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Storm shakes her head. “Yeah, nah.”
Sasha does not know what this means, but soon works it out from context when they go and play mini-golf instead.
* * *
Storm has entirely forgotten about the interaction with Jane by the time evening comes. She takes the tram from the city back to the suburbs which adjoin the countryside and wanders inside her host family’s house. She’s missed dinner, but that’s not unusual. That’s what chocolate is for.
She grabs the family dog, who looks like a cross between a Corgi and a German Shepherd and has had more walks with her in the last couple months than he has in any of the preceding years, and heads out to the forests behind the house.
Kravik runs off into the woods and Storm wanders through the trees until it starts to get dark, and then a little longer besides. The Swiss countryside is wide open, and at dusk with golden light streaming across rolling green hills there is a timeless stillness to the place. Kravik scoots by at full speed in the wake of a bunny that may or may not exist, and Storm breathes deeply without a cigarette for once, thoroughly enjoying the fact that there are no fences here. There is nothing to stop her from walking to the next village over rolling green hills if she wanted. She thinks about picking a direction and just walking in it until she can’t walk anymore. She thinks about getting lost properly and forever, never going back home, never being anything to anybody. The sunset has a magnetic allure that calls to her. She wishes she was brave enough, but knows she isn’t. She is going to end up doing what everybody else does, eventually. She’s going to end up back on the other side of the world in a uniform that bears the weight of a world of expectation. But if she holds out a little longer against the forces of those trying to make her conform, she’ll stay truly free, for now at least.
The growling of her stomach and Kravik’s slowing steps mean they eventually retreat to the domicile where she forages in the fridge for the omnipresent cheese board and bread, then goes to her room and watches television until she falls asleep. It has been a good day.
* * *
The next day there’s an English class. These are pretty much the only ones she attends, because she has the advantage of actually speaking the language it is conducted in. She catches up with a few classmates on the tram in and walks into class with them.
Class hasn’t begun yet, and everybody is talking, exchanging stories, generally enjoying a few minutes reprieve from their studies. Suddenly, everyone falls silent. All eyes are on the door.
Storm feels the hair on the back of her neck rising slowly as she observes the collective gaze go to the door and then back down to her. Whatever, whoever is behind her is looking at her.
All of this happens in the mere seconds it takes Jane to speak.
“Storm. Come with me.”
Storm freezes for a brief moment, hating that everybody is seeing this interaction. She takes a short, tight breath and replies.
“Sure. I’ll be there in a minute.”
“Now,Storm.”
Someone makes a sound that might be a cough or a laugh. Whatever it was, they quickly stop as Jane’s glance lances across the room.
Storm grabs her books and gets up. Jane is at the door, back in her formal attire, heels, skirt, blouse, and… ruler in hand? She might be measuring something, but Storm doesn’t think so. The ruler looks old and thick and heavy and well used, but again, not for measuring, or ruling for that matter.
Departing the classroom in Jane’s company, she says nothing. It is Jane who breaks the silence.
“Do you know how many times I have had to come to the campus to collect a student?”
“No.”
“Never.”
That word falls from her lips with stern weight.
“Has to be a first time for everything,” Storm says with a shrug, pretending to be immune to the grim energy emanating from Jane. She doesn’t like the feeling of being in this kind of trouble. It makes her uncomfortable. Makes it hard to breathe. Makes it almost impossible to think. She starts talking, hoping something improves her situation somehow.
“Look, it’s fine. I know what I’m doing. You don’t need to come here, you don’t need to worry if I’m in class or not. None of it matters anyway. Next year…”
“I’m not concerned with next year. I am concerned with this year.”
Things are safely conversational in the school halls, but Storm knows that things will change once they pass that threshold with the old wood door, and the big oak desk behind it. But that building is a good fifteen minutes away by tram, so for the moment she is safe.
She is surprised when Jane takes her into an empty office not three doors down from her class.
This time there is no preamble. Jane grips her by the nape of the neck and tips her forward over the back of a wooden chair that just so happens to be in the middle of the small office. This has clearly been planned and positioned in advance. Storm finds herself instinctively gripping the seat for balance while her hips press into the hard wood of the chair’s back. Behind her, the door shuts, a little too late to stop her from being potentially seen in this precarious position.
“When I tell you to come see me, you come see me. When I tell you to stop smoking, you stop smoking, and when you have class, you attend class,” Jane lectures.
