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.Somehow, he didn’t make you feel at ease.It was like watching a tiger behind glass at the zoo.He made you feel as though he might be hungry, and you might just look like dinner.“At this moment you are to be judged.By me.I will warn you, that most fail to meet my standards.Many of you might be thinking of how to explain yourselves.Excuses for mistakes, guilty secrets and other nonsense.Strike those thoughts bubbling in your minds! Excuses are worse than nothing on this day.”Jake looked at me and I gave him the tiniest shrug.Whatever we’d both expected, this wasn’t it.We turned our attention back to Vater, and were shocked to see him approaching us.There was an angry hunch to his shoulders.His brows beetled and his teeth showed in a snarl.“You boys!” he said.With two incredibly long arms that ended in strong overly-large hands, he reached out and took us each by a shoulder.He drew us forward into the center of the floor.“Exactly, just so,” he said, as if speaking to himself.He lowered his face to look at each of us in turn.His voice and demeanor softened suddenly, becoming almost gentle, but I knew he wasn’t in a gentle mood.“Perhaps, boys, I’ve bored you?” he asked.His breath puffed out into my face smelling faintly of coffee.“Perhaps I owe you two an apology?”“No sir,” we both stammered out at the same moment.“No?” he asked, almost sweetly.The large hand on my shoulder became very heavy and the fingers sunk into my flesh.He looked first into my eyes, then Jake’s.Jake winced.I stood firm, staring back at him.He nodded at me and pushed Jake.Jake fell to his knees.I thought maybe he would cry, and reached out my hand toward him.I glared at Vater, who watched me closely.I managed to control my expression and make my anger vanish, but it was too late.He’d noted it.“I see,” he said, releasing me.He stepped forward away from Jake and I, we were now behind him, forgotten.I helped Jake to his feet.Vater approached the other children.He eyed them carefully.I looked at them, trying to see what he might see.“Children,” said Vater, his voice filled with the infinite patience of a parent that has caught naughty kids for the hundredth time.“We are going to play a game today.A very serious game.The world is a harsh place for our kind.One weak link is all it takes to break a chain, you see.”We stared at him, not knowing where this was all going.But suddenly, in the quiet, a throat was cleared.All eyes swung to Waldheim, except for Urdo, who looked at the floor.“Milord,” said Waldheim when those slightly yellow eyes struck him.Again, I was surprised by Waldheim’s obvious state.He worked his hands in his pockets and swallowed as if his throat had filled with dust.Vater’s brows rose as high as they would go.“Yes?”“The children, milord,” stumbled Waldheim.“They aren’t prepared for this… for this sort of thing.”Vater lit up at his words.With one extremely long finger upheld in front of his face, he stalked toward Waldheim.“Exactly!” he shouted.“You have hit upon the trouble, my good dean.They are not prepared.They are not well-served, there has been shirking here, and I’m glad you would be the first to admit it.Your job, I understand, has been the maintenance of discipline, am I right?”“Yes, milord,” said Waldheim in a strangled voice.“Then perhaps you’d like to participate in our exercise?”Waldheim’s face changed from nervous to fearful.I couldn’t believe it.I didn’t think he feared anything.I found myself wanting to see him change into a lizard and give Vater a good kick in the rear.The thought shocked me, but there it was.I wasn’t the only one with such a thought in my head, as I heard something then, something everyone heard while Vater and Waldheim stared at one another.It was a coughing sound, but a fake one, the sort of cough a kid gives when they are really saying a word.The word sounded like “Bully” and it came from the kids in the line-up.It could have been a much worse word, but it was hard to be sure.I flicked my eyes that way and saw Beth’s hand coming down from her face.She’d done the fake cough, I knew it in an instant.The rest of us had been conditioned for this moment our entire lives, the moment when we met our great-great grandfather.She hadn’t.She had none of our inbred awe of this strange, scary man.Who else would have had the guts to mock him publicly?At that single word, Vater stiffened as if someone had put a knife into his back
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