Page 45 of Kiss of Wrath

“Farty Hardy! Farty Hardy!”

“Wish I could miss math class.”

“I got ninety-eight on my spelling test. I missed jogging. Didja know there’s two Gs in jogging?”

“Stop touching me.”

“You touched me first.”

“Ow!”

“Miss Washburn says I need to have my eyeglasses adjusted so they stop slipping.”

“I’m hungry.”

“I have to pee.”

“I have to poop.”

“Hurry, Mordr, hurry!”

“Can you build us a longship, Mordr?”

“Where would you sail it, dickhead?”

“Swear jar, swear jar!”

“We could tow it to the lake, like Mr. Bates does with his pontoon.”

“I would make a good pirate. Arg!”

“Dork!”

Once inside the house, before they had a chance to throw their belongings hither and yon, all bodily functions seemingly forgotten, he ordered them to take their school backpacks to their bedchambers. What were modern people thinking? Making little ones lug around those heavy canvas bags on their backs. They would be hunchbacks before they ever reached adulthood.

After they’d washed their hands, and taken care of bladder and bowel functions, he gave them milk and an unusual sweet called cookies, or Oreos, which they broke apart and licked before dunking in milk. Mordr was going to try some later. The Oreos were one of many wonderful suggestions from Mrs. Delgado, who’d spent every bit of the two hundred dollars he’d handed her for grocery shopping. Money well spent, if these Oreos were any indication. Then on to the family room, where they were now, finishing up their schoolwork.

“I’m done,” Maggie exclaimed, shutting her notebook. She came over and sat on the floor next to his chair, wanting a front-row seat for his story to come. Linda was already on the floor at his other side, reading a book about Hansel and Gretel and a witch, which seemed all together too frightening for a child her age, in Mordr’s opinion. In any case, Linda claimed she did not have any homework, though Larry was working out numbers on a lined paper, occasionally glancing up at him with questions like, “What’s two plus three?”

Mordr had to discreetly count on his fingers to give the answer.

Ben and Sam looked at Maggie with disgust as they continued to labor over their own work, a history lesson about a war between Britain and America. Those bloody Saxons continued to be war-like throughout the years, apparently, Mordr mused, whilst Vikings, who had clearly been the better fighting men, had died out as a separate race. Try to find the logic in that!

Finally, they were all done, or so they said, and he moved his chair into an upright position as they gathered about him.

“In Viking times, children did not remain children for long. By the time a boy was eleven or twelve, he was ready to go a-Viking with his father and brothers, and girls learned how to run a household.”

“What about school?” Sam wanted to know.

“No school. We had priest tutors for a few years, but that was all.”

“Wish I lived then,” Ben said, making a swishing motion with his hand like he was sword fighting. “I would make a great Viking.”

Mordr almost smiled. The little bratling probably would.

“How come girls didn’t go a-Viking?” Maggie pushed her glasses up her little nose and scowled at him.

“Times were different then.”