Jeremy woke early the next morning. It was the third time he'd woke up since he went to bed, and the last time he'd thought he heard someone – something growling. Sometimes when the weather got bad, wild animals would come into town. Especially in early spring, when there wasn't enough to eat. The small animals were skinny and not nourishing, and the plants were just beginning to green.
At least in town they – people – could get behind thick walls and closed doors when there were hungry animals. He worried about his brothers and their men on the mountain, mostly in tents. He wondered if Jason had set any traps; he did that sometimes, in the spring.
But it could have been the wind, rubbing tree branches together or something. Or maybe beginnings of thunder, even if there wasn't so much lightning as there had been when he went to sleep. (Or he just didn't see it since he'd closed the shutters.) He wasn't very good at reassuring himself, was he?
He peeked out the door. It was dark and the air was in between rain and fog. He blew a breath out, and it barely became visible, which meant it was warming up from last night.
Warming up was not a good sign with a storm brewing.
Jeremy brought in more firewood while his breakfast was cooking. He had to dump it on the floor instead of stacking it in the woodboxes to save his food from burning, but that was okay. Neither of his brothers was here to yell at him for making a mess, or for leaving it and his dishes. For all he'd got up early, he was now running late, and he gathered up his books and ran out the door.
Hours later, he returned. He threw his books on his unmade bed and kicked at the firewood dropped on the floor. He'd even left his breakfast dishes on the table, and now – Oh, this had been a bad, bad day!
He took care of the dried-on dishes by sticking them in the dishpan and pouring water over them. They could just soak a while. He started throwing the firewood into the woodboxes by fireplace and stove, until each was heaping. (Instead of in orderly stacks within the boxes.)
What a mess!
He also pretended not to imagine he could hear Jason saying that was why things were supposed to be done right in the first place. He was only making more work for himself. If he wanted to do things wrong, he would do them wrong! They weren't even here!
And, no, he wasn't upset about it. He'd done it to himself, hadn't he?
Oh, darn it all! Did they have to be right about everything?
He built fires, through some food into the oven on the cookstove (before it was warmed up; that turned out to be stupid) and brought his books over to the table. He had to write out a whole page of math problems, because he hadn't been able to get the correct answers during class. (Stupid!) He'd got his history all mixed up with the wars. That wasn't surprising, since he'd studied on them all last night, but it was – it was stupid! – that's what it was! At this rate he'd never pass the Quit-School test! And, of course, he'd had a hard time reading because he just couldn't talk (and reading was after math so he was upset.)
He took a deep breath, and copied down the first math problem, and concentrated on the numbers and what they were supposed to do. Josh said the numbers were like chessmen – they all had different jobs, and where they were in the game was equally as important. If you thought about it that way – and it was easier to think at home alone than in front of everybody in school – and to solve the problems by actually doing them, instead of having to explain how he was doing them – if you thought about it as a game with rules, you could do better.
He could play this game.
He woke up when a sudden windy downpour rattled the roof.
It was late. It was dark. The stove was still warm and his supper was shriveled up and burnt in places. The fire in the fireplace was burning low.
He looked around, confused. His head ached.
The wind shook the windows and the door.
Thunder – real thunder – growled.
The rain poured so hard he couldn't see the street or the town.
Lightning flashed all around, and he slammed the door closed.
More thunder, that rolled and rolled, to match that big lightning.
He didn't like this one bit.
He cleaned out the stove and built a new fire. He checked the fireplace and decided to let that fire burn itself out.
He checked his work, pleased to see that he had not only finished it, he had copied his results in ink. He didn't remember doing that; he thought he'd only thought about doing that.
All the while the lightning flashed and the thunder thundered, but not so loud now. Rain fell in varying intensity, but mostly light.
His head ached.
He thought about latching the door, but thought his brothers might show up, so he didn't.
Finally, he went to bed. It wasn't warm and smooth like it usually was, but, really, it didn't take long to warm up once his head was under the cover with the rest of him. And the thunder was even quieter, and the lightning was another barrier away from being seen.
It was going to be a long night.