Chapter 11 – Waking up at a new home
A knock on the door caused the feline to look up. She put away the book Delbert had given to her by laying it on her nightstand. Then she looked over to the door.
"Enter", she invited the person standing outside to open the door.
That happened just before Sarah peeked into the room.
"Good morning, Captain."
"Oh, good morning Mrs. Hawkins. Please do come in."
"Thank you", Sarah replied, fully opened the door and stepped inside.
She was carrying a laundry basket and put it down on a chair.
"I've washed all your clothes you had had with you, when you were staying at the hospital. But, if I'm allowed to make a comment…"
She paused.
"…it all are just Navy clothes."
Amelia raised an eyebrow.
"Yes?"
"Well, Delbert told me, that you did get the instruction not to wear these clothes for the time being here."
Amelia sighed. While getting up she answered.
"Yes, I know. But I'm afraid, Mrs. Hawkins, that I've exchanged all my daily clothes for Navy clothes when joining the academy. Basically I just took all the things from my wardrobe and exchanged them for my new clothes."
Sarah tried to hide her astonishment. Then she said: "Okay then. What do you prefer? Trousers or dresses?"
Amelia blinked confused.
"Uhm, sorry?"
"Why, it's clear, isn't it? I'll go shopping with you! We will buy a whole new wardrobe-exchange for you. After all there is another wardrobe here, completely empty and only waiting for you to put in something new."
And this was the first time when Amelia first realised herself changing inside. She turned out to be sociable.
"Well, okay why not? I think some new things wouldn't be that bad. Oh uhm, Mrs Hawkins? Would you please help me with this?"
"Sure. Wait a moment."
Immediately Sarah grabbed the pastel blue morning gown the feline was using and helped her to put it on.
"Okay. There you go."
"Thank you Mrs. Hawkins", Amelia said friendly after tying up the morning gown.
"No problem. But, Captain?", Sarah asked her while quickly putting back the blanket on the bed and opening he windows to fresh up the bed linen.
Then she walked to the door and turned to the captain.
"Please call me Sarah."
First astonished but then smiling Amelia nodded and then followed the woman to the door.
"I'll do. But only, if you call me Amelia from now on."
Sarah smiled even more then before and nodded. Then they both went down to the kitchen.
"Good morning Sarah", the two woman were greeted by Delbert, "could it be that you did already – Oh, good morning Amelia."
He paused for a moment, when he noticed that Amelia was wearing the blue chemise and the matching morning gown. He knew that she'd already worn it, at being here for the first time. But because of the fresh wounds of hers he hadn't even the time to watch her wearing it.
"You look beautiful. It really suits you."
Delbert suddenly seemed as he would turn bright red within the next moments. Sarah began to grin and also Jim had to chuckle. Now it was Amelia, who was looking around in a shy way. Caught by this uncertainty the feline quickly got some of her old character back and now focused on the youngest in the room. Jim swallowed.
"Mr. Hawkins… Would you please be so kind to tell me what has gotten into everyone around here?"
Jim winced and didn't know what to do, when Amelia gave him a small help.
"Mr. Hawkins! If I won't get an answer within the next seconds, I'll promise you, that you have to clean Delilah's whole stable with nothing more than a toothbrush!"
"Whoa, okay, okay. He had just bought it only for you!", Jim screamed.
Sarah had almost swallowed the wrong way while trying to keep her giggling down, while Jim decided to tell the whole truth.
"It's true! The Doc had just bought that dress only for you, Captain. Mom had to go with him to any clothes stores before finding something blue. It took six hours and I'm just happy that I did not have to go with them! Mom also told me that the Doc was that despaired, that he almost was about to go into a shop for sexy underwear-!"
"JIM!", Sarah and Delbert yelled at him at the same time, but her reasons couldn't have been more different. Sarah was just afraid of laughing out loud every moment, so that she wouldn't burst. Delbert on the other hand was afraid of his head changing his colour into an overripe tomato.
It had worked hardly on the inside of her head and because of that she was still starring at Jim.
"But Mr. Hawkins. If this chemise had only been bought for me then I don't understand how it was possible for me to wear it on my first stay here. I mean this was just an emergency-visit, so how could it be-?"
"Because it should be a gift!", Delbert yelled suddenly.
Then he jumped up with a bright red head and hastily left the kitchen. Just before Amelia was able to say something, they could hear him banging up the stairs.
"What the-? But I even just wanted to know, why-."
"Listen. Why don't you go after him? He surely went up to his observatory. When you are at the corridor go to the end. There you'll find the stairway", Sarah interrupted her.
"But I… Yes, perhaps you're right. I'll go to him."
"Good girl. All you two have to do is to care for yourself in case of cooking, because today is Jim's admission party at the academy and so we won't be back until 04:00pm."
"Don't worry Sarah. We won't die of starvation. Have fun and enjoy the party. It's not something you experience every day."
Sarah and Jim thanked Amelia after she had wished Jim all the best for the party. Then the feline left the room.
She followed Sarah's advice and walked through the corridor. At the end she found a stony spiral staircase. She didn't think about it any longer and went upstairs. After she'd reached the last step she looked around and quickly saw a big portrait. A gigantic oil painting framed in gilded, ornate rosewood. It was so big, that it reached from the height of her shoulders to the room ceiling. It showed a young canine woman, who had shiny blond hair with similar ears to Delbert's. Her eyes were brown like chestnuts and her small nose was pink. Her lips were coloured in a pale red and were showing a slight smile. She was wearing a violet dress and a matching bow in her hair. She seemed to be very young; Amelia assessed her to be at the same age as her, so it couldn't be his mother…
That's her, isn't it, she asked herself quietly.
"That's Eleanor. Eleanor Celina Justine Doppler. She was my wife."
Contrary to her expectations his voice didn't sound sad. More than that it sounded somehow relieved. Maybe because he felt right this way, that Amelia was smiling at him instead of looking scornful. Nearly fascinated Amelia looked at the painted canine again.
"How old was she? She looks so young."
"The painting has been made on her 20th birthday."
Amelia smiled without even noticing.
I thought so. She couldn't be that much older than me. She looks so beautiful, Amelia thought.
But she interrupted her thoughts when she heard Delbert clearing his throat. With an asking gaze she turned around to him but looked at him with lovely eyes, when she saw how nervous he was.
"So… uhm… because of my behaviour down in the kitchen… I'm sorry about that…"
Amelia grinned at this sight. Delbert stood there looking dejected like a little kid, whose parents had given it a big telling-off. Still smiling she went towards him and laid her hands on his chest. Immediately he looked up and saw her green glimmering eyes. Then she got to the tip of her toes and slightly kissed his forehead. Then she smiled at the astonished canine.
"Now that I'm already here, would you mind showing me your observatory?"
Still a little confused Delbert nodded finally. He took her hand and first brought her to the big library.
"Wow, Delbert… That… is so incredible…!"
Amelia nearly lost her words. This library was that big that even this one of the interstellar academy couldn't keep up with it. What did contain the whole floor space downstairs, was here, at the second floor, a solely agriculture of books. And the word agriculture wasn't understating because the books, that obviously had found no place on the metre high shelves anymore, were showing up a real mountain chain through the whole room.
"Please excuse the big mess, but as you can see there's not enough space-" Suddenly they heard a ringing sound.
"Oh, please excuse me for a moment. My alarm clock is ringing. I'd set it because of a phenomenon that only appears just every 20 years. Sorry, but it won't take more than two or three minutes. I just need to write down the exact coordinates of it."
He got up the metal spiral stairs to his observatory at the behind area of the library. Amelia smiled and decided to look around some more. Soon she had reached one of the big windows that were dialling to the south side. She looked out and couldn't hold back a big grin, when she saw Sarah and Jim down on the estate. While Jim put his luggage into the waiting transport, Sarah was tugging at his white cadet uniform continuously. This obviously caused the teen to be very annoyed, but this seemed to escape mother because she went on. Finally both of them entered the transport, followed by Morph and B.E.N. After that the transport started to move to Cresentia.
