Grand Tour

“Hi Rhemir. No, not much of a problem. Mari and I have always sat here. We were just three minutes late to class and now she won’t get up from our seat.” She even toyed with her hair, batting her eyes at him. 




I shook my hair at her antics. Idiot girl. I didn’t give a shit who Rhemir or the ‘Kings’ were and he was certainly not going to get me out of my seat by just ordering it.




“If they’ve always sat here, I see no reason why two good friends should be separated. There is a vacant spot at my seat, do you mind joining me?” Angry chipmunk had been nodding in agreement until his question.




She sputtered in shock -I was stupefied by his offer too- but she recovered quickly. “That’s not necessary. She has already settled in and it’s not fair to make her get up again. You know what? Mari can sit here with them and I will take that vacant spot.” If she smiled any wider, her lip was going to rip in half.

Five seconds ago, she had been ready to physically drag me out of the chair and now she wanted to go with Rhemir.




“I’ve been watching you guys for the past five minutes. The entire time you were demanding for her to leave so you could sit with your friend and now you want to ditch your friend to sit with me? That’s not a cool thing to do.” He admonished softly. She flushed but Rhemir was already done rebuking her, and apparently with the conversation because he bent and picked my backup before tilting his head, “C’mon Kiera.” He turned and walked away.




Squelching my urge to chafe at his high handedness, I picked my pen -the only thing I had brought out before they descended on me- and quickly followed the disappearing form of Rhemir.




“Thanks for stepping in earlier, but this wasn’t necessary.” I mumbled as I sat down some moments later. Two rows separated us and he sat in the middle seat. “You share Sarah’s philosophy about middle seats don’t ya?”




He winked at me. “I believe that philosophy was mine initially.”




“Really?” 




“Yep. Are you looking for something?” I heard him but I had the presence of mind to only nod in answer as I dug through my backpack frantically.




“What is it?”

“My notepad.” It was new and I didn’t have a lot of drawings in it but I hated losing any of my sketches.




“I didn’t see any books when I took your backpack, do you remember where you had it last?”




I thought back to all my classes and tried to retrace my steps. I had it during Mr. Efa’s class but I didn’t take it out  in any of my other classes. I hadn’t even brought my favorite pencil that I drew with.




“The last time I had it was in mr. Efa’s class.I didn’t take it out after that.”




“Social Science?” I grunted in affirmation. “Once class is over, we will go search for it.”




His quiet assertion brought me up short. “You would do that for me?”




“Yes, why not?”




“Thank you.” I replied emphatically, feeling a rush of emotions I didn’t think I’d feel for someone I just met. At my old school, people hardly noticed me and those who did only took pleasure in my humiliation and the part they took in orchestrating it. And yet, here is this boy I just met today who isn’t interested in taunting me but wants to go out of his way to help me.




“The jerk!” I shrieked as I remembered exactly where my notepad was, or more accurately, who had it. That jerk had accused me of attempted theft butr instead turned around and stole my notepad.




“Kiera? Is there a problem?”




“I remember now. It was Jerkface. He took my notepad from me but he never gave it back. The nerve of that boy…” I was so going to relish giving him a piece of my mind.




“Why do you have such a problem with my cousin?” He stared at me in puzzlement.




“Oh, you are one of the ‘Kings.’” I made air quotes around Kings.




His baby blues cooled. “And what have you heard about us?”




“Nothing. Elen and Mari, the two girls you gave my seat, they were gushing about me eating lunch with the Kings. I know jerkface’s last name is King and you just called him your cousin, so I just assumed…” I wrung my hands together, not sure what point I was trying to make.




“It’s okay. So, today is your first day in St. Patrick?”




I latched onto the subject change like a lifeline. “Yes. Yes. I have never even left the country before our daring run to Wales.”




“Run?” He raised a brow at me in enquiry. “Who are you running from Kiera?” 




I shivered at the authority in his voice. Something about it was otherworldly -the same kind of otherworldly quality Sarah’s voice had taken when she ordered Jared to apologize to me and it threw me for a loop. 




“N-no. You misunderstand me Rhemir. I meant that we had to move here, but it was a spur of the moment thing.”




“Who moves from Los Angeles to a small town in Wales on a whim?’




“How do you know we moved here from Los Angeles?”




“News travels faster than wind within these walls.”




“True that.”




“So?”




“So what?” I played dumb and fiddled with my notebook.




“Why did you move here?”




“Because my mum needed a change of scenery and before you ask me, I can’t tell you why.”




“Alright, I will respect that. You’re not in trouble are you?” He asked earnestly.




“I’m not. I promise.” At least I didn’t think so. Frank had no idea where we were. Heck, I barely knew where we were.




“That’s good. So, what do you think of our school?” He asked, blatantly disregarding the teacher asking everyone to be quiet as the light was dimmed and the projector was turned on.




I leaned into him and lowered my voice into a whisper, “I think it’s the most confusing place I’ve ever been to.”




He chuckled richly even as he kept one eye on the teacher. “Welcome to Whitlock’s maze.”




Whitlock? Oh! The mystery dude Sarah was supposed to tell me about at lunch. Jerkface and Celyn had happened and I hadn’t been able to get any info about him.

“Sarah called it Whitlock’s puzzle. St. Patrick sounds like a catholic school name. I admit I haven’t been to a lot of catholic schools but none of them has been fashioned after an individual.”




“That’s another way in which we are special.” He flashed me an enigmatic smile.




I pushed his shoulder lightly. “Come on Rhemir, you can’t leave me hanging after such an enigmatic response. The school’s layout is very confusing and I want to know why. It looks like it was an asylum at one point.” I murmured to myself. 




His eyes crinkled as that smile graced his face again. It brought warmth to his eyes, making them pop and hard to look away from. “How intuitive of you. Yes it was an asylum, and an estate. This building has been here since the 1600’s but even the historians do not know which came first.”




“Which came first? Between what?”




“The asylum and the estate.” he stated simply. He glanced at the video playing on the board again. The sound of the speakers blared around us and the images of the video was the only source of light in the hall but I couldn’t concentrate on anything but his words. 

What can I say? I was a sucker for mysteries.




“Okay. Now I really want to know who this Whitlock is.”




“I’ll do you one better. How about a grand tour of St. Patrick and a history lesson?”




I sucked in a sharp breath. Really? That would be so awesome. I managed not to squeal through sheer force of will. “Yes, I would love that, very much.” I answered slowly, trying to be as steady as possible.




“Cool. Can we do that after class? I can barely concentrate on the movie right now.”




“Oh, I’m so sorry.” The differences between him and his cousin were obvious. 

Where Jerkface had shown blatant disregard for the teacher and class as a whole, Rhemir was very interested in what was being taught.




Oh, what did I know? I had only shared one clas with him. For all I knew, he was only taking advantage of Mr. Efa’s absentmindedness.