The Clocks

December 03 in The Year 721 After the Founding

"Mother, I've finally decided on my first choice for my secondary school."

"Oh, what's that Jason? I thought you were planning on coming to Ingvold."

"Well, yes I was, but, to be completely honest, it's too stodgy for me. Nobody there has any fun. All they do is study. People have to play at least some of the time, don't they?"

Akane had heard worse than "stodgy" used to describe her institution, so she ignored it. "And where do you want to go to school Jason?"

He started bouncing in his chair. "Chapman School. I've been checking them out. They have a new course in advanced mathematics and science that they're planning to carry through all six years!"

Akane grinned at him, and might have fist-pumped had she been alone, but it was totally unladylike, and Jason would invariably have asked her why she'd done it. At any rate, this was going much better than she'd anticipated, and he'd come up with it himself. Now she wasn't going to have to maneuver him into going there.

"It's a good school, but it's not as prominent as several others. How did you hear about it?"

He smiled at her. "After the wedding."

"Wedding? What wedding?"

"Oh, didn't I tell you? It was the wedding reception after Yoko and Hibiki's sister married Paolo Donetti."

Akane frowned. "And what were you doing at a reception I didn't know anything about."

Jason looked puzzled. "But Mother, I was the one invited. Why should I have told you about it?"

This time Akane almost facepalmed, but once again Jason would have asked her why, and she didn't want to go there just then. "Jason dear, normally a child's parents like to know where they're going. That way if something urgent comes up, oh, like someone getting hurt, the parents will know where the child is."

He pondered for a minute. "I see. That makes sense. I'll do that in the future Mother."

"Who invited you the reception?"

"It was Hibiki. She said that there wasn't going to be anyone else near their age there and they wanted someone to talk to."

Jason frowned. "But I hardly had any time to talk to them. There was this older girl who kept on talking to me, practically forever. She kept telling me what she said were 'better ways to do things' than what I was doing."

Then he smiled. "Hibiki does the same thing, but only once in a while, and she's a lot nicer about it. Maybe that's why I try to remember it when she tells me."

Akane's mind grabbed onto that and held tightly. It was useful information, both the negative as well as the positive. "And what was the older girl's name dear?"

Jason's look was only mildly distasteful, but his tone was more disapproving, "Eugenia Donetti. She's Paolo's younger sister."

How interesting. Eugenia had recently been admitted to Ingvold. She'd struggled a bit at first but now she was doing reasonably well. Although a good student, she, like so many others at Ingvold, was, to be kind, somewhat socially inept, though not nearly as much as Jason. Akane had often used what she learned from raising him to help some of the students with similar problems.

Akane found it interesting that brilliant scholars often had odd personalities. She had no idea why, but nevertheless it was true. For the present, speculating on that could wait. They still had to finalize Jason's plans.

"About Chapman, Jason. Are there any other reasons you want to go there besides what you already told me?"

"Well, their general curriculum is reasonably advanced. This last year students from there placed first, third, 11th, 21st, and 39th in the City Exams."

Akane gestured encouragement. "And is there anything else?"

Jason nodded, seemingly confused. "Well, yes, I guess there is. Hibiki and Yoko will be going there. I really don't understand why it matters, but that's somehow tied up in it all too. I can't pin it down, and that bothers me. One thing I'm really good at is figuring out things, but I can't this time. Maybe it's because we've been together for all seven years of primary school, but, well, I guess that the idea of not being in the same school as them bothers me somehow.

"Do you have any idea why I'm feeling like this Mother?"

"It's probably nothing to worry about dear. Think of it this way. Sometimes I've seen you get stuck when you're puzzling over your mathematics. You get up and go away for an hour or a day, then you come back to it and figure it out. Life is like that. Sometimes you have to wait and see what happens. I think that this is probably something like that."

His smile brightened the room. "Thank you Mother. That makes perfect sense. A wonderfully rational analysis."

Uncharacteristically, he gave her a big hug, then left the room with a lighter step.

Akane whispered toward his back, "Welcome to the first day of the rest of your life my son. It's likely to be extremely interesting."

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Thursday June 12th in The Year 722 After the Founding

Annapurna Abbot was one of the three Homeroom teachers for the new students each year. As a consequence, she faced more problems than most as she helped the children from the various primary schools that Chapman drew from adjust to the more structured life here. Every new school year brought new challenges, both for the students and the teachers, and this year had been no exception.

Even though she faced these situations every year, and, truth be told, relished them, this year was much more trying than the usual unusual. She had been stressing about the new year since she learned that one set of twins entering her class were the younger sibs of Sara Macklin, now Donetti, the high scorer in the City Exams the previous year. The younger brother of Kaho Fukui, who had placed second, was also going to be in her class. If the three of them were anything like their older siblings, Annapurna was going to need to be on her toes.

She was accustomed to the behavior of twins, having been born in The City. Indeed she was a twin herself. Again, as always, there were several sets of twins in the classroom, five to be exact, which was only one below the average. Some years all of them were a bit rowdy, and some years they were all of the shy, retiring type. This year was a bit different, specifically with regard to the Macklin twins. Yoko, the eldest, tended to be on the boisterous side, but after a time she would withdraw and sit leaning against her sister. Hibiki was definitely one of the shy ones. Like her sister though, she was not what she seemed on the surface, which had been made clear during the first week.

On the third day one of the older boys had been harassing a new student. It was highly inappropriate but, no matter how hard staff tried to eliminate such behavior, it always cropped up to some degree. Annapurna had thought to intervene, but, as it turned out, she wasn't needed.

Hibiki Macklin had been passing by when the incident occurred. She had walked up to the larger boy and said, "It's not nice to be mean to people, especially if they are littler than you are."

When the upperclassman had turned and grabbed at her, well, Annapurna still wasn't entirely sure what had happened, but the next thing she knew the boy was lying on his back on the floor holding onto his wrist, with Hibiki standing over him. "I told you not to do that. If you do it again, I might get angry at you."

She'd said it in a soft, almost sweet tone, which made it all the more frightening. If she wasn't angry this time, and had (probably) broken the older boy's wrist, what might she do if she were truly upset? Clearly the boy on the floor had the same thoughts. He clambered to his feet, stammered an apology to both Hibiki and the smaller boy, then rushed off.

Annapurna learned later that he'd gone to the infirmary where he had been diagnosed with a sprain. Fortunately for him it was his right wrist, as he was left handed. Annapurna wondered if Hibiki had somehow known that he wasn't right-handed, but she was afraid that knowing might be even more unsettling, so she never asked.

If those two confusing, contrasting twins weren't enough, there was Jason Fukui. He was, to be kind, different. She'd had a number of students over the years who were restless and had trouble sitting still in the beginning, usually boys. Jason however took it to extremes. He'd stand up suddenly and fidget and occasionally even spin in a circle. Sometimes he'd even flap his hands up and down like a baby bird that was exercising its wings. Then he'd sit back down and act as if nothing had happened.

Then there was his behavior toward the other children. At first he appeared to be arrogant, but, after watching him for the first week, she realized that he was as of yet unable to control what he said. Whatever he thought came out of his mouth then and there. Unfortunately it was frequently not exactly flattering to the other students, whom he obviously considered intellectually inferior.

By the end of class on the second Wednesday of the year, she was in despair as to what to do. However, the next morning a solution unexpectedly presented itself to the door of her office.

"Excuse me, Mrs. Abbott. May we come in?"

Turning her head, Annapurna beheld Hibiki and Yoko Macklin. Again, uncharacteristically, it was the more shy twin, Hibiki who had spoken.

"Of course girls, please do. What can I do for you?"

This time it was Yoko who spoke, "We think that we have an answer for the 'Jason problem'." She followed her statement with an impish grin, after which Hibiki punched her in the arm.

"Do not speak of him like that Yoko. You know he is not a 'problem', rather it is that he is in need of our help."

Yoko turned to Hibiki and sketched an apology. Then both faced toward Annapurna and waited. She'd always been quick on her feet, so there was no delay before she responded, "And what, pray tell, is that?"

Yoko shrugged. "It's simple really. Move all three of us ta the back of the room. Put Jason in between us, and let us move our desks so they touch each other. That should take care of it."

"That's it? That's going to solve, er, help Jason?"

Both girls nodded enthusiastically, followed by Hibiki whispering, "And us too."

Annapurna decided not to try to ferret out the meaning of what Hibiki said. It was enough that their suggestion, albeit unconventional, was more than she'd come up with, and she was flooded with relief, however premature it might have been.

She looked at their earnest faces and decided to go along with them. It was still only the second week of classes. If it didn't work out, there were sure to be other options, though at the moment she had no idea what they might be.

"All right. I'll approve it." The girls' faces lit up with what Annapurna could only call "boundless joy." They were also both bouncing up and down on their toes. She suspected that Yoko might be doing more than that were she able, but Hibiki was holding onto her arm and pulling down firmly. It was rather amusing seeing Hibiki bouncing and at the same time trying to keep her sister from bouncing "too much."

Holding up an admonitory hand, Annapurna added, "But only provisionally. If things don't work out as you think they will, I can't approve such an unusual arrangement in the long run. You're going to have to prove it works, so I can get the headmaster's consent."

She didn't add her following thought, "Which will keep me from getting into trouble with the other teachers and the other students' parents for showing favoritism."

The girls stopped bouncing, nodded seriously, then spun around and ran off down the hall toward the classroom, probably to start moving things.

Later, when Jason came in through the front door of the classroom and headed toward his usual desk, he was intercepted by the twins. Each latched onto one arm and gently pulled him to the rear and their new seats. Annapurna surreptitiously scanned the faces of the other kids in class. Mostly they showed relief.

As the day progressed, things worked out better than she had even allowed herself to hope much less to expect. The twins had arranged things so that Yoko was on his left, and Hibiki on his right. The first time Jason opened his mouth to make a comment about someone or something, Yoko pulled on his left arm, leaned close, and whispered something to him. He'd looked puzzled, but he HAD listened. Then he nodded and settled down. Miracle number one had occurred.

Later on in the day, when his fidgeting tended to increase, or worse, resulted in him jumping up and down, Hibiki took his hand and massaged it while leaning toward him and whispering. Again, he calmed down. He didn't entirely stop fidgeting, but there was enough improvement that he was no longer distracting the class.

At the end of the day, after the children had left, she hurried to headmaster Krait's office and explained what she'd done and what the result had been. To her surprise, the headmaster was thrilled. She'd had a report from Jason's previous school about his "problems" and had been extremely worried about what would happen.

Right then and there she wrote up an exception approval for the new seating arrangement and had a discussion about it added to the agenda for the all staff meeting that would take place the next day after school.

As for the parents of the other students in her class, Annapurna was again surprised. In the next two weeks she received a number of notes thanking her for improving the atmosphere in the classroom. Her greatest surprise was that, while most were obviously referring to Jason, several explained that the parents had feared that their children might be bullied by upperclassmen and how pleased they were that Annapurna had so effectively prevented it from happening. She showed all the notes to the headmaster who scanned them then threw back her head and laughed until she cried.

Seeing her like that, Annapurna stood unmoving in shock. She'd NEVER seen the headmaster laugh before.

When she wound down, she waved Annapurna to a chair. "I'm sorry, at least somewhat. This is choice. I'd been truly worried about Jason, but I see that those Macklin girls have had a salubrious effect in more ways than one."

Annapurna looked a question at the headmaster who answered, "That first week, when Hibiki ah, shall we say, 'intervened' in that episode involving her new classmate, has had repercussions. One of the rather notorious gossips among the students happened to witness the incident. By the time she got through embellishing it and spread the story around, well, let's say that nobody in the school would even THINK of picking on one of the children in your class."

She tried to hold it in, she really did, but Annapurna found herself laughing loud and long. That set the headmaster off again.

Several minutes later, when they were repairing their faces, the headmaster said, "So, given these," she pointed to the notes, "and given the results of your 'experiment', I see no objections arising in the near or even the distant future."

Annapurna nodded her understanding then excused herself. One problem down and, if she were right, many to go, like every other year. She headed back to her office to finish organizing the lesson plan for the next day.