[Matthew]

It was early on the morning and I was peacefully resting on my bed. Like any other normal person at this time, I was just looking for the most comfortable position so I could get back to sleep for a little longer. But like any other day around this time, my plans were ruined.

The sound of children waking up could be heard, and the incoming morning noise was loud as expected. It was like they wanted the whole building to know that they were available to play around with them.

They were too young to realize that being silent in the morning and let the others sleep is an important quality. Maybe the most important thing that you need to learn, in the empathy related stuff.

At this point I just have given up on the matter. Could you reason with little boys about what’s right and what’s wrong? Maybe if I was miss Cleo I could tell them to stop and they would listen. But I wasn’t her and she didn’t share my thoughts on the matter either.

“Hey Matt! If you don’t wake up, miss Cleo is going to be mad at you. Again”

“Yeah, besides it’s your first day as the professor helper. Don’t ruin it… Stupid”

“Hey! don’t be too mean to him, if he wants to lazy around let him be”

The voices of my roommates could be heard. I choose to ignore them most of the time. More so in the mornings. But now they were right, I couldn’t be late. So, with all the strength that I had, and the right amount of complains along with it, I got up to get ready for the day.

It was hard to convince the adults here that I was ready to start helping in classes. It took me weeks to accomplish that. Long and prepared arguments were useless against them. Something about ‘You are just too young’, ‘Patience is a virtue, wait until next year’ and specially ‘No, because I say so’ were the most common answers I got.

Thankfully in a moment of weakness I resorted to whining to ask for it. Not my proudest moment. To my surprise it got me the answer I wanted, Miss Cleo gave me the opportunity to help her out in math classes when I turned 4 years old, which was just a couple of weeks away at that time.

All ready for the day, I went in my way towards the classroom. The halls were mostly empty, but I could hear some noise from different rooms, a sign that more people was starting to waking up. I just couldn’t understand them, it’s not like they had something to do that early in the morning.

The system of the orphanage was a pretty simple one. All the boys and girls until the age of 2 are in care by the older kids. When they turned 3 until the age of 7 they need to help out with chores and take a lot of classes of many subjects, specially to get some basic knowledge of the world and how to survive in it. And then, from 8 (usually) onwards you could go out of the orphanage to look for a job and hopefully leave early this place.

The class I was going to, was the one of the older kids. Kids of 6 years or older. They were the ones with the most responsibilities among us, so it was normal that they were to take the classes at first hour on the morning, before everyone wakes up.

 “Little Matthew! You really came… I really thought that you were just too lazy to wake up this early”

Once I enter the classroom I was greeted with the surprised miss Cleo. Like I thought, she really didn’t expect me to come here this early. It was her downfall to underestimate me.

“Of course, I came. It’s my first job after all” 

A simple answer with a little smile and like I want to think were eyes full of conviction, or something close to that. I was really trying to be the perfect boy, or the best I could be. If I wanted to be able to leave this place I needed to behave above the expectations.

“I simply don’t understand your hurry to go out to the town, you are just too young, who would let you work or help out there? *sigh*… But the rules are the rules”

Letting her disappointment behind her, she started to explain me my role on this class. I was just supposed to sit right on the back of the room and walk around helping the kids with the problems they had to solve during the class.

There were three math courses dictated here. The first two were compulsory, in those you learned addition and subtraction in a simple way. The third course was given to the people with interest in more ‘advanced’ math, here you studied more difficult problems of the same kind as before, and multiplication with small numbers.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

Right now, miss Cleo was trying her best to explain the kids about how to deal with the problems and give them examples of how useful those were in real life. Like, if the bread cost 5 bern and you had 27 bern, how many bread could you buy? Or if you were selling 3 shirts for 10 bern each, how much will you earn?

It wasn’t hard at all, but then again, I’m not really the best person to judge. Just looking at all the boys and girls trying their best, counting with their fingers and showing faces full of concentration, told me otherwise.

In the small classroom, there were just 10 students, 4 girls and 6 boys. Right now they were just solving exercises. The explanations were already over, so during the rest of the class they just had to practice. It was my signal to go there and help them.

One of the boys was trying to solve one problem meant to be solved by multiplication, using addition. It wasn`t wrong, but it wasn`t what the miss wants them to learn. It was my time to shine.

"Hey! Look try to solve it like this" I just went close to him and explain a similar problem that I made up on the spot

"See, this way is much easier to solve this kind of problem"

"Ohhh you`re right!... but how did you do it?... Can you explain me?"

At first he was uncomfortable. Probably because a little kid was trying to teach him. But quickly his expression changed and showed surprise instead.

"Of course... first let me show you a table that could help you"

For this course the multiplication was calculated just with low numbers. 10 and 5 being the higher possible combination. Writing the multiplication table didn`t take that long and would certainly help him with this kind of problems.

"Incredible! How can you remember so many numbers?!"

He was impressed with the table I wrote and was not very quiet about it. The curiosity took the best of the other kids and suddenly the boy and me were surrounded by them.

“Ohhh so cool! How do you know that?” Two boys with black hair and naive look, who apparently are twins, were the first to let know their impressions.

“This is my second time taking this course. Never saw something like that table. Impressive” The older one of the group, a boy about 8 years old of blonde hair and serious expression, was giving his thoughts.

While the serious guy talked, the twins got closer to me while praising me more. Too close. The rest of the kids seemed to understand the wonders of the personal space and were at an acceptable distance. So, why do they couldn’t too?

“Hey I need help too, you now? Come with me!” Moving the twins to her side, a girl approach me, a very energetic kind of girl. Then she just took hold of my hand and tried to lead me to her seat.

One way to see this situation, would be that she has just rescue me of the two clingy boys. But I wasn’t in control at all. It was awkward.

“Emmm. Excuse me can you let me go?” Getting gently rid of her grip I continued “I will help everyone, so just go to your seat and I will go to help you later, ok?” I finished with a little smile.

“Ok! But I better be the next one!” She said not to happy about it, but went to her seat anyway.

She obviously was the kind of person that always get what they wanted. Not an unusual characteristic of a kid. Not the best either.

“*Sigh* That Camille… She’s always like that, don’t mind her too much” The serious boy warned me, and then indicated to the rest of the kids to continue with their exercises. To my surprise the twins were very obedient and left immediately, like the rest.  

Looking towards miss Cleo I could see that she had a playful look in her eyes. She was practically laughing at my predicament. There was nothing I could do about it so I just laugh a little and then continued with the explanations.

I went seat by seat teaching them the multiplication table, and then let them get used to it. I knew it wouldn’t be something that they learn immediately, so I didn’t spend too much time with each one of them.

Apart of teaching the kids, I take advantage of the situation and activated my skill with everyone. To my disappointment none of them looked promising. Well there was Brook, the serious guy whose name I have just learned, and Camille, the energetic girl. Both of them had the potential to become people with great power, but neither of them reached the heights of the church woman I met three years ago.

At this point I had already given up in finding someone with enough potential in this place. At the beginning, I thought that with the war going on, the increase on the quantity of children coming here would mean that some children with special talents would appear. I was wrong.

“Little Matthew” To my surprise, miss Cleo approach me from behind. Put her hands on my shoulders, and bend down to my level “You are doing great, it seems that all the kids like your methods”

“Thanks! If I’m being of help then I’m happy” I replied a little nervous. Miss Cleo was a really pretty woman about 25 years old. It was hard to ignore her gaze when she was this close, her deep green eyes were captivating, and her brown and silky long hair was all over me, caressing me.

“That’s good to know. The truth is that I have a favor to ask you” I expected it. Every time she wanted to ask me to do something she used this dirty trick. She knew her power and wasn’t afraid to use it.

I just nodded my head and let her continue “Can you see the girl at the end of the classroom?” She indicated me to a person with a big hoodie covering her face “She arrived here last month. She has no friends and is always alone. All by herself…” Her voice showed some sadness for a moment “Surprisingly she is very smart and took no time to pass all the courses we dictate… Reminds you of someone?” She asks me with a mischievous tone.

The truth is I was aware of the hooded person since the beginning. In fact, I counted her as a boy since I couldn’t see her face. Also, she never asked for my help nor she seemed to need it.   

Miss Cleo wanted me to get close to the girl. It seemed she had tried in many occasions to get close to her and failed. She also had tried to have other kids to get to know her, but all of them end up tired of the one side interactions.

I didn’t lose nothing with trying, so after accepting miss Cleo’s wish I went towards her desk. Not immediately, first I passed over other desk and solved some questions. Maybe I was a little paranoid. I mean, no one would care if I went to talk to the silent girl just after I talked with Miss Cleo, but old habits die hard.

I stood in front of her desk, but she didn’t mind me at all “Emm. Excuse me?” No reply “I have just showed to the rest of the class a table that could help you with some problems. Do you want me to explain it to you?”

That seemed to get her interest and for the first time we cross our looks. With her hoodie on you couldn’t see much of her face, besides she was using some fabric around her face that showed only her eyes.

Her eyes were even more captivating that miss Cleo’s. The blue of her eyes was so pure that everyone could be lost for a long time by just looking at them. I was just looking at her, not saying a word, for what seemed forever. My concentration only fell when I noticed the basic information I could see from her.

“You… you are a beastkind” I whisper in awe. It was my first time seeing one, and I never thought I would have the chance with the war between them and the humans happening right now.  

She clearly heard me, her eyes that seemed calm before, now were piercing my very soul. None of us moved, it was like we were communicating with our eyes. I wouldn’t know what we could be discussing with our gaze, if it’s even possible, but whatever it was, she was winning.

We continued like that and without me noticing, the class was already over and everybody else left the room, leaving us all alone.