7. Back then #3
The Doctor Jenevieve, Countess of Roussillon Scholarship for Gifted Young Women Magizoologists turned out to be incredibly generous.
Not only did it cover all four years of tuition, it also covered any extracurriculars the young lady in question wished to participate in.
It covered all textbooks, all fieldtrips, and even new uniforms, right down to the shoes.
When Gerard de Narbon couldn’t miss work to take Helena shopping for school supplies, Jennie—with Gerard’s permission—stepped in.
Helena had never been shopping with a woman before. She asked Jennie thoughtful questions about color and complexion and cut and style. For her part, Jennie had never gone shopping with a small girl before and obviously delighted in passing down her fashion expertise.
Bertram picked out a new backpack—large, black. Done.
Helena and Jennie spent forty-five minutes discussing whether the shimmery green backpack or the sparkly green backpack would be cuter with Helena’s new socks. The bags looked identical to Bertram.
There was an uneasy feeling growing in the pit of his stomach.
He had always been close to his mother—well, sort of.
He felt he could tell her absolutely anything when she was home, but she wasn’t always home.
She was often away doing a lecture series or remote research studies and sometimes Bertram and Urghk joined her on-site and sometimes they didn’t.
A big draw of Jennie taking this teaching position was so she could spend more time with Bertram.
But now there was a new factor in the mix.
Bertram wanted to be a scientist who worked with otherfolk; Jennie knew that. But Bertram also enjoyed baseball and soccer and human video games and cooking and photography and model making and racing the soapbox cars he built.
Helena wanted to be a scientist who worked with otherfolk.
Period. Full stop.
She seemed to have no other hobbies or interests. As far as Bertram could tell, Helena was a collection of magizoological facts held together haphazardly in a Person-suit, which was bursting at the seams with just how much information had been crammed in there.
How was Bertram supposed to compete for his mother’s attention with that? How could anyone compete, when Helena saw Jennie as a goddess—no, better than a goddess—a paragon of science?
A less astute Person may not have seen the situation as dangerous.
They may have seen the school supply-buying excursion as a boring series of errands.
And Bertram did, but he also saw the moment for what it was: a tipping point.
A moment of no return. The day that it went from “Jennie and Bertram” to “Jennie and Bertram and Helena.”
Bertram couldn’t bring himself to voice his jealousy. Being fourteen, it would be embarrassing to need his mom. He didn’t even need his mom. He just didn’t necessarily want to share her with Helena, who was clearly a stuck-up know-it-all.
“Did you have fun with Helena?” Bertram said after the shopping trip, in an absolutely nasty tone that he hoped conveyed everything he wouldn’t dare say.
“Did you?” Jennie countered, raising an eyebrow.
“It was just school supply shopping,” Bertram mumbled. “It’s never fun.”
“It was fun for Helena,” Jennie said.
“Good for her,” Bertram said.
“She’s never had new school supplies before,” Jennie said. “She’s rarely even had shoes that fit. The pair we replaced today had holes in the bottom—her feet would get soaked every time it rained. But she didn’t want her father to ‘waste’ money on her, so she didn’t tell him.”
Bertram looked down at his own feet, slightly shamed but mad about it.
“I’m not asking you to be her best friend,” Jennie said, gently. “Although I think if you’d give her a chance, you’d really like her. She’s funny and nice, and I don’t know anyone who knows more about animals than the two of you. You have a lot in common.”
“Hmph,” said Bertram, because his mother was probably right, and he hated when she was right.
“I think it would be nice for you both to start your new school with—if not a friend, a friendly acquaintance. She’ll be the youngest Person in class and there aren’t going to be many other humans there—”
“She’s only mostly human,” Bertram countered, because he was running out of ways to stay mad at Helena.
“She looks human, she was raised by a human,” Jennie said. “You’re part of multiple rich magical heritages. You’re smart and strong and make friends easily. You’ll fit right in. And I’m afraid she won’t. Would you do me a favor? Would you look after Helena?”
Bertram considered this.
In a moment of clarity, he saw Helena not as the brash interloper who had dumped books at his mother’s feet and announced her scholastic accomplishments, but rather a frightened little girl with no friends, no mother, and shoes with holes in them.
The idea of talkative, vibrant Helena walking around with wet socks and no complaints twisted something in Bertram’s heart, and he made his decision.
“Okay, Mom. I’ll look out for Helena.”
And for the next ten years, that’s exactly what he did.