Chapter Three.
Bed and board for the price of sweat.
"For the last time, Mariah, it's not them!"
Mariah gave Rei a dirty look and peaked out of the window.
"I heard a car-"
"I thought you were a cat, Mariah, not a friggin' mutt," Lei said irritably, not taking his eyes off the board. " You wanna chase cars, go outside and do it 'cos you're really distracting me."
"Don't blame me just because Rei's frying you at checkers," she snapped, wandering back over and flopping down next to the tiger. Rei clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, then picked up his little checker and jumped all five of Lei's remaining game pieces.
"Check!"
"Oh, what?"
Rei grinned and sat back, stretching.
"Face it mate, you will never beat me at checkers. I'm just too good."
Lei grumbled something and got to his feet. He gave a cry of pain and began hopping up and down and swearing in Chinese.
"Pinsandneedlespinsandneedles! Owowowowow!"
Mariah laughed, then paused to listen. She jumped up and ran to the window again. This time she shrieked and jumped up and down.
"They're here!"
Rei frowned and checked the wall clock.
"It can't be them. Their plane wasn't due to land until five."
"Who else do we know who drives a Ferrari?"
Rei got up and wandered out to the front of the dojo. The driver door opened and an unfamiliar girl clambered out, a cell phone glued to her ear.
"Yes mum, we got here fine… We're at the dojo now- yes… yes… no… We ate when we stopped in Cairo. No, look, mum-yes I know. Mum-"
"Well if it isn't my three favourite people," Tala said sarcastically as he clambered out of the front passenger door. "How you doing, Hairballs?" He greeted them loudly, as Kai got out of the car and went round to the boot to help the girl unload their bags.
"Hey, Kai," Lei jibed. "How come you let some girl drive your car but you wont even let me sit in it?"
"Because 'some girl' can actually drive, Lei," Kai said, giving the Asian boy a flat look. "And because I needed to catch up on my beauty sleep"
Lei muttered something under his breath and gave Kai a dirty look, then turned his attention back to checking out the girl as she leant into the boot of the car to get her bags. Rei rolled his eyes and gave his friend a sharp poke in the ribs.
"Don't even think about it," he warned. Lei grinned.
"No idea what you're talking about," he replied wickedly.
"Yes mum, I've got plenty of money to last me until the account gets changed to yen. Okay… Okay, mum, this is costing me an absolute fortune, I- Tala?" The red-haired boy looked up and shook his head furiously. The girl nodded. "No mum, sorry, he's really busy. Look, this call is costing me a fortune. I'll call you sometime in the week, okay? Okay. Bye."
The girl snapped her phone shut and groaned.
"Bloody hell. We've been gone five minutes and she's already pleading with us to come home soon."
Tala shook his head and sighed, then turned to the three neko-jinn stood in the doorway.
"Where's everybody else?" He asked.
Rei ticked them off on his fingers.
"Kevin disappeared about an hour ago, Gary and Max went to the arcade, Bryan, Rick and Spencer were supposed to be her, but I think they went to the gym, Hilary's out shopping and Tyson is…" He paused and shrugged. "Somewhere in the dojo with Dotu."
Tala nodded, then took the girl by the arm and dragged her forwards.
"Okay, well. Guys, this is my sister, Regan. Regan, this is Mariah, Rei and Lei."
Regan smiled and stepped forwards, shaking hands with all three of them.
"It's nice to finally put faces to the names," she said.
"Nice to meet you too," Lei grinned, wiggling his eyebrows at her. This time, Mariah thumped him and gave him a warning look.
There was a lot of difficulty, getting everything out of the car and into the dojo. Regan had brought quite a lot of books with her, and the box they were all in collapsed on her feet halfway to her room. She hopped around swearing colourfully in Russian for a while, before composing herself, and picking them all up.
The room she was sharing with Mariah was light and airy, with two neatly made up beds and a wardrobe and chest of drawers between them. There was a set of twin screen doors that led out into a very quiet area of garden next to the koi pond and a wooden sun-lounger was folded up against the wall.
She murmured something in quiet Russian as she wandered around the room. Rei raised an eyebrow at Tala, who grinned and shook his head.
"She speaks in Russian when she's feeling nasty. She only does it to annoy me."
"Huh?"
"Because, once she does it, I invariably end up doing it."
"Oh, devushka," she cooed, pinching her brother's cheek. "You should be proud of your mother tongue."
Tala grimaced.
"Yeah like hell," he sighed and wandered off down the hall to the room that he shared with Kai. Mariah turned to the silver haired Russian.
"What did she say about my room?" She demanded.
Kai grinned.
"Don't worry, devushka, she said the floorboards are squeaky, .
Mariah rolled her eyes and threw her hands up in the air.
"Doesn't anyone here speak plain old English?" She cried in exasperation, before stalking out of the room. Rei gave Kai an 'honestly' look and followed her. Kai sighed and shook his head. Well, this was going to be an interesting few months.
Regan fitted in well at the dojo. And considering that she wasn't paying to stay there, she did an awful lot to make up for it. She cooked, cleaned, and provided a mild source of entertainment every time Tala got on her nerves, which was a lot. In the first three weeks, they had nine fights,six verbal,three physical. Lei, Spencer and Bryan began running wagers on every fight. After three wins in a row, Regan's odds were up to 2/1, whereas Tala's had gone all the way down to 10/1. It was pathetic really.
"Perhaps Tala is a real gentleman and doesn't hit girls," Mariah snapped halfway through the second fist fight. Moment later, she was force fed a meal of her own words when Tala's fist connected with Regan's stomach and he winded her. Spencer was beginning to get seriously concerned for the health of his wallet. If Tala kept losing like this, he'd be bankrupt before Christmas. But Tala invariably came off worse for wear with a black eye, a nose bleed and a bruised ego, no matter how much he made Regan scream. He was making Lei and Bryan incredibly rich.
There was no doubt in anyone's mind that Regan was fun though. She wasn't afraid of a little bit of hard work, and she was never afraid to stand up to anyone. But she was sensitive as well, and she would sit down and listen to any problems. Tala was constantly pointing out her faults. Which was how they got into fights.
Dotu had a very important job for Regan, however. After her third week was well and truly out of the way, Dotu covered the living room with dust sheets and instructed her to get creative. She locked the door for three hours and did God-knows-what, then rushed off in Kai's car -much to Kai's annoyance- and came back and hour later laden with tubs of paint, one in every colour of the rainbow. Then she went in and locked the door again.
"Dotu!"
The old man looked up from his game of checkers with Lei. Regan poked her head around the kitchen door and smiled.
"Okay, I've got my design all drawn up, but I want to make sure you like it first, okay? I'm not painting it if you're going to hate it."
The old man sighed and got slowly to his feet, then followed her out of the kitchen and down the hall. Curious, the others followed them in a long crocodile line, Max bringing up the rear.
"Voila!" Regan cried throwing back the screen door and stepping inside the room to let Dotu past. The old man looked around in stunned silence, and suddenly, tears welled up in his eyes.
"Wow," Tyson murmured, taking it in. Regan had painted the walls completely white, then drawn a light charcoall design over the whole thing. A beautiful scene covered all four walls. It wasn't anything complicated or fancy, just a simple mural of the Japanese countryside. But it was enough to make old Dotu emotional, which obviously counted for something. Regan smiled.
"So, do I go ahead and paint it?" She queried.
"D'you even need to ask?" Max said with a grin. "You've knocked poor Dotu for six. Someone get the guy a cool cloth before he faints."
Dotu smiled and nodded.
"It's perfect," he said quietly, then turned and walked off down the corridor.
"Nice one," Tyson said with a wink. And that was that.
If you've read this far, thank you. Reviews welcome, flames laughed at.
