A soft wind blew, and snow fell to the ground. In the distance, a large building stood amidst the cold winter. Large words were placed in the front of it: BERKSHIRE SCHOOL FOR PRINCES.
A hallway buzzed with silence. Then a door creaked, and the head of a young boy poked out. He anxiously looked from side to side, checking for any signs of anybody nearby. He went back into his room while leaving the door open just a tad, and he motioned for his friend to come closer. He looked out into the hall once more and was then harshly pushed out the door. He stumbled to the middle of the hallway, nearly crashing onto the floor. He glared back at his friend who was silently laughing and mocking his reaction. He spoke in a loud whisper.
“Lea, I swear to fuc-” Before the embarrassed boy could say anything more, he stopped as he heard footsteps approaching. He pranced back into the room, but he slipped and landed on his stomach.
“Isa, I’m gonna pee!” Lea, trying extremely hard not to laugh, grabbed Isa by his hand and dragged him across the tile floor into the room. He quickly closed the door, but couldn’t lock it as he was shaking and crying from the hilarity of the situation. Isa got up onto his feet, and he locked the door with ease, hitting his friend on the back of the head before closing his mouth to listen outside. The footsteps were coming closer to their door, and the two boys ran and leaped onto the same bed. They then began pushing and kicking each other off, but right before Isa was about to win, the door handle started jiggling. They looked at the door and back to each other. Isa yanked Lea closer to him, and Lea pushed himself onto his friend. They struggled to put the blanket over the both of them but soon settled with Isa being fully covered and Lea’s lower half sticking out. The door swung open, and the two pretended to sleep soundly. It was then in that moment that Lea realized how much of Isa’s hair was in his mouth.
A man walked in their room, each step making the boys more nervous. Lea held back his choking and suffering while the man looked over at them. He was tall and sturdy, much like a building. However, this was not a building, this was man. A man that made the two boys want to pee their pants. He scratched his blond beard and furrowed his eyebrows. He would have woken them up to tell them to sleep in separate beds, but he didn’t care anymore. He reached into his long coat and pulled out a flask. After taking a swig, he slogged out of the room and continued his walk down the hallways.
Lea coughed furiously and tried desperately to get every single piece of hair out of his mouth. Isa rolled his eyes and pushed Lea off the bed.
“Ah!” he screamed.
“Maybe next time you shouldn’t push me in the damn hallway.”
“Ah, yes, but that was funny.”
“And so is your suffering.”
Lea got up from the ground and walked towards the mirror on the other side of the room as he begun to fix his scarf and jacket. “What was Mr. Thewise doing in here anyways?”
“Probably drunk off his ass. Again. He hates having to check the halls at night. He complains about it all the time during class.”
Lea smiled and spoke with a pretentious tone of voice. “Now, now, now. Is that any way for a prince to talk? You should know better than to use such inappropriate vocabulary.”
Isa chuckled and rolled off the bed. He stood with his chest puffed out then bowed to Lea, mimicking his pompous timbre. “A thousand apologies, Prince Lea of the Southern Peninsula. Do pardon my lewd behavior. It has been a rather rough night for me. You see, just earlier my friend had betrayed me. Stabbed me in the back, you might say. Pushed me into dangerous territory, unarmed and unprepared. Twas a horrifying moment indeed.”
Lea snorted and turned to his friend who had an irritating smirk across his face. “Well, perhaps, Prince Isa of the Northern Peninsula, you could grab hold of that stick and pull it out of your ass. That, I believe, will solve your problems.”
“And you, dear Prince, should watch it before I come over there and shove more of my hair down your throat.”
“You’re no fun.”
“I’m funner than you.”
“Okay, I’m ready to leave. Can we leave now?”
“I don’t know. After that previous affair, I don’t think I want to.”
“Oh jeez, Isa. It was just a joke.”
“Wouldn’t have been as funny had we got caught.”
“Ugh, come on, let’s just go. With Mr. Thewise on duty tonight, it’ll be that much easier to sneak out.”
Isa sighed, knowing that he had been defeated. He followed the skipping Lea out the door, closing it softly on his way out.
They tiptoed quietly as they tried moving closer towards the exit, but each step grew louder with anticipation. A large front door appeared before them, and they both stopped to look at each other.
“And how exactly did you plan to get past this door, genius?”
Lea’s cheeky grin stayed planted on his face as he leaned on the door. It opened while making loud creaks and moans. Isa jumped from the sudden noise and looked around nervously to see if anyone was hearing this. To his surprise, not one person stepped out to see what was going on. He turned back to Lea who was holding the door for him.
“It was already open?”
“Teachers are walking in and out of it all the time. It’s almost never locked.”
“Okay then.” He stepped out, immediately feeling the cold, crisp wind blowing on his cheeks. Freshly fallen snow lay on the ground which brought both boys to smile in delight. They ran towards the locked gates and climbed over it with ease. After having jumped off the gate, they stood there for a moment. They took a while to take in everything that was going on. The cool, silent night on Christmas Eve and the wet, powdery snow on the ground. They were both grinning from ear to ear. They turned to one another and laughed. It was the first time that either one of them could play in the snow.
Isa continued laughing until he felt a wet slap in the face. He touched his cheek, and when he looked at his glove, he saw snow. He looked back at Lea who already had another ball in his hand. Isa quickly ducked to grab a handful of snow, but when he got back up, he was faced with yet another snowball. Isa’s deadpan face brought Lea to yet another fit of laughter. Isa took this time to form a ball, but he was having a hard time making it as smooth as Lea’s. He took another glance at his friend who was still reminiscing about his previous hit. Isa took the shapeless snow in his hands and dumped it down the back of Lea’s jacket. Lea shrieked and shivered at the sudden sharp and bitter cold on his back. Isa’s giggle set him off, and he tackled his friend on the soft ground. They both rolled around and laughed hysterically, playfully punching each other.
Across the road from Berkshire, was another Berkshire school. The sign in the front read: BERKSHIRE SCHOOL FOR PRINCESSES.
The school itself was quiet for the most part. Despite it being Christmas Eve, not even a peep of celebration could be heard. A few stories up was a young woman with short hair. She watched and laughed as the two boys played outside in the snow. She was relieved that at least some kids were enjoying the holiday. She found it awful that either schools would never let the students play outside. Even though they were royalty, they were still kids and should be treated as such.
“Miss Aqua.” The girl jumped and turned to face the elderly lady who spoke. She had obvious wrinkles that were pulled up from the tightness of her bun. She stood up straight with her hands folded in front of her. The look in her eyes made Aqua feel as if she could see her innermost thoughts.
Aqua bowed her head as she spoke. “Mrs. Ardle, what brings you here at this time of night?”
“I should be asking you the same.” Her voice was not affectionate as much as it was cold.
“Oh, well, I was just uh-”
“Miss Aqua, clear and crisp words if you please. Babbling and stuttering are for babies and elderly folks who no longer have a grasp on reality.”
“Yes. Sorry, Mrs.”
“Now, I will ask you again, Miss Aqua. What are you doing?”
“I was just admiring the snow, Mrs. It reminds me of the winter back in my kingdom.”
“Yes. Miss Aqua, seeing as you’re a new teacher here, I will let you off with a warning. We have a strict policy here at Berkshire, and that includes curfew. If I find you up this late again, I will have no choice but to suspend you.”
“Yes, of course.”
“And close those curtains. It’s far too dreary out there.”
“Yes, Mrs. Ardle.” Aqua frantically shut the curtains and walked awkwardly to her room, causing strange looks from the woman.
Aqua pressed her ear to the door, trying desperately to hear Mrs. Ardle’s footsteps. When she could no longer hear anything, she bursted through the door and looked at the window again. Lea and Isa were still out there, throwing snowballs at each other.
“Good heavens!” Aqua jumped and turned. Mrs. Ardle was there with wide eyes and her jaw dropped.
“Mrs. Ardle, I-I was just-”
“Those boys! What are they doing?”
“I just… found them like that, Mrs.”
“Well, we must go fetch them at once. This sort of behavior is unacceptable!” Together they quickly paced down the stairs and out the door. Mrs. Ardle charged for the boys as fast as she could (which wasn’t all that fast seeing as her dress was far too tight for that sort of thing).
Isa and Lea stopped dead in their tracks as they looked straight into the eyes of the woman who was about to kick their butts straight to the moon. She grabbed hold of their jacket collars and marched them straight back to the building.
“What on Earth got into your heads? Coming outside in the cold like this? And in the middle of the night like this! I should expel you both!”
“NO!” both of the boys shouted. They shared nervous glances at one another, worried about what was to come. All of a sudden, Mrs. Ardle was stopped dead in her tracks by Aqua who grabbed onto her shoulder.
“Mrs. Ardle, perhaps I should be the one to escort the boys to the Dean.”
“Miss Aqua, as head-”
“With all due respect, I was the one who found them. And I do need to familiarize myself with the schools anyways.” Mrs. Ardle sighed angrily and released the boys from her tight grasp.
“Very well, Miss Aqua. Deliver the boys to the Dean, and he will deal with them then.” She turned and walked back to the school across the street. Aqua roughly shoved the boys inside the school.
“Ouch, careful, lady! That hurt,” shouted Lea. Isa slapped his shoulder and glared at him. “What?” said Lea. “It’s not like things are going to get much worse from here.”
As they arrived indoors, Aqua quickly shut the door, looked out the window next to it, and saw Mrs. Ardle stepp inside of the other school. She sighed in relief and smiled softly. Isa and Lea looked at each other in confusion.
“Um, lady? asked Lea. His eyebrow was raised while Isa’s entire face was scrunched. Aqua couldn’t tell if he was confused or just angry
“Sorry, about that, boys. I was just trying to get rid of her. She can be a real stick in the mud.”
“Um…?” Lea’s voice trailed off.
“Sorry! I’m Miss Aqua. I saw you two playing in the snow earlier, but Mrs. Ardle caught you guys before I could do anything about it.”
“Wow… thanks, Aqua! I guess you really saved us!”
“We wouldn’t have needed saving if we just didn’t go out like I suggested.”
“No, no! I’m glad you guys did. I was beginning to think no one in these schools actually liked playing.”
Lea laughed. “Are you kidding? That’s all we ever talk about. We’re constantly begging the teachers to let us go out, but they never do. They say it’s inappropriate.”
“Well, let’s get you two into bed before we all get into trouble.” They all walked up the many steps and quietly tip toed to Lea and Isa’s dorm. Lea ran in and stripped off all of his winter clothes and finally jumped onto his own bed. Isa turned to Aqua.
“Thank you for not busting us. Lea really didn’t need another encounter with the Dean. His dad is already angry enough with him as it is.”
“It’s no problem at all. You seem to care about him a lot, don’t you?”
Isa chuckled. “Yeah, he’d probably burst into flames if I wasn’t there with him.”
“Then you should make sure to look after him, okay? It seems like he’s going to need it.”
“Yeah, he’s probably going to accidentally join some cult where people wear black hoodies everywhere they go, and he’s gonna do it because it looks cool.”
“Yeah, let’s hope that doesn’t happen. But, besides that, you two need to stick together, all right?”
“No problem. Thank you. And Merry Christmas, Miss Aqua.”
“Merry Christmas.“
