I woke up early again, I thought about what Remi said about sleeping more but honestly I had gotten enough sleep. I was used to going to bed late and getting up early while working on the farm, so I wasn’t very tired. By my estimates I had gotten about 5 and a half hours of sleep once class had ended I had gotten another pair of clothes and had bathed. I would need to take some time to do the laundry and keep my clothes clean. I sat up and pushed off my bed but I immediately stopped and fell back into bed. My arms hurt! And so did my chest! They hurt to move, they hurt to use, they ached. Had I pushed to hard when exercising. I knew that normally you would feel a little stiff after exercising but this was completely different. I gingerly sat up and got ready for the day. After getting everything in order I went to the wagon yard keeping my arms from swinging to much. When I got their I sat down in the cobble, while getting ready I had thought about what to do while waiting for work to start, and I had decided to try and practice my letters. Somehow even though I had been so confident about remembering them yesterday I could only remember a few. I sat in the dusty cobbles and traced with my finger the shapes of the ones I remember. I start desperately trying to remember the other shapes repeatedly sweeping the dust around to give myself a new canvas to work with. After a few minutes, more letters started coming back to me although I couldn’t remember all of them.

I heard the five bell after a while. I had been tracing the letters that I could remember trying to make them look more similar to Mr. Hislop’s. As I continued to sit and practice I heard footsteps behind me. Sweeping my work away I turned to see Markus walking up to where I was seated by the wall.

“What are you doing here sir?” Didn’t work start at six why was he here so early?

“I could ask you the same thing. If anything it’s more reasonable that I’m here than you.”

“I just get up early sir I don’t really know what to do so I came here and was practicing my letters. If you don’t mind me asking why are you here?”

“It’s pretty commendable you practicing your letters. Me? Well I know that work starts at six but like you I get up early. It also can’t hurt to come check things earlier sometimes. If anything it helps if no one knows that I do it.”

“Got it. Your secrets safe with me. But, why weren’t you there yesterday morning?”

“Oh well I was, I just thought you probably didn’t want to be interrupted while doing your exercise.” Markus says with a chuckle

I can feel myself turning bright red.

“Is that why you brought me to Remi.”

“Well that was part of the reason. Anyway, if you're here do you want to start working? you can practice your letters while working. Just repeat them to yourself while packing.”

“I would love to get started.”

“First let's do the check on your things.” We check the door for anything amiss and then the boxes we do the same thing as yesterday evening. Once we are done we move to the pile of empty boxes

“Alright well, I saw that you already packed up all of the crates so you will now be learning how to pack the canvas crates. Do you know why we use different types of boxes or bags? ”

“For weight? Wouldn’t canvas be lighter than the crates?”

“That is one of the answers, every bit of weight makes a difference, but also because there are different attributes that we want when packing. Wood is by far the strongest but only when the stuff inside is fragile either physically or thermally. So while flour and rice can be tossed around a bunch they cannot get wet so they are kept in the most secure boxes that we can. However, that makes it hard to move and to open and close again. That is where canvas comes in it is much lighter and less fragile to being tossed around however it can’t keep bugs and water out nearly as well. So we put things that the bugs don’t like and the rain can’t affect inside. So for example”

he unlocks the storeroom door and pulls out a cast iron skillet. “Cooking utensils all of these have been cleaned in our kitchens and are ready to be repacked, so I did forget to include a type of bag cast iron will rust but we still have to toss it around a lot and need it every day so there is a material that can compromise it is leather, its light and can take a lot of rough treatment but it is also much more waterproof than canvas.”

“To help with noise and space we use these” Walking over he grabs a long roll of leather that had been sitting on the pile of empty boxes walking back over he shows it to me and then lays it out on the ground. It’s an incredibly long rectangle of leather with clasps on the short ends. He lays it out and then puts the pan inside then he goes back into the storeroom and brings a few more things out including different tongs, spits, and pans. He lays all of them down on the inside of the rectangle then he starts rolling it up until he can clasp it leaving us with a cylinder-shaped roll of leather with different cooking utensils inside. Picking it up he shakes it around.

“See also completely silent that is equally important if your going on an adventure. Not only will the noise drive you crazy but it will also let everything within any reasonable distance know where you are.” Once, he finished he led me to the store room, inside was a box full of different pots, silverware, and different knick-nacks and bobbles.

“Alright you can get started once everything in that box is packed up then you are free”

With a nod, I got to work dragging the box out of the storeroom while also dragging the leather rectangles closer I lay things out on all of the leather rectangles at the same time to make sure they all fit, to my disappointment just laying them out at random does not work and I will have to put some thought into how things will fit.

Calling out to Markus I ask” Sir, what order do I put things in for them all to fit”

“Think of this as a little test there is an order for things to fit just pay close attention and use that brain of yours I can’t tell you everything now can I? But, just to make sure show me the order you find before you fold them up so I can double-check”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Yes sir” Bastard, I knew he was doing this in part to antagonize me. Although he might have a little bit of a point I wasn’t going to admit it.

After way too long I finally figured out how to get it to work on a single rectangle. You have to put things in order so that they fit together so you line a pan up and then another in the other direction so that the thick and thin parts even out. I also realized that you had to use thinner things first since the curve of rolling wouldn’t work if everything was too wide, but the curve got wider the farther from the center it was making it work. It took me way longer than I thought to figure that out and by the time I had started re-sorting everything all of the other boys had arrived and were doing their checks,

Taking a step back I thought about it. He said that there was an order for the thing here but what was it. When I saw him organizing his roll it didn’t seem like there was any organization he had put pots and knives right next to each other spits next to grills and tons of silverware. There wasn’t any order, no just pots, of just silverware, or just grills. But why? Why wouldn’t they organize it to that each roll had a different type of utensil. Was there a pattern that conformed with what I already know. What had I been taught? Markus wouldn’t make it deliberately impossible, that means that he thinks that I can figure it out with the knowledge I know, but the only knowledge he knows that I have access to is the knowledge that he taught me. What has he taught me in the past few days? I know how to pack crates. How does that help me? Well I pack it by layering cloth and then tying bags of different grains… different grains… Why don’t we pack the same grains in the same crates? I think that I heard him mention that once. But why?

What would happen if all of one grain were in the same box? Nothing it doesn’t make a difference. What happens if the grain weren’t in -...

What if the grain weren’t? I know that doesn’t make sense let me rephrase that. What if you lost the grain? If all of the flour was in one crate and you lost that crate you would be in trouble but if you have a little of everything everywhere you would have to lose the entire wagon to run out of flour. That’s it!

The order of utensils in the rolls is an entire set of appliances so that if you lose one roll you can still cook just slower. Looking over in excitement it quickly gets doused.

Dong Dong Dong Dong Dong Dong Dong its the seven bell. Somehow it took me two and a half hours to figure this out? That seems unlikely but why would the clock be wrong, I guess I got caught up in my own thoughts. Still, it seems weird how long that took me to figure out.

I quickly bend over and toss all of the things back in the box then I drag it into the store room and then jog over to Markus.

“Lock the storeroom? Sure. but tell me did you figure out the trick to packing the rolls?”

“I think so.” Suddenly much less sure that I used to be “It’s divided by a whole set so a set of pots, pans knives, silverware, and other things.”

“Not bad. Not bad at all. Just to be sure come grab me when you’ve divided everything then you can start rolling them.” He locks the store room door and then starts walking away with a nod “Don’t let it go to your head, that was just the easy part.” He says this last part with a wink. I’m not sure if he’s joking or not. But it leaves me with a bad feeling

Walking along the now familiar halls I can’t wait to take a break and eat breakfast. The work is something active and interesting so I can’t complain but that doesn’t mean I don’t want a break. Although sitting and eating by myself isn’t exactly what I would call a break it's the best that I can get right now so I see no reason not to appreciate what I got. I mean it could be worse, the food could be bad. Instead it has always been amazing. Getting in line I look around and see tons of people sitting and chatting, laughing and smiling, they all look to be having much more fun than me. It would be nice. But I need to hurry to get my job done so that I can go see Remi for exercise. Once I get to the end of the line I get my food and drink although not without asking for extra first, It is porridge again this time although instead of the caramel flavor now it has tones of different berries in it that make it taste very good, and instead of tea now it’s some sort of honey drink. Almost a reverse of what it was yesterday. Instead of an acidic drink now its a fatty/sugary drink and the porridge is acidic instead of the other way around.

Sitting by myself yet again I scarf down my food being left almost too full again. I sit there and digest for a few minutes and then patting my stomach I stand up and take my tray to the return. Then I start heading back to the wagon yard. Ready to get back to work.

Whether Markus was joking are not Dante found the rolling to be much harder than he thought it would be. In part it was due to him being so sore, causing him to wince making the leather slip, whenever he would move too jerkily. When he got back he was the first one to return from breakfast and he immediately started sorting thinking of how to sort the kits. After a few minutes, Markus returned also before any of the other boys returned without a word he came over and unlocked the door then he went to work on his project

Taking out the box Dante started sorting the different pots, pans, and utensils to the different leather rectangles. It took some time to balance out the silverware right, but once he did he had each roll filled with five forks, spoons, plates, bowls, and knives. Along with two skillets two sauce pots a large grill 3 spits and different utensils like a ladle and tongs. Each of the rolls had an identical set and once he was sure that each of the rolls was even. Dante went to get Markus.

Seeing him walking over Markus asked“Think you got it figured out”

“I’m pretty sure.‘

Once we arrive he starts pacing around the setup.

“Yep, you got it right. Good job. You can start rolling them up now.”

“Thanks, will do.”

While he starts walking back I start trying to figure out how I should roll up the leather. He gave me the go-ahead so I don’t see why I shouldn’t start right now. I start by trying to just roll it up without too much surprise I find that when I start rolling everything just falls and I am left with just leather being rolled up. I don’t have any good Idea however so Just try again this time lifting it up as little as possible to keep the silverware from rolling off.

After Trying and failing Multiple times I finally got the hang of it you have to flip it at the start quickly and then you can you have to put constant pressure while also rolling it simultaneously. It is much harder than it sounds.

Once I figure it out though I quickly get the hang of it and can do the rest in a relatively short time. And right around the time that the sixth bell rings about ten hours later, I’m done. The reason that It took me so long was that once I figured out the first one I was sent to help some of the other boys move a shipment of supplies to the kitchen, while also moving a few boxes into our storeroom. I guess working as a wagon boy meant that we also dealt with shipments. The boxes had nothing special they were full of the little grain bags that I had spent all of yesterday packing up. Even that wouldn’t have taken so long if Markus hadn’t insisted that we check all of the crates for tampering. There was none.

After everything was done though I went up to Markus. We went through and checked everything together. With a nod he let me leave and I headed off to see Remi.