Thirteen: Saint Ulric's School For Boys
Kurti readjusted his hood and hid his hands in his pockets. This
place, this forbidding dark keep, was the furthest he'd ever been from
Heirelgart. Everywhere he looked, there were outsiders. People who had
never even looked at the unusual, let alone accepted it.
He knew what would happen the minute he showed his face, so he hid in
the copious coat he'd asked Mama to make for him.
As a new student with special needs, he and his parents were being
taken to the offices of Father Abbot, the man who ran both the boarding
school and the monastery. Kurti was dreading the entire experience.
Father Abbot, from the peek Kurti managed to sneak, looked like a
kindly old man with far too many worries. And a lot of paperwork.
Kurti's fingers itched to sort out the perilous piles of paper, but he
kept them in his pockets.
"Ah. Herr and Frau Wagner with young Kurti," said Father Abbot. "Does
he have his uniform yet? Or was that part of the trouble?"
"I have my uniform," Kurti murmured. "It's underneath."
Mama gave him a little hug. "Our Kurti's a little - unusual," she
allowed. "He's a bit of a shock to the unprepared."
"I scare people, Mama," he said. He'd watched Mama's hair turn greyer
with every stranger that yelped at him. Of course, she dyed it for the
summer, but it was still grey. *He'd* done that.
"He's - different, is he?" Father Abbot sounded only vaguely curious.
"How different is different?"
Kurti looked up at him, knowing that his luminous eyes would shine
out from the shadows of his hood. "*Very* different."
Father Abbot sighed. "I went through this with the Whisp family. Come
on, lad. Let's see how different different is, ne?"
Kurti bit his lip, stood up, and took off his coat. The matter about
what Whisps were would wait.
"...a little blue devil," said Father Abbot in awe. Then he smiled. "I
happen to think you're a remarkable young man. Do you always wear your
cross so prominently?"
Kurti smiled nervously, and fiddled with it. "I found it helps."
"I must warn you," said Father Abbot, "that some of the Monks and Nuns
here will be a little less open-minded about you. I'll help you get
introduced. Later. Right now, I need a few details from your Mama and
Papa about what you need while you stay here."
It had been the usual traumatic goodbye. Father Abbot was well used to
comforting some red-faced and emotional young lad as a direct result of
being away from home for the very first time. In this case, the
emotional young lad was a slightly darker blue about the cheeks and
holding up rather well.
"Ready to meet your tutors, Kurt?"
Kurt sighed. "Not really, but - I can handle it."
Handle it, he did. Father Abbot rounded up each Monk or Nun in turn
and had to watch as his teachers reacted and Kurt stoically put up with
whatever they threw at him.
In the case of Sister Holy Innocents, that was an entire ewer's worth
of holy water.
Kurt just stood there in his little 'sailor suit' uniform and dripped.
After a minute or two, he sneezed and begged her pardon.
"Hmp," Sister Holy Innocents grunted. "Guess he's no more of a devil
than the *other* little terrors who go here."
"Can I have a towel?" asked Kurt. "I don't want to make a mess on the
floor."
Father Abbot had a few handy. There were, after all, accidents that
happened, even with the older boys.
Brother Ignatious, as the director of Music Studies, was only
interested in the lad's vocal capacities, and could care less about his
physical appearance.
The rest greeted him with a mixture of prayer and screams, which
eventually placed Kurt back into his concealing coat for his meeting
with Sister Holy Rosary.
Sister Holy Rosary was, in the humble opinion of the Mother Superior,
a bit wet. The boys, on the other hand, nicknamed her Sister Sunshine
for her ability to find a silver lining to *any* situation. She carried
a guitar with her everywhere and believed incessantly that all children
had the ability to grow beyond their own boundaries.
Father Abbot was also starting to believe she was a bit wet.
"And last, but not least, Kurt... This is Sister Holy Rosary."
"Aaawww," she cooed. "A *shy* boy. There's no need to be scared of me,
Kurti. Can I call you Kurti?"
Kurt just shrugged and hung his head.
"Now come on," Sister Holy Rosary soothed. "You don't need to *hide*
your beautiful smile. Why *I* bet you have the best smile in the whole
school. How about it?"
Kurt shook his head.
"Kurt's a little different," Father Abbot warned.
Sister Holy Rosary smiled. "Like that darling little Whisp boy, Rainer
Kersch? Oh, *lovely*! I do *so* like it when there's new mythic-folk.
They're all so beautiful..."
"I'm not," Kurt murmured, hanging his head.
She laughed a little at that. "Everyone's beautiful in the eyes of the
Lord," Sister Holy Rosary put her guitar down and knelt so that she was
roughly in Kurt's eyeline. "Now... you can let me see how beautiful you
are, can't you?" Her hands went to his hood. "Show me your lovely smi--
*OH*!" She fell backwards and scooted a little away. "Oh *dear*!"
Kurt bit his lip, eyes shut tight against errant tears. Eventually, he
sighed out, "I'm sorry."
"I should be sorry," she said. "I should have seen you with better
eyes. I *certainly* shouldn't have been afraid. You're just a boy, like
*all* the other boys here."
"There's no-one like me," Kurt sounded utterly defeated.
"Not on the outside, anyway," Sister Holy Rosary recovered her
previous position in front of him. "Can we try again?" she said. "All
boys call me Sister Sunshine," and offered her hand.
Kurt took it. "Kurti Wagner."
"Oh, dear, you're all wet..." she observed.
_That makes two of you,_ Father Abbot thought, a little uncharitably.
Kurti stood next to a very pale blond boy who also happened to have a
tail. He, too, looked slightly upset to be standing in front of every
boy in St. Ulric's. Kurti reasoned that this must be Rainer Kersch, the
famous Whisp boy.
"So what are your people called?" whispered Rainer.
Kurti shrugged. "Dunno. I was adopted."
Father Abbot cleared his throat. "When you're *quite* done, staring,"
he warned. "These are two of our new students. You've no doubt noticed
that they're neither Centaurs nor what we consider 'normal' human
beings. Rainer Kersh and Kurt Wagner are still boys, and students here
in this school. In that aspect, they are just like you and are to be
treated like any other student here in this school. And believe me, I
*will* find out about any seperatism and singling them out for alleged
pranks." He paused to glare at two grinning members of the audience.
Twin boys with red hair. "As the Katzenjammer boys have discovered
already, there has been a natural enforcement against *tail*-pulling.
Right Hans?" The one with the black eye grinned. "The same rule applies,
but if I hear about certain new tails being yanked, you will consider
*me* the *other* natural enforcement. Likewise, there shall be no
kicking, biting, fighting or other roughhousing during your stay. We're
all civilised beings, so we can sort out our differences in a civilised
way. In brief, I only want to see you in my office if you've been
examples of model behaviour. Have I made myself understood?"
There was a dutiful chorus of, "Yes, Father Abbot," in the typical
monotone of schoolchildren everywhere.
"Good. You two can join your age-mates in the first row."
Kurti all-but leaped off the stage. He had to be forcibly restrained
from chatting to Andrei, owing to the fact that the first-years were
sorted alphabetically. Therefore, Kurti wound up in the midst of a
gaggle of other Kurt Wagners who were all strangers.
Once again, he was the centre of attention.
"Hst!" One of the other Kurts hissed, "Where's your shoes?"
"Can't wear them," Kurti hissed back. "My feet are difficult to fit."
A Kurt in a store-bought uniform sniggered. "So you really *are* a
barefoot mountain boy..."
"Everyone's from the mountains," Kurti whispered. "Unless you're a
low-grounder, or city-folk..."
The rest rallied around Kurti, since they were also mountain-born.
"Yeah," whispered a third Kurt. "You a *city*-boy?"
"Uh..."
"Hey, come on," Kurti whispered. "No singling out, remember? That's
bad news."
"My parents *do* have land in the mountains," allowed the former snob.
"Does that count? I can't help it if they're rich," he murmured.
"None of us can help who we are," soothed Kurti.
"Hssshh!" a second-year behind them hissed. "You don't want the Holy
Terror to get you."
Kurti wisely shut his mouth. Every Catholic school had a Holy Terror.
If one was truly unlucky, there'd be two of them.
The rest of the day was mostly orientation. Despite the rule against
singling folk out, the numerous Kurts had to get by on nicknames. Thus,
there was City, Blue (guess who), Four (a Centaur), Big, Little, Red,
White, Lefty, and Dark Kurt Wagners. Nine dorms and nine classes each
got a Kurt Wagner to ease up on confusion. The Whisp boy was in a
different wing to Kurti, since *his* last name began with a K.
Kurti thought it a pity. He wanted to swap rude questions with him.
Still, he got plenty enough rude questions from the boys sharing his
dorm room.
"Do you always walk like that?"
"I don't know any other way to walk," said Kurti. "It *hurts* if I put
my ankles down."
"So how do you count to twenty?"
"In my head."
"When are you gonna grow horns?"
"I pray it'll never happen," said Kurti, meaning every word. Horns
were amongst his worst nightmares.
"Can you lift weights with that thing? The tail."
"It comes in handy, sometimes," Kurti admitted. "But it's best at
handling lighter objects."
"*Coool*..." his audience murmured. One added. "I heard the Whisp
boy's tail's only good for swatting *flies*."
"Haha, cow-tail," laughed another.
"Does that fur go *all* over?"
"That is a secret for my immediate family, my doctor, and my best-
beloved, whoever she may be," said Kurti. "The rest of the world really
shouldn't be looking."
"Do you groom it?"
"I brush once a day."
"Do you *shed*?"
"I brush so that I don't."
"Do you get a winter coat?"
"I do, but it isn't very noticable."
"How do you wipe?"
"Now that's just getting personal. And disgusting."
And on it went, until one of the numerous Monks, now blase to the
unusual, took them down to the music hall to audition. In order to get
into the school's music program, one had to accurately sing the scales
and read a piece of music, though the latter wasn't strictly necessary
if your voice passed muster.
Kurti surprised just about everyone by being a perfect, clear soprano.
For the rest of the day, he had to put up with, "Face of a devil, but
the voice of an Angel."
At least Sister Holy Innocents didn't say it. Instead, she mortified
him further by saying, "Well. We've found our _Mabel_ for the school
play."
The rest broke out in sniggering while Kurti winced.
"Do I have to wear a *dress*?" Kurti asked.
{Twap!} His ear stung and Sister Holy Innocents suddenly had a ruler
in her hand. "The next words I should hear from *you*, Blue Kurt Wagner,
had better be, 'I will be *honoured* to play _Mabel_ in _The Pirates of
Penzance_'. Well?" The ruler tapped meaningfully in her palm.
Kurti sighed. "I-will-be-honoured-to-play-_Mabel_-in-_The-Pirates-of-
Penzance_," he recited.
"Very good," the Holy Terror allowed.
Maybe he'd gone to Hell and not noticed...
Kurti readjusted his hood and hid his hands in his pockets. This
place, this forbidding dark keep, was the furthest he'd ever been from
Heirelgart. Everywhere he looked, there were outsiders. People who had
never even looked at the unusual, let alone accepted it.
He knew what would happen the minute he showed his face, so he hid in
the copious coat he'd asked Mama to make for him.
As a new student with special needs, he and his parents were being
taken to the offices of Father Abbot, the man who ran both the boarding
school and the monastery. Kurti was dreading the entire experience.
Father Abbot, from the peek Kurti managed to sneak, looked like a
kindly old man with far too many worries. And a lot of paperwork.
Kurti's fingers itched to sort out the perilous piles of paper, but he
kept them in his pockets.
"Ah. Herr and Frau Wagner with young Kurti," said Father Abbot. "Does
he have his uniform yet? Or was that part of the trouble?"
"I have my uniform," Kurti murmured. "It's underneath."
Mama gave him a little hug. "Our Kurti's a little - unusual," she
allowed. "He's a bit of a shock to the unprepared."
"I scare people, Mama," he said. He'd watched Mama's hair turn greyer
with every stranger that yelped at him. Of course, she dyed it for the
summer, but it was still grey. *He'd* done that.
"He's - different, is he?" Father Abbot sounded only vaguely curious.
"How different is different?"
Kurti looked up at him, knowing that his luminous eyes would shine
out from the shadows of his hood. "*Very* different."
Father Abbot sighed. "I went through this with the Whisp family. Come
on, lad. Let's see how different different is, ne?"
Kurti bit his lip, stood up, and took off his coat. The matter about
what Whisps were would wait.
"...a little blue devil," said Father Abbot in awe. Then he smiled. "I
happen to think you're a remarkable young man. Do you always wear your
cross so prominently?"
Kurti smiled nervously, and fiddled with it. "I found it helps."
"I must warn you," said Father Abbot, "that some of the Monks and Nuns
here will be a little less open-minded about you. I'll help you get
introduced. Later. Right now, I need a few details from your Mama and
Papa about what you need while you stay here."
It had been the usual traumatic goodbye. Father Abbot was well used to
comforting some red-faced and emotional young lad as a direct result of
being away from home for the very first time. In this case, the
emotional young lad was a slightly darker blue about the cheeks and
holding up rather well.
"Ready to meet your tutors, Kurt?"
Kurt sighed. "Not really, but - I can handle it."
Handle it, he did. Father Abbot rounded up each Monk or Nun in turn
and had to watch as his teachers reacted and Kurt stoically put up with
whatever they threw at him.
In the case of Sister Holy Innocents, that was an entire ewer's worth
of holy water.
Kurt just stood there in his little 'sailor suit' uniform and dripped.
After a minute or two, he sneezed and begged her pardon.
"Hmp," Sister Holy Innocents grunted. "Guess he's no more of a devil
than the *other* little terrors who go here."
"Can I have a towel?" asked Kurt. "I don't want to make a mess on the
floor."
Father Abbot had a few handy. There were, after all, accidents that
happened, even with the older boys.
Brother Ignatious, as the director of Music Studies, was only
interested in the lad's vocal capacities, and could care less about his
physical appearance.
The rest greeted him with a mixture of prayer and screams, which
eventually placed Kurt back into his concealing coat for his meeting
with Sister Holy Rosary.
Sister Holy Rosary was, in the humble opinion of the Mother Superior,
a bit wet. The boys, on the other hand, nicknamed her Sister Sunshine
for her ability to find a silver lining to *any* situation. She carried
a guitar with her everywhere and believed incessantly that all children
had the ability to grow beyond their own boundaries.
Father Abbot was also starting to believe she was a bit wet.
"And last, but not least, Kurt... This is Sister Holy Rosary."
"Aaawww," she cooed. "A *shy* boy. There's no need to be scared of me,
Kurti. Can I call you Kurti?"
Kurt just shrugged and hung his head.
"Now come on," Sister Holy Rosary soothed. "You don't need to *hide*
your beautiful smile. Why *I* bet you have the best smile in the whole
school. How about it?"
Kurt shook his head.
"Kurt's a little different," Father Abbot warned.
Sister Holy Rosary smiled. "Like that darling little Whisp boy, Rainer
Kersch? Oh, *lovely*! I do *so* like it when there's new mythic-folk.
They're all so beautiful..."
"I'm not," Kurt murmured, hanging his head.
She laughed a little at that. "Everyone's beautiful in the eyes of the
Lord," Sister Holy Rosary put her guitar down and knelt so that she was
roughly in Kurt's eyeline. "Now... you can let me see how beautiful you
are, can't you?" Her hands went to his hood. "Show me your lovely smi--
*OH*!" She fell backwards and scooted a little away. "Oh *dear*!"
Kurt bit his lip, eyes shut tight against errant tears. Eventually, he
sighed out, "I'm sorry."
"I should be sorry," she said. "I should have seen you with better
eyes. I *certainly* shouldn't have been afraid. You're just a boy, like
*all* the other boys here."
"There's no-one like me," Kurt sounded utterly defeated.
"Not on the outside, anyway," Sister Holy Rosary recovered her
previous position in front of him. "Can we try again?" she said. "All
boys call me Sister Sunshine," and offered her hand.
Kurt took it. "Kurti Wagner."
"Oh, dear, you're all wet..." she observed.
_That makes two of you,_ Father Abbot thought, a little uncharitably.
Kurti stood next to a very pale blond boy who also happened to have a
tail. He, too, looked slightly upset to be standing in front of every
boy in St. Ulric's. Kurti reasoned that this must be Rainer Kersch, the
famous Whisp boy.
"So what are your people called?" whispered Rainer.
Kurti shrugged. "Dunno. I was adopted."
Father Abbot cleared his throat. "When you're *quite* done, staring,"
he warned. "These are two of our new students. You've no doubt noticed
that they're neither Centaurs nor what we consider 'normal' human
beings. Rainer Kersh and Kurt Wagner are still boys, and students here
in this school. In that aspect, they are just like you and are to be
treated like any other student here in this school. And believe me, I
*will* find out about any seperatism and singling them out for alleged
pranks." He paused to glare at two grinning members of the audience.
Twin boys with red hair. "As the Katzenjammer boys have discovered
already, there has been a natural enforcement against *tail*-pulling.
Right Hans?" The one with the black eye grinned. "The same rule applies,
but if I hear about certain new tails being yanked, you will consider
*me* the *other* natural enforcement. Likewise, there shall be no
kicking, biting, fighting or other roughhousing during your stay. We're
all civilised beings, so we can sort out our differences in a civilised
way. In brief, I only want to see you in my office if you've been
examples of model behaviour. Have I made myself understood?"
There was a dutiful chorus of, "Yes, Father Abbot," in the typical
monotone of schoolchildren everywhere.
"Good. You two can join your age-mates in the first row."
Kurti all-but leaped off the stage. He had to be forcibly restrained
from chatting to Andrei, owing to the fact that the first-years were
sorted alphabetically. Therefore, Kurti wound up in the midst of a
gaggle of other Kurt Wagners who were all strangers.
Once again, he was the centre of attention.
"Hst!" One of the other Kurts hissed, "Where's your shoes?"
"Can't wear them," Kurti hissed back. "My feet are difficult to fit."
A Kurt in a store-bought uniform sniggered. "So you really *are* a
barefoot mountain boy..."
"Everyone's from the mountains," Kurti whispered. "Unless you're a
low-grounder, or city-folk..."
The rest rallied around Kurti, since they were also mountain-born.
"Yeah," whispered a third Kurt. "You a *city*-boy?"
"Uh..."
"Hey, come on," Kurti whispered. "No singling out, remember? That's
bad news."
"My parents *do* have land in the mountains," allowed the former snob.
"Does that count? I can't help it if they're rich," he murmured.
"None of us can help who we are," soothed Kurti.
"Hssshh!" a second-year behind them hissed. "You don't want the Holy
Terror to get you."
Kurti wisely shut his mouth. Every Catholic school had a Holy Terror.
If one was truly unlucky, there'd be two of them.
The rest of the day was mostly orientation. Despite the rule against
singling folk out, the numerous Kurts had to get by on nicknames. Thus,
there was City, Blue (guess who), Four (a Centaur), Big, Little, Red,
White, Lefty, and Dark Kurt Wagners. Nine dorms and nine classes each
got a Kurt Wagner to ease up on confusion. The Whisp boy was in a
different wing to Kurti, since *his* last name began with a K.
Kurti thought it a pity. He wanted to swap rude questions with him.
Still, he got plenty enough rude questions from the boys sharing his
dorm room.
"Do you always walk like that?"
"I don't know any other way to walk," said Kurti. "It *hurts* if I put
my ankles down."
"So how do you count to twenty?"
"In my head."
"When are you gonna grow horns?"
"I pray it'll never happen," said Kurti, meaning every word. Horns
were amongst his worst nightmares.
"Can you lift weights with that thing? The tail."
"It comes in handy, sometimes," Kurti admitted. "But it's best at
handling lighter objects."
"*Coool*..." his audience murmured. One added. "I heard the Whisp
boy's tail's only good for swatting *flies*."
"Haha, cow-tail," laughed another.
"Does that fur go *all* over?"
"That is a secret for my immediate family, my doctor, and my best-
beloved, whoever she may be," said Kurti. "The rest of the world really
shouldn't be looking."
"Do you groom it?"
"I brush once a day."
"Do you *shed*?"
"I brush so that I don't."
"Do you get a winter coat?"
"I do, but it isn't very noticable."
"How do you wipe?"
"Now that's just getting personal. And disgusting."
And on it went, until one of the numerous Monks, now blase to the
unusual, took them down to the music hall to audition. In order to get
into the school's music program, one had to accurately sing the scales
and read a piece of music, though the latter wasn't strictly necessary
if your voice passed muster.
Kurti surprised just about everyone by being a perfect, clear soprano.
For the rest of the day, he had to put up with, "Face of a devil, but
the voice of an Angel."
At least Sister Holy Innocents didn't say it. Instead, she mortified
him further by saying, "Well. We've found our _Mabel_ for the school
play."
The rest broke out in sniggering while Kurti winced.
"Do I have to wear a *dress*?" Kurti asked.
{Twap!} His ear stung and Sister Holy Innocents suddenly had a ruler
in her hand. "The next words I should hear from *you*, Blue Kurt Wagner,
had better be, 'I will be *honoured* to play _Mabel_ in _The Pirates of
Penzance_'. Well?" The ruler tapped meaningfully in her palm.
Kurti sighed. "I-will-be-honoured-to-play-_Mabel_-in-_The-Pirates-of-
Penzance_," he recited.
"Very good," the Holy Terror allowed.
Maybe he'd gone to Hell and not noticed...