CHAPTER TWO

december 17, 1970

     ROOMING ARRANGEMENTS ARE MADE like so: Esther doesn't want to be anywhere near Teddy Kountze, so they wind up in different rooms, and Esther also doesn't want Ye-Joon stuck with Teddy's racist ass so she all but forces him to bunk with her. Also on the side of not wanting to be around Teddy is Angus Tully, so he takes the third bed in the Left Room, leaving the last two beds in the Right Room to Alex and Jason.

     So, the six split in half at the end of the hall, bags in hand, to unpack in their respective living quarters. One of Esther's bags goes under her bed immediately — it's the smaller one, chock full of her skating equipment and she doesn't need any of that until she's actually able to go skating — and she plops the other, filled with her necessities, on the mattress. The only things she takes out are a small stack of books, a sketchbook, and a tin of pencils before shoving that suitcase under the bed as well.

     All Ye-Joon unpacks is a single paperback novel, and he situates himself in the middle of his bed, back against the wall, to read it. Esther puts her books on a little table between her bed and Angus' before hitting the 'on' button on the radio and rolling onto her stomach to mindlessly draw in her sketchbook. Angus, however, doesn't settle. He continues to sift through the contents of his bag, humming and grumbling under his breath.

     After a long pause, Angus storms out of the Left Room and into the Right Room, his movement catching Esther's attention.

"Where's my photo?" Angus questions, his voice travelling back into the Left Room.

"What photo?" Teddy asks.

Angus scowls. "I think you know what photo, and you stole it."

"I resent that baseless accusation," Teddy says, voice thick with false sincerity.

Angus barges into the room. "Give me my goddamn picture!" he demands.

Curiosity isn't just killing the cat anymore, it's throttling it and dangling it out a skyscraper's window. Esther clambers off her bed and strides across the hallway, arms crossed over her chest. She peers into the room, leaning against the doorframe to watch the action unfold. Alex scuttles out of the Right Room to join her in the hall, followed shortly by Ye-Joon, who delayed only to put a bookmark in his book.

"Hey, what's your problem, Tully?" Teddy questions, standing up from his own bed. "You homesick? Gonna cry?" he taunts, stepping closer and closer toward Angus. "Little boy misses his Mommy?"

"Fuck you, Kountze," Angus growls. "Why are you even here, anyway? Where's your family?"

'We're renovating our house, all right? It's all torn up. They're storing the tools and stuff in my room," Teddy explains, shockingly civilly considering his previous aggression.

Esther's face screws up as she holds back a laugh.

"That's what they told you?" Angus asks, clearly picking up on exactly what Esther had. "It's winter, idiot. Nobody renovates their house in the winter."

Ye-Joon tugs on Esther's arm. "You can stop them fighting, right?"

"What do you want me to do? Flash them my t— bra?" Esther responds, catching and censoring herself before she says something too vulgar in front of the kids. Plus, she isn't entirely sure how much she wants to break the boys up.

Angus bears down on Teddy. "Your parents don't want you around because you're a fucking insecure sociopath."

"Hey, take it easy, guys," Jason pipes up, lowering his book from in front of his face.

"A what?" Teddy asks.

Angus just keeps going, and Esther can't physically take her eyes off the drama. "I mean, who'd want you for a son? That's why you grind everybody. Because deep down you know you're an asshole." He scoffs and keeps. On. Going. "Plus, academically, you're a disaster. I mean, if I were your parents, I'd never want you home again. The only tool in your room is you."

For a brief second, nothing happens. Everyone stares wide-eyed at the brunet boy. Then, Teddy snaps, letting out a loud shout as he grabs Angus by the front of his white button-up shirt and drives him straight into the wall. He throws a good punch or two before pressing his other forearm into the side of Angus' face, smushing him against the cream-coloured bricks.

In retaliation, Angus shoves Teddy, sending him sprawling on the ground between his and Alex's bed. Teddy doesn't have a chance to stand up before Angus grabs him by the foot and pulls him out of the crevice, trying to get a good vantage point for another hit.

It's at this point that Jason jumps to his feet to break the boys apart. He has to shove Angus back into the wall and Teddy back to the floor to finally keep them separated and continues to stand between them even as Hunham arrives in the entryway to the room.

Hunham looks around, making eye contact with each and every one of the teenagers, waiting for an explanation.

"They weren't fighting," Alex supplies, though he's so tense that his shoulders are pulled up to his ears.

The teacher nods, disbelieving. "I see," he says. "And who started it? The not-fighting?"

Nobody says a word.

"Mister Tully, perhaps you could shed some light on the subject." Angus stays silent, breathing heavily. "Mister Kountze?" Teddy keeps his eyes focused on the wall behind Hunham. "Mister Smith?" Jason averts his gaze, hands on his hips. "Mister Ollerman?" Alex gulps nervously. "Mister Park?" Ye-Joon turns his head to look at the door. "Miss Yasui?" Esther makes direct eye contact with the teacher and shrugs. Hunham sighs. "All right, then, we'll do it like the Roman legions. Absent a confession, one man's sin is every man's suffering. For every minute the truth is withheld, you will all receive a detention."

Hunham pulls up his sleeve and starts looking at his watch.

"And I thought all the Nazis were hiding in Argentina," Angus mutters stiffly.

"Stifle it, Tully," Hunham says, glaring at Angus before looking back to his watch. "Now, in the first of said detentions, you will clean the library, top to bottom." He nods to himself as he concocts the punishment. "Scraping the underside of the desks, which are caked with snot and gum and all manner of ancient, unspeakable proteins." Jason's face screws up with disgust, and even Esther, who's had to clean up after many a skating injury and has dealt with abhorrent amounts of blood and blister fluid and pus, has to stifle a gag. "Ah, on your hands and knees, down in the dust, breathing in the dead skin of generations of students and desiccated cockroach assholes."

Nope. That's it.

"Jesus Christ, it was the racist one," Esther says, gesturing at Teddy as her stomach churns.

Mr Hunham claps once. "Thank you, Miss Yasui," he says. "Thank you very much indeed."

❈❈❈

Though the Barton Academy dining hall has ample space to sit at, Mr Hunham organises for the six teenagers to sit with him at the table closest to the kitchen door, and Teddy is the only one of them to have a problem with it. He sits as far away as physically possible, sulking with his hands folded on the surface in front of him, while the remaining five all bunch up nice and close to their guardian. Esther parks herself next to Jason, partially because he's the only one she's entirely getting along with so far, and partially because he's not sitting on the same side of the table as Teddy, and the pair trade jokes and stories, occasionally letting Angus in on the conversation.

Midway through one of Angus' stories about God-knows-what ( Esther zoned out a few minutes ago, having suddenly become fixated on picking at the pilling on the cable knit sweater she changed into earlier ), the kitchen doors swing open and shut, and Mary Lamb, the school's head cook, walks through with a large plate of food in each hand.

One dish contains a pulled-apart glazed ham, and the other has string beans and roasted potatoes. Esther barely waits a second to start preparing her plate — the last time she ate was in her car on the way over and that was only an apple. She wasn't too hungry at lunch, so she'd stayed tucked away in the Left Room while the boys went to eat, but now her stomach threatens to growl embarrassingly loudly. She gives herself a decent serving of beans and two pieces of ham. Not too much.

"Lovely," Mr Hunham mumbles before looking up from the plates to make eye contact with the cook. "Thank you, Mary."

The table falls silent as Mary leaves to fetch the rest of the meal. The rest of the teenagers fill up their plates, except for Teddy, who can't even reach the dishes. In fact, he doesn't even have a plate in front of him. The doors to the kitchen fall shut and Jason leans back in his chair to see around the back of Esther, making sure Mary is truly gone. "Didn't we already have this for lunch?" he asks.

"And it was crappy then," Teddy spits.

"Consider yourselves lucky," Mr Hunham says. "During the Third Punic campaign, 149 to 146 BC, the Romans laid siege to Carthage for three entire years." As he talks, Mary comes back out with a pitcher of water and a smaller dish of dinner rolls. "By the time it ended, the Carthaginians were reduced to eating sand and drinking their own urine. Hence the term punitive."

Esther wonders how many gross history facts she'll have learnt by the time she's back at home.

Mary sets the dishes down on the table and turns to leave again. "Mary?" Hunham says, stopping her in her tracks. Maybe you would, uh... maybe you would care to join us?"

The look Teddy throws at Mr Hunham is one of pure shock and disgust all at once. Esther is almost ready to throw her butter knife into his eye but she resists. Teddy drops the face almost as quickly as he makes it, but not until after Mary's had a good look at it.

She turns back to Mr Hunham. "No, I'm all right. Thank you," she says. Her voice is much softer than Esther had expected it to be.

Teddy watches her leave, waiting for the door to swing shut before opening his damn mouth again. "I mean, I know she's sad about her son and everything, but still, she's getting paid to do a job, and she should do it well, right?"

Esther can feel Jason tense up next to her. Everybody else at the table freezes, making the quiet room that much more silent. She swallows her mouthful of beans and leans over to him. "What happened to her son?" she asks, voice hushed.

"He got killed in the war."

Fuck.

Teddy goes on. "But I guess, no matter how bad a cook she is, now they can never fire her."

"Are you sick in the head or something?" Esther asks, like genuinely asks.

At the exact same moment, Hunham slams his hands down on the table, making the plates rattle and cutlery go flying. "Will you shut up!" he shouts. Everyone jumps, eyes wide. Even Teddy freezes and deflates, averting his eyes. "You have no idea what that woman has been thr—" He cuts himself off, taking a breath to stabilise himself, pressing both hands to the table. "You know, Mister Kountze, for most people, life is like a henhouse ladder. Shitty and short. You were born lucky. Maybe someday, you entitled little degenerates will appreciate that. If you don't, I feel sorry for you and we will have failed to do our jobs. Now, eat."

a/n:
welcome back to question time with eddiecube!

what's your favourite book that you read for the first time this year? mine is 'none shall sleep' by ellie marney. such a fun, gory fbi thriller. i absolutely FLEW through it and i can't wait to get the sequel.

published: december 25, 2024
word count: 2.1k