The Dorm Guard

*

The majority of my things were to be sent to the place where I was staying, so I wasn"t so much worrying about them as I worried about where said place may be.

I went to the supermarket to grab a couple of things for my new job, so my handlebars endured the weight of three plastic bags. I knew the dormitory I was staying at was out of the main town and in the pine forest. I wouldn"t call it isolated, but it wasn"t exactly close to anything from my knowledge of it.

It also meant it was supposedly easy to find.

The pathway that led to it was dirt which looked like every other dirt pathway around the pine forest and up the mountain. I found myself standing before a path up the mountain at one point. Everywhere looked the same! I became convinced I pa.s.sed a lot of the same trees.

There were only a handful of houses throughout the forest, yet I managed to find every other home in the area. I saw one house that belonged to a lovely old couple holidaying for the week who helpfully guided me to the student dormitory I was trying to find. A shake of the hand, a thank you, name exchange and a flower from the woman, and was off once more in search of my dorm.

I was going to be a "Dorm Guard," whatever that may or may not have entailed. I expected it to be like that of a Dorm Mother, or in my case Father. It was a position my Mother urged me to accept as part of my scholarship community service. All scholarship students required to do one form of maintenance, service or donation to the school, as a means of making sure the scholarship students weren"t getting everything for "free." I could understand this on one level and respected that we didn"t have to do anything overly strenuous, but I didn"t understand why my Mother and the school recommended I be a Dorm Guard.

Furthermore, I didn"t know why a Dorm Guard was needed.

I managed to find the dormitory. It was a gorgeous, huge house. There was something elegant about the polished wood that stood in the form of an impressive two-story building, with stain gla.s.s windows which reflected an array of colors from the setting sun. It had a large yard decorated with some pine trees and other low hanging trees with a swing set tied to one of the lower branches. A half in half brick and metal fence surrounded the whole property.

As my bike came to a stop, I scanned the surrounding trees and path for any other houses or a sign of the school. Nothing. "How far away from the school is this place anyway…?" I wondered.

I approached the gate to the dorm. It was an extravagant pattern of leaves and flowers with a simple lock the side of my fist.

I didn"t have some friends in this town, but I haven"t seen any of them in years, so I don"t know if I can still call them friends. I at least hoped some of the guys in the dorm would be willing to watch movies or maybe ride bikes.

I looked at the sign on the opening gate which read; "Dormitory 200-210." The school I was to attend, White Winter Prep School, has their symbol of a fox with two swords crisscrossed behind the fox head, which presented itself proudly on the face of the gate. I could hardly remember the story of the fox and the swords the school had based the emblem on, something about cunningness and bravery.

I saw my suitcase at the front door of the building and approached. I wondered why my stuff was out on the porch but dismissed the thought as I rested my bike against the wall of the building. I only just noticed how big the house was now that it was in front of me.

The door had a cold bronze knocker, and it pulled an ugly face at those who approached, with red stone eyes, large thorns and uneven teeth that snarled at visitors. I found it an amusing way to be greeted. I grabbed the ring that hung from its mouth and tapped it against the door. The knock echoed through the wood on the veranda and prompted the m.u.f.fled speech of people inside. They sounded like girls.

I took a step back from the door and waited for someone to answer since someone was home and heard my knock. But the noise grew louder, someone was yelling, and it sounded like the voice didn"t want someone to answer the door.

I heard the door click, and it was pulled open. A girl opened the door, a pretty, young girl, but her elegant features and golden blonde hair wasn"t what got my shocked attention as it was her lack of clothing. This girl was only wearing a thin lilac singlet and swirled pink undies. She had ashen skin, but certainly not sickly. The lightly dressed girl shocked me, making me make an extra effort to lift my eyes beyond her head and straight to the ceiling, my cheeks flushing from embarra.s.sment for her as she seemed unfazed by a stranger seeing her half naked.

She rubbed her eyes and yawned, stretching her arms above her head as she eventually looked at me with some alertness. "h.e.l.lo, can I help you with some-" She was cut off by someone, yelled at about it too.

"What the h.e.l.l are you doing, your highness!?" she snapped. Her red tangle on her head seemed to stand on edge, like a messy bush, something I suspected to be a result of some stress. "You can"t just open the door dressed like that! What if someone sees?" She seemed to remember that I was at the door. Turning to me, she squealed and slammed the door in my face.

I stood there dazed by what had just happened. I could hear m.u.f.fles through the door followed eventually by, "Sorry, we don"t want to buy anything!" Some more bickering and silence followed it.

"I"m not a salesperson…" I mumbled.

With my cheeks still flushed I pressed my hand to my face to hide it. "What the h.e.l.l did I just see?" I grunted as I turned around and sat on the step, cringing. I rubbed my eyes and pinched my nose, trying to blink away that image, but my attempt was interrupted by a question; why did they think I was a salesperson?

Didn"t they know I was coming?

I looked over my shoulder and knocked on the door physically.

n.o.body answered.

So, I knocked again, this time getting quite annoyed.

I didn"t realize I was quite tired from the day and having had that rude introduction I was quite ready to snap back at them. n.o.body answered my knocks again. More annoyed, I bashed on the wood.

Another girl, slightly smaller answered the door, but around the same age. Her cheeks were a frustrated red, her light blonde hair tied back into very loose buns. "What"re doing?!" she snapped, her voice had a shrill that halted my intentions of yelling to hear hers. "We told you we weren"t interested, and we will not be interested. Now get the h.e.l.l out of here before I call the police on you, pervert! For cripes sake, this is a girl"s dorm! Rack off!"

My eyes widened. A girl"s dorm… A girl"s dorm!

In my shock, I left the girl at the door, who undoubtedly watched me run back to the gate to check the sign.

Surely not.

Surely this wasn"t.

"Dormitory 200-210 of White Winter Prep School." The building was my dorm. This dorm is where I was meant to be. Right numbers, right school logo imprinted on the plate, and indeed a building, the only building for ages.

Then I saw it; Dormitory 200-210 of White Winter Prep School. Dormitory housing for girls.

*

My Mother was a manipulative creature indeed.

It took my mother, a call from the school and a lot of convincing to tell the girls who lived in this dorm that I was supposed to be there. They had indeed heard that I was coming but didn"t know I was a boy.

My Mother and the school urged me to take this job as the Dorm Guard. The girls had a.s.sured that the guard would be someone they could trust, so they automatically a.s.sumed I would be some underdog woman. One girl even went so far as to wish to describe me as an ex-war veteran often hired by the government to moonlight as an a.s.sa.s.sin.

They certainly had high expectations for me.

I managed to get past the first barrier of the house, that being the door, and stood in the front room. It seemed to be a room dedicated to connecting rooms. There were three doorways to my left, two on my right, a few on the back wall and a stairwell that led to the upper rooms. The house seemed much bigger than the outside let people believe.

When the girls seemed to calm down about my presence, they seemed to have a somewhat nicer, while hostile, demeanour about them. One girl, the girl with tangled hair, ushered the loosely dressed girl from the room before introducing herself to me between pants.

"I"m…" pant "Riley…" pant "Simmons." She seemed to catch her breath with a great sigh. "Riley Simmons, Princess Estelle"s advisor," were her exact words before she scurried off after who I a.s.sumed to be Estelle.

Another girl, the one who yelled at me and called me a pervert, stood before me to introduce herself. "I"m May. May Richards to be more specific." Shaking her hand, I noticed how strong her grip seemed to be. She wore a very modest long sleeve white dress and tights, and her hair was now pulled out from their little pigtails to show they were a longer length then I was led to believe, stretching down to an inch or so from the top of her shoulders.

She gave me a smile and a nod. What confused me the most, however, were the words she spoke soon after. "I"m the translator."

I froze mid-shake, "Translator? Why do you need to translate?"

She raised an eyebrow with a chuckle. "So you"re telling me you can"t read or do sign language and brail?" She sounded disbelieved, but this was the first I had heard of this.

"Why would I need to know either?" I asked.

Her amus.e.m.e.nt turned to shock, but it turned into a one-off laugh. "For this chick," she explained holding her wrist up, there was a small ribbon bracelet with a somewhat oversized golden bell swinging from it. Her small movement released a ring that echoed in the s.p.a.ce. I didn"t know what this symbolized or what this was supposed to mean, but I heard movement. Their footsteps were smothered by whatever carpet was upstairs, but noticeable nevertheless.

May looked up the stairs and shook her wrist, making the bell coo further. The more she shook her wrist, the louder and longer the noise became. I could feel it, almost see it, bouncing from one wall to the next.

What followed was similar to that of a princess scene. A girl, golden brown hair decorated in a sparkling golden dress peering over the railing of the stairs. She seemed very pose with her movements and stared down at us with curiosity, but I could sense some annoyance behind the princess façade she showed.

May started moving her hands, making gestures with her fingers as she spoke. "Robyn this is our new dorm member…" she paused her words and hands at once, halted by her thoughts. "What"s your name again?"

I rolled my eyes. "Landon. Landon Becks."

She nodded and was about to continue but froze. "How do you spell that?" she asked.

I was at a loss for words as I glanced up at Robyn at the top of the stairs, leaning on her elbows, she stared down at us with a small smile, but absent eyes.

*

The Dining room and kitchen were all in one place. Like the whole house, it maintained the wood scheme and matching furniture. The windows a teal green, the table dressed in blues, and the kitchen decorated with a mixture of both colours as stone countertops.

While an elegant room there was also a modern feel to it, which, while somewhat out of place, was refreshing to this house"s style.

Robyn was making tea in the kitchen, against my offer to make her some. She had since gotten out of that odd dress and into more casual clothes of a jumper and shorts. While she was in the kitchen, May and I sat in the dining section.

It turned out Robyn was almost entirely deaf, a detail my mother neglected to tell me. "So she can still hear?" I asked.

May nodded as Robyn approached. "A little." Robyn placed the mugs on the table while May brushed back some locks from Robyn"s ears so I could see these clear and blue hearing aids. "She was born almost completely deaf, correct?" Robyn nodded as she sat down. "Since she wasn"t, it allows her to hear enough to read lips," May explained. Despite her words, she used her hands to speak as well. "So you don"t have to learn sign language," she informed dropping her hands and just talking, "But since she"s also mute it helps when you want to talk to her when I"m not around."

I nodded as I sipped the tea. I complimented it, to which rewarded me with a smile from Robyn. Her smile disappeared as she raised an eyebrow and started signing. She wasn"t looking at May; she was staring at me as if we were having a conversation. But I couldn"t understand what she was saying.

May, however, spoke while she signed. "Aren"t those bags outside yours?" she translated.

I jumped in my chair and ran out of the room to get them. I could hear May giggling as I left.

I pushed open the door and sighed at seeing my suitcases still there. I grabbed the handle of one and gave a jerk of strength to move it up one step. The bag itself weighed more than the things inside it. I was about to begin dragging my baggage inside when another figure caught my eye.

On the swing, I saw a little girl swinging back and forth, not with much effort as she seemed to be reading and eating something. The girl wore a denim dress with white lace sewn in to create the illusion of a belt and floated above a pair of brown boots, with the sun setting, her pale blonde hair seemed almost see-through.

It was Jade Eyes!

I called out to her, gaining her attention. She looked at the noise and saw me wave. She didn"t seem shocked at my presence, but instead closed her book, hopped off the swing-set to collect her boots and started walking around the house, hardly acknowledging my attempts to call her over. She ignored all the way until she was out of sight.

"That was odd…" I thought aloud as I re-gripped the bag"s handle.

"I see you just met Mia," someone said.

Their sudden voice made me jump, making me face two people in the doorway. I was immediately confused by these people. There were two of them, they looked the same in both dress and looks, leaving me to think they were twins. What stumped me, however, was how gender neutral both seemed to be. One wore long dark brown trousers and a simple white shirt, and the other a mirror image but with shorts. While they had short statures and were small and pet.i.te looking, they were flat chested and could"ve easily pa.s.sed off as a pair of boys. Each had ebony black hair, and each had their hair in these oddly masculine pigtails on top of their head. I couldn"t tell if their hair was short or not from this choice of hairstyle, but something about each of them contradicted their genders.

"Don"t expect her to say much," one informed.

"She doesn"t talk to newcomers," the other added.

They sounded the same. The twins" voices as ambiguous as their attire. Low enough to be a young boy, high enough to be a young girl.

As a result, I ended up staring, my mind trying to categorize who these students before me were.

"Oh Amada, he looks so confused," one stated.

"Well Amia, everybody does when they first meet us. It means it still works," the other replied.

The two shrugged and left me at the door. I abandoned my bag to follow and cut the two off from walking. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Whoa…" The two of them stared at me oddly but folded their arms and waited for me to say an actual sentence. "What are you guys?" I asked, "Girls? Guys?"

One of them scoffed, "Are you trying to a.s.sume our genders?" one of them stated.

"The nerve of some people, so inconsiderate," the other added.

I could tell they were teasing me. The twins chuckled, "One of each," one informed.

"Boy and girl."

"Twins since birth."

"Confused all since the days we could walk."

I tried to blink my confused away, but that made it no better. One of each? No, they were toying with me.

They introduced themselves as Amada, the boy, and Amia, the girl. But after they introduced themselves and gave my mind a chance to allocate a gender, they started circling me, my eyes losing track of them and causing confusion once again. "Until next time my good sir," one informed.

They walked past me, one on each side, before returning to each other to go down one of the hallways.

"The Twins," someone called.

I turned to see May sitting at the bottom of the stairs. "You"ll get used to them," she continued, "They like to trick people with their names and looks. They enjoy people getting frustrated." She pushed herself to her feet. "What they say is true though, Amada and Amia are the twins of the family who consult gun deals and such." She stood before me, heaving a sigh. "You never get used to it, so I suggest you save yourself some headaches."

She patted me on the shoulder on her way past. "This yours?" she called dragging my bag inside.

I nodded but took the bag from her. She walked outside and rolled my bike in. "We have a garage out back that would be better than just leaving it outside," she informed.

I nodded to her as she rolled the bike through the house. She left me for a few moments as she went to put it in the garage and came back to guide me to my room.

"So… who else is there left for me to meet?" I asked.

She hummed. "Well… there"s me, Robyn, Estelle, Estelle"s stick in the mud advisor Riley, Amada, Amia, Alexis, Mia, and Bonnie."

These names went over my head.

She seemed to notice this and offered a verbal bio. "I am a translator for Robyn, Alexis, and Mia. Estelle is a proper princess, Riley her advisor while she is at school. Amada and Amia, as I already said, twin daughter and son of important consultants. Alexis is blind but is a scholarship kid for her artworks. Mia is a young writing prodigy with a high IQ but a low EQ and hasn"t said a word since she was seven, and Bonnie is the daughter of billionaire William Ranks."

William Ranks set off alarms bells even for me. He was one of the most influential men in the politician and trading community. He handled some of the higher-cla.s.s trading corporations across the world.

"Although I should warn you, Bonnie is disabled," May informed, "She was in a car accident a couple of years ago and lost all mobility from her hips down, so she uses a wheelchair." She sighed, "She was in rehabilitation, but I don"t think she does it anymore."

I stopped in my tracks at this information. Was that girl the same girl from the windmills?

Then again, Mia was Jade Eyes so it very well may be the same person.

"I see you"ve already met one of the dorm girls," May informed.

"What?"

"Mia? That little girl. I saw you waving to her, so you must know her," May informed. "Looks like you get around Lawson."

I shrugged. "It"s Landon, and I wouldn"t say know her as I did-" That girl"s request came to mind.

Could you please not mention I was out there?

I adjusted what I was going to say. "I saw Bonnie in town, helped her out with something. It wasn"t a big deal." I sighed, "At least not to her. She didn"t even acknowledge me."

May chuckled. "Don"t take that seriously, Dawson. She doesn"t talk to a lot of people; she"s practically mute. When she gets shy and stuff she won"t even be in the same room as people," May explained. "She is only eleven of course."

"Landon…" I grumbled. "You said she was a prodigy, right? Why is an eleven-year-old going to a high school?" I asked. "What the h.e.l.l is an EQ?"

May raised an eyebrow, "Because she"s a prodigy in writing. She excels in cla.s.ses that she takes, and was personally asked by White Winter Prep School to attend here. And EQ stands for Emotional-Intelligence Quotient, it pretty much just means emotional intelligence. Mia is brilliant, but she can be crude at times and very absent with other people"s emotions." She turned to me, "Don"t hold it against her, she is working on it."

I was overwhelmed by the sudden information drop. May stopped in front of a door, "I believe this is where you"ll be staying," she informed. "All the rooms don"t have a lot of personal effects so feel free to what you please with it," she informed.

I grabbed the door handle and opened it. Like May said, the room was devoid of personality. It was a large square room with a King Bed in the centre of the opposite wall with two side tables, a desk by the window, two doors that swung open to reveal a closet, a footlocker, a lounge chair and the colour scheme of every warm colour.

It was larger than the bedroom I had at home.

"Wow…" was all I could muster saying as I looked around. "It"s cool," I stated.

May nodded, taking a few steps in the room. "Hope you don"t mind, I took your bookcase from your room... if you want I can give it back," she informed.

I looked at her and the small doorframe. "How did you…? No, it"s fine. I"m not the biggest reader," I admitted.

I smiled and nodded. "I"ll let you get settled in then." She exited my bedroom.