Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 57623 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 288(@200wpm)___ 230(@250wpm)___ 192(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57623 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 288(@200wpm)___ 230(@250wpm)___ 192(@300wpm)
“We have found you,” he declares, as if they’ve done something more impressive than wander around the exterior of a train station and hope for the best.
Storm shoots Jane a can you fucking believe this guy look.
Jane cannot fucking believe this guy, but she is too professional to return the look. Storm is already far too out of her place as it is.
“I found Storm, and I will be returning her to school on the next train.”
“You have found the student, and we have found you,” Hannes reframes her statement. “Both of you will come with us in our car. We cannot risk public transport, she is a flight risk.”
“She’s not a flight risk, she’s a teenage girl,” Jane says. “The train will be faster.”
“I must insist, Frau Strict.”
It is at this point, Storm speaks up. “Who the fuck are you to insist? You let me walk away from you in the first place, twice, actually! And you missed me here in Basel. You couldn’t find your own ass with both hands. We’re taking the train.”
Hannes’ usually stony expression becomes pure granite. He does not respond to the petulant student, but rather directs his comments to Jane.
“It is late, and the characters on the train become unsavory after midnight.”
Jane relents. “Very well, we will travel by car.”
The journey back is at least four hours. Storm curls up in the corner of the backseat and proceeds to fall asleep, having thoroughly exhausted herself. Jane remains alert, but the company is not what one might call pleasant or stimulating. It is only a slightly longer drive than it would be train journey, but it feels like an infinite amount of time longer.
The headmistress is awake when they arrive well past one in the morning. Jane sends Storm off to bed, knowing full well that she is not in any state to deal with any authority figures for the moment. She will keep until tomorrow. Laura posts up outside the front of the school while Jane and Hannes report to the headmistress’ office.
There was not much in the way of getting-to-know-you conversation in the car. In fact, Jane has felt rather more like a recalcitrant student being dragged back to school than Storm seemed to. That feeling only intensifies when she arrives in the headmistress’ presence.
“I trust we have all our students accounted for, Hannes?”
“Yes, Headmeisterin,” he nods, as if he had anything to do with any of it.
Satisfied, Frau Lotte turns her attention to Jane.
“I lost a student and a staff member today,” she notes rather grimly. “It is considered appropriate to notify me when you intend to leave the school, Miss Strict. I understand that you were endeavoring to return the student…”
“I did return her,” Jane says. “Which is more than the security could do.”
She is well aware that if she had not found Storm, the girl would be wandering around Basel at this point. She hadn’t expected a parade upon her return, but a thank you would be nice.
The headmistress’ tone sharpens at Jane’s response, which is not nearly as apologetic as she clearly expects it to be. “I expect my staff to have more self-control than the students, Miss Strict. We cannot all go running about the countryside whenever the mood takes us.”
Jane is not entirely certain how she ended up in trouble while Storm is hopefully curled up in bed fast asleep, but that is the sort of day this has been. She has certainly not been running about the countryside. She is beginning to wonder if Hannes and Laura are not the only ones who privately view her as being less mature than the rest of her cohort.
“You have forty students to look after,” Headmistress Lotte continues. “Not one. In future, you will leave such matters to the security detail responsible. Am I making myself clear?”
“Yes, headmistress, of course,” Jane says.
“You are dismissed.”
“Thank you,” Jane says. She knows all she needs to do is leave the room quietly, take her chastisement and… she pauses at the door, already regretting what she is going to say, but knowing it must be said.
“You are quite right. Storm is in your care, not mine.”
The headmistress nods, satisfied.
“It would be better, then, if you did not lose her again, so that I might be able to have my full attention on my duties here, and not have to become your de facto bloodhound when the alleged security detail proves incapable. Good night, headmistress.”
There is a moment in which the muscle in the headmistress’ jaw twitches, and her eyes move toward an old paddle displayed on the wall more as a statement piece than anything of use.
“Good night, Miss Strict.”
Jane leaves the room and exhales deeply, twice as long as she last breathed in. This has been a very long, very difficult first day at work. A voice belonging to someone secreted in a nearby alcove makes a little comment.