Your Teachers Were Unlucky to Meet You

At the London Orphanage, in the director's office—which was really just a small room partitioned off in the farthest corner—Susan Brown stared anxiously at the orphanage's expense ledger.

For the children, Christmas was a day of joy, anticipation, and surprises. But for adults—especially adults who had to feed an entire orphanage on meager funds—it was a day to dread.

For the past few years, the government had been pursuing a policy of cutting back the "welfare state." That had directly affected the orphanage's main source of funding.

And the children at the orphanage—well, growing children could eat more than an English dog with big ears, a short nose, and a curled tail. A tiny child could swallow two thick slices of bread with a fried egg between them and still claim to be hungry. Their appetites were staggering.

Then there was how fast they grew. The little ones were like saplings in spring: they grew in the wind, grew in the rain, and grew in the sunshine. Their trouser legs seemed to shorten overnight. The children at the orphanage could hardly afford to be particular about food or clothing, but she still wanted to give them the best life she could.

They were children, after all.

And it was winter. How could they go around in trousers that left their ankles bare?

Mrs. Brown turned the ledger pages anxiously, wondering which expense she could trim a little further.

Her eyes passed over the biggest daily expenses—meat, eggs, milk, rice, and flour. No. Growing children needed enough to eat.

Fruit twice a week? No. That was little enough already, and the children needed fruit to stay healthy.

Butter pastries once a week? No. Their lives were hard enough. They deserved something sweet now and then to lift their spirits.

Heating, water, electricity, clothes, shoes... Mrs. Brown flipped through the ledger several times, then sighed and took out the wages she had just received.

It was Christmas, after all. She had to give the children who were looking forward to it a little something. When they grew up and looked back on their childhoods, she didn't want them to remember only hardship.

Mrs. Brown pressed her lips together and counted notes out of the thin stack, one by one.

Paul was always dreaming of adventures and played a pirate whenever the children made up games. She would buy him a pirate hat. Mary was a little girl who loved looking pretty and was forever playing with her blond hair; a delicate hair clip would suit her better... Mrs. Brown went through the children one by one, and before long she had settled on a gift for each of them.

She stood, intending to buy everything while the wind and snow were still light.

At the door, she stopped. No—there was one more.

She hadn't counted a gift for Eliana.

She really was getting old. How could she have forgotten little Ellie?

Mrs. Brown went back and drew several more notes from the thin remainder.

She would buy her a thick rabbit-fur hat. This winter was cold, and she didn't want the girl freezing.

She paused, then took out two more notes.

Better make it a new outfit, too. Eliana was a young lady now, studying far from home. If she always dressed in drab clothes, people might laugh at her.

She wondered how Eliana was getting on at school. Such a small, delicate girl, all alone in a strange place—what if the other children bullied her?

And she had been careless enough to forget to send little Ellie a gift in advance. If everyone else had one and Ellie didn't, how hurt would she be?

Mrs. Brown hurried out of the orphanage. She had to buy the gifts and post Eliana's before the post office closed.

Head down, she hurried down the steps and collided with a dark mass with a bang.

Since when had someone built such an enormous wall in front of the orphanage?

What new whim had the government come up with this time?

She looked up in irritation. Before she could make out what the thing was, a familiar, bright voice full of energy reached her ears.

"Susan! Did you come out to meet me?"

Mrs. Brown stared in shock. Eliana had two huge sacks on her back, a big cloth bundle strapped to her chest, and another tucked under her right arm. Her left hand held a stick, but the weight had bent her nearly double. She looked like a little turtle carrying three mountains on its back.

The little turtle cried out and charged toward her, leaning on the stick. "Quick, take some of this! You have no idea how many good things I brought back!"

Then she shouted toward the orphanage, "Mary! Becca! Paul! Oliver! Come help me!"

The noisy orphanage seemed to fall silent for a moment. Then, as if someone had flipped a switch, a neat row of heads poked around the doorway.

"Eliana!"

"Eliana's back!"

The children burst into cheers and streamed out of the courtyard like a flock of birds.

Eliana caught the little monkeys darting around her one by one, like a khan mustering his troops. "Come on, there's enough for everyone. Carry it all inside for me."

She began assigning loads on the spot.

Paul was the oldest, so he got three pumpkins. Oh, his mouth was still free—he could hold a piece of fabric in his teeth, too.

Mary was a little girl, so she got an easier load: three bolts of cloth. Oh, her neck was long enough to hang another piece around it.

Eliana kept piling things on them. The children held bundles of all sizes high above their heads and scurried eagerly into the orphanage like ants carrying food.

The children whose hands were still relatively free couldn't bear to leave. They crowded around Eliana, chattering away.

"Ellie, Ellie, is your school fun?"

"Is studying tiring? I think having spelling tests twice a week is exhausting. How many do you have at middle school?"

"We missed you a little. Did you miss us while you were at school?"

"Did anyone bully you?"

"What? Someone bullied Eliana?" Little Paul had just hurried back out after dropping his load in the kitchen, and he caught the question. "Who dares bully one of Captain Paul's crew?"

The small courtyard filled with chatter and squawking. It sounded as though someone had let three hundred ducks loose in it.

For once, Eliana was patient. She used to find these chattering little brats unbearable, but after time apart, she had missed them. Bending down slightly, she answered them one by one.

"It's pretty fun."

"No, studying's easy. We don't even have seven essays a week. I couldn't write one every day if I wanted to."

The little girl who had asked looked up at her innocently. "Are essays easy?"

Eliana replied casually, "Easy enough. I've never got anything but top marks."

"Wow!" said the little girl. "Then I want to write essays every day when I'm older and get top marks too."

Eliana patted her head approvingly. "Good!"

"Ellie, Ellie, what about me? You still haven't said whether you missed us."

Another little one threw herself at Eliana and hugged her leg, rocking it back and forth.

"I did, I did, I did." Eliana slipped a piece of dried fish into her mouth. "See? I brought you presents."

She touched the patch on the child's elbow, then whipped a thick piece of cloth out of her big pocket. "We'll make you new clothes!"

Cheers broke out all around her. It was as if Christmas had come early to that little patch of ground.

"Excuse me, Miss Christmas," Mrs. Brown said, finally unable to hold back. "May I ask—I seem to recall you went to Hogwarts Full-time Middle School, not Hogwarts Full-time Factory. Is that right?"

Eliana froze mid-motion, her hands still busy pulling things out. For some reason, a bad feeling flashed through her, as though she was about to be in trouble.

She looked in confusion at her bulging bags and bundles. She thought she had done brilliantly: she was the breadwinner, the pillar supporting the household. Surely this was the part where she got praised. Why would she be punished?

It had to be her imagination!

She lifted her chin proudly. "Yes, Susan, but our school is wonderful."

Mrs. Brown drew a long breath. "So wonderful it sent you home with all these pumpkins?"

Eliana stretched her neck and declared proudly, "I grew these pumpkins myself! I was punished—"

She had nearly let slip that she had been sentenced to unpaid labor. To save face, she hastily changed her story.

"I was assigned to tend the school vegetable garden for my work duty. These are the fruits of my labor. The caretaker said I could bring them home, and he gave me those flatbreads too!"

Mrs. Brown made no comment. Her face remained cold. "And the fish? Don't tell me you raised those yourself."

"The dried fish? I used what I learned to catch them in the pond beside the school. If the school teaches us how, isn't that basically permission to catch them?"

Eliana sounded thoroughly convinced of her own reasoning.

Mrs. Brown wasn't fooled. She pointed at the thick stack of fabric. "And this? Don't tell me you learned to weave it in class. Even if you were a loom reincarnated, you couldn't have woven this much at once."

Eliana fell silent.

She felt like a shrimp, fiddling with her feelers as she cooked up a wild story.

"These—these are our classroom curtains. They were going to be replaced. I thought it would be a shame to throw the old ones away when there was nothing wrong with them, so I brought them back."

Now that she had taken them, the underground classroom would have to get new ones. Yes. Apart from a slight change in the order of events, it was close enough.

"Don't worry, Susan. The teacher in charge of that classroom likes me. He'll clean up my mess, just like you do."

Eliana thumped her chest.

If it came down to it, she could cut up the three remaining bed curtains around her bed and turn them into new classroom curtains. At Hogwarts, that would only take one spell.

She didn't care much whether her own bed had curtains. If she was the only one in the dormitory without them, wasn't that practically the same as having them? Everyone else would be behind their own bed curtains and wouldn't see her anyway.

Mrs. Brown stared at her for a long time before managing to force out, "Meeting you... Your teachers were unlucky to meet you."

Eliana stamped her foot indignantly. "They were not! Susan, do you think you were unlucky when you took me in?"

"Of course not. I'm quite glad I did," Mrs. Brown answered without thinking.

That soothed Eliana at once. She held her head high and happily darted over to hug Mrs. Brown.

Mrs. Brown watched her with a smile that looked full of affection.

For some reason, Eliana thought that smile seemed a little cold. But the warm mood made her decide she must be imagining it, and she reached happily for Mrs. Brown's arm.

"Let's go inside. Do you have any chores left? I can help you—ow!!"

She yelped, clutched her head, and jumped back. "Susan! Why did you hit me?" she cried, shocked and aggrieved.

Mrs. Brown gave a cold laugh and rolled up both sleeves, revealing lean but sturdy arms.

"Because you deserve it!"

The pale, thin woman suddenly unleashed astonishing strength. She pounced like a lioness, pinned Eliana beneath one hand, and smacked her bottom again and again with the other.

"Do you take me for a fool? The school was replacing its curtains, so it just gave you the old ones? What about those sofa covers underneath? Did it not want those either, so it gave them all to you? What kind of school is that generous? It would go bankrupt the day it admitted you!"

"As if I don't know you! You found some empty classroom or things nobody uses much, didn't you? Then you helped yourself and brought them home! That school must be wonderful indeed, letting a great big mouse like you into its granary!"

Eliana howled with every blow.

The other children stood stunned. Some began to cry and came forward to rescue her.

"Stay where you are!"

Mrs. Brown's command rang out, and her hawklike gaze swept sharply over the children.

"Eliana Rich, I overlooked the fact that you've lost your memories. Perhaps you've forgotten some of the most basic rules. And the rest of you—this is a chance to make them clear to everyone. Other people's things belong to them, whether they use them or not, whether they have more than they need or not!"

"No matter how many reasons you have, you do not touch those things without permission, much less take them! I will not have a single thief in this orphanage!"

Her voice hardened. "Yes, the orphanage is short of money, and perhaps that worries you. But that is for us adults to deal with. We do not need you helping us this way! Rest assured: as long as I, Susan Brown, am director of this orphanage, I will not let you starve!"

"Everyone, take the cloth you're holding to the laundry room."

"Eliana, you will wash it all, then return every piece to the school undamaged. Tell your teachers you brought it home because you wanted to clean it for the school, to show your gratitude—"

She looked at the other children, who were quietly rolling up their sleeves, and said coldly, "None of you may help her. This is Eliana's punishment."

"When you're done washing, Eliana, you'll spend a night in the Detention Room. You need to think long and hard about what you've done."

After being soundly spanked in front of everyone, Eliana trudged toward the laundry room in the back courtyard like a drooping little duck, her swollen bottom sticking out and her steps unsteady.

"All right, Susan."