"Do you understand?"
✧˖°.✧˖˚▹ₓ˚. ୭ ˚○◦˚.˚◦○˚ ୧ .˚ₓ༺༄ؘ 𝓒𝓱𝓪𝓹𝓽𝓮𝓻 5 ༄ؘ༻ₓ˚ .୧ ˚○◦˚.˚◦○˚ ୭˚▹ₓ˚.✧˖°.✧
I understood, so I nodded my head. Shortly before graduation, I'd been given a list of chaperones with whom I could apprentice, ranked by their success. There were fifty-two chaperones on the list and K. Shaniya Gardner was ranked fifty-second. She was wrong. She was not excellent at her job, which is why I wanted to be her apprentice. I thought we would be working around the city, and with a dumb chaperone, I could sneak past her and work on a project with someone I absolutely trust. But now I wasn't where I imagined. I was here, overlooking what once used to be a beautiful beach with a tall woman with silky hair.
I followed Shaniya to the driveway and up a long set of stairs that made me huff and puff the moment I reached the top. We arrived at the front door, and at that moment she rang the doorbell six times in a row. It felt wrong ringing at the wrong door in the wrong place, but I still cooperated anyway. Why do people know that something is wrong but do it anyway? I doubt I will ever know why.
After the sixth ring of the doorbell, I could hear faint footsteps approaching the door but my mind was focused on something else. I was picturing myself in the city with a very close associate of mine doing very important tasks. I pictured myself sneaking away from Shaniya to meet with my associate and complete our tasks. I pictured myself fulfilled, happy, and well-fed, unlike what I was feeling here with K. Shaniya Gardner, who didn't even feed me the tiniest of snacks when we were driving here.
Because of this, I took very little notice of the butler who opened the door for us or the hallway he led us down before opening a set of very rickety doors that were even creakier than I thought they'd be and asking us to wait in the library. I should have noticed. As an apprentice, I am supposed to notice the small things and take note of everything around me, as I could use it in the future - especially a new location, particularly if the furniture seems wrong for the room, or if the library seems to have just a handful of books. But I didn't even look back as the butler shut the door behind us, and instead stared across the large, dim room to a small table where there was tea laid out on a tray, along with twelve cookies on a plate.
I walked over to get a closer look and saw that they were oatmeal raisin cookies. Although that flavor of cookie may be my least favorite, it didn't stop me from eating eleven of the twelve. I was so hungry that I believed that I would've ate the plate if not for the look of disgust Shaniya shot my way as she turned to sit down on a small sofa.
"Not proper, Corlorown," she told me. "Not proper at all."
"There's still one more for you," I informed politely.
"Sit here," Shaniya patted the part of the sofa that was next to her, "and stop talking. The butler told us to wait, and wait we shall."
Wait we did, because we waited long enough that I looked for something to read. The few books on the shelves looked like the type of books to get returned back to the library a day after bringing it from the library because the person who checked the book realized that it was very boring, or maybe too cliche, and returned it before they even read the third chapter. I read five pages of a book with the title of "Oliver Twist: The Remix," which was about a boy named Oliver Twist who liked to beat up little kids and steal their soup and money in order to feed hungry children. I'd always hated stories like that - someone does bad to someone else only to do good to another person. I immediately went to the shelf that I took the book from so I could return it to its original spot when the double doors opened with a loud creak and an old woman with a limp and a blinding bright pink cane trudged into the room.
"Thank you for waiting," she said in a voice even creakier than the double doors. "My name is Ms. Barbra Treys."
"Mine's K. Shaniya Gardner," Shaniya told the woman as she stood up, pulling me with her. "I was told that I would be meeting with a 𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘦 client."
"I am not a male," Ms. Barbra barked.
"I can see that," Shaniya replied, trying to fix the tension between them. "I like your hair," she tried.
"It is very nice to meet you," I said instead.
Shaniya gave me a confidence-cutting glare, but the sweet old woman just gave a brief smile and offered to me her soft hand, which must have been moisturized with some type of high-quality lotion.
"Charming boy," she smiled, and then turned to Shaniya with a frown. "What does the 𝘒 stand for?"
"Kind of you to call my apprentice a charm," Shaniya told Ms. Barbra as she handed her an envelope. The old woman tore it open and threw herself on the largest chair in the room to read it. Even in the dim room, I could see the insignia on the letter that matched my letter of introduction. The old woman looked about as interested in the letter as I the book about Oliver Smith.
"This'll do," she said as she placed the envelope on the tray and took a quick look at the crumb-covered plate.
Then, with a great sigh, as if she were preparing for an important speech, Ms. Barbra looked at Shaniya and began to speak.