[[Spoilers: For Miracle Mask and implications for Azran Legacy.
Set: In Stansbury. Hershel is fourteen.]]
Doldrums
"Do you have any siblings?" Angela's voice broke through the doldrums of fifth period French.
Hershel waited until Monsieur Maigret was facing the chalkboard before he whispered, "What?"
The whole point of Angela being seated next to Hershel (the 'quiet' friend) was so she would quit talking in class.
Meanwhile, Randall has been banished to the other end of the room to sit beside Angela's friend, Mary.
"You want me to ask it in French? Fine..." Angela sighed and repeated, with near-perfect pronunciation, "Avez-vous des frères et sœurs?"
Hershel actually took a second to think about it. Did he have a secret brother hidden under the stairs, or a sister stashed in the attic?
"No, of course not..."
"Oh... okay." Her gaze returned to her book.
How was he supposed to continue after she'd dropped that query in front of him like a carrot on a string?
He began, "Why-?"
"Silence, Layton," Maigret rumbled.
"Descole-" Hershel winced at his slip-up. "I mean, desole." He ducked his head.
After five minutes, he asked Angela again, through a fake cough, "What made you say that?"
Angela tilted her head in Randall's direction. "In Randall's archaeology magazine... there was an archaeologist who looked like you, that's all."
Now it made sense. Hershel narrowed his eyes at Randall. Meeting his gaze, Randall motioned to Mary, who was writing as if her pen was possessed, and he mouthed, "Help me."
"He thinks I'm related to a famous archaeologist," Hershel deadpanned, glancing back at Angela.
"There was some resemblance," Angela hummed. "Similar colour hair and face shape. And he's Jewish too!"
"So's Dalston." That didn't make him related to Hershel. Not by a long shot. Hershel demanded, "What does it have to do with anything?"
Angela shrugged. "He was just giving an interview-"
"Redoll, Layton, retenue," Maigret thundered.
Hershel gritted his teeth. Angela gasped. Randall giggled across the room.
"Et toi, Ascot," Maigret added.
Great. Just great. Hershel glared down at his French book, avoiding Angela's guilt-ridden face.
His first ever detention- and for what? Archaeology! His parents would be so ashamed of him... Well, Ma would be, at least. She'd send him to bed without so much as a cup of tea. Pa would tut at Hershel but later he'd wonder which archaeologist Randall had been on about.
Why did Angela care? She loathed archaeology even more than Hershel-
Oh.
Hershel blinked slowly. Then he glanced at Angela from the corner of his eye. Though she was finally concentrating on her own work, her brows were furrowed and she was clutching her pen far too tightly.
Her presence alone could usually light up a room- something Hershel envied her for- but in those rare moments when she looked somber... it sucked the life out of her surroundings.
Hershel had made her feel like that. Well, Maigret hadn't exactly helped... but this time, it was Hershel's fault they had landed in trouble. Rather than keeping quiet or saying it could wait until after class, he'd snapped at her.
Right when she might have made a connection with him...
As a child, he'd never had friends to joke or gossip or share secrets with.
As a fourteen-year-old, he still felt the same way, sometimes.
Both of them sat in complete silence for the rest of the lesson.
The final bell rang at three, releasing the students from Maigret's torment. All except for Randal, Angela and Hershel.
Maigret ordered them to write lines in French while he did some marking at his desk. (If Hershel ever went into teaching, he vowed to never set such a cruel punishment.)
Hershel finished his first page of lines before glancing up. Maigret appeared lost in thought, chewing on the end of his highlighter pen. Randall was half-asleep. Angela was just staring at her page of paper.
Hershel nudged her lightly with his arm, hoping she wouldn't ignore him.
She looked at him and then down at his page as he pointed at what he had written.
He had considered translating the message into French to fool Maigret, but he didn't want to insult Angela any further.
He simply put:
Sorry, Ange! Shouldn't have lost my temper.
He hoped the abbreviation of her name would add some levity to the situation. Secretly, he had always liked Randall's nickname for him; 'Hersh' was part of the gang. For all anyone knew, 'Hersh' could have been a childhood friend from Stansbury. Just like 'Randy', 'Henners', or 'Angie'...
Those were all Randall's inventions and Hershel didn't intend to start using them now.
'Ange' with a silent 'e' would do.
Angela must have found it somewhat amusing, because she smiled. But it was a smile tinged with sadness. Bittersweet- maybe that was the better term to describe it. Was she still feeling guilty about earlier?
He checked on Maigret before writing:
Should we put this behind us and just blame the whole thing on Randall?
Angela sniffed and nodded. She drew him a small smiley face on her page.
The two of them made sure to scribble out their messages before handing their notes in to Maigret at the end of detention.
Angela nipped in to the girls' restrooms on their way out.
While they waited for her outside the restrooms, Hershel asked Randall about the famous archaeologist he may or may not have been related to. (Not that he was curious or anything.)
"Oh, yeah... that guy. Just graduated from university- top of his class- and he uncovered the ruins of Xarath in Cornwall..."
"You say that like you assume I'll know what it is," Hershel said dryly.
Randall squinted at him for a moment. He removed his glasses, squinted some more and shook his head, sighing in disappointment. "I don't know what Angie was on about. I'm more similar to him than you are. We even have the same glasses-"
"Ange..." Hershel muttered, cutting off Randall mid-rant. "I called her that earlier, and her reaction was... odd."
Randall almost dropped his glasses. "You didn't!" He gaped at the pale pink door to the girls' restrooms. "No wonder she's been in there for so long...!" He knocked on the door. "Angela...?"
Hershel whispered, "What's wrong?"
"No one calls her Ange," Randall hissed. "That's what her-"
"Sorry for the wait!" Angela emerged from the bathroom. She seemed to have composed herself and cleaned her face with water. She sighed wearily, but smiled at them. "Let's go home."
Randall caught her hand and they walked on ahead of Hershel through the corridor.
Hershel's stomach was tying itself in knots. Not only had he lashed out at Angela during class... but then he had made her cry too. Randall was furious with him, and Dalston wouldn't be pleased when he found out what had happened.
Hershel deserved whatever was coming to him.
Who knew what painful memories he had unearthed for Angela?
"Keep up, Hersh!"
It wasn't Randall who had yelled at him...
Angela had stopped and turned to him when they reached the school gates. She was grinning. "Unless you want to stay an another hour with Maigret?"
Hershel shuddered. "Um... no?"
"Are you sure?" Angela laughed. "You could become his 'apprentice'!" she proclaimed with a thick French accent.
"Au contraire," Randall intervened, also developing an accent, "'Ershel must dedicate 'imself to archaeology!"
Hershel scoffed and managed to retort, "Va te faire enculer, Randall."
Randall choked on air. "Hershel Layton! How dare you use such foul language? I'm telling your mother about this- and about your detention too!"
"You wouldn't- Randall! NO!"
Too late- Randall was already running down the hill to Hershel's house.
"We'll never catch him," Hershel huffed. "He's too fast..."
"Don't worry," Angela shouted as they gave chase. "I'll shove him in the river before he gets there!"