See first chapter for disclaimers etc…

Chapter 3: Of Turpentine and Cafeteria Discussions

Apparently it had been a horrible misconception to assume that teaching an art class wouldn't be too difficult. No wonder the holopicture was more widely used instead of the pencil and the brush.

"It's broken," A short, rotund Calamarian, with huge bulbous black eyes, thrust a horribly mangled paintbrush into his hands.

With a long-suffering sigh, he drew another brush from a box he had found in the storage closet in the back of the room, "Huri, I told you five times already, you can't press so hard on the brush! It breaks the bristles."

The child waddled back to his desk, nodding vigorously just as he had done the past five times.

"O-B!" squealed a distraught human girl, butchering the first syllable of his name and converting it to easier speech, "O-B, da bwush exp'oded."

Grabbing a napkin, he hurried over to the student. Before he had a chance to clean up the new mess, a shriek of either displeasure or sheer delight made him whirl around to check on whoever stapled his/hers/ or its, hand/appendage to the canvas this time. Seeing that everything was well (as well as a room full of 5 year-olds with staining fluid could be) and in fact it had been the squeal of a Bothan who had finally got the lid of a bottle off a paint, he turned back to the girl, but ended up unintentionally ramming his right eye into a purple clotted paintbrush.

"OW!"

The little girl lurched back, dropping the oily brush from where she had held it up at eye-level for Obi-Wan's more convenient inspection.

Obi-Wan yelped in pain, clutching at his wounded eyeball. The oily paint, stung horribly. The one thought in his mind and the first order of business was, Get water! Heavenly to his blurred sight was a small bottle sitting within his close reach on the girls desk. Unfortunately, truly good things were out of his reach today.

The little initiate watched curiously as the new teacher hoped about the room then grabbed the small bottle of turpentine on her desk.

Down the hall, and then to the right and up a level, in room number thirty-eight, twelve bewildered, mentor-less nine-year-old history students heard a second agonized howl.

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"Blue!"

"Gween pwease."

"I need yellow!"

"Can I have some red?"

Obi-Wan had never heard so many colors yelled at him or anybody in the course of 3 seconds. He couldn't imagine how he had survived nearly and hour of this torture. But then again, neither had he ever worn quite so colorful raiment. His tunic had, this morning when he had donned it, been a clean (at least for him) sand hued color. Now it was a myriad of shades of reds, blues, yellows, greens and an assortment of other mixed colors. Much to his chagrin, not only was his clothing stained, but any exposed skin, including his face and hair.

All things considered, it could have been worse. Yet he had restrained himself from thinking too much of that, lest he jinx his marginal good luck. So far, the only marginally major mishap was the turpentine incident. That's all, but that is if you would be only to consider nearly having an eye poked out by a five year old, and then pouring toxic fluids into it.

Besides that, all the other occurrences would only be those that could be expected in a situation such as this. That is, minus the Sullistan boy's thumb (A/N: Sullistan's DO have thumbs don't they?) getting stuck in the blue paint bottle, then having to break the jar open with the hilt of his lightsaber, resulting in a swollen thumb and an unwanted trip to the healers. Of course they had asked why his right eye was irritated to an extreme red with a vibrant rim of purple. He had answered by explaining that he had an allergy to some of the student's shampoos. He was finding out, by the sneezing, that it wasn't far from the truth, except he suspected it was more a reaction to the turpentine.

The earlier deafening clamor of the initiates had lulled down to a low murmur as they had become completely engrossed in their separate artistic ventures. The clock above the door struck half past ten. A soft chime instantly started to sing, then, faster than a Sith could say, "Dark Side", the students were up, and out the door, running full speed down the hall.

Without warning, Obi-Wan found himself totally alone. The halls were silent and the students pounding footsteps were quickly fading. 10:31. A sheet of paper slowly drifted down to rest on the floor in front of his feet after it had been caught up in the children's rampage. Leaning down, he picked it up. On the top of the page, written in big, running letters was his name scrawled in a child's handwriting. OB-One Kin o b. He laughed, for the first time that day. In the middle of the page was an abstract figure of what he took to be a girl and to the left, another figure. Below his name at the top he saw a messy arrow pointing at the second figure. It really didn't resemble him, except for the line running from his head to his waist, which he guessed was his padawan braid. He grinned, at the bottom of the drawing was the artist name, Nienna. He remembered her as being the girl that had sheepishly told him that this was an art class.

"So how'd it go?"

He hadn't noticed till now the repulsive Rodian from earlier, was standing just inside the doorway. He hadn't even heard her come in.

He took in the mass destruction before him; paint was flung on the walls, chairs desks, on the floor, acting as glue for canvases and sheets of paper. It paralleled the aftermath of a hurricane. Even with the daunting task of cleaning it all up, a light smile settled on his features.

"Oh, just fine."

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Obi-Wan palmed the door shut behind him, the picture carefully folded in his pocket. He had survived teaching a class (if you could call handing sheets of canvas and paper out to children and supplying them with brushes, paints and health care, teaching) he hadn't been supposed to teach. Maybe a little battle scared, but ironically, mentally much better.

It was now 11:45. It had taken him over an hour to clean the mess in the classroom. His back ached from scrubbing floors, and his arms felt like lead weights. His feet guided him back towards his and Qui-Gon's quarters. He stopped half way. Going back home meant facing his master, facing his master meant facing his demise. This course of thought quickly put a damper on his earlier cheery mood.

His stomach growled hungrily. Food, the lifesaver and curer of all ills. Pivoting on a heel in one smooth movement he turned down the opposite hall towards the cafeteria. If there was anyway to waylay his almost certain death then he would take the opportunity given to him. Call me a coward, but even a coward would like a last meal before their last breath.

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Whether it was the middle of the night or the breaking of the dawn, the Temple's 'food trough' (as dubbed by the younger residents) was always occupied.

It was no different today. Everybody claimed that going to the food hall was the easiest way drive away ones worries and sorrows, without having to make the dangerous trek to the lower level bars of Couruscant.

"Obi-Wan! Over here!"

Obi-Wan watched as Bant hurried over to him. She stopped dead at the site of his rather, colorful choice in clothing. He had forgotten all about that. Now he was the center of attention for most of the room's occupants. It grew deathly quiet.

Bant glanced at Garen. Garen stared at Obi-Wan.

Obi-Wan gulped and fidgeted, "Uh, hi."

That seemed to clear everything up, there was a rush of increase in noise, then all was back to normal.

"Wow, what happened to you?" Garen asked, sizing him up.

Obi-Wan groaned and followed them over to the lunch table, "My life happened."

"Oh, come on, it can't be all that bad," argued Bant as she dished out a heaping pile of green leafs onto her plate.

Obi-Wan wrinkled his nose at her food choice, "Oh yes it can. You try living with a master who likes to get up at five in the morning."

Garen chuckled, "That's just because you aren't a morning person."

"Tell me four people you know who are morning people."

Garen immersed himself in dishing food onto his plate.

Obi-Wan shot a glare at Bant, "See."

Bant shrugged, "But you have to live with that every morning. What makes it so bad today?"

Obi-Wan proceeded to tell his friends of the 'fresher incident, the wrong room and the paintbrush mishap. It took longer than it should have thanks to Bant and her complaints about how she couldn't believe that he hadn't seen the smocks hanging on the wall which were always provided, in hopes that the little initiates would at least keep the front of there tunics clean.

"…And if I return home, and Qui-Gon's there, then I'm dead!" he concluded.

"Oh, Obi-Wan, you're over dramatizing, he wouldn't kill you. And even if he wanted to, he's not allowed to, he'd probably be vaporized by the Council," Bant reasoned as the three friends sat down in an unoccupied booth.

"He's gone against the Council's orders before, what would stop him now?" Garen asked, only to receive a withering glare from the Calamarian.

Sighing, Bant leaned toward the apparently doomed apprentice before her, "Look, Master Qui-Gon won't kill you, and if he was going to, why didn't he do it this morning before you left?"

"Because he didn't want to write the Mission Statement."

Garen swallowed a huge bite, he nodded, "Well, that makes sense. Might as well get what you can out of a situation."

Bant favored Garen with one of her, shut-up-I've-got-everything-under-control-and-if-you-don't-then-you'll-have-that-fork-up-your-nose, looks. The hapless Garen applied himself to his food wholeheartedly.

"As I was saying," she stressed, "Your master isn't callous enough to murder his padawan for toasting a few towels."

"Toasted to a crisp."

Bant rolled her eyes at her pragmatic companion, "I'm sure that if you ask one of the docents that they'll gladly get you some new towels from supplies."

Obi-Wan nodded, though not thoroughly convinced that he shouldn't sign a will.

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"Do you have classes today?" Bant asked as the three tossed their scant leftovers into a disposal bin.

Obi-Wan nodded, "Two, but they aren't full hour classes, thank the stars."

"Ah, no fair, I've still got three and a half more hours of astro-physics, language, and DE (Diplomatic Education), including the dreaded Master Ki'mar."

Obi-Wan stopped suddenly and banged his head into a wall, "Oh sith spit! I forgot about Master Ki'mar! I didn't think I had him till tomorrow."

Ask, any thirteen through sixteen year old in the Temple, or any sentient within a twenty mile radius of it, and they would know, or know of, Master Ki'mar. He was said to be the vilest, ugliest, and meanest Bith on Coruscant, or any surrounding planets. Renowned for the amount of homework he required of his victims (as the students called themselves), he was dreaded with abominable fear. One of the numerous rumors which had circled the Temple about the greatly feared master was that he had on one occasion, made a luckless padawan do the assignments for all the students in the 8th, 9th and 10th grade classes. Both of which being a higher knowledge level than his humble 7th grade. Of course that wasn't really too bad for the 8th and 9th and 10th graders, but the very idea that the master would commit such a heinous crime, well, it was just unbelievable.

Obi-Wan and his friends where no less afraid of the master than any of their fellow classmates. With great fear and trembling did they enter his lair, never was there a giggle, a snort of sarcasm, or the passing of a note. No one knew what the consequence would be for doing any of the later, but neither had anyone had the guts to find out.

Obi-Wan groaned, "I am so doomed."

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A/N: Woo-hoo! I finished chapter 3, wow. *Pats self on the back* All I know about the next chapter is that there's gonna be (that is if my muse doesn't run away and replace itself) some…uh…stuff…*thinks*…like…well you probably can guess from the last part. Tell me what you think about this diddle and what I should do to ol' Obi! I don't have a title yet so…oh well.

Special Shout outs:

Risi- That little realistic problem crossed my mind, (since I'm a semi artist myself) but I needed something really messy and watercolors or tempera just wouldn't cut it. Poetic license and all, well, I thought I could get away with it this time! Thanks for pointing out the smock thing, I had thought of that but didn't think it mattered, after I read your review I went back and added a bit for that.

Melima8788- Okay, stupid question, what the heck does ROFL mean? I sat staring at that for half an hour trying to figure it out! ACK! lol.

Celestia Vitaria- Does this really qualify as Obi-torture? Maybe I should call it Obi-Teasing or something. Love it when people laugh at my fics! (Really!)

Thanks to all those who reviewed (all 7) made me feel special!

Bill-the-Pony

One more question: How do you spell Coruscant? Am I doing it right?