This? This was normal. Mail tugged his orange-tinted goggles down his neck and looked up from his hand-held device. Now, most five year old boys don't play video games, but Mail Jeevas is not most five year old boys. It had actually taken a lot of work to obtain his Game Boy device- especially since it was not due to come out for quite some time. After a little begging Quillish- our dear founder and mush like a grandfather- here, and some eyelash batting there, Mail finally received his prized machinery. And of course, most 5yr old boys don't have Miheal Keehl as a best friend either. Who was currently bashing the young Nate River's head with a plastic binder. He should probably do something about that.
"HOW DARE YOU BEAT ME YOU LITTLE SHEEP!" "You will never come first by shouting, Miheal. Perhaps you should study more." 'Oh right, the test scores come in today,' thought Mail. Perhaps this would be a time to stop and explain the working in our home-sweet-home. We live in a place known as Wammy's House, an orphanage for child geniuses. Founded by Quillish Wammy, a rich inventor who decided he had too much money, the orphanage gathers up gifted children from every corner of the world into our wonderful home in Winchester, England. In Wammy's House, we're separated into divisions, and for each division, the top ten schoolers are ranked and posted. Nate has always been number one with Miheal in a close second. With Miheal's temper and superiority complex- "WHAT WAS THAT YOU TWERP?!" "I simply said you should study more."- it's not hard to see that this was a regular scene.
Back to the story, shall we.
As Mail sighed and went to break the fighting duo up, a blur of motion happened. Or more specificity, Mail tripped and fell on Nate, punching him in the face while kicking Miheal in the stomach, who fell on Mail, kneed his back and crushed Nate, who somehow elbowed Mail in the ribs with one arm and punched Miheal with the other. And of course Roger- our oh-so-fabulous caretaker and boss of Wammy's House- decided that this would be a perfect time to make an entrance. It's safe to say they were in trouble.
Ten minutes later, the trio walked into Roger's office, icepacks covering their -ahem- 'manly' boo-boos.
"What exactly was the meaning of that unnecessary display of violence?"
"He was-" "He-" "I did not-"
This was getting nowhere. Roger sighed. "It seems you three are always fighting. I believe a punishment is in order. Nate, no toys, Mail, no videogames, and Miheal, no chocolate." Mail gasped. His videogames! His pride and joy! It would have been nearly
impossible to tell, but Nate was very unhappy. He spent most of his time putting together puzzles and playing with his robots. What would he stack? What would he do? Miheal was angry- not a surprising emotion for him. He was secretly glad he had finished the chocolate bar he was eating while they iced his wounds, but he needed chocolate! There were many rumors of people who had messed with his chocolate. None had lived to tell the tale. "You'll get them back in three weeks," said Roger firmly. At this, Miheal exploded. "What?! Three weeks?! I'll die! It's not MY fault Nate-" "Miheal that is enough! Don't make me change it to four." And so, three weeks of torture began.
It had taken fifteen minutes to remove all the electronic games from Mail's pockets. They had some staff check the boys' rooms, as well. They may be kids, but they are geniuses. Though I am surprised they found all of Miheal's chocolate-hiding spots: false-bottom drawers, hollow floor and wall panels, even in the spot outside his window buried underground for his "emergency stash".
Technically, Mail was not the one fighting. Technically, Mail had only tripped. Technically, Mail did nothing wrong. And technically, he should still have his games, right? Oh dear. It had only been twenty minutes and he had already begun to break. The three child geniuses were all in Miheal and Mail's shared room. Miheal launched into a series or grumbling- though the only words I understood were "Roger", "idiot", and "chocolate"- not even noticing Nate's presence, who was now having some kind of nervous breakdown, curled up into a ball rocking back and forth. Those two were obviously not much better. "What are we going to do?!" yelled Mail, snapping out of his videogame-deprived trance. "As much as I hate to say this, we'll need to work together to take back what's rightfully ours!" replied Miheal. And that was that.
By now the sun had just gone down. The three were almost ready to go. "Bags? Check. Watches? Check. Lipstick? Check." "Wait, why do we need-" At this, the two older boys grabbed Nate and drew two lines on each of his cheeks. "Oh." After doing the same to themselves, they prepared to move out.
Do you know how in horror movies they have those stairs that always creak loudly when walked on? Well, we have the same thing at Wammy's House. As Nate, Mail and Miheal tiptoed down the stairs, it sounded as though an old organ and a washboard were having a showdown. What felt like hours later, they finally arrived at the bottom. First they needed to locate the keys, then free their stuff. Luckily, Miheal has gotten in trouble enough times and knows where each is.
"The keys should be in Main Room D," says Miheal. After several failed ninja moves from Mail, repeatedly holding in giggles, and silently hoping no one wakes up, the trio manage to make it to the door (Mail had many bruises from rolling around on the floor, though). But seeing as no journey can run smoothly, there was a huge mountain blocking their path! Well, not really, but a 3'4", a 3'4.5", and a 3' boy could definitely say a 4 foot gate resembles one. Roger had specially ordered such a tall gate to keep certain troublemakers- Miheal -out. While this was a setback, this did not discourage the three orphans- as I may have mentioned before, they are geniuses.
Since Nate was the smallest, Miheal and Mail lifted him up and 'gently' pushed him over. Mostly Miheal's doing. Next, Miheal lifted Mail up as best as he could (he was the strongest, after all) and let Nate help him over (after picking himself up from being shoved and falling 4ft above the ground, of course). Then, Mail and Nate pulled Miheal over, who was attempting to climb up the gate. In the end, he fell and they all ended up in a pile- not unlike the one that got them into this mess in the first place- knocking down papers, a small shelf, and six metal bowls. "Sure hope no one heard that," said Mail sarcastically. "Whatever. Let's just find the key." Says Miheal as they picked themselves up once again. "Perhaps we should try a method that doesn't end in toppling over each other," Nate says, getting quite injured from repeatedly getting fallen on.
As Mail and Miheal searched the wall above the counter, the light sound of distant footsteps could be heard. 'We are so dead,' thought Mail as he quickly panicked. With fast thinking, the three little Wammy's House occupants rushed over and hid in a cupboard below the countertop. Now, hiding in cupboards is pretty normal here at Wammy's house. Not something most schools have students do often, but Wammy's House isn't particularly normal in the first place. The footsteps became louder and louder. Miheal was shoving Nate into the cupboard wall. The footsteps loudened until their owner was in the room. 'Roger,' Nate thought. There was a soft "thunk" then the cupboard doors swung open. It wasn't Roger standing there, hand to hip, but the red-eyed fourteen year old Beyond Birthday.
It was actually quite an interesting sight. The three top ranked little geniuses huddled together in one small cupboard. Enemy pressed against enemy. Mail wondering how Beyond was able to open the door to their hideout while still being in the center of the room. Beyond confused at their looks of terror (well, at least Miheal's and Mail's faces, Nate never showed much to any emotion).
"Did you see any jam?" Beyond said, breaking the silence. Not what you'd expect one to say in this situation, but Beyond will be Beyond. The three overly intelligent Wammy's House students screamed in response. 'Am I really that scary?' Beyond thought.
Five minutes after their little 'incident', the three younger ones were sitting on the floor watching their upper classmen scoop up strawberry jam with his bare hands, eating straight out the jar. Miheal took this as an opportunity to study the fourteen year old. 'Red eyes, messy black hair, dark circles under his eyes… probably done with makeup… baggy black shirt… he looks really odd…' thought Miheal. Looking down he notices his own clothes: a black long-sleeved shirt and black pants. With his long blonde hair, Mail's stripped shirt and orange goggles, and Nate's curly white hair and white pajamas, - their customary outfits- he comes to a conclusion. '… actually, he probably looks the most normal…' I thought the same things my first few days here. Beyond slurps the jam in the jar like a teacup until finished.
"So, nice night out tonight, huh? Did you need something?" He asks, laughing creepily. "We were looking for the key to Roger's office." Nate states emotionlessly. 'Ugh, thanks a lot, Nate,' Miheal thought as he slapped Nate's head. Those boys will definitely be sore tomorrow. Mail face-palmed at their actions. "Oh, is that all? Here," he said, handing them the key and giving them one of his 'creepy-Beyond-smiles'. "This is certainly making things easier," Mail thought. "Come on, let's go!" Miheal yelled quietly.
The trio left as Beyond- who had been kind enough to take down the gate and not tell Roger- waved goodbye. They half ran- half tiptoed down the halls to Roger's office. This would be the easy part. From experience, I know that it's almost impossible to break into his office without the alarms going off. Why someone would have alarms on their door and public key in one of the Main Rooms is beyond me- but the key was defiantly a 'one up' as the little video gaming addict would say. After fiddling around with the key, they finally barged in. Luckily, Roger had gone to bed early. I, for one, never had such luck in all my days at Wammy's House. Perhaps I just have bad timing. Anyways, they went straight to work finding their lost obsessions and filling the bags (it had taken quite a few bags to get all of it and Nate was starting to wonder how they were going to carry them all). They checked the room once more for lost items, then piled up their bags. 'This was almost too easy,' thought Mail. "Ha! That idiot Roger must have never thought we'd take action! Even if I had to work with the sheep." Miheal declared, munching happily on his chocolate bar. Yes, the genius boys were in the clear!
"Tell me again about how I'm 'such an idiot' and 'never thought you'd try something stupid!'"
Or maybe not.
Mail, Nate, and Miheal were sitting down getting lectured by Roger. He was lecturing them about… about… well, no one really listens to his lectures anyways. "Seeing as your punishment didn't go as planned, you will be sentenced to one with very limited chocolate, toys, and videogames, as well as one month of cleanup duty." The three children groaned. Well, Mail and Miheal groaned, Nate just sat there all Nate-like. This was going to be one long month.
"…" Miheal was growling by this point. Mail seemed to be more interested in beating his game for the 37th time today than helping with their work. On a side note, Nate seemed to be finishing his own work at a much faster pace, which only fueled his anger. Not only that, but he was only allowed one chocolate bar a day! To someone who eats from 12-32 a day, this was a MAJOR cut back. And with this one miserable month, everything is the way it should be. At least for Wammy's House it is.