Snowflake Circus

Part 10

It should have been written in the stars – nothing lasts past a supernova of sound. Which was faster, the light or the sound? Maksim guessed it was the sound, because after returning to the cinema floor, it wasn't the visual to push him into a run, leaving Laura with Joni and Ergo to watch after him with horror.

"Settle down!"

He knew that voice. It belonged to the constable Levi Warner. He was hard to miss, when he used his roar-like baritone to call people on order. Keeping in mind it was the time the boys were about to be freed from the cinema, this was bad, oh so very bad!

"Kaspar! Anton!"

He rounded the door in time to see Jevgeni shout, his voice matched with the constable, his hands full with Petro and Viktor while the policeman had grabbed hold of the dark haired boy and was busy blocking Kaspar's fist hitting the older one.

"Hey! Stop it!" The young man shouted again and Jevgeni let go of the others to help, using all his strength to pull Kaspar back, his eyes desperate to solve the situation without the man, but he was clearly overwhelmed.

Maksim took a deep breath to calm his nerve, checking them over with a glance before turning to the policeman. He sighed with relief seeing the man wasn't in his uniform. "Levi, what happened?"

"They're yours?" Constable demanded, still holding on to Anton, who, using the chance that the attention was off him, swung his leg towards Kaspar's knee, but the policeman blocked it easily.

"Uh, yeah?" He winched.

He could see Levi's eyebrows climbing, as if he'd grown a second head. Maybe he had, he wasn't known to have seven boys on his name.

"Where's their teacher?" He demanded.

"I'm one of them." He lied, but he guessed by now that's what he actually was, even if officially he hadn't signed up for the job. He saw from the corner of his eye Laura and boys come in from the front door, confused. Laura's eyes darted around the room for a long moment while the policeman checked her out, and then she frowned so fierce he took a quick step away from her war path as her eyes darted lower, where the pants pockets were and she narrowed in on Kaspar.

"What did you take?" She demanded from the boy and Kaspar jolted back, unbalancing Jevgeni, who seemed to have no mercy for his little brother, and pushed him forward.

"Nothing!" He shouted at first, but she crossed her arms over her chest and gave her the no-bullshit glare, which made the policeman turn his attention on the poor boy too.

"Argh!" He whined like a drama queen after defiant try to stand up against the oppressor. "The ninnyhammer mucked around with that pine cone! He took it out and pressed to my face with it!"

"Your brother has a name! And I clearly remember it not being ninnyhammer!"

"Sorry, Laura." He whispered.

"So what happened next?" She asked.

On the background Maksim saw Jevgeni quietly falling back on the background as if she'd be going after him next. He doubted it, he was left in charge, but only by name, as Laura had explained him quietly when he objected the plan to put such pressure on his shoulders. Still, he reached his hand out to Joni and made a human shield out of the boy. He would have laughed if it weren't serious enough to involve police.

"Zhenya told him to cut it out."

At least the boy was saved, he breathed easier. He didn't know, why he was relieved, but he was.

"And?" Her eyes didn't waver and Kaspar looked away first. "You took it." She concluded. Kaspar nodded. "We talked about this! There are skills you are never allowed to use again. You signed the pirate's oath, too!" She scoffed, annoyed.

"A what?" Levi asked.

"Pirate's oath?" Maksim asked at the same time. Maksim's eyes locked with Levi's, both eyebrows flying high. But she either ignored them or hadn't heard, because her eyes were still stuck on Kaspar.

"Where is it now?" She demanded.

Kaspar's hands clamped behind his back and he showed her his pants left pocket. It was empty.

"What about the right one?" She asked, nodding at the bulge.

"But he'll keep poking me with it!" The boy protested.

Now it was Anton's turn to shiver and sweat in Levi's grasp and he squirmed to get free.

"Why'd you do that for?" She asked. "You want him to burn it or what?"

Levi's managed to remain stoic, and hadn't Maksim known the man as his junior from the village school they'd went together, he would never see the spark lightening up the dark grays. He groaned quietly. Ergo looked up from his side, where he'd stuck after Joni had searched Jevgeni's support. Had he'd said it out loud?

Constable let the boy go, but he didn't move from his place. "Sorry I stabbed you. I pretended it was a syringe."

"What?" Maksim asked himself quietly, not even trying to follow the logic.

"How many stabs did you give him anyway?" Levi asked in the most natural sounding curiosity, sending Maksim into bright jealousy for mastering what he so desperately wanted to do himself.

"He is very sick boy, he needs a lot of them!" Anton smiled and blinked his eyelashes. Levi responded with a dashing bright smile.

Ergo clung to his hand and pressed himself suddenly very close to his thigh and he looked down. He looked horrified, his eyes still on the pair. He understood why – it looked like one pretty boy trying overdo the other pretty boy and he had to use his best professional upbringing not to grimace on the horrific show. It made him remember all those weird stories he'd heard of him pranking the teachers he'd dismissed back then. But now it made him wonder, what had he'd got away with with that bright smile of his?