"Children, this is Matt," said Roger
Roger, the old guy who met him at the door, brought Matt into the dining hall. It was dinnertime, and it seemed the rest of the kids had already started eating. The dining hall was rather large; it was wood-paneled room with a long table and even a tablecloth. "Children, this is Matt," Roger said.
Few of the kids said anything, but they looked at him with a creepy, appraising look. Weird, thought Matt, they look they're going to attack me, or something. Probably, they all just wanted to know if he was a threat. This house was mostly supposed to be for finding successors to L, the great detective. But Matt wasn't really interested in that.
Once he sat down, Matt realized he was starving. He loaded up his plate and began to eat. He was surprised to see that the food was pretty good. That's a first, he thought. Who's ever heard of an orphanage with good food? Once he finished, he leaned back to watch the other kids eat. There were some real weirdoes here. One tiny kid had white hair, the palest skin Matt had ever seen, and a creepy, blank expression. Zombie, Matt decided. Or maybe a robot.
After dinner, Roger showed him the rest of the place. The best part was the computer lab, and what a lab! It had dozens of individual computers, as well as an impressively powerful mainframe. And they were equipped with everything. They had video editing software, and photo editing software, manuals for programming in half a dozen languages, and programs even Matt wasn't sure how to use.
The lab wasn't limited to software, though. Next door, there was a fully-equipped electronics lab which would have made an engineer jealous. But the best part was the game library. They had everything from vintage games like Spacewar to the recently released Command and Conquer. Yeah, Matt thought, I'm definitely going to like it here.
When the tour was over, Roger took him to the dormitory wing. "You'll be sharing this room with one other person, a boy named Mello," he said. As they got closer, Matt could hear heavy metal blaring from somewhere. Roger stopped at the door of his room from which it seemed to be coming. Roger thumped on the door and shouted, "Mello! Would you turn that down, please?" The music shut off suddenly.
The door was flung open, and Matt wondered if there was a mistake. The person standing before them seemed to be a small girl. No…it was a boy with long-ish blonde hair and soft facial features. He was wearing a loose black tunic and pants. "Yeah?" he asked.
"Mello," Roger said, "this is your new roommate, Matt." Mello looked him up and down and grunted.
"Well…" Roger said uncertainly, "I'll leave you two alone now." He left and shut the door behind him. Mello turned his music back on and flopped down on his bed. Now that he was in the room, Mello could tell it was a foreign language, maybe Russian or something. Well, Matt could get used to it. Fortunately, the room had a computer for each of them.
Matt turned on the computer, created a password and logged in. He spent some time exploring his computer before he got on the Internet. He would probably have to create new log-ins for his favorite site; no one was supposed to be able to connect Matt with Mail Jeeves. Well, that would give him something to do.
He was so immersed in hacking a subscription-only gaming site, he didn't notice when the music turned off. Suddenly, he heard his roommate say, "What did Roger say your name was?"
"Matt," he said.
"I'm Mello," his roommate said. "I'm going to be the next L," he bragged.
Matt shrugged absentmindedly. He was close to getting into the site. After a while, Mello turned off the overhead lights and went to bed, still fully dressed, and on top of his covers instead of under them. Whatever, Matt thought, as played with his computer late into the night.
Over the next few weeks, Matt settled in comfortably. His classes were mostly interesting, for the first time. He was taking electronics, advanced programming, and computer security. He also had to take a language, but at least they let him choose which one. English was his native language, so he decided to go for German. Once the other kids realized that Matt wasn't interested in being L's successor, he was mostly ignored, which was fine by him. The exception was Mello.
As near as Matt could tell, Mello was just an annoying guy. He played rough, he talked too loud, and he insisted on going to bed around midnight, with all the lights off. Having to look at a computer screen in the dark all the time was giving Matt a headache. And he didn't seem content to just let Matt be. He kept trying to talk to him while they were in their room. It drove Matt crazy.
The final straw, however, came when Mello left a cup of water on Matt's computer desk and it got knocked over somehow. When Matt came in, the water was still dripping off the table and there was a terrible smell of burnt plastic. Mello was lounging on his bed, trying to pretend nothing was wrong. Matt went up to him and hit him in the face.
Considering that they were both young and not very strong, it wasn't really much of a fight. Matt was more stockily built, but Mello was taller. When they were both tired out, they both had some bruises and nicks, but nothing too serious. They sat on the floor and glared at each other. Then, Mello wiped his bloody lip and started to laugh. "Man, I was starting to wonder if you were actually human," he said.
Matt felt a little silly, but he said, "I had important stuff on that computer."
"I know. Sorry, OK? I just put it there for a minute, and I tripped over one of the cords," Mello said.
Matt was calming down. Mello was proud, so even that half-apology was pretty good. "OK, I forgive you," he said. "But I get to use your computer until I get mine fixed, all right?"