* * *

"This is Masha. She's coming to live with us!" I said confidently from the threshold of the room into the back of the tea-drinking uncle.

"W-what...?" coughs his neighbor, spilling half a cup on the table.

"Well... she can't live on the street, she's pregnant," I argued.

"The mug tinkled on the floor, and the uncle slowly turned in his chair."

"Maxim!" he growled, looking at me and Masha.

"W-what?"

"Give me the belt."

"N0-no-no! Let me explain!" I shook my head and pressed my back against the inadvertently closed door.

A cat meows pitifully in his hands.

"You have a minute..." he closed his eyes and sighed heavily.

"You can't keep a cat in a boarding school, and they're flea-ridden outside!" I yammered. "So I thought, if we could take Mashka off the street and wash her, we could let her be fondled for a fee!:

"Well..." the man made a clenched fist.

"That's it. Five minutes - one glass of milk. Yes! Milk spoils quickly, but you can make cream out of milk! And cream can be exchanged in the cafeteria for chocolate," I quickly concluded, glancing at the second hand on my uncle's wristwatch. "That is, rent Mashka, take the cream, and we are in the chocolate!"

The uncle rose heavily from his seat, grabbed his belt on the way, and hovered over me after two steps.

"I have two pieces of news for you," said Uncle Kolya in a strange, echoing voice. "First, it's a male cat. A fat, well-fed cat."

"Oh, damn, I'd already arranged the kittens in advance..." I hesitated at the last word and hiccupped, staring at Uncle's black eyes.

"Second, let the cat go outside."

"I invested so many cutlets!"

"Now! And on the way, think carefully about your behavior."

Two minutes later, I was standing in front of the uncle again - as if he had frozen, waiting for me in the same position, belt in hand.

"So?" he asked in a stern voice.

"Did I forget your share?" I said in a questioning tone.

"Wrong, Maxim!" And he pointed his belt at the bed.

The wrong answer was even: "I won't do it again".

"Understand, there will be a lot of power in your life, a lot of authority. But you have no right to dispose of other people's lives and freedom!" The uncle was furious between swings of the belt. "And if you ever forget that, I'll even come to you from hell and whip you with the belt again!"

He could have just explained - I would have sorted it out without the belt. If you can't, you can't. And he seemed to realize it himself - so he put the sugar bowl and the brew on the table and staggered off around the area.

Anyway, by the time Simon arrived, I was able to sit in my chair after all. He had been coming in for two months, almost every evening after dinner, and that was enough to explain the meaning of Horseshoe, Stick, and the capital "P" with a ponytail. Very interesting!

"Here's a look. Voltage equals resistance multiply amperage. Is something not clear?" Simon patiently poked the formula with a pencil, showing the squiggles and telling me what they meant.

"Yeah. What's multiply?"

Simon slapped his open palm on his face with a clinking sound. He often does that before he answers. It probably, helps him think.

"Multiply is an action," he explained, rolling his eyes to the ceiling.

"Cool! Can I do this action?"

"Yes. You are multiplying the sorrow."

"To what?" I asked, writing down important information in a notebook.

"To the sadness."

"What do we get out of it?"

"Hopelessness," my teacher sighed wistfully. "Anyway, close the notebook and turn it over. See the columns?"

"Yep." I stared at the flat lines of numbers with the same sign.

"You'll learn it by next time. You'll understand multiplication at the same time," Simon said.

"Two times seven equals fourteen..." I read the line. "Is this information accurate?"

"Absolutely. Everything written here is completely true."

"Hmmm..." I put 'Maxim = Emperor' at the end of the column. Now this table can be trusted.

"I'll come back tomorrow," Simon waved.

The man returned towards nightfall, clearly from the big city - the smell of his clothes and the dust on his boots indicated this.

"Have a seat," he pointed to a seat at the table and poured tea into mugs.

Is he going to apologize?

"I keep looking for your family," he began, taking a packet of real waffles out of his pocket. "It's not going well," he admitted, taking a seat across the table.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

"Is it really that bad?" I grimaced, pulled the pack to me and, not noticing the forbidding glance and gesture, generously forgot about this morning's insult.

"Through the maternity hospital - not a single lead. Through the Power of Blood, not much success, either. There was a Japanese clan that seemed to have something similar, but you," he looked me over from head to toe, "didn't look like anything."

I stopped stretching the corners of my eyes sideways and slouched down.

"As I said, I am keeping searching. But it is very difficult to do this within the walls of the boarding school. I can't disappear for long in the city."

The man hesitated for a while, even raised his cup to his lips, but put it back.

"It's also dangerous for me to be here," he admitted. "Remember when I told you not to let it be known that we knew anything?"

"Yes," I nodded back.

"For men, adults, I mean, brains sometimes fail to fool the body. Anyway, it's harder for me to act the way I used to every time." Uncle Kolya turned back to the window.

"Will you go away?" I said sadly, realizing what the watchman was getting at.

"In a few months," he confirmed my assumption. "I've started the adoption process for Simon. After the school year is over, we'll both be gone."

"What about me?!" I jerked my chin up in anger.

"I can't adopt you," he said apologetically, bowing his head. "I told you, you don't really exist."

"Why Simon?" Swallowing a grudge, I sniffed.

"After his ninth year at boarding school, he won't be taken anywhere. They try to refuse boarding students. He needs to go to a good school, not here," the man dryly snapped. "I will transfer him to another school. I have enough opportunities for that. You want what's best for Simon, don't you?"

"Yes."

"Especially since I'm not much help to you," he waved his cane in the air." Every year it gets harder to walk. But Simon is young and clever. It is easier for him. He will be an adult before you are. He will be able to look after you and pass parcels and sugar. Secretly."

"So Simon isn't helping me because of the book?" I stared at the floor, picking at the painted floor with my sneaker.

"Yes, I talked to him," the uncle confessed, "and he agrees about the school and beyond..."

"Just like that, he believed and agreed." I raised an eyebrow incredulously. If you think of all the stories and tales of the ogre watchman...

"He's more mature than he looks. There are boring grown-up words like 'admission competition', 'privileges', 'benefits'... You don't know what they mean, but Simon has already started to think about the first of them. Without the second one, Simon can't get into university. With the third, he can - but only I, a single, disabled father, can give it to him."

"Аh?" Without understanding, I interjected.

"He can enter a good university if I adopt him," deciphered Uncle Kolya. "That's why he agreed."

"I see... Does he know about me?"

"No," the watchman shook his head briefly. "You don't say too. The less you know, the better you sleep."

"Is that if I learn all physics, I won't sleep at all?!"

"It's a proverb," the uncle brushed him off. "If he doesn't know, he won't care. And he can't betray you."

"He won't," I said with conviction.

"I think so too, but let's not risk it."

The watchman was silent for a while, staring at the surface of the table and smearing water droplets with his finger. He seemed to be deciding whether to tell me something or not.

"Also, when the time comes to get you out of here, I'd better be long gone," he said after all. "Do you know what revenge is?"

"Yeah. That's what Mashk did with your slippers," I shook my head in agreement.

"So... Wha-at?"

I would have explained, but at that moment, I was urgently finishing the rest of the waffles. Intuition!

The next three months passed like a vanilla waft - you seem to take your time, listening and enjoying it, but then, boom, it's gone, all gone.

All the while, uncle was running around town and the boarding school, exchanging beautifully shaped bottles of brown water for gray certificates and satisfied smiles from the teachers. Simon was almost spending the night in our room, staring tiredly into a dozen books with the number eight on the cover. I lay on my bed, slowly heating my bracelet to a scarlet color and then cooling it again - if I surrounded my hands with the gift, it wasn't even hot at all.

Until the uncle caught me doing it.

"You'll burn the room," he said, somehow not angry at all, as he studied the red-hot rim in my hand.

"Nah," I glanced in his direction and turned my gaze back to make sure nothing was going to ban yet.

"And what do you... feel?" With caution in his voice, he asked, sitting down on the edge of the bed.

"Just curious," I shrugged, smoothing the metal with my fingers.

"Curiosity is good," the uncle smiled approvingly. "Boredom is bad enough. Even worse than anger."

"Why?" I put the bracelet on my wrist, letting it cool on my hand, and sat down, turning towards him.

"The gift is driven by emotion. We were taught through anger, perfect for the rank and file. You don't have to think. It's easy to summon it in yourself - just hate an opponent or an obstacle. When I was promoted, I was angry at my superiors and at the weather, and sometimes I put a pebble in my shoe. And when I wised up, I was angry at life," the man recalled.

I didn't understand everything, but I didn't ask questions. I would understand the words later.

"Anger gets in the way of thinking. Senior officers are taught differently through pride, loyalty, and honor. These are very strong emotions. Great power is held and controlled by them. They could easily hold a private army, even alone, for twenty-four hours a day. However, there have been misfires when instead of pride, the gift of an officer was controlled by vanity. And you do not immediately recognize it - the officer performs the task, and when it turns out that for the medal, he put the whole squad of excellent guys in the ground, then it's too late ..."

"Why is boredom a bad thing?" When the pause dragged on, I decided to ask.

"Imagine a monster," he began ingratiatingly, "who burns down a man because he's bored. He destroys houses because he's bored. Scary?"

"B-but a person wouldn't necessarily... do it all, would they?"

"The gift affects the brain," the watchman tapped his finger on his temple, "which is why, by the way, an aristocrat's word is unbreakable. They are brought up through the honor of lineage. It is inconceivable for them to overstep their word. It is part of their soul. And if there is boredom in a person's soul, then his whole life will turn into a constant search for new impressions. War and the suffering of others are the most accessible ones if he has power and authority. He won't be able to create anything because it's long and boring... That's why I was... scared when I saw you today," he finished.

"Are curiosity and the gift - are they friends?" I became curious.

"Hmm," he scratched the back of his head, "I don't know. I don't think I can think of anything scary. The Healers have compassion and love," he murmured, "the Executioners have hunger..."

"And the scientists?"

"Scientists have a lot of pride, you know," he winked at me for some reason. "There's money to be made in research, and that takes character. Curiosity alone won't get you very far. Even clan scholars, who certainly have enough money, are also on Honor and Duty. All for the sake of the Clan, all for the glory of the Clan! So you can find out about curiosity by yourself... and you will find out because the gift will make you do so."

Two weeks later, Simon finished the year with all A's. A day later, the whole boarding school seemed to be seeing off two men - the big one, with a stick, waddling awkwardly up the paved path to the fence, and the small one, with a briefcase in one hand and his new father's hand in the other. That hand, as everyone knew, did not obey the watchman, and he was a cripple - about which the seniors joked to themselves, peeking out of the windows up to their waists. And they were jealous, just like everyone else. Because they didn't even have a father like that.

And I was moved to the older group. It turns out a child isn't supposed to live alone, and I look old enough to take up a bunk in the big hall on the third floor.

I had just had time to move the blanket to the new bed and spread the sheet when a dark-haired, burly chap with cheeky brown eyes bumped onto the mattress in front of me. I glanced at him; he seemed to be in the same class as Simon, and they had even fought. So he was out for revenge. Meanwhile, the boy put his foot down and stared at me defiantly.

"They say you're a good guy. Did you help a cripple? You hold his thing in the toilet, didn't you?" He grinned a yellow smile at the local.

The whole room came up for the fun, waiting with interest for the conversation to continue.

"I'm not so good as to answer you funny right now," I admitted honestly.

"Ha-ha!"

"So I'll just break your nose."

...The next day they brought me back.

* * *

Chapter 7

One day's margin of error