Richie woke up, slapping the alarm off
Richie woke up, slapping the alarm off. He stretched, groaning as his stiff muscles told him how deeply he had slept the night before. Connor had been working him hard, jogging in the mornings to the gym where he did yoga and karate on alternate days, then several hours of reading in preparation for school starting today, followed by—
Today.
Damn it.
Richie looked up at the clock perched on the headboard. Glowing red numbers told him it was 7:30 am. He got up and opened the window they had installed that looked out over the main living area. Connor was in the kitchen.
"Did you change my alarm?"
"Thought you deserved to sleep in today. We'll change jogging to evening," Connor answered, slicing the leftover Italian loaf.
"You're still making me do this?" Richie closed his eyes and stretched out the window.
"I've spent enough money already to make sure you see this through. Breakfast is almost ready."
Richie flipped the light on and wondered into his closet. That was another benefit of building your own room, designing your own closet. He got dressed and wandered down the stairs. Rachel had arrived at some point and was beaming at him from the table, set with French toast, bacon, scrambled eggs and fresh orange juice.
"Are we doing this every morning?" Richie questioned.
"We just wanted to make today special," Rachel told him.
"You act like I haven't done this thirteen times before."
"I did this every year for Rachel. It's a family tradition." Connor sat down next to Richie.
They ate breakfast and Rachel went down to the store with Richie to say goodbye. He slung his surplus Army rucksack over his shoulder and dashed through traffic to the subway station. On the train he saw many students all headed to one of the cities many public and private schools. A small herd exited with him and, in a small protective pack they made their way down the block to the campus.
His first class was Freshman Composition One. The teacher was an older man with a bolding head that gave him the fat-friar look. He wheezed when he explained their four essays and participation grade. Richie sat in the back and tried not to get noticed when they moved on to reading the elements of the personal narrative aloud.
He could tell after just twenty minutes into the class that World History was going to be a bore. It was entirely based on the reading assignments with short answer essay exams and for every day of class you missed there was a two point deduction off your final grade.
Lunch was served in a huge dining hall that the entire campus ate in together. At noon there were no classes for an hour so the faculty and students could eat. It was strange and awkward to go through the serving line then find a table a dining room full of people you didn't know. It was more awkward when two monks seated themselves next to him at his table in the back corner.
In Spanish, they had to go around introducing themselves with "Hola, me llamo…. I'm taking Spanish because…" like a group of children. "Hola, me llamo Richie and I'm taking Spanish because my uncle wouldn't let me take French," earned him a raised eyebrow from the teacher and a laugh from his classmates.
The Complete Idiot's Guide To Math, as Richie had deemed his remedial class, was going to prove to be a challenge, not because of the subject matter, but from having to sit in a class taking it so slowly. He wished they had given him an opportunity to test out of this class. Richie was actually pretty good at math, once he got the hang of it. He's abysmal grades had been from constant moving and lack of interest. He knew he was going to get in trouble out of boredom if he didn't find a distraction.
Despite his track record with trouble in school, he made it through his first day with no problems other than uncomfortable lunch conversation. His first stop after his final class let out 7 hours after he started was the book store to pick up his texts. The store had texts, supplement books, cheat sheets, school supplies, various clothing with several different school's logos and mascots on them, and a small convenience store with sodas and prepackaged meals. He wondered the aisles, checking for his classes in the St. Xavier's College section of the shared bookstore. He bought his texts, an impossibly expensive calculator, a Spanish-English/English-Spanish dictionary, a verb conjugations book, a small stack of blue books, and some scan-trons. He crammed what he could into his rucksack and started off for the subway station. His bag was considerably heavier than before, but he was able to make the trip without running out of breath like most of his fellow students. And, as a bonus, he was able to avoid all unwanted conversation by pouring over his first Spanish chapter. He got through introductions by the time his stop came up with no awkward classmate conversations.
As he passed by the side alley of the store, he peeked into the dumpster. Sure enough just as he suspected, they were still there. He picked them up and went into the store through the side door. Richie waited patiently until Rachel was done with a customer before he showed her his sweat shirt.
"There were only two today."
Rachel frowned and picked one up. The brown calico mewed, scared at being separated from his only surviving sibling. "The other one died?"
"Yeah." He cradled the black and white kitten as it started to get brave enough to sniff and move around. "Connor'd let me keep 'em, right?"
"If we tell him the other four died, he might. You can ask him when he gets home."
"Where is he?"
"Not sure."
A customer came in, and Rachel handed the calico back to Richie. He tucked the brother and sister back into the sweatshirt and headed upstairs to find them someplace to sleep. He had them set up in a box with a custard cup of milk at his feet when Connor came home.
"So how was it?" Connor asked, knocking on the door as he came in.
Richie was sitting at his desk with his composition book in front of him reading an example essay.
"Not how I would have chosen to spend my day."
"Was it as bad as you expected?"
"I spent five and a half hours at an all guy's school," Richie reminded him. "I ate lunch with monks."
"And you were so well behaved they gave you a pet?" Connor looked into the box at Richie's feet. "What happened to gold stars?"
"I was about to talk to you about that."
"When Rachel was seven, I would have forseen this, but I think you're a bit old to be hiding pets in your room."
"Who's hiding them? I just brought them in today."
"And you want to keep them?"
"Yes."
Connor shrugged. "Okay. Finish your homework and I'll take you out to dinner."
. . . . . .
Dinner was Chinese across town.
"How are your classes?" Connor asked after they'd ordered.
Richie shrugged. "They teach, I learn enough to pass a test, what's there to tell?"
"Do you think you're going to like them?"
Richie snorted into his coke.
"At least not hate them?" Connor corrected.
"Maybe when I get out of two-plus-two-is-four-this-is-how-you-say-hello-which-is-the-verb, it'll get more interesting. Until then, I feel like I'm back in junior high."
"'Until then' that's promising."
Their soup arrived and they ate in silence for a while.
"I suppose we should talk about your new schedule." Connor sat back, pushing his leftover soup towards Richie.
"Do I get to sleep?" Richie asked.
Connor smiled. "Yes."
"Then whatever."
"Look, I'm not here to be a dictator. While your training is my responsibility; I'm planning on making sure you are at least agreeable to what's happening."
Richie sighed and stared into his egg drop soup. "Whatever."
Not so much satisfied as accepting that he would get no other answer, Connor continued. "Since you have classes all day Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I was thinking we could do conditioning in the evenings based on how much time you have with homework. Tuesdays and Thursdays do the usual routine with yoga and karate. Then Saturdays we'll work with weapons, Sundays off."
"Works for me."
"You think you can handle that?"
"We've been training almost every day for the last month; I'll be fine."
Their entrees arrived, interrupting their conversation again. That was the beautiful thing about talking to Richie over a meal, built in distractions.
"I think you're ready to start adding your sword back into your training."
"Isn't that the point?"
"Look, you had the idea of it, but your fundamentals lacked. If this were a century ago, I would never think of putting one in your hands this early into training, but in this day and age you have to rush a bit. You don't have the luxury of training in due time; we have to modify."
Richie looked up from his plate. "What good is teaching me how to punch someone if they've all got swords at my neck? I shouldn't have had to wait this long for it."
"I already told you, there's no point of putting a sword in your hands if you don't know how to control the hands themselves."
"So how does standing on my head in a sauna help?"
"Yoga is good for the body and mind. You need to know how to relax yourself. And, with your frame, bulking up too much is going to make it harder for you to move. You work with what you have; what you have is speed and agility, we're just improving them. Your flexibility and ability to move is going to be your edge."
Richie turned back to his dinner. He had promised himself he'd keep his head down and bide his time. He was here to train enough to find out what happened to Duncan. If that meant hot box yoga, so be it. "Fine."
Connor turned his attention to his meal, too. It hadn't taken him long to learn to read Richie and his moods. It wasn't much different from Rachel at the same age. When she felt cornered and out of control, she shut down and just let it happen. That was all Richie was doing now. There was no use in trying to indulge or compromise with him. Especially not in these circumstances. Sometimes it really was best to leave it at "for your own good."
. . . . . .
Meredith was there when Richie came in from yoga the next morning.
"Hi, Richie!" she greeted him cheerily from the kitchen. "I'm making Russell breakfast, should I add some eggs?"
"I'm kinda "namaste" right now, not really hungry." He stoped mid-decent of the staircase and went to his room instead.
From his desk, scribbling out math exercises, he could see "Uncle Russell" and Meredith eating breakfast at the table. Richie couldn't help but stare as they talked and ate. Something about Meredith rubbed him the wrong way. He didn't like the way she was around so much. It was almost as if she didn't have her own job or apartment. She was there nearly every day. How were they supposed to start with swords with some mortal in their den all the time?
He spent the morning in his room doing class work until he ran out of work to do. That, and he was starving and the granola in his room from the night before wasn't cutting it. He went downstairs and found Connor and Meredith at the desk, talking quietly about something. Happy to not talk with them, he went into the kitchen area and looked through the leftovers.
"I can make you something," Meredith offered coming over.
"I got it," he said with a forced smile.
"I don't mind. You've been up there all day, why don't you relax?" she offered.
"I can put some mini pizzas in the microwave."
"They'll be crispier if you put them in the oven."
"If I wanted that, I would be perfectly capable of doing it myself. I got it." He turned his back to her and watched his French bread pizzas cook.
"Do you want a salad?"
Richie turned on her. "Meredith. I am nineteen years old. I've been making myself lunch for a long time, now. I think I have things under control. Uncle Russell even lets me use the knives if I promise to be really careful."
Connor shot him a look from across the room, but Richie pretended to ignore it as he went back to watching his pizzas in the microwave. He got a bottle of water out of the refrigerator, tore off a paper towel, and took his food up to his room. No sooner had he kicked the door shut behind him, than it opened again.
"What the hell was that?" Connor asked him.
"I made lunch." Richie sat on his bed and flipped the TV on.
"She was trying to be nice."
"I tried to be nice, too."
Connor took the remote out of Richie's hand, and stepped between him and the TV. "You do that again, and you're going to regret it."
"Look, I'm here to train, you stuck me in school. That's all I plan on doing. I don't have a need to talk to her. So why don't you tell her to leave me alone? I'm just gonna mind my own business and do my thing. She can do the same."
Connor didn't respond at first. He'd never had someone so blatantly talk back to him before. He clenched and unclenched his jaw, counting in his head. "20 miles," he said.
"What?"
"Ten for speaking that way to Meredith and ten for speaking that way to me. If you don't log twenty miles by the end of the night, you're going to learn the hard way."
"Learn what the hard way?" Richie challenged.
Connor leaned in, so the two were nose to nose. "If you want to find out, cross me again." He dropped the remote onto the bed and walked out the door.
