Jim - Three

Jim

            I had been looking forward to a shower all week, but the experience ended up not being worth much time. I was out of that room as fast as possible, though not as fast as Gabe, who had pulled off a pretty amazing disappearing act.

            The shower had put me in a bad mood and I sulked as I trudged along the wall of the far dorm. England sure wasn’t what I had thought it would be. Back home, we all saw Europe as a death trap, and, when I left Wisconsin, nothing could have sounded more exciting. But past the pile of rubble that was left of London, the country was turning out to be every bit as dull as the States.

            I was so wrapped up in my frustration that I didn’t notice the group of guys that had stalked out of the west block dormitories, and were now standing directly in my path. I recognized one of them as the a*****e prefect that had shown us to our dorm. He smacked another guy on the chest to get his attention and they all looked at me.

I bristled. My gut instinct was to turn around and avoid them, but it was too late.

“Oi!” one of them called to me. I stopped stupidly and they had me surrounded in a second. “You’re the Yankee, aren’t you?”

I swallowed nervously. Did that mean American? “Yeah.”

“So you’re one of the ones rooming down in the basement, then?”

“With the German”

“And the Jew”

“And the fairy”

I whipped my head around to try and figure who was actually talking. They were picking up each other’s sentences so fast I couldn’t keep up. “Well, yeah, the… wait �" the what?” I was confused. Did they mean Gabe? He was an odd guy but I hadn’t picked up on anything in particular that would lead to that conclusion.

“Never mind that, here comes the Jew.” I turned and saw Hersch coming down the walk towards us. He kept his head down and I could tell he was hoping that whatever was going on didn’t involve him.

“Hey,” a big guy caught him by the shoulders before he could get away. “Hold up, mockey, you’re not going anywhere.” Hersch thrashed towards the boy who had said it, but he couldn’t get there. “We’ve been at Wellington’s for a long time, and we don’t need people like you around turning it into a shithole.”

“But we’re going to give you a chance anyway,” another one finished. “Every year we test the newcomers’ character with a little challenge.”

“It’s usually for the first-years, but in your case, we can make an exception.”

“It’s nothing, really; just a little danger to see if you’ve got the balls for Wellington’s.”

I narrowed my eyes. “What are you getting at?”

“You’re going to break into Knight’s personal stash,” said the prefect, the obvious leader, “there’s a damn lot of whisky hidden up there and you’re going to take it.”

“What?”

“You heard me,” he nodded and the guy let go of Hersch. I wondered why until I turned and saw Erich coming out of the shower building behind us. Apparently there wasn’t a single person in the world he couldn’t intimidate. “This won’t ever happen again if you bring us the juice.”

“And if we don’t?” Hersch asked through gritted teeth. I could tell he was inches from lashing out and I seized his arm to prevent things from getting worse. But the prefect didn’t reply, just raised his eyebrows and motioned for his group to follow him back into the building.

Erich rushed up behind us, looking confused and disappointed that he hadn’t been able to catch what they had said to us. He asked what was going on. “Friend,” I said, for lack of a better word, “you’re never going to guess what we’ve gotten into.”

Erich jammed his hands into his pockets and looked down with his eyebrows knit together. “S**t.”

Reviews

[Dakota]

Erich enters and the whole mood changes LOL Jim keeps whining about how things are and it's starting to bother me. He needs to stop whining and start doing something. Never thought of the Jewish being descriminated against even in a county where they're supposed to be safe.

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[Coyote Poetry]

A strong chapter. I like the meeting of Jim with the old timers at this school. I like the appearance of Erich. Change the situation. Thank you for the excellent chapter.
Coyote