Decisions which have to be made
Chapter 2 - Mr. Fulton
"Mr. Potter, what do you have to add to 20 to get 25?"
"Six, Miss," Harry replied.
"What!? How did you get that?" the math teacher at St. Jerome Primary School asked, shocked.
"20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25. That are six numbers if I'm not mistaken."
"You don't count twenty, you stupid child!" the teacher exclaimed.
"So you count 18, 19, 21, 22?" Harry asked, looking innocently at the teacher with raised eyebrows. This was so boring that he couldn't help irritating his teacher.
"I - you - twenty -"
Before the math teacher could say anything else the door opened and the headmaster's secretary came in.
"Harry Potter, the headmaster would like to speak to you."
Harry stood up and followed the secretary out. They walked through corridors to the headmaster's office.
Three days had passed since Carl Heinze had come to St. Martha's. He had become Harry's friend. They went along pretty good, and Carl hadn't made any other friends yet.
Mr. Fulton was, other than the math teacher, nice. As soon as Harry sat down opposite his desk he offered him a cup of tea.
"So, Harry. I wanted to talk about your grades," Mr. Fulton began after a few silent moments. Mr. Fulton was a middle-ages man, wore a dark suit and had curly brown hair. His eyes were like a hawk's, not missing a single movement of his surroundings. At Harry's alarmed expression he smiled warmly. "No need to worry, Harry. You've got good - outstanding to be precise - grades. "
Harry had drunken half of the tea and started to feel sleepy. "Then why did you want to talk to me?" he asked, trying hard to keep his eyes open.
"Someone offered you a place in a school for bright children."
"Hm?" Harry hardly understood half of it. He felt sleepier and sleepier. "Offered a school?"
"That's right," Mr. Fulton said, watching Harry's head fall on top of his desk. "Lauren?" he called his secretary.
Laura popped her head in. "Yes, Mr. Fulton?"
"Call Thomas. He can drive Harry to campus. The sleeping pills which have been in the tea will make him stay asleep for about ten hours, and after that Thomas can give him a dose of this sleeping gas Mac told me about.
"Yes, sir," Laura said before she went to call Thomas Mayhew.
Harry groaned. He had a headache. As she opened his eyes he was glad to find his surroundings in complete darkness. But before hie eyes could get used to the lack of light a smell went up his nostrils, making him feel sleepy again. Before he knew it he was asleep.
As he opened his eyes groaning in pain he instantly knew that he wasn't at school and neither at St. Martha's Children's Home. He was somewhere completely different, somewhere he had never been to before. The room looked completely different. There wasn't a bunk bed, only a single bed. Then there were only one wardrobe and one desk, looking a lot more modern than the furniture at St. Martha's. There even was a TV, a kettle and miniature fridge.
Harry did not have any idea how he got here. The last thing he could remember was talking to Mr. Fulton about his grades. Hadn't his headmaster said something about a school? Was this it? This school he had been offered a place at?
He pulled the blanket aside. He was naked. That was freaky. Harry sat up and looked around. He guessed that the room was on the fifth or sixth floor. It overlooked an athletics track. There were children running spikes doing stretches. Some other kids got badminton coaching on clay courts off to the side. This clearly was some kind of boarding school. Probably for talented students. But then why was he here? Harry knew that he didn't have any kind of talent.
As he looked around he saw clean clothes on the floor: black socks and boxers, pressed orange T-shirt, green military-style trousers with zipped pockets and a pair of boots with a rubbery smell and shiny black soles. Harry knew that they must be new.
This military-style clothes made Harry wonder if this was where kids ended up if they didn't had some kind of talent. He put on the clothes and inspected the logo embroidered on the T-shirt. It was a winged baby - Harry knew that it was called cherub - sitting on a ball which looked like a globe. Underneath was a set of initials: CHERUB. Harry thought about these initials but they didn't make any sense to him.
Out in the corridor the children had the same boots and trousers as Harry, however their T-shirts were either black or grey, all with the CHERUB logo on them.
"Could you help me?" Harry asked, speaking to a boy who was coming into his direction. "I don't know what I'm meant to do."
"Can't talk to orange," the boy replied without stopping.
Harry looked around. It was a row of doors in either direction. A couple of teenage girls were down one end. Even they were wearing boots and the uniform-like clothes.
"Hey!" Harry called. "Could you tell me what I have to do?"
"Can't talk to orange," one girl said.
the other one smiled. "Can't talk," she said, but pointed to the lift and made a downwards motion with her hand.
"Thanks," Harry said.
He waited for the lift. There were a few other people in there, including a young, well-built adult who wore shorts and boots but a white CHERUB T-shirt. Harry was sure that he'd get some more information from him, so he spoke to him.
"Cannot talk to orange," the man said before he raised one finger, indicating Harry that he had to get out on the first floor. Up to now he had thought this was some kind of joke played on the new kid, but an adult joining was just weird.
The first floor was the reception area. Harry could see out the main entrance into luxurious gardens where a fountain spouted water five meters into the air. The sculpture in the center was the winged baby sitting on a globe, like the logo on the T-shirts. Harry stepped up to a middle-aged woman behind a desk.
"Please don't say Can't talk to orange, I just -" Harry pleaded, but he didn't get to finish.
