Nocturne 3 – At the Community Bath
Junior Aero was relaxing in the hot bathing pool in the Palace of One Thousand Years. The concept of community baths was definitely new to him, but he had seen so many changes in his short life that he could get used to anything quickly. The warm salty water felt good on muscles made to ache by Ged’s intense martial arts training. His small body was not meant for such vigorous exercise. Still, anything that Ged taught was the word of God to Junior Aero. He needed Ged to believe that he was to be Ged’s faithful disciple.
Across the patterned mosaic tiles of blue and white walked young Sara Smith. She came directly towards Junior wearing nothing more than a towel around her neck and a sweet, shy smile on her face. She was lovely with golden-peach skin and brown eyes like a doe in the forest.
“Umm… uh… I’m naked here,” warned Junior.
“I know. I’m naked too.”
“Aren’t you supposed to bathe somewhere else when I’m here?”
“No. I came to bathe with you because I like you and want to get to know you.”
Her open-faced charm was irresistible. Junior was still too young for this boy-girl bathing to be too dangerous. He decided it would do no good to protest.
“I’m curious,” said Sara, “does a blue-skinned boy have a blue penis? Stand up and let me see?”
Junior was astonished. “Doesn’t anything embarrass you?”
“Why should it? I’ve been bathing in public baths all my life. I’m used to seeing humanoid bodies with no clothes on. Besides, I like how your body looks. I will probably marry you when we both get older.”
Junior shrugged. He stood up in the knee-deep water and offered his hand to Sara Smith. She took hold and drew herself up close to him. Together they settled down in the warm water.
“What’s he like? Your White Spider, I mean?”
Junior looked into Sara’s huge brown eyes. “Ged? He is a very good man. He and his brother rescued my mother and me from slavery. I was born a lowly slave, and he has always treated me as a member of his family, even though I am obviously not. I will serve him all my life.”
“He sounds wonderful,” said Sara. “My Daddy is like that too. He’s an Immortal, you know. He cannot die of old age and it would take a sudden and complete destruction to kill him. He protects this world from evil, too. I can’t think of a better man anywhere.”
“Does he treat you well?”
“Oh, he treasures me. I have always been the most important thing in his life, at least, since I was born.”
“Do you have a mother?”
“No. She died when I was born. Daddy blames himself. He thinks the disease that keeps him alive may have caused her to die. That’s nonsense, though. How can something like that help one person to live and kill another?”
“That’s very sad. I still have my mother. She doesn’t really love me, though. My father was one of her slave owners. She hates me for reminding her of her life as a slave.”
“Ooh, that’s even sadder!” Sara kissed him on the cheek as she reached around him and began soaping his back. “How could anyone not love you?”
“I never really thought about it,” Junior said. He reached over and put soap on Sara’s neck. His hands caressed her shoulder. “I was worried about survival before. Life was hard. Now that I don’t have to worry about how to stay alive, I have Ged and you to love me. I really don’t think about her much anymore.”
“That makes me happy to hear,” said Sara. “You’re a telepath, aren’t you?”
“You can sense me the same as I can sense you,” said Junior matter-of-factly. “You know what we both are.”
“Yes. But I’ve never had another telepath to play with. Have you ever thought about what you’d do if you met one?”
“No. What do you mean?”
“I want to join minds with you.”
“I’m not sure I can do that.”
“You don’t want to?”
“I don’t know how.”
“I can show you. You put your hands on my temples as I put mine on yours.”
Both children came together at that moment as only a pair of Psions ever could. Two bright and beautiful minds flowed together and combined. Together they could see not only into each other’s personal minds, but they could see the future, and the past before their births, together. They could see a time when they would be man and wife. They could see each other’s powers, Junior’s techno-telepathy, and Sara’s healing telepathy. They saw their time as Ged’s students together and their time as teachers, and of course, much of the dark and troubled times ahead. Someone else looking upon them at that moment would never truly be able to see the miracle of a naked boy and a naked girl holding each other tightly, mind to mind, in the bathhouse of the Palace of One Thousand Years.
Doofy Fuddbugg here is an example of what a “Nolt” is. 
Catch a Falling Star 
Telling Teacher Stories
Here’s a secret that is only a secret if you are one of the well-over-six-billion people that don’t know I exist; I loved being a public school teacher. I taught for 31 years. 24 years of that was in middle school. I taught more than 1000 different seventh graders. And I loved it.
Please don’t reveal this secret to any mental health professionals. I like my freedom. And I am really not dangerous even after teaching that many seventh graders. I promise.
But it has left me with a compulsion. I confess it is the reason I write humorous young adult novels and why I continue to write this blog. I have to tell teacher stories or I will surely explode.
I have to tell you not only about the normal kids I taught, but the super-brainy mega-nerds I taught, the relatively stupid kids I taught, the honor students, the autistic kids, the kids who loved to sleep in class, the classroom clowns that tried to keep them awake, the kids who loved my class, the kids who hated my class, the times I was a really stupid teacher, the times I achieved some real milestones for some wonderful kids, the kids I still love to this day, the kids I tried really hard to love, but…. (well, some kids not even a mother could love), the drug dealers I had to protect my class from, the kids who talked to me about suicide and abuse and horrible things that still make me cry, the kids I lost along the way, and, well, the list goes on and on but this is an epic run-on sentence and the English teacher inside me is screaming at the moment.
You get the idea. Like most writers… real writers, not hacks and wannabees, I write because I have to. I don’t have a choice. No matter what it costs me. And what do I have to talk about in writing except being a school teacher and the almost infinite lessons that experience taught me?
I loved being the rabbit holding the big pencil in the front of the classroom. And that metaphor means, as crazy as it sounds, I loved being a teacher.
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