There was a knock on the door to our dorm room.
Natty and I exchanged an irritated look. Neither one of us was prepared to deal with a visitor just then.
We were each of us stretched out on her own bed, on top of the covers. Face-down, for obvious reasons, and with our panties rolled down, in a somewhat pathetic attempt to cool our smarting backsides.
In the aftermath of my 'little talk' with Headmistress Stuart, I was not in the best of moods. And, judging from the expression on her face when she returned from her own interview with the headmistress, neither was my roommate.
"Who is it?" Natty called.
"Nancy," came the answer from outside.
Natty sighed. "Come in, then."
Nancy stepped inside and and shut the door behind herself. She looked at us.
"The head spanked you, then."
"Nice guesswork, Sherlock," Natty grumbled.
"Yeah, that must have been a real hard one to figure out," I added.
Did I mention that we were both feeling kind of grumpy?
Undaunted, Nancy stepped closer to inspect our butts.
"A slippering, huh?"
When neither of us deigned to reply, she asked:"So, was it worth it? I mean, whatever the two of you did while the rest of us were waiting inside the bus."
I looked at Natty. It was her decision, whether or not to tell her friend what had happened. Or how much of it to tell her.
"Well, it is not a big secret or anything," Natty said. "We visited my old orphanage, to find out stuff about my past."
Nancy perked up. "So what exactly did you find out?" she inquired.
Natty proceeded to tell her everything, including what we had learned about the strange young man who had delivered Natty to the orphanage, fifteen years ago.
"Do you figure that guy was your father?" Nancy asked.
Natty shrugged. "I have no idea. Actually, I'd rather that he wasn't my father. I mean, imagine your own father dumping you at some orphanage."
"I don't know. But I guess he must have had a pretty good reason to act the way he did." Distracted, Nancy wrapped a strand of her hair around one of her fingers. "Can I have a look at that signet ring? Maybe I will recognize the crest or the coat of arms on it."
"Sure, it is in the top drawer of my desk."
Nancy retrieved the ring and examined it. She whistled softly.
"That's the Firth family crest, I think." She laughed. "Just imagine, I had to learn all that crap when I was only six years old. They made me memorize all the bloody family crests and coats of arms of British nobility."
Natty looked up, intrigued. "So what does that mean?"
Nancy shrugged. "It could mean that the guy that delivered you to the orphanage was a Firth. Perhaps a black sheep of the family, someone who had joined the IRA or something. Ms Alcott said he had an Irish accent, right? I don't know if there really exists an Irish branch of that family, though."
"Is there any way for us to find out?" I asked her.
"In principle, I could ask Ian Firth, or maybe his father, if they know anything about it. They visit my family's place fairly often. Heck, I could even invite you guys home over the weekend so you could show them the ring and talk to them, yourselves."
"That would be awesome. But why do you say 'in principle'?"
"Well, you know how I am not on the best terms with my family." Nancy made a face. "Like, I try to avoid visiting them as much as possible."
"What's wrong with your family?" I asked.
"It's difficult for me to explain that to you, since you have never met them. My parents are the very image of stuck-up arrogant aristocrats. Everything is about proper manners and looks and rules and regulations, back home."
"Even worse than here at St. Albert's?"
"Much worse. Ten times worse. No, a hundred times worse."
"Sounds like hell."
"It is hell," Nancy observed glumly. "That's why I never go home if I can avoid it."
"Couldn't you make an exception, for us?" Natty asked.
"I guess." Nancy sighed. "I'll call my mother to see if I can invite you over the weekend."
She yawned, and consulted her wristwatch. "Let's go and have dinner, shall we?" She cast a dubious glance at our reddened butts. "Or would you guys rather skip dinner?"
"Nah, I don't think so." Natty reached back to pull up her underpants.
Dinner proved to be a different kind of hell. In case you are wondering why: suffice it to say that you were required to sit on your butt, for almost three quarters of an hour.
When that ordeal was over, I went outside alone to talk to Sara and Mira on the ansible.
I entered the park. It looked beautiful at this time of day. It was dark already, but a full moon was shining, illuminating the old trees and the lawn.
I tentatively sat down under an oak tree, but quickly got to my feet again. I retrieved the ansible from where I had hidden it under my blazer and activated it, initializing a connection.
"Catherine," my Temporal Instructor greeted me. "You are calling at an unusual hour."
"Cathy! What's up?" Mira's voice cheerfully chimed in.
"The moon is up," I told her, a bit curtly. "And so am I."
"It is not that late, is it?" Mira commented. "Just half past eight, right? So why wouldn't you be awake this early in the evening?"
For convenience, it was standard procedure for the ansible connection between a temporal explorer on a mission and their home base to be set up synchronized with respect to the time of day. Thus, the local time was half past eight both for me here at St. Albert's and for Sara and Mira in the 23rd century.
"I was referring to the fact that I am standing here, leaning against a tree," I muttered ungraciously. "I am not exactly comfortable, is all that I am saying."
"You sound grumpy again, Cathy," Sara's grad student observed. "I don't see why you ... Wait a second! You got in trouble again, didn't you?"
"I don't know what you are talking about."
"You got spanked again by your tutor, didn't you?" Mira insisted.
My cheeks grew hot.
"If you must know, I was plimsolled, by the headmistress."
"Come again?"
I sighed. "I think the proper term would be 'slippered'. The headmistress used a plimsoll rather than a slipper, though. To beat my ass."
"Ouch," Mira commented.
I heard Sara clear her throat.
"Fascinating as all that may be, it is hardly worth discussing that on the ansible line. Catherine, I presume you did not open a connection merely in order to tell us that you were plimsolled, or slippered or whatever, today."
"No, of course not. I would not have brought it up if Mira had not ..."
"Catherine, would you kindly get to the point, now?" my Temporal Instructor demanded.
"Yes, certainly. I am sorry." I took a deep breath. "I contacted you to report on what I learned about Natalie's past, during our school excursion to London."
I proceeded to tell them about our visit to Natty's old orphanage, and to her old mentor, Thea Alcott, and what Thea had told us about the strange young man who had delivered the infant Natty to the orphanage, about fifteen years ago. I also described the signet ring and the tiny wristband with the crossed lilies and the label 'I 41'.
"On September 25, you said." Sara sounded intrigued. "What year was that, again?"
"If it happened fifteen years ago, that would make it 1950. I am not entirely sure if Thea said 'fifteen years ago,' or 'about fifteen years ago', though."
"No matter. Mira, we will need to run a distributed search on the Grid. Let's find out if anything noteworthy that happened around that date has been recorded. Also, we need to see if we can get anything on the patterns and writing on the wristband and on that ring."
"I shall get to that right away." Mira sounded pretty excited, too.
"You have done an excellent job, Catherine," my Temporal Instructor concluded. "Just try and stay out of trouble, if you can. We do not want you to be expelled from St. Albert's before you have finished your assignment."
"Oh, I don't think they are going to expel me, exactly," I said. "Just, you know ..." I broke off, embarrassed.
"I am not overly concerned about the administration of disciplinary measures such as spankings here, Catherine," Sara clarified. "As long as you do not get expelled, we will be fine."
Easy for you to say, I thought. At least she appeared to be happy about my performance on my first temporal assignment, so far.
When I returned to our room, Natty was stretched out on her bed again, propped up on her elbows and reading. She looked up.
"Cathy! Where have you been?"
I shrugged. "Outside in the park, to clear my head."
"And for a smoke, huh?" Natty grinned and focused on her book again.
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A / N : Thank you for taking the time to read this chapter. As always, I am looking forward to read your thoughts and comments.
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