Today is not going well for Igor.
First, he had been dragged out of bed early by his mother and a firm grip on his ear, commanded to get ready for an unknown visitation, his hair in a carefully slicked control, his best (and most uncomfortable) clothes on, his stupid glasses perched on the end of his nose, making him look like an owl. And not a good owl. Then he had been quickly ushered into his parents car for a short journey that ended outside a large and certainly imposing house. His father told him to behave, smiling when he nodded swiftly, and with that he was pushed inside.
Lord and Lady St. John-Smythe are announced to him, and he is told where to sit, and how to look attentive and drink tea. He doesn’t like the tea and his mother will only let him have one biscuit. After a while, the adults stand, abandoning him with a firm instruction not to leave the room, and with that Igor is alone. They’d even cleared away the biscuits.
He sits carefully, legs swinging where they dangle off the edge of his seat, body perfectly still. He’ll be told off if he moves and touches anything, so to stave off the boredom he runs over the scales and pieces he had learnt on the piano yesterday, tiny fingers tapping rhythmically against his leg as he sits there, imagining pretty stands of music and long scalic runs.
Until they are rudely interrupted by a small figure barging into the room.
Igor looks up immediately, blinking at the boy making his way determinedly across the room towards him, before another, slightly taller boy, seems to leap out from behind the door frame, grappling with the first boy who is rather loudly telling him something. Probably their names. He doesn’t respond straight away, content to watch the boys (they must be brothers) grapple with each other. Igor doesn’t know many other children, not since his parents moved countries, and he’s far happier to sit quietly on his own than play wrestle and cause trouble and other things boys his age do, but it is rude not to tell the other two his name.
After a moment he mumbles out a heavily accented, Yes and my name is Igor., hanging his head in shame from the silly accent he can’t seem to shake, his stupid glasses, his embarrassing name, wishing the carpet would just swallow him up already.
Today is not going well for Igor.
