tune, call them down here to fix it. You have a good ear for that sort of thing."
"I'm on it chief", Gar said in his usual goofy way. Kori and Gelfarius just rolled their eyes
"Kori, come with me. I have something to show you."
"Sure all right", Kori said as she followed her mentor up the stairs onto the stage and through the doors at the back into the man's office.
"What's up Gelfie?" she asked once he had shut the door behind them.
"Wait here". Gelfarius began shuffling around in his back closet, finally emerging with a cardboard box filled to the brim with music.
"Oh my god", Kori gasped, a hand at her throat. "Oh. My. God. Is that …is it?"
Gelfarius beamed proudly. "Yes it is. I finally got through with the publishing house and we have here the very first printed copy of Dolore Imperdonabile. You should be very proud of your work my dear."
Kori couldn't believe her eyes. There, in her own hands, was the first printed copy of her own music. She had slaved for two hot summer months with he violin, a piano, and hundreds of pieces of sheet music to finally turn out Dolore Imperdonabile. At one point she hadn't left her room for three days, just laid on her bed with notes flowing through her head.
"Gelfie, I...I can't thank you enough. You can't know how much this means to me."
The conductor laughed, "I think I might have an inkling. And just like I said last summer, your work will be the finale peace in next week's performance when we play for the Ounatuu Corporation and the school donors. I heard some collage scouts might be coming and thought your Aria would add just the right touch."
Kori flung her arms around Gelfie's neck in a bone-crushing hug. "Thank you! Thank you Gelfie!" There were tears in hr eyes when she pulled away.
"Oh, you can really feel the love in this room", Gar said from the doorway. "Everything's in place Gelf, we're ready for her", he continued.
"Perfect", the older man grinned.
"What's going on?" Kori asked suspiciously as her two favorite men covered her eyes and lead her by the hand back out to the auditorium. When they had her positioned her on the end of the stage, Garfield gave the signal, a huge grin on his face.
A hundred voices shouted, "Congratulations Kori Anders!" The entire symphony was standing in the seats surrounding something large and flat, covered in black cloth.
Kori gasped in awe at the grinning crowd as one of the trumpets and a drummer named Aden pulled of the cloth. It revealed a huge glossy picture of Kori in a formal black dress holding her violin in the ready position. Above her were the words Stars of Fire, Summerset Symphony Performing Oct. 5th through Oct. 21st. Featuring Dolore Imperdonabile by Kori Anders. The whole thing was mounted on a sturdy wooden frame about ten feet high.
Kori, being a naturally emotional person, surprised no one when she broke down crying in Gar's arms. Everyone simply laughed and made their way back to the stage, gathering up their instruments as they went, leaving the billboard propped up in the seats. Kori was still crying with joy and love.
"Ah, de lieveling, don't cry Kori," Linka said in a thick Dutch accent laced with affection. Everyone loved Kori.
"We're gonna mount them up in some clubs in N.Y.C. and on the highways near the Berkshires", said Aden, the drummer who had pulled the cloth. "There are like twenty more in the storage closet. We'll get a packed house every night with that picture of you on it." Consequently, Aden had the hots for Kori in a big way.
He smirked and moved closer, much to close. "You looked really great in that dress Kori". She was just wondering how to escape Aden's grasp when Garfield appeared over his shoulder. Gar could spot trouble from a mile away.
With one hand balled into the back of Aden's shirt and the other at the pressure point at the base of his neck, Gar pulled Aden backwards to him whispering, "If you touch her again I will kill you."
Garfield released the teen and he stumbled over to the drums looking both irritated and unnerved. For while everyone knew Kori was well loved, they also knew that Garfield Logan was extremely protective of her, for reasons unknown. Any man who was stupid enough to try something with Kori soon got his ass kicked by Gar. Gelfarius tended to turn a blind eye on these occasions.
In his opinion, anyone who gave Kori false promises deserved a good beating.