Chapter 111: 111: The Academy Test XXI
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Fizz sat up. "Quiz me," he said suddenly.
John glanced at him. "Why."
"So I can be useful and also stop dying of boredom," Fizz said. "Ask me a question. I will answer wrong and you will fix me and feel very smart."
John hid a smile. "Name two things you do not do in a test room."
Fizz lifted a paw like a child at a school. "Sing," he said. "And explode."
"Acceptable," John said. "Three ways to show a teacher you respect the room."
"Feet quiet," Fizz said. "Hands quiet. Mouth quiet. If you must cough, you cough in your heart. If you wanna fart. Then fart in a silent tone."
John made a small mark. "Close," he said. "Add: eyes on your paper."
Fizz nodded fast. "Eyes on my paper," he said. "Not on the person next to me, even if they make a face."
They went on that way for a while. Fizz played the fool. John played the teacher. Both of them learned.
They went downstairs at midday. The Bent Penny was busy. Workers came and went. Pim carried bowls. The tavern woman wiped a table with a clean rag and spoke without looking at them. "Stew today is mushroom and beef," she said. "Bread is warm. Pie is a rumor."
"Two stews," John said. "Two breads."
"And one rumor," Fizz added.
"You can have rumor when rumor arrives," she said. "It has legs."
They ate and watched the door and the small square. John kept his manly hands quiet and mind-busy. Fizz kept both paws off the sugar pot, which was very hard for him. He sang a half song under his breath about pancakes becoming thoughts and thoughts becoming pancakes. Pim the Traven owner’s son heard and laughed through his nose.
After lunch, they walked the route to the south yard again. Seven minutes at a calm pace. Five at a steady one. Fizz timed them on his fingers and then got lost at eight and started again at one. They looked for anything that had changed since yesterday. A cart was parked where the baker liked to block the corner. It was not there now. A ladder was up two houses down. They noted both.
They did not wander. They did not shop. Fizz begged for some sweets. John said one. Fizz chose the smallest honey cookie he had ever seen and then made a speech about how small things can be noble too. The woman at the stall wiped her hands and said, "You are trouble," and gave him a larger one for free because she liked trouble when it was polite.
Back at the Bent Penny, John read his study notes again. He wrote new ones. He made the lines clean. He did not push his core. He kept the breath even, the way Master Venn’s voice had been even on the stage when the yard tried to crack.
Fizz tried to balance the small fan with the painted fish on his nose. It fell. He tried again. It fell. On the third try he held it there for three long breaths and then sneezed. The fan flew. It hit the window and slid down like a little man on a slide. Fizz clapped for himself.
"Keep it quiet," John said. "You are distracting me."
"I am quiet," Fizz said. "I have never been so quiet. I will die and the priests will say he died of quiet."
"Do not," John said.
They both rested after that. Not sleep. Rest. The kind that lets a day settle so it does not break at the end.
Evening came. The city changed clothes. Work sounds stopped. Home sounds began. The sun slid off the roofs. Shadows stretched and found each other.
Pim locked the yard gate and checked the chain. The cat on the shed roof yawned, as if to say he had seen worse days. The tavern woman put a candle in a bowl by the stairs and said, "Do not let it burn low," and they said they would not.
John and Fizz ate a simple dinner. Bread. Cheese. A little pickled carrot. Water. No drinks. Elara’s voice lived in the back of John’s head. Do not drink any strong drinks today or tomorrow. He kept the rule. He kept all the rules he could.
They went up to room three early. John placed the small bag by the door, the way he always did in new rooms. He put the token on the table again so he would see it when he woke. He put the folded rules beside it. He put the pencil next to the paper with the neat lines. He checked the window latch. He checked it twice.
Fizz looked at the beds. "I want the one by the window," he said, then floated to the other one only to prove he could be generous. "You can have the window. I will guard the wall."
"Thank you," John said.
Fizz curled near the pillow and made a little blanket out of himself. He could not be a rug. He could be a small blanket. He remembered the prank on Fartray and smiled one small smile no one saw. Then he sighed and closed his eyes. He did not fully sleep. He dozed like a cat, ready to pretend he had been awake the whole time if anyone asked.
John did not lie down yet. He sat with his back to the wall and looked out the narrow slice of night the window allowed. The city’s noise went soft. A couple laughed two houses over. A cart went by, slow, wheels clicking, late work. He thought of the test. He thought of words that are simple and true. He thought of circles drawn in chalk. He thought of Fizz’s small serious voice when he had said, "Eyes on your paper." He felt calm put down a thin floor under his feet.
He slept with one arm over his eyes and his boots near the bed. He did not undress fully. He never did in a new place. Old habits. Hard to break. Useful to keep.