Star by Eliza Witte - HTML preview

47

‘You really have to pass by some day at rehearsals. I’m usually in this room after 6

o’clock. I think I told you.’ Annie looked at her watch and extended her hand to Stu to see it,

‘Look, Jessie gave it to me!’ She boasted, ‘But when is it exactly after 6 o’clock?’

‘Can't you tell the time?’ smiled Stu. This girl was really funny. Now she was kidding him.

‘This is the first one I have,’ Annie confessed candidly. Stu smiled again and decided to accept this ‘game’.

‘Well, OK, when the little hand is here and the big one is after twelve, it is after 6

o’clock.’

‘So now it’s after three o’clock.’

‘In fact it’s much after three o’clock. It’s three thirty or half past three. We'd better be moving. The games must be over.’

Annie looked disappointed and Stu noticed it, ‘I have to see my parents at least for awhile,’ he said.

‘Oh, so they are here after all?’ exclaimed Annie.

‘Yeah, I think so. How about yours?’

‘Yeah, I think so.’ parroted Annie to avoid the dangerous subject and they headed together back towards the parking lot where they separated.

XXVII

Twenty minutes later a very strange scene occurred in the main building of the College or to be more specific – in the chancellor’s office. Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds had been informing themselves firsthand on the progress their son had been making and the chancellor, a gentleman well advanced in age, drier than a sand-pit had been trying to put on all the charm he could muster up, to reassure them that their son had been treated most appropriately and that he had not missed a thing during his stay there. How could it have been otherwise when Mr. Reynolds had been one of the major College sponsors for years and a guest of honor at the annual academic meetings. So now the chancellor was sweating in an attempt to show his best attitude to the Reynolds’ son whose presence and attitude however, demonstrated nothing but defiance. In fact the spoiled impudent had not said a word ever since the meeting began – Stuart only looked at him more and more inimically with every passing minute. However, the chancellor had firmly decided to remain calm, ‘Yes, Mr.

Reynolds – he is really very good. I can see a lot of great perspectives for our Stu.’

‘I’m glad to hear he is no trouble at all.’ Mr. Reynolds smiled with a broad, self-satisfied smile.