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Chapter 3 - Sixes and Sevens

I wandered down the hallway toward my quarters in a complete daze. I had been so prepared to receive my due apology from the man I had been aggravated with for half a year and hadn't gotten it. Instead, he had given me the gifts of chocolate and confusion. Not the fair trade I'd been hoping for by any stretch of the imagination, but an interesting one nonetheless. At least it gave me something to think about besides giving Fritz the dressing down of his life when he came back down to Earth.

This was so strange. L and I had never been anything more than uneasy acquaintances, living in the same grey stone manor house overlooking the verdant fields of Hampshire, occupying the same space but hardly aware of the other, but now it seemed like he wished for that to change. We had always been paired up by Wammy even since we were little, but we could never get along. Was it guilt that made him want to reassure me of my valued place in the eyes of the children or something else?

Early on we had been given our lessons together and had been taught by some of the greatest minds in the world. A professor emeritus from Oxford schooled us on everything from our letters to classic literature, a winner of the Nobel prize had shown us the phases of the moon and precisely how far away the stars were that hung above our heads, and Wammy himself had shown us how to think outside of the box and create ideas that had never been considered before.

Mrs. Coppersmith, our housekeeper, had despaired of L's etiquette when we were being instructed how to eat at table and also my innate ability to know where a conversation was headed before it got there. I remembered a time when I was six years old when she had yanked the both of us out of the room at a dinner party scolding us in her raspy tongue about how no decent human being sat on a chair like a monkey in front of guests or acted like a blooming psychic in front of an MP. It was another of those not getting along with L scenes that I had ample supply of in my memories.

"I can't help knowing that he's going to talk about his prize horse, Mrs. C!" I protested as she deposited us in the kitchen to be kept under the watch of Alice the cook. "I just knew when he asked me if the children rode often here that he was going to bring up his horse!"

Her protuberant brown eyes narrowed at me as she struggled to make L sit correctly in his chair across the table. "And you said, "I really do not wish to discuss your horse, Lord Overmeyer." and he hadn't mentioned it at all! The man turned as white as a sheet! We don't need the neighbors thinking that you're otherworldly, Grace. Mr. Wammy runs a school for gifted children, not a haven for the supernatural! Aye, boy, sit straight now! Do you want to look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame when you're older?!"

L had calmly looked up at her reddening face and shifted his position. "Quasimodo had quite a few redeeming qualities. I wouldn't mind being like him."

She let go of his shoulders and panted heavily from her exertion. "Ah, Alice. They're yours for the evening. I've had it with both of them!"

"Just fetch your supper, Glynnis. I'll keep my eye on these two." Alice suggested lightly from where she was busy stirring a mouthwatering concoction in a wooden bowl.

Mrs. C agreed and with a final warning to be good, left us be.

I scowled across the table at L. "Now we won't get any dessert because you couldn't just sit like Mrs. C told you too."

"No, we're not getting dessert because you talked too much." He disagreed, fidgeting with the bow tie around his neck. "They'll probably ask you back into the room to tell the guests' fortunes."

I stuck my tongue out at him and turned my head away, making my auburn ringlets bounce on purpose. "You're mean."

"No, I'm honest, like you would be if you admitted that this is your fault."