Okay I've been getting a lot of gripe about Sabine's age. Even if she was 17, she could still be a senior. I'm a senior and I'm not going to be 18 till graduation day. Some of the other girls in my class will turn 18 after I graduate. I still stand on my verdict that a random senior joining would cause questions as to why she is joining senior year mid way through.
Chapter 4: Punishment and Help.
Ezra spent the hour of detention trying to figure out the Algebra, but he just couldn't figure it out.
"Ezra, you can leave now." Ms. Fable said.
"Thank you Ms. Fable." Ezra said. Ezra picked up his bag and left the school, heading east and walking the mile back to the Ghost. He got tired a lot quicker than he should've and he blamed the fact that he was running off fumes basically, having not eaten in about ten hours, and it was just a small fruit too.
When he reached the Ghost, Kanan was standing outside, and like Ezra expected, he was upset. "Just where were you?"
Ezra walked up to him, "Kanan, I can explain."
"Then please do." Kanan said.
"I got detention, becau—" Ezra started but Kanan cut him off.
"Dete—I thought I told you to stay out of trouble." Kanan said.
Ezra bit his lip slightly at how angry Kanan sound, "I was. I got the detention because I was late to class bec—" Once again he was cut off.
"That is getting into trouble Ezra!" Kanan said. "Do you have any idea how worried I was? How worried Hera was?"
"I know, that is why the teacher cut my detention between today and tomorrow." Ezra said.
"You've got detention tomorrow too!" Kanan said. He grabbed Ezra's arm and practically dragged him inside.
"Kanan," Ezra said. "Let me explain."
"Explain to Hera." Kanan said. Hera was standing in the living room. Zeb and Sabine were sitting in there as well.
"Why are you over an hour late?!" Hera asked.
"I was in detention beca—" Ezra started, but was cut off once again.
"Detention?" Hera said. "You mister are in so much trouble."
Ezra bit his lip, trying to hide his fear. It was stupid that he was afraid of Hera, but when you really piss off a nice person they are scarier then hell itself.
"Go to your room. No supper." Hera said.
'No supper' Ezra's eyes widened. "But—"
"Now," Hera whispered, which was ten times scarier than if she would have yelled.
Ezra did as she said, keeping the tears from falling until he made it to his and Zeb's room. He collapsed on the floor, not even having the energy to climb onto his bunk or take off his backpack. He barely had the energy to cry so he laid on the floor, letting the tears stream down his face.
He did not know how long it was until Zeb came in. "Kid, what are you doing on the floor?"
"I don't think I have the energy to get on my bunk." Ezra said.
"Why is that?" Zeb asked.
"I just walked a mile on an empty stomach, give me a break." Ezra said.
"You shouldn't be too hungry," Zeb said. "Yeah you didn't have supper but you did eat lunch, around—"
"Didn't get lunch." Ezra said.
"What do you mean?" Zeb asked.
"My lunch credits were stolen from me." Ezra admitted, and it felt good to let someone know some of the pain he went through that day. He could hear Zeb sniff the air.
"Why do you smell like a toilet?" Zeb asked.
"I got my head shoved in one." Ezra said.
Zeb knelt next to Ezra, picking him up, taking his bag off his back and laid him on the bunk.
"Thank you." Ezra said.
"You never said why you had the detention." Zeb said.
"I was about ten minutes late to class because someone pushed me into my locker. Then at lunch I got my head shoved into the toilet by the same guy because I was defending the Rodian who let me out of my locker. That guy stole me credits that Hera gave me for lunch." Ezra said. "Zeb, it was my first day and I already have three bullies on my tail, and I can't do anything about it, because Kanan said I can't use the Force. And I have my art class alone with them."
"Why don't you tell me about the good parts of your day?" Zeb asked trying to get Ezra's mind off the pain, and hoping it would also give him time to get his thoughts together before he went to confront Kanan and Hera about this.
"I think I made two friends." Ezra said.
"That's good." Zeb said.
"And my Biology teacher seems nice and my Language Studies teacher is nice. I was supposed to have a two hour detention today because of my nerf-herder of a planetary studies teacher, but she was monitoring it and decided I could split it between today and tomorrow so you guys wouldn't be too worried."
"That is nice." Zeb said. "Good at school?
"I can't understand math. I mean math was pretty easy until they added the alphabet to it." Ezra said.
"Oh, algebra." Zeb said. "Sabine may be able to help. I'll ask her to help you while I go talk to Kanan and Hera.
"Okay." Ezra said. He managed to climb off the bunk and over to the desk and took out the datapad and paper too do the homework on as Zeb left.
"Hopefully Sabine doesn't think I'm an idiot." Ezra said. A moment later Sabine walked in.
"Zeb said something about you needing help on your math homework." Sabine said.
"Yeah, I just don't get it." Ezra said.
"Okay what's the first problem?" Sabine asked.
"3x+15=18" Ezra told her.
"Okay, do you know what you would do first?" Sabine asked.
"I would take away 15 from each side." Ezra said.
"Right." Sabine said. "And that leaves you with what?"
"3x=3." Ezra said. "But what do I do with this three? I tried subtracting it when asked in class but my answer was way off the right one."
"No see the 3 and the 'x' are multiplied together." Sabine said.
"Multiplied?" Ezra asked at the term, he might have heard Mr. Novar use that term but he still didn't know what it meant.
"You don't know what multiplication is?" Sabine asked.
"Sabine, I only got as far as the second level of primary school before my parents died. I only know like adding and subtracting." Ezra said.
"Well, multiplication is sort of like fast addition. Here," Sabine said, taking a sheet of paper from the back of the note book, " so '5+5+5+5=x' you can add these four 5's together or you could write it like this, '5x4' or '5(4)' understand. So what is 5x4 if it is like adding four fives together?"
"20?" Ezra asked.
"Yep." Sabine said. "So when you do the opposite of multiplication it is dividing."
"Fast subtracting?" Ezra asked.
"In a way. Let's take this. '25/5' you would see how many times you can subtract 5 from 25 until you reach 0. So," Sabine explained.
"25-5 is 20. 20-5 is 15. 15-5 is 10. 10-5 is 5. 5-5 is 0. That was five times so 25/5 is 5." Ezra said.
"Correct, so if 3x=3 you would divide by 3 and get what?" Sabine asked.
"x=1?" Ezra asked.
"Right." Sabine said. "You are good at this if you know what's going on."
Ezra smiled. "So the next one is 5x+8=48. So I would subtract the 8 to get 5x=40 and then divide the 40 by 5 and get..." Ezra said. He took a brief moment to do the subtracting. "8"
"Right." Sabine said. "You got this."
"Thanks for explaining this to me Sabine." Ezra said.
"No problem," Sabine said. As she walked away she knocked over the back pack and the two halves of the drawing flew out. "What's this?"
"Nothing," Ezra said.
Sabine picked up the pieces and placed them together, she had a dumbstruck look on her face. "Did you draw this Ezra?"
"Yeah." Ezra said.
"From memory?" Sabine said.
"Yeah." Ezra asked.
"How long did it take you?" Sabine asked.
"A little under an hour." Era said. "Not that it matters, it's all torn up."
"I'll be right back." Sabine said walking out of the room.
During the duration of the math lesson Zeb was talking to Hera and Kanan in the cockpit.
"What is this about Zeb?" Hera asked.
"Ezra." Zeb said.
"Look, I know you think we were a bit hard on him, but he needs to learn his lesson." Kanan said.
"I think he already learned his lesson by being shoved into a locker, head dunked in a toilet and an hour detention for something that was not his fault." Zeb said.
"What?" Kanan asked.
"He said he got the detention because he was late to class because he was stuck inside his locker for ten minutes." Zeb said.
"Why didn't he use the Force to get out?" Hera asked.
Kanan sighed, feeling guilty, "I told him not to use the Force while there."
"And later he got his head dunked in the toilet for defending the kid who got him out of the locker, and got his lunch credits stolen, so he didn't eat lunch or supper." Zeb said.
"What have I done?" Kanan asked himself.
"What have we done?" Hera corrected. "I was the one that told him no supper."
"The only reason he was back at the time he was, was because the detention supervisor was nice enough to let him split his two hour detention between today and tomorrow. Because it was his first day, and he had no way to contact us to let us know he was going to be late." Zeb said.
"I'm going to apologize," Kanan said after thirty seconds.
"Bring him some food." Zeb called after him as Kanan left.
Kanan started to approach Ezra's room with some food in hand. He nearly ran into Sabine in the hall way, she had just came out of Ezra's room.
"Oh, sorry." Kanan said,
"No problem." Sabine said.
"Sabine, is Ezra upset with me?" Kanan asked.
"He didn't say if he was or wasn't." Sabine said before she walked into her room. She had a torn piece of paper in her hand that Kanan didn't get a good look at.
Kanan knocked on Ezra's door.
"Yeah?" Ezra asked.
Kanan came in. "Ezra,"
"Kanan." Ezra said with a flick of his eyes before going back to his homework.
"I'm sorry, Hera is too." Kanan said. "We should have waited for your explanation."
"It's fine Kanan." Ezra turned towards him, his eyes glancing at the food, a sandwich, before flicking back to Kanan.
"I was worried and I lost control of my emotions, the very thing I'm trying to teach you from doing." Kanan said. "From what Zeb told me, you already had a hard day at school, and I probably just made it worse." He pushed the sandwich towards Ezra. "Again, I'm sorry."
At the moment Ezra felt a deep want in his chest. He wanted to hug Kanan. It had been over eight years since he got a hug from anyone. He didn't know how Kanan would react though. He decided he would risk it. He wrapped his arms around Kanan.
Kanan was taken aback. He hardly expected forgiveness, but Ezra hugged him. He smiled and hugged back. He let go when he felt Ezra let go.
"I'm still so sorry for punishing you without knowing the full story." Kanan said.
"It's okay Kanan." Ezra said. He took the sandwich and started eating.
"Ezra, I fixed it." Sabine said. She held the piece of paper out and you could hardly tell it had been ripped at all. Since Ezra was busy eating Kanan grabbed it. He took a look and was surprised. The picture was a full grey scale drawing of a headshot of him (Kanan). Ezra didn't have a holopic of him on his person so he had to draw it from memory. The picture could easily go on a wanted poster and a blind man could recognize him from it the first time.
"Ezra, you drew this?" Kanan asked.
"It was free art in art class." Ezra said.
"Ezra this is some of the best work I've seen." Sabine said.
"Thank you." Ezra said.
Sabine left, figuring he better leave the two alone, in case they needed to repair their relationship any.
"So how was your day?" Kanan asked.
Ezra gave a very detailed description of his day as he finished eating. "Kanan, do you think we could figure out my mini-chlorian count?"
"Maybe tomorrow, you need to finish your homework and get to bed." Kanan said.
"Okay." Ezra said. He went back to work on his Algebra he understood now and after he had finished he climbed into bed and feel asleep instantly.
I finished this at 11:20 at night. Too tired for a sneak peek but expect an update tomorrow.