First Day of School
Disclaimer: It's been so long since I've written that I can't remember what any of this is about… something like I don't own Noir, or any of the characters…
Pink. Not pink. Preferably not green either. Or frills. Not today.
Mireille shoved aside a rack of clothes and pulled out a professional-looking blue suit and matching skirt. She liked to vary her outfits from day to day, depending on the day's mission. As for her exact criteria—well, that was a secret; some days even Mireille herself was not quite sure why she had selected one shirt over another.
A complete foreigner to the mysterious criteria of outfit-choosing, Kirika sat demurely in a corner and sipped tea. Her morning ritual was simple: shower, get dressed, tea, leave. Stage three was nearly complete.
Her blonde partner reappeared a moment later, clad in the blue suit as she pulled a brush through her hair. Mireille always liked to look nice. Kirika had long since ceased to care. In the world of assassins, one existed only to one's partner and one's victim. The former thought Kirika's appearance to be of no importance, and did it really matter to the latter?
As if on cue, Kirika rose from the cozy armchair with her empty cup and rinsed it out in the sink. When she returned, Mireille's eyebrows were knitted, her fingers flittering about the blueprints spread out on her desk. The printer hummed merrily.
Kirika waited. No rush.
At last Mireille straightened, nodded, plucked up her printed materials, and reached for her pink-and-white striped bag. She slipped her feet into a pair of stylish heels and headed for the door. Kirika followed.
They descended to the first floor via elevators and walked out to Mireille's car, both still silent. It was a lovely fall day, the trees developing their first tinges of crimson. Mireille had heard it called an "Indian Summer". She didn't understand why anyone would use the term in Europe. There were no Indians here.
Her keys clicked in the lock and the two girls stepped into the car. Mireille's door slammed first.
Traffic was light, but then it was midday. At eleven-twenty-seven, the car made an abrupt turn into a parking lot bearing a sign with the worlds "L'Ermitage – International School of France."
"You remember?"
Kirika nodded and made a small noise of agreement.
"All right. Let's go."
Mireille got out first, shook her hair, and waited for Kirika to get out so that she could lock the doors. The Japanese girl didn't wait – she immediately headed in the direction of the locker rooms. Mireille strode calmly, easily, toward the main office, in the opposite direction.
The request had arrived the usual way – via Mireille's inbox – exactly two weeks ago. It was an unusual request, but the girls were used to such requests. Again, standard for an assassin.
The target? A Frenchman by the name of Andre Charbonneau. Thirty-five years old, President of L'Ermitage International School of France. That was his pretense, the request had warned. The man was in fact quite active in a number of illegal rings embezzling money and manipulating those in positions of power as he saw fit.
The timing of this task had been awkward. Mireille's first instinct had been to go for him somewhere semi-private, where they would not risk attracting a lot of attention, but the sender of the request had promised that the easiest place to do it would be within the school.
Kirika thought it might not be such a bad idea. The kids would be in class, and security would likely be downplayed as not to attract attention.
So the plan was developed. Mireille would do the actual killing of Monsieur Charbonneau (and perhaps take out a few of his well-placed security agents along the way). Kirika was to play backup, perhaps never firing a single shot, perhaps having to take over for Mireille in a last-ditch attempt should everything backfire.
Mireille loved having a reliable partner.
She threaded her way through the clean, glistening hallways of L'Ermitage. Her heels clicked crisply on the polished floor. One or two students passing through nodded to her and said, "Bonjour, mademoiselle."
She responded warmly. No need to act defensive.
She and Kirika had studied the blueprint for extensive amounts of time at home and had memorized every turn and corner of the school, so Mireille did not find it necessary to ask for directions. She stopped at a water fountain to buy Kirika some time to get positioned. The water was cool and streamed in a high arc. She took a few sips.
Her fingers tightened lightly on the plastic handle of her handbag when the door of the main office came into view, but her footsteps didn't slow. Her right hand closed upon the gilded door handle and pushed.
Kirika was the same age as many of the girls within the school and had thus taken on the pretense of a student. The school's uniforms were standard – they'd purchased one second-hand easily – and now, dressed up as a student of L'Ermitage, Kirika was making her way towards the school clinic.
Her gun was in a fashionable purse that dangled from her shoulder. Kirika had disliked the idea – she preferred to place it in a well-disguised pocket – but there were none in the uniform. Mireille had assured her that the purse was quite stylish and no one would think less of her for it (as if that were important to Kirika).
Kirika pushed open the door of the clinic to reveal a plump, smiling woman who dropped her pen and exclaimed, "Poor child – you look deathly pale. Let me set up a bed for you – if you'll just sign in here, please –"
Students of Asian descent were not unusual at L'Ermitage – it was an International School, after all, and Kirika borrowed the name of one girl whose online blog she and Mireille had followed intensely for two weeks. It passed inspection easily.
The nurse pressed a hand to Kirika's forehead. "You don't seem to have a fever, dear."
"Just headache," Kirika mumbled.
She clucked her tongue sympathetically. "Don't worry, you can stay here as long as you want. I'll bring in your schoolbag for you so everything will be nearby."
"Thank you," Kirika said, and a moment later the nurse reappeared with her books and purse. She mused briefly that the nurse might not have placed everything quite so nonchalantly by her side had she known the contents of the purse.
She counted to twenty-five after the door closed, then lay flat on her back to think. The clinic was a large one, designed to house students for several days should they become ill at this boarding school. An extensive hallway housed the nurse as well as several aides. At the end of this hallway was an opening to the main office, should an emergency arise and parental contact be needed.
Sick as she had pretended to be, Kirika had not failed to notice the room number she was in. 116 was on the left side of the hallway, so to make her way to the main office she would need to head right upon exiting.
Her thoughts wandered to the motherly nurse. Surely such a sweet woman could not be part of such a ploy?
In silence and darkness, Kirika waited.
Once or twice the nurse opened the door a crack to check on her, but Kirika turned to the wall and feigned sleep. When the door closed again she would open her eyes and strain her ears for any sound of a gunshot. She thought of her gun and pondered whether it would be better to pick it up and hold it close by, or to leave it by the bed and avoid questions about where the purse had disappeared off to.
In the end, she left it be.
Mireille had made simple talk with the secretary, a girl so young she looked as if she belonged in the classroom instead of behind the desk.
"I don't see an appointment for you today, miss," the girl apologized, looking up and down the computer screen.
"That's strange," Mireille remarked, and with just a tone of impatience in her voice, added, "I'm sure I made the call several weeks ago."
The girl jumped. "Let me check with him and see if he has just a spare moment, miss. Excuse me."
Mireille sat back in a comfortable armchair and waited, taking in the layout of the office. Two secretaries worked on either side of the room. A large window on the east wall. The wall facing into the school contained two enormous windows that allowed administrators to keep an eye on the ongoings of the school.
The secretary reappeared. "If you could wait just a moment, miss, Mr. Charbonneau says he could spare ten minutes."
"Thank you," Mireille responded. "I'll wait here."
The secretary printed her a nametag – quite sophisticated, actually, in its own little plastic case and pin, as if she were some important emissary. Mireille tipped her head to the side and glanced down the hallway that led to the President's office. Halfway down was a door labeled "CLINIC".
A phone rang on the secretary's desk. She picked up the receiver, covered the mouthpiece, and whispered to Mireille, "Mr. Charbonneau will see you now."
Mireille rose elegantly and made her way down the hallway, passing closed doors labeled with all types of important-sounding titles. She made note of them as best as she could. She entered the room at the end of the hallway to find a strict-looking woman demanding to know her business.
"It's all right, Marie," the secretary called back. "I've OK'ed her – the sponsorship by GMU—"
Immediately the woman's expression relaxed and became one of flattery. Any hint of money, apparently, was of extreme interest. Mireille, rather amused, thanked her and knocked on the door of L'Ermitage President, Andre Charbonneau.
"Come in."
Mireille entered and closed the door behind her. He was seated (presumably) in a large armchair with a backing so tall she couldn't see him as he faced away from her. Then, taking his time, he spun around to reveal a young blonde man, impeccably dressed, with a knowing smile.
"Welcome, Noir. I've been expecting you."
Kirika lay flat in the silence. In the darkness she was only a pair of ears, straining to catch any snatches of noise that would signify trouble.
And she heard none.
Mireille raised one eyebrow and smiled. Another man might have considered it seductive, but Andre Charbonneau was not such a creature.
He looked down and smiled, breaking eye contact. "It appears that I am more informed than you had believed possible. However, let us speak plainly. You are Noir – will you do it or not?"
When she hesitated, the smile fading in confusion, he reached over to a small timer on the corner of his desk and tapped it. "I believe my secretary promised you ten minutes, no more, non?" He smiled again, lazy, confident, arrogant. "Do as you wish. This room is quite soundproof. I made that a condition upon taking this job so as not to be bothered by children playing outside."
Mireille raised her gun.
He laughed, a rich, lazy sound, then plucked up the timer and tossed it lightly from one hand to the other before setting it down on the teakwood desk with a tap. It read 9:34.
"Now let us consider this from another standpoint. You yourself are doubtless young enough to remember your own school days, are you not? Do you remember your own school's President? Did he have pictures—" he gestured around his room: "—of his own students, whom he so dearly loved, put up around his office?"
He gestured to a portrait of the school's girls' volleyball team. "Aren't they beautiful children? Innocent smiles with bright futures?"
He tapped the timer with a forefinger. 7:11. "Do you want these innocent little girls to see murder? Do you wish to corrupt their cheerful minds with death? Imagine…" He gestured again to the portrait— "…imagine shattering their happy lives, little girls stepping over pools of blood, over the body of someone they've looked up to for years."
"Will you do it?"
Something in Mireille's mind clicked into place. Pools of blood. Body of someone she'd looked up to.
I was subjected to all that when I was younger than your girls, she thought. And I turned out – well –
He smiled again, the same arrogant smile, this time tinged with a sense of having won the game. Andre Charbonneau strode to the coffeemaker behind his desk and poured himself a cup. He drank it slowly, closing his eyes, savoring every sip. Each muscle in his cheek pulsed with each swallow.
"You seem to be in no hurry," he addressed her, "so you won't mind if I drink another cup? A man's last pleasure before he dies, you know…surely you wouldn't be so cold to forbid him that…"
3:25. 3:24. 3:23.
And still she waited.
She had known, of course, that Kirika had in the past felt remorse for their victims and anyone who might have been impacted by the killing, but that was a feeling she herself had rarely experienced. A job was a job, and her job as an assassin involved clean killings. Yet Mireille took advantage of his lack of attention not to fire, but instead to glance at the portraits around the wall. Her eyes rested on one of a particularly young girl, perhaps no more than seven, holding a standard reader.
"You like her, huh?" He gestured. "Her name is Marguerite. When first she arrived at this school her reading skills were so far behind that we considered holding her back a year. Yet she's been happy here and flourished. A standard experience for a child at L'Ermitage."
Mireille slowly tore her eyes from the portrait and came to stare at Andre Charbonneau instead. For a few moments they locked glances, she wearing a cold glare, he wearing his classic smirk. Mireille was uncomfortably aware of the confidence he oozed, from his casually brushed blonde locks to the muscled arms and shoulders whose shapes made themselves known from beneath his suit. His eyes, too, were challenging, daring—but with a dash of humor?
Her fingers tightened around the gun and slowly brought it to eye level. She clicked the trigger and pointed it at him.
Andre Charbonneau was seated on a corner of his desk. Beside him, the timer clicked away. Fifteen seconds left… fourteen… thirteen… twelve…
"Think of the little girls," he whispered.
Six…five… four…
"You're quite an indecisive woman, aren't you?"
two…one…
The silenced gun made hardly a sound. Andre Charbonneau, thirty-five years old and President of L'Ermitage International School of France, slumped forward and fell headfirst onto the carpeted floor.
Mireille waited for her gun to finish smoking, placed it back into her handbag, and silenced the beeping timer. She stepped outside and closed the door behind her.
A door opened. Kirika opened one eye and concentrated every particle of her body on listening.
"Pardon me; is there a shortcut to the south exit through here?"
"No, mademoiselle. Take the normal exit out of the main office and turn left. At the end of that hallway you'll see the exit. I'm afraid the only exit to our clinic is through the main office."
"Thank you."
She had not been needed. Kirika waited another ten minutes before rising and announcing to the nurse that she felt well enough to return to class.
Mireille plowed through the hallway back towards her car. It was empty, but the air was so heavy she could have just as well been pushing through a tub of mud.
A sudden ringing startled her and remained in her ears several moments after its generators stopped. All around her, children poured out of classrooms—girls, boys, young, mature. The girls clustered together and gossiped or shared study tips. One young girl dropped a book and by impulse, Mireille picked it up for her.
"Hurry up, Marguerite, we'll be late for lunch!"
"I'm coming, I'm coming! Thank you very much!"
Marguerite. The name stirred something deep within Mireille's brain that had only recently been frozen and stored away in the most distant of the freezer shelves. The pigtails, the book…
"I told you, we don't want to be the last ones in line," the other girl complained.
"It doesn't matter for me," Marguerite insisted. "I have a meeting with Mr. Charbonneau, remember?"
And Marguerite bid goodbye to her friend and skipped off merrily in the direction of the main office.
Mireille, for the first time, was seized by an awful twinge of regret for what the girl would find. For the fact that little Marguerite's childish world of happiness would, within ten minutes, all but disappear and become a thing of the past. For none knew better than she the changes brought upon by seeing a dead loved one. Unexpectedly.
And it occurred to Mireille, as she continued on her lonely trek to her car, that she had never been one of these girls and never would. Claude, despite all the love he had provided her in her childhood, had never sent her to school. Whatever education he deemed necessary he had provided, and for the most part it had not been lacking – Hemingway and Dumas mingled with shooting lessons. He had not intended to bring up an ignorant bumpkin and had avoided doing so. But he had succeeded in depriving her of any girlhood friends.
She pushed open the door and stepped into the golden sunshine, well aware that she would never share the carefree, youthful friendships of the girls behind her.
Kirika was waiting for her by the car, as she'd expected. Mireille unlocked it and both girls slid inside. The blonde started the engine and pulled away in silence, save for two words:
"Thank you."
And Kirika responded, quietly, "Hai."
Author's note: My apologies for any huge gaping errors in this piece. I haven't watched, read, or dreamed Noir in over a year and decided on a spur of the moment to pull out this little scene from "Rosebuds", a rather sorry Noir piece that will most likely not ever be finished.
I hope you found this interesting and would enjoy reading any comments!