Chapter 4: 1881+1882, (Metaphorical) Growing Pains
Robby took it upon himself to teach his younger friends how to read. He had been fortunate to have been taught how to read as a child and although he, at 18 years old, did not expect to ever live an honest life, there was still hope for the other boys.
The weather that day was good enough for Robby to sit down with Rainy and Tom in the sunlight and read a newspaper that he had stolen from someone's bag. Their other two friends were out today to fill two positions that had opened up in a nearby factory.
"A rat-her," Tom was reading slowly.
"Rather," Robby corrected, "the 't' and 'h' make the 'th' sound."
"Right. A rather nov-el football mat-, matk? What's this one?"
Robby looked down at it, "It's match."
"Match? That's a weird way to spell things," Tom muttered before continuing, "took place at Ea- Easter Road," he squinted at the next word.
"Edinburgh," Robby supplied, "Don't worry about that one, no one can spell it anyway.
Tom nodded before continuing, "On Saturday be-tween teams of… lady players re-pre-sent-ing England and Scott-land."
"How much of that did you understand?" Robby asked Rainy.
Rainy squinted at the foreign script. "Saturday."
"Alright then, well I'd say the important words here are England, our country."
The hobbit nodded slowly. "Engl-ish, Engl-and."
"And then Scottland and football are probably good vocab too."
"Scottl-and, Scottl-ish?" Rainy guessed.
"Ah, no. They speak Scotts there. And English."
Rainy wrinkled her nose in distaste for the complicated naming conventions. Robby decided to wait until he brought up Portugues.
"And football is the game where you kick the ball," Tom supplied, miming the motion of kicking something, "You know about football, right?"
"Foot… ball?"
Tom looked like he's been punched, "You don't know football? Robby, we have to do something!"
"You can explain it after we're done reading this article."
"But how will he understand if we don't explain it first?"
Robby sighed, "Fine, make it quick."
"Alright, so…" Tom went on a quick thirty-minute tangent about football.
When he was done, Rainy had more questions than answers but decidedly did not want to enable more manic sports rants. Instead, they pointed at the newspaper that had been all but forgotten.
"Me."
"Right," Robby agreed, "Your turn."
Rainy cleared their throat, "The yo- young LAD-I-EES,"
"Ladies," Robby corrected, "As in women."
Tom made a motion in front of his chest, lifting up imaginary breasts.
Rainy nodded and continued, "The young ladies a…ages? appeared to range from ei…."
"Eighteen," Robby read over their shoulder, "their ages appeared to range from eighteen to four-and-twenty. Right, I ought to teach you some simple numbers while we're at it."
The pavement under them was dirty enough for Robby to carve the numbers from zero to ten into them.
Tom groaned, "I hate this numbers stuff."
"Do you want to get swindled out of money?" Robby asked, sounding to all the world like an exasperated mother.
Tom grumbles but acquiesced to the lesson.
"Alright, so here's how this works," Robby began, making tally marks by each of the numbers. As he began to explain some simple problems, he was surprised when Rainy took the nail he was using to carve into the dirt to do their own carvings.
The boys watched as the hobbit transcribed all numbers into an unfamiliar script before solving the problems. They transcribed their solution back into the numbers that they were familiar with.
"Huh," Robby looked over the problems. They were all mostly correct, "It seems that our young friend doesn't require any help in mathematics."
Tom sent Rainy a betrayed look.
"What are these symbols here?" Robby asked, motioning at what the hobbit had carved. "It seems that you have been taught how to read and write, just not in our way, is that correct?"
Rainy nodded slowly as they seemed to make out some of his words, "Read. Much books."
"Many books," Robby corrected before continuing, "I wonder if we'd recognize your homeland's stories…" he trailed off. "Anyhow, let's not get distracted. Tom, how about you practice some more math problems while I help Rainy with his readings?"
Tom sighed but nodded and they began to work again. It was a tedious process, Rainy found, to learn a new language and script but at least she wasn't alone in the process.
—
Rainy's learning progress steadily increased and she was getting more confident in her reading abilities. This also meant they were always on the lookout for new material to read.
"You can have it, if you want," Jonathan offered as he saw Rainy eye his book repeatedly.
"It's the second edition. The author changed some things later on."
The hobbit took the book he was offering and carefully read the title.
"Frankenstein?" she asked.
"Yes," Jonathan confirmed, "My father requested I read it. It's an interesting perspective on modern science, I suppose. But I think it's mostly supposed to be a lesson. It's not really something that interests me."
Rainy looked up from the book curiously. "Which stories like, you?"
"Which stories do I like? The heroic kind, with knights saving damsels or going on grand adventures. Do you know any stories like that?"
The hobbit nodded enthusiastically and started talking. Jonathan listened patiently and corrected them once in a while as Rainy told a story of a young adventurer who travelled with a group of strangers that would become friends.
The story followed the group as they fought off monsters and defeated a dragon before reclaiming a lost kingdom.
"And what happened then?" Jonathan asked when his friend was done.
"Went to home. Happy with family."
"But they're still young, there could be more adventures!"
"Yes," Rainy nodded, "more adventures."
"Did you think of the story yourself?" Jonathan wondered, "So you can add more?"
Rainy nodded enthusiastically, "My idea. More adventures."
Jonathan realized then how late it had become, "Well, let me know if you think of more! I have to return home or Father will be angry with me but you should keep the book! You'll probably like it more than me."
"Yes, I keep," Rainy nodded, holding the book to their chest.
Jonathan grinned, "See you another time!" he called out with a wave as he dashed homeward.
Rainy smiled before looking down at the book. If only they knew how much this book would influence their future going forward.