He took it and she squeezed hard. He returned the grip. “Hi, Ingrid,” and Ingrid’s face paled. He breathed in a soft fragrance, something above her normal scent, a perfume, he imagined.
“And this is Yvette, all the way from Cambridge; she too is a new addition, she will be studying law with Ingrid.”
He took the slightly-built brunette’s hand and said, “How do you do?”
Her scent was strange, unusual, not like other girl’s. No fancy perfume at all, and she just smiled and blushed slightly beneath her light olive skin, which was a shade less than Jason’s.
“And this is John. He arrived from across the northern border last week, our history student.”
John may have been older, but not taller, his black hair was cropped short and his skin was sallow, and Jason noted the forced smile and suspicion in the other’s eyes as he looked Jason up and down. He held out his hand and the grip was rather weak and Jason released it as soon as he said, “Hello, John.” He also noticed the absence of natural body odour, replaced by some exotic smelling deodorant.
The other didn’t answer, he eyed Wednesday and said with a heavy Scottish accent, “I’ll show him is room.” He looked at Jason and said, “Follow me.”
He took Jason to the top floor, and opened the first door in a long corridor, “This is it. Evening meal is at five, you should find a blazer in the wardrobe to fit you, the last one here was about your size.” With that he walked away and Jason wondered at his hidden body odour, apart from the artificial one all he could smell was his clothes, all made of cotton and his leather shoes.
Jason entered the room and his breath caught. The place stunk of some sickly smelling deodorant. He dropped his case and rucksack on the bed, rushed over and opened the window quickly, sliding it all the way up.
The meal was a frugal affair, but nourishing. It consisted of a plain, mixed salad, spit-roasted chicken-halves and whole-wheat bread with milk to drink. Each individual served themselves from the buffet at one side of a large room that contained one massive twenty-five metre-long wooden table, with over three dozen ornate, straight-backed chairs.
Over two dozen pupils, all several years younger than Jason, sat at one end of the table, some in small groups, and others in pairs. A boy and girl, siblings by their looks, looked up at him and nodded, others busied themselves with their meal, apparently finding eating a less arduous task than facing a complete stranger.
He took his place near the other end and watched as Ingrid and Yvette entered. They waved to him and after filling their plates they joined him, one on either side.
Yvette said, before they sat down, “We will join you, if you please.” She looked at the other pupils then asked him, “How old are you, Jason?”
He noticed her slight French accent and replied, “I’m twelve.”
Yvette’s eyebrows rose slightly, “I’m twelve too, though you appear much older, I would have guessed fifteen or sixteen, John is fifteen and Ingrid is thirteen.”
He smiled at each in turn. “We grow up pretty fast in our family.”
Ingrid looked at him from under her eyebrows, her voice softened as she spoke, “You are quite strong too. Do you do much sport, athletics maybe?”
Jason eyed Yvette who, for some reason, was grinning and he told Ingrid, “I grew up on a dairy farm, lots of milk and eggs. I like to run and swim, and I have no other sports.”
“There is no pool here,” said Yvette.
He asked, “Is there a river or a lake nearby?”
Ingrid said, “There is a river, but we don’t swim there.”
He smiled, “That’s good to hear, that there is a river nearby I mean. I shall go swimming there. Would you care to join me?”
Ingrid looked at Yvette and said, “I have no bathing suit, what about you?”
Yvette shook her head, “Unfortunately, no.”
He shrugged. “Neither do I, I always go in the all-together.” The girls frowned and he said, “That’s what we call it when we go swimming. We don’t wear anything.”
They both giggled. “That sounds so invigorating,” said Yvette.
She looked at Ingrid, who said, “But it is too cold now; we will wait until summer. Then we will come with you.”
He emptied his mug, and then said, “I’ll be going anyway. The cold doesn’t bother me that much, I always take a cold shower every morning, winter and summer, so what do you say, are you coming?”
Yvette looked at Ingrid and said, “I am going with him, are you coming too?”
He rose up with his empty plate, cutlery and mug and walked over to the table and set them down with the others. Ingrid eyed Jason as he walked back and he heard her whisper to the other, “Maybe, but just to watch, I’ve never seen a boy without his clothes on.”
Jason returned and pushed his chair back under the table and said, “In half an hour, I will meet you at the front door,” and strode off.
As Ingrid left the dining hall with Yvette, she said, “I’ll see if John wants to join us.”
Yvette said, “You have your eye on him, do you not?”
“Don’t you like him?”
“I hardly know him and I do not go chasing after boys, I let them chase after me.”
“Well all the boys here, except for John are much too young for me, the oldest is eight.”
“Yes, high-minded geniuses the lot of them.”
“I’ll see if I can find John.”
“I’m going for a swim with Jason whether you come or not.”
“Oh, now who’s chasing after boys?”
“Me, in a sisterly sort of way, I like to have fun and he sounds like fun, see you later.”
“If John declines I’ll go practice basketball in the gym,” she said and watched Yvette saunter down the corridor. Ingrid missed her home in Germany, she missed the countryside, the hills where she would walk with her friends for hours. Maybe she could persuade this Jason fellow and John to go walking with her and Yvette.
She found John in the library; he was reading a book on Napoleon Bonaparte. “Hello, John, found something interesting?”
He looked at her then peered behind her.
She hid a smile. As I thought he would be, he’s expecting Yvette to be with me.
He confirmed her assumption by saying, “Where’s your friend, the French girl?”
Her eyebrows rose. “You mean Yvette; she’s gone swimming with the new boy.”
His brow dropped. “With Jason?”
“Yes, they’re going swimming in the river, I thought you’d be interested, we could make a foursome.”
His forehead creased, she could see he was struggling with something. “I, er, don’t swim all too well, I, er, actually, I don’t see any fun in it. Anyway the water will be too cold.”
“Jason doesn’t think so.”
He closed his book with a slap, startling her. She called out as he walked over to the bookshelf, “We can watch if you like.” She gazed through the window. “It’s nice and sunny outside. What do you say?”
He came back with another book titled, ‘Napoleonic Wars’. “Is Yvette definitely going?”
“Yes, so are you coming?”
He sat down at the table. “I have to read this first,” he added, “It won’t take me long, just under an hour.”
“Okay, I’ll be in the gym, basketball practice, pick me up there.”
She left him sitting there, flicking the pages over every ten seconds or so, ‘speed-reading’ they called it. She could do it too, storing facts and figures, but not always, as she loved to read about the criminal side of people. She read trial transcripts in the way others would read an enthralling novel. But she hardly read fiction, she preferred law books. She’d studied German law and passed all the exams for university, but she told her parents she wanted to study English law. Her parents, both lawyers, agreed. With her high reasoning abilities, and her qualifications, her parents had no problem finding a place her here, a college for talented youngsters. The school had over
thirty pupils and ten teachers, most of them professors. Her tutor was a kindly man who was, in her eye, a walking encyclopaedia on any subject concerning British law.
She made her way back to her room and dressed in her summer shorts. She loved basketball as she considered netball too slow and anyhow, the other female pupils were much too small. She pulled her T-shirt over her head, with any luck she would find Mrs Donat, the girl’s American athletics teacher there and they could play their usual one-on-one game together.
Ingrid didn’t show up, but the sky cleared and the sun made a welcome appearance as Jason and Yvette made their way across the fields, their towels rolled up under their arms. She told him, “Ingrid has little crush on John, but he doesn’t seem to want to know. He is our friend though, she said she would ask him to come with us, but she didn’t turn up as you saw, and she did want to come - even though it was out of curiosity.” She giggled and he remembered Ingrid’s words, then she said, “I will race you,” and ran off.
He caught up with her and to his surprise she increased her pace, he remembered his dad’s words and stayed with her. They ran downhill towards the river, and came to a stop by a huge oak tree, its roots reaching into the water. Both of them panted for breath, as Jason kept up the pretence. There they saw a small, sand and pebble beach and undressed quickly, with Yvette giggling once more. They stepped down from the grassy bank and splashed quickly through the shallows and dived headlong into the still, dark water together. Yvette came up gasping and spluttering, next to him. “Mon Dieu, it is freezing, this water, it is very cold.”
She swam away from him quickly, her small frame gliding through the water. He smiled as she hurried through the shallows and made her way onto the bank where she grabbed her large bath towel. She wrapped it round her shoulders and sat on the grassy bank, shivering.
He followed her out and looked down at her, hiding a smile. He indicated the oak tree with its low-hanging boughs. “I’m going to climb up that tree and jump from as high up as possible. Come with me, the climb will warm you up.”
He ran off towards the tree and swung up into the branches. Yvette stood up, undecided, then she dropped her towel and ran after him, calling out, “Wait for me.” She reached the tree and tried to grab one of the lower branches. “Hey, Jason, where are you, I cannot get a hold, the branches are too high.”
She heard a chuckle and a hand appeared from out of the foliage and then an arm as Jason reached down to her. She took hold of his wrist as he grabbed hers and he whisked her up through the foliage.
He grinned at her as she squatted on a sturdy limb next to him. “I knew you’d change your mind.”
She eyed his muscular shoulders. “You’re quite strong for your age.”
“It comes from healthy food and living in the countryside,” he said. “So, why did you come?” He asked.
She brushed a lock of wet hair from her brow. “I did not want to be alone, so lead on, Jason Treeclimber.”
Leading the way out of instinct, climbing the boughs easily as one would climb a ladder, he looked down and watched as she climbed up after him, copying his every move, grinning cheekily. They climbed until the sturdy boughs became thinner, and found a place where they had a clear view of the river’s surface. “How do you feel,” he asked as she joined him.
“Much warmer, thank you, the water is not all that cold, I am the big soft baby today.” She peered hesitantly down at the river below her and asked him, “So, do we have to jump, or shall we climb back down again?”
Stepping onto a slender bough, he took several paces, stopped and held out his hand. “Are you afraid, here take my hand, we can jump together.” He saw her eyebrows rise as he balanced easily on the bough without a handhold. In spite of her outward show of anxiety he could not sense any inner fear at all. “Come on, stop kidding, you’re not scared at all,” he said, smiling.
She smiled and edged along the bough towards him and gave him her hand. They moved along slowly and the bough curved downwards under their weight. As they reached a clearer place the wood creaked alarmingly. He grinned at her. “It won’t break, come on,” then he said, “Shush, someone’s down there.”
Then they heard a distant voice, “Hello, Jason, Yvette, where are you?”
It was Ingrid, standing some way off, then another voice, John. “What are you doing, where are you, have you drowned, maybe?”
“Let us now jump,” Yvette whispered.
They poised together then leaped off the bough, which sprung back into place with a whoosh. They hit the water cleanly, feet first, together and sank to the bottom still holding hands. Yvette looked at him and placed a finger to her lips, and then grinned. Jason knew the others would have heard the splashes, but may not have seen them hit the water and would now be wondering what they were playing at. Yvette tugged at his hand and they swam close to the small beach and waited.
They waited for a while, peering through the surface at Ingrid who was searching the river surrounds; while John sat there, staring straight ahead, his eyes invisible behind his dark sunglasses.
Yvette pointed upwards, she exhaled some and Jason pulled her to him, she frowned as he placed his mouth against hers, she pursed her lips to kiss him and he blew some air into her mouth. She looked at him in surprise and Jason pointed at his lips. She came closer and with his mouth on hers he emptied half his air supply into her lungs.
After several more minutes, Yvette pointed to the surface and they rose slowly and swam to the shallows. They saw John and Ingrid sitting on the grass talking, both dressed in shorts and T-shirts with the school logo printed on the front. John still wore his sunglasses and Ingrid a large straw hat.
They stood up together and Yvette shouted, “Boo, surprise!”
Ingrid’s head spun round, her mouth agape and she shouted, “What the hell, where were you, we thought you had wandered off somewhere when we saw your clothes?”
Yvette told her, “Come and join us, the water is quite warm.”
Ingrid looked at the pair standing waist deep in water. She rose up and undressed in record time. John stood up and seemed at a loss, he watched as Ingrid took a leap and landed beside the others. She came up gasping, just as Yvette had and with much the same expression. She said as they burst out laughing, “Very funny, ha, ha, ha,” and pushed a strand of hair from her eyes. She looked at Yvette. “I suppose you jumped from that tree. We thought it was trout when we heard the noise. Anyway, where were you hiding all the time?”
Jason caught her eye and shook his head slightly; Yvette smiled and said, “We were watching from upstream, we thought you weren’t coming at first.”
Jason said, “Let’s climb the tree and jump together, then we can hunt for trout.”
They waded to the bank and John eyed Jason all the while.
The three climbed the tree and as soon as they reached the place where they had jumped from. Jason and Yvette joined hands with Ingrid, who after a moments hesitation called out. “Let’s do it.”
They hit the water with a tremendous splash, and sank down to the sandy bottom. They looked about them in search of trout. Jason spied one and swam after it.
The two girls waited as long as they could and returned to the surface. They saw John sitting there looking miserable. They looked downstream, in the direction Jason had swum off in, hoping to spot him.
While waiting for him they swam around some, chasing each other, playing ‘tag’ underwater. After a while they climbed out breathless. Yvette shared her towel with Ingrid and as they were drying their hair they heard a shout and saw Jason approaching along the bank at a run, a large trout in either hand. Yvette clapped her hands and jumped up and down, “Whee, fish, let us roast them on a fire.”
Jason said as he came to a stop before them, “Yes, let’s make a fire,” then he asked, “Has anybody got any matches?
“I have,” said Yvette, “But I am getting dressed first, the water was warm, but the air is not so,” she said, “I love candle l
ight, I have many candles in my room.”
Jason recalled her scent from earlier on, So that’s it, it was just candle smoke.
The three dressed quickly and after finding deadwood they made a fire on a patch of bare earth.
Over half-an-hour later with the late summer sun sinking behind the tree tops, the four of them picked at the roasted trout, which soon disappeared down hungry gullets. John licked his fingers and said, “Jason, You and Yvette were under water for a while, almost ten minutes, how did you manage that?” He removed his sunglasses, perched on top of his head, and held them out for inspection. “With these I can see below the surface, I saw you both approach and hide not far from the shore.”
Ingrid, her mouth agape, joined in, “Really! Did you have an air tube?”
Silvermoon. A Tale of a Young Werewolf. A YA Novel. 12-18 Page 4
