“Mail call!” Melanie sang out, bursting through the front door with a stack of envelopes clutched in her fist, high over her head. She nudged the door shut with her foot and stopped a few feet away from where Jon was straightening up from unplugging the Hoover, sorting through them. “Let’s see…bills, bills, bills. Oh, a couple letters from Auntie Jean—one for Jon and one for me, must be late birthday cards. Circular from the new pet supply shop…and whatever this is.”
She handed the lion’s share of the envelopes to their dad, who gave her a warm smile and a kiss on the cheek before settling into his armchair. Jon tucked the Hoover into the closet and accepted the cerise envelope Melanie was holding out to him. It was addressed in a fine, precise script, the dark ink faintly tinged with gold, and postmarked Sheffield, but there was a smiling face drawn in the head of the G in his surname that made him grin. That was one hundred percent Auntie Liz, and he could hear the scolding over her having touched her older sister’s precious ink, never mind the fountain pen.
He turned it over and grinned wider when he saw the red wax seal, pressed with a seal showing a stylized R in a laurel wreath and the Latin inscription Arduus ad solem. Trust Auntie Rose to remember how thoroughly Melanie had broken down when she realized they actually licked the envelopes rather than moistening them with a sponge. Carefully, he worked his finger under the flap and lifted the seal away, managing to do so without breaking it. As Melanie had surmised, it was a birthday card, one of the fussy, high class, over the top fancy ones often sent by the elderly and the pretentious. That wasn’t really Auntie Jean’s style, and he wrinkled his nose at the grandiose, old fashioned message picked out in silver on the front.
The mystery was solved when he opened the card and a second envelope, this one black and with the flap simply tucked in at the back, fell out onto his lap. He quickly read the message inside and snickered at the ornate signature—Your loving aunt, Hyacinth Buckét Jean.
Melanie burst out laughing when she saw it. Jon looked up to see that she was holding a florid pink card, far more, well, girly than Melanie preferred, never mind Auntie Jean would send. They were jokes. Obviously they were jokes. Jon shook his head fondly and busied himself with opening the actual card. The interior of the envelope was blood red, which was extremely promising. The card itself had Bela Lugosi’s face on it above the words Getting older sucks…
He was just opening the card to read the message when their dad let out a cry of delight that made him jump and Melanie drop her card. “Oh, well done, Jon!”
“What did I do?” Jon asked, bewildered. It didn’t sound sarcastic, so it certainly wasn’t about the beast in Room 19—and anyway Melanie had been at least half involved in that—and anyway nobody knew it was them or they’d have already got in trouble for it. And they hadn’t had their final exams yet, so it wasn’t as though something had been published declaring him top of the year or anything, not that he would be. He knew by now that having a lot of knowledge wasn’t a substitute for knowing what was being tested on, or testing well.
But their dad was beaming at him, holding a heavy cream colored envelope in one hand and several good quality sheets of paper in the other, and Jon saw the fancy seal on the flap. “You’ve been invited to take the exam to be a King’s Scholar, not just the regular entrance exams!”
Jon blinked. “Oh.”
He knew what that meant. Of course he did. He’d…well, not exactly forgotten about it, although the past year had been extremely hectic and kind of a lot to deal with, actually. Inasmuch as he’d thought about it at all, he had more or less assumed that his marks in English the previous year would have dragged him down and taken him out of the running. But, well, that didn’t appear to be the case, did it? Not only had his grades been good enough to keep him in line for a place, they’d been good enough to have him put down for a much more competitive spot.
“Who’s the king?” Melanie dropped onto the sofa next to him, making him bounce a little from the displaced force.
“One of the Henries, I think.” Jon frowned slightly, trying to remember what he’d read in the dauntingly thick brochure that had come three years previously. “Henry the Sixth?”
“That’s right. Founded in 1440.” Their dad’s voice took on what they’d thought of when they were small as his “courtroom voice” but had since learned was an RP accent carefully cultivated to hide his working class origins. He caught himself quickly and relapsed into his normal voice. “Originally it was a charitable scholarship. Now it’s…well, there’s no money in it anymore really, but you’ve got to be a good scholar to even stand a chance. There are only fourteen places awarded every year, you know. I’d imagine you’re guaranteed a place even if you don’t get the KS, but we’ll have to find that out.”
Melanie looked back and forth between Jon and their dad. “Um…guaranteed a place where? Is this some kind of summer camp? Are we getting out of going to visit Gr—excuse me, Mrs Sims this year?”
“Are you kidding? She’d call the cops to have me dragged down there on charges of kidnapping,” Jon muttered. He opened the card and read the message inside: …but it beats the alternative. Have a fang-tastic birthday! All of the aunts had signed it, and so had Uncle Edmund. There wasn’t another male signature, though, so either Auntie Peg was between husbands or her latest man didn’t feel like he deserved to sign it. It definitely made him wish they could go to Sheffield for the summer instead of Bournemouth.
“So where are you going to be a king’s scholar, then?” Melanie persisted.
Jon opened his mouth, but their dad beat him to it. “You remember, Melanie, we all went down to Berkshire for Jon’s interview a couple years back? This is the final step in that process. He’s made it to the final round of getting into Eton.”
“Oh. Was that why we went?” Melanie wrinkled her nose. “I thought it was just so you could show us around. I didn’t know you’d applied.”
“I didn’t,” Jon said. He managed to keep his voice calm and matter of fact.
“No, we put Jon’s name down as soon as he was born,” their dad admitted. “That doesn’t fully guarantee a spot anymore, of course, but it at least meant they were looking at him as soon as he started school. Grades, conduct, all that sort of thing.”
“And getting into a fight the first day of school didn’t knock him out of the running?” Melanie spoke flippantly, but Jon could see, behind the words, something dark and fierce smoldering in her eyes. She was, not to put too fine a point on it, pissed. “How about me? Did you put my name down?”
“Ah—no.” To his credit, their dad looked embarrassed. “Believe me, we would have in a heartbeat if we could have. But…well…” He floundered a bit.
Jon tucked the card back in the envelope and decided to save him. “Eton’s an all boys school. One of the last ones in England. They don’t even accept girls as day students.”
Melanie’s eyes darkened further. “Oh.”
“It shouldn’t be too late for you to look into Harrogate for next year,” their dad said quickly. “Where your mother—your mama—went for college. They do go from age two to age eighteen, and they don’t allow boys—well, past age eleven, anyway.” He smiled. “She’d be proud of you. They both would.”
“Might?” Melanie blurted. “You didn’t think about letting me go before now?”
Their dad blanched. From the look on his face, he hadn’t, and he realized exactly how that had to sound to Melanie—that he’d been so invested in his son’s future that he hadn’t thought about his daughter’s. “I—hand to God, Melanie, I completely forgot how old you two were. I thought I had another year before I needed to worry about it. Otherwise I’d have been preparing you both, and I would certainly have had information about Harrogate to hand.”
Melanie clenched her fists and took a deep breath. Ever since puberty had started having its way with them, they were both a lot quicker to lose their tempers than they had been when they were younger, which was saying a fair amount. But neither of them liked the feeling they got when they lost their temper with their dad, who was one of the nicest, most easygoing men in the world. They were also getting a reputation of being easy to provoke, so they were both trying to work on controlling their anger. They didn’t always succeed, but they were trying. Usually they could calm one another down, and they’d never yet been at each other’s throats, other than a playful argument or two.
“Where is Harrogate, anyway?” she asked, obviously fighting to keep her voice even.
Their dad hesitated. “North Yorkshire. It’s not that far from here—far enough that you’d need to board, of course, but you could come home weekends.”
Melanie swallowed. “What about Jon? Could Jon come home weekends from Eton? Berkshire is further away.”
“It’s possible, of course,” their dad began, then stopped.
Jon didn’t need him to finish. But it’s not encouraged. Weekend activities were a thing, and he felt, instinctively, that a King’s Scholar would be expected to participate in events over the weekend. He would come home for breaks and holidays, and that would be about it.
He decided this was the point he needed to speak up. “It’s okay, Melanie. I’m not going to Eton.”
Melanie and their dad both stared at him. Jon held his breath, waiting for the disappointment, the recriminations, the arguments. Instead, their dad’s face was the same blank, calm expression Jon had often seen in court when he was talking to a witness. Never bring your own emotions to the courtroom—one of the first things he’d taught them when they were old enough to start asking questions. “What makes you say that?”
Oh. He thought Jon was doubting himself. For a moment, Jon was tempted to let it go, to go take the exam and deliberately tank it. It wouldn’t hurt his academic future…not really…at least he didn’t think so…and it would preserve the fiction for a little while longer. But no, he decided, he needed to be honest. He needed to answer the question he had been asked—the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
“Because I don’t want to go,” he said, simply.
Melanie blinked. Their dad didn’t. “Why not?”
“I don’t…I’m not ready to go away from home yet,” Jon said. Which was true. A few weeks in the summer was one thing, and he hated almost every minute of it anyway, but he definitely didn’t want to go all the way to Berkshire for most of the year, especially if it would mean he had to come home and immediately go off to Bournemouth afterwards. He rushed on. "Maybe if the last year hadn’t been so…much…it would be different, but I-I really haven’t had time to think about it, and I’m—not prepared. And then I don’t…look like an Eton boy. I wouldn’t want to bring shame on the Old School Tie by causing trouble, and I know there would be…I’d end up getting into fights. And I would be the one getting in trouble, even if it wasn’t my fault.” He hesitated, then added, “Besides…I know how expensive it is.”
Something flickered through their dad’s eyes. “If that’s your biggest concern, you would almost certainly be eligible for scholarships.”
Jon managed a small smile. “Not much of one. Not enough to make a huge difference, especially if Melanie went to Harrogate, too. But it’s not my biggest concern, Dad. It’s on the list, sure, but…you know, if that were the only thing I was worried about was the money, I’d try and then get a summer job or something to help with the school fees.” He took a deep breath. “It’s just an awful lot of money to spend on something I don’t really want.”
For several moments, there was silence, broken only by Skimbleshanks batting at one of his toys with a jingle bell inside it—he might have been four years old, but he was still very much a kitten. Cosy appeared out of nowhere, as she so often did, and wound herself around Jon’s ankles, purring, before jumping up onto his lap and making herself comfortable. Jon stroked her, teasing up a bit of loose fur at her neck, and fought to keep looking at their dad instead of breaking eye contact. Even though he knew their dad didn’t equate eye contact with honesty, not from his children anyway, there was still a part of him that was afraid he’d be accused of lying if he didn’t.
Finally, their dad shook his head, his face softening. “I’m sorry, Little Flame. I was so enthusiastic about the idea of being able to sponsor you that I didn’t ever think to ask if you wanted to go. I should have asked you about it sooner. Frankly, I should have asked you about it when we went down for the interview. I should have realized then that your heart wasn’t in it, but I thought—or at least, I let myself think—that you were just nervous.” He slid off his chair and onto the sofa with them, then hugged Jon tightly. “We’ll send the packet back with a polite no, thank you. And when it comes time for you two to pick your colleges, we’ll all sit down and decide together.”
“Thanks, Dad.” Jon hugged their father back, more relieved than he wanted to admit.
Melanie didn’t say anything further, and the rest of the day passed as normal. That night, though, while Jon was sat up in bed reading through the introduction to the book he’d been meaning to read for a while and was finally getting to, she came back from the bathroom, jumped onto the bed next to him, and dropped her head to his shoulder.
“You’re not giving up on Eton just because Dad didn’t think to get me to Harrogate, are you?” she asked.
“Melanie, don’t be stupid.” Jon pressed his cheek to the top of Melanie’s head. “You don’t want to go to Harrogate.”
“But you do want to go to Eton?”
“No. I said so.”
“You’re just saying that.”
“I’m not.” Jon set his book down on his lap and gave Melanie the best glare he could manage, considering how close she was to him; he had to cross his eyes a bit to do it. “I really don’t want to go. It’s too far away, and I don’t want to leave Dad alone yet. He’s not ready, however much he wants to pretend he is. Not when he switched rooms with us so he never has to sleep in a room he used to share with Mum or Mama, even if he won’t say that’s why he switched.” He shrugged, despite the fact that it joggled her head. “Besides, Eton’s a boys’ school.”
Melanie snorted. “What, don’t want to miss out on girls?”
“I like boys, too,” Jon reminded her. “What I don’t want to miss is you. That’s the real reason I don’t want to go. Because you can’t. I’ve never gone anywhere without you and I don’t intend to start now.”
Melanie was quiet for a couple seconds. Finally, she huffed out a sigh. “Where you go, I go, eh?”
“That’s the deal,” Jon agreed.
“I’m glad,” Melanie confessed in a low whisper. “I’m not ready to miss you yet, either.”
Jon wrapped an arm around Melanie and hugged her; she flung her arms around his torso and snuggled closer. In her I’m not getting ready to cry and fuck you for even thinking it voice, she asked, “So what are you reading, anyway?”
“I found it in the nightstand.” Jon tilted the cover towards Melanie so she could see. “You remember Mum complaining about how the movie ruined her favorite book and the actors didn’t even look like they should? I wanted to see what that was all about.”
“Read it to me?” Melanie rested her chin on his shoulder and gave him her best puppy dog eyes. “At least start? I know we still have school in the morning.”
“Sure.” Jon leaned back against the headboard and opened the book, turned a couple pages, and began. “Chapter One. Jonathan Harker’s Journal. Third May, Bistritz. Left Munich at 8:35 p.m., on first May, arriving at Vienna early next morning…”