Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters I have borrowed from MI High.

Oscar woke up suddenly. He couldn't remember where he was. He couldn't remember who he was. He felt the panic rising and he gasped for breath. The taxi was just pulling into a gravel driveway. It was the sudden jolts and wallowing of the car which had woken him up. Seeing the big house at the end of the drive he remembered what he was doing here. Then he remembered who he was supposed to be and the panic subsided.

"Here we are Mr Popov," said the driver.

"What ?" asked Oscar. He'd forgotten he was pretending to be someone else, pretending to be someone else. "Oh, oh yeah," he said. Then he remembered he was supposed to be having trouble speaking English, and muttered a few curses in Russian. This mission was going to be a disaster if he didn't get his act together quickly. The car pulled up in front of the main door and he ran his fingers through his mussed up blond curls before half staggering out of the car door. The taxi driver handed him his luggage before wishing him luck and driving off.

A tall, thin man came out of the building. Holding out his hand, the man said, "You must be Alexi. Welcome to Language School. I'm Dr. Fairweather."

Shaking hands, Oscar said "Hello, Dr Fairweather."

"Very well done, Alexi. We'll soon have you chatting in English," said the man encouragingly. "Come in," he instructed. Oscar followed the man into the building. He introduced Oscar to a severe looking woman in a uniform. "This is Mrs Peabody our housekeeper,' said Dr Fairweather. "She will show you to your room and tell you where to come and eat. Dinner will be in 20 minutes in the dining room."

Oscar followed Mrs Peabody up to his room. This was a small room with a single bed, a desk, wardrobe and some shelves. It had its own small shower room through a door. It reminded him of the first safe-house he stayed in after his mother ran away with SKUL. The only difference was that this room had a window, looking out onto a garden. The safe-house room had no windows. He shivered a little at the bad memories which started flooding in. He noticed that Mrs Peabody was looking at him closely. "Where is TV ?" he asked, trying to distract her.

"Not in your room," said Mrs Peabody slowly and clearly. "Downstairs. You can watch TV together with the other students." She tapped her watch. "Dinner is at 6pm," she said. "You get ready now."

Mrs Peabody walked back downstairs to the kitchen. It had been a long day. Two new girls and neither of them looked over 16 years old. Goodness only knew where the school was recruiting staff from now. The last two had to leave after the immigration people came to check on their visas. Now she was going to have to train up two new girls. At least they didn't sound foreign. They shouldn't need visas. The new student at least seemed reasonably well behaved. Some of these foreign boys were very rude. By the way they behaved you would have thought they owned half of the country. It would be a nice change to have a quieter one. He did seem a bit sad though. Mrs Peabody thought a lot of these boys seemed a bit lonely under all the bravado.

The kitchen was buzzing with activity. Carrie and Rose were being shown where all the cutlery was kept. Their first task was to set the tables for dinner. Dinner was eaten at long tables laid out in the large dining room. Quickly they put out the cutlery, added glasses and jugs filled with water. As they were finishing, the food was brought out in large bowls which were placed into heated trolleys with ladles or spoons thrown into each one. Each girl was instructed to take a place behind one of the trolleys, ready to serve up the food. People started pouring into the room. First came the teaching staff, closely followed by streams of students. The majority were boys, but there were girls too. There was a cacophony of different languages. Rose picked up a little French, but not much else. Soon she was too busy serving up food to pay attention to who was in front of her.

Suddenly she heard a familiar voice speaking with a different accent. "Pasta please," said Oscar, smiling at her. She smiled back and gave him a bowl full of the pasta and sauce. "Thankyou," he said, still in his thick accent. He left to find a place to eat somewhere. Then Frank appeared at her elbow.

"Everything OK ?" he whispered.

"No problems so far," she whispered back.

"Pasta please," asked Frank more loudly. He winked at Rose as he took his full bowl away and joined a group of teachers at a table. Mrs Peabody put her head round the kitchen door and checked on the two new girls. They seemed to be getting on with their work reasonably well. Good. One less thing to worry about.

Frank decided to get to work. He found a chair in the middle of a group of teaching staff. "Hello, Frank Manchester," he introduced himself. The teacher nearest reached out and shook hands.

"Hi, Marty Young," said the man shaking hands. "I'm the business language specialist. You're the new science and tech guy aren't you ?" Frank nodded. "What brings you here then ?" asked Marty.

"Well, I thought I'd give it a try. I'm between long contracts so a short term contract was quite handy," explained Frank.

"Yeah, the job market is pretty tough at the moment isn't it ?" said Marty. "I only meant to come here on a six month contract and I've ended up staying for 18 months !" He didn't sound too upset.

"What do think of the setup here then ?" asked Frank.

"It's not bad," said Marty. "The kids are all filthy rich. You should see some of the cars they arrive in. Armour plated Rolls Royces; the lot. They come from all over, but most are from Russia and the old Soviet states. I'm not sure that all their families' business interests are entirely legal, if you know what I mean." He tapped his nose at this. Frank nodded conspiratorially. "I look at some of them and the first thing I think is 'drugs money' !" said Marty in a whisper. "Don't let on I told you that, will you ?" has asked looking worried. Frank assured him he wouldn't breathe a word. "You've got to feel a bit sorry for some of them. They're often sent here to keep them safe. Half of them are running away from something, or someone."

Frank introduced himself to more of the teaching staff, but nobody was quite as forthcoming as Marty. He decided that Marty was definitely the relationship to cultivate. He looked around and spotted Oscar sitting at a table in conversation with several other students.

Oscar had found a table where Russian was being spoken. "Can I sit here ?" he asked in Russian. A boy of a similar age gestured to the empty chair.

"Sure. You new?" he asked.

"Yeah. I'm Alexi," said Oscar putting out his hand. The other boy shook hands.

"Hi, I'm Illya," he said. "Where do you come from ?" he asked.

"Oh you know. All over," said Oscar vaguely. Illya didn't seem surprised that he hadn't really answered the question.

"Know what you mean. It's a pain isn't it ?" said Illya. "I've been in three different countries in the last year and a half. Hey, Pavel, you had a kidnap attempt last year didn't you ?" he asked another, older boy at the same table.

"Yeah. It was a blast," boasted the other boy. "Our driver saw them off though. Wow, what a drive that was ! We were driving down the pavement and everything. The bodyguard was shooting out of the back window. Crazy" he laughed.

"Weren't you scared ?" asked Oscar, shocked by the boy's self-assurance.

"Scared, who are you kidding ?" laughed the boy. "My Dad would soon sort out those .." he tailed off suddenly, as if he'd said too much. "I've got to go now. I need to study. See you Illya and ?" he said, looking at Oscar.

"Alexi," said Oscar.

"Sure, see you later Alexi," said the boy as he took his plate away and left the room.

"You had any problems ?" Illya asked Oscar.

"Well, my Dad keeps moving me around. He's worried that something could happen. Sometimes I have a different name. It gets really confusing sometimes," said Oscar.

Illya looked sympathetic. "I know what you mean," he said. "I'm trying to get to university. I want to study languages, but my Dad wants me to go into the oil business. My Dad's in the oil business. I don't want to go into my Dad's business. I'd have to spend the whole of my life hiding and moving." He sounded depressed and Oscar felt sorry for him.

"Well, you're in the right place to learn a language," he pointed out.

"You going into your Dad's business ?" asked Illya.

Oscar thought about this. Weirdly, he had gone into the same business as his father, although he couldn't remember his father. It had seemed like the obvious thing to do at the time. "No, I don't want to either," answered Oscar.

"Well, I think you and I are going to be good friends," smiled Illya. "Here's to freedom !" he said, raising his glass.

"To freedom," grinned Oscar raising his glass. They both tossed their remaining water down their throats in one.

"We're not allowed the smash the glasses," whispered Illya in his ear. "They don't do it here. You're not allowed to drink Vodka either."

"No !" whispered Oscar, faking surprise.

"No. You have to be 18 years old to have alcohol in this country. You can't get it anywhere, not even in the restaurants. It's so uncivilised !" complained Illya. "You should have heard the Uzbekistanis when they found out. 'We always drink toasts in Vodka after a meal' they were saying. Wow, they were mad. They didn't get any though. Oh, and you can't smoke in the building either."

"I don't smoke," said Oscar.

"Me neither," said Illya. "All the Uzbekistanis do though. They all creep outside and hide behind the garages for a smoke. You can always find them there. You can always smell them when they come back," he laughed.

Oscar made a mental note of this. It might be useful later.