Days passed quickly at the palace and before I knew it I had already been there two weeks.
One day Sarah and I were talking when she suddenly changed the subject by saying, “What are you going to do the rest of your life?”
Confused by what she was trying to say I didn’t say anything.
“You can’t just stay around here and bum for the rest of your life. I should get Numair to test you for the gift.”
“I don’t know what I want to do. I mean there’s soo much to do. I don’t want to be a rider because of the traveling and the fighting, but I don’t know anything that I can do.”
“Well, I overheard-”
“You mean eavesdropped.” I broke in.
“As I was saying I happened to hear Numair telling Jonathan about some text he found that they can’t decipher. When they left I saw it was Spanish. I bet you could become a translator or something because Numair really wanted to know what that stuff was.”
Hmm, that was a definite possibility. I had been taking Spanish for about four years and I did have my Spanish book and dictionary, so I guess I could do that until I found something better. “Tell Numair I can help. That’ll be cool, I guess, something to do at least.” I could do that. Yeah I think I will, I thought to myself.
Sarah broke into my thoughts, “Good I’ll go tell him. He’ll get really excited. Come with me, he’ll probably will want you to start right away.”
So, I followed Sarah or rather was dragged behind her, to Numair’s quarters. Since it was the middle of the day, Sarah didn’t know if he’d be in.
Sarah knocked on the door and someone called from inside, “Just a minute.”
Daine answered the door and greeted us with a cheery hello.
“Is Numair around? I need to talk to him.” Sarah said almost as cheery as Daine. I don’t know if she was trying to be sarcastic or friendly.
“No, he’s not. I think he’s down at the classroom.” I was puzzled for a min. then I remembered that he taught a magic class.
“Thanks Daine.” Sarah replied still cheery and then I found myself being dragged by Sarah again down to one of the classrooms that the pages and squires used.
“I’ll wait out here while you go in and talk to him.” I really didn’t want to go in and interrupt the class.
Sarah almost reading my mind laughed, “Don’t worry, he doesn’t have a class in there yet. Come on.” Again I was dragged into the class to talk with Numair.
“Numair, I’ve got a surprise for you!” Sarah said skipping up to him.
“What is it this time? Last time you had a surprise for me my hand as blue for a week.”
“Oh, yeah, sorry ‘bout that.” Sarah tried to cover a smile ineffectively. “Well, blue is your color, smurfy!” Sarah and I were out right laughing by then.
“So what’s the surprise?”
“Oh, right, well you know those documents you and the King were going over yesterday...-”
“Yes, but how do you know about those?”
“I overheard-”
“You were eavesdropping again.” Numair broke in.
“Well that’s trivial. As I said I overheard you and when you left I looked at them and guess what...”
“What?” Numair said getting interested.
“Well, Leah here,” I waved, “Can sorta speak that language. She’s been studding Spanish for 4 years.”
Numair took awhile and then he put two and two together and said, “Finally I can know what those documents say. So When can you start? I’ve had people trying to break that code for a long time and no one could. We could only get a few words.”
“Oh those were probably cognates, weren’t they,” I was trying to sound educated, sorry. They both gave me weird looks.
“So when can you start?” Numair asked again.
“Hold on there Numair, we have to work out some contractual agreements,” Sarah grinned and looked over at me. “As you can see, my friend is in dire need of a job.” A very loud bell rang interrupting our conversation.
“We can figure out all of this later. I have to finish getting ready for my class which is about to start in a moment.” Sure enough pages and squires started filling into the classroom.
“Now he has a class,” Sarah grinned devilishly at me.
“Thanks for filling me in” I glared at Sarah, promising myself to put something very disagreeable into her bed the next chance I got.
“Sarah, why don’t you and Leah come by later on.”
A few whistles erupted from the class and Numair went to deal with his students. “Master Joren, let’s see your homework, right now!” Numair said loudly and forcefully.
As we were walking out of the class we ran into Neal and Kel. I smiled shyly at Neal while Kel and Sarah exchanged looks.
“Somebody’s got a crush!” Sarah taunted me when we were out of earshot of the class.
“Who doesn’t. There’s just something about him. And he’s smart,” I sighed and Sarah just laughed.
“Come on love struck. I have to go catch up on some of my work, care to join me?”
“Sure, why not.”
Later that day Sarah and I went up to see Numair.
“I talked to him earlier,” Sarah confessed. “You’ll be paid good wages and he says there’re so many documents it might take you years.”
“Years? I don’t think I’ll be here for years.”
“And why not?” sarah asked, “I’ve been here for months, and I don’t see a way for us to get back home. Besides you DO need a job.”
“Okay, I get your point. Let’s go talk to Numair.”
When we got there Numair ushered us inside. “Sit, please.”
Politeness, I like that. Too bad he’s married, he’s cute. God don’t you love Tamora Pierce’s imagination. Anywho, we talked about the job and what I would get. What was cool was I got adjoining rooms to Sarah. I did have to get fitted for new dresses so I would be wearing clothes like everyone else and not stick out like such a sore thumb. All in all it was a pretty cool job.
Days passed quickly for us and while Sarah did whatever she did I translated the text. Some of it was pretty easy while sometimes I had to have my dictionary out all the time. A month after I had first arrived Sarah threw a picnic to celebrate. I didn’t know that she was going to invite a bunch of people though. When we got there I saw there was about a dozen people there, Neal included.
“I thought you said this was going to be ‘a small little picnic to celebrate’.” I glared at her and then said hello to everyone who had showed up.
As I looked around I saw Kel, Daine, Merric, Cleon, Vi, Lisa, and Luianne (who are some people I had been eating dinner with lately), and two squires whom looked familiar.
All in all it was a blast. After we had eaten and talked for a while, some people had fallen asleep. Let's just say we had fun waking them up...
Later on we decided to go riding, I had borrowed one of Daine’s horses for the day. On the path where we were riding a tree had fallen in the road and now blocked our path.
“Don’t you wish you could just wish that tree wasn’t here.” Sarah said exasperated.
“Yeah what I wouldn’t do for that tree to just disappear.” I said. All of a sudden the tree wasn’t there any more. Everyone was freaking out. The tree that had been plaguing us had just disappeared.
The two squires who had come to the picnic decided that they would go tell Numiar or the King about what had just happened.
“You know they’re only trying to impress you right?” Sarah asked me quizzically.
We both looked at each other and started singing "That Don’t Impress Me Much", forgetting that everyone else was still there. When we finished we both started laughing and Vi and Lisa came over to us to joke and ask us what that song was, while some whistled and some one clapped. Sarah and I bowed and laughed. Once everyone had calmed down. We decided to go back to the palace.
Chapter 1 ~ Mythros, Mynoss, and Shakith! Where Am I?
Chapter 2 ~ Secrets, Nobles, and Trees
Chapter 4 ~ That Don't Impress Me Much, Smurfy
Chapter 5 ~ The Surprises Under the Tree...
Chapter 6 ~ Mashed Potatoes with a mouse on the side
Chapter 7 ~ Secrets and Clover...
Chapter 8 ~ Two Cups For The Price Of One
Chapter 10 ~ Sarah's Magical Mystery Car
Chapter 17 ~ How to be a Table Dancer
