by C. L. Stone
Victor’s heart sunk. “We’re still here until then.” Luke had rolled a chair up next to Victor, only backward, and leaned against the back of the chair with his torso.
Gabriel sat behind them, tilting a chair back against the wall so he balanced on two legs. He rocked a bit, knocking his chair into the wall as he spoke. “We know they took the money. Check their accounts.”
“It’ll be a secret account,” Mr. Blackbourne said. “And we can’t go look for where it might be—at their homes—until their investigation is over. And I can’t find a replacement for myself until we find it. With the money back, we can correct everything without spending eons in courts. We got lucky they were arrested on different charges, but I’m hoping they’ll keep quiet until we can restore the money.”
They were all quiet for a moment, considering the consequences. Even now, after everything they’d done, had they earned their favors to graduate? More importantly, this school was in desperate need of that money. Kids could be killed in those dangerous busses.
Mr. Blackbourne seemed to understand their thinking and continued, “We’re fixing everything as quickly as possible with what we have. We’ve cut off the selling the food out the back door scheme. We’ve ordered new busses, but in the meantime have borrowed busses from other districts to decrease the overcrowded capacity, and have cut off fraudulent claims on sports teams and cut back on the fake salaries. Finding the money to replace the money we’re borrowing would be the final step to get everything fixed.” Mr. Blackbourne shook his head and then touched the corner of his glasses, assuring they were precisely as they needed to be. “How is everything?”
“Not the best,” Luke said. “Kota and Gabriel and I were out to see Lillian yest—”
“Do we really need Mr. Buble around?” Gabriel asked overtop of Luke. “I mean, let’s cut to the point. What’s the deal here with a manager? What do we need one for?”
“A new potential member and the ungraduated require adult supervision to be available at all times. Mr. Buble is a stand-in. He’s here to help find new suitable housing and to assure our team’s safety, and he does it without costing a favor.” Mr. Blackbourne threw them all a stern look. “I hope you haven’t been impeding his progress in any way.”
“We’re not in his way,” Victor said. “But Kota was concerned about telling him about... Sang... and what she means to us. And he now knows she and I are dating, but I didn’t tell him the rest.” Mr. Blackbourne opened his mouth to respond to this but Victor hurried to finish. “I think we should tell him. He doesn’t seem worried about if she’s in a relationship, only that we can work together even if something happened to the relationship.”
Mr. Blackbourne frowned softly and raised a brow. “Is there a concern about something happening to this group? Something that would detract from Miss Sorenson, and her future plans, including her desire to join the Academy?”
Victor paused, unsure. “I don’t... I don’t think so.” He checked with the others for answers.
Gabriel shrugged. Luke didn’t move, his eyes going toward the ceiling as if considering... who knows what.
“Doubt casts doubt,” Mr. Blackbourne said. “I don’t like to hear of it.”
Luke snapped himself out of his dazed expression. “Lillian said Mr. Buble told the Academy everything about them back in the day. Kota and I think we should be more careful, and not mention as much as possible.”
“Can she not graduate with us?” Gabriel asked. “If she’s not on the team yet?”
“She can’t graduate if she’s not a member, and she has to finish trials, which she’s in the middle of now,” Mr. Blackbourne said. “So if you want her to graduate with the team, I’d suggest supporting her in every trial and not get in the way.”
“What does that mean about... us?” Victor asked. “How much do we tell him?”
Mr. Blackbourne leaned back in the chair, taking his glasses off and rubbing at the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes. “We don’t lie to the Academy. However, you’d only report anything if you believe it would be to her detriment to this team, her joining, or likewise. The Academy disdains being told nitty details of otherwise private information. That’s not their purpose.”
Victor understood. “So we don’t announce if it doesn’t appear to be a problem.”
“If you believe it to be a problem, you should say so.”
Victor pursed his lips and shook his head vigorously. “No. Not a problem.”
“Then there’s nothing to report to him,” he said. “We won’t stand in her way, and the relationship she has with whomever she desires isn’t a crisis of concern.” He hovered a finger, pointing at their direction. “So don’t get in her way.”
Right. That was why when Mr. Buble asked about Brie, that’s what he was worried about. Since Brie wasn’t a real concern for anyone, he had no real problem with Victor and her dating. He just wanted confirmation that there wouldn’t be drama or any weirdness happening that would hinder Sang... or himself from the Academy. “Maybe... maybe you can put off finding the money for a while...”
“Doing my best,” he said in a low tone. “But I can’t do this forever.”
Victor smirked. Mr. Blackbourne was always ten steps ahead of them. Victor spent a few hours already in this office, breaking into drives and recovering data for him so he could get to what he needed. The others took turns doing what he asked, without questioning too much so they wouldn’t distract him. It took a team to make this job happen, but Mr. Blackbourne brought it all together.
“How long do you think we have?” Gabriel asked.
“Likely the end of the school year. After that, I’ll have to hand over authority to whoever takes my place, and those interviews are starting. If we want to earn those favors for this job, this means we need to find the money and put it back before then, and she has to be a member to graduate. So end of the school year, I have to stop slowing myself down and find it. Likely they won’t touch the money until after or it’d be too obvious, especially after they were let go and the police are watching. So you have that much time to get her to member status, ready to graduate. Otherwise we have to completely finish the job and she’ll have to take her time on other jobs.”
That sounded like a good plan. So in a way, Kota was right. Getting her graduated with the team guaranteed she’d be a full member... and they couldn’t take it back even if they found out about the relationship afterward and it became a concern. Victor was right, too... only he didn’t need to be so eager to tell Mr. Buble.
The relationship wasn’t a problem. It wouldn’t get in the way of her graduating. It was just hard when Mr. Buble seemed so nice and he’d be around for a while most likely.
It was odd. Victor was ready for it to take a while for Sang to graduate, however... Mr. Blackbourne seemed to think she would graduate with the team.
She should get the favors for her part in the school project. It was only fair.
“I hope I didn’t... cause a hinderance,” Victor said. “Mentioning to Mr. Buble... He sort of caught us unaware.”
“I haven’t heard of any issues,” Mr. Blackbourne said. “Although, downplay it... just for a little while. Dating, but not boyfriend status yet.” He motioned to the others. “I know it’s happened, but I’m afraid we’ll have to restrict sharing beds for the moment, at least if not alone. Don’t do so while he’s still around, not unless it’s an emergency and limited bed space. Check your surroundings before doing anything he’d ask about. I’ll talk to Miss Sorenson when I get the chance.”
Not what Victor wanted to hear, however, it was better than an alternative. At least there was an end in sight, and the sooner they found a house and were secure, Mr. Buble would be around a lot less.
Shifting priorities. House. Prove to Mr. Buble they didn’t need him around too much. Get Sang to member status. Graduate. It sounded so simple, but there was so much to do. And they only had a few months to complete it all.
And they
still had Volto to contend with, among other things.
Glissando
(A continuous sliding from one pitch to another)
Sang
Mr. Buble drove us back to Goose Creek where Ashley Waters High School was still holding classes. It was late enough in the day that busses were parked out back, waiting for classes to be over. The brown block building with its dead, bare bushes around the base now had matching January brown dead grass surrounding it.
We parked right next to a black Jeep, North’s, I assumed, in the faculty parking lot.
“You two head inside, if you don’t mind,” Mr. Buble said to Kota and Nathan. He then turned fully in his seat to look back at me. “I need to have a follow-up conversation about favors and make sure we understand how they work and so on.”
I waited, not as eager to go inside. I was still in more comfortable sweatpants and hoodie, a more casual combination than I’d ever worn to school before, even before going to Ashley Waters. I sort of hoped we stayed outside long enough that students left and if we had to go in, we could do so without so many of them there. I don’t know why, but even the uniform seemed a better option.
Mr. Buble turned to face the windshield but still spoke to me after Kota and Nathan had gotten out of the car.
“Do you now feel you’ve earned your favor for Victor?”
It was kind of fast, but there was a sense of a job that was done. “Should I be the one to meet up with them?”
“Unless you’ll continue to be there for them for the next few weeks, it’s not something I’d recommend you do,” he said. “Likely we’ll find someone who has the time.” He reached for the rearview mirror and adjusted it so we could look at each other. “But you didn’t answer my question.”
Still, I wasn’t sure. “I think I’m confused as to what to value, as far as a favor. It’s very vague.”
“You know how it works, don’t you?”
“I choose how many favors I earned,” I said. “I take them away.”
He nodded. “The reason it is hard for you is the same reason you’re being selected for tryouts for the Academy. We seek people who desire to help others and simple favors, like babysitting in an emergency, while highly valuable, can also be asked within our Academy without asking for a favor. Because some favors are... simplistic. But it’s up to the individual.” He paused and smiled a bit, the first I’d seen. “While we tend to encourage our younger members to accept such tasks and favors for them, the older you are, the more we appreciate when you’re willing to help without asking for anything in return.”
“Is that why you don’t take favors for helping us?” I asked.
His smile lifted a bit more. “I think you’re getting the hang of it. Eventually you have so many favors, you don’t need to keep count. We don’t really, after a certain point. It’s a guideline when starting out. It allows us to realize when we’re asking too much and need adjustment. It’s important in the beginning, but what happens when you’ve got five hundred favors and you’re still helping and completely taken care of at home with nowhere to spend a favor? Do we quit? Or do we work without asking more?”
I felt better about that. “I’ll take the favor for Victor this time,” I said. “Not that what I did wasn’t worth it, but because... I’d rather be able to do the whole job, too. And earn my way up. And I’d like to get to a point where it’s not important to get more favors. I just want to help.”
He nodded, looking away from the rearview and out the windshield again, toward the school. “We help ourselves as needed, and then help everyone else as we can. That’s all it is. We try to balance. Were there any problems while on the job? Besides the mask?”
I wondered why he asked me alone, but I understood he was trying to help guide me in some way. “I was nervous.”
“But you managed? You were nervous last time. Enough that you called in help. You did do this by yourself, yes?”
“Kota came up with the idea of the tour, in a way,” I said. “Otherwise I think I would have simply walked around. And he, I think, spotted the two. I might have but he spotted them first.”
“Reasonable amounts of help,” he said. “You’re not always expected to go in alone. We actually want to stay together when possible. It can help to have an extra set of eyes.”
“He encouraged me to do the approach on my own. He watched, I talked to one of them.”
Mr. Buble continued to listen as I went over what I did in more detail. “I think even though I was nervous, I just tried not to think about it.”
“Science believes humans are one of the only creatures on this planet that are self-aware, and some to the point to where it can become a distraction. We stop focusing on the task, and consider ourselves, our feelings, etc.”
“So, it’s normal?”
He nodded. “And you did the right thing by trying not to think. That self-awareness, while important, can wait. Focus on the moment. We can work on techniques to help you refocus on what’s important, what is right in front of you, instead of thinking inward about being nervous.”
I nodded slowly, considering things like how Kota sometimes counted to himself when he was stressed. It was how he focused. Maybe I needed something like counting, too.
He paused and I thought he was about to suggest we go inside. I even put my hand on the door, ready to go.
“One more thing,” he said.
I released the door. Waiting, wondering if there was another thing to earn a favor for.
“I don’t know if Victor had a chance to talk to you about his party the other night. The girl, Brie, he was with.”
Brie? It felt like ages since the party, but I remembered her, the girl who seemed much more familiar with what was happening and was upset with us for not being there on time for Victor. “She’d been helping him that night,” I said, not that Victor told me, but that was what I assumed. I was grateful someone was.
“The next morning, there was an article in the newspaper,” he said. “Reporting that they were dating...”
I blinked rapidly. Victor had warned me about things like that. In the past, the newspapers would make assumptions on who you know and what was going on in your family. I never read the newspaper, at least not about local society details.
“He told me to never web search his name, once,” I said. “The newspapers... they don’t really know.”
Despite saying that, my heart was pounding and I knew my cheeks were red and blushing. Why was he bringing this up?
“I don’t want to start any problems and I believe him,” he said. “I do need to make sure things like this... it can hurt a team. If you’d caught the newspaper article or... saw her and him together that night pretending to be a couple, even if it’s a lie...”
My chest tightened. “Pretending to be a couple?”
“He was under the impression that his mother and father would let up on him if he showed he was interested in someone they wanted him to date.”
I forced myself to bite my lip to not frown, trying to appear like I was okay with that.
For several months now, when I’d gone to the Morgan house, she made it noticeably clear she saw me as Victor’s friend... if that much. Despite him saying otherwise, even to her.
Was this why he didn’t want to see them again? He was so reluctant to even live nearby them.
How long did he want to hide that we were dating? To the point that he tried to pretend to date Brie?
“I don’t think he did the right thing,” Mr. Buble said. “A relationship shouldn’t be a secret, not from people he will likely have to revisit over and over again. He couldn’t pretend forever.” He looked again at me in the rearview. “I can tell you think the same way.”
I said nothing, pressing my back against the seat. I didn’t want to admit it. I understood... I could see where when pressured he might try it. His mother was a force, and he was always trying to be compliant without crossing too many lines. However, it was a line too far.
It was like he’d given up trying to show we were together and simply tried something else. Suddenly, that night, the whole coming face to face with his parents then and not being aware... it changed my idea of that night. My name wasn’t on the list...
My heart burned. Uncomfortable. I’d felt that way before, with them, like when a girl wrote her number on Luke’s arm.
Mr. Buble spoke, breaking up my thoughts. “However, with you under my care, I didn’t want to ignore it. When you’re in a relationship, you have every right to say what is okay and what is not. Asking you first would have been ideal.”
I nodded. It was like he knew what I was thinking.
“And it’s okay to say no to ideas that aren’t... smart.”
“Right,” I said in a small voice. But what did I expect to do? And it was more complicated since we were all dating. He was saying things like being open about relationships... when for us it was completely impossible. He did see Victor and I together that one night. I assumed he made the connection we were dating and this is why he was alerting me and making sure I would be fully aware of the situation around Victor.
And giving me dating advice? That was unexpected.
Not everyone would be like Erica. Kota’s mother had listened when Nathan and Kota told her we were all dating, except even she had doubts. Victor could tell his parents we were dating, but then what happened when someone snapped a picture with me and someone else? Victor was a public figure, popular. It was bound to happen.
Maybe he was thinking ahead... I wanted to believe he had good intentions. But then he left his home, so what happened now?