“Jerome did what now?” Tara asked incredulously.

“He hasn’t done anything yet. Well, he is about to begin…I think,” Dreamer spoke apprehensively.

A strange smell filled the air, one she had never smelled before even though it seemed somewhat familiar. “What is that?”

Dreamer couldn’t look up to meet her eyes. “Err…soap?”

Soap? What for? Was that the same soap he had said he needed a pot for a while ago? Tara dashed into the orphanage, heading toward the backyard. She had refused to let him waste firewood for one of his silly adventures. That strange smell was more concentrated now and it did smell like soap, but there was something off about it. She was going to tan his hide if he wasted her firewood.

“Jerome! What are you doing?!”

She came out from the back door to see Jerome turning a thick mixture inside one of her pots. His thin arms were strained and he was sweating profusely, smiling sheepishly at her. He knew he was in trouble, but his eyes still held some sort of confidence. The other children around him, not so much.

Tara took off her left slipper and held it in her hand threateningly. “Get away from the fire, right now!” The others did as she said, except for him.

“But it’s almost ready, Ms. Ta—”

Thwack!

~~~

The soap actually came out well but it needed time to harden. After being smacked by Ms. Tara, Jerome sat there refusing to move until she gave up. Yes. Victory for once, or was it twice? Anyway, he hid the shit-eating grin on his face. No need to enrage ‘mother walrus’ further.

Jerome watched her like a hawk as she watched him pour the thick molten soap into broken clay pots he had picked in the slums. “We wait for it to harden. There is a whole process to cure the soap by leaving it out to dry for at least three tendays. But that would be for later.”

“Ehn?! Are you saying you would be wasting more of my firewood? Where did you even get oil?” Ms. Tara asked, and Jerome couldn’t hold back the grin anymore.

Ms. Tara raised her slipper as if to smack the grin off his face but she was smiling as well. Sure, she could see the usefulness of his handwork. Heh. How interesting. After she had let out her anger on him, she was smiling at his handwork. No soap for Ms. Tara until she apologizes! But he needed the best timing to drop that line. Yes. Payback’s a bitch. And revenge is a dish best served…was it hot, or cold? Pah!

“The guards,” he said, holding up a small pot of oil.

“What?”

Jerome could almost see the gears turning in her head. “The guards who gave us the gutter job. The bread wasn’t enough so I asked them to pay us for the work and they did…reluctantly,” he gave her a knowing smile.

“Jerome, you have one of those evil smiles on your face right now,” Doti said, smiling deviously himself.

“Yes,” Ash said. “One of those evil ‘alchemiss’ smile you tell us kids made up stories ‘bout.”

“It’s ‘alchemist’, Ash, not ‘alchemiss’,” Ms. Tara corrected. “And you’re not kids! Light, you’ve all been listening too much to Jerome… And you,” she pointed her slipper at Jerome, “step away from my kitchen.”

Doti snorted. Whisper and the others held back a laugh.

“No soap for Ms. Tara until she apologizes!” Jerome hugged his soap protectively, and Ms. Tara stuttered not expecting him to say that. There it is. Mic drop. If I do say so myself.

The other kids nearly laughed their bellies out at Ms. Tara’s expression. Jerome would have paid good money to see it a million times.

~~~

Moss was the second caretaker at the orphanage. His curly shoulder-length hair would have made him slightly handsome if not for the permanent scowl he wore on his face. Jerome didn’t fancy Moss at all as the Sprout was too petty. Nonetheless, he was one of their caretakers. Thankfully, Old Wen always went with them for the bath. He was a burly man with a deep, threatening voice. But the graying hairs on his head were increasing in number. Jerome knew the man didn’t have much time left.

With help from Moss and Old Wen, he and the rest of the kids were able to wash near the well in the slums. They normally washed once a tenday at the well a few yards away from the orphanage — insufficient, but water was scarce in the slums. There were no guards to keep order, so chaos usually bloomed whenever they went to fetch water for drinking or to wash. It was still early evening and the sun had not yet set. This wasn’t also the time they usually came to bathe. Thanks to the soap they were going to bathe twice this tenday. Cool.

“Say, Old Wen. How does the well make water?” One of the kids asked. Like many of the kids he had no name, so a pronoun was all they used to call them. The kid was looking into the deep hole in the ground that was ‘the well’, trying to see something that wasn’t there maybe.

“Stay away from the well, you.” Old Wen said. His voice was deep and throaty, a fitting voice for a man his age and size — good for scaring away riffraff. He lifted the kid up and away from the well and set him down gently by the rest of the kids. “The water comes from the ground.”

The kids stared, waiting for him to continue but receiving nothing.

“You’ve explained this to us once, Jerome, right?” Whisper whispered into his ear. “Do you mind explaining it again?” His words were low enough but the kids could still hear him. Jerome nodded.

The big old Sprout never said more than a dozen words ‘Talking was for the young’, Old Wen would always say. He only talked for long when he wanted to tell a tale about the might of the king of Vorthe.

“So you all know there’s water present underground, correct?” Jerome began.

“Yes, Jerome,” the kids chorused.

“Water present underground is what we call ‘groundwater.’ It comes from rain or melted snow that seeps into the ground and gets stored in the spaces between rocks and soil. Well, since it doesn’t snow in Farryn we’ll not consider that.

“The upper surface of the groundwater is known as the ‘water table’. Think of it as an invisible level below the ground we walk on. The depth of the well is lower than the water table,” he gestured toward the hole in the ground. The sacred artist who dug it should have at least put a wall around it to prevent children from falling into it. Jerome had to describe, using his hands to demonstrate.

“By digging the well deep below the water table, a space is created in the groundwater, which causes pressure that pushes the water into that space, which is the bottom of the well. Understood?”

The look on the kids’ faces told him all he needed to know. They didn’t understand.

“When you throw around words like ‘pressure’ and ‘water table’, how would they understand?” Moss, who had been fetching water from the well snorted.

Jerome sighed and got up, walking toward the Sprout.

“What?” Moss asked as Jerome took the ‘fetcher’ from him — an open bucket made out of hide with a long rope attached to its handle.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Come everyone,” Jerome called out and they all gathered around the clay jars of water.

“Hey, those jars are fragile,” Moss said trying to shove the kids back but doing so might end some of them inside the hole in the ground.

“This,” Jerome held up the leather bucket, “is the well, and that,” he pointed next to a jar, “is the groundwater.”

He skimmed his hand over the surface and one of the kids screamed, “Water table!” Their excitement was now palpable.

“Yes, you’re getting it now!” he dunked the ‘well’ into the full jar of water — with the bottom facing down — causing it to displace precious water. Jerome didn’t care. The kids had to know what pressure meant.

“Now the force I’m applying is the pressure on the groundwater that causes it to push upward,” some of the water spilled into the bucket — most onto the ground, “into the well.”

Moss cursed. The kids applauded, drowning out Moss’s complaints.

Old Wen shrugged at the bristling Moss. “Ye gotta give it to the boy. He knows how to get his point across.”

“Why does Tara get to be the only one to smack him?”

Old Wen’s face suddenly changed and he stared daggers at Moss. “Ye said what now?”

“Nothing.” the younger Sprout hid his tail between his legs. Coward.

Jerome observed their conversation. Old Wen didn’t really fancy Moss. He was just additional baggage that came home with Ms. Tara after Mehn Agrh’ur during their time — at least that was how Old Wen put it whenever he was having a bad day, which was almost every day. Jerome sighed and slung the fetcher into the well ready to fill the jar up again. He might have to wait for the well to fill up to a certain extent as this particular place where the well was dug was lacking sufficient groundwater, or maybe the well wasn’t deep enough.

The kids walked back to their previous position and Moss came over and took the fetcher from him. “Go sit with the kids and listen to Old Wen tell a story,” he said.

“Sorry about the water,” Jerome said as he walked back.

“Oh, you gonna pay me with that soap of yours. Nothing’s for free,” he snickered at Jerome. It was expected.

“You’re devious, ain’t ya?” Jerome replied.

“Say what you will, I’m getting my soap. Those innocent eyes of yours don’t work on me.”

Jerome stuck his tongue out at him, acting like the kid he was known as. His ‘innocent eyes’ not working on Moss was the reason Old Wen refused to let him touch Jerome. Jerome knew this, but Moss did not. Way to get away with every Moss-related incident. he chuckled to himself, grinning from ear to ear.

“So let me tell ye a tale of the northern mountain range,” Old Wen’s voice sounded ahead of him, filled with awe and wonder.

“Shweet!” Ash yipped and clapped excitedly.

“The vast mountain range to the north beckoned to me once when I was in the guard.”

“But you said you were a sailor once,” One of the kids said.

“You said you were a scribe too. Which one is it?”

Oh, boy. These kids would one day frustrate the old man to death.

~~~

After a good night’s bath, the kids returned home to the smell of another wonderful meal still cooking. The gulps coming from their throats were loud enough to wake a sleeping sloth. Jerome went to his stash of soaps to drop the remainder of the one that was used today. He needed to find a way to cure them — a place even. Where no one could disturb the airing. The ground was the only place he could think of. But that was off-limits. He couldn’t take up precious sleeping space, except Ms. Tara permitted him.

He rubbed his fingers together enjoying how clean he felt. He had never felt this clean in forever. His robes had also been washed. With the help of essence, Old Wen and Moss had dried the rags they wore as clothes so they wouldn’t walk naked back to the orphanage. The children’s messy hair had also been washed and combed — with essence. Jerome wondered how they did it. They pulled every strand and straightened them without breaking them. Essence was a lot more complicated than he thought. Probably because he couldn’t sense it. He got to the location of his stash — a hole in the wall on his side of the hall where he slept — and found nothing.

“Huh?” he searched around other holes in the wall. Nothing. Which could only mean one thing. “Ms. Tara!”

“Jerome, I’m out back!” came her answer. Jerome stomped to the back of the yard, fuming.

“Ms. Tara, my soap. They’re all gone,” he said, scrunching his face to show he was hurt. “You wouldn’t have anything to do with that, would you?”

”I sold them. All of them.” That was a smack to the face. Ms. Tara stood with her arms akimbo, and a smirk on her lips, daring him to challenge her.

“But they’re my soap, you don’t have the right to—”

“No, they’re not. You used my firewood… and rendered my pot useless,” she said in his face with a tight smile. She was close now. Too close for comfort. And scary as hell.

Someone chuckled behind Jerome, “That’d teach you not to mess with your betters.”

Moss. Of course, it was him. The Sprout was taking pleasure in his misfortune. Ms. Tara glared at him and he scampered off with his tail between his legs like the scaredy cat he was.

Jerome gathered his confidence once again. “You said you sold them, Ms. Tara. Then we split the profit.” And I would come up with ways to make sure I get 100% profits next time. Hehehe.

Ms. Tara groaned like she had had enough of him. Grabbing hold of his ear, she twisted it, making sure he felt the pain. “Children don’t need money so we as adults don’t give it to them. Until you become a sacred artist or reach your majority, no cuts or crystal coins for you.”

“What?!” Jerome fumed and tried to get his ear away from her. “That’s a stupid cultural rule!”

“No, it’s not stupid. It keeps boys like you, from wasting money on stupid and dangerous things.” She held him close after that and caressed his ear, blowing on it so the heat and pain faded away.

Jerome sighed. He could never stay angry at this woman. She was just too caring.

“On the flip side,” she pulled a pouch from her waist and shook it. “We have spare cuts now.”

“Can we see?” the other kids chorused, having been attracted by their verbal spat.

Ms. Tara pulled out three of the cuts. They were uneven and rough on the surface with a reddish hue.

“These are copper cuts,” she said handing it to them to get a feel of them.

“Why call them cuts, why not coins?” Jerome asked before he was given a cut to observe. Everyone else looked at him with a questioning gaze.

“How do you know they ought to be called coins?” Ms. Tara asked him with a smile.

“Seems proper,” he said with a shrug.

“Well,” she said. “They aren’t cut properly like crystal coins. Hence the term… ‘cuts’. Get it?” she chuckled at her own words.

Was that supposed to be a joke? Jerome smiled. “Crystal coins?” he asked accepting one of the copper cuts and observing it. It felt warm to the touch now, after going through many hands. “You mentioned crystal coins.”

“Yes. Crystal coins — didn’t know you caught that — they are mostly used by wealthier people. And they have more value than cuts, even silver and gold cuts.”

Jerome soaked in the interesting piece of knowledge. “These crystal coins, Ms. Tara, what are they made of?”

“Ooh!” she clapped her hands, excitedly. “A moment, please.” She quickly served the food before sitting them down on the floor to explain. The fire provided enough warmth to expel the darkness so the kids were comfortable outside to eat.

Jerome smiled inwardly. Did she long to teach them something that she became so excited at the opportunity to do so?

“Now, settle down everyone. You can eat and listen at the same time.”

They all sat down on the floor to enjoy the meal. Which was good. Really good. The past few days had been a blessing. A few strokes of a whip didn’t compare, even if his back still hurt in places.

“Crystal coins are cut from essence crystal stones or crystal stones for short, which are mined from the earth. There are three grades of crystal stones: high-grade, mid-grade, and low-grade.”

“Just like how we grade nobles, Ms. Tara?” someone asked.

Moss chuckled by the side.

“Yes, more or less,” Ms. Tara said, wincing. She looked back to give him a pointed look but he just rolled his eyes at her.

“They’re children; they’ll learn,” Old Wen said in that deep rumbling bass. Moss shrugged, still smiling wickedly and the older Sprout smacked him upside his head. Serves him right.

“Heh. I’ll explain later,” Ms. Tara said to the child who asked. “So anyway, low-grade crystal stones are attributed with mostly earth and water essence. Maybe because earth and water are the most abundant elements in existence. Mid-grade crystals are also attributed, again, mostly with earth and water essence. It’s rare to find fire essence attribute crystal mines. They are rare and are mostly created around or in active volcanoes.”

“What’s a volcano, Ms. Tara?” Ash asked.

Good girl, Jerome thought with a smile. Questions are the lifeline of discovery. She’d do well to ask when she didn’t understand things.

“Volcanoes are mountains that spit hot melted rocks called magma,” Ms. Tara said with a beautiful smile.

“Rocks can melt?” someone asked.

“How is that possible?” another asked. More voices rose as everyone started talking at the same time.

Ms. Tara coughed loudly to silence everyone. Then she looked at Jerome with pleading eyes. Ah-ha! Caught in the children’s trap. That would teach her not to mess with her betters!