“Excellent, excellent.” He sat in the plush leather chair behind his vast desk and looked at me with a frown. “I’ll be honest, Jameson, You’re a bit, ah, smaller than I’d anticipated—no bigger than a first-form boy. But your father insists you be put into third-form classes. He says you’ve been well tutored in our subject material.”
“Yes, sir.” I tried to keep my voice deep and my eyes direct. “I, ah, get my size from my mother. She was very petite. But I assure you I can hold my own academically.”
He frowned again. “Let’s hope that you can. Considering that your father has paid two whole years tuition in full, I’m willing to accede to his wishes in this matter, despite the fact that you have no formal education to speak of. You, Jameson, will have the burden of proving that his faith in you is justified.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll do my best, sir.” I shifted uneasily in my chair. Father must really have been desperate to get Kristopher into the Academy if he’d paid such a large lump sum out of pocket. I hoped I was as far ahead academically as Kristopher’s tutors seemed to think.
“Very well then, you may go.” He nodded at the office door. “Pick up your schedule and uniforms from Hinks on the way out. And then send him in here—I have a task for him.”
“Yes, sir.” I nodded and got up quickly. Leaving the office, I closed the door quietly behind me. I was relieved that I’d gotten away with my deception so easily—apparently Headmaster Chauser just thought I was small for my age. But the punishment I’d seen still bothered me. I was certain I would get a much stiffer sentence than ten licks with the paddle if my secret was discovered. Well, I would just have to make sure it wasn’t. Lifting my chin, I went back down the hallway in search of the headmaster’s assistant.
“Here you are again.” Hinks smiled at me and handed me a stack of navy blue fabric, a pair of shiny black boots, and a disposable tablet. “Your uniform, boots, and class schedule for this semester,” he explained, nodding at the tablet. “Also your room assignment—here.” He held out a small black pad. “Press your thumb to that.” I did as he asked and the pad beeped once. “Excellent.” He nodded. “Now the lock is keyed to your print.”
“Should I get changed and report to class right away?” I asked, looking at the tablet with my class assignments uncertainly.
Hinks shook his head. “There’s no point—they’re almost over for today. Don’t worry about falling behind, classes have only been underway for a week—you should be able to catch up.”
“Thanks.” I nodded and started to leave but he stopped me with one long, slim hand on my shoulder. “Try it on.”
“What?” I frowned at him, my heart pounding.
“Your uniform—I need to make sure it fits.” He nodded at an open door to one side of the office. “Come on, you can strip down in there. Don’t be shy—I’ve seen it all.” The predatory look in his eyes made me suddenly nervous. And if I let him see me strip, my secret would be out.
“I…uh…” I began to back away from him but just then the headmaster’s voice echoed down the hall.
“Hinks, didn’t Cadet Jameson tell you I need you? Come here at once.”
“Oh, well.” Hinks gave me a pouting frown and sighed. “Just try them on in your dorm room and bring them back if they don’t fit.” With a last, lingering look at me over his shoulder, he scurried down the hall to the headmaster’s office.
Breathing a shaky sigh of relief, I gripped my uniform and boots and hurried to the entrance of the Administration building. That had been close. But why would he want to see me without my clothes? Did he suspect me of something? Had he seen through my disguise or was this something he did with all new students? As I beat a hasty retreat, I wondered if Hinks had decided I would be easy pickings because I was small and weak looking.
It was a troubling thought. Growing up as a girl, I had always been sheltered and handled with care because of my diminutive stature. The few times Kristopher and I went out into society, boys had been gentlemanly and careful of my fragile female anatomy. I had taken such deferential treatment for granted—it was simply the way things were done in Victoria, my home province. Now it occurred to me that the opposite might happen in my new life. My slight, weak appearance might make those who had treated me so gently as a female, decide to target and abuse me as a male. For the first time in my life, my slender body and petite stature was going to be a handicap, not an asset.
I pushed the worrisome idea away from me and went through the front door carefully. I peered around the Administration building, more than half afraid that I would see a still-angry Broward waiting with his gang of chain-smoking cadets to beat me to a pulp. To my relief, the entire area around the building looked deserted.
Good. Glancing down at my tablet, I looked at my dorm assignment. I was in the Goddard Building, fourth floor, room four-oh-eight. Squaring my shoulders and trying to look everywhere at once, I set out across the campus. It was time to see where I was going to be spending the next two years of my life.
Chapter Three
The Goddard building was a loud and rowdy dorm. As I walked up the long flights of steps leading to the fourth floor, I saw many of my new dorm-mates laughing and joking with each other. But their behavior went far beyond any male behavior I had ever seen in the few society parties Kristopher and I had attended. The Royal Academy cadets made rude remarks, told dirty jokes, passed gas, spit, scratched themselves in unmentionable areas, and punched each other frequently.
I tried not to stare as I went, but it was hard to understand their actions. Kristopher never acted like this—even in the privacy of our home he was always the perfect gentleman. I watched, bewildered, as one student grabbed another around the neck and rubbed his victim’s scalp vigorously with his knuckles shouting, “Noogies!”
“Let go! I give, I give!” shouted the other boy, but he didn’t sound unhappy. In fact, both of them seemed to be enjoying the rough contact. Why? It was a mystery to me. I wondered how in the world anyone could enjoy hitting someone else or getting hit. Also, how could they study with all this noise going on? Competing music blared from several different rooms, almost but not quite drowning out the masculine shouts and laughter of the roughhousing cadets.
I was relieved, when I reached the fourth landing, to see that most of the noise had been left behind on the previous three floors. There were a few doors cracked with quiet music coming from inside but no one was out in the hallways shouting or punching or giving ‘noogies'. Maybe this area was for serious students who genuinely wanted to study. I fervently hoped so, anyway.
Walking down the hallway, I read off the room numbers until I found the plain wooden door marked four-oh-eight. Above the door lock, which blinked red, was a small black ID pad. Remembering Hinks’s promise that it would be keyed to my print, I pressed my thumb to its flat surface and waited. For a moment I thought it wasn’t going to work. Then with a faint beep-beep-boop, the lock glowed a steady green as the door clicked open.
The room was deserted but it was clear someone else had already moved in. I looked with dismay at the personal items scattered around the room and the handmade quilt on one of the narrow twin beds. Hinks had never said anything about a roommate. In my naiveté, I had assumed that I would have a room of my own, just as I did back home. Was there going to be no place on campus I could relax as my true self?
Apparently not. With a sigh, I dropped my rucksack along with the pile of uniforms and boots on the unmade bed and went to look around. On a desk opposite the two twin beds was a small holo-pic, about the size of my palm. I picked it up and studied it.
It showed two boys, one clearly older than the other, with their arms around each other and smiles on their faces. The elder boy was tall and clean cut with dark golden hair, piercing blue eyes, and sharp, well-defined features. He had his arm around the younger boy who shared the same hair and eye color, making me think they must be brothers.
But something was wrong with the younger brother—he
was twisted somehow, his smaller body hunched in a strange posture that made me turn the holo this way and that, trying to see exactly what was wrong with him. Did he have some kind of mutation or disease? Such things were highly unusual now that almost any deformity could be cured in utero. So then why did he look like that? Why—?
“Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my room?”
I jumped and nearly dropped the holo-pic in my panic. Fumbling to put it back, I turned to see the tall golden-haired young man—clearly the older brother in the pic—standing in the doorway with a frown on his aristocratic features. He was even taller than Broward and considerably more muscular—I couldn’t help noticing that his shoulders were fully twice as broad as my own. In his earlobes studs of pure platinum and onyx winked, a mute testament to the wealth and privilege I could read on his face.
“I’m sorry.” I stepped away from the desk. “I was assigned to this room by the headmaster’s assistant—Hinks? Lewiston Hinks?”
He frowned. “Right, Kinky Hinky, I know who he is. But term has already started and they aren’t admitting any more new students. I’m supposed to have this room to myself to study.”
I frowned. “I thought I was going to have a room of my own too. It looks like we were both wrong.”
“We’ll see about that.” He glared at me. “I have to make the top ten percent on the Space Corps entrance exam to be eligible for their early officership program. I’m not going to let any runty first-form student spoil that for me.”
I bristled. “For your information, I’m third-form. And I’m trying to get into the Space Corps too.”
His blue eyes flickered over me contemptuously. “You’ll be trying for a while then, shrimp. They have a minimum height requirement, you know.”
“You—” I couldn’t think of anything bad enough to call him. Back on my home moon I would have accused him of being ungentlemanly but that was something a lady would say to a young man. I didn’t think it was an accusation a male could make of another male.
My new roommate didn’t seem to care that I was tongue-tied. “I’m going down to the Admin building to get this straightened out so don’t get too comfortable.” He pointed a finger at me. “And don’t touch my things.”
“Don’t worry,” I shot back, finally finding my voice. “I haven’t had my disease prevention booster yet this year. I wouldn’t want to catch anything.”
His face darkened. “What you’re going to catch is my fist in your teeth if you keep it up, pipsqueak.”
“Don’t call me that.” I put a hand on my hip. “Just because you’re some overgrown excuse for a terga beast—”
“Hey.” He took a step toward me, his blue eyes narrowing. “You’ve got a big mouth for such a little guy.”
“At least that’s the only big thing on me.” I lifted my chin, glaring up at him. “Unlike some people who seem to be too big all over. Have you had your pituitary checked lately? There are treatments for gigantism, you know.”
“What are you talking about?” he demanded. “There’s nothing wrong with me. Everyone in my family is tall.”
“Are they all stupid too? Or is it just you?” I raised an eyebrow at him. “Is that big brain of yours having trouble getting oxygen way up there?”
“You little—” He took a warning step toward me and I dodged away.
“That’s right, I’m little. And you’re big. It doesn’t feel good to be mocked because of your size, does it?” I snapped.
For a moment he stood there glaring at me. Then, without another word he turned and strode from the room, slamming the door behind him. It banged against the wooden frame and rebounded, hanging halfway open so I could hear his angry footsteps going down the hall.
Great. Just great. I sank down onto the unmade bed beside my rucksack and buried my face in my hands. I hadn’t even been at the Royal Academy a whole hour yet and already I had made two enemies. Two very large and angry enemies.
What’s wrong with me? I wondered, running my hands through my short hair. I never had this much trouble when Kristopher and I went out in society before. Why am I having so many problems now?
Well, for one thing the rules of polite society didn’t seem to apply here at the Royal Academy. It was its own little world. And for another, it was obvious I just didn’t know how to deal with men—not as one of them, anyway. I would have to study the cadets around me and try to do better. I would never last two years at this rate.
I don’t know how long I sat on the side of the bed feeling miserable but it seemed like an eternity. I wanted to cry but I held the tears back grimly. I had promised myself to end my weak, girlish behaviors and nothing was weaker or more girly than giving in to emotion. Taking a deep breath, I stood up to start unpacking. Hinks had assigned me to this room and I would be damned if I’d let my arrogant, overgrown new roommate throw me out of it just because he didn’t want to share.
I placed a few mementos of home around the room, feeling a lump in my throat as I unpacked the small sound cube that held some of Kristopher’s best practice sessions on his violin. No crying, I reminded myself again as I made up the bed with the stack of clean sheets I found in the single small closet. I hung my uniforms up beside the much larger ones already there but found no place to store my underthings or the folded clothes I’d brought from home.
Shrugging my shoulders, I gave up for the moment because I needed to use the fresher. I felt sticky and tired after my long journey in the crowded shuttle that morning. Maybe I should take a quick shower now, while my new roommate was out? No, it was probably too risky—he might come back with Hinks and the headmaster to settle our rooming dispute at any time. Sighing, I decided I would have to remain unwashed until he was in bed and sound asleep. In the meantime, though, I needed to answer the call of nature.
But when I opened the door which I had assumed led to the fresher, I found only a shallow space filled with shelves. A few stacks of folded clothing and a spare pair of shoes about three times as large as my own were sitting neatly on two of the shelves. Two others were empty so I took the opportunity to finish unpacking my rucksack.
Though my storage problem had been solved, another was growing. To put it delicately, I really had to go. Where in the fifteen moons did they keep the stupid fresher around here? Maybe there was a communal one somewhere along the hallway which I had missed when coming up? That wouldn’t be optimal but at this point I was willing to go just about anywhere.
Closing the room door behind me, I started off in search of someplace to relieve myself. I thought of knocking on one of the open doors and asking some of the other cadets but I decided that the less attention I attracted, the better. I was glad of my decision once I wandered past the staircase and found what I was looking for on my own.
A wide, open archway at the end of the corridor led to a large, echoing room where the floors and walls alike were both covered in blue and white tiles. There was a row of urinals to one side and a few enclosed stalls at the end of the line. Across from the toilet facilities was a row of sinks and mirrors, apparently for shaving. I hoped I wouldn’t have to explain to anyone why I wasn’t growing whiskers. Maybe I could say I had some kind of hormonal imbalance.
I used one of the stalls and was about to go back to my room when it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen any bathing facilities. Where did the cadets take their showers? A small hallway led away from the main bathroom area. My curiosity got the best of me and I followed it around a corner to see if I could find the shower stalls.
The hallway led to another large tiled space but no curtained-off showers or bathtubs. I was mystified—how did they keep clean around here? Then a flash of dull silver caught my eyes. Looking up, I saw a showerhead embedded in the tiled wall. And another and another, at two foot intervals all around the square room. Beneath each showerhead was a temperature control knob and there was a single large, circular drain in the very center of the floor.
My heart sank. It was a co
mmunal shower! Though I looked everywhere, there were no other smaller, enclosed stalls for private bathing. How was I ever going to be able to take a shower? Even if it was deserted in the bathing room, as it was now, there was no privacy. The minute I shed my clothing and the bandages wrapping my breasts, I was vulnerable. Anyone who entered the bathroom would discover my secret. Not to mention the fact that I didn’t want to take a shower out in the open in a place where a lot of naked men might appear at any moment. What was I going to do?
No answer presented itself and I decided I would have to think about it later. Turning away from the disheartening sight of the communal shower, I made my way down the narrow hallway that led to the main fresher area again.
But when I rounded the corner, I found that my way was blocked. Broward and two of the other cadets I’d seen him with that morning were standing shoulder to shoulder, cutting off my escape. I looked behind me but the shower area was a closed room. There was no other way out of the fresher and no one else in the fresher area to ask for help. I felt my stomach clench like a slick fist and my heart started pounding frantically against my ribs.