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Of course, there will have to be a lecture and a spanking later, but for the moment she lets her wayward charge enjoy the canine fruits of her criminality. Things will be hard for Storm at the finishing school. It will not be an easy adjustment. Trouble lies ahead, so why not, for the moment, allow her some respite from what must otherwise seem like a harrowing loss of freedom and harsh restrictions.
* * *
They arrive at Zermatt in the early afternoon. Sun is streaming across the village, and the Matterhorn stands majestically over the entire scene. This is a place of stunning natural beauty of the kind that erases all petty concerns. Storm no longer cares that she has to go to finishing school. In fact, she’s thrilled she came.
“Wow,” Storm breathes. “This is… so fucking cool!”
“Language,” Jane notes.
Storm looks confused. “You’ve never cared before if I swore?”
“You’re attending a finishing school, young lady. You may as well get used to regulating your speech.”
They walk from the train station to a small cable car that runs up the hill alongside the township, up all the way to a smaller settlement where the Birchbane Institute dominates the little mountain nook. There is a long driveway that goes in a fancy roundabout like all the best driveways do, and all sorts of trees and statues, and chess boards on the lawn. Storm muses to herself how very nice places always seem to have a slight mental institution vibe to them. It’s all the tight control in evidence everywhere. If so much as a leaf were out of place on any of this topiary, it would probably cause mass fainting spells.
The combined effect is an imposing and incredibly confronting sight, made even more so by the reception they receive. No sooner do they reach the big old front door than it opens and a lady dressed like she just stepped out of a movie about very fancy people greets them. This has to be the headmistress.
“I am Headmistress Liesl Lotte. You must be Miss Strict,” she says, greeting Jane first.
Storm takes the opportunity to assess the woman. The headmistress looks precisely as one might imagine her to look. She is handsome, and much like her institution, imposing. Her silver-streaked hair is done up in a complicated knot, and she is wearing just enough makeup to indicate she takes pride in her appearance, but not so much she appears vain. A fine line, but this place is all about fine lines.
Before Jane can answer in kind, the headmistress observes the scene before her, slightly perplexed. “I see you’ve brought us a stray, Miss Strict,” she says. “And a dog too.”
Storm laughs, even though it’s very much an insult, because it is funny.
“There are no student dogs allowed at Birchbane,” Headmistress Lotte says firmly.
“Then what’s the point of the place?”
Storm had actually planned to be polite and diplomatic, but that never really seems to work out for her, so why start now?
Headmistress Lotte turns her stare on Storm. It’s the sort of look that probably scares some people. It slides off Storm completely. “To learn manners, refinement, and etiquette, and in your case, to ensure all academic potential is not squandered on the streets of Basel.”
“Sure. But. Dogs are cool.”
Storm suspects the headmistress is secretly a dog person. Who isn’t? Only terrible people, and she usually knows when she is in the presence of a terrible person. This woman does not strike her that way. Repressed? Yes. Completely dead inside? No.
Kravik is sitting very nicely. He is arguably the better behaved of the two of them at this point, as he never barks back.
“I’m afraid, unbeknownst to me, Storm decided to bring her host family’s dog along on our trip,” Jane explains.
“Unbeknownst to you?” The headmistress gives Jane a subtle yet withering look. “That is not an encouraging sign for a disciplinarian.”
“Hey,” Storm interrupts on Jane’s behalf. “I’m sneaky as hell. There’s no way she could have known what I was doing. I planned it all out way in advance. I ran off and only came back at the very last minute before the train left, and he was in a bag, and the train was leaving, and I didn’t let him out until we were far enough along that there weren’t any easy stops. It’s not like she could have turned the train around, yannow?”
Headmistress Lotte receives this little confessional speech with a dour stare which she soon transfers to Jane.
“It will be instructive to see how you resolve this matter, Miss Strict.”
“His owners will be coming for him in a few days,” Jane explains.
“Or not,” Storm mumbles hopefully under her breath.
Jane turns to Storm and touches her under the chin briefly to get her attention.
“Storm, you do know Kravik has to go home, right? It’s where he belongs.”
There is a brief flash of pain in Storm’s gaze when Jane says home is where the dog belongs. Home’s not where she belongs, and if it is, as far as she’s concerned, he’s the closest thing to home. He’s always happy to see her and he’s never angry at her, and he has no expectations whatsoever. She has no intention of letting him go home in a few days, but she won’t say that, of course.
