Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 57623 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 288(@200wpm)___ 230(@250wpm)___ 192(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57623 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 288(@200wpm)___ 230(@250wpm)___ 192(@300wpm)
There is a brief pause. “Nie!” Storm laughs.
“Storm,” Jane says warningly. She has a much better command of German than Storm does, and she takes pride in properness, so when she speaks it is in a more formal style with a harder accent. Storm came to Switzerland without a word of the language, and that means she speaks the way native students do. When the guards address her, she replies in Swiss German, a sort of languid version of German with all the hard der, die, das removed and replaced with casual d’s. Her cadence is much more sing-song and contains a lot more softened sounds. She’s also not making the mistake of talking too much and giving herself away.
On a superficial level, she’s also dressed like a Swiss teenager, which makes sense because she basically is at this point, plus she has a dog, which again makes her look like she lives here. Between the two of them, Jane looks and sounds far more like an escaped finishing school candidate.
“Etwas los?” Storm frowns slightly in confusion, asking if something is going on. She asks the question with just the right amount of teenage disinterest.
“Storm!” Jane snaps her name sharply, knowing that her only chance now is to force a confession by sheer force of will. “You will come with us this instant.”
Storm does not respond to her name at all. Instead, she takes in what must be the very pleasing sight of the woman who has caned and hairbrushed her bottom languishing in the custody of two burly Swiss mountain finishing school guards.
It is the closest Jane has been to losing her temper to have Storm right in front of her and not being able to do a single thing about it.
Storm smiles at her in a way only a girl resentful of her last punishment can and ignores the disciplinarian’s instructions. She’s already free, that’s the truth. There’s nothing Jane can do with two strict Swiss security personnel ready to grab her if she makes a move.
Storm gives her a little how does it feel look.
It has been quite some time since Jane felt even slightly powerless. It is an unsettling feeling, even though she knows this will all be sorted soon enough. She is more worried that Storm is about to walk away into the Swiss countryside in what is clearly a reckless and rebellious mood with no supervision whatsoever.
“We’ve seen enough,” the Swiss man says to Jane. “You’re coming with us, young lady.”
“Tchussli!” Storm waves to Jane with a casual Swiss-German farewell, turns and walks down the hill without any kind of hurriedness, Kravik faithfully at her heels.
There is a very small sliver of Jane that is impressed. Storm must have thought she was completely caught by Jane and the school guards, but she snatched victory from the jaws of defeat simply by not really caring what happened next and lying through her teeth. It was quite a little performance, one she will pay for many times over.
“The school has a new disciplinarian,” the guard says. “She will soon set you straight.”
“I am the new disciplinarian,” Jane sighs.
“You are far too young to be a disciplinarian,” he says. “And those lies will only get you into more trouble.”
Jane is marched back to the main chateau between two stern Swiss security, and taken directly to the principal, whose eyebrows practically clamber into her hairline for safety when Jane is escorted into her office.
"What is going on, Hannes?”
“We have retrieved the missing student, Headmeisterin Lotte.”
“You have?”
“Yes, she is right here,” he says, gesturing to Jane.
“That,” the headmistress sighs, “is Miss Strict, our new disciplinarian.”
“Oh.”
“I did try to inform them of that fact, but they were insistent,” Jane says, twisting the knife ever so slightly. “Storm is out of the grounds. We saw her out on the trail, but that was a good ten minutes ago.”
“I’m aware she is missing. One of the other students brought this note they found on her bed.”
The headmistress points to a note on her desk. It is written on a slip of Birchbane note paper in a scrawling hand.
“I might not be finished,” it reads. “But I am done.”
“Fun wordplay,” Jane observes grimly.
“Indeed. Hannes, Laura, if the two of you could possibly trouble yourselves to go and apprehend the young lady with the dog before she boards a train and is functionally lost, rather than antagonizing the staff, that would be much appreciated.”
The headmistress speaks in calm, refined tones that clearly cut through the pride of the security officers and promise grim consequences at a later date.
The guards depart swiftly, first at a trot out of her office, then breaking into a very un-finished run in the hall.
Headmistress Lotte looks at Jane with no small amount of sympathy.
“You look like you need a coffee,” she says. “With brandy.”