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Authors: Kirsten Boie
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noble or oil tycoon or mine owner or real estate magnate who wasn’t once a student here. And now , he thought cynically, they’ve finally let in a few northerners as well.
His mother had insisted that Jonas must go to Morgard, even though she had left him and his father soon afterward in order to marry a wealthy nobleman from the south. She’d always been obsessed by getting in with the rich southern families, despite being a northerner. How completely and utterly pathetic , thought Jonas.
Then, when Malena had been sent to a boarding school farther to the north of South Island, Liron had protested that they should be allowed to stay together. “What about Jonas and Malena? They’re like brother and sister. Why do you want to separate them now?”
At Malena’s school the children were mainly middle-class, and some students, on scholarship, even came from poor North Scandian families, because the king wanted her to get to know people from different backgrounds. But it had been impossible to reason with his mother, and Jonas had been sent to Morgard to “mix with the right people.” It had taken a long time to get used to life without Malena. Liron was right; she had been like a sister to him, and now he was shut away with the sons of rich southerners while she was at a school with real people. She raved about it with shining eyes: the freedom! She would tell him at length about where all her friends came from, the strange jobs their parents had, the way they lived. Two girls in her grade — one of them top of the class — actually came from the north, and their parents didn’t even have enough money to pay for them to go home for a weekend!
“I do know what it’s like, Malena. I come from the north, too,” Jonas had said.
“Oh, you!” Malena had replied with a dismissive wave of the hand. Jonas was Jonas — she’d never really thought about where he came from.
But it’s a whole ’nother deal at Morgard , he thought. He remembered the way they had stared at him at first. If it hadn’t been for Perry, who couldn’t have cared less about all that social status stuff because he was so shattered by his mother’s death at the time — if I hadn’t been in the same dormitory to talk with him during those dark nights of our first year , Jonas thought, who knows? I might not have a single friend at this school.
And for a long time Perry was the only friend. Jonas was still a blackhead as far as the other boys were concerned — the barbarian from the north. It didn’t matter to them that his father was the king’s advisor. In fact, that just made it worse, as their parents were suspicious that his father was putting all kinds of northern ideas into the king’s head.
Cars drove past him and turned to go up the driveway. Where was Liron? He had said explicitly that they should go to the party together because there was a lot to talk about.
At last a limousine flying the Scandia standard rounded the bend.
“Liron!” shouted Jonas, jumping down from the fence. “Liron, over here!”
The man was just wondering whether in this heat it wouldn’t be better to put on a linen suit rather than the ceremonial uniform he usually wore to garden parties, when his cell phone rang. The Toreador Song from Carmen . It was the phone he’d registered in his chauffeur’s name, and he knew exactly who was calling him.
For a second he thought about not answering, but then he decided it would be better to find out what Bolström had to say. After all, that was the only reason he had turned on the phone this morning.
“Bolli,” he said, “sorry, not a good time. The party’s about to begin. The condensed version?”
“Oh, I’ll get straight to the point, Captain: What were you thinking yesterday?” hissed the voice on the other end. “Hanging up on me like that! You think you can manage without me?”
“We’ve always managed without you, Bolli,” the man said coolly. He would wear his ceremonial
His mother had insisted that Jonas must go to Morgard, even though she had left him and his father soon afterward in order to marry a wealthy nobleman from the south. She’d always been obsessed by getting in with the rich southern families, despite being a northerner. How completely and utterly pathetic , thought Jonas.
Then, when Malena had been sent to a boarding school farther to the north of South Island, Liron had protested that they should be allowed to stay together. “What about Jonas and Malena? They’re like brother and sister. Why do you want to separate them now?”
At Malena’s school the children were mainly middle-class, and some students, on scholarship, even came from poor North Scandian families, because the king wanted her to get to know people from different backgrounds. But it had been impossible to reason with his mother, and Jonas had been sent to Morgard to “mix with the right people.” It had taken a long time to get used to life without Malena. Liron was right; she had been like a sister to him, and now he was shut away with the sons of rich southerners while she was at a school with real people. She raved about it with shining eyes: the freedom! She would tell him at length about where all her friends came from, the strange jobs their parents had, the way they lived. Two girls in her grade — one of them top of the class — actually came from the north, and their parents didn’t even have enough money to pay for them to go home for a weekend!
“I do know what it’s like, Malena. I come from the north, too,” Jonas had said.
“Oh, you!” Malena had replied with a dismissive wave of the hand. Jonas was Jonas — she’d never really thought about where he came from.
But it’s a whole ’nother deal at Morgard , he thought. He remembered the way they had stared at him at first. If it hadn’t been for Perry, who couldn’t have cared less about all that social status stuff because he was so shattered by his mother’s death at the time — if I hadn’t been in the same dormitory to talk with him during those dark nights of our first year , Jonas thought, who knows? I might not have a single friend at this school.
And for a long time Perry was the only friend. Jonas was still a blackhead as far as the other boys were concerned — the barbarian from the north. It didn’t matter to them that his father was the king’s advisor. In fact, that just made it worse, as their parents were suspicious that his father was putting all kinds of northern ideas into the king’s head.
Cars drove past him and turned to go up the driveway. Where was Liron? He had said explicitly that they should go to the party together because there was a lot to talk about.
At last a limousine flying the Scandia standard rounded the bend.
“Liron!” shouted Jonas, jumping down from the fence. “Liron, over here!”
The man was just wondering whether in this heat it wouldn’t be better to put on a linen suit rather than the ceremonial uniform he usually wore to garden parties, when his cell phone rang. The Toreador Song from Carmen . It was the phone he’d registered in his chauffeur’s name, and he knew exactly who was calling him.
For a second he thought about not answering, but then he decided it would be better to find out what Bolström had to say. After all, that was the only reason he had turned on the phone this morning.
“Bolli,” he said, “sorry, not a good time. The party’s about to begin. The condensed version?”
“Oh, I’ll get straight to the point, Captain: What were you thinking yesterday?” hissed the voice on the other end. “Hanging up on me like that! You think you can manage without me?”
“We’ve always managed without you, Bolli,” the man said coolly. He would wear his ceremonial
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