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Quite a boarding school! 7. The beginning of a new life They woke up and jumped into the showers, still empty in these wee hours of the morning. They came back to vent out the room and put away any incriminating evidence, in the back of the big cupboard they used to put their clothes and sports equipment away. They felt quite safe at Saint Thomas More, because the discipline was self imposed. The boarders were offered a wide range of activities mainly in sports, games, and music. It was a school for rich kids, and it showed. The campus-like school was huge, well planted with tall trees, gentle hills rolling over so each building felt almost as it stood on its own, the various houses spread around a massive central neo Tudor construction. Twelve of them, named after Catholic martyrs. Young Lewis had the fate to live in the Saint Sebastian house. The mild-mannered crowd boarding at Saint Thomas More enjoyed very good conditions, and they were provided a good semi-progressive education. The administration was giving enough time and efforts so they had no occasion to have to punish any improper behaviour. The atmosphere was relaxed and pleasant, everybody wanting to look like they had a good time. Tons of fun activities and good moments spent with well-minded adults. But in this large educators’ team, it happened that the person who was most concerned in the whole school by Lewis and his friends' nightly activities was actually the one closest to them. Travis Miller was the prefect of the Saint Sebastian boys. He had managed to get hired because he was a former student of Saint Thomas More. He had fond memories (very fond memories!) of his years as a boarder there, and the university in the nearby city provided the classes he needed to achieve his ambition to become a personal physical trainer. He was to become one of the twelve residence prefects in charge of houses which consisted in the upper floor of each of the buildings laid out in the park. Distances were important, and had to be taken into accounts in scheduling, because there were several minutes of walk at least between each location. Travis had not been appointed to the Henry 8th house, where the gym was located. He happened to be in the communications building, which proved to be a blessing later on, because it’s how he got acquainted with Lewis and his friends, and then they got to use the facilities… It all started in the restrooms of the Manor, as the central building was called. Travis had just got done emptying his bladder, standing in front of a toilet stool. He could not be seen from the door or the urinals, and he had not turned the stall’s light on. Sheer laziness. He was waiting for the last possible drop to fall into the bowl. As he thought he was getting there, he heard some kids coming in. He identified the three voices immediately as being those of Lewis, Fred, and Ben, the three nice kids who shared a room in his house! Travis stood still and stopped breathing, slowly zipping up. He was not allowed to make a noise, if he wanted to enjoy their private conversation. That’s something he could never do, because the walls and the doors of the bedrooms were so thick that it was impossible to hear a normal conversation. He even wondered if screams could be heard. But the kids he was in charge of were very mellow, and he did not have to worry about them fooling around too much. At least until this very moment when he eavesdropped on an interesting verbal exchange… © Copyright Bondwriter 2006
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